On abandoned responsibilities

The prelude to Canada's federal election campaign has brought several parties' views of human rights and government responsibilities under scrutiny.

Maxime Bernier has only exacerbated Stephen Harper's past anti-minority messages, building his PPC campaign largely on criticism of immigration generally.

Andrew Scheer has apparently recognized at least a political problem with broad attacks against refugees or minority groups. And so he’s taken to searching out targets one by one for his campaign’s two minute hate sessions, then challenging Justin Trudeau to join in denouncing them and declaring that they’ll be treated as non-people by the Canadian government.

And of course the Greens have been happy to welcome people motivated by religious bias and racism, as long as it offers a political wedge to benefit Elizabeth May.

But somehow, the current government hasn't been held to account for its disturbing response to the Cons' campaign theme.

The Liberals have been quick to point out that Scheer’s message about the likes of Jack Letts and Jon Venables has been inaccurate in fact, relying on tabloid gossip and idle speculation to assert non-existent connections between the Conservatives’ objects of hate and the Canadian government.

But in limiting their response that way, they’ve only reinforced Scheer’s underlying principle.

Others have pointed out that Canada is actually subject to both international agreements and moral obligations to address the actions of people abroad. But the Libs have brushed those aside - instead washing their hands of any responsibility to or for the people involved, and sending the message that they’ll readily treat some types of people as pariahs based on political considerations.

It shouldn't be acceptable for any party to quibble over where to draw the line in abandoning anybody. And it's doubly galling to see that message from a party trying to brand itself as a champion of human rights.

Fortunately, we've also seen an example of the right way to respond to attempts to exploit bigotry and hate for political gain. And we should be looking to support a government which is willing to challenge the exploitation of hate in all forms, not merely quibble with the accuracy of any particular attempt to invoke it.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- James Murray highlights what climate protests have accomplished so far, while emphasizing the need to turn activism into policy change over the objections of the Very Serious People determined to dismiss climate action as impractical. And Kate Aronoff, Alyssa Battistoni, Daniel Aldana Cohen and Thea Riofrancos discuss how a Green New Deal can lead toward an updated set of fundamental freedoms. 

- Meanwhile, Marc Lee points out that instead of believe Andrew Scheer and Jason Kenney's bluster for a second, British Columbians should be aware that their increased gas prices are mostly the result of corporate profiteering - offering all the more incentive to avoid being at the mercy of a greedy fossil fuel sector.

- Richard Florida weighs in on the economic benefits of improved minimum wages, including positive wage spillover effects. And as a reminder of the health implications of a more fair economic system, a new NBER paper shows that higher minimum wages also correlate to reductions in suicides.

- But Robert Reich writes that the U.S.' political system has instead been used to enrich (and bail out) the wealthy few using the limited resources of the many.

- Finally, Geoff Dembicki calls out Scheer, Maxime Bernier and the other right-wing politicians who are try to tap into veins of hate in the name of self-aggrandizement.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Emma Paling discusses how the security of a basic income provides the opportunity to escape an abusive relationship. And Jim Stanford collects four views of a basic income from Australia, including this (PDF) from Ben Spies-Butcher:

There are two broad ways that politicians talk about welfare and social services that create these very different dynamics. One way is to tell a story of shared need. We all get sick, we all need Medicare. We all get old, we all need the pension. Those needs are often experienced differently. Some people get sick more than others. But the story focuses on what we have in common, and the policy is designed to emphasise what unites us. This creates a politics of universalism, and it does so even when the policy isn’t technically universal. In fact, there is little genuinely universal about Australia’s social policy; the pension sits next to super, Medicare next to subsidies for private health insurance. But the politics of these programs is based on a story of shared need, and so powerful is that story that even governments that initially opposed Medicare now legislate to retain it, and both sides of politics feel compelled to defend the pension.

The other story is one of rule following and deservingness, and ultimately of division. We can see it most obviously with immigration. Our expensive, unaccountable and inhumane system of offshore detention is the end result a form of ‘wedge politics’ based on showing how some people are deserving and others are not. The logic of ‘queue jumping’ mirrors the logic of breaching and quarantining for Newstart – it suggests there is a legitimate way to behave to access help, and if you do not behave that way you are cheating the system and should be refused. Conditionality is thus the cornerstone of wedge politics, it is the mechanism both to ‘test’ deservingness and to demonstrate to the public the importance of recipients being deserving. Of course, in both cases the very mechanismsthat are overtly designed to ‘test’ deservingness ultimately cause everyone to fail. In the public’s mind all refugees are suspect, and all those on Newstart are stigmatised.

It has been a very long time since progressives have won a debate about wedge politics. Victories are much more likely when campaigns reframe their goals in the language of universalism – as in ‘marriage equality’ and ‘love is love’. Of course, income payments are not the only way to reduce inequality and establish dignity. Decent jobs and social services are also important. Basic income is not a magic bullet, and when it is pitched as a retreat from those claims, as cheaper than public services or a safety net for mass unemployment, it is clearly not a progressive claim at all. But in the world we have, income is a basic social need – like health, education and housing – and income from employment is not guaranteed. In the short run, at least, it is an essential part of any progressive vision.

- The Equality Trust introduces its push for an Ownership Charter toward a more democratic economy in the UK.

- Jesse Eisinger writes that there may be a reason why the authors of extensive criminal activity around Donald Trump expected to avoid answering for their actions, as it's only the increased scrutiny of the political context that's led to the investigation of the type of white-collar crime which all too often goes unaddressed.

- Finally, Christo Aivalis examines some of the aftereffects of Maxime Bernier's announcement of a new, hard-right federal party. And Brent Patterson highlights the need for a serious response to Bernier's move to tap into the xenophobic sentiment that's done so much harm in other developed countries. 

On changing opposition

While there will be plenty more to discuss about how the Conservatives' choice of Andrew Scheer as their new leader, I'll offer a few preliminary thoughts now - starting with a warning about knee-jerk reactions.

We shouldn't presume that Scheer's apparent lack of current definition will last long: the Libs are obviously wasting no time in trying to define him, while the fruits of the Cons' fund-raising machine will surely kick in quickly in response.

But nor should we presume that his being young means that he'll have multiple election campaigns to grow into the position.

While the standard take seems to be that Scheer is the new version of Stephen Harper, I'd think the better comparison and cautionary tale for Scheer is Joe Clark: a young and little-known compromise candidate whose missteps as a leader will be amplified by the lack of many people particularly committed to him within his own party.

On the balance, Scheer's election looks to be relatively good news compared to the alternatives - not because of his merits as a candidate, but due to the greater electoral and policy risks posed by the alternative.

I'd considered Bernier the most dangerous of the Cons' potential leaders, being comparatively more likely to assemble a winning coalition in a near-term federal election (particularly by being able to win votes as a native son in Quebec), to make reckless policy choices if he managed to take power, and to be the main focus of the next federal election in a way that causes the race to polarize between the Libs and Cons.

In contrast, Scheer's starting point involves a distinct lack of meaningful policy priorities or avenues to build support beyond the Cons' base.

That doesn't mean he can't change matters with time. After all, Harper managed at various times to win seats with appeals to Quebec voters and immigrant communities who were far outside his initial core of supporters.

But for now, Scheer is essentially a blank sheet of stationery with Reform Party letterhead. And it remains to be seen whether there's anything he can write on the page to be seen as a viable candidate for power.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Patrick Butler writes about the increasing number of UK families mired in poverty and insecure housing even with one or more people working. And Ali Monceaux and Daniel Najarian discuss the importance of a fair minimum wage in providing people with a basic standard of living.

- Kelly Grant reports on the Libs' baby steps toward dealing with the high cost of prescription drugs. And Andre Picard offers some suggestions as to how to make our health care system work better, while John Geddes points out that Maxime Bernier wants to lead the Cons toward trashing universal health care altogether.

- Damian Carrington discusses new research showing how even relatively small rises in the sea level caused by global warming will massively increase flooding risks, while Chris Mooney notes that levels are in fact rising increasingly quickly. But Hiroko Tabuchi and Eric Lipton highlight how a single bad actor - in this case the Trump administration - can undermine any effort to regulate the causes of climate change.

- Meanwhile, Maude Barlow examines (PDF) how corporate-centred trade deals threaten the availability of clean and safe water. And Edgardo Sepulveda takes a look at the needless public expense being created by the Wynne Libs in order to avoid answering for their damage to Ontario Hydro.

- Finally, Matt Bruenig argues that class struggle is key to ensuring that the benefits of growth go to the many rather than the few:

If you believe, as Piketty argues in his book, that a reduction in growth will inexorably lead to a higher wealth-to-income ratio and a higher capital share, then perhaps the best you can do is pare down wealth accumulation and spread out its ownership through a progressive wealth tax.

But if you believe instead that the capital share does not rise inevitably but only as a result of capitalists getting the upper hand in the perpetual battle over the distribution of output in society, then many more solutions become plausible. Increasing housing supply and imposing rent controls, weakening intellectual property protections, empowering workers to fight for a bigger piece of the pie — all would have the same or even greater egalitarian effects.

American Airlines’ decision to increase its workers’ compensation caused over $2.2 billion of national wealth to vanish almost instantly — not because actual capital goods were destroyed, but because capital’s share was ever so slightly reduced. Empowering workers to repeat this fairly mundane episode again and again, throughout the economy, would likely be a much stronger brake on runaway wealth accumulation and inequality than a global wealth tax or other similarly elaborate strategies.

Class struggle still gets the goods.

On editorial decisions

By all means, I agree with the commentators pointing out that this is rather less than surprising treatment of (and by) a Con cabinet minister. But as always, there's another rather important followup question: why would Don Martin or anybody else still bother wasting their time interviewing MPs who are guaranteed from years of experience to have nothing but false, pre-programmed talking points to spout in the first place?

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- L. Aaron Wright nicely contrasts the fabricated hysteria over Nycole Turmel against the choices of the Libs and Cons:

Where was the outrage when Stephen Harper tried to recruit Mario Dumont of the ADQ in Quebec, a leader of the Yes side in the 1995 referendum?

Where is the outrage at Maxime Bernier, a Tory cabinet minister, who worked for the Parti Quebecois government as an adviser to then Quebec finance minister Bernard Landry?

I don’t recall any outrage when the Liberals welcomed Jean Lapierre back into their fold. He was made minister of Transport. Mr. Lapierre was not just a former Bloc MP, but also a Bloc co-founder.

All of these politicians supported Quebec sovereignty. Ms. Turmel never has. She is a federalist.

- Kevin Drum serves up some numbers on why unions matter - reminding us why the corporatist right so fears both:

Among men, if you account only for the effect of individual membership in unions, (inequality) would be about a fifth lower (at 1973 unionization rates), which agrees pretty well with previous estimates. But if you also account for the effect of unions on surrounding nonunion employers (who often raised wages to compete with union employers and to avert the threat of unionization in their own workplace), the effect is larger: Unionization at 1973 levels would decrease income inequality by a full third...

The effect of unionization on women is less dramatic because women were never unionized at the same rate as men. For them, increasing returns to education are a bigger factor in rising income inequality than deunionization. For men, however, deunionization has had a huge impact...

(D)eunionization has allowed income inequality to rise partly because unions are negotiating wages for fewer people than they used to, and partly because unions no longer have the power to force the political system to pay attention to the needs of the middle class.

- Meanwhile, Ken Lewenza points out another corporate scam that's transferring money to the least scrupulous businesses at the expense of workers, as corporations are making a habit of simply shutting down without warning and leaving their employees out in the cold when it comes to money already earned:

The abrupt closure of three IQT call-centre operations in Oshawa, Trois-Rivières and Laval has left 1,200 workers reeling, and government agencies scratching their heads. How can a company (in this case a multi-million dollar, multi-national telecommunications contractor) simply pack up and leave, literally overnight? How can they walk away from legal obligations, washing their hands of back pay and severance? Seriously, how?

Weeks have gone by but no one, as of yet, has any real answers to these questions.

Governments appear incapable of even tracking down basic information about the company, who’s in charge and whether or not they’re actually bankrupt.

There’s an assumption among Canadians that there must be rules and regulations holding corporations to account. But this latest fiasco is a rude awakening.

Indeed, we’ve seen this storyline many times before. In 2009, 2,400 non-union auto parts workers at Progressive Moulded Products (PMP) in Toronto faced a similar ordeal — returning from vacation only to learn that their employer had fled town, taking their separation payments with them. CAW members have seen it first-hand, too, at companies like Collins & Aikman in Scarborough, Aradco and Aramco in Windsor, and others.

Each case prompted a public outcry and a spontaneous fight back. Workers demanded what was legally owed to them. But after fighting long and hard, they inevitably end up with less than they are owed.
...
It is both immoral and economically counterproductive to allow deadbeat corporations like IQT to commit these wrongs with impunity. As a society, we must take a hard line with employers who think they’re beyond the greater good.

- Finally, the National Post rightly notes that recognition of both human rights and the negative consequences of gratuitously draconian policy is particularly important in dealing with targets who lack any public defenders. But it'll take plenty of reminders on that point to counteract the Cons' deliberate moves to shield themselves from criticism for analogous actions by declaring that nobody should care about the victims anyway.

Parliament In Review: June 22, 2011

The second-last day of debates in this spring's session dealt mostly with Bruce Hyer's motion on small business. But lest anybody think there would be agreement on the details of an issue where every party supported the motion itself (resulting in a rather inexplicable standing vote)...

The Big Issue

So what did the parties find to debate about while agreeing on the NDP's plan for small business taxes?

Well, the Cons tried to put forward Japan as a positive example - which led to Hyer's apt observation that corporate taxes are significantly higher there. (And I'll offer a reminder that in fact, the Cons' target tax rate is identical to Japan's definition of an abusive tax haven.)

Meanwhile, Dennis Bevington raised an important point as to how corporate tax slashing doesn't get passed along to consumers when products are sold in the world economy. To which Maxime Bernier could only respond (loosely paraphrased) "Hayek! Lower Taxes! Blargh!".

For the Libs, Joyce Murray proudly labeled herself as more anti-government than the Cons by taking credit for the B.C. Libs' regulation-slashing. But due credit to Scott Brison for criticizing corporate tax cuts while noting that they only offer anything to 5% of businesses.

And finally, Hyer served up a reminder as to which party actually has the best record of balancing budgets.

Budget Votes

The other main votes taken on the 22nd involved budget estimates and related legislation. And there were a few noteworthy departures from what one might have expected.

Rather than opposing the budget in full, the Libs voted for the Cons' requested Senate funding. And after making a show of supporting the Cons' budget, the Bloc joined the other opposition parties in opposing not only the main estimates, but also the budget legislation reflecting the policies they supported.

In Brief

Mathieu Ravignat challenged the Cons on their willingness to impose even higher prescription drug prices through the CETA. Laurin Liu and Megan Leslie offered timely questions on the toxic extraction of shale gas. Similarly, Anne Minh-Thu Quach and Libby Davies questioned the Cons' plan to do nothing about health care until 2014, and were met with a thoroughly worn list of unrelated spin. In presenting a petition, Nathan Cullen slammed the Cons for standing alone in the world in favour of unfettered asbestos production and exports. And Peter Stoffer countered the Cons' war on knowledge by introducing a bill to remove the GST from books.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Sixth Estate examines which party's candidates have violated the Canada Elections Act in recent elections. And it shouldn't be much surprise that Canada's supposed law-and-order party doesn't have much respect for either when it comes to its own campaigns:

In addition to the in-and-out fraud cases against the Conservative Party and several of its former senior officials, including two current Senators, Elections Canada has made 23 “compliance agreements” since 2006. In each case, the accused confesses to a violation of the act, usually excuses it away as inadvertent or well-intentioned or the like, and promises to make some trivial amends. In total, during the past five years 7 Conservatives, 1 NDP, 2 Liberal, and 1 unidentified party agent have signed compliance agreements.
...
Here’s a sample from the Elections Canada records:

* During the 2008 election, Winnipeg Conservative candidate Kenny Daodu’s campaign negotiated a $1000 kickback on a lease similar to the Goodyear agreement described below. Once again, there was no apparent punishment.
* Also in 2008, Conservative MP Bev Shipley and canditate Yonah Martin (now a Senator) exceeded their campaign spending limits. Their punishments: none apparent. Still in the same year, Liberal MP Blair Wilson failed to report $9000 in expenses; his punishment was “a notation… on the Elections Canada audit file” (oh, no!).
* In 2007, now-science minister Gary Goodyear’s staff confessed he had solicited an almost $2000 donation as an illegal kickback on the minister’s campaign office. His punishment: none apparent.
* One campaign agent in the 2006 election, not identified, offered gift certificates in exchange for donations. His/her punishment was to mail out a form letter advising that the gift certificates could not be provided and confirming that the donors wished to go ahead with their donation anyways.

I wish I could say all parties were equal offenders, because I did start out wanting to write a piece about politicians’ sense of entitlement. And there are offenders in every major party. But it has to be said that only Conservatives have been caught negotiating kickbacks, and they are responsible for a majority of the cases. Maybe the others are just better at covering their tracks, but given that the Conservatives are also in court for party-level electoral fraud, I do have to wonder about this party’s commitment to the rule of law.

- Lawrence Martin points out one of the Libs' old tactics that the Cons have happily taken up, as their supposed accountability watchdogs have proven to be utterly useless:

The Conservatives have learned well. Remember in the old days when they used to holler about the performance of Jean Chrétien’s ethics counsellor, Howard Wilson. Watchdog Wilson, they charged, was a great boon to the Liberals. Present him with allegations of wrongdoing, they said, and inevitably he would find no evidence of wrongdoing.

But if the Conservatives thought he was a soft touch, they might want to check the record of their own ethics commissioner, watchkitten Mary Dawson. In four years on the job, working with inadequate legislation, her pursuit of malfeasance has been so relentless and unyielding that on only two occasions has she found that a politician violated ethical standards. That’s from a caseload of allegations numbering in the hundreds.Of the two cases her merciless team of investigators moved on, neither reflected poorly on the government. One was against a Liberal MP. Another was a decision last week against former Conservative MP Helena Guergis for using her position to further the business interests of her husband, Rahim Jaffer. The verdict tended to vindicate Prime Minister Stephen Harper for his decision to dump Ms. Guergis from caucus last year.
...
Ms. Ouimet’s work was such that even former auditor-general Sheila Fraser, who witnessed a lot over the years, was aghast. More than 200 allegations from whistleblowers came before Ms. Ouimet’s office. Nary a one led to redressal. Ms. Ouimet was pilloried in an A-G’s report and left the government with a $500,000 payout and a gag order not to talk about what she did.

What she did could hardly have displeased the governing party. Of the hundreds of cases handled by her, who knows how many might have constituted breaches of the public trust. Not to be forgotten is the work of another officer of Parliament, Karen Shepherd, the commissioner of lobbying. Her less than avid record of enforcement must bring smiles to many politicos as well.

- All of which works extremely well for a government which is obviously more focused on perception than reality. Though from the first link, Campbell Clark nicely calls out the Cons' self-glorification:

The (Canadian Tourism Commission), funded with $95-million a year in federal money, is an arms-length body with a board of directors and a mandate to promote Canadian tourism. Their mandate does not specifically include promotion of the minister.

- The CCPA highlights income disparities for each Canadian province in slideshow form.

- Finally, Alison weighs in on the connections between the TILMA (now being spread across Canada under the guise of the Agreement on Internal Trade) and the CETA.

Well said

Frances Russell nicely summarizes the outcome if the Cons get their way in decentralizing and defunding social programs:

Decentralism and provincial power appeals to the Canadian right for the obvious reason that the smaller the government, the less powerful and capable it is. Provinces do have the advantage of being "closer to the people," but that is of little use if they have no money to spend on the people, as was the case during the Great Depression. That economic cataclysm spurred the creation of Canada's equalization program, subsequently entrenched in the 1982 Constitution, and designed to ensure all Canadians enjoy reasonably comparable government services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation.

Should Bernier, and presumably Harper, get their wish and cancel all shared-cost programs, replacing them with individual provincial tax points of vastly unequal value, the social and economic devastation in every province, with the possible exception of Alberta, would be calamitous.

(Edit: fixed typo.)

Burning questions

Does anybody honestly think that Maxime Bernier is less of a shill for his party than any other Con MP? And if not, how can any columnist be so gullible as to believe that Bernier's Steeped Tea Party is anything less than fully sanctioned by Stephen Harper?

Continued evidence that nobody cares

Yesterday's headlines saw stories about Con supporters and cabinet ministers alike defending the long form census. But the criticisms of the Cons' choice to gut it haven't stopped there, as the Star-Phoenix' editorial board has chimed in on the latest set of spin:

(T)he majority of Canadians are offside with the government's move to make the census voluntary. And it's a chasm that only can widen with nearly every utterance by Conservative politicians, whose justifications for the widely unpopular decision increasingly sound as if they are being made up on the fly.

Their performance would be laughably pathetic, if the consequences of the ill-advised decision didn't run counter to the long-term interests of Canadians by sabotaging a detailed data source that's import to governments, businesses, academia, scientists and a plethora of social groups.
...
With so many Canadians finding the multi-page income tax forms a chore to complete, not to mention the coercive and mandatory nature of filing returns, might one complaint from one Canadian be all it takes for Mr. Clement and his cabinet cronies to make income taxes voluntary?

That notion makes about as much sense as what's been spewing from the lips of Conservative MPs on the topic of the long form. Rather than admit it was a mistake to ignore sound advice and pander to a minuscule fraction of party supporters, they've made the census fuss into an embarrassing long-running spectacle.

Heroes often fade

Since his expulsion from cabinet, Maxime Bernier has tried to carve out a niche for himself as an "idealistic" and "authentic" small-c conservative. But in case there was any doubt, his now-debunked claims about nonexistent census complaints should make it clear that he's no more interested in offering a remotely accurate or honest appraisal of the country than any of his partymates.

Lies and the lying liars who tell them

The census debacle overview from Heather Scoffield and Jennifer Ditchburn is well worth a read - and I'll plan to circle back to a couple more points in future posts. But for now, let's highlight their concise summary of the sheer amount of dishonesty - in terms of both the number of people involved and the number of false claims - put into service by the Harper government to defend the indefensible:

The Prime Minister's Office's response in the early days of the debate was unusual at best.

The director of communications, Dimitri Soudas, sent reporters an email underlining how many Canadians had listed their religion as "Jedi" during the 2006 census, and making reference to census workers visiting homes at 10 p.m. — something Statistic Canada says does not occur.

Clement was forced to defend the decision with no prior consultation or polling to back him up. Neither was there any clear indication of just who in Canada was upset by the intrusive questions in the long form.

Bernier claimed that as industry minister, he had received 1,000 complaints a day during the census season of 2006 — but then couldn't produce a single one.
...
Cabinet members such as Transport Minister John Baird and Treasury Board President Stockwell Day helped spread a few untruths, ridiculing non-existent questions in the census on bathrooms and reading material.

(Edit: fixed typo.)

The bill comes due

The inevitable consequences of Conadscam (remember that?) are just now starting to materialize. And not surprisingly, the Cons are panicking at the realization of what they've wrought by making up their worst excuses yet. Shorter Cons now that several of their cabinet ministers are in danger of being prosecuted:

As a matter of free speech, we're entitled to make up whatever numbers we want in reporting our electoral expenses.

Compare and contrast

The Harper Cons' official response on an issue where they're not interested in trying to play both sides:

“This document is absolutely not, in any way, an initiative of our government or our party,” said Dimitri Soudas, a spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in an emailed statement. ”This is a personal initiative of MP Goldring which we strongly disapprove of."

The Harper Cons' official response to Maxime Bernier's climate change denialism:

"I did not talk to Maxime about that [letter] before it was published. As you know, there are many points of view on the science debate that is currently circulating around," said Mr. Prentice in an interview in Washington, where he is discussing climate and energy issues with U.S. officials.

"The views that Maxime has put forward are his personal views. They are not the government's view. I don't specifically share them. He is certainly entitled to his perspective, but it is his perspective as an individual. It's not the government's perspective."

Granted, the fact that the Cons have acted like a government with its head in the oil sands on climate change is still the best evidence that Bernier's view is actually the one driving the party's (lack of) policy. But the fact that Prentice is going out of his way to tiptoe around any criticism of wilful ignorance on the issue sends a rather strong signal of its own - particularly when anybody actually calling for meaningful action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions receives exactly that kind of knee-jerk attack that the Cons levelled at Goldring.

Wait, that's allowed?

Apparently it turns out that Con attempts to present different policies to different audiences can be used against them just as easily as any mention of fiscal responsibility can be turned into a Harper "higher taxes!!!" hissy-fit. Why didn't anybody figure this out sooner?

On misinformation

The CP follows up on last week's Con document dump. And while the release timing was bad enough, it's especially striking how far the Cons went out of their way to send media on a dead end in any effort to follow up on the Bernier report:

When asked Friday about the timing of the Bernier report, the prime minister's communications director refused comment.

The report listed media relations contacts available for further information about the findings, but none were available Friday night.

In an emailed statement on Tuesday, a foreign affairs spokesman wrote: "The department has nothing further to add after the minister's statement and making the report and summary of actions public."

It doesn't come as any particular surprise that the Cons weren't willing to provide any useful response to the report. But having already forced reporters to try to follow up on the story on a Friday night, there wouldn't seem to be much reason for the Cons to pour salt in the wound by deliberately providing useless contact information rather than leaving at least somebody behind to answer the phone.

Of course, the Cons still haven't paid anywhere near the price one would expect for similarly toying with the media in the past. But it may not be long before well-deserved mistrust becomes part of a federal election campaign - giving Canadians the chance to ask why they'd want a government which seemingly prides itself on misusing its power to punish anybody unfortunate enough to be tasked with uncovering what the Cons have hidden.

Update: At least one major columnist recognizes the need for ever more scrutiny in response to the Cons' attempts to bury major stories.

On negative inferences

As embarrassing as the Bernier report may seem to be, it's worth noting how useful some of its logic may turn out to be later on.

After all, the report's basis for assigning blame almost entirely to Julie Couillard was her refusal to be interviewed for the benefit of the investigation in the absence of any obligation to do so. Which lines up rather nicely with the tactic being taken by Con MPs caught up in Conadscam, who are apparently planning to refuse to appear before the Ethics Committee which is investigating the scandal (with its own report presumably to follow).

Like Couillard, the MPs under investigation are entirely within their rights to refuse to defend or explain their actions. But based on exactly the reasoning which the Cons apparently found to be entirely valid when it comes to Couillard, the MPs caught up in the scheme - including Stockwell Day, Lawrence Cannon, Christian Paradis and Josee Verner among others - can expect to join Couillard in facing a public inference of guilt until they do so.

Can you feel the accountability?

Introducing your friendlier, more accessible Cons - where for once, Maxime Bernier is actually allowed to refuse to say anything of substance for himself.