Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Scott Schmidt highlights how the wealthy have seized any gains in economic growth over a period of decades. Michael Hobbes discusses the "glass floor" keeping the children of rich families from facing any risk of failure. And Crawford Kilian discusses Thomas Piketty's observations about self-proclaimed left-of-centre parties who have chosen to serve the interests of the corporate elite.

- Trevor Herriot discusses the unsustainable subsidies which have resulted in far too many prairie residents prioritizing a fossil fuel economy and a car culture over sustainable alternative. And Judith Shulevitz writes about the social isolation caused by unsynchronized and unpredictable work and activity schedules. 

- Megan Leslie makes the case for Canadians to vote based on the environment. Ed Finn writes that voters looking for change should be supporting the NDP as it looks set to win the balance of power in a minority Parliament. And Charlie Smith offers a preview of the Libs' predictable attacks on Jagmeet Singh.

- Finally, Priyamvada Gopal discusses the need to call out and challenge racism by its name alongside other forms of structural inequality.

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Andre Picard writes about the devastating effects of widespread social isolation, particularly given its connection to poverty:

All told, it is estimated that about six million Canadians live an isolated existence. We have an epidemic of loneliness, and the principal underlying cause is poverty. If you’re poor, you’re six times more likely to be socially isolated than your peers. In academic circles, and increasingly in political discourse, the term “social determinants of health,” is bandied about. Sir Michael Marmot, the guru of social determinants research, defines them simply as the “causes of the causes of poor health.” What has the greatest impact on our health is not genetics or access to health care, but income, education, housing, food security and our physical environment. But there is one key health determinant that’s often forgotten: a sense of belonging. Being connected — to family, friends, neighbours, a community group, a running club, a mosque — can literally add years to your life.

The corollary is that isolation and loneliness are devastating to a person’s mental and physical health, deadly even. Isolation is, in part, a state of mind, but it is also a physical reality. So we need to ask ourselves how our surroundings, our homes and our cities contribute to the scourge of loneliness. Do we build cities — and adopt urban policies — that encourage social interaction or that breed isolation?

...

If we want a sense of community, and its benefits, we need to invest in services that encourage independent living, and in public spaces and programs that nurture interaction. Yet, we underfund and devalue places that bring us together like libraries, parks, recreation centres and community gardens. We often make it difficult to volunteer with all kinds of bureaucratic hurdles. Being lonely also has stigma attached to it: it’s often associated with having poor social skills or being odd. We look upon those who are reaching out to make a connection with suspicion. How often have you heard: “How can I meet people?” For most, the answer to that question is not Tinder or Grindr.

...
Building community takes determined effort. It takes time and money, and a conviction that it matters. It blossoms out of recreational centres, schools, places of worship, volunteer activities and in subtle gestures such as introducing yourself to your neighbours. It comes from reaching out to an old lady wandering the streets late at night, or to a boy in a wheelchair at the park. We often talk about inclusion and being senior-friendly, but what cities tend to offer are grudging accommodations — things like wheelchair ramps and discount bus passes. These gestures do not solve the problems of those who ride the bus all day because they have nothing else to do, or nowhere else to go. If we want people to be healthy — physically, mentally and emotionally — they need to be full citizens. If we want healthy cities, we need people to have a sense of belonging — not just a civic address. We need everyone to be engaged — not just the elite. We need to make a resolute effort to help each other, especially those on the margins of society, move from isolation to inclusion.

- Zack Beauchamp highlights Canada's relative acceptance and encouragement of immigrants and minority groups as being what truly sets us apart among developed countries.

- Andrea Flynn, Dorian Warren, Felicia Wong and Susan Holmberg discuss the need to restructure existing rules, practices and policies to counter entrenched racism and discrimination. Audra Williams points out that we won't achieve more inclusive political representation unless members of more privileged groups "lean out". And Gabrielle Brassard-Lecours comments on a call for an inquiry into systemic racism in Quebec.

- Finally, Megan Leslie points out that it's not too late to preserve our ocean econsystems, but that there's an urgent need to act now. And Andrew Nikiforuk points out the futility of prioritizing pipeline development over sustainable environmental and economic policies.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Bryce Covert rightly challenges the claim that poverty bears any relationship to an unwillingness to work - along with other attempts to blame the poor for their condition:

In fact, the majority of able-bodied, adult, non-elderly poor people worked in 2012, according to a data analysis by economist Jared Bernstein. There were about 21 million non-disabled, poor adults that year, and about half of them, or 11 million, worked. Another 3 million didn’t work because they were in school. If those in school are taken out of the picture, 57 percent of the poor people we would expect to work did so. Five million didn’t work because they had an illness or disability.
...
It’s not hard to see why someone might work and still end up poor. Working a minimum wage job full time brings in about $14,500 a year, which leaves a parent of two $3,000 below the poverty line. The minimum wage isn’t enough to afford rent in any state in the country. This wasn’t always the case. In the 1960s, the minimum wage kept that family of three out of poverty, and even in the 1970s it kept a family of two above the line. Raising the wage would lift millions out of poverty and reduce the poverty rate.

There are other misconceptions about why the poor end up poor. Some think they bring hardship on themselves by being unwise with their money. But the poor spend a smaller percentage of their budgets on eating out and entertainment while spending more on the necessities than their better off peers. And while both rich and middle class Americans have increased their spending habits since the recession, the poorest have actually cut back.

- Meanwhile, Kayle Hatt reviews a Parliamentary study into youth unemployment and finds little to help young Canadians looking to start their careers:

A comprehensive made-in-Canada youth guarantee would be one good way to tackle our youth unemployment problem.

Other ideas to actually tackle youth unemployment that the committee heard in testimony: CCPA suggested, among other things, to expand federally funded summer youth employment programs, to set aside a portion of jobs in federally funded infrastructure programs for youth and hiring subsidies in certain areas. Several commentators, including CCPA’s Armine Yalnizyan and the Canadian Labour Congress, suggested mobility funding for youth who were moving to look for work.

It seems that the Finance committee, however, wasn’t looking for big ideas and possible solutions to address youth unemployment if it meant labour market interventions or actually spending money on the issue.

That’s a shame because the status quo isn’t working.

- But then, as Megan Leslie points out, the Cons have been going to ridiculous lengths to prevent Parliament from discussing other than Stephen Harper's talking points on any issue.

- Steve Rennie reports on Jason Kenney's latest move to make temporary foreign workers subject to an even more tenuous stay in Canada - while also exposing the complete lack of inspections which makes it clear the Cons have never taken employer abuse seriously. Paula Simons points out that additional churn doesn't help anybody - and least of all the workers being exploited. And Syed Hussan highlights the Cons' propensity for locking up immigrants without any fair review process.

- Finally, Roderick Benns wonders when recognition of the importance of the social determinants of health will spread past the medical profession.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- The Economist looks at the relationship between equality and growth, showing that there's at worst little evidence that fairer economies have any trouble matching their more-polarized counterparts - and best some indication that they perform better:

Inequality is more closely correlated with low growth. A high Gini for net income, after redistribution, corresponds to slower growth in income per person. A rise of 5 Gini points (moving from the level in America to that in Gabon, for instance) knocks half a percentage point off average annual growth. And holding redistribution constant, a one-point rise in the Gini raises the risk an expansion ends in a given year by six percentage points. Redistribution that reduces inequality might therefore boost growth.

If redistribution is benign, that could be because it substitutes for shaky borrowing. In their 2011 paper Messrs Berg and Ostry note that more unequal societies do poorly on social indicators such as educational attainment, even after controlling for income levels. This suggests that households with lower incomes struggle to finance investments in education. In a recent paper Barry Cynamon of the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis and Steven Fazzari of Washington University in St Louis reckon most Americans borrowed heavily before 2008 to prop up their consumption. That kept the economy growing—until crisis struck. Sensible redistribution could mean the difference between a healthy growth rate and one that is decidedly subprime.

- Meanwhile, PressProgress highlights the glaring gap in income gains between the super-rich and the rest of us:

- Trish Hennessy's latest Index notes that decades of tax slashing have eliminated Canada's capacity to fund important social programs. And Pete Evans reports that so far, posturing about getting tough on corporate tax evaders hasn't led to any substantial results.

- But Megan Leslie points out that a fair corporate tax rate is one of the big ideas on offer from the NDP - even if it's one that may need to be discussed more frequently. 

- Finally, Timothy Taylor compares the employment philosophies of GM and Toyota, and raises the possibility that employers who train workers to perform a range of roles - and listen to their suggestions as to how to improve the workplace - may benefit significantly compared to those who try to limit workers to mindlessly repeating a single task.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Friday reading.

- Paul Dechene interviews Marc Spooner about Saskatchewan residents left behind in the province's boom:

One way that our growing income gap can be hand-waved away is by pointing to the fact that every other province that goes through an economic boom faces this.

Perhaps it’s just a natural result of us going through a transitional phase?

Spooner doesn’t find that argument compelling.

“That implies a very non-responsive government,” he says. “Can we not learn from our neighbours in the west? Can we not see what happened in Alberta and be forward-looking and do precisely what a government ought to do and that’s step in when the market fails?

“It comes as no surprise that in times of boom that the marginalized get further marginalized. So why not step in and have a rainy day fund for precisely these reasons and see this as an opportunity to invest in the commons?”

- But it isn't just boom provinces who are engaging in the same pattern of handouts for the rich and clawbacks from its citizens - as Maria Babbage reports that Ontario's Lib government has let $1.4 billion in outstanding corporate taxes go uncollected while putting the screws to teachers and other workers in the name of deficit reduction.

- Megan Leslie and Peter Julian ended the fall sitting of Parliament by co-writing a piece on the need to develop clean energy in Canada. And Ian Bailey and Gloria Galloway report on Nathan Cullen's continued advocacy on behalf of British Columbia in fighting the Northern Gateway pipeline.

- Paul McLeod and Dr. Dawg both comment on Andrew Scheer's inevitable decision that a governing party can't shut down debate and voting on proposed amendments simply by declaring that it won't allow its members to consider them.

- Meanwhile, pogge examines an off-hand comment about a "devil's advocate in the PMO", and wonders why our Official Opposition isn't instead being allowed to carry out its intended purpose of holding the government to account - and how the Cons have managed to get away with declaring that disagreement is a sign of disloyalty.

- Finally, both Andrew Coyne and John Geddes express their disbelief that the Cons still haven't stopped spinning even after being force to acknowledge that years of bare declarations that an F-35 purchase was finalized and necessary were utter nonsense.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Louise Story reports on tax goodies and direct giveaways to businesses at the local level (which of course seldom deliver the promised economic return). That said, it's worth noting that we're desperately lacking for any movement to counteract the inter-jurisdictional competition for jobs that feeds such corporate handouts - and that we might all be better off spending less time negotiating free trade deals which leave government no way to influence development other than through cash giveaways, and more time establishing standards for corporate tax policies which preclude a race to the bottom.

- Tzeporah Berman recognizes that tar sands development can be much cleaner if it's carried out within a reasonable regulatory environment. But we shouldn't hold our breath waiting for that action from a government which has not only ignored advice from Canada's public servants about what regulations are needed to protect the environment, but muzzled scientists who dare to share facts with the public. Which means that Megan Leslie is entirely right to critique of the Harper Cons' Orwellian language.

- Speaking of which, the ultimate example of the Cons' combination of mismanagement and self-parody may be playing out at the still-unopened Canadian Museum of Human Rights - which is not only denying past and present employees the freedom of speech, but viewing its mandate as being to declare that our human rights rations have been increased over last month regardless of whether that claim has a basis in fact:

Eberts's comments echo the concerns of many current and former employees contacted by CBC News.

They said government and corporate interests may be having an impact on what will ultimately be included in the museum. Staff also said they have been told to include more "positive stories," and to curtail criticisms of issues touching on current government policy.

- Finally, Alice highlights the role that fund-raising may play in the federal Libs' leadership campaign. But I'll add that the gap between Justin Trudeau and his competitors may manifest itself in an additional way: while some candidates may be left out of the race for all intents and purposes due to their outright inability to fund a meaningful campaign, even the relatively close challengers may be at a serious disadvantage if they need to put in significantly more time and effort to bring in enough money to compete.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Althia Raj reports on the Cons' concerted effort to undermine organized labour in Canada (along with anybody else who might object to putting the interests of dirty oil and dirty money above the needs of citizens):

Behind the rhetoric about “union bosses” and “transparency” lies a strategy, political observers say, that stokes controversies and throws up red herrings in order to force key opponents on the defensive — in this case, Canada’s labour movement and the NDP.

“The whole approach is not to push your guy but to totally demean and to discredit and to vilify your opponent so that the only person left standing in the ring is your own person,” said Nelson Wiseman, a political scientist at University of Toronto.
...
Critics of the government, such as Sierra Club of Canada executive director John Bennett, see a wider game of political distraction at play — the kind the Tories perfected last winter when they accused environmental groups of being radicals backed by foreign interests.

For months, environmentalists were forced to explain their activities and funding sources while the Harper government crafted a budget that scrapped decades of environmental legislation the groups had fought for.

The campaign began in January, when Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver suggested “radical groups” were out to destroy Canada’s economy. Environment Minister Peter Kent raised the spectre of charitable groups “laundering” foreign funds in Canada. And Conservative senators launched an inquiry into the "interference of foreign foundations in Canada’s domestic affairs and their abuse of Canada’s existing Revenue Canada charitable status.”

“It was a total distraction,” Bennett said. “I think that is what they wanted us to do — to be messaging not the vision of a sustainable future but rather the complaints of an interest group.

“And I think they are doing the same thing to the unions,” he said.

- Meanwhile, Kathryn May highlights the next step in the attack on public-sector workers, as the Cons are trying to impose a two-tier workforce.

- And Adam Radwanski discusses the McGuinty Libs' plans to test the limits as to how many labour rights they can strip away under the Charter. Which would be a dubious enough strategy even if it wasn't based on a false claim that public-sector wages are headed in a different direction than private-sector ones.

- Charmaine Borg stands up for the privacy concerns of Canadians in the wake of Facebook's timeline fiasco. And Megan Leslie calls for an end to the Cons' shredding of environmental standards.

- Finally, Paul Wells catches some major problems in the China trade deal the Cons want to push through without debate:

Why am I dragging you through all this business about dispute-settlement arbitration? Because things are getting crazy out there, and by “out there” I mean “wherever China doesn’t like the way a business deal turns out.” Say hello to Belgium, where on Monday the Chinese insurance company Ping An filed an arbitration claim worth $3 billion. In 2008 a Chinese SOE bought a Belgian bank. The global economy went through the ensuing turmoil and the Chinese firm lost its shirt. Which is, you know, life, but the Chinese firm figures the government of Belgium owes it the $3 billion it lost, and the arbitration mechanism will now consider the claim seriously.

“This might signal the beginning of a wave of Chinese claims if you think about the commodities they’ve been buying, and the investments they’ve made in commodity-related companies around the world,” a British trade lawyer told Reuters, while freaking ominous music played in the background if you’re reading his quote in Canada. ”There are bound to be any number of outward investments they have made in the last five to ten years which may now be starting to run into problems.”

So, you know, good luck. The FIPA, tabled yesterday, is available for consultation at the link above for 21 Parliamentary sitting days, at which point it comes into force without need for a vote in the House of Commons.

That's right: in addition to facilitating a takeover of our natural resources, the Cons may also be committing to have the Canadian public foot the bill for any investments that don't turn out as hoped. 

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Murray Dobbin comments on the role that the Occupy protest movement can play in countering corporate power that's faced far too little opposition for far too long:

Why now? Perhaps it is the international dimension of this spontaneous burst of political action. The notion that Stephen Harper would respond even to large demonstrations is given little credibility. But adding your body and voice to international outrage is something else -- solidarity with others experiencing the same frustrated rage is cathartic. Do the masses gathering at the heart of finance capital around the world identify with the Greeks, Irish, Brits, French, Spanish and Italian workers who are demanding to know why they are being punished for the bankers' crimes?

It could be seen as citizen globalization in counterpoint to corporate globalization. It riffs off the Arab spring and for many perhaps even the shift to the left in many Latin American countries where citizens, after years of repression, are now being listened to.

And of course everyone with hopes for this new spontaneous revolt worries about how it will last, who will inspire its direction, what sorts of "demands" will it make, what organizational form it will take, how will it actually challenge power. And power, of course, is still at the heart of the question. They have it and we don't.

But these questions are premature. This expression of anger (and of love and caring) is not primarily political. It is cultural. And if it manages to wake people from their long acquiescence to the exercise of corporate power and government contempt for democracy it will have accomplished what nothing else to date has done. It is not enough. But without it we cannot begin to make a better world.

- And there's plenty worth protesting in the U.S. model that the Con government is so eager to impose on Canada. After all, Jillian Berman points out that median incomes have actually fallen further in the U.S. in the last two years than they did during the 2007-2009 recession, while Kevin Drum notes that financial-sector profits are already surpassing their pre-recession levels. And We Are The 99 Percent has plenty of stories of how individuals have been affected by an economic system set up to siphon wealth upward.

- Meanwhile, as Erin notes, even right-wing commentators like Neil Reynolds apparently don't see any prospect of avoiding some redistribution of utterly unearned wealth (even if Reynolds conspicuously uses Republican framing to describe an inheritance tax).

- Finally, it's well and good that Megan Leslie's description of the Cons' climate change policy as "designed to fail" seems to be sticking. But it's also worth taking a close look at just how successful the Cons have been in bringing about that failure:

The Environment Commissioner’s Fall 2011 report, required under the 2007 Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, assesses federal efforts to meet the abandoned Kyoto Protocol target of six per cent below 1990 levels. Of the $9.2-billion in federal funds allocated to fight climate change between 2008 and 2012, the report found that $5.9-billion in program spending would achieve no emissions reductions by 2012.

On domino effects

Olivia Chow's announcement that she doesn't intend to run for the NDP's leadership looks to bring the race into much sharper focus.

With Chow deciding not to run, there's a wide open space for a candidate from the greater Toronto area. And while Peggy Nash looks like the most obvious prospect, there are all kinds of possibilities awaiting from inside and outside the NDP's current caucus - including some going beyond my current candidate lists if Nash too takes a pass.

Or alternatively, a gap in Toronto-area candidates would allow a contender from elsewhere a better chance to serve as the voice of urban voters - which might offer a particularly important opening for a candidate like Megan Leslie to expand beyond her current geographic base.

Finally, Chow was also the prospective candidate with the most obvious chance to both harness and influence Jack Layton's legacy in the course of the leadership race. And her choice to stay out of the fray means that a number of different candidates will instead have better chances to highlight different parts of Layton's leadership within their own campaign - while ensuring that Layton's personal reputation won't get tied as tightly to what happens in the leadership race and beyond.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Armine Yalnizyan discusses how inequality is no better for business than it is for society at large:

Just a few months ago, two IMF economists, Andrew Berg and Jonathan Ostry, showed that the more equitably incomes are distributed, the longer are the spells of economic growth. They note, “Growth and inequality-reducing policies are likely to reinforce one another and help to establish the foundations for a sustainable expansion.”

Yet the IMF analysis shows the reverse is also true, that higher inequality leads to more volatility. Against a backdrop of low and falling interest rates, wealthy investors hunt for returns with higher yields, which means higher risk and more volatility. As Mark Thoma, professor of economics at University of Oregon, writes, “When we see income inequality rising, we ought to start looking for bubbles.”

All bubbles eventually burst. The boom-bust cycle wipes out even successful businesses, and increases market share for the larger players in the game who can tough it out longer or buy up the competition. This dynamic has led to the “too big to fail” phenomenon, distorting the game for everyone, leading to bailouts and higher prices.

Lack of real income growth and falling interest rates over a generation have led to more borrowing, which points to a world of trouble tomorrow. Nobody gets hurt if the incomes of the top 10% grow more slowly than the bottom 90%, but current compensation practices make that highly unlikely. If the only change on the horizon is higher interest rates, personal bankruptcies and foreclosures will go up. That could slow access to credit for everyone, and further raise the costs of borrowing for businesses and households alike.

- Meanwhile, Marc Lee considers the option of printing more money:

The big barrier is psychological: once we start talking about “printing money” the danger is that millions of misunderstandings about what money is get amplified. In a fiat money system like ours it is the faith or belief that a colourful piece of paper has a certain value in purchasing goods and services that matters, and we need to be careful in shaking that confidence. That most people seek to get money (by selling their labour, or making investments, or buying low and selling high) to acquire things now or in the future is pretty obvious.

But how the money supply itself grows through the expansion of credit in the banking system is not broadly understood. The scale of private money creation is huge. Bank of Canada data for a number of monetary aggregates show that money expands rapidly during boom times, and slows down during downturns. Going back to 1996, M1+ has been at lows of about 4% annual growth, while peaking at more than 14% annual growth. M1++ peaked at around 20% annual growth through much of 2009. A broader monetary aggregate, M2++, did not grow as fast as that, but still was in the 8-9% annual growth range between late 2006 and late 2009. All of this money supply growth was compatible with low and stable inflation.
...
(F)inancing a $50 billion deficit through the Bank of Canada at a time when demand and private credit creation are slow is not a really big deal – apart from fear that would be whooped up in the media by those who do not get this or whose economic interests were adversely affected. Even a modest uptick in inflation is likely to bring hysterical cries from those who own the debts that must be repaid. And higher but stable inflation can get locked in to price and wage expectations that impose some economic costs on society, although costs will be minor for inflation rates in single digits.
...
(G)iven that there are horribly polluting industries out there that need to be phased out, why not use public money to offset the economic hit of decommissioning? At a time of deleveraging and record high household debt, a new public sector stimulus program is just what is needed, rather than the conventional wisdom that nothing more can be done by governments.

- Which leads nicely into Megan Leslie's column on the need for real investment in renewable energy and conservation:

We must not forget that the development of the oil sands in Canada was the result of substantial government-sponsored research and subsidies. As part of a federal initiative, taxpayer money was invested into figuring out how to extract and refine bitumen, which has led to enormous profits for the industry. However, we have not seen a similar long-term commitment from the federal government to support the transition to clean energy, including long-term investment in energy efficiency technologies.
...
Oil and gas subsidies have been touted as necessary for keeping the industry competitive through development of modern, cleaner technologies, yet a recent government study found that research subsidies for the fossil fuel industry have done little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

It's time to shift the focus of the government's initiatives from big oil to renewable and conservation technologies. All Members of Parliament should commit themselves to supporting the much-needed and greatly-delayed transition to a green economy powered by renewables and energy efficiency technologies. This transition should include putting a price on carbon.

- Finally, Anne Lagace Dowson weighs in on the media's baseless attacks on Nycole Turmel, while Tim Naumetz neatly ties the latest loyalty test to the RCMP's history of spying on Tommy Douglas which is still only in the process of coming to light.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- With health care once again receiving plenty of attention on the U.S. political scene thanks to the Republicans' plan to dismantle publicly-funded Medicare, the differences between Canada and the U.S. are once again serving as a major point of discussion. And Aaron Carroll has posted a neat defence of Canada's universal system from the standpoint of patients and health practictioners alike.

- Megan Leslie highlights the Cons' continued failure to do anything meaningful on the climate change front - which looks all the more glaring when even oilsands operators are crying out for a clear and predictable system rather than another half a decade of delays and uncertainty.

- For all the talk about opposition parties' votes now being irrelevant in Parliament, it's noteworthy that the Bloc is planning to vote for the Cons' budget - even after the party had declared earlier this year that the HST money for Quebec which reflects the main change from the budget rejected in March wouldn't necessarily be enough to earn its support.

That would figure to mean the Bloc sees so little prospect of achieving much in the years to come that it has no choice but to paint the HST money as its main accomplishment for the next little while. Which may be an entirely reasonable conclusion - but seems to suggest that a Bloc resurgence is a long ways away.

- Shorter Murray Mandryk, serving up as embarrassing a sop to Brad Wall as one could imagine this side of John Gormley:

(insert Saskatchewan Party advertisement here)

- Finally, Rob Rainer nicely counters the perennial anti-tax spin from the Fraser Institute (which the Cons are working feverishly to promote) with a suggested Tax Benefits Day:

(H)appy Tax Benefits Day 2011! A day to remind ourselves that, far from being “bad” – as even Prime Minister Harper is on record as believing – taxes and our willingness to pay them make possible our democratic institutions and the many public goods and services that Canadians value.
...
(O)f all the recommendations of McQuaig and Brooks, the most important may be to “strive to bring about a change in social attitudes toward taxation and its essential role in a democracy.” Hence the inauguration of Tax Benefits Day – to fall on the day immediately after the Fraser Institute’s Tax Freedom Day, to counter the misguided view that taxes are bad.

On effective responses

A quick message to those who have spent the better part of the last month spreading the Lib-serving theory that the NDP would seize on any theoretical concession the Cons might offer in order to pass a budget: try again.

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your mid-week reading.

- Today's wild guess: the word from Tony Clement's birthday party is in fact a shrewd bit of reputation management, with the hoped result of ensuring that future searches for "'Tony Clement' + 'census' + 'bad joke'" don't turn up the likes of this. We'll find out soon what scenario the Cons' spin-meisters come up with to take the sting out of "wet-lipped halfwit".

- Meanwhile, the war on accurate data continues, as the Macdonald-Laurier Institute echoes another of the Cons' rightly-derided positions in complaining that StatsCan bases its numbers on crimes actually reported rather than making up higher and scarier figures.

[Update: pogge has more.]

- Yes, it's possible for a political party to stand up to the latest in dumb-on-crime policymaking. And for its MPs to offer up useful proposals on the issues Canadians care about most. You just won't tend to hear much about it.

- Finally, Tim Wu nicely sums up why we shouldn't buy the big telecoms' argument about wanting to limit bandwidth use through usage-based billing:

The knowledge that penalties await heavy Internet usage does something quite terrible: discourage desirable behaviour. Most of Bell’s arguments for treating consumers as wrongdoers rely on the villainization of “bandwidth hogs” who use up everyone else’s bandwidth and generally bring misery to the land. But there are better words for big users of the Internet: “pioneers” and “innovators.” A nation that spends its time worrying about bandwidth caps is not a nation that leads.

What’s worse, it’s all quite unnecessary. Different people do use the Internet in different amounts. And there are, in fact, perfectly reasonable ways to deal with variable demand. Operators can offer faster connections for those who want more and offer discount plans for light users. An ongoing bandwidth limit is much preferable to a monthly cap. But Bell has shown interest in none of the reasonable solutions to its so-called congestion problem. Rather, it wants a system of penalties, and wants its wholesalers to be forced to go along with the scheme. Like credit-card companies, it actually wants customers to make mistakes.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted reading to end your week...

- Kevin Page points out the obvious as part of his effort to get the Cons to stop hiding information from him:

Page, dispatched by MPs on the government operations committee in October to help them get a handle on the impact of the operating freeze, came back empty-handed. The government won't tell him details and has refused his requests for any information citing cabinet secrecy.

Page said the government's secrecy and blanket refusal to release basic documents is blocking the work of Parliament and, if left unchecked, poses all kinds of risks, including the temptation to hide mistakes.

He argues the blocking of information is getting so out of hand that someone should be monitoring what's being refused to ensure they really are cabinet confidences.

- And Aaron Wherry provides a timely example of what happens when a forum like question period is seen as not being intended to convey actual information. And indeed it's hard to see who's supposed to be better off waiting for new set of revelations before anything approaching the truth starts to trickle out when there was a chance to start having a meaningful conversation months ago.

- Warren Kinsella comments on the seemingly inevitable result when corporate and state resources are marshalled against the likes of Wikileaks:

Getting big companies like PayPal and Amazon and Visa to hit WikiLeaks in the pocketbook is as idiotic as it is predictable. So, too, threatening Assange with untold prosecutions on trumped-up charges – and even now prosecuting him in a case that looks, to many of us, highly coincidental and therefore suspect. To me, what I see in the papers this morning are the institutions that people truly hate these days – banks, and huge corporations, and bellicose governments – doing what they always do: reacting stupidly, corporately, and way too late. They should all send a bunch of “secret” cables to each other about their plans. They do that a lot, apparently.

I tried to think of a metaphor that fits, to make my point. I settled on a fight between a big, slow, dumb dinosaur – being besieged by an army of fast, smart, tiny mammals with really sharp teeth.

And we all know what happened to those big, slow and dumb dinosaurs, don’t we?

- And finally, it's always nice to see some new discussion about why the Cons' choice to gut the census figures to have damaging side effects. But while less accurate information is surely a problem for those actually interested in solving problems, I'm not sure the Cons can be expected to see this precise form of inaccuracy as anything but a plus for them:

Ms. Nakamura noted that simply changing the weights could lead to CPI under-estimating actual inflation. That could help government budgets achieve politically preferred results.

On the revenue side, if personal incomes rise faster than measured CPI, more people get bumped into higher tax brackets. (Tax brackets are indexed to CPI.) That amounts to a tax increase without any discussion in Parliament.

On the expenditure side, CPP and other inflation-adjusted transfers grow more slowly, as do public sector wages and benefits. This holds down government spending below what it would otherwise be.

Lower-than-actual values for CPI would be valuable to the Harper government in other ways too. It would make Canada look good to both foreign and domestic investors who value price stability. It also puts less pressure on the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates.

Sunday Afternoon Links

A few links to close out your summer weekend...

- Dr. Dawg points out another example of the Con-friendly noise machine being set up by the Harper government using public resources - this time in the promotion of a set of religious-right actors who are being treated as if they speak for all First Nations communities.

- And of course, that cultivation of lackeys willing to bow to the will of Big Daddy fits in all too well with Alex Himelfarb's post on the Harper government's transition from a welfare state to a security state.

- A couple of NDP podcasts worth a listen: MP Megan Leslie and candidate Peter Thurley on housing issues, and an introduction to Edmonton-Leduc candidate Artem Medvedev.

- Finally, for those following the Saskatchewan NDP's Regina Northeast nomination race, the vote has been set for September 30.

Dangerous

Needless to say, yesterday's story on how NDP MP Megan Leslie managed to use ten-percenters to benefit artists in her riding makes it clear why the Cons and Libs have to see the NDP as a serious threat. After all, if Canadians start getting the idea that MPs can make valuable contributions to their own constituencies rather than serving solely as talking-point delivery devices, where will that leave them?

Waiting for the miracle

A few Libs seem all too happy to use exactly the same kind of highly selective quoting and repetition of press spin against the NDP that they regularly decry when it's working against their party. So let's highlight the most important part of what the NDP in fact has to say, with the part of Joe Comartin's statement that they're leaving out:

"It's absolutely necessary that the Conservatives make some very important compromises," said the NDP MP. "If they don't change their economic policy, we won't be able to support them."

If there's been a change in the NDP's tone, it's in suggesting that there's some meaningful chance that the Cons might now consider governing more responsibly in order to stay in power where the Libs left them no reason to do so before. And I'll grant that the line taken by both Comartin and Thomas Mulcair is more optimistic on that point than I am: I'd think it would be better at this point to stick with the previous terminology that it would require a miracle for the Cons to do so and let them try to take steps to make it happen, rather than creating even the slightest space for a desperate Lib party to invent a narrative which casts the NDP as taking over the role the Libs have occupied for so long.

But the NDP's basic position that Con government in the form we've seen for the past three and a half years isn't acceptable remains the same - leaving only the question of whether Harper is willing to change how he governs in order to retain the ability to do so. And while it looks like the Cons prefer to put the onus back on the Libs to keep allowing them to govern without compromising at all, one can't rule out the possibility that a miracle will happen.

Update: Megan Leslie is closer to the right message (though I'd work on the example of what would have to happen for Harper's direction to change):

"We clearly haven’t supported the vision of the Conservatives. Absolutely," said Ms. Leslie. "But were there to be a huge change in that vision, who knows? I think there’s room to stop and think about what is best right now. But it’s the Harper vision that we can’t support. Who knows? Maybe he’ll fall on his head and have a new vision."

Update II: Apparently no miracle is forthcoming. Which is just fine: thanks to the Cons' over-the-top refusal to even talk about cooperating, the NDP both preserves its principled stance as the lone national party to vote against the Cons' government in practice, and wins the title of the only party willing to make any effort to make Parliament work to improve matters.

On succession

Whether or not the final result comes as a surprise, it has to be a good sign that the NDP's Halifax nomination race featured two extremely well-organized candidates who look to be entirely united in purpose for the general election. Congratulations to Megan Leslie on winning the nomination - and hopefully it won't be long before Alexis MacDonald is back in the fray as well.