Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Matt Seybold writes about the message sent at Davos that AI will be forced on people regardless of whether they want it (or whether it will do them anything but harm). And Michael Geist writes about the absurdity of the Carney government allowing the hallucinations of artificial intelligence to override the actual results of public consultation into AI itself. 

- Melissa Troutman and Rebecca Sobel highlight New Mexico's record levels of oil and gas spillage, as the dirty energy industry sees itself as ever more entitled to pollute everything around it. And Olivia Rosane discusses how Louisiana pipeline explosion offers another vivid example of the dangers of fossil fuels which are dumped on unsuspecting and/or marginalized populations. 

- Andrew Longhurst and Rebecca Graff-McRae examine how the UCP's two-tier health care is threatening the public medical system. And Sneh Duggal reports that Ontario's response to increasing levels of hallway health care has been to stop reporting on how often people are forced into it. 

- Finally, Jen St. Denis offers new details as to the far right's operations in Canada - including their sway over right-wing parties. And both Markham Hislop and Don Newman call out Danielle Smith for conjuring up and stoking a separatist threat rather than serving the interests of Alberta and its people. 

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- John Michael McGrath highlights how the COVID-19 B.1.617 variant represents a serious threat to the prospect of safely relaxing restrictions over the summer. And Morgan Modjeski reports on the COVID outbreak at the Pine Grove Correctional Centre.

- D.T. Cochrane highlights a few of the major Canadian corporations which have seen massive windfalls as a result of the pandemic. And Grace Blakeley warns that we can't expect the temporary response to the coronavirus to represent the end of neoliberalism.

- Michael Geist has been reviewing some of the problems with the Libs' C-10 regulating online broadcasting - including its application to individual users as well as the tech giants, and its incompatibility with net neutrality. And Nikolas Barry-Shaw makes the case for nationalized telecommunications as an alternative to the cartel which controls communications infrastruction across most of the country.

- T. Cameron Wild et al. find strong support among the Canadian public for harm reduction sites. But Alanna Smith reports on the UCP's latest decision to slash life-saving services first and maybe consider developing an alternative later.

- Finally, Angela Wright discusses the lingering effect of discriminatory urban planning in the U.S. and Canada.

Sunday Evening Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Marianne Guenot reports on a World Health Organization-backed report confirming that political leaders could have averted the spread of COVID-19, but failed to do so. And CBC News reports on the fears of workers facing unmasked customers and management unwilling to look out for their health.

- Adam Peleshanty takes note of the spread of another season of extreme drought across the Prairies. And Max Fawcett writes that Alberta is engaged in delay tactics against making oil companies clean up their messes at the worst possible time. 

- Duncan Fraser McLachlan reports on the work tenants have done organizing against renovictions in one Montreal apartment building.  

- The Canadian Press reports on the push from the NDP and health care providers to get the Trudeau Libs to live up to their promises (and indeed the recommendations of their own panel) on pharmacare. And Brandon Doucet notes that the Libs are standing in the way of any move toward universal dental care as well.

- Meanwhile, Michael Geist writes about the problems with the Libs' Bill C-10 (and the gaslighting campaign being used to try to push it through Parliament).

- Finally, Arthur White-Crummey reports on the massive backing from one Alberta oil contractor which funded more than half of the Buffalo Party's emergence in Saskatchewan - showing that the risk of parties developing as wholly-owned subsidiaries of one or more wealthy people is coming to pass.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- The OECD examines the generational implications of inequality and poverty - with the descendants of poor children in some countries requiring up to nine generations to project to reach an average income.

- Dean Baker writes that the Trump administration is only seeking to further entrench class disparities by locking in exclusionary rights through international trade agreements. And Michael Geist discusses how a few corporate actors have taken over Canada's copyright consultations.

- Meanwhile, Howard Davies notes that a new IMF database shows global debt at at all-time high even after the supposed attempt to rein in unsustainable borrowing after the 2008 economic crisis.

- David Ball reports on Kinder Morgan's disregard for environmental rules in building its Trans Mountain terminal. Needless to say, nobody is expected to face any consequences as a result of that lawlessness - in contrast to David Dodge's willingness to see activists killed in the name of pipeline expansion.

- Finally, D.C. Fraser reports on the Saskatchewan Party's decision to tear down the Justice for Our Stolen Children in the name of expunging any recognition of the abuse of Indigenous peoples from Regina's Canada Day events.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Dana Brown and Thomas Hanna discuss the possibility of a public option for access to medication in the U.S. And while the Winnipeg Free Press warns that Brian Pallister might want to stand in the way of a national pharmacare program, that hardly seems a reasonable excuse to discard the possibility.

- Elaine Povich reports on the unexpectedly high revenue from Seattle's soda tax.

- Michael Geist is duly skeptical of the latest attempt to excuse the gouging of Canadian consumers by the telecommunications sector, while Bill Curry reports on Jim Balsillie's warnings about the spread of surveillance capitalism. And Yves Engler reminds us that rather than reining in the excesses of Stephen Harper's surveillance state, the Trudeau Libs are pouring more money and power into extending it.

- Ivan Ascher points out why corporate thinking patterns won't lead to the action we need to combat climate change, while Chantelle Bellrichard reports on Kinder Morgan's willingness to accommodate Nestle and other business interests even as it ignores the needs of people who stand to be affected by any Trans Mountain expansion. And Tom Embury-Dennis notes that Costa Rica's government leadership has led it toward becoming the world's first decarbonized society.

- Finally, Drew Brown rightly slams the plans of Jason Kenney and Alberta's UCP to forcibly out LGBT children to their parents.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Denise Balkissoon writes about the importance of ensuring a just transition for fossil fuel workers - rather than using their jobs as bargaining chips to preserve oil industry profits. And Andrea Olive, Emily Eaton and Randy Besco point out that there's plenty of public support for carbon pricing and other elements of a strong climate change policy in Saskatchewan.

- Meanwhile, Nick Falvo offers a list of takeaways from the Moe government's first provincial budget - including multiple choices which will make life even more precarious for people facing poverty and precarity:

6. Social assistance benefit levels in Saskatchewan remain very low. For example, a single employable adult on social assistance in Saskatchewan receives approximately $9,000 annually on which to live (and pay rent). A person with a disability gets between $12,000 and $16,000 annually, depending on the severity of the disability. Every year, the value of inflation erodes the value of these benefits. (All of these figures can be found here.) 

7. This budget announced the phasing out of a rental housing benefit for low-income households. The Saskatchewan Rental Housing Supplement provided some additional rent money for low-income households with either children or a disability; but this budget announced that no new applications will be accepted as of July 1. The provincial government expects this will save the provincial treasury $5 million in the first year (or 0.03% of the total budget). Without the rent supplement in place, I believe it’s likely we’ll see more people becoming homeless in Saskatchewan, which itself comes with added costs to the public treasury. 

8. The budget’s decision to extend the PST to used car sales may disproportionately impact low-income households. The budget removes the PST tax exemption on (light) used car sales, which may translate into almost $100 million in new annual revenue. This will make it slightly more expensive to purchase a used car in Saskatchewan. The budget also restores the trade-in allowance when determining the PST—so, when a car owner is trading in a vehicle, they will only pay the PST on the difference in price of the trade in and the selling price for the vehicle they’re buying. 

9. The budget fails to address on-reserve child poverty. According to Census data, Saskatchewan’s on-reserve rate of child poverty (as measured by the After Tax Low Income Measure) is nearly 70%, second highest in the country after Manitoba. Neither this year’s budget nor last year’s takes meaningful steps towards addressing that.

- Heather Stewart reports on UK Labour's push for genuinely affordable housing - rather than stretching the term to fit homes priced far beyond people's means.

- Michael Geist discusses the dangers of allowing - and even encouraging - corporate giants to monitor and control online content. And Murad Hemmadi talks to Charlie Angus about Facebook's influence over public policy (even as it fails to register to lobby government).

- Finally, Ruth Dreifuss and Richard Elliott make the case for the decriminalization of personal drug use and possession in order to reduce the social harms arising out of prohibition.

New column day

Here, on the latest threats to a free and open Internet for Canadians.

For further reading...
- Again, Canadaland broke the story of Bell's push to make regulatory restrictions on website access a default answer to copyright issues here, while the FairPlay scheme is here (PDF). Michael Geist discussed some of the problems with Bell's position, while OpenMedia is leading the charge against it. And Sameer Chidra reported on the implicit response from the CRTC's Chris Seidl.
- Matthew Braga reported on Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien's push for a right to be forgotten by multiple means. And both Geist's response and David Fraser's previous submission are worth a look in analyzing the proposal.
- Finally, Marianela Ramos Capela discusses what should be a far larger issue - being the impact of high prices on general access to basic information services.

On suspended animation

It would be nice to be able to share Michael Geist's view that the latest TPP by another name represents a substantial improvement over the original. But to my mind, the real story of the CPTPP is how little it changes.

In principle, I'd have hoped to see a group of parties which didn't include the U.S. (supposedly the driving force behind some of the most draconian provisions of the TPP) actually discuss and reach agreement on alternative language for issues which had been pushed solely by a party which has left the table. But instead, the result of the CPTPP is merely to adopt the same problematic language, while suspending its operation for the moment.

Needless to say, that moment is sure to end as soon as the U.S. decides it wants in again - which the same corporations who lobbied so hard to dictate the terms of the first TPP will surely push whenever the opportunity arises.

At that point, in the absence of some alternative structure which can be seen as having any multilateral agreement  - not to mention in light of the insistence of the parties to the CPTPP that the original was an acceptably "balanced outcome" - there figures to be little prospect that the original terms won't then snap into place at the U.S.' insistence.

As a result, the predictable outcome of the latest round of negotiations is to give the Libs a chance to claim they've meaningfully improved the existing TPP, while potentially locking us into a course which will see its worst terms come into effect. And so the public response to the CPTPP needs to take aim at not only what would immediately be imposed, but what would be far too likely to follow.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Yves Engler discusses how Justin Trudeau is now the face of the exploitation of poor countries and workers by the Canadian mining industry. And Penny Collenette writes that governments and business should both bear responsibility for human rights - though it's worth being skeptical of her use of that theme to try to undercut what little corporate accountability currently exists.

- George Monbiot examines some options for a more participatory democracy - with a particular focus on public involvement in policy decisions on a far more regular basis than elections alone. And the Mound of Sound notes that many of Monbiot's criticisms would be met by a more fair and proportional electoral system.

- Meanwhile, Kenneth Andrews takes a look at how protest movements can bring about social change.

- Don Braid points out that Jason Kenney's latest attempt to whitewash history involves laying claim to the legacy of Peter Lougheed after shrieking hysterically about it through most of his political past. And Justin Ling exposes how Andrew Scheer is trying to build his party using Rebel Media's model of fomenting hate while denying any connection between the two.

- Finally, Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood points out how Donald Trump's NAFTA posturing offers a much-needed opportunity to extricate Canada from some aspects of corporate rule. And Michael Geist likewise notes that life after NAFTA means far more freedom to set intellectual property policy in the public interest.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Stephanie Blankenburg and Richard Kozul-Wright comment on the rise of rent-seeking as a driver of stagnation and inequality. And George Monbiot argues that we shouldn't let our common wealth be used for the sole benefit of a privileged few:

A true commons is managed not for the accumulation of capital or profit, but for the steady production of prosperity or wellbeing. It belongs to a particular group, who might live in or beside it, or who created and sustain it. It is inalienable, which means that it should not be sold or given away. Where it is based on a living resource, such as a forest or a coral reef, the commoners have an interest in its long-term protection, rather than the short-term gain that could be made from its destruction.

The commons have been attacked by both state power and capitalism for centuries. Resources that no one invented or created, or that a large number of people created together, are stolen by those who sniff an opportunity for profit. The saying, attributed to Balzac, that “behind every great fortune lies a great crime” is generally true. “Business acumen” often amounts to discovering novel ways of grabbing other people’s work and assets.
...
Enclosure creates inequality. It produces a rentier economy: those who capture essential resources force everyone else to pay for access. It shatters communities and alienates people from their labour and their surroundings. The ecosystems commoners sustained are liquidated for cash. Inequality, rent, atomisation, alienation, environmental destruction: the loss of the commons has caused or exacerbated many of the afflictions of our age.
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I’m not proposing we abandon either market or state, but that we balance them by defending and expanding the two neglected sectors. I believe there should be wages for carers, through which the state and private enterprise repay part of the subsidy they receive. And communities should be allowed to take back control of resources on which their prosperity depends. For example, anyone who owns valuable land should pay a local community land contribution (a form of land value tax): compensation for the wealth created by others. Part of this can be harvested by local and national government, to pay for services and to distribute money from richer communities to poorer ones. But the residue should belong to a commons trust formed by the local community. One use to which this money might be put it is to buy back land, creating a genuine commons and regaining and sharing the revenue...

A commons, unlike state spending, obliges people to work together, to sustain their resources and decide how the income should be used. It gives community life a clear focus. It depends on democracy in its truest form. It destroys inequality. It provides an incentive to protect the living world. It creates, in sum, a politics of belonging. 

- Meanwhile, Jim Stanford examines the impact of public-sector austerity, and finds that wage cuts for public servants lead to both wage suppression in all sectors, and overall economic stagnation.

- David Macdonald studies (PDF) the effects of income splitting in private corporations, and finds that 0.3% of Canadian households use a tax loophole whose gains go disproportionately to people making over $200,000 per year.

- Colleen Fuller discusses how the corporate sector has taken over Canada's health care system - particularly in British Columbia and other provinces which have been eager to sell off health provision to big business.

- Jenny Uechi reports that the response of corporate titans to the revelations as to how they pulled the strings in Christy Clark's B.C. Lib government is to claim that's how things should be. Meanwhile, Ross Marowits reports that the Trudeau Liberals are going along with SNC-Lavalin's self-serving plan to make sure that corporate criminality doesn't lead to meaningful consequences.

- Finally, Michael Geist writes that Bell is lobbying to turn NAFTA into a mechanism to attack consumers in the name of extreme copyright enforcement.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Mike Konczal responds to a pathetic attempt to drain the word "neoliberal" of all meaning (which seems to have won favour with Canadian Libs desperately trying to disassociate themselves from their own governing ideology) by discussing its application in both the political and economic spheres. And Steven Hall examines how neoliberal economics have been a failure even on their own narrowly-focused terms:

Sure, growth for the sake of growth is not what we should aim for — it is indeed ‘the ideology of the cancer cell’, to use the words of Edward Abbey. But there is no evidence that less progressive taxes have promoted growth anyway. There is no evidence that more inequality has contributed towards growth. There is no evidence that deregulation has contributed to growth or to stability or social well-being. There is no credible evidence that trickle-down economics works. None whatsoever. It is a fallacy. An article of faith, perhaps — but not of science.

Almost everything which almost all policy makers have taken for granted and asked us to take for granted for more than a generation has been proved wrong. We were closer to the truth, it seems, in the 1950s and 60s, and there must be some lessons for us there.

- Meanwhile, Nick Bunker points out new research suggesting that corporate concentration and a lack of meaningful competition is a major factor in the decline of business investment over the past few decades.

- Scott Sinclair, Stuart Trew and Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood review the U.S.' plans for NAFTA renegotiations. Lawrence Herman points out a few of the U.S. demands which would most clearly tilt the playing field against Canada. And Michael Geist offers some suggestions as to what Canada should be asking for to protect our interests in intellectual property freedoms and the protection of individual data.

- But for anybody hoping for a strong Canadian position, Linda McQuaig notes that the Trudeau Libs have already demonstrated their eagerness to capitulate to Donald Trump's most senseless demands by announcing gigantic military expenditures for no apparent reason.

- Finally, Andre Picard weighs in on how Canada's continued poor ranking among our international peers shows the need for more and better investment in our health care system.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Thomas Piketty discusses our choice between developing models of global trade which actually produce positive results for people, or fueling the fire of Trump-style demogoguery:

The main lesson for Europe and the world is clear: as a matter of urgency, globalization must be fundamentally re-oriented. The main challenges of our times are the rise in inequality and global warming. We must therefore implement international treaties enabling us to respond to these challenges and to promote a model for fair and sustainable development.

Agreements of a new type can, if necessary, include measures aimed at facilitating these exchanges. But the question of liberalizing trade should no longer be the main focus. Trade must once again become a means in the service of higher ends. It never should have become anything other than that.

There should be no more signing of international agreements that reduce customs duties and other commercial barriers without including quantified and binding measures to combat fiscal and climate dumping in those same treaties. For example, there could be common minimum rates of corporation tax and targets for carbon emissions which can be verified and sanctioned. It is no longer possible to negotiate trade treaties for free trade with nothing in exchange.
...
It is time to change the political discourse on globalization: trade is a good thing, but fair and sustainable development also demands public services, infrastructure, health and education systems. In turn, these themselves demand fair taxation systems. If we fail to deliver these, Trumpism will prevail.

- Chris Hedges warns that the consequences of Trump's toxic campaign may be even worse than we expect once it becomes clear that his promises (both explicit and implicit) aren't going to be met. And Aditya Chakrabortty writes that the jobs currently under threat from neoliberal policies include most of the middle class in the developed world, not only the Rust Belt states which gave Trump his margin of victory.

- Angella MacEwen comments on the importance of listening to workers when developing international trade mechanisms. Michael Geist wonders whether the failure of the Trans-Pacific Partnership will do anything to stem the tide of secretive agreements biased toward the corporate sector - though I'm less than optimistic given that prominent past failures seems to have led to little more than minor delays. And Adam Parsons notes that the theme of global cooperation and harmonization has conspicuously failed to produce anything of the sort when it comes to avoiding corporate abuses.

- Ben Schiller points out that solar installations end up helping all power users by providing additional energy when it's needed most - representing a noteworthy contrast to the anti-social effects of corporate dominance which Alberta's NDP is trying to reverse. And Sarah Emerson reports on a U.S. class action lawsuit seeking to hold governments to account for the future financial impacts of climate change on generations to come.

- Finally, Pamela Cowan reports on the work Saskatchewan doctors are doing to incorporate social determinants of health into patient care.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Baratunde Thurston makes the point that even beyond income and wealth inequality, there's an obviously unfair distribution of second chances in the U.S. depending on one's race and class. Denis Campbell reports on the link between poverty and childhood obesity, while Jen St. Denis highlights how poverty can cause and exacerbate mental health problems.

- Kyle Bakx points out how a systematic effort to encourage people living in poverty to file their tax returns can result in help getting where it's needed most. And conversely, the Star 's editorial board writes that piling fines on people with no means to pay them serves no useful purpose.

- David Cay Johnston examines the U.S.' tax rolls and finds a large number of wealthy Americans paying no income tax at all:

In 2014, the latest year for which we have data, more than two million of the 148.6 million tax-filing households reported negative incomes. The number of such households has been rising for years. In 1994 it was 0.8% of income tax returns, but in 2014 it hit 1.4%. That's one in 73, up from one in 125.

Some of these households have one-time losses, usually from failed business. But many must be wealthy, too, benefiting from liberal tax avoidance laws set by Congress.

My detailed analysis of the official data shows that those who reported negative incomes on average are wealthier and enjoy more cash flow by far than the average American.

Some surprising facts:

• More than a fourth of these non-taxpaying households had paying jobs in 2014.
• These households had vastly more investment income than all but the top half of 1% of all households.
• One in three negative-income households reported receiving taxable interest, compared to 29% of all taxpayers. The average amount they reported was $6,939. For comparison, those making $75,000 to $100,000 in 2014 reported average taxable interest of just $860.

What we do not know is how many of these are people reporting negative income just once – and how many, like Trump, have reported negative income year-after-year, despite huge incomes that they collect free of income tax.
...
When you get to even richer households, Donald Trump territory, you still find negative-income taxpayers: The 410,300 tax households reporting incomes of $1 million or more in 2014 had an average income that was more than $3.3 million. But 444 of these million-dollar-plus households – about one in 900 – paid no income tax.

- Doreen Nichol rightly argues that children living on reserves shouldn't face continued systemic discrimination, while Jody Porter reports that First Nations residents needing medical travel are facing regular breaches of privacy compared to other patients. And CBC reports that the Idle No More movement is rightly demanding that Justin Trudeau live up to his promises, rather than pretending that rhetoric is enough to make up for continued unfair treatment.

- In a similar vein, Nathan Cullen discusses the need to hold the Libs to their promise of electoral reform. And Tavia Grant reports on the Libs' failure to follow through on a commitment to ban the use of asbestos.

- Finally, Judith Lavoie comments on the need for renewed anti-SLAPP protection to allow people to participate meaningfully in public debates about the issues that affect them. And Michael Geist offers his suggestions for the future of Canadian journalism.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Danyaal Raza discusses how climate change is manifesting itself in immediate health problems. And John Vidal highlights the latest research on the rapid melting of Arctic ice - making it particularly appalling that Canada has abandoned its main Arctic port to rot.

- Elizabeth McSheffrey notes that the Libs also have effectively cleared the way for the environmental danger of oil spills by approving a toxic chemical for cleanup purposes. And Cheryl Santa Mario reports on how a long-running spill arising out of poorly-regulated offshore oil drilling has contributed to the destruction of a scallop fishery in Newfoundland.

- Keith Slack discusses the permanent water pollution being planned by mining companies - and all too often allowed by governments ignoring the obvious risk when the responsibility to keep treating water after a mine ceases to operate is inevitably abandoned. But Marina Jimenez points out that the Libs are doing nothing to hold Canadian resource firms responsible for social and environmental responsibilities abroad.

- Canada Without Poverty talks to Laura Cattari and Wayne MacNaughton about housing issues, including the all-too-predictable path from precarious housing to outright homelessness. And Kelly Stajduhar and Ashley Mollison comment on the lack of end-of-life care for people who can't supply a stable address while their needs are assessed.

- Finally, Michael Geist writes that Canada's intellectual property rules have been set up to encouraging trolling and rent-seeking rather than research and development. And Mariana Mazzucato discusses the need to get a better return on publicly-funded pharmaceutical research.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Branko Milanovic argues that there's plenty of reason to be concerned about inequality even if one puts aside a utilitarian comparison of individual needs and benefits:

(I)nequality of opportunity affects negatively economic growth (so we now have a negative effect going from my third ground back to the first) which makes inequality of opportunity abhorrent on two grounds: (1) it negates fundamental human equality, and (2) it lowers the pace of material improvements for society.

My argument, if I need to reiterate it, is: you can reject welfarism, hold that inter-personal comparison of utility is impossible, and still feel very strongly that economic outcomes should be made more equal—that inequality should be limited so that it does not strongly affect opportunities, so that it does not slow growth and so that it does not undermine democracy. Isn’t that enough?

- Brad Delong takes note of Barry Eichelgreen's timeline of the development of inequality over the past three centuries. Marvin Shaffer discusses British Columbia's inequitable growth favouring those who already have the most, while Josh Hoxie notes that the U.S.' generation of young adults is bearing the brunt of grossly unequal distributions of income and wealth. Emma Burney points out the OECD's latest report (PDF) on how tax policy can rein in inequality. And John Hood comments on the UK's seeming consensus on the need to address inequality - though it remains to be seen how (if at all) that will be translated into meaningful policy choices.

- George Hoberg rightly argues that the federal government needs to step up and develop an effective national climate change policy due to the wholly insufficient results of trying to push the issue down to the provinces. But Alex Emmons notes that the oil industry's lobbying at the Republican National Convention represents just one more example of the large amount of money being burned in an effort to stall progress wherever possible. 

- Megan Sandel and Laurel Blatchford discuss the connection between investment in adequate housing and a reduction in health care expenses. And Stephanie Dickrell comments on the massive individual and social costs of child homelessness.

- Finally, Michael Geist studies the Trans-Pacific Partnership's intellectual property rules, and find that they'd impose new and gratuitous burdens and costs on the public in the name of lining corporate pockets.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Glenn Greenwald interviews Alex Cuadros about his new book on how Brazil has been warped politically and economically by the whims of its billionaire class. And PressProgress takes a look at the impact of economic inequality on Canada's cities.

- Sharon Wright examines how draconian restrictions on social benefits are based on false assumptions as to why people need help to ameliorate poverty.

- David Bush and Gerard Di Trolio argue that while corporate apologists treat NAFTA as evidence that trade agreements have nothing but upside, the Canadian public has learned better. Cecile Barbiere notes that European countries have taken back the authority to decide for themselves whether to be locked into the CETA, while Michael Geist writes that the agreement looks to be in trouble. And Arthur Neslen notes how the TTIP and other trade deals could sabotage any effort to address climate change. 

- John Anderson highlights how U.S. online media empires are escaping paying taxes while profiting off of their business in Canada - and argues that it's long past time to stop letting them have a free ride.

- Finally, Sophia Reuss discusses the lip service being paid to public participation in Parliament's electoral reform committee. And Alison summarizes Jean-Pierre Kingsley's appearance - including his preference for a proportional system in urban areas. 

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Louis-Philippe Rochon reminds us why even if we were to (pointlessly) prioritize raw GDP over fair distributions of income and wealth, inequality is bad for economic growth in general:

The more we redistribute income and wealth, the more consumption increases, which then increases demand. In turn, this should encourage the private sector to invest, thereby accelerating the growth process.

So reducing inequality, in addition to social and health benefits, has important economic implications: our economies grow, and growth itself becomes less volatile. In short, inequality is bad economics.
...
To restart economic growth, a major preoccupation of many Canadians, there are a number of policies that can be adopted. For instance, higher incomes can be taxed at a much higher marginal rate, including capital gains and income earned from dividends; wealth can also be taxed more.

In light of the Panama Papers, government can close tax loopholes; we can also prevent the private-sector practice of buying back their own shares, which unnecessarily inflates the dividends of shareholders, which in turn favours short-term financial gains to the detriment of long-term economic growth.

Finally, we can adopt a full employment policy.

- Meanwhile, PressProgress points out new research by Cristobal Younga, Charles Varnera, Ithai Lurieb and Richard Prisinzanob showing no statistically significant connection between tax rates and millionaires' locations - signalling that there's no reason to take seriously any threat that more progressive taxes will lead the wealthy to move to avoid paying their fair share.

- Aru Pande discusses how U.S. non-profits are being forced to try to fill in glaring gaps in public services for children living in poverty.

- Ian McLeod reports that the Libs' plans to do anything about C-51 are limited to secret Parliamentary oversight after the fact - meaning that the public will have continue to have no idea how its rights are being violated. And Michael Geist writes that there's no longer any doubt just how much needless surveillance is taking place in Canada.

- Finally, Zeynep Engin reviews Beth Simone Noveck's Smart Citizens, Smarter State on the future of governance:

The key terms that I believe best describe the spirit of the book emerge as ‘targeted expertise’, ‘crowdsourcing’, ‘experimental governance’ and ‘citizen engagement’. Instead of the traditional advisory committee model that mainly relies on stakeholder representation (missing the epistemic value of committee membership) and typically produces a report or a set of recommendations over months or even years, Noveck suggests that new technologies should allow us ‘to make consultation on a day-to-day basis and to strive for constant conversation with an engaged and knowledgeable public’. Going beyond ‘crowdsourcing widely to crowdsourcing wisely’ to match the right experts to the right opportunities on a large scale is more likely to lead to faster and better decision-making. Modes of expert engagement can be accommodated at all stages of ideation, discussion, formulation and assessment as opposed to limiting public participation to consultation on pre-formulated drafts of ‘professional policy-makers’ in government departments. This would also lead to redefinition of ‘the public service and the public servant as the steward of such a conversation’. The challenges with this type of engagement and potential strategies to overcome them are also covered widely.
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Those with technology and ‘hard’ sciences backgrounds would hugely benefit from a comprehensive understanding of government and policy domains in order to set new research agendas with significant potential for wider impact. At the other end of the spectrum, those with politics and social science backgrounds would find it very helpful for understanding the current technologies of expertise and the new trends in public decision-making, offering great promise for transforming the ways that governments should operate under the ongoing data revolution.

 [Edit: fixed typo.]

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Christopher Jencks discusses why the U.S.' poor are only getting poorer (in part due to the misapprehension that social programs aren't available) in reviewing Kathryn Edin and Luke Shaefer's $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America:

In $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America, Kathryn Edin and Luke Shaefer argue that what they call “extreme” poverty roughly doubled between 1996 and 2012. If they are right—and I think they are—the reader might wonder how I can still claim that poor families’ living standards have risen. The answer is that inequality has risen even among the poor. Half of today’s officially poor families are doing better than those we counted as poor in the 1960s, but as I learned from reading $2.00 a Day (and have spent many hours verifying), the poorest of the poor are also worse off today than they were in 1969. $2.00 a Day is a vivid account of how such families live. It also makes a strong case for blaming their misery on deliberate political choices at both the federal and state levels.
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(I)n Illinois, as in most other states, TANF’s primary goal is not to protect children whose parents cannot find work by ensuring that their family has shelter, heat, light, food, and shoes, but to cut program costs by reducing the number of recipients. (California, which now accounts for a third of all TANF recipients, is a partial exception to this rule.)

State efforts to cut the TANF rolls have been quite effective. The overall unemployment rate, which is a fairly good proxy for how hard it is to find work, was almost twice as high in 2009 as in 1996. Yet the number of families getting TANF in 2009 was less than half the number getting AFDC in 1996. Edin and Shaefer write about meeting poor parents who said they didn’t know anyone who got TANF. Some parents thought welfare had been abolished, or that it was no longer accepting new applicants. This grim story deserves more attention than it has gotten, and Edin and Shaefer deserve a lot of credit for emphasizing it.

- Matt McGrath notes that renewable energy production is reaching unprecedented levels around the globe.

- Samantha Page writes that the battle between people and corporations over access to water resources is just beginning - in large part because we have yet to appreciate the threat from businesses seeking to wall off and take rents from our public resources.

- Ian Young reports on Jens von Bergmann's modeling showing that the city of Vancouver as a whole made more money simply sitting on real estate assets than by actually working over the past year.

- Finally, Michael Geist points out that we're still lacking desperately-needed information about how telecom providers turn personal information over to police. And Colin Freeze reports on CSEC's concealed history of disclosing massive amounts of information about telephone and Internet use with international counterparts.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- James Wilt discusses a much-needed effort to map out the connections between fossil fuel corporations. And Bruce Campbell highlights how the resource sector is among the most prominent examples of regulatory capture in Canada.

- Meanwhile, Steven Chase notes that even as Stephane Dion tries to excuse the sale of arms to human rights abusers, Sweden is making a principled shift away from relying on inevitable human suffering as a profit centre.

- Michael Geist takes a look at the costs the Trans-Pacific Partnership figures to impose on Canada's economy - and the refusal of the deal's corporate backers to recognize that they exist.

- Dylan Matthews examines the impact of public tax records in ensuring improved pay equality and revenue collection. 

- John Anderson makes the case for postal banking to improve both our existing public services, and the availability of financial services for people who need them.

- Finally, Matt Gurney writes that the Trudeau Libs are indistinguishable from the Harper Cons in their total contempt for any opposition. And Chantal Hebert discusses how Trudeau's combination of figurative and literal strongarming of Parliament seems to have backfired.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Susan Delacourt writes that the Libs' federal budget is best seen as requiring an overriding "to be continued". And Don Martin flags a few points which may prove important later - including what might be an unexplained delay of any electoral reform.

- Meanwhile, Teuila Fuatai highlights how the budget falls short in terms of promised and expected improvements for Canadian workers. And Alison Crawford exposes apparent plans to outsource nearly half of Shared Services Canada's non-security work.

- Chantal Hebert points out that the overriding problem with the fiscal framework set up by the Cons - being heavy reliance on resource prices and other volatile sources of revenue rather than a more stable, more fair tax system - doesn't look to be changing at all.

- And Ian Young highlights a glaring example of how catering to high-wealth individuals has done nothing to serve the public good, as millionaires provided with easy immigration access are paying an average of a mere $1,400 apiece in Canadian income tax while having little economic impact other than to make housing less affordable for everybody else.

- Finally, Michael Geist rightly points out that a public consultation on the Trans-Pacific Partnership may be meaningless if the Libs aren't willing to walk away from the deal, as there's little reason to think the same actors who insisted on tilting the playing field against the public in the first place will be receptive to any changes or flexibility in interpretation.