On value assessments

The Great Budget Debate at the Progress Summit of course reflected a thorough clash in values. But there was one note of obvious agreement which makes the conservative position untenable once its implications are drawn out.

All four speakers spent plenty of time talking about the fact that some investments are worthwhile, and acknowledging that the role of government includes assessing which ones justify the use of public money. But Monte Solberg in particular neatly demonstrated how anti-government bias undermines any attempt to carry out that task.

Solberg spent plenty of time on the Cons' usual jurisdictional dodges, arguing at various points that the federal government should step aside in favour of provinces, individuals and businesses as alternate decision-makers. But the claim that the federal government should carry a strong bias toward that course of action is flawed in two key ways.

There are plenty of areas where the federal government does in fact have direct jurisdiction: as long as one recognizes e.g. the importance of First Nations health and education (being some of the areas with the most obvious potential for investment to make a massive difference in outcomes) which have been grossly underfunded due solely to the choice of the federal government. And there's also the reality that economies of scale and collective planning can produce better outcomes than atomized and unfocused spending which provinces and municipalities are happy to facilitate.

That said, it's absolutely necessary to evaluate program effectiveness. But Solberg and Philip Cross both went far out of their way emphasizing their disdain for the civil service which needs to be able to carry out the cost/benefit analysis required to direct spending where it can best serve public purposes.

In sum, one can't plausibly claim to acknowledge the value of focused and efficient spending while rejecting the process needed to provide exactly that on specious ideological and jurisdictional grounds. And the right's failure to reconcile those principles - both in the Progress Summit debate and elsewhere - offers a compelling reason not to consider it credible when it comes to economic planning.

Monday Morning Links

This and that for your Labour Day reading.

- Jared Bernstein writes about the fight for fair wages in the U.S. fast food and retail industries. And Karen McVeigh notes that political decision-makers are starting to try to get in front of the parade of workers seeking a reasonable standard of living:

Organisers said the strikes, scheduled a day after the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and a few days before Labor Day, were being held in 60 cities and had spread to the south – including Tampa and Raleigh – and the west, with workers in Los Angeles and San Francisco taking part.

In New York, the Democratic mayoral hopeful Christine Quinn took part in a march with several hundred workers and protesters before entering a McDonald's near the Empire State Building on Thursday morning.
...
The US labour secretary, Thomas Perez, said the strikes showed the need to raise the minimum wage. Perez told the Associated Press that for too many people, "the rungs on the ladder of opportunity are feeling further and further apart."

- But there's always room for the labour movement itself to work on being more responsive to the needs of rank-and-file members and marginalized workers - as both Glenn Wheeler and Kev point out.

- Meanwhile, pogge notes that there's still a stark gap in Ontario between perpetually-expanding profits for the banksters, and austerity being imposed on the poor. Joseph Stiglitz observes the risk that Australia may abandon a highly successful stimulus program to follow the same path of austerity that's led to so much misery elsewhere around the globe. And Mark Taliano reminds us that the Trans-Pacific Partnership represents just another effort by the Cons to shift decision-making power away from citizens and toward the corporate sector.

- Justin McCurry reports that the Fukushima nuclear power plant is emitting 18 times as much radiation as previously claimed - and that nobody seems to be able to figure out why. And Mike de Souza highlights a similar lack of risk management and regulation in dealing with the ongoing Cold Lake oil spill.

- Finally, Erin Weir draws a needed distinction between social insurance which protects everybody's interests and self-insurance which protects only those who can afford it - and finds former Con cabinet minister Monte Solberg trying to push us toward the latter model.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Shawn McCarthy discusses the Cons' latest plan to sell Keystone XL to the U.S. - which involves hoping that the best-resourced government on the planet will be suckered into accepting a transparently false pretense that the Cons have the slightest interest in addressing climate change. And Harper cabinet appointee Monte Solberg offers a window into the Cons' environmental mindset, trying to make a case against "thinking globally" on the basis that there are easier votes to be won by focusing on small vacation areas while shredding the rest of the planet.

- The Cons' latest Senate abuses have provoked plenty of discussion as to how in the world we can justify spending hundreds of millions of dollars on an unaccountable set of patronage appointees. Among those calling for (or at least musing about) abolition are Diane Francis, Paul Sullivan and Geoffrey Stevens. Kai Nagata recognizes that we should see Patrick Brazeau as entirely emblematic of the Cons - rather than accepting their spin that it's just bad luck that he's following in so many disgraced footsteps. Murray Dobbin compares Brazeau's abuse of privilege to the genuine movement for change behind Idle No More. Stephen Kimber contrasts Mike Duffy's one-time journalist persona against his current diminished state, while Dan Leger wonders whether Duffy has officially joined Brazeau in being cut loose by the Cons.

But the definitive word goes to Sixth Estate in discussing Duffy:

(W)e’re no longer talking about an issue of merely failing to uphold a few technical rules. We’re talking about fraud here.

The only question is: fraud against whom? Against Ontario taxpayers, for using an Ontario health card when he is really a primary resident of PEI, or against federal taxpayers, for collecting expense fees for his PEI cottage when he is really a primary resident of Ontario?

Either way, I guess we now know why right-wingers are so paranoid that lazy, self-interested gits are ripping off the welfare system. That’s what they think is going on, because it’s exactly what they do when given the opportunity.

- Digby compares the "donor class" of Americans who fund political parties to the wider citizenry - and finds that the U.S. government (like its UK equivalent) is paying far more attention to the frivolous deficit obsession of the former than the job and income security concerns of the latter.

- pogge rightly highlights the Cons' strict party control over private members' bills. But I'll add that the vetting of what's supposed to be the prerogative of individual MPs is far from new, as Garth Turner raised exactly the same concern after he was booted out of the Cons' caucus.

- Finally, CBC reports on the Cons' willingness to fund an anti-gay organization to work in Uganda (home of some of the most obvious homophobic policies on the planet). And Dennis Gruending compares the treatment of Crossroads Christian Communications to that of other groups such as KAIROS and Development and Peace who were de-funded for failing to share the Cons' values.

On destructive choices

Jan and Scott have already highlighted Monte Solberg's column bashing Employment Insurance as a "government mandated pyramid scheme".

But the discussion so far seems to have missed the most important point, as Solberg is no ordinary Con MP or cabinet minister. Instead, Solberg was precisely the Con chosen by Stephen Harper to be responsible for Employment Insurance in his role as the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development. In that role, he both oversaw the process of putting a new board in charge of the EI's funding, and administered dozens of EI projects - all within what he apparently considered to be nothing more than a "pyramid scheme". Which seems to me to make for a strong statement on both Solberg's dedication to principle, and Harper's interest in having EI and other social measures run effectively.

And in case anybody wanted to theorize that Solberg's column might just be a one-off lapse in judgment, here's what else he had to say on the topic of EI recently:

I’ll go even further than that. Make me emperor for a day and Employment Insurance in it’s (sic) present soul destroying and hideous form would be violently and ironically tossed from the Peace Tower and smashed to bits on the steps below. I would then gather up the pieces, set them on fire in a way that would cause a large carbon footprint, and then toss the remains into into an improperly lined landfill site.

Which may well make for the most apt description yet of how the Cons have treated federal infrastructure in general since they took power. But the fact that Harper happily put EI and other programs in the hands of a minister with such a destructive outlook surely serves as an indication that it's long past time for a federal government which isn't so focused on the prospect of trashing Ottawa.

(Edit: fixed link.)

When in doubt, make it up

The CP's report on funding for social development offers another prime example of the Cons simply making up self-aggrandizing claims without any idea whether or not they're true. And this time, the offender is one of the few cabinet ministers who was once considered a relatively candid source of information in a time before the Cons took power:

Social Development Minister Monte Solberg says Ottawa is doing its share to address homelessness, despite claims by anti-poverty activists that more and more people are living on the streets while affordable housing disappears...

Solberg reiterated a claim that his Conservative government is spending more money on affordable housing than any government in Canadian history, but the Social Development department couldn’t provide data comparing spending with previous governments.

Of course, the "more money than ever before" is itself essentially meaningless given that the cost of accomplishing any particular task will itself have generally risen due to inflation. But in Solberg's case, even that facade isn't apparently backed up by the minimal amount of research required to assess its accuracy.

Meanwhile, let's not forget that while the Cons fabricate trivialities, the housing issue like so many others has real-world consequences for a large number of Canadians:

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities called earlier this year for a national, 10-year strategy to eliminate homelessness.

The federation estimated such a strategy would cost $3.35 billion a year, shared by all levels of government.

A federal program, called the Homelessness Partnering Strategy, is providing $270 million over two years, ending next March.

In B.C., a Simon Fraser University report released earlier this year pegged the provincewide homeless population at 12,000 — compared with less than 8,000 shelter beds.

And another count of Greater Vancouver’s homeless population by volunteers in the spring found nearly 2,600 homeless people — a 19 per cent increase over 2003 figures.

That count was conducted by the Greater Vancouver Regional Steering Committee on Homelessness, a group that represents dozens of agencies in the Lower Mainland and makes funding recommendations for the federal spending.

The group’s co-chair, Alice Sundberg, told Wednesday’s news conference that it received requests for more than $39 million to fund local projects, but could only hand out $12 million in federal money.

And Solberg's response to that need?

"We’re doing a lot in terms of providing resources, but I think there’s more that needs to be done. Part of the answer is expanding the number of partners," such as businesses and donations from the public.

That's right: while trying to trumpet his government's self-professed generosity (without any factual basis for doing so), Solberg is also actively trying to reduce its role in addressing housing issues. And that combination should make it clear just how little interest the Cons have in actually addressing the housing issues that have already worsened on their watch.

On pressure points

The news that Con Human Resources Minister Monte Solberg encouraged opposition criticism in order to push for change in his own department's summer jobs policy has received some attention already. But it's worth noting what Solberg's action - as well as the success it achieved - says about the way the Cons' government is run.

After all, there's no indication that the program would ever have been changed based on discussion within the Cons' caucus or cabinet - no matter how strong the reasons for change, or how (relatively) well-respected the minister concerned about the program's structure. Indeed, it doesn't look like Solberg himself - despite his title as a cabinet minister - had any ability to alter the policy without approval which could only be secured with the opposition's help.

As a result, it took a public flogging to force Harper to apparently acknowledge the "mess" and allow for any change. Which would tend to reinforce the conclusion that the Cons have such an extreme top-down structure that no Con MP other than Harper himself can credibly claim any ability to influence government decisions.

At the same time, the eventual success of the pressure should also highlight another lesson for the opposition (and indeed any Cons who haven't yet undergone a Harper-ordered lobotomy): no initial position from the Cons is ever final if it's followed by a sustained and organized outcry. And while the opposition should be wary about allowing Con MPs to decide where to use such a strategy, the summer jobs backtrack offers hope that the worst the Cons have offered so far can eventually be reversed...as long as the opposition parties can avoid getting distracted.

Update: Coincidentally (I presume), this story came out on the same day as word of Solberg's actions:

Though there is no doubt who makes the final decisions, a senior staffer says the prime minister is open to persuasion by ministers who know their file.

"He's willing to be swayed," a staffer says, though ministers had better be prepared because Mr. Harper is apt to shoot holes in weak arguments.

Of course, the quote falls into the "self-serving comment by anonymous source" category - making it even less credible than a direct partisan claim would have been.

That said, it's worth wondering how Solberg's actions would relate to the claim that Deceivin' Stephen is entirely willing to be persuaded by his cabinet ministers. Were the opposition's arguments better than Solberg's? Is Solberg considered a minister who doesn't know his file? And if not, then who is (as some presumably must be for there to be any basis for distinction)?

Careless

In case there was any risk of the Cons' "child-care funding" to the provinces actually producing demonstrable results, Monte Solberg makes it absolutely clear that the Cons don't have the attention span or interest in the subject to bother following up on how the money is spent:

The federal Conservative government has little appetite for imposing strict rules on how provinces and territories spend the $250-million it will transfer to them this fiscal year to create up to 25,000 promised child-care spaces, according to the minister responsible for the file.

Human Resources Minister Monte Solberg also says unlike the nascent child-care plan of the former Liberal government, the Conservative government will not establish national child-care standards...

Solberg said he has put his provincial-and-territorial counterparts "on notice" the federal government expects them to use their share of the $250-million to build on their child-care systems...

Solberg also said he expects the public in each province and territory to play the key role of holding their respective governments' feet to the fire on how the money is spent.

The money for spaces is less than one-third of what the former Liberal government had promised over the next few years to help finance a national system of early learning and child care. Under the plan, which the Conservatives cancelled, money was supposed to flow only to centres providing quality spaces at affordable prices that also offered an educational component.

Unfortunately, it's probably not too likely that the Bloc would go along with the possibility that the Cons' funding for this year can be directed into a statutory framework to actually produce demonstrable results. Which means that there may not be much more we can do for now than to point out the Cons' irresponsibility.

But that's still deserving of some serious attention. After all, it's a downright remarkable announcement to declare that the criteria of "quality", "affordable" and "education" are apparently judged by the Cons as far too restrictive. (I for one would be very interested in finding out which regions of the country the Cons see as not wanting to bother with those outcomes for their children - but it remains to be seen whether Solberg will be called on the statement.)

Ultimately, Solberg's announcement offers yet another example of the Cons spending only for the sake of spending - without enough interest to follow up on where the money goes. Which only goes to show just how little commitment the Cons have both to the programs which they're nominally funding, and to the accountability which they once claimed to value.