Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Thomas Zimmer sorts through the significance of a particularly arbitrary week from the Trump regime. Lauren Gambino reports on an assessment by former U.S. national security officials documenting the country's slide into authoritarianism. Will Bunch discusses the common through line of enforced conformity in the Trump administration's systematic dehumanization and abuse of out-groups. And Edward Luce writes about the cowardice of the wealthy and powerful who have chosen to bend the knee to a mad king. 

- Meanwhile, Harold Meyerson discusses a California ballot initiative to apply a wealth tax in order to fund health care - allowing for direct public choice as to whether people actually prioritize billionaires' offshore accounts over their own lives. 

- Joe Wilkins warns that Sam Altman has joined the list of capricious billionaires who has positioned himself to be able to crash the global economy. And Dan Gearino and Charles Paulin report on the citizen-driven effort to stop shoveling public money into resource-sucking data centres in Virginia. 

- Finally, Saima Desai points out how Doug Ford's attacks on cyclists and clean transportation fit into a corporatist mindset. And Shawn Micallef writes that any Ontario municipal leader interested in being able to serve their constituents should be planning to run against Ford's interference. 

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Amy Westervelt and Kyle Pope call out five of the most insidious fossil fuel propaganda messages. Fiona Harvey reports on Todd Stern's rightful observation that the continued pushing of fossil fuels in the name of "grownup" decision-making in fact represents a catastrophic failure of leadership. And Johannes Stangl points out that a concerted focus on removing the lowest-value carbon pollution could slash emissions by 20% with minimal economic impact. 

- Meanwhile, in case anybody wanted to pretend that the carbon-fueled status quo was somehow defensible as a means of improving the lot of developing countries, Andrea Shalai reports on the World Bank's warning that inequality between the richest and poorest countries is worsening as development stagnates at the lower end of the spectrum. 

- Jimmy Thomson discusses how Yellowknife, Fort McMurray and other communities hit with calamitous wildfires are bracing for their next emergencies. Crawford Kilian writes about the RCMP's concealed recognition of the stormy future in store for Canada. And Eric Shragge and Jason Prince write that municipalities could be the engines to tackle the most important crises we face - though of course right-wing provincial governments are doing everything in their power to prevent anybody else from filling their own leadership vacuums.  

- Finally, Andre Mayer writes that one of the main obstacles to housing affordability is the choice to financialize real estate. And John Dorman points out that nobody is well served by a situation in which some people feel obliged to stay in larger houses than they need for want of practical alternatives, while others are unable to find houses of exactly that size for their families. 

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- The Canadian Press reports on the overwhelming public support for vaccine mandates and other public health rules - as well as the supermajorities recognizing that Jason Kenney and Scott Moe have failed their provinces:

Unsurprisingly given their provinces' struggles with the fourth wave of the pandemic, Kenney and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe ranked the lowest among provincial first ministers for their handling of the health crisis.

Fully 80 per cent of Alberta respondents said they were very or somewhat dissatisfied with Kenney's performance, and 74 per cent of Saskatchewan respondents felt the same about Moe.

- The Associated Press reports on the widespread shortages caused by the UK's ill-advised fixation on Brexit. And Matt Stoller writes about the U.S.' own supply chain failings, while noting that the issue goes far beyond COVID.

- Jeremy Appel offers a reminder as to how Canada lost its domestic vaccine supply to privatization and acquiescence in the business model of big pharma. 

- John Michael McGrath discusses how to empower municipalities now that the Supreme Court has confirmed that there's no Charter-protected right to meaningful elections at their level. And Henry Grabar writes about Paris' success reclaiming public spaces for people rather than cars. 

- Finally, Jeff Keele reports on how seniors with low incomes are being affected by the Libs' failure to account for their circumstances in designing the CERB. 

#Elxn44 Roundup

News and notes from Canada's federal election campaign.

- Cam Fenton discusses how "strategic" votes for the Libs in the name of climate change figure to be anything but, while David Gray-Donald bluntly describes the Libs' offering as "denialist trash". Maya Menezes examines what we should be looking for in a climate platform, while Simon Donner discusses the need for any climate policy to fit with long-term goals. And Ben Simoni and Melissa Lavery discuss how Canada (and indeed the world) would benefit from a youth climate corps.

- Robert Hiltz writes that Erin O'Toole's mask has come off in the course of the election campaign, while Paul Willcocks discusses how O'Toole has campaigned as a trickster for lack of any ability to appeal to both his party's base and any expanded voter universe. Marieke Walsh reports on the refusal of the vast majority of Con candidates to say whether they've been vaccinated in the midst of a pandemic. And PressProgress exposes Con candidate Les Jickling's support for making health care about profit rather than patient needs. 

- Morna Ballantyne highlights how the Cons' tax baubles can't be equated with a plan to actually make child care available. And Paul Dechene similarly notes that the Cons plan to starve municipalities of desperately-needed infrastructure funding.

- On that front, Natasha Bulowski reports on the priority placed on housing by Canada's municipalities. And Erica Ifill discusses how the Libs' housing schemes have been gimmicky political diversions rather than effective plans to ensure people have the homes they need.

- Finally, Charlie Smith writes about the Robin Hood themes being presented by Jagmeet Singh in contrasting the NDP against the protectors of the wealthy.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Kate Aronoff writes about the need for a functional and representative democracy to ensure that public demand for climate action is actually represented in policy decisions. And Seth Klein rightly proposes that the NDP (or Bloc) should take the opportunity in a minority Parliament to push the Libs to add some far stronger and earlier action to their insufficient climate accountability bill.

- Meanwhile, Avery Shannon and Naia Lee note that Vancouver offers a model for other municipalities to follow at the municipal level.

- Veronica Penney reports on new data showing that electric vehicles may already have reached the point of being less expensive than combustion models even without accounting for the environmental damage caused by fossil fuels. 

- Reuters reports that even the IMF is now urging countries to increase spending in the midst of a pandemic which is suppressing economic activity - even as our tired right-wing politicians continue to demand that we sacrifice lives on the altar of deficit reductions.

- Finally, Monia Mazigh writes that as long as Canadian governments seek to maintain a "terrorist" designation as a basis for legal distinctions, we should push for it to be applied to the Proud Boys and other purveyors of right-wing violent extremism. And Amira Elghawaby argues that people opposing the white supremacism of Trumpists on both sides of the border should have no hesitation taking up the title of "anti-fascist".

On first steps

Hey look, some positive election results! Congratulations to everybody who ran in Regina's municipal elections (and in those around the province) - and particularly the progressive electees who will have the chance to shape policy for the next four year.

But while it's a relief to have representatives in place who can be trusted to make the right decisions on the matters placed before them, I hope they'll take the opportunity to go beyond that and instead work on developing more participatory processes for budgeting and policy-making.

That's so for a couple of reasons.

First, municipal governments and school boards are creatures of provincial legislation. And the Sask Party - like its cousin governments elsewhere - has never been shy about stripping away any power which might be used to support local decision-making which isn't fully in line with its plans.

There's no away around the theoretical risk of the province meddling. But it will be possible to impose a much higher price for any interference if more people are invested in what's at issue.

Second, a large number of Regina's races were won with small pluralities or narrow majorities. In the former case, there's an obvious need to build support just to be able to withstand a reduced number of candidates in 2024; in both cases, it's worth reinforcing the trust constituents have offered, lest any failure to engage be seen as reason for them to vote differently next time out.

In sum, I'm very much looking forward to seeing what this term will hold for Regina. But ideally, we'll look back at last night as only the first step in a long-lasting change toward people-centred governance.

On local decisions

I haven't paid a lot of attention yet to Saskatchewan's municipal elections, due primarily to the reality that anything which happens at that level can be undone by a provincial governments which considers itself entitled to override the will of municipalities. (And sadly, there's little indication that respect for other levels of government is going to find its way into the Sask Party's plans anytime soon.)

But I'll start now by pointing out Paul Dechene's summary of the state of the races in Regina, as well as an exceptionally strong set of candidates endorsed by the Regina & District Labour Council. Because while our local officials may not be able to override the provincial government, it would certainly be nice to avoid having a mayor and council desperate to defund transit and housing in order to build a downtown Quidditch stadium.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Rochelle Baker interviews David Suzuki about the lessons from the coronavirus pandemic which we should apply equally to the threat of a climate breakdown. And Mike Layton writes that we need a Green New Deal as our recovery program once the pause on physical interaction has passed.

- Meanwhile, Joe Cressy points out how cities need support to recover from a crisis which has dramatically undercut their revenues without affecting their provincially-imposed obligation to balance budgets.

- Richard Warnica discusses how confined residences including care homes, prisons and shelters have become the most dangerous transmission points for COVID-19 in Canada. And Michael Enright interviews Pat Armstrong about a long-term care system which has been set up to prioritize operator profit over the health of residents.

- Jo Snyder writes about the quarantine privilege which divides people between those who can engage in meaningful physical distancing and those whose work and life circumstances make it impossible to do so. Robert Reich makes a similar point while breaking down the latter group into the "essential", the "unpaid" and the "forgotten". And Kara Voght examines how the the U.S.' coronavirus relief package is designed to perpetuate existing inequalities and exclusions.

- Lisa Graves points out that the already-paltry "reopen" events are almost entirely the result of right-wing astroturfing. And Colin Horgan notes that there isn't a reality-based argument to ignore or facilitate the spread of a pandemic. 

- Finally, Branko Milanovic writes that Donald Trump represents the end point of neoliberal ideology as a boss who doesn't hesitate to dismiss the lives and safety of the people he perceives as his servants.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Mark Rowlinson points out how the obvious frailty of our current supply chains highlights the need to develop Canadian manufacturing. And Amanda Follett Hosgood notes the importance of localized food production in particular.

- Bill McKibben calls out the oil industry's attempts to use COVID-19 as an excuse to push through pipeline construction, while Mia Rabson exposes its intensive lobbying to undermine any action on climate change or environmental protection.

- Meanwhile, Rhiana Gunn-Wright offers a reminder that the climate change crisis is no less severe in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. And Brian Kahn reports that the group which worked on Jay Inslee's climate plan has developed a roadmap to ensure that the coronavirus recovery results in a just transition toward cleaner energy.

- Bruce Anderson discusses how the effort to achieve physical distancing has ultimately brought people closer together in a common mission. And the Globe and Mail's editorial board recognizes that the social cohesion needed to overcome the coronavirus shouldn't be used as an excuse for governments to claim extraordinary and unaccountable powers.

- Marc Lee argues that the higher levels of government need to provide immediate supports to local governments and regional authorities which were struggling under the weight of downloaded responsibilities and slashed funding even before the pandemic. 

- Finally, Simon Kuper writes about Thomas Piketty's call for wealth taxes to rectify gross inequality - a cause which is only becoming more important as the world's wealthiest few rake in billions of dollars more while the rest of the world is locked down.

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Dan Gardner writes that the COVID-19 pandemic is exactly the type of rare but severe event which should be the subject of thorough public preparation. And Eric Neudorf explains why so many governments failed to appreciate and act on the severity of the coronavirus even after its dangers were publicly known.

- Adam Almeida notes that Canada's universal public health care has allowed us to fare far better than other countries who rely on private providers. But Kara Grace Hounsell, Marcella Jones, Melanie Spence, Nisha Kansal and Thrmiga Sathiyamoorthy write that COVID-19 also the need to fight to fill in the gaps in Canada's system.

- Robert Green writes about privatization as a pre-existing condition which has created intolerable dangers for people in long-term care. Bruce Arthur points out how COVID-19 was positioned to exploit our current nursing home structure, while Jonathon Gatehouse reminds us that there have been plenty of warnings which have gone unaddressed (or indeed been met with deregulation and declining standards). Andre Picard calls out the ageism involved in the appalling willingness of operators - and a growing number of right-wing politicians - to sacrifice the lives of older residents. And David Climenhaga discusses the need for improved pay and working conditions for long-term care workers both during and after the pandemic, while Scott Gilmore makes a similar case for all of the essential workers risking their own health to keep us supplied with necessities. 

- Jim Stanford discusses how the Bank of Canada could offer far more effective quantitative easing by investing directly in government bonds, rather than relying on bank-shot secondary funding through private financiers to produce desirable public outcomes. And Frances Bula highlights the difficulties faced by municipalities confronted simultaneously with reduced tax revenue and provincially-imposed obligations to balance their budgets.

- Finally, David Dayen points out that the U.S. is allowing banks to seize relief funding to individuals, meaning that the already-meager assistance on offer might never make it to recipients. And Ricardo Tranjan studies how payday lenders are positioned to exploit the dire straits facing Canadian workers to pad their profits. 

On antisocialism

Plenty of attention is rightly getting paid to the unabashed evil that is the Republicans' insistence on holding previously-scheduled elections at a time when it was certain to make. But how much worse is it then for a politician to actually treat the spread of COVID-19 as an excuse to precipitate an election which wouldn't otherwise have occurred?

And similarly, Republican governors have been called out for overriding public health measures taken by local authorities. But how much worse is it to stifle municipal steps to protect against the spread of COVID-19 in the name of consistency, while simultaneously complaining about the prospect of the federal government setting stronger common standards at the national level?

Fortunately, Saskatchewan's people have thus far been responsible enough to go a long way toward limiting the spread of the coronavirus - and Moe has eventually given in on most of his worst decisions (though it's worth noting that the effective ban on stronger municipal measures remains in place).

But Moe has demonstrated that his and most powerful instinct is toward exactly the kind of antisocial choices which have resulted in no end of rightful criticism for his Republican counterparts. And it's well past time for more of Saskatchewan's media to start holding him to the same level of scrutiny they've faced.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Jeff Spross calls out the absurdity of gutting protections for health and safety in the name of "regulatory certainty" - particularly when that really only means businesses know they can get away with as much damage on the public as they can inflict.

- Alice O'Keeffe writes about the importance of child care to set children and families up with opportunities to succeed. And CBC News reports on Don Davies' bill to finally introduce a national school nutrition program.

- Hilary Agro makes the case for drug legalization to avoid maximizing the harm from drug use.

-  Ellen Barry writes about the growing number of municipalities looking at free transit as a means of building a safer, more affordable and more environmentally friendly city. And Jolson Lim points out that Canadian mayors are pushing for dedicated transit funding as part of the federal budget.

- Finally, Paul Krugman offers a reminder of the Republicans' hypocrisy over deficits - which of course applies equally in Canada as right-wing governments gut public services to only partially paper over the holes they've created in budgets with reckless giveaways to the corporate sector. 

New column day

Here, on the Saskatchewan Party's continued disregard for municipalities and other localized forms of governance - not to mention good government in general.

For further reading...
- Cory Coleman reports on the unanimous vote of Regina's City Council to stop corporate intrusion into Wascana Park.
- The Star-Phoenix and Leader-Post editorial boards criticized the Saskatchewan Party government's musings about moving municipal elections to suit Scott Moe's political schedule.
- Finally, D.C. Fraser reports on yet another combination of meddling and anti-accountability measures, as the employees who served as the public face of the province's attacks on the Justice for Our Stolen Children camp have been shuffled elsewhere.

[Edit: updated link.]

Leadership 2017 Platform Analysis - Charlie Angus

While most discussion around the NDP's leadership campaign has revolved around the ebb and flow of news cycles, it's always worth a closer look as to what the candidates see as worth highlighting. So I'll be taking a look at the policies on offer from the candidates, starting with Charlie Angus.

While Angus has been vague on some points in the leadership debates, he's offered interesting and distinctive proposals in a few others, including:
- the devolution of Indigenous program delivery to the community level, accompanied by a plan to dismantle the INAC structure which currently oversees it;
- a housing plan which would use existing CMHC surpluses to provide for a right to housing, both through social housing and through credits toward the cost of other forms of construction; and
- a push toward cooperative economic development, including giving workers the legal right of first refusal over a closing business.

Aside from those points, there isn't much in Angus' platform which isn't broadly reflected in the plans of his challengers. And more problematically, Angus' platform leaves more questions than answers both in some of what it promises, and particularly what it omits.

On climate change, Angus' lack of clarity on pipelines is matched by the absence of any specific targets (or plans to meet them). And in a policy area where the supply of ideas and promises has long exceeded the political will to act, the proposal of a national advisory council leaves a worrisome amount of room for further delay. 

Meanwhile, Angus' urban agenda seems to utterly miss the jurisdictional basis of municipal operations, proposing the creation of "neighbourhood corporations" and altered municipal governance models which make no mention of the provincial role in establishing and governing municipalities.

And Angus lacks specific plans in areas ranging from justice and ethics to health care and child care (though pharmacare does show up as a subpoint in his "working class" policy).

At best, those omissions might be explained by Angus' plan for membership-driven policy development. But that too represents a lot more deflection than detail.

As a result, Angus more than any other candidate has left NDP members with little more than a "trust me" when it comes to policy. And while a series of high-profile endorsements coupled with a career's worth of activism and advocacy offers some basis to do so, I'd be much more comfortable if Angus had provided a more clear indication was to which policies he'd pursue if given the chance.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Richard Nisbett comments on the situational determinants of behaviour which are far too often mistaken for merit or accomplishment. Libby Kane points out how increasing inequality and the predictable social segregation which follows makes it harder for the lucky few to see the deprivation that develops around them. And Peter Georgescu makes the case for the corporate elite to work on fighting inequality in its own interest.

- Meanwhile, David Kirp rightly notes that the best way to provide support to people living in poverty is to ask what they need, rather than scolding them or imposing one-size-fits-all decrees from on high. And Solomon Greene and Marjory Austin Turner observe that in housing in particular, there's a desperate need for more choices which may include a combination of direct investment in improving high-poverty neighbourhoods, and encouraging housing mobility.

- Susanna Kelley exposes the extreme measures the Cons are taking to harass journalists who dare to try to cover their campaign, including requiring searches by RCMP dogs. And Elizabeth Thompson writes that the Cons are trying to gag every single person who makes it through their process of exclusion to attend one of Stephen Harper's events.

- David Climenhaga discusses the dangers of the Cons' all-bluster, no-sense foreign policy. And Christopher Hume calls out the Cons' neglect of Canada's cities.

- Finally, John Robson offers an example of a small-C conservative who has reached the point of being unable to put up with the Harper Cons any longer. And Lana Payne describes how Stephen Harper's legacy will look to those of us who value a functional democracy.

[Edit: fixed typo, wording.]

New column day

Here, reminding us that it's our communities who ultimately pay the price for the poorly-thought-out election announcements from senior levels of government that we've seen so frequently recently.

For further reading...
- CTV reported on last week's Evraz Place expansion announcement, while the Leader-Post offered an all-too-obvious example of cheerleading for a shiny new project while paying no attention to the opportunity costs involved.
- Meanwhile, the Saskatchewan Party's regular announcements and re-announcements of what proved to be an ill-thought-out scheme for new school construction have lasted from last July to last November to just last month.
- And finally, CBC reported on City Council's hasty revision to the plan foisted on it by the province, while Shawn Fraser offered his take on the school debacle.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- 24 Hours offers a debate as to whether or not we should pursue a basic income - though it's striking that the "con" case is based almost entirely on a message that a secure income for everybody can't be achieved, rather than any argument that it shouldn't.

- Gabriel Bristow writes about the next battle against austerity, this time arising out of general strikes in Belgium. And Tara Ehrcke muses about what a Canadian equivalent to Syriza could pursue by way of people-friendly policies, while Trish Hennessy looks at the middle-class economics which will likely define our next election campaign.

- Carol Goar examines Mariana Mazzucato's argument that we should value entrepreneurial government:

It takes government-led goal-setting backed up with public funds — Mazzucato calls this mission-based investment — to generate transformative knowledge, spawn technical breakthroughs and improve the economic outlook for everyone, including those at the bottom of the income pyramid. She identified a few such missions.

“I think the green challenge is so overwhelming that it could be a game-changer,” she said. But there are other strong candidates. “Who is thinking about adapting to an aging population? Who is reimaging the labour-intensive personal-care sector?”

The first imperative, Mazzucato acknowledged, is changing public opinion. She is making an all-out effort to debunk the myths underlying the private-sector-good/public-sector-bad mindset...

It is not the specific that interests Mazzucato; it is the idea that governments can pull together multi-talented teams of problem-solvers, spur innovation, marry science and industry and trigger waves of economic growth.

“We have a cartoonish image of the state as a dinosaur,” she says. “In fact, in countries that owe their growth to innovation, it is a key partner of the private sector — and often a more daring one.”

- And Kaylie Tiessen notes that constant corporate tax cuts - whether aimed at big or small businesses - haven't produced any of the promised gains.

- Eve-Lynn Couturier proposes some ways to make municipal revenue more secure. But unfortunately, Brad Wall is headed in the opposite direction, forcing Saskatchewan municipalities to budget based on revenues which he's threatening to withdraw in order to deflect from his government's mismanagement at the provincial level.

- Finally, Derrick O'Keefe describes how the Harper Cons plan to rely on terrorist hysteria as their core message in the lead up to the federal election campaign.

Saturday Morning Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- Geoff Stiles writes that instead of providing massive subsidies to dirty energy industries which don't need them (and which will only have more incentive to cause environmental damage as a result), we should be investing in a sustainable renewable energy plan:

(W)hereas countries such as Norway have gradually reduced...subsidies as their oil industry matured, at the same time maintaining one of the highest royalty rates in the world, Canada has allowed its subsidies to remain at a relatively high level while many provinces have actually decreased royalties on oil company profits.

There is a clear need to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies. But this is only the first step. A second step is to develop comparable subsidies and incentive programs for renewable energy and energy efficiency, to stimulate development of innovative green technologies.
...
There are relatively few examples of true subsidies for green technologies or industries in Canada at the federal level. There is an accelerated capital cost allowance (ACCA), which in addition to covering fossil fuel technologies, also covers “investments that produce heat for use in an industrial process or electricity by using fossil fuel efficiently or by using renewable energy sources”; and there is a tax benefit enabling use of flow-through shares, by which expenses incurred during the development and start-up of renewable energy and energy conservation projects can be fully deducted or financed. Current federal policy, however, is to gradually phase out ACCA for all energy forms.

Several federal subsidy programs that supported clean energy investments have actually been discontinued by the Harper government. The popular ecoENERGY program that provided grants to homeowners towards energy efficient retrofits was discontinued in 2011, and the EcoEnergy for Renewable Power program that provided per kWh supplements for wind energy systems was ended in 2013.

Restoring these subsidies is crucial if producers of low-carbon technologies and energy are to compete in a nascent market and offer consumers a fair choice of energy sources.

There are plenty of ways to incentivize a green transition. Increasing innovation-focused grants to research institutions, universities and manufacturers in the green technology field through Sustainable Technology Development Canada for example; or expanding the use of green technologies and green power in government buildings, using weighted scoring systems which favour green options over conventional fossil fuel options in government supply contracts.

What we are short on is not ideas of how to transition to a green economy, but the political will to make it happen.

- Carlo Fanelli points out how Ontario's provincial government - like many others - has forced municipalities into costly and ineffective privatization schemes. And Ryan Meili contrasts the availability of MRIs in Saskatchewan and Alberta, and questions why Brad Wall would be eager to triple the wait times patients currently face in Saskatchewan just to allow profiteers to make more money.

- James Baxter and Rick Salutin both have serious doubts about the claim that Canada lost any innocence based on this week's tragic shootings in Ottawa.

- Meanwhile, CBC highlights the role that Michael Zehaf-Bibeau's mental health issues played in the shootings. And Jon Woodward reports on Zehaf-Bibeau's own confused - and rebuffed - attempts to get treatment.

- Finally, Ricochet and Stuart Trew both comment on on the importance of taking a reasoned and thorough look at what can be done to prevent future incidents. But to nobody's surprise, the Cons are refusing to let our security policy be shaped by anything other than Stephen Harper's political whims. And Stephen Maher is rightly concerned about what that means:

(T)here is little reason to have confidence that the Harper government will strike the right balance between our safety and our freedom.

It’s likely that Harper, Blaney and the people around them want to find that balance, but we’re left to guess at that, because the government’s recent record — in particular with the online surveillance bill — is of misdirection and stealth, hiding behind a smokescreen of disingenuous talking points.

There is reason to worry about this lack of forthrightness, the government’s mixed feelings about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, its attacks on the courts and its flirtation with anti-Muslim messaging.

It would be comforting if new powers are coupled with new oversight, as they should be.
...
But the record of this government is of moving in the other direction, toward less oversight, not more.

On consistent rules

Bill Curry reports that many Canadian municipalities are wondering why Rob Ford has access to funding streams not available to anybody else:

Ottawa’s $660-million gift to Toronto for a subway extension will come from a program that does not yet exist, leaving Canada’s other cities confused as to how they can get in on the action.

Mayors and municipal officials scrambled this week to understand the broader implications of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s surprise announcement on Monday that Ottawa would help finance a subway extension in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough.

Now, the broader implications seem to me to be both obvious and familiar. But for those not previously paying attention: if you are a crony of Stephen Harper's, then Stephen Harper's government will treat you as being above the rules which apply to everybody else.

Of course, in suggesting that municipal leaders govern themselves accordingly, it's also worth pointing out that merit and consistency might well deserve more consideration than they'll ever get under Harper. And so the smartest plan is to ensure that Harper isn't in a position to favour his pals longer than we can avoid.

On regressive choices

Yesterday, I offered a quick, off-the-cuff response to the Sask Party's decision to restrict municipalities in applying property taxes to commercial and industrial land. But let's look in a bit more detail at the warped economic theory Jim Reiter is spouting in defence of the move:

"A very, very small minority of municipalities have been using mill rate factors to, in my view, excessively charge commercial and industrial properties," Government Relations Minister Jim Reiter told reporters at the legislature this week.
... 

He noted that in some cases, such as with a pipeline, it would not be possible for a commercial or industrial property owner "to pick up and move" in response to high taxes.

"In rare instances - we prefer not to have to deal with this - but we need to ensure that there's equity out there," he remarked.

In a media release, the minister noted that most commercial and industrial property owners in the province pay higher municipal property taxes than those paid on agricultural and residential properties for delivery of many of the same municipal services.

"Setting this interim limit will be a first step toward fairer taxation among all municipal property tax classes going forward and focuses on the most extreme occurrences," Reiter said in the release.

Now, those of us who see some value in being able to collect taxes might see the fact that property taxes are easily enforced as a feature, not a bug. See for example Josh Barro:

Everybody hates property taxes because they are hard to avoid. But that's a good thing -- it means property taxes are relatively non-distorting. In fact, taxes on land are completely non-distorting: Raising them won't cause any reduction in the amount of land. Taxes on improvements do distort the economy (they discourage the construction of buildings) but not as much as some other taxes. After all, once a house exists, you can't easily move it in response to tax changes.

...

Local government can't be financed solely with property tax, but the choice of many states (especially California) to back away from property tax over the last four decades has been a mistake. Property taxes are an efficient and effective way to finance government, and we should learn to love them. 

But consistent with his party's anti-social philosophy, Reiter is actually making the argument that municipal property taxes should be limited through provincial intervention precisely because they're relatively difficult to avoid. (And never mind that in the case of, say, a pipeline, a property tax is probably the only way of recouping any social benefit whatsoever from land which mostly sits idle, fails to provide any local economic activity and creates a significant risk of environmental damage.)

Let's take Reiter's argument another step toward its logical conclusion though - applying the converse of his argument that barriers to tax avoidance are supposed to be a sign of a bad tax regime. By implication, that would suggest that taxes are to be paid by the suckers who can't shuffle assets across borders and corporate entities to avoid them - and that the Sask Party disapproves of any tax which doesn't allow for easy avoidance on the part of those who can afford it (while favouring only those taxes which can be evaded).

That in turn raises ample reason for concern about Reiter's declaration that the new limit on mill rates is only a "first step". The Sask Party has no qualms about giving more favourable treatment to (selected) businesses than it does to mere citizens. But Reiter is effectively threatening any municipality which applies the mirror image of that principle and looks to the businesses who see ongoing profits from a municipality's development to pay a dime more than the lowest mill rate charged to, say, a senior with a modest home and a fixed income.

In sum, Reiter is telling us that we may be in for some combination of provincially-mandated hikes to residential property taxes, cuts to business property taxes and/or cuts to municipal services, all in the interest of handing even more to the corporate sector at the hands of citizens. And we should be careful not to let the Sask Party drag the province down that road without a fight.