Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Dharna Noor discusses how the U.S.' dirty fossil fuel industry is propagandizing against any transition to cleaner energy sources. And Benjamin Shingler reports on research showing that the forestry sector (like so many other industries) is causing far more damage to the climate than it officially reports. 

- Anne Toomey McKenna examines the Federal Trade Commission's complaint against data broker Kochava as a worrisome example of the information corporate behemoths are able to collect and use against the public. And Cory Doctorow writes that the constant stream of spam and scams online is the direct result of the mindset that the key to wealth is to extract money for nothing from a greater fool. 

- But in case there was any doubt that big business is able to avoid answering for its own unconscionable practices, Sarah MacMillan reports on Enbridge's regular pattern of sticking customers with massive bills without any forewarning or explanation. And Andrew Sampson and Aly Thomson report on Loblaws' decision to let more food go to waste rather than continuing to discount products which are about to expire. 

- Jacob Cerebrin reports that the consistent reactionary principle that "it's always projection" extends to a science-denying conspiracy theorist blaming the government for wildfires actually being a serial arsonist himself. 

- Finally, Marc Edge writes that the National Post - having itself been founded and operated as a shameless right-wing propaganda outlet - has no business shedding crocodile tears over media bias. 

Friday Afternoon Links

 Assorted content to end your 2023.

- Shannon Hall discusses new research showing that the positive effects of COVID-19 vaccination include a reduction in long COVID in children. And Erin Prater warns about the building Pirola wave which is already causing record-high infection levels in some countries. 

- Meanwhile, Carly Weeks reports on the dire state of Canada's health care system even before that wave crests. And Larissa Kurz details the cascading failures within Saskatchewan's emergency care system, as the spillover effects from overwhelmed and under-resourced hospitals and emergency rooms has led to a lack of ambulances available for people in urgent need of care.  

- Lucy McAllister et al. examine the coverage of climate issues in English-speaking countries, with the National Post getting called out as inflicting particularly inaccurate coverage of the climate breakdown including more outright denialism than any other outlet. 

- Emily Chung reports on new data showing the industries which spew the most carbon pollution in each of Canada's provinces and territories - with fossil fuels taking the top spot in most jurisdictions due to factors including oil and gas production, coal-fired power and vehicular fuel consumption. And Shawn Fluker, Drew Yewchuk and Martin Olszynski discuss the Alberta Auditor General's conclusion that the Alberta Energy Regulator has failed to meet any outstanding recommendations to ensure that polluters pay the cost of closing down oil and gas well sites.  

- Finally, Sally Younger discusses how warming Arctic waters are resulting in yet another climate feedback loop as more melting results in increased carbon dioxide releases. And Alec Luhn reports on the climate-driven releases of iron and sulfuric acid which are turning many of Alaska's rivers most pristine rivers into a rusting orange froth. 

Wednesday Evening Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Andre Picard notes that contrary to our self-image, Canada actually lags behind international peers in health and social spending. And PressProgress points out the same conclusion in new OECD research.

- Andrew Mitrovica writes that Doug Ford's ascendancy in Ontario politics suggests that Canada is catching the Trump virus - and not for the first time given his brother's history. And Jim Stanford highlights how Ford's planned austerity would affect the people who rely on strong public services:

The People’s Guarantee pledged to balance the provincial budget by 2020, and then run a small surplus. With no carbon tax, and no concrete plan for “efficiency” savings, how will Mr. Ford square that same circle?

Arithmetically, he has three options: increase taxes; tolerate a deficit; or cut spending. At door one, Mr. Ford could seek other sources of tax revenue. That’s a non-starter, given his rhetoric about long-suffering taxpayers. Door two is to tolerate deficits, converting lost carbon-tax revenue and the likely failure of the efficiency audit into higher debt. That also clashes painfully with Mr. Ford’s pledge to wrestle the debt to the ground.

Almost certainly, Mr. Ford will choose door number three: still-deeper cuts in provincial spending. He needs $10-billion in cuts over three years to offset carbon tax revenue; $6-billion more to meet the efficiency target; and still more to pay for any additional tax cut promises. All that’s on top of $1.9-billion in annual spending cuts from cancelling cap and trade. All told, he will need to cut spending by close to $25-billion over three years – and around $10-billion in the third year alone. Cuts of this magnitude would significantly damage government services (all the more so given continual inflation and population growth).

...

Mr. Ford won the leadership by stoking populist resentment against government, taxes, sex-ed and environmentalism. That mobilized enough grassroots party support to put him over the top. Completing a similar journey from centrism to austerity in a provincial budget, however, will be much harder. And many Ontarians will pay a steep price for the trip.

- Meanwhile, Cindy Blackstock offers a reminder of the fundamental injustice of forcing Indigenous children to keep waiting for their basic public services to be incrementally brought up to par.

- Adam Gartrell discusses the Australian Council of Trade Unions' plan to ensure that casual workers have a predictable path to stable employment after six months. And Sean McElwee, Colin McAuliffe and Jon Green argue that a jobs guarantee (already backed by Kirsten Gillibrand) would make for both a highly desirable public policy step, and a political winner for U.S. Democrats.

- Finally, the National Post's database of political contributions across Canada looks to make for an essential resource in tracking the influence of money on our political choices.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Bryce Edwards comments on the politics of inequality in New Zealand, while noting that there's a huge gap between talk and action:

Could the political left benefit from more focus on economics and inequality? Absolutely, according to Labour Party dissident Josie Pagani - see her blog post, We need to talk about the one per cent. She makes the case that "Global inequality is the number one issue for the progressive left." She also argues for:
1) "switching taxes from income to wealth"
2) "managed markets"
3) international treaties and agreements to harmonise economic issues such as tax and trade.
But if the public is already so concerned with inequality, why aren't the parties of the left doing better? That's a question discussed by AUT's Peter Skilling in Perceptions Of Inequality. His answer - with reference to "system justification theory" - is that social psychology means that the framing of the problem can lead to resistance to change. See also Kirk Serpes' Why we need to stop talking about inequality.

- Mark Karlin talks to Susan George about the corporate sector's rewriting the rules of international relations for its own benefit. Hilary Osborne reports on Cadbury's glaring tax avoidance in the UK, while Richard Murphy offers a few simple fixes to corporate tax evasion. And Conor Lynch responds to the regressive promise of flat taxes.

- The National Post reminds us that we need tax revenue to pay for the public priorities we all value. And Charlie Smith discusses the long-term consequences of needless austerity - with a focus on Bill Bennett's past B.C. government.

- Finally, Tom Parkin writes that the Libs' supposed "middle-class" tax giveaways are in fact aimed at the top 10%. And Daniel Leblanc reports that they're planning to barge ahead even after acknowledging that their numbers don't add up, meaning they'll need to take away from other promises to do it.

Worth considering

Shorter National Post:

Rachel Notley and the Alberta NDP are keeping their campaign promises. For some reason, we think this should be a warning rather than a beacon of hope for the rest of Canada.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Elizabeth Warren reminds us (PDF) that previous trade agreements were packaged with the same promises of labour and environmental standards being used to sell the latest versions - and that there's been no enforcement whatsoever of the elements of the deals which were supposed to protect the public.

- Kriston Capps discusses the unfairness of New York's property tax system which makes it easy for the obscenely rich to avoid paying their fair share. And Jon Stone notes that even following an election in which the Conservatives won a majority, UK voters are more concerned with fighting inequality than pushing growth for the few.

- David Roberts rightly warns that we're much further down the road toward catastrophic climate change than most people are prepared to admit. And Terry Macalister reports that Shell in particular is planning based on the assumption that we won't make any progress in reining in global warming.

- But the good news is that clean alternative energy sources are becoming far more readily available, meaning that we only need the political will to change our current balance of power. And Richard Littlemore writes that we're not lacking for businesses willing to offer renewable energy alternatives.

- Finally, the National Post slams the Cons for once again rewriting the law - in this case governing access to information - to suit their own political purposes. And the Star calls out the Cons' baseless terror fearmongering.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Ezra Klein comments on the U.S.' doom loop of oligarchy - as accumulated wealth is spent to buy policy intended to benefit nobody other than those who have already accumulated wealth:

On Thursday, the House passed Paul Ryan's 2015 budget. In order to get near balance, the budget contains $5.1 trillion in spending cuts — roughly two-thirds of which come from programs for poor Americans. Those cuts need to be so deep because Ryan has pledged not to raise even a dollar in taxes.

As a very simple rule, rich people pay more in taxes and poor people benefit more from services. So if you pledge to balance the budget without raising taxes, you're going to end up making the rich richer and the poor poorer. But Ryan goes further than that: he actually cuts taxes on the rich.
...
Wealthy people will be even better poised to influence the 2014 and 2016 elections than they were to influence the 2010 and 2012 elections. Now, wealthy people are not a single voting bloc, but most wealthy people would like to continue being wealthy. And so you see bipartisan movement towards policies that protect their wealth, most recently with the Democratic legislature in Maryland voting to eliminate the state's estate tax.

Over time, a political system that gives the wealthy more power is a political system that is going to do more to protect the interests of the wealthy. It's the Doom Loop of Oligarchy, and we're seeing it daily.

- Meanwhile, Jim Stanford documents Canada's own descent into neoliberalism. And Carol Goar highlights how the Cons are doing their utmost to eliminate opportunities for young workers.

- The National Post's editorial board points out the absurdity of the Cons attacking their own appointed Chief Electoral Officer. Andrew Coyne calls out the Cons for turning what should be wholly unobjectionable principles - such as an accurate census and a fair electoral system - into their own political firing line. And Tabatha Southey duly mocks the assertion that Elections Canada is the new Illuminati.

- But then, a party merrily engaged in systemic illegality - such as, say, interference with access to information - figures to have little choice but to try to shout down any investigation which might reveal what it's actually up to.

- Finally, Thomas Walkom reminds us about some of Jim Flaherty's deliberate cuts to important public services including the CBC. And PressProgress charts how Lib and Con governments alike have slashed Canada's public broadcaster over the past three decades.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Dr. Dawg tears into the National Post's gratuitous union-bashing:

(W)hen it comes to unions, a careless disregard for facts seems to affect journos like a disease. They fall back on their prejudices, cutting and pasting their ready-made anti-union copy in their sleep.
...
Unions have one of the only remaining institutionally democratic structures in Canada. Union leadership is far more accountable than the Harper government, held to much stricter standards, and able to move forward only with membership agreement—the latter, of course, being the union.

Members are just ordinary working people cooperating with other ordinary working people. The necessary political and structural changes needed to confront our sworn enemies effectively will take place only with their consent. But it’s precisely that democratic potential that scares the hell out of secretive governments, rigidly hierarchical and undemocratic corporations, and their media mouthpieces. Nothing new here at the National Post—let’s move along, brothers and sisters, and give them something to really make them squeal.

- Thomas Walkom weighs in on the Kitchener-Waterloo byelection that elected NDP MPP Catherine Fife. And while I don't think his mooted move to the right is inevitable, it's certainly worth pointing out the virtuous cycle that comes from higher-profile candidates stepping up to join the NDP's team (and being rewarded with electoral success).

- Dean Bennett reports that the National Energy Board has refused to allow questioning about insurance and cleanup plans involving any oil spill resulting from the Northern Gateway pipeline. And Brian Morton notes that lives are apparently no object when it comes to the Cons' desire to get out of the job of safeguarding our coasts.

- Finally, Kayle Hatt analyzes the NDP's 2011 Quebec support and concludes that the party's gains in fact came mostly from federalist or soft sovereigntist voters.

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- If there's a more accurate description of the Cons' entire political strategy than "taking advantage of the prejudice that’s already there", I haven't heard it yet. And Chris Lawson is rightly frustrated that Canadian politics are being dominated by such cynical and destructive motives - though I'd argue that we should be less concerned with the Gerry Nicholls of the world who are willing to call it by name than the Harper Cons who try to pretend their minority-bashing is somehow based on the national interest.

- No, we shouldn't be surprised to see a National Post discussion on pensions devolve into a debate as to whether seniors in general or public employees in particular should be attacked first in the name of tax slashing. But it's worth pointing out that we've had plenty of opportunity to test whether throwing the federal government's fiscal capacity into tax cuts and investment incentives for the wealthy would produce the virtuous cycle of magical retirement freedom that all the Post's pundits seem to take as a given - and the fact that Canadians are less secure now than they were a decade ago would seem like rather compelling evidence to the contrary for anybody willing to look at such a thing.

- Which suggests that maybe it's time to take some advice from Seth Klein in dealing with inequality for all age groups:

(R)ising inequality hasn’t been driven by low incomes. Rather, as the Occupy movement rightly highlighted, the growing gap has been driven by the runaway-rich; the wealthiest 10% of households, and especially the wealthiest 1%, have been breaking away from the rest of us (as outlined in this CCPA report a year ago).

So if we are going to reduce inequality, we need to revisit our top tax brackets.
...
I’d argue that the BC government should not restrict itself to adjustments to the top rate alone. I think there is room to modestly increase the 3rd and 4th brackets as well (which kick in at incomes of about $73K and $84K respectively; again only impacting a small minority of taxpayers). As I noted in a blog post a couple years ago, I find my personal income tax rate to be remarkably low, given what we receive in public services, and the scope of unmet social and environmental needs.

If you too think that our upper tax brackets should be increased, may I recommend that you let our political leaders know. Too often our leaders are overly cautious, and presume we will not abide such increases. If we really want action on inequality, we need to tell them otherwise.

- Meanwhile, Emily Dee worries that the Cons have set up a ticking time bomb with their giveaways to Canadian banks.

- And finally, Jason Warick highlights how First Nations students are being shortchanged in Saskatchewan.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Deep thought

If the NDP's biggest challenge is to deal with MPs who have lots to say and plenty of ideas to offer, then there's reason to think the party is in great shape.

On delayed reactions

It's bad enough that the National Post is so eager to present a fawning take on the Cons' dumb-on-crime legislation. But in presenting another point of view, it apparently hasn't bothered to take into account which party actually makes up Canada's official opposition - neglecting to mention the NDP while including this:

‘‘We remain unwavering in our commitment to fighting crime and protecting Canadians so that our communities are safe places for people to live, raise their families and do business,’’ said Pamela Stephens, spokesperson for Justice Minister Rob Nicholson. “We will be bringing forward comprehensive tackling-crime legislation to be passed within 100 days. Further details will be announced in due course.”

The Liberals, until recently the Official Opposition, claim crime has fallen in volume and severity in the past few years, and that the legislation simply goes too far. They argued that the United States, with its “mega prisons,” is suffering from the effects of this sort of tough-on-crime legislation.

And likewise, QMI's exclusive opportunity to cheerlead for the Cons' F-35 debacle-in-the-making includes the past official opposition rather than the present one:

But critics have blasted the Conservative government for agreeing to buy the jets in what they allege was a sole-source deal, and worry the estimated production and service costs will balloon.

The Liberals vowed that if they formed a government, they would scrap the deal and hold a competitive bid to replace Canada's fighter jets.

So what seems more likely: is Canada's media just too lazy to find any quotes on the same topics from the party actually preferred by voters to challenge the Cons? Or is it making a conscious choice to try to shut out Canada's official opposition?

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday.

- Sure, it may not be a surprise that the Star is calling for a G20 inquiry:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Premier Dalton McGuinty have refused to hold the independent inquiry that could get beyond the stories, subpoena officials — both police and their political bosses — and find out how things got so out of hand.

Queen’s Park and Ottawa are hoping to ignore the calls for a public inquiry until they go away. The citizens’ report shows, yet again, why that should not be allowed to happen.

- But can there be much doubt that one is sorely needed when even the National Post joins in?

The new report from the CCLA and NUPGE, entitled Breach of the Peace, claims that rather than a few dozen officers removing their name bars to prevent being identified while using force to subdue protestors, the total was actually in the hundreds. Who told them to employ this trick? Was it senior officers on the ground or did the call come from higher up; Toronto’s chief of police, senior Mounties or perhaps even politicians in the Ontario or federal government?

The report argues, with justification, that overall police strategy could not have been devised by frontline officers. So who told them to round up protestors, some in advance of the protestors even committing any acts of violence or vandalism? Who ordered officers to hold protestors and journalists (including two working for this newspaper) for hours — occasionally in inhumane conditions and without medical treatment?
...
If nothing else, a public inquiry might — given the proper mandate — help police and security bureaucrats devise better methods to distinguish between real threats to public safety and garden-variety demonstrators at future summits. In an ideal world, police would be able to learn such lessons based on their own internal investigations. But so far, all signs from the Toronto police are that the organization is more concerned with circling the wagons and protecting its own than getting to the truth of what happened last June.

No doubt, many activists would use such an inquiry as a platform to criticize the police in scathing terms. But holding our police to account is an exercise in which all Canadians have an interest — especially those conservatives who embrace the principles of limited government and civil liberties. It is on this basis that we endorse the call for a G20 public inquiry.

- But while it's well worth some time and resources to ensure an accountable and effective justice system, the Globe and Mail rightly notes that the return on investment isn't there when it comes to the Cons' dumb on crime posturing:

Canadians don’t trust the courts to get it right on crime. Many would like a tougher approach. But they also don’t see crime or justice as a spending priority. Perhaps this explains the Conservative government’s silence on the costs of their law-and-order agenda.

Since 1994, the Focus Canada poll done by Environics has measured Canadian attitudes toward government spending. In 2010, justice was seen as the second last of 21 priorities, a sharp drop from 15th in 2008. Only 24 per cent said more money should be spent on the justice system. That was the lowest figure recorded since 1994, when just 20 per cent wanted more spent. Getting tough is one thing, paying for it another.
...
But even if the public would like tougher sentences, there appears to be no wish to pay a tab in the billions each year (in combined federal and provincial costs). The federal corrections budget alone is set to rise by $861-million, or 36 per cent, by 2012-13 over 2009-10. The provincial costs will probably rise by at least that much, because of federal sentencing changes.

Ottawa’s position is either that Canadians want a get-tough approach at any cost, or that they aren’t entitled to know what the cost will be. The government should reveal all the costs of the changes, and allow for a reasoned debate on where this country’s real spending needs lie.

- Finally, the NDP's motion on a Senate referendum is well worth some further discussion. But for now, it's particularly worth noting the Cons' actions in switching an opposition day without warning to limit debate on the issue.

Presumably part of the lesson they've taken from their past prorogation fiascos is that they can only afford to delay for so long in order to prevent a countermovement from building. But it still looks highly irresponsible for them to start raising similar issues of silencing opposition voices in Parliament with an election campaign looming in the near future - and if the NDP can direct the result toward a need for better representation in both chambers, then an election on democracy could produce some highly positive results.

Beer drinkers of Canada, unite

So what's the most offensive part of the Financial Post's report on the bank sector's policy preferences?

Is it the Post's willingness to publish ideas to address poverty ranging from tax slashing for the rich, all the way to tax slashing for the poor?

Or is it Tom Velk's embarrassing explanation as to why he favours the former?

“I would really dispute Mr. Clark’s notion that we need to give money to the beer drinkers,” McGill University economist Thomas Velk said Thursday. “We can’t afford it."

The log in one's own eye

Let's give Kevin Libin credit for at least not being so brazen as to present quotes from his own paper's group of anonymously-funded message machines in building up a vast left-wing conspiracy for reader consumption.

But I'll be highly curious to see just how long it takes for Tides Canada to get even a fraction of the free media space regularly signed over by Libin's employer to, say, the Fraser Institute - and the answer will say plenty about which set of shadowy organizations is actually exerting disproportionate influence on our political conversation.

Simple answers to questions that wouldn't have been asked by anybody paying a modicum of attention

The National Post's latest editorial on Omar Khadr contains this embarrassing bit of shoddy research:

In many cases, the treatment of different suspects has been wildly inconsistent. Why, for instance, has Mr. Khadr been kept at Gitmo for eight years, while many badder apples were repatriated to Britain, Saudi Arabia and Yemen long ago?

That would be because their home countries bothered to request their return. This has been another version of simple answers to simple-minded questions.

On private misdeeds

Oh noes!!! The National Post has uncovered "fraud" in "Canada's health care system"!!! Clearly this proves the need for market discipline, and for private-sector ingenuity, and for...wait, what's this?

The phenomenon is perhaps more rampant, though, under the health insurance plans that many workplaces offer their employees.

In one case, claims filed to a plan indicated that a massage therapist had worked in three different greater Toronto-area cities on the same day, for three or four hours in each place, the insurance company official said. "Apparently, he is a teleporter," she quipped.

Increasingly, plan administrators are seeing ID theft perpetrated by clinics owned by chiropractors, who usurp the identity of other health providers, the investigator said.
...
Ms. Robinson said a simple change by the insurance industry could curb much of the identity theft. Instead of using the professional's registration number — accessible to almost anyone — for billing purposes, companies should assign their own numbers, as provincial medicare agencies do for doctor billings.

So the National Post's headline tailored to build distrust in a public health care system...is linked to an article which actually shows that the problem lies primarily in private-sector mistakes.

Convenient from the standpoint of one of many media outlets that's been attacking the public system at every opportunity. But if the worst anybody can say about universal public health care is that we're leaking money from the parts of our health-care system that aren't as well designed as the ones delivered universally, then that would seem to nicely signal how little basis the free-marketers actually have for their position.

On failing strategies

The media narrative on the Cons' coalition fearmongering seems to be settling into place - and aside from the usual false assertion that the NDP joined the Libs in promising not to enter a coalition in 2008, the consensus seems to be that the Cons are misfiring badly. Here's the National Post editorial board:

(T)imes have changed. If the Liberals and New Democrats were now to admit that that they are open to coalition talks after the results of the next election are known...then claims that the two are engaged in a "coup d'etat" would fall on deaf ears.

And even Lorne Gunter can't take the Cons' histrionics seriously:

(A)re the Tories guilty of still fighting the last battle, rather than the next one?

There was genuine outrage the last time a coalition reared its head, but conditions have changed enough since then that the outrage likely will not form again this time. It is no longer one month after the last election, for instance, as it was the last time the Liberals and New Democrats tried a coalition. Moreover, last time there was a genuine attempt to form a coalition, with real coalition papers drawn up and everything. Last time, the Libs and NDs were actually trying to pull one off. So far this time all we have are Tory scare stories about possible future coalitions. And fairy tales, while occasionally powerful in politics, as seldom as powerful the real deal.

On selective outrage

Shorter Kevin Libin:

BREAKING SCANDAL! An organization funded in part by anonymous donors may have attempted to INFLUENCE CANADIAN POLITICS up to three times over a four-year period!!!

More cases of the vapours as this story develops. We now return to our regularly-scheduled parade of guest columns graciously provided by the Manning Centre, the Fraser Institute, the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation...

(Edits: fixed wording; updated link as per comments.)

Any day now...

...this whole census thing is bound to go away on its own, figure the Cons. That is, if one ignores the Calgary Herald:

The federal Conservatives should reverse their stance on killing the mandatory long form of the Canadian census. From academics to genealogists to corporations, everyone except Stephen Harper's Tories seems opposed to the introduction of voluntary completion forms, replacing the long form. Economists, think-tanks, professional associations, non-profits, labour unions, religious groups, municipalities and corporations oppose the move, which will cost taxpayers millions more but lead to inferior results.

Harper officials have tried to spin this change as proof that they are the party that supports smaller and less intrusive government. And yet, the Tories plan on spending another $30 million to send the detailed long forms to 30 per cent of households instead of 20 per cent, in hopes that at least 20 per cent of those will voluntarily agree to answer the questions.

How does spending more money equal smaller government? It's ironic to be sure.
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This calls for a graceful about-face by the prime minister, as the count is overwhelmingly in favour of keeping the census intact, mandatory forms and all.

And the National Post:

We are on record opposing the government's slapdash approach to cancelling the mandatory long-form census. Nothing has occurred in the two weeks since to change that opinion or to alter the impression that this was a hasty decision, and that the dubious explanations now being offered for it were concocted after the fact.
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(I)t's making the government look foolish, and it doesn't appear that anything more salacious will come down the pipe to distract the chattering classes' attention before autumn. For this self-interested reason--and also, for the more important and substantial reason that good census data is a valuable resource -- the government should accept a compromise solution offered by the National Statistics Council: Remove certain long-form questions that are deemed particularly invasive and eliminate the threat of imprisonment from the relevant legislation.

Enough already. It's past time to turn the page.

And the Royal City Record:

The plan to replace the long form mandatory census with a voluntary one has been almost universally panned. In fact, the longtime bureaucrat in charge of the department actually resigned over the decision.

It is still puzzling why Harper has not done some back-pedalling.
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Now, for the average taxpayer, it may seem like an arcane battle, and many would probably be delighted to not have to fill in the long form. But those same folks may not be so delighted when government makes decisions on flimsy data and they end up with less services - or worse, services placed in areas for political purposes and not based on facts.

Making the census long form voluntary will ensure that some individuals will simply not be represented in the data.

And to make decisions without that information is just plain dumb, as SFU statistics professor Carl Schwarz says, "Making decisions with poor data is worse than making decisions with no data. If you've got poor data, you make decisions with this aura of respectability that just isn't there."

And William Christian:

Pity poor Tony Clement, the federal industry minister. A bright and decent guy, though without the backbone to resign, he has to take the fall for the prime minister’s decision to cancel the long-form census. Without the details provided by the long-form census, future governments, both provincial and federal, will not have the information effectively to introduce social welfare programs.

No money, no information. Bye-bye, social planning. And a faith-based foreign policy.

Maybe Harper’s agenda is becoming less hidden.