Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- BBC reports on the justified fears of medically vulnerable people that they're being left behind by the UK Cons' decision to eliminate all COVID protections, while Kendall Latimer takes note of the similar situation facing Saskatchewan's seniors. Rohan Smith reports on the emerging evidence that the Omicron BA.2 variant - which is being allowed to spread freely as governments abandon any interest in public health - may be the most dangerous one yet. And Apoorva Mandavilli reports on the hope that a single booster vaccination may prime a body's immune system to respond to existing and future variants for some time to come. 

- Michael Harris writes that we shouldn't understate or euphemize the threat posed by the #FluTruxKlan - particularly by treating its hostile occupation of a civilian population as being comparable to legitimate protest. And Andrew Nikiforuk points out the foreign propaganda machine which was activated to exacerbate the insurrection. 

- Pete Evans examines some of the structural causes behind higher food prices. But Ellen Ioanes reminds us that corporations are positively bragging about their extraction of higher profits under the cover of "inflation". 

- Finally, CBC News reports on the recommendations of Newfoundland and Labrador's Health Accord panel - which include familiar themes about ensuring a basic income and better addressing the social determinants of health. 

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- CBC interviews David Wallace-Wells and others about the need for collective action as the only viable response to a climate crisis and the despair it would otherwise produce:

"Individual action simply can't get us to zero [carbon] emissions," [Wallace-Wells] told Tapestry host Mary Hynes. "Ultimately, those efforts are marginal compared to what can be achieved through policy and through politics, and that for me is why we need to focus on those levers."
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"So for an individual to step out of that and really try to make sense of this very large threat to our societies and our ways of life  — especially if you have been raised to believe that this is a good thing or this is just life as you know it — is very difficult." 
But the University of Oregon associate professor [Kari Norgaard] says channeling energy into structural changes can help ease some of that anxiety.

"Climate change is very big, it's very scary. It's not something we can work on alone. As more people in each community begin to [mobilize], it not only makes it more pleasant and meaningful along the way, but it brings momentum to the whole."

- Perla Hernandez writes about the missed opportunity to address climate change in Newfoundland and Labrador's provincial election - though the resulting minority legislature will hopefully result in some needed ability to prod the government to action. Sarath Peiris points out that the bleating about an environmental assessment bill by Canada's Dirty Half-Dozen denialist right-wing leaders has no basis in fact. And Heriberto Aruojo writes about the threat Jair Bolsonaro's government poses to the Amazon rain forest with global implications.

- Robert Booth reports on Human Rights Watch's observations as to how the UK Cons' austerity caused large amounts of child hunger. And Mark Rice-Oxley and Patrick Butler write about the wider precarity facing workers in the EU.

- Trevor Hancock wonders why governments don't pay more attention to public health which would both produce improved social outcomes, and save public money. And a group of Ontario resident physicians highlights how Doug Ford's attacks on public health will harm their patients.

- Finally, Libby Davies offers a reminder that a strong progressive message is necessary for the NDP to succeed both in winning votes and seeing its values implemented.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Mike Benusic points out that the success of public health programs is found in the absence of preventable illnesses and dangers - meaning that Doug Ford's slashing of Ontario's funding is likely to lead to far more health costs in the long run:

(P)ublic health isn’t in the business of patient care. Patients only become patients when they are sick. By preventing disease and promoting health, public health prevents people from becoming patients – by keeping the bridge sturdy so they never fall in the water. From the child who never had to go to the emergency room with measles because they were vaccinated, to the senior who was never hospitalized with food-poisoning because of restaurant inspections, public health works silently in the background.

The invisibility of the impact of public health is also its greatest weakness. When public health is working, nothing happens. So, often and now, funding is cut or diverted into more immediate needs – such as hospital beds. But by doing so, we undermine the system that prevents people from being in the hospital in the first place.

Thankfully, there is a wealth of evidence that makes the invisible impact of public health tangible. One analysis of the impact of local public health showed that for every dollar that’s spent, $4 is saved. Investing $10 per person per year in programs promoting physical activity, nutrition and reducing tobacco use can reduce diabetes and high blood pressure by  five per cent in one to two years, heart disease and stroke by five per cent in five years, and some forms of cancer and arthritis by 2.5 per cent in 10 to 20 years. These are some of the leading causes of hospitalization in Ontario. By preventing people from becoming sick in the first place, there would be no need for more hospital beds.

With massive cuts to local public health, it is clear that the government doesn’t feel that public health has a role in ending hallway medicine. Ironically, it may be the best solution.

- Muhannad Malas writes about Ford's elimination of Ontario's laws governing toxic pollution, while Kate Allen exposes the PCs' attack on protections for endangered species buried in a housing bill. Katie Nicholson and Joanne Levasseur report on the underfunding of Manitoba health inspectors under the Pallister PCs. And Mike De Souza reports that Jason Kenney's response to the abandonment of 4,700 wells by a defunct gas operator is to try to push for even more free handouts to the fossil fuel sector.

- MiningWatch studies how resource extractors are using trade deals to undermine environmental protections in developing countries. Barry Saxifrage points out that the Libs' current plans stand to fall centuries behind Canada's already-insufficient Paris emission targets. And Angela Carter laments Newfoundland and Labrador's decision to endanger its environment and economy in an attempt to chase oil revenues.

- Helen Briggs, Becky Dale and Nassos Stylianou chart the global environmental emergency (including but not limited to a climate crisis).

- Finally, Leo Gerard discusses the importance of a Green New Deal which protects both working conditions and the environment - while also pointing out the role the labour movement needs to play in helping to develop a transformative plan for our society.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- David Rosen discusses the connection between poverty and more general social exclusion:

Poverty is a form of social powerlessness.  The poorer you are, the weaker you are, the harder your life; everything is about survival.  Poverty can be analyzed in two complementary ways – who and where.  By “who,” poverty refers to people based on their gender, race and age; by “where,” poverty refers to the location it is experienced, whether in cities, suburbs or rural areas as well as different parts of the country.  Both who and where are relative concepts reflecting the social structure of inequality.
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The poor pay dearly for their poverty.  Most troubling, their lives are insecure, a constant struggle not simply to make ends meet but to live day-to-day.  Little can be taken for granted, whether a job, a home or one’s health.  Education is a luxury; obesity a common condition; drug use – and overdoses – a way to blunt the pain; suicide increasingly is a way out; and mortality rate for the poor are on the rise.

Poverty in America continues to be a hidden crisis, at once widespread, deepening and evermore painful.  In 1964, Pres. Johnson called for a “war on poverty” and now, a half-century later, one can only hope that Mrs. Clinton — if she wins in the November beauty contest — will champion a 21^st century “war on poverty,” but one that addresses what Harrington identified as the systemic “culture of poverty,” the underlying racism and inequality that institutionalizes poverty.

- Alan Thomas studies some of the institutional changes needed to reduce gross imbalances in both income and political power. And Fern Hill compares our immediate (and laudable) response to the crisis facing displaced residents of Fort McMurray against our blithe acceptance of the unmet needs of so many other Canadians.

- Robert Sweeny catches the Newfoundland and Labrador Liberals trying to pull a fast one on the public by leaving massive cuts and corporate giveaways out of their budget announcement. And CUPW notes that contrary to the spin from Con and Lib governments alike, Canada Post continues to be highly profitable (with obvious room to become more so by adding in postal banking).

- Leslie Young reports on the Auditor General's findings that Canada is doing a woeful job of collecting and maintaining the data needed to provide public services.

- Finally, the Leader-Post editorial board calls for Brad Wall and his party to start complying with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by eliminating religious ceremonies (including a daily prayer) from legislative proceedings.

On blissful ignorance

Shorter Lawrence Herman:

Just because Newfoundland and Labrador learned the hard way that Stephen Harper can't be trusted doesn't mean it has any right to warn anybody else that Stephen Harper can't be trusted.

(For a more reasonable take on how we should expect countries to react to the Cons' duplicitous negotiations and undue preference for corporate power, see the Telegram's editorial.)

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- The Star-Phoenix discusses how the Cons are systematically attacking the independent institutions which are necessary to ensure a functioning democratic system:

When a handful of Conservative MPs from Saskatchewan attacked the integrity of the province's electoral boundaries commissioners last year in an attempt to subvert the democratic process, it may have seemed to be a rogue act of an outlier group of politicians concerned with their electoral future.

But when you consider the tactics of the MPs, who accused Justice Ronald Mills and political scientist Prof. John Courtney on the commission of attempting to gerrymander the boundaries, as well as the Conservative party's illegal use of robocalls, push polls and misleading mass mail-outs in the context of its other attempts to pull end runs around Canada's democratic institutions, it creates a chilling narrative.
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Unlike the government's poor handling of such things as grain transportation, for which Canada was told at a recent international conference that it's no longer considered a reliable global supplier, these attempts to undermine democracy aren't simple cases of mismanagement. They suggest a pattern of behaviour detrimental to the very foundation of Canadian democracy.

- Meanwhile, Jeffrey Simpson notes that Canada's other federal party leaders - along with the occasional Con MP - can agree to iVote's view that we need to foster broad political participation by youth in particular. But Simpson is also right to note that parties will need to do more to speak to the long-term interest of younger voters.

- And Newfoundland and Labrador's new budget offers one example of that type of policy - as the governing PCs have taken up the NDP's proposal to shift from student loans to grants.

- If we needed any further indication that constant tar-sands cheerleading is a loser if exposed to the light of day, the Cons have sunk to the level of pretending that their highly visible, publicly-funded ad campaign didn't happen. And the U.S. loudly announced sorely-needed regulations governing the shipment of explosive oil products by rail - only to gut them quietly only nine days later.

- Finally, Paul Dechene reports on the Regina Public School Board's determination to shutter Connaught School - while Stephen Whitworth looks at how some parents are pushing back.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Dean Baker discusses the strong relationship between union organization and the elimination of poverty:

A simple regression shows that a 10 percentage point increase in the percentage of workers covered by a union contract is associated with a 0.7 percentage point drop in the poverty rate. (This result is significant at a 1.0 percent level.) This means that countries like Sweden, Belgium, and France, where the coverage rate is close to 90 percent, can be expected to have poverty rates that are more than 5.0 percentages points lower than in the United States, where the coverage rate is less than 15 percent. In the case of the United States this would imply a reduction in the poverty rate of almost a third from current levels.
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There are many other important differences that could be important in reducing poverty in these countries. However in almost every case, unions were a major force in advancing the various policies that are associated with lower poverty. It would have been difficult to envision a scenario in which these policies would have been enacted (without) pressure from unions.

The same holds true with measures that have reduced poverty in the United States. The creation and expansion of Social Security, which has lowered the poverty rate among seniors to the same level as the adult population as a whole, would have been impossible without pressure from unions. Similarly programs that help young children, such as Head Start or promote education such as Pell Grants and subsidized student loans, passed with strong support from organized labor. Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP have always been strongly supported by unions and the Affordable Care Act would not have passed without a big push from the labor movement.

- Ann Cavoukian, Ron Diebert, Andrew Clement and Nathalie Des Rosiers point out that Canadians need to be able to count on genuine oversight of the federal government security apparatus in order to have any confidence that our privacy isn't being violated.

- CBC reports that Newfoundland's PCs seem to have thoroughly absorbed the exclusionary strategy of their federal cousins - having threatened to slash funding from schools and other local projects if people identified with other parties weren't prevented from participating in public events.

- Finally, Paul Adams reminds us that most of what's being (rightly) criticized about the PQ's Charter of Values would have fit comfortably into major parties' platforms over the past few years. And in recognizing that the path toward social inclusion has been far less smooth than it seems in retrospect, it's well worth remembering who's led the way - and who's had to be dragged kicking and screaming.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Lana Payne writes that it's long past time for Newfoundland and Labrador to boost its minimum wage:

Last year, a statutory review of minimum wage, conducted by a government-appointed panel, called for action to be taken on the minimum wage. The panel recommended an increase to restore any erosion to the wage since 2010 as well as a formula, tied to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which would see annual, incremental increases in the wage to ensure that it keeps pace with the increases in the cost of living.

The report and its recommendations sit on a shelf...

The lack of action denies thousands of workers a pay raise. Indeed, the lack of action results in a continued erosion of their wage - as time passes and the cost of living steadily increases, the minimum wage is worth less today than it was three years ago, the last time the wage was increased.

This inaction is a stunning reversal from a minimum-wage policy that had been aimed at making sure the province's lowest-paid were not left totally behind. In 2010, the government also said that minimum-wage increases proved the government's commitment to improving the quality of life of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians while making the province more competitive with respect to attracting workers.
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The Newfoundland and Labrador government's minimum-wage policy had been a success. Three years later, after all that hard work of playing catchup and making sure some of the prosperity is shared, the current government appears to have abandoned its commitment to helping the lowest-paid achieve "increased self-reliance."

The big question is, why?

- Meanwhile, the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario is pushing for that province's government to keep its promise to combat poverty.

- Martin Lukacs wonders whether the great pipeline swindle will succeed only in building a mass movement against petro-politics, while Mike de Souza tracks down briefing notes which nicely expose the Cons' anti-carbon pricing rhetoric as a sham. And Graham Thomson catches Alberta's PC government refusing to acknowledge an actual series of pipeline leaks in what was supposed to be a review of the province's regulatory system:

The review of the regulations does not dig into the spate of pipeline leaks that have plagued Alberta the past few years and it doesn’t delve into whether the Alberta Energy Regulator is properly enforcing the regulations.

It’s a bit like asking, after a rash of crimes, if the streets of Edmonton are safe and then investigating the regulations that govern the police rather than looking at the actual crime spree and how the police handled it.
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The pipeline safety review does not directly address any of the pipeline spills that prompted the government to call for the review. Those would include spills in 2012 such as the accidental dumping of 3,000 barrels of oil into the Red Deer River and the spillage of 5,000 barrels into Rainbow Lake.

And let’s not forget the Plains Midstream pipeline spill of 28,000 barrels in northwestern Alberta in 2011 — the largest spill in the province in 30 years. That spill warranted its very own public inquiry, or maybe an inquiry into pipeline safety in general.

Instead what we got was the Alberta Pipeline Safety Review.

It would seem to be a classic case of bait and switch. We walked into the store for an Apple MacBook Pro with retina display and left with a Commodore 64.

 - Finally, Paul Hanley and Christine Stark both discuss Canada's appalling (and all-too-rarely-acknowledged) abuse of First Nations people. But have no fear: the Cons are hard at work using public money to search for scapegoats.

Saturday Afternoon Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- Lana Payne sounds the alarm about the choice of the government of Newfoundland and Labrador to cry "deficit!" as an excuse to slash social spending when the actual deficit is virtually identical to the amount it's spending on added resource development - and far less than what the province has handed to wealthy residents in tax cuts.

- Chantal Hebert rightly notes that Idle No More and the predictable bigoted backlash only serve as a single example of Canada's need to better address minorities:

Over the past few weeks, there are those who have been dismayed by the toxic tone of the social media as the First Nations issue has heated up. But the twittersphere is only providing a more public outlet for a visceral and polarizing current that systematically surfaces in tandem with any discussion of the place of the country’s national minorities in modern-day Canada.

It was just easier to diminish the existence of that current back when it was not in plain sight.

Does not anyone remember the quasi-hysterical reaction and the over-the-top language that attended the adoption of a mere House of Commons resolution dealing with Quebec’s national status in 2006 in some otherwise mainstream quarters?

Or what about the vitriolic comments that so routinely make their way below media stories related to Quebec these days that many no longer take notice of them?

There are many admirable features to Canada’s attachment to a civic form of nationalism but the tendency to use it to refuse to come to terms with the distinctive elements that are at the root of the country’s identity is not one of them.

- Meanwhile, Lloyd Axworthy and Wab Kinew write about the need to respond to Idle No More with real change in how Canada addresses First Nations:

As the Idle No More movement marches its way into our national consciousness, it has become too easy to forget that this country began with co-operation between indigenous and European peoples. The responses have divided many, making supporters of some “average Canadians” and drawing vehement and, occasionally, vitriolic opposition from others.

While discussion always strengthens democracy, we ought not to get too caught up in the bickering to ignore the broader opportunity that Idle No More offers us: the chance to engage in nation-building, to make the country we love stronger. Canada’s future is strongly tied to the well-being of its indigenous peoples.
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Some Canadians may fear that they’ll be worse off or face a higher tax burden if indigenous people do better. But the nation’s well-being is not a zero-sum game. Right now, there are thousands of young indigenous people who face much longer odds on the road to success than the average child. If we help them better fulfill their potential, they’ll eventually contribute more to our society. As the first peoples do better, we’ll all do better.

There’s a strong moral argument in favour of doing right by this country’s first peoples as well. Idle No More has garnered international attention, in the form of solidarity protests and also from some serious media outlets. Do Canadians really want to stand in front of the world opposed to equal and equitable opportunities for first nations, Inuit and Métis children? Do we really want to say we’re a country that dishonours its treaty commitments? We think not.

- Finally, Lee Berthiaume reports that the Cons are backtracking on their previous plans to send disaster areas a bill for calling in the Canadian Forces. Which certainly beats the alternative - but nonetheless serves as rather stark evidence as to how they'd like to govern if they could get away with it.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- No, it's no huge surprise that the Cons are planning to launch systematic attacks against labour as the next step after making it clear they'll treat any strike or lockout as both illegitimate and entirely the fault of uppity serfs.

But it is worth pointing out that by threatening legislation to make sure that a vote against ratification of an agreement never happens again, the Cons are taking a step beyond even what most anti-labour regimes have put forward in recent history: rather than pretending they have any interest in workplace democracy (which is the line normally peddled as an excuse for, say, making certification more difficult), they're making it abundantly clear that they don't think union members should have any say whatsoever in the nature of the collective bargaining agreement that governs their work.

- Saskboy is right to worry that much Saskatchewan's media has been far too quick to narrow the options available to voters in this fall's election campaigns. But it's worth recognizing that its insistence on declaring a Sask Party victory to be a foregone conclusion before the campaign begins also forms part of that same myopia.

- Meanwhile, Steve points out the absurd lengths adopted by the Hudak PCs to prevent an entirely typical bit of misfortune from becoming part of the narrative of Ontario's election campaign.

- Finally, Newfoundland and Labrador go to the polls today. And there's plenty of reason for excitement that we'll see the province's first-ever NDP opposition as a result. [Update: And of course, the Yukon's territorial election is also happening today.]

On regional effects

The NDP's provincial surges in Canada's Atlantic provinces has received some attention already. But it's particularly worth noting how the provincial numbers figure to relate to the recent federal election results.

On the one hand, it does seem that the federal campaign managed to catch the attention some voters who otherwise weren't considering the NDP as a possibility - with at least some of those voters now expressing their support.

But perhaps more noteworthy is the fact that the NDP's provincial results in each province other than Nova Scotia still have a ways to go to catch up to the party's federal vote share. And if a higher profile nationally can make those numbers converge, then it looks entirely possible that the NDP could emerge as the leading challenger for government throughout a region that's historically been almost entirely barren territory.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- As part of her look at what lies ahead for the NDP, Barbara Yaffe recognizes why it figures to make for a tougher opponent than the Libs have over the past few years:

How will Conservatives react to Layton leading the main opposition party in Parliament?

It remains to be seen whether they will mount an advertising campaign against him as they did against Liberal leaders Paul Martin, Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff.

Conservatives may have met their match, though. After all, Layton has led his party since 2003 and may be too much of a known quantity to be successfully attacked by government backroomers.

- All those who predicted that Newfoundland and Labrador would be the first province to see any effort to call Stephen Harper's Senate bluff (even if based only in the province's opposition parties), please collect your winnings.

- While plenty of people have pointed to Stephane Dion's paper for the MacDonald-Laurier Institute, I'm not sure anybody else has noticed what looks like a major part of the story.

Namely, when did Stephane Dion start writing for a Con-promoted and funded special interest group which mostly serves as a front for Con spin? And if the likes of Dion are lending their names and opinions to the greater glory of the Cons' cronies, what does that say about the Libs' hopes of building any competing institutions?

- Finally, Benjamin Wallace-Wells' feature on Paul Krugman includes this noteworthy tidbit on how economic gains have been divided in the U.S.:

From 1979 to 2004, the income of the richest one percent of Americans grew by 176 percent, that of the richest one fifth of the country by 69 percent, and that of everyone else by less than 25 percent. Working through the numbers, Krugman came to believe that “only a fraction” of the change was compelled by global forces, which had been the standard explanation. The rest, he concluded, was political.

It was Krugman’s Princeton colleague Larry Bartels who made the critical connection, in research Krugman devoured and still cites. Perhaps the most important influence on income inequality, Bartels argued, was something economists had not ­emphasized: whether a Democrat or a Republican was in the White House. Since World War II, Bartels found, wealthy families in the 95th percentile in income had seen identical income growth under both parties. But for families in the 20th percentile, the difference was astonishing: Under Democratic presidents, their income grew at six times the rate it did under Republican ones. There was, for Krugman, a kind of radicalization implied in this.

And I'd have to wonder whether the observations can be applied elsewhere: is there reason to doubt that the wealthy will tend to see relatively consistent gains in income, while the main distinction between different governments and societies is whether anybody else also benefits? And if so, wouldn't that seem like a rather compelling reason to focus all the more on redistribution rather than hoping that policies which obvious favour the wealthy on their face will somehow have trickle-down effects?