Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Jessica Wildfire examines how employees are being illegally forced to put their health at risk by employers determined to impose policies which facilitate the spread of COVID-19. And Craig Ellingson and Chelan Skulski report on the Alberta Medical Association's warning that the province's health care system is on the verge of collapse, while Timm Bruch reports that the UCP is trying to spin naturopathy and other quackery-for-profit as a substitute for the availability of public health care. 

- Jake Bittle calls out the large number of fossil fuel lobbyists at COP28, while Nina Lakhani reveals that hundreds of the attendees charged with working out a global response to the climate crisis have a history of actively denying its existence. So it's no surprise that the output has been grossly insufficient - according to the International Energy Agency as well as other expert participants. And Oliver Milman reports on the continued establishment focus on magical future technology as a substitute for near-term cuts to carbon pollution. 

- Andrew Nikiforuk points out that Alberta bears the dubious distinction of having the world's single most harmful methane leak. And Bob Weber reports that Saskatchewan too continues to report fictitious figures while spewing far more methane than it's bothering to measure. 

- Ryan Hogg reports on new research by IPPR and Common Wealth showing that large companies predictably capitalized on messaging about inflation by extracting massive windfall profits far exceeding any increase in costs. And Trevor Tombe and Jennifer Winter discuss the Canadian twist on  the exploitation of inflation to further enrich the already-wealthy, as the Cons use a false narrative blaming carbon pricing rather than corporate greed to try to transfer even more wealth to the top. 

- Christopher Cheung examines how the non-profit industrial complex is a poor substitute for public programs with the resources to meaningfully address social needs.

- Finally, Ian Kreitzberg reports on the UAW's ambitions to organize every automaker in the U.S. to spur broad-based gains in wages and working conditions.

Sunday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Rick Salutin nicely describes what's behind the "charity" model of top-end wish fulfillment that the Cons are pitching in place of actual social programs:

The Old Philanthropy, aside from a few big foundations that now look modest, was embodied in wealthy people who went on boards like the United Way. They led by their own contributions, and worked with the social agencies involved, while encouraging ordinary people to give in their workplaces, schools, churches etc. That model has faded as the social gap widened. Fewer people can afford to contribute. Only 23 per cent of Canadians now report donations on their tax returns. It’s a record low. The old model really built community; the United Way was once even called Community Chest, which you still see on Monopoly (the game) boards. Community scarcely figures in the new model. You get the rich, noble few and the wretched, competing recipients.

What was bad in the old version of charity was that it reinforced the sense of distance and difference between givers and givees. What was good about it is that it injected an element into public activity not tied to the dominant economic system through the profit motive; the old charity was predicated instead on fellow feeling, human solidarity and even, gulp, love. The New Philanthropy, which is basically even older than the old kind, reintroduces an appeal to narrow self-interest in the form of greed, a jacked-up component of control, and narcissism in the form of fawning media reflections. Whoopee.

- Kevin Libin discusses the cost of the Cons' dumb-on-crime policies (which is of course being downloaded to the provinces):

Yes, I know: Boo-effin'-hoo. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Canadians have been warned that there's a new sheriff in town, and if they can't play by the Tories' stern new rules, then it's their own fault if they end up destroying their own families, their health, their mental stability and their economic stability. Fair enough.

But even if that's how we want to look at things, it doesn't mean the rest of us won't also have to bear some of the direct and indirect costs of higher incarceration rates and longer prison terms, too. If the Prime Minister's tough-on-crime rules end up creating more ex-cons, and more hardened ex-cons, and they end up, as they have in the United States, increasing the portion of our population with mental illnesses, poorer health, chronic unemployment and homelessness problems and family break-ups, those are costs that are going to hit the provinces harder in their health-care budgets and social support program budgets - and for years longer than the actual incarcerations.

The provinces are right to worry about the added enforcement, court and prison costs the Conservatives' new crime bill will bring. They should be just as worried about the costs they'll face further down the road.

- Kady notes that Russ Hiebert's anti-union bill was struck from the House of Commons order paper - making for at least some delay in the Cons' attacks on workers. But it's worth noting the flip side of the ruling as well to the extent the ruling reflects a more strict application of the limitations on private members' bills may also significantly restrict what the opposition parties are able to present for debate (while the Cons can simply redirect their efforts toward government bills which won't face the same obstacles).

- Paul Moist points out how attacks on organized labour can affect workers in general:

Over the last few decades, the salaries of CEOs have been driven higher and higher, while the wages of their workers grow at an absurdly slower rate. Defined benefit pensions have become increasingly scarce. When once we strived to work hard, save, and build a better life for our families, corporations want us to believe we are lucky to have a job at all -- but don't let that stop you from raking up thousands and thousands in consumer debt.

The myth can't go on forever, and even the most fervent Conservative supporter is bound to ask -- we keep giving corporations every advantage, why isn't it getting any better for me and my family?

Lacking any rational answer, at least one that doesn't betray Bay Street, Harper Conservatives have a long list of ideological scapegoats at the ready.

Circumstance put postal workers and Air Canada employees at the head of the queue, but every other union member in Canada knows they are next. Someone has to take the fall for failing trade policies, corporate irresponsibility, and massive deficits caused by regressive tax schemes.

So ploy after ploy is being used to undermine Canadian labour. Union members, especially public-sector union members, are being offered up as the economic boogiemen, with tired stereotypes being trotted out to portray some Canadian workers as privileged just because they have some small measure of security.

These types of tactics are not fitting of our society. They speak to a reliance on divisive political games that play to the worst fears of Canadians to gain and maintain power. While unions are the present target, union members are far from the only one being harmed by this type of politics. It's lead to a tragic erosion in many's faith in our democratic process, and the mass disenfranchisement of far too many Canadian citizens.

- And finally, Paul Krugman highlights the oligarchy which seems to be controlling the political agenda no less thoroughly in Canada than the U.S.:

If anything, the protesters are setting the cutoff too low. The recent budget office report doesn’t look inside the top 1 percent, but an earlier report, which only went up to 2005, found that almost two-thirds of the rising share of the top percentile in income actually went to the top 0.1 percent — the richest thousandth of Americans, who saw their real incomes rise more than 400 percent over the period from 1979 to 2005.

Who’s in that top 0.1 percent? Are they heroic entrepreneurs creating jobs? No, for the most part, they’re corporate executives. Recent research shows that around 60 percent of the top 0.1 percent either are executives in nonfinancial companies or make their money in finance, i.e., Wall Street broadly defined. Add in lawyers and people in real estate, and we’re talking about more than 70 percent of the lucky one-thousandth.

But why does this growing concentration of income and wealth in a few hands matter? Part of the answer is that rising inequality has meant a nation in which most families don’t share fully in economic growth. Another part of the answer is that once you realize just how much richer the rich have become, the argument that higher taxes on high incomes should be part of any long-run budget deal becomes a lot more compelling.

The larger answer, however, is that extreme concentration of income is incompatible with real democracy. Can anyone seriously deny that our political system is being warped by the influence of big money, and that the warping is getting worse as the wealth of a few grows ever larger?

Some pundits are still trying to dismiss concerns about rising inequality as somehow foolish. But the truth is that the whole nature of our society is at stake.

The costs of misdirection

Frances Russell points out the key difference between efforts to deal with inequality and those more narrowly targeted toward poverty alone:

As Linda McQuaig points out in her latest book, The Trouble With Billionaires: "For many on the right and even a surprising number on the left, inequality has become a non-issue, even as it's grown by leaps and bounds... Today, many influential progressives insist that poverty, not inequality, should be the focus... how well the rich are faring is irrelevant."

Exchanging the word inequality for the word poverty makes life easier for governments and the wealthy. Poverty can be addressed by the noblesse oblige of private charity. Inequality can only be addressed by genuine social and economic change.

And I'd think it's worth asking some questions about our current structure of noblesse oblige - even if I'm not sure whether it's even possible to answer them in detail.

After all, there doesn't seem to be much room for doubt that plenty of resources - in both money collected and individual time - get put into charitable fund-raisers through businesses and/or employers. But I'd be curious to see if the time and money put into those efforts can be compared to both the amounts spent on corporate lobbying efforts to reduce the size of government, and the reductions in corporate taxes which have resulted (both of which of course increase the burden on charities while detracting from their intended goals).

And if the work of volunteers and donors is being substantially undercut by the latter forces, then that might be dead giveaway that our current system operates to channel individual philanthropy for the ultimate benefit of those who already have the most - signalling that those taking a broader view of the interests of people in need will be better served spending their time working to change the system.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday.

- Heather Mallick nicely sums up much of the philosophy behind the Cons' train wreck of a pension proposal:

Flaherty seems to regard the CPP as communism. It isn’t. It’s brilliant in a sensible Canadian sort of way. Hard-right governments — American, British and Canadian — are always droning out about “financial literacy.” CAW economist Jim Stanford, who is a director of the Canadian Foundation for Economic Education, points out that this drive, while helpful, also places a greater burden of blame on consumers whose investments tanked recently. It wasn’t the stock market being run like a casino, it was the fault of the dopey investor. Don’t expect the government to help, Flaherty is saying. You’re on your own. (The American Republican phrase is “no government interference.” The British call it “the Big Society.”)

But of course, it's worth keeping in mind the flip side that the financial sector can always count on a giveaway.

- Meanwhile, Michael Shapcott points out reason for concern that a business-first mindset is having a toxic effect on charities which are forced to move outside their intended purposes in the hope of chasing down funding.

- After an election that saw about as solid a showing as was possible without winning a seat, the New Brunswick NDP has a leadership race on its hands. And it'll be particularly interesting to see how the candidates can do in building on the party's positive profile from this year's election campaign.

- And finally, it's certainly progress that the first charges have been laid related to police actions at the G20. But we'll have to wait and see whether the charges against Constable Babak Andalib-Goortani prove to be anything more than an attempt to charge somebody to avoid a more thorough examination of responsibility for the trampling of civil rights in Canada's largest city.