Leadership 2012 Roundup

Assorted news and notes from the NDP's leadership campaign as we approach today's final debate...

- Niki Ashton pointed out how the NDP should be able to tap into the desire for democratic decision-making that once motivated the Reform Party before it was turned into a top-down organization under the thumb of Stephen Harper.

- Nathan Cullen is suggesting that he may have enough momentum to come up the middle at the leadership convention. And in an interview with Planet S, he had this to say about some of the major challenges to the Cons' corporate-driven agenda:

PS: Are you optimistic about the (Gateway pipeline) hearings?

NC: Do we have the money and lawyers that Enbridge has? No. But we have people, and there are more of us than there are of them. And we’re right. I’m resolved, and my people are resolved. I’ve never felt so determined about something.

How maddening is it for Harper to call people who care about their homes and communities “foreign radicals”? By calling Canadians who care about the environment enemies of the state, while obviously taking sides with foreign-owned oil companies, he’s laying the seeds of his own demise.
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PS: What, if anything, do you think the Occupy movement contributed to Canadian politics?

NC: It opened up a question for many people: how did we end up with such a rigged system? The movement has tapped a sentiment and asked the questions that are important to people, but it remains to be seen what we all are going to do about it.

- In the same Planet S interview series featuring Cullen, Mulcair offered this on the effect of the Occupy movement:

PS: What, if anything, do you think the Occupy movement contributed to Canadian politics?

TM: It was a wake-up call that the root causes of the crash of ’08 have not been addressed, and there are a lot of people in our society who are being left behind. The people who brought that crash are still in charge and they’re still making the same decisions. I can tell you that a lot of the analysis that is being done by leaders of the Occupy movement has a foundation in fact, and it’s the first time since the environmental movement in the ‘60s that the public has taken such direct action.

But it does seem to have run out of steam. More long term, the answer is going to have to be political.

Meanwhile, Mulcair also released a new video to define himself as the campaign draws to a close:



But I'd have to consider the result fairly unimpressive: not only does it fail to answer any questions about his campaign, it also falls into some process traps that I've readily pointed out when other parties have considered their own treatment at the hands of the Cons more of an outrage than the effects on Canadian voters. And indeed I wouldn't be surprised if a better video could be cobbled together from Mulcair's answers within any of the English debates.

- Joanna Smith profiled Peggy Nash, including this on the need for citizens to stay engaged in their government:

(Nash's travels abroad) made her thankful that she lived in a peaceful and politically stable country, but also somewhat wistful that Canadians were not more politically aware and engaged, something she still wishes were the case today.

“We all know, vigilance is key,” she says of the importance of political awareness even when a country is not experiencing the kind of crises she witnessed during her travels. “Every generation has to fight for things all over again.”

She explains that she is talking about the rights of women being threatened by the Conservative government doing things like refusing to include funding for abortion in the G8 initiative on maternal child health, but also about growing economic inequality through job losses and attacking collective agreements.

“There has been pressure building for several years, but it’s increasingly gaining velocity. It’s accelerating and I think we should all be concerned about it,” says Nash.

- Brian Topp released his immigration plan (emphasizing the treatment of new Canadians as people rather than economic tools) just in time to greet the Cons' anticipated budget going in the opposite direction.

- Finally, Jeffrey Simpson and Joel-Denis Bellavance both compare Mulcair and his plans for the NDP to Tony Blair and the Third Way - though neither offers any particular explanation as to what that actually means in terms of the NDP's organization. KK offers up some reasons to vote for Paul Dewar. And Marc Laferriere offers an overview of the candidates who recently appeared in Brant, while making this suggestion for the end of the campaign:

A united NDP, no matter who becomes leader, will be able to achieve the dreams set up before us by leaders like Tommy, Ed and Jack. These candidates, and even more importantly their teams, have done an incredible job separately and have learned much. When we all get back on the same team, watch out.

My challenge to all New Democrats from every leadership team is this: The leadership race has to end on March 24th. No camps, no grudges, no hurt feelings. Let's see what we can do together and where we are a year from now as a united force for a better, more progressive Canada.

Parliament in Review: November 16, 2011

Wednesday, November 16 saw plenty of direct clash between the Cons and the NDP on an issue that's been in the news again today. And lest there be any doubt, while the Cons have raised their level of inflammatory rhetoric, they've been less than convincing when it comes to anything of substance.

The Big Issue

In the wake of several days of criticism over Keystone XL, the NDP brought plenty of challenges to both the Cons' actions and their selective memory. Brian Masse and Kennedy Stewart responded to the Cons' criticisms of the NDP's work in Washington by pointing out who's actually taken a strong stand against Canada on the international stage. And Eve Peclet noted that refinery jobs are being lost in Canada while tar sands operators work on shipping raw bitumen out of the country for processing.

Say Anything

Meanwhile, the Libs had their own area of contention, as Geoff Regan repeatedly challenged the Cons' assertion that his party had voted against an extension of time for converting RRSPs to RRIFs. But Ted Menzies offered as reasonable an explanation as is ever forthcoming from the Cons:

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals vote against so much that it is hard to keep track of what they vote for and what they vote against.

So if the Cons lie about a competitor's actions, it's the subject's own fault. Just one more way in which the Cons keep themselves to a high standard of honesty and competence. (And no, Menzies' line wasn't an accident, as he repeated it a second time.)

And that was only the second most outrageous point raised by the Libs. Of course, Irwin Cotler's point of order has received plenty of coverage already - despite Peter Van Loan's remarkable admission that Cotler does in fact exist.

In Brief

Andrew Cash highlighted the Occupy protests as part of a proud tradition of activism in the name of greater rights and equality. Rodger Cuzner invoked Stephen Harper's past interventions in departmental issues to ask why he isn't doing anything to ensure that EI is available to Canadians who need it. Nycole Turmel challenged Stephen Harper to listen to the movement's message, while criticizing the Cons' fondness for casino capitalism. Con MP Costas Menegakis declared that he considers home retrofitting funding to be his party's housing program. Mathieu Ravignat challenged the Cons to repay the money they've now admitted they wrongly claimed through Conadscam. Charlie Angus again asked whether the Cons stood behind Dean Del Mastro's attacks on judicial independence and the CBC, and James Moore again confirmed that they do. Kirsty Duncan and Elizabeth May questioned the Cons' decision to exclude all opposition parties from the Durban climate change conference. Brian Storseth made it clear that his private member's bill to eliminate human rights legislation against hate speech has the government's full support. Linda Duncan asked when the Cons will take action based on the revelation that the Fort McKay First Nation's drinking water has been contaminated with trihalomethane 87% of the time, only to be met with John Duncan's self-congratulation for having bothered to measure anything. Masse introduced four private members' bills, including one to restore the long-form census and provide for the independence of the Chief Statistician, one to increase the tax credits available for charitable donations, one to address psychological harassment in the workplace, and finally one to provide for the labelling of products containing cat or dog fur. The Cons' bill on military judges passed with unanimous consent - which of course meant it was time for them to limit debate on their omnibus budget bill. Van Loan confirmed that he's even worse at math than Jim Flaherty. And finally, Charmaine Borg questioned the Cons on pervasive poverty and inequality in the day's adjournment proceedings.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your year.

- Paul Krugman once again laments the determination of anti-government fundamentalists to avoid learning the lessons that should have become glaringly obvious over 70 years ago:

In declaring Keynesian economics vindicated I am, of course, at odds with conventional wisdom. In Washington, in particular, the failure of the Obama stimulus package to produce an employment boom is generally seen as having proved that government spending can’t create jobs. But those of us who did the math realized, right from the beginning, that the Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (more than a third of which, by the way, took the relatively ineffective form of tax cuts) was much too small given the depth of the slump. And we also predicted the resulting political backlash.

So the real test of Keynesian economics hasn’t come from the half-hearted efforts of the U.S. federal government to boost the economy, which were largely offset by cuts at the state and local levels. It has, instead, come from European nations like Greece and Ireland that had to impose savage fiscal austerity as a condition for receiving emergency loans — and have suffered Depression-level economic slumps, with real G.D.P. in both countries down by double digits.
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We entered 2011 amid dire warnings about a Greek-style debt crisis that would happen as soon as the Federal Reserve stopped buying bonds, or the rating agencies ended our triple-A status, or the superdupercommittee failed to reach a deal, or something. But the Fed ended its bond-purchase program in June; Standard & Poor’s downgraded America in August; the supercommittee deadlocked in November; and U.S. borrowing costs just kept falling. In fact, at this point, inflation-protected U.S. bonds pay negative interest: investors are willing to pay America to hold their money.

The bottom line is that 2011 was a year in which our political elite obsessed over short-term deficits that aren’t actually a problem and, in the process, made the real problem — a depressed economy and mass unemployment — worse.

- Which serves as reason why Mike Moffatt's Keltner list for public policy proposals might be worth a look in evaluating the effect of gratuitous austerity.

- Romeo Dallaire is optimistic that the popular movements that emerged in 2011 are just starting to have their ultimate effect.

- Josh Dorner notes that "progressive" is by far the best-received political label in the U.S. - offering an opportunity to use the spillover effect of U.S. political attitudes to the advantage of the Canadian left for a change.

- Finally, David Berlin views Jack Layton's legacy as including both the building of a winning attitude within the NDP, and the transformation of that mindset into what may be the effective end of Quebec separatist sentiment.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Jeffrey Simpson manages to write an entire column on important political developments he missed in 2011 without uttering the words "NDP" (or mentioning any member thereof). Which surely looks like an early nominee as a continued blind spot in 2012.

- Peter Thurley wishes for a national housing strategy in the new year. But judging from the Cons' insistence on casting blame rather than doing anything to address even the most glaring needs for which the federal government has the most direct responsibility, I don't see much reason for optimism.

- Meanwhile, more tax breaks for worker-busting figure to be on the table for a long time to come.

- Finally, Rick Salutin highlights the much-needed decline of deference to power and wealth. And on that front, Sixth Estate offers a preview of what's to come in the year ahead.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Paul Krugman comments on how Republicans' cheerleading for total corporate control - which has of course been matched at every turn by Canada's Cons - has resulted in their declaring war on any policy which could possibly result in environmental improvements:

(T)he payoff to...new rules (on mercury emissions) is huge: up to $90 billion a year in benefits compared with around $10 billion a year of costs in the form of slightly higher electricity prices. This is, as David Roberts of Grist says, a very big deal.

And it’s a deal Republicans very much want to kill.

With everything else that has been going on in U.S. politics recently, the G.O.P.’s radical anti-environmental turn hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. But something remarkable has happened on this front. Only a few years ago, it seemed possible to be both a Republican in good standing and a serious environmentalist; during the 2008 campaign John McCain warned of the dangers of global warming and proposed a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions. Today, however, the party line is that we must not only avoid any new environmental regulations but roll back the protection we already have.

And I’m not exaggerating: during the fight over the debt ceiling, Republicans tried to attach riders that, as Time magazine put it, would essentially have blocked the E.P.A. and the Interior Department from doing their jobs.
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(W)henever you hear dire predictions about the effects of pollution regulation, you should know that special interests always make such predictions, and are always wrong. For example, power companies claimed that rules on acid rain would disrupt electricity supply and lead to soaring rates; none of that happened, and the acid rain program has become a shining example of how environmentalism and economic growth can go hand in hand.

But again, never mind: mindless opposition to “job killing” regulations is now part of what it means to be a Republican. And I have to admit that this puts something of a damper on my mood: the E.P.A. has just done a very good thing, but if a Republican — any Republican — wins next year’s election, he or she will surely try to undo this good work.

- And in other dog-bites-man news, stay tuned for another potential prosecution against a right-wing Saskatchewan political party for an alleged violation of election law.

- Dave points out the disaster that's resulted from the B.C. Libs' privatization of BC Ferries. Meanwhile, Postmedia notes that Saskatchewan's truly public model for intra-provincial transportation is doing far better than private comparators.

- Finally, Colin Horgan compares the vote mob trend which received so much attention early in 2011 to the Occupy movement which emerged later in the year:

For now, Occupy has, arguably, accomplished at least one thing. It has managed to change the conversation — something vote mobs attempted, but at which they ultimately failed.

The difference between the two is perhaps as simple as the fact that vote mobs pushed youth back to the system from which they already felt disenchanted. Occupy, on the other hand, recognized that disaffection and offered the concept of an entirely alternative system, somewhere on the other side of a few internet photos.
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Where a quasi-movement like vote mobs failed to make anyone talk about politics differently, Occupy has done exactly that. It has changed the way virtually everyone in Canada and the United States is now talking about its most specific target, the economy. Income disparity, corporate negligence, the concept of a homegrown plutocracy — these are ideas no longer relegated to fringe elements, but are beginning to be discussed widely, along with the idea that there maybe some rot developing at the core of the current system. With that accomplished, Occupy will likely hibernate happily.

As for the voting booths, they still await the day young faces start outnumbering old ones. Though perhaps not for much longer.

Saturday Afternoon Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- Thomas Walkom tries to be optimistic about the year ahead, and likely settles on the best reason for hope that Canada's politics will see some change for the better:

Canada, like Australia and Brazil, is getting by on sales of raw materials whose prices are kept high by seemingly insatiable Chinese demand.

But the key word here is “seemingly.” The world has seen so-called Asian miracles before, starting with Japan in the 1980s and running through various so-called Tigers such as Thailand in the ’90s.

In the end, these miracles proved less than miraculous. And unless China’s Communist leadership has discovered how to operate a capitalist economy without boom and bust, the same must inevitably happen there — with effects that will ricochet across the globe.

Politically, Canada has entered a kind of deep freeze. The New Democrats have discovered, to their horror, that gaining official Opposition status at a time of majority government is largely meaningless.

The NDP hopes this will change when it chooses a permanent leader in March. To the extent that Parliament gives political leaders a pulpit, the party’s optimism is not entirely misplaced.

- But Joseph Stiglitz points out that a complete lack of perspective as to the relative importance of financial-sector profits and social priorities figures to be a problem for a long time to come.

- Alice dissects Nathan Cullen's joint nomination proposal:

It's a big leap to assume that the public will be accepting of a process run by a tiny proportion of the whole riding population to conspire to eliminate certain choices from the ballot in the hopes of torquing the election outcome. It's another big leap to assume that this would be done in a vacuum, given that the Conservative Party would be following along closely, and reserving all their strategic and tactical options.

Of course, for the NDP and the other parties, there are other strategic and tactical considerations, such as:

* would it actually even work, or would enough orphaned voters switch to the Conservatives or stay home if their preferred choice was not on the ballot?
* is it democratic or politically wise to be advocating the elimination of political choice for the public by a small group of political activists
* in particular could the NDP then run as effectively as one of the two main choices in the "consideration set" of the general election (a term coined by Innovative Research's Greg Lyle to describe the process by which consumer choice is whittled down to two viable choices, and drawing parallels to voting behaviour), if it was at the same time enabling the election of one of its non-"consideration set" competitors.
* tactically, what criteria would be applied for deciding whether a joint nomination would achieve the intended result or not in a riding with newly formed boundaries
* what is the cost-benefit analysis of foregoing the opportunity to build in that riding next time, foregoing the room under the national spending ceiling (which is affected by how many candidates a party runs in an election), and foregoing the rebate, organizational opportunities and other team-building in a riding association that result from waging a local campaign, even if it doesn't win, as against the probability of being able to defeat the incumbent in a riding

- Finally, Occupy Vancouver tracks the social benefits provided by its camp.

Monday Evening Links

Assorted content to end your day.

- Toby Sanger posts about the OECD's findings on inequality in Canada, with this particularly jumping out as to how much less progressive our tax system is now than it was two decades ago:

Taxes and benefits play a smaller role in reducing inequality in Canada than in most OECD countries: prior to the mid-1990s, they offset more than 70% of the rise in market income inequality, now it’s less than 40%(.)

- Leftwords points out that UK hospitals which were built as P3s as a matter of government decree are now demanding - and receiving - a higher cost for services as a result of that ill-advised choice. And Tim Harford highlights the absurdity of the free-marketeers' argument that public-sector pay should be seen as nothing but a cost to society while private-sector pay is seen as the be-all and end-all of policy development.

- Erika Shaker takes Margaret Wente more seriously than Wente deserves, but makes up for it with a thorough skewering of her condescension toward the Occupy movement.

- Finally, Mia Rabson points out that the Cons can't be taken seriously in feigning concern with bullying in Canada at large when it forms the centrepiece of their political strategy.

Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Frances Russell wonders what happened to the concept of the public good:

Our political language about taxes has changed. Gone is "ability to pay." The new catchphrases are "user pay" and "pay as you go." The bottom-line message to citizens is "if you can't pay, you don't go." You don't get to drive into our congested cities without a toll; you don't get your garbage collected without a fee; and who knows, soon you won't get to visit a doctor without a charge.

So pervasive is everyone-for-himself that there is hardly anyone talking about concepts such as "the public good" and "a rising tide lifts all boats."

There's no more community, just individuals and their self-interest.

- But then, Jeffrey Simpson recognizes that a huge part of the political conversation that's been missing for far too long has been reintroduced thanks to the Occupy movement (even if he's rather quick to write off its future impact):

The souls who camped out were a disparate lot, with rather inchoate ideas about how to change society, let alone challenge seriously the capitalist system. Their camps are now being dismantled, sometimes by court order.

They did point, however, to a challenge few politicians want to address: growing income inequality and the verifiable fact that, within that growing inequality, the very, very rich are pulling away from the rest of society. You can see this at work within the upper reaches of the corporate sector, where the gap between what bosses and employees make has widened. No longer do compensation committees look at this metric; instead, they compare CEOs’ compensation with that of other CEOs’, so that the vortex of higher pay continues within the narrow confines of cozy cross-comparisons.

The Occupy movement began in the United States, where the recession started, courtesy of the major financial institutions – a collapse that plunged the country into a nightmarish combination of large deficits, swelling debt and high unemployment.

Long before the recession, however, the U.S. was becoming a significantly more unequal society, as the Congressional Budget Office explained in a recent report. The CBO looked at the years 1979 to 2007. It found that, whereas average household income after inflation grew by 62 per cent, the top 1 per cent of the population had enjoyed income growth of 275 per cent. The bottom 20-per-cent’s after-tax income had grown 18 per cent. Said the CBO: “As a result of uneven income growth, the distribution of after-tax household income in the United States was substantially more unequal in 2007 than in 1979.”

Market income was increasingly concentrated in fewer hands, said the CBO. Government transfer programs, combined with weaker redistribution of income through the tax system, could not counterbalance the fact that the market was putting more and more income in fewer and fewer hands.

- Which is why it's especially important to listen to the Occupy movement - as Murray Dobbin exhorts us to do.

- Meanwhile, CBC reports on Campaign 2000's observation that Canada has seen painfully little progress in fighting child poverty since the House of Commons unanimously agreed to eliminate it 22 years ago.

- Finally, I'm not sure the stance can really be described as a change based on the Fraser Institute's normal distaste for democratic institutions compared to the whims of the corporate sector. But Sixth Estate is right to point out a particularly egregious example.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Linda McQuaig points out how the Occupy movement has at least started to shift the terms of our political debate:

Rather than hanging out at malls or zoning out on Facebook, these young people have endured real hardship in the Canadian near-winter to fight for a more inclusive society. Any inconvenience they’ve caused through their peaceful occupation seems minor in comparison to their contribution to the public good.

As lawyers from the Law Union of Ontario point out: “Some inconveniences to local park users is a small price to pay for the larger price being paid by the 99 per cent worldwide in the face of an economic system that privileges the few over the many.”

Are occupations really necessary to draw attention to their cause? Perhaps not. But I’d trust their judgment over mine. After all, they’ve managed to change the public discourse, putting inequality front and centre — something activists and writers, myself included, have failed to accomplish despite decades of trying.

An article last week in the mainstream magazine New York notes that we’re now moving “from the terror era to the income-inequality era.”

Wow. After only two months, the Occupy movement — without backing from billionaires or governments — seems to have moved us into a new era. Not bad for a leaderless group that sleeps in tents and doesn’t even use microphones.

- Meanwhile, Stephen Gordon tries dividing discussion about inequality into "first-order" and "top-end" issues. But in noting that the effects of top-end inequality are only part of the overall problem, it's worth pointing out that any efforts to deal with both suffer when top-end inequality results in a political system being devoted toward further enriching those who already have the most.

- And there's still an awfully long way to go beyond what the Occupy movement has been able to accomplish in changing the frame of reference - particularly as governments like the McGuinty Liberals in Ontario push to keep on rewarding the corporate sector at the expense of mere citizens.

- Finally, it's a plus to see Richard Brennan and Aaron Wherry among those picking up on Charlie Angus' strong advocacy for Attawapiskat First Nation as it begs to be evacuated - providing a stark example of the level of inequality and poverty that remains in Canada (even if all too often hidden out of sight). But unfortunately, the people with the capacity to help don't seem to be showing the slightest interest.

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your afternoon reading.

- pogge rightly questions the Cons' continued efforts to have decisions made by ministerial fiat rather than through public debate.

- Glen McGregor eviscerates Brian Lilley's thoroughly inaccurate attack on Canada's Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand.

- Murray Mandryk suggests that Saskatchewan's New Democratic Party needs to remove the "democratic" part of its identity in choosing a new leader. But I'm not sure how the concept of a top-down "leadership vetting process" is supposed to be seen as an improvement from a vote among members, especially as a response to a leadership campaign where the establishment favourite was able to clear the field in large part thanks to the impression of impenetrable institutional support.

- Finally, in the good news department, CBC reports that at least one person who arrived at Occupy Saskatoon mostly out of a need for temporary housing found along the way that it's worth working for the group's cause of greater equality.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Charlie Angus' concerns about the Cons' Albany Club schmoozing nicely parallel my take on the entire lobbying apparatus they've built up:

Mr. Angus said the Albany Club reception is an example of the kind of informal lobbying, through cozy relationships, that has grown under Mr. Harper’s watch.

“My concern with lobbying isn’t the person who comes and knocks on the door of an MP’s office and dutifully records, it’s the people who have access to power, it’s the people who have access to the back rooms and the private clubs, those are the people who can be much more effective as lobbyists and they’re technically not even lobbying, by just opening doors, and that’s the disturbing part.”

- Tim Harper slams the Cons' rhetoric that any dissent is to be equated with treason, while Allan Gregg suggests an alternative to the Harper model of talking-point politics.

- But John Ivison, who should know better, makes the bizarre argument that we should give a pass to the Cons' current anti-democratic abuses because they've committed worse in the past.

- Finally, George Monbiot discusses the self-attribution fallacy and its application to the sense of entitlement held by the ultra-wealthy:

This is not to suggest that all executives are psychopaths. It is to suggest that the economy has been rewarding the wrong skills. As the bosses have shaken off the trade unions and captured both regulators and tax authorities, the distinction between the productive and rentier upper classes has broken down. CEOs now behave like dukes, extracting from their financial estates sums out of all proportion to the work they do or the value they generate, sums that sometimes exhaust the businesses they parasitise. They are no more deserving of the share of wealth they’ve captured than oil sheikhs.

The rest of us are invited, by governments and by fawning interviews in the press, to subscribe to their myth of election: the belief that they are the chosen ones, possessed of superhuman talents. The very rich are often described as wealth creators. But they have preyed upon the earth’s natural wealth and their workers’ labour and creativity, impoverishing both people and planet. Now they have almost bankrupted us. The wealth creators of neoliberal mythology are some of the most effective wealth destroyers the world has ever seen.

What has happened over the past 30 years is the capture of the world’s common treasury by a handful of people, assisted by neoliberal policies which were first imposed on rich nations by Thatcher and Reagan.
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Until recently, we were mesmerised by the bosses’ self-attribution. Their acolytes, in academia, the media, think tanks and government, created an extensive infrastructure of junk economics and flattery to justify their seizure of other people’s wealth. So immersed in this nonsense did we become that we seldom challenged its veracity.

This is now changing. On Sunday evening I witnessed a remarkable thing: a debate on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral between Stuart Fraser, chairman of the Corporation of the City of London, another official from the Corporation, the turbulent priest Father William Taylor, John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network and the people of Occupy London. It had something of the flavour of the Putney debates of 1647. For the first time in decades – and all credit to the Corporation officials for turning up – financial power was obliged to answer directly to the people.

It felt like history being made. The undeserving rich are now in the frame, and the rest of us want our money back.

Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Thomas Walkom suggests that the systematic eviction of Occupy camps from Canadian cities may only help the movement to evolve from its first form:

City administrations in places like Toronto, Halifax and Vancouver are inadvertently handing demonstrators something they desperately need — a way to honourably end stage one of their protest and build on it something more pointed.

As a short-term tactic, the decision to occupy parks in order to draw attention to global inequality was spectacularly successful.

In a world buffeted by recession, it focused public attention on the epicentre of the economic crisis — the global financial system.
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There must be an end point at which those involved in the action can say: Yes we won something. Not everything, maybe, but something.

In cities like Halifax and London, Ont., where the occupy movements have been expelled from public parks, city officials provided that end point. Depending on how a superior court judge rules Saturday, Toronto protesters may face the same fate.

Yet none of this need spell defeat for the occupiers. They now have a chance to strengthen their fragile alliances with other organizations, such as labour unions, that are dissatisfied with inequality in Canadian life.

More important, they can now redirect their energies toward the specific elements of Canadian political economy that encourage such inequalities — from the tax code to municipal outsourcing to the provincial welfare system to the federal government’s war on labour.

- Don Drummond points out that there's plenty to be done to improve Canadian health care besides giving in to the right's relentless demands to privatize.

- Yes, it's outrageous that the Cons are raiding the Canadian Wheat Board's contingency fund (which would otherwise have been distributed to farmers) to pay a small portion of the costs of demolishing the CWB's single desk on its way to being sold off. But it's well worth noting the more basic point that the existence of a fund which gives farmers a share of the benefits of commodity arbitrage is the type of collective benefit that will be lost as the CWB is thrown on the mercy of the market.

- Finally, Ben Christopher notes that labour and management alike are aghast at the Cons' attacks on Canadian unions.

Friday Evening Links

This and that for your evening reading.

- Erin offers up his suggestions for the Saskatchewan NDP's renewal process:

The next NDP leader will presumably be met with a barrage of negative advertising from the Sask Party. New Democrats would do well to elect a leader who will be less vulnerable than Lingenfelter to such attacks. But it will also need a communications strategy and war chest to counter them.

Delaying the leadership vote until 2013 would prevent the Sask Party from negatively defining the NDP leader before New Democrats have the organizational and financial resources to fight back. This timeline would still leave at least two years to positively define and establish the new leader before the 2015 provincial election.

- Digby highlights the brand of plutocrat-friendly populism that Republicans are offering up in an effort to turn the Occupy movement on its head - featuring primarily an all-out attack on the idea of universal programs. And it's not hard to see parallels to what we've heard in Canada as a means of distracting from the growing problem of inequality across all income levels.

- Meanwhile, Dr. Dawg points out the Cons' willingness to let corporate spin take precedence over any semblance of accuracy in the labeling of baby food.

- Finally, it's reassuring to know that the City of Regina is finally willing to do something to encourage the building of rental space - just as long as it's to help deal with a perceived corporate housing crisis. No wonder the city won't abide any more protest on its watch.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Friday reading.

- Alice posts the full party spending numbers from May's election. And the story in fact looks to have been near-maximum spending by each of the four parties then in Parliament - which of course failed to produce much return in two cases.

- thwap is understandably skeptical of the effect of the Occupy protests alone. But I'd again point out that the protests are just one step in what looks to be the wider process of change: by calling public attention to inequality and corporate control, they create an opportunity for political parties and others to carry the message into the arenas where it's possible to bring about substantive change.

- Meanwhile, there's no denying thwap's point as to the importance of protecting workers' rights. And Doug Allan notes some intriguing numbers from the past few years showing a modest rise in unionization rates since the 2008 downturn.

But the more noteworthy part of Allan's analysis relates to the fact that part of that gain results from overall job losses. After all, if it's true that union jobs have been more secure than non-union employment through a period of economic turmoil (which looks like a reasonable reading of his numbers), then that looks like a great argument for workers to make the effort to unionize before the next downturn hits.

- Finally, Eric Howe documents how investment in First Nations education would produce far greater returns (both economic and otherwise) than the corporate giveaways of the Sask Party.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Aaron Wherry profiles how some of the NDP's youngest MPs won a place in office, and the work they're doing now that they hold the role.

- It isn't the kind of endorsement against type that would have the largest possible effect on the leadership race. But Alexa McDonough's support for Peggy Nash nonetheless figures to solidify Nash's place in the top tier of leadership contenders.

- Yes, Sun Media's report about the Libs' campaign spending looks more like an effort to breathe life into an end-of-campaign non-story than anything of substance. But it's particularly worth noting that if there was a $1 million gap between the Libs' campaign limit and their actual spending, that's $4.5 million less than the comparable gap in 2008 - meaning that the Libs pulled out more of the stops in their 2011 fall to third place than in the previous election where they conspicuously held back.

- Meanwhile, Bob Hepburn points out that the Libs' attempt to earn attention in the midst of the NDP's leadership race really reflects nothing more than a road map to nowhere. And it's particularly worth questioning which of the policy priorities cited by Bob Rae as forming the basis of his party's existence hasn't been better dealt with by the NDP for years.

- Finally, it's great to see Occupy Regina standing firm in the face of the City's efforts to shut it down.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Nanos confirms that even as cities are starting to crack down on the Occupy movement, the general public is highly sympathetic to the message about reining in inequality and corporate control:

The Nanos Research poll conducted for The Globe and Mail and La Presse found that 58 per cent of Canadians who are aware of the protests have a favourable or somewhat favourable impression of them.
...
The most significant demographic that views the Occupy movement favourably is people who are between 18 and 29 years of age, the poll found, which may be reflective of a tough job market for new workers. Nearly 73 per cent of people under 30 said they have a favourable or somewhat favourable impression of the protests.

Although respondents in their 40s view the protests less favourably than other demographics, about 50 per cent of them still expressed a favourable or somewhat favourable impression of the protests. People in their 60s had the most polarized reactions to the protests, with 34 per cent saying their impression is favourable and 32 per cent saying it is unfavourable.

- Carly Weeks points out that we may be facing shortages of needed medications simply because big pharma wants to phase out cheaping drugs for more expensive ones. Which should offer yet another reason as to why a public-sector manufacturer could do a world of good.

- The two stories are stunning enough on their own. But it's particularly galling to juxtapose the fact that employment insurance is becoming less and less accessible with the Cons' edict that the Office of Client Satisfaction that's supposed to address concerns is to be kept secret.

- Erin notes that Saskatchewan's election results don't change the fact that getting a reasonable return on our resources is a matter of competent management rather than politics alone.

- Finally, those of us interested in turning potential political involvement into the actual votes needed to bring about change may want to take a close look at Kevin Chief's example.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Dr. Dawg follows up on Stephen Harper's apology to residential school survivors, and rightly questions how sincere it can be when it's been followed up with repeated efforts to avoid either actual compensation or (more importantly) efforts to bring First Nations standards of living anywhere close to those available to most Canadians.

- Boris notes that Vancouver's recent excuse to shut down peaceful Occupy protests represents the first test for the movement. And unfortunately, Regina's Occupiers are being tested as well.

- But as Colby Cosh rightly points out, it's excessive resistance that allows a movement to build a long-term place in our political conversation. And so with the right response, a crackdown might only help to highlight how unreasonable the anti-Occupy forces are for the general public.

- And speaking of the right response to gratuitous threats, PIPSC has officially voted to join the Canadian Labour Congress. Which Tim Harper rightly sees as part of a wider labour effort to muscle up against the Cons' attacks.

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.

On virtuous choices

Margaret Wente's latest isn't that far off of my criticism of most of her reactionary pablum. And the fact-checking of her column is entirely deserved. But she does manage to highlight an important choice, even if she rhetorically assumes exactly the wrong outcome.

In fact, I'd think there's indeed a problem if large numbers of well-educated people can't find work related to their fields of expertise. And that goes doubly if students have to take out massive student loans to get an education that's setting them up for little opportunity.

Where Wente goes astray, though, is in assuming that the solution is for more people to avoid higher learning and instead train only for the jobs that best suit the interests of those with the most money to pay. And Wente's own choice of words signals how glaringly bizarre her position is: since when is "virtue" a vice to be mocked, rather than something that should be generally pursued (even if different political actors may disagree on its exact form)?

Fortunately, the gap between the projects people value most and those that are currently being funded can be bridged at least as easily by changing the funding structure as by forcing a change in values on people willing to dedicate years of training to making a better world. And in pointing out the gap between our theoretical ability to fund worthwhile social ends and the minimal amount of resources actually dedicated to them after decades of anti-tax spin, the Occupy movement is in fact right on target in highlighting a solution.

Of course, it's far beyond Wente to recognize that choice given her self-appointed role as a protector of those who already enjoy a disproportionate share of our society's wealth. But let's not pass up an opportunity to discuss the real choice - and note that the Occupy movement is exactly on track in noting that a focus on further rewarding the top end of the income and wealth scale has both increased the cost of an education, and limited the availability of careers which advance social ends rather than private profits. And it's only by making use of the tools available to us as activists and voters that we can change that state of affairs.

New column day

Here, on Saskatchewan's unique opportunity to translate the widespread public concerns about inequality and corporate control highlighted by the Occupy movement into electoral change.

For further reading, here's the Abacus poll referred to in the column.