Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Harj Narulla weighs in on the effects of the International Court of JUstice's determination that countries can be held liable for contribution to a cliamte breakdown, while Stella Levantesi reports on an Italian court decision allowing for a lawsuit against an oil giant for its own climate damage. And Somini Segupta reports on the joint effort being made by China and the E.U. to keep the Paris Agreement in play - making for a stark choice between working with the world's leading economic powers, or signing on to Donald Trump's denial agenda. 

- Meanwhile, Harrison Mooney interviews Stephen Marche about the need for Canada to be willing to drop the gloves with the Trump regime rather than looking for every possible opportunity to accommodate it. 

- Luke Savage comments on the reality that the AI revolution is nothing but a theft of the information which already exists online and is being turned into word slurry - though I'd think there are arguments to be made that there are equally important heists from investors, and from the people who will face adverse decisions based on artificial non-intelligence. And Paris Marx notes that Mark Carney is fully on board with the use of AI as a means to further enrich the existing tech oligopoly. 

- Finally, Samuel Girard discusses how "build more" is an overly simplistic answer to a housing crisis which is rooted in the use of existing units for investment and profit at the expense of people whose right to a home isn't sufficiently profitable. Jill Atkey highlights the absurdity of prioritizing parking requirements over the availability of accessible homes. And the Globe and Mail's editorial board weighs in on the need for cities to reverse their past car-centric policies which have made communities less walkable and liveable. 

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.

Planning for failure

The Saskatchewan Party's latest excuse for a climate change announcement passed last week with little more than a passing mention in the media. And on the merits, it certainly earned that lack of notice.

But given the certainty that the Saskatchewan Party will end up pointing to the announcement later in response to the criticism it deserves for a wholly negligent climate change policy, let's take a few minutes to dig into what makes the plan so useless.

Even the headline numbers involved in the "industry standards" are pathetic on their face: a theoretical 1.1% reduction in the emissions of Canada's worst (and worsening) climate offender over a period of 12 years, compared to the national commitment to reduce emissions by 30% in the same time span. (Apparently the Moe government's new intention is to claim victory if emissions have been reduced at all by that time, signalling its determination to refuse to participate in any solution to a serious and immediate collective action problem.)

And indeed, even the closed list of industries involved will see target numbers of only 5-15% - meaning that absolutely none of Saskatchewan's largest emitters are being asked to do more than half their theoretical share to meet what's already an inadequate goal.

But matters look even worse behind that top-line number.

To start with, the targets themselves are mere "intensity" measures. I've previously noted how those are designed to fail: not only do they allow for emissions to increase as long as an industry manages to push its overall production up higher, they may even result in the government handing out credits to corporations which ramp up production by more than their emissions increase.

That's right: Scott Moe's climate plan includes free money for increased emissions.

And to make matters worse, the new standards are set based on 2018 numbers. That means that in most covered industries, the continued emission increases resulting from the Saskatchewan Party's previous decade of neglect are locked in. And conversely, any industry which bothered to act responsibly by reducing emissions in the interim will receive no credit for that effort.

Of course, it's telling that the Saskatchewan Party can't even introduce what's supposed to be an environmental regulation without emphasizing that its primary emphasis is serving big business. And this is exactly the type of industrial emission plan one would expect if the government ignored all climate science and consulted only with industrial emitters, asking them what they'd view as a fully agreeable fig leaf while emphasizing a willingness to continue letting them pollute.

But with our planet already overheating, we should be appalled by the selfishness of a government determined to keep doing as much damage as it and its corporate cronies can get away with.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- J.W. Mason reviews Yanis Varoufakis' Adults in the Room with a focus on how damaging austerity was forced on Greece by other governments. And Jan Rovny comments on the need for Europe's left-wing parties to adapt to the precarious economy and evolving social structures.

- Laurie Monsebraaten reports on some of the early results of Ontario's basic income trial - including the predictable health benefits of income security. But in a signal as to how the corporate sector views individual financial security. Rob Davies reports on the UK's investigation into Carillion's collapse - including the privateers' view of the pensions promised to workers as a "waste of money"  .

- Douglas Welbanks challenges the arguments against free tuition by pointing out both the increased importance of post-secondary education, and the limited amelioration of inequality within a student loan system which saddles young workers with debt. 

- Brady Dennis and Chris Mooney point out that many countries are falling short of even their already-insufficient Paris Agreement emission reduction promises. And Crawford Kilian notes that Canada is living far beyond its environmental means.

- Finally, Kevin Milligan writes about the outlines of the alternative budget plans on offer from Canada's federal opposition parties. And Nora Loreto discusses how the NDP's future lies in its ability to mobilize the public, rather than hoping to catch lightning in a bottle on election day. [Edit: fixed wording, typo.]

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Michal Rozworski writes that the bidding war surrounding Amazon's second headquarters is just a symptom of a grossly dysfunctional relationship between governments and businesses:

We shouldn’t be surprised that Amazon can get away with using a few billion dollars of private investment as bait for public billions in return. Investment in the US, both private and public, is in a sorry state. Taken as a proportion of overall economic activity, businesses and governments are investing a fraction of what they did in the postwar years or even a few decades ago.

The business sector does not lack for means — profits margins, while down from record highs, are no longer in the doldrums. But rather than invest in new production facilities and new technology, corporations, under pressure from shareholders, are spending big on dividends and share buybacks or letting cash lay idle. Amazon is in fact one of the few major outliers to this trend, refusing to pay dividends and aggressively using profits to fund continuous expansion.

While private investment has given way to shareholders gorging themselves on profits, public investment has simply given way to rot. Last year, civilian net public investment in the United States amounted to a paltry 0.5 percent of GDP.

Exaggerated worries about debt and deficits and a pervasive ideology that the private sector can do everything better leave the public sector doing the minimum, barely keeping up as things fall apart.
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(C)apital needs the public sector as much as the other way around. For all its glorification of enterprise and entrepreneurship, there is much that the private sector will not do: whenever the risks are too big or the benefits too diffuse to capture, the public sector has stepped in. From antibiotics to hydroelectric dams, from public buses to sewage plants, much of the infrastructure that makes life under contemporary capitalism possible is public or publicly funded.
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Capital may be the force that ultimately socializes production and distribution, but it needs the state all along the way. Today’s public extortion racket is only the tip of the iceberg.

- And Linda McQuaig argues that the corporate raiders who strip money out of corporations such as Sears should be on the hook for the pensions earned by employees. 

- Toby Sanger examines the federal fiscal update and notes that there's plenty of room to expand public services. The CCPA offers a mid-term report card comparing the Libs' big progressive promises to their minimal action. And Seth Klein and Iglika Ivanova offer some suggestions as to how British Columbia's NDP government can take immediate action to reduce poverty while conducting its wider review of the problem.

- Sara Mojtehedzadeh reports that the Wynne Libs are falling far short of their promises of addressing precarious work - including by watering down equal pay provisions to exclude the workers who need them most, and failing to address the use of temp agencies to avoid employment standards. Stefani Langenegger highlights PATHS' report on the lack of employment protection in Saskatchewan for workers trying to escape domestic abuse. And Nicholas Keung reports on a push to ensure that migrant farm workers have an opportunity to pursue permanent residency.

- Finally, Matthew Taylor takes note of the Environmental Justice Foundation's study on the imminent surge of climate change refugees. And Mia Rabson reports on the massive gap between the goals set in the Paris climate accord, and the plans actually being made to address greenhouse gas emissions in Canada and elsewhere.

Tuesday Evening Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Trade Justice reports on Justin Trudeau's role in pushing for an international corporate giveaway through a new Trans-Pacific Partnership - even as the country whose capital class largely shaped it before has no interest in participating. And James Munson reports that Justin Trudeau is officially more secretive than Chinese billionaires, having demanded that the press be kept out of what would otherwise have been a public meeting.

- Meanwhile, Matthew Yglesias notes that like most make-the-rich-richer tax schemes, Donald Trump's tax plan is being sold based on nothing but brazen lies.

- Mia Rabson reports on the reality that the Libs are hundreds of millions of tonnes away from meeting the commitments they've already made to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

- PressProgress lists just a few of the ways workers are being left behind in Canada's economy. And Emily Donaldson interviews Katrina Onstad about the importance of taking back our time outside of work.

- Finally, Jordon Cooper comments on the Saskatchewan Party's callous cuts to crucial chaplaincy services. And Andrew MacLeod reports on the Union of BC Indian Chiefs' efforts to call out Christy Clark's neglect and ensure a change in government.

New column day

Here, on the Libs' delayed climate change action as going beyond mere backloading of promises to outright destruction in the meantime.

For further reading...
- For just a few examples of the backloading in the Libs' budget, see the Northern View's interview with Nathan Cullen.
- The latest report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change showing increased emissions until 2030 as the expected scenario for Canada is here (PDF), and reported on by Marie-Danielle Smith here.
- Margo McDiarmid reports here on the Libs' plan to delay methane emissions. And Brent Patterson discusses the impact of that delay here. (For reference, my calculation as to the number of cars the Libs are effectively putting on the road is based on Andrew Read's estimate of a 55 million tonne increase methane releases from that post, multiplied by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's estimate that methane has 86 times the impact of CO2 over a 20-year time frame, divided by the EPA's estimate (PDF) of 4.7 metric tonnes released by a vehicle annually.)
- Finally, the Star also weighs in on the problems with Justin Trudeau's broken promise of methane emission reductions. And Margo McDiarmid reports on the David Suzuki Foundation's revelations about the under-reporting of methane releases as matters stand now.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Alex Hemingway reviews the evidence on two-tiered medicine from around the developed world, and concludes that a constitutional attack on universal health care would only result in our paying more for less.

- Marc Lee takes a look at the national climate change framework released last week and finds it to fall short in both its insufficient goals, and a lack of a clear plan to achieve them. 

- Erika Shaker examines the difficulties families face as a result of unavailable and unaffordable child care. 

- Martin Regg Cohn nicely highlights the two-faced Ontario PCs, who are denouncing social conservatism publicly while proclaiming it to be a top priority behind closed doors. And both Michael Den Tandt and Michael Harris point out that the NDP is nicely positioned to fill the federal vacuum created by a combination of disappointing corporatist Libs and ineffective Cons.

- Finally, Dave Seglins and Rachel Houlihan report on Dennis Molinaro's discovery of a secret 1951 Canadian cabinet memo authorizing RCMP spying against "subversives" in perpetuity. (And judging from the federal government's response complaining that disclosure would affect ongoing operations, there's reason to suspect that it's still being applied.)

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Ed Broadbent, Michal Hay and Emilie Nicolas theorize that Canada's left is on the rise. Matt Karp takes a look at the policy preferences of younger American voters, including a strong willingness to fund far better social programs than are currently available. And N+1 responds to the rise of Bernie Sanders and his progressive movement by offering its take on what a left-wing foreign policy might look like in the years to come.

- Eugene King points out the shaky reasoning behind any claim that new pipelines will meaningfully affect either the price or viability of Canadian oil. Adrian Morrow reports that Ontario looks to be a prime example as to how we're already far short of meeting any reasonable greenhouse gas emissions target - meaning that more action to increase emissions is entirely counterproductive. And Marc Lee makes the same point by comparing the effects of new pipelines to Canada's Paris climate change commitments:

(A)nnual lifecycle emissions for each of the pipelines would be greater than all of BC’s annual GHG emissions, and are equivalent to a sizeable share of Canada’s emissions (11% in the case of Enbridge; 13% in the case of Kinder-Morgan; and 24% in the case of Energy East).

This highlights a major flaw in the Paris Agreement, bold as it is. That Agreement is based on countries committing to reduce the carbon emissions within their borders, but not the carbon extracted and exported for someone else to burn. We need a different type of international framework to constrain global supplies of fossil fuels: to divvy up shares of a carbon budget for use in transition, then leaving the rest in the ground, forever.

- Anna Mehler Paperny discusses the challenge facing lower-income Canadians in trying to find housing. And Joshua Tapper highlights the relationship between poverty and poor health, while arguing there's plenty we can do to make sure that a lack of money doesn't translate into sickness.

- Geoff Leo reports on the latest damage being done to Saskatchewan communities by the Wall government's P3 obsession, as Regina is looking at having to take over an underfunded school construction project without the province bearing any of the cost of the structure it imposed.

- Finally, David Miranda writes that the corporate-driven impeachment of Dilma Rousseff in Brazil has everything to do with facilitating corruption rather than fighting it.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Duncan Cameron offers his take on the Paris climate change conference. Martin Lukacs notes that while the agreement reached there may not accomplish anywhere near what we need, the building climate movement should provide more hope than we've had to this point. Similarly, Thomas Walkom sees the summit as a useful fraud which should lead to something better. And Jonathan Sas argues that it's long past time for Canada's federal government to start acting - rather than merely spinning - on climate change.

- Meanwhile, Reporters Without Borders points out the dangers of environmental journalism in the face of potential violence and corruption.

- Bob Mackin reports on David Loukidelis' criticism the B.C. Libs' delete, delete, delete attitude toward information. And Michael Smyth is skeptical as to whether matters will improve, while Travis Lupick finds particularly little reason to think anything will change given Christy Clark's aversion to putting anything in writing which might allow anybody to assess her actions later.

- CBC reports on Mike Simon's call for a focus on the social determinants of health in Atlantic Canada. And Jennifer Grahan discusses how Saskatchewan doctors are fighting back against putting MRIs up for sale.

- Finally, Polly Toynbee writes about the connection between the gender pay gap and the proper valuation of care work (whether paid or not):

Caring, cooking, cleaning, childminding and all the jobs servicing a society that would fall apart without women’s work are despised because these things are what women do, and women are despised for doing it and for being women.

At its most extreme, the horrendous domestic violence statistics reflect that abiding social control and contempt. Images of a few powerful women do nothing much to up-end that essential truth. One woman prime minister was remarkable, as are all manner of “role models”. But their exceptionalism makes the point: only 34% of managers, directors and senior officials are women. And these top women suffer a bigger pay gap than women at the bottom: the finance sector has the widest gap.

More women reaching the tree-tops doesn’t reflect most working women’s fraught dilemmas: caring is the obstacle, so a disproportionate number of high fliers don’t have children.
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It would be astonishing if there wasn’t a huge pay gap with a downward pay spiral where underpaid women care for children and old people, taking in each other’s caring, unable to pay each other enough, causing the crisis in social care, in healthcare and in childcare. All that is despite women’s better educational results, despite 45 years of equality law.

MP Maria Miller, the Tory head of the committee, may not call for an equality revolution. But we could start with total pay transparency, so everyone knows who earns what and why. Make employers let in a trade union rep once a year to recruit, restoring some power to the workforce. As hospitals overflow for lack of home care, nursing homes close and the promised 30-hour free childcare can’t be delivered, we could reset the valuation on caring until as many men as women do it, at home and at work.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Matthew Yglesias rightly points out the absurdity of monetary policy designed to rein in at-target inflation at the expense of desperately-needed employment. And Joseph Stiglitz reminds us that we can instead make policy choices which will fix inequality rather than exacerbating it:

Beyond changing taxes and government benefits, we can reduce inequality by rewriting the rules once again. A comprehensive rewriting will help to level the playing field, grow the middle class, and give all Americans an opportunity to succeed. Moreover, we can do this secure in the knowledge that we can have both more economic equality and more growth.

This view of the economy undermines the notion that those at the top are merely receiving their “just deserts” for their contributions to the economy. Some wealthy Americans have, in fact, contributed greatly to the strength of our economy and the well-being of our society. But many have simply gamed the rules — their gains have been largely at the expense of others. Still others have made important innovations, but then amplified their returns through the exercise of monopoly power. Discouraging quarterly capitalism, diluting monopoly power, and preventing the exploitation of workers would strengthen the economy. But rewriting the rules would better align private rewards with social value, thus improving economic efficiency. In other words, the argument for rewriting the rules is not just about fairness: It’s about promoting stronger and shared economic growth.

- Oscar Reyes reviews just a few of the weaknesses of the Paris climate agreement which aren't receiving enough attention. Marc Lee argues that we won't know what it accomplishes until we see how regulators and markets respond, while Simon Dalby discusses how Canada will need to rethink a fossil-fuel-oriented economy in order for the deal to work. And PressProgress lists just a few of the things Brad Wall seems determined not to learn about climate change.

- Andre Picard writes about the dangers of political meddling in health care - and it's worth mentioning Saskatchewan's most prominent examples of corporate fads and anti-social ideology being put ahead of evidence-based policy.

- Graham Thomson comments on the Alberta NDP's work to keep governing in the best interests of the province despite the harassment of unhinged right-wingers. And Stephanie Kusie and Lana Cuthbertson write that the abuse is antithetical to good government and leadership no matter how much one disagrees with a governing party's policies.

- And finally, Susan Wright highlights the ultimate task for Rachel Notley's government - being to tilt Alberta's overall values from a money-based, me-first mindset toward much-needed recognition of the common good.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Joseph Stiglitz writes that inequality is killing the American middle class. And Crawford Kilian examines the direct connection between inequality and midlife mortality:

For some white Americans born between 1961 and 1970, however, something has gone wrong. They grew up in what should have been a wonderful time: the fall of the Soviet Union, the emergence of China as the world's economic powerhouse, the fading of the threat of a global nuclear war.

In 1998, however, some members of this age cohort began to sicken and die...
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...(T)his cohort's mortality began to rise at half a per cent a year. Not much, but it has continued year after year. By 2013, that meant 488,500 white Americans were dead when they should have lived...
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As discouraging as these studies are, they largely vindicate a century of public health research that shows your very life depends on the class you're born into. Every social class is healthier and less stressed than the class below it, and sicker and more stressed than the class above it. Mobility between classes is far easier downward than upward.

It's not that poor, uneducated people don't know how to eat properly or keep themselves clean. They usually do; they're just too stressed to take care of themselves. As researchers like Dr. Richard Wilkinson have shown in book after book, income inequality within nations creates stressors on the relatively poor (even if they're far better off than the proverbial Bangladeshi peasant).
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Canada's mortality rates may be consolingly low, but for some Canadians they have always been high -- especially for aboriginal Canadians. Their incomes are a fraction of other Canadians', and their incarceration rates are much higher than others'.

In both countries, far more research needs to be done to understand -- and remedy -- the deadly consequences of inequality.

- Meanwhile, Harry Leslie Smith contrasts the welcoming humanitarian attitude toward refugees following World War II to the inclination toward denial and isolation across much of Europe today.

- David Macdonald studies the soaring cost of child care across Canada. And the Star follows up by arguing for a national program to make child care affordable for all parents - to replace the status quo in which child care can carry the same cost as an additional mortgage.

- Philip Preville takes a look at Canada's shadow lending industry - and how it drives up both housing prices and stressors on the people who rely on it to fund house purchases. 

- Finally, Stuart Basden discusses how Canada remained part of the problem in Paris - even if its obstruction was targeted toward specific issues rather than the general principle of agreeing on reining in climate change at all. George Monbiot highlights the flaws and retrenchment in the final Paris agreement. And Brad Plumer charts how the emission reduction commitments made so far would take us less than halfway to the supposed goal.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Paul Mason weighs in on how income and wealth inequality spill over into every corner of a person's life:

It is very possible to be poor in the 21st-century welfare state. One in five children lives in poverty, and this decade will see the first rise in absolute poverty in a generation. For decade after decade, post-war governments have chipped away at the principle of social insurance: you pay your stamps, you get your cash benefits as of right. The result is a world-class health system struggling to deal with large-scale, growing ill health determined by poverty. Even if we all live longer, the poor live shorter lives and will spend decades in disability.

So what would a modern Beveridge write? I think he would reiterate that “want” – or poverty – is the basic evil that, if you don’t abolish, drags down all your attempts at making people healthier or better educated. It’s very obvious – to anybody who has been near a food bank, or a women’s refuge, or a probation office – that “want, ignorance, squalor, disease and idleness” still exist, at disgraceful levels, and in highly concentrated pockets. A 16-year gap in healthy life expectancy between Blackpool and Wokingham – towns a three-hour journey apart – would shock us into action if we really cared about it.

And here’s why we should care: health inequality follows a clear gradient path. If you break down the population into 5% chunks according to income, every one of these chunks is healthier than the one below them. The editor, on average, dies of heart attack later than the deputy editor. This is one of the clearest findings of Marmot’s and other epidemiological research.

So inequality is not just about rich and poor – it’s about the tilted playing field of life, and how to stop it getting steeper.

- And Paul Buchheit duly challenges the spin that poverty has any meaningful connection to laziness, rather than being primarily the result of systematic disadvantages which often can't be overcome by any amount of hard work.

- Ashley Csanady reports on one long-overdue improvement in working conditions in Ontario, as employers are finally being restricted from taking a cut of workers' tips. But Martin Regg Cohn highlights how employers are still trying to wriggle out of their obligations, with the province's new pension plan serving as the latest example.

- Joby Warrick discusses the connection between corporate-funded denialism and the U.S.' polarization on climate change. But Bruce Cheadle reports that the Libs are throwing all of their promised climate research dollars into a corporate-led pool.

- Meanwhile, Lauren McCauley reports on the activists defying a ban to be heard around the Paris climate change conference. And Naomi Klein reminds us of the lives at stake as we decide whether our planet is worth saving.

- Finally, Carol Goar writes about the dangers of a bandwagon effect toward war in the absence of any accurate information as to what we're getting into.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Jordan Brennan studies the relationship between corporate taxes and the economy, and finds that the promise of growth in exchange for corporate giveaways has proven entirely illusory.

- Andy McSmith looks at another of the consequences of the trend toward corporate control, as the UK has seen the pay gap between CEOs and everybody else increase by leaps and bounds. And Nora Loreto highlights the need for the labour movement to lead the charge against the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other agreements intended to entrench the power of business against mere citizens.

- Tania Kohut reports on Campaign 2000's latest study (PDF) showing that Canada's rate of child poverty has increased in the decades since our MPs agreed unanimously to eradicate it. And Steve Buist reports on new research showing the connection between poverty, class, health and mortality in Hamilton.

- Andreas Malm discusses the futility of the non-binding non-targets at the centre of the Paris climate change negotiations. And Eric Doherty writes that the only hope for a real shift in climate change policy is the prospect of a far stronger social movement demanding better.

- Finally, Ben Worthy points out the pattern of government contempt for the concept of public access to information. And Dean Beeby reports that in keeping with that cynical view of accountability, the Libs have repudiated their promises of open government, instead setting up a lengthy review process designed to ensure that the public's demand for change now doesn't turn into meaningful policy improvements down the road.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Rosemary Barton reports on the Libs' announcement of increased funding to help developing countries fight climate change - which does represent a noteworthy improvement on the Cons' comparative stinginess. But as I've noted, it doesn't much help to deal with only one aspect of the issue - making it an especially serious problem that the business lobby looks to be setting the agenda for the Paris conference while citizen voices are silenced.

- Meanwhile, Nicholas Confessore writes that Illinois is serving as the prime example of the corporate takeover of U.S. politics - with a single ultra-rich candidate and his financial-sector buddies combining to buy his way into the governor's mansion to impose policies despised by the majority of the public. And as I've written before, there's a real possibility of the same happening in Saskatchewan due to our lack of appropriate checks on political donations.

- Jenny Wittner points out that workers end up bearing the brunt of the corporate push for holiday profits - and that our choices can shape whether businesses keep pushing the envelope.

- Duncan Cameron offers some musings on what Canada's left needs to do in light of this fall's federal election. And Andrew Jackson points out that there's ample room for advocacy in calling for central bank financing of stimulus measures.

- Finally, Claire McIlveen highlights the fact that the Libs' decision to turn away male refugees reflects exactly the politics of fear they were elected to end. And Jeremy Nuttall collects the appropriate responses to five of the most common anti-refugee excuses.

Burning questions

Does anybody actually believe for a second that a Republican-dominated Congress will be more willing to ratify a climate change treaty simply because it doesn't contain binding targets?

And if not, doesn't a deliberate failure to include binding targets mean primarily that even if countries can agree on a treaty which could be ratified in a different political environment, it will never have any meaningful effect?

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- David Olive talks to Robert Reich about his work fighting inequality:

There are certain irrefutable facts besides water always running downhill. There is no arguing, for instance, that the U.S. era Reich describes as the “Great Prosperity” — the three-decade span between the late 1940s and the late 1970s — was characterized by high rates of taxation on the wealthy; heavy government investment in the people; and the peak level of unionization in America’s private-sector workforce.

That was the era of high and rising household income in Canada and the U.S., and of heavy state investment in public education that yielded the world’s smartest workforces. It was the era of government investment in the Interstate and Trans-Canada highway systems that boosted economic productivity. It was the era in which more than one-third of private-sector workers belonged to a union.

And it was during that era that America’s burgeoning middle class made the U.S. a superpower, and raised Canada into the ranks of the world’s most affluent countries.
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Especially in Canada, with a Medicare system more comprehensive even than Obamacare, rocket science is not required to restore a fairer distribution of our collective wealth. Raise taxes on the rich. Use the money to invest in people — their health, education and essential services. And stop thwarting the efforts of those workers who seek to organize their workplaces.

“It’s just common sense,” says Reich of simply taking the steps required to bring back the Golden Prosperity years. He leans forward, a look of weariness and mild frustration crossing his face. “Isn’t it?”

- Aditya Chakrabortty discusses the meaning of austerian economics designed to inflate bubbles for the rich at the expense of the poor. Genevieve Lajoie reports that Quebeckers are strongly opposed to the provincial austerity being protested by the province's workers. And Melissa Healy highlights new research showing that inequality on both the individual and the social level is linked to less charitable giving by the wealthy.

- Joshua Rapp Learn points out a few of the ways in which climate change is getting very personal for Atlantic Canada. And Naomi Klein discusses what's being lost in the French government's crackdown on any public activism around the Paris climate conference:

The people facing the worst impacts of climate change have virtually no voice in western debates about whether to do anything serious to prevent catastrophic global warming. Huge climate summits like the one coming up in Paris are rare exceptions. For just two weeks every few years, the voices of the people who are getting hit first and worst get a little bit of space to be heard at the place where fateful decisions are made. That’s why Pacific islanders and Inuit hunters and low-income people of colour from places like New Orleans travel for thousands of miles to attend. The expense is enormous, in both dollars and carbon, but being at the summit is a precious chance to speak about climate change in moral terms and to put a human face to this unfolding catastrophe.

The next thing to understand is that even in these rare moments, frontline voices do not have enough of a platform in the official climate meetings, in which the microphone is dominated by governments and large, well-funded green groups. The voices of ordinary people are primarily heard in grassroots gatherings parallel to the summit, as well as in marches and protests, which in turn attract media coverage. Now the French government has decided to take away the loudest of these megaphones...
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When governments and corporations knowingly fail to act to prevent catastrophic warming, that is an act of violence. It is a violence so large, so global and inflicted against so many temporalities simultaneously (ancient cultures, present lives, future potential) that there is not yet a word capable of containing its monstrousness. And using acts of violence to silence the voices of those who are most vulnerable to climate violence is yet more violence.

In explaining why forthcoming football matches would go on as scheduled, France’s secretary of state for sport said: “Life must go on.” Indeed it must. That’s why I joined the climate justice movement. Because when governments and corporations fail to act in a way that reflects the value of all of life on Earth, they must be protested.

- Meanwhile, Andrew Nikiforuk weighs in on the fragility of our sources of groundwater. And Mike De Souza reports on a stop-work order resulting from a toxic leak from a TransCanada pipeline.

- Finally, Geoffrey Rafe Hall is the latest to comment on the NDP's campaign and what comes next.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Louis-Philippe Rochon explains how higher taxes on the wealthy can be no less a boon for the economy than for the goal of social equality:

In fact, empirical analysis shows that while the relationship between higher taxes and economic growth is complex, there is no proof that raising taxes on the wealthy will lead to slower economic growth.  In fact, in many countries, including Canada, higher growth rates in the post-Second World War era have been associated with much higher marginal tax rates.
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Between 1940 and 1980, the top marginal income tax rate in Canada was much higher, at well over 70 per cent. Despite these high rates, Canada's economy prospered. In other words, with a proposed new tax bracket in Canada of a mere 33 per cent, we are still far from reaching past levels, and even further away from levels that would be detrimental to tax revenues or even growth. We could increase it even higher with no repercussions on growth or even job creation, and the benefits of a less unequal wealth concentration could even have a positive effect on the economy.
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(H)ow can we explain higher taxes on the rich and higher growth? It seems counterintuitive. Yet, it isn't, for two reasons. First, higher taxes on the top one per cent reduce income inequality. Many studies show that a more even (or less uneven) distribution of wealth and income contributes to higher spending and growth.

In the case of Canada, the higher tax rate for high-income earners is compensated by lower taxes on the middle class, who then will have more money to spend. Since the top one per cent save a higher proportion of their income, raising taxes for them won't affect their consumption, just their savings.

Second, by collecting more tax revenues, governments can spend more, and there is a definite and proven correlation between higher government spending and higher economic growth, despite all the non-Keynesian naysayers. The data is clear on this.

- Juliette Jowit discusses the pathetic pace being made on the path toward gender pay equity. And Maureen Conway points out the need for both public policy and labour relations decisions oriented toward improved long-term outcomes - particularly given the glaring failure of short-term thinking over the past few decades.

- The Associated Press reports that a particularly egregious example of employer abuses is resulting in rare but well-deserved jail time for the perpetrator.
 
- Charles Mandel discusses John Brennan's observation that climate change is already (and will increasingly become) a major source of political instability, while David Roberts offers a useful analogy to gravity in assessing its effects. And Geoff Stiles offers a proposal as to how Canada can go from being a laggard to a leader at the Paris climate change conference.

- Finally, Doug Saunders writes about the importance of integration in order to combat extremism of all kinds. Tabatha Southey reminds us that hatred and ignorance between ethnic and religious groups only tend to reinforce each other. And John Cartwright notes that there's a particular need to speak out against bigotry in the wake of an election campaign where multiple parties including the deposed government deliberately stoked it for their political advantage.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Julie Delahanty discusses the need for Canada's federal government to rein in rising inequality. And Tim Stacey duly challenges the excuse that today's poor people just aren't poor enough to deserve any consideration.

- Amy Goodman interviews Joseph Stiglitz about the serious problems with the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Andrea Germanos reports that Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, is joining the chorus pointing out how the TPP will affect public health. And Andy Blatchford points out how the TPP's intellectual property provisions are designed to enrich the U.S. at the expense of Canadian industry.

- Meanwhile, Brad Hornick points out how trade agreements and corporate influence will limit what we can hope to accomplished at the Paris conference on climate change, while Reuters reports on the massive amounts of money still being used to subsidize fossil fuels. But on the bright side, IndustriALL notes that the International Labour Organization has stepped up to the plate in advance of Paris by adopting a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions paired with a "just transition" for workers.

- Finally, Bill Tieleman comments on the Christy Clark Libs' phantom government which manages to make information disappear as soon as truth is in danger of becoming public. And Sean Holman writes that the basic question the Trudeau Libs will face on access to information is whether to presume that "administrative secrecy" should generally trump any public awareness of government decision-making.

On suckers' bets

We've sure learned some important lessons from the failure of the first billion-dollar Boundary Dam CCS project:

SaskPower's president, Mike Marsh, says the company had hoped to make a decision on whether to retrofit another two units at Boundary Dam power plant by next year.

But on Monday, Marsh told reporters that decision has been pushed back to 2017.

"You don't undertake a project in excess of $1 billion without having your facts," Marsh said.

Meanwhile, Brad Wall's plan is still to hope that the rest of the world is paying little enough attention to be suckered into making the same mistake he did. So what's the market for billion-dollar technologies among customers who lack access to teh Google?