New column day

Here, on how right-wing provincial governments across Canada are deliberately denying benefits to their constituents solely to try to avoid any credit going to the federal level in advance of this fall's election.

For further reading...
- Murray Mandryk, Sarath Peiris and plenty of letter writers have already pointed out the pettiness of Scott Moe's refusal to fund projects in Regina.
- Mia Rabson reported on Brian Pallister's refusal to accept funding for energy efficiency in schools (along with the subsequent federal workaround), while Sean Kavanagh has reported on the lack of funding already suffered by Manitoba's education system under an austerian regime.
- John Geddes reports that gas station owners proposed less misleading stickers about fuel prices - but that Doug Ford was unwilling to do anything other than force them to feed into anti-carbon tax messaging.
- Finally, David Climenhaga has also pointed out the similarities between Canada's right-wing clique and a decade of Republican obstructionism.

New column day

Here, on how people generally have a better idea about the facts underlying our political choices than they suggest in response to an ordinary poll - and how we can make better decisions by looking to the root causes of that distinction.

For further reading...
- The studies referred to in the article are here (pdf) and here. And as previously linked, Neil Irwin discussed them here.
- And while I didn't work it into the column, I'll wonder whether something akin to the dual process theory might play a role in the different findings - with the objective reward of even a small payoff leading people to use more rigorous analysis in response to a question.

By invitation only

Yes, Paul McLeod's report that Stephen Harper will go through a three-month election period without meeting a single person who hasn't been previously vetted by partisan operatives is pretty much the logical extension of the Harper Cons' attitude toward the public. But it's worth offering a reminder how that relates to the flood of propaganda going in the other direction.

Any place in Stephen Harper's campaign - or any consideration by his government - is by invitation only.

The few people who receive personal invitations due to their perceived political value - the Carsons and Duffys, Porters and Del Mastros - know they'll be taken care of.

But it's the converse that matters to most Canadians: if you're being advertised to rather than invited in, Harper has no intention of going anywhere near you. And that's as true for his policy choices as it is for his physical proximity.

So anybody being excluded from Harper's line of sight should have every reason to make sure he no longer has any power to decide who or what matters in Canadian politics.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Paul Krugman writes that the ultra-wealthy's contempt for anybody short of their own class is becoming more and more explicit around the globe - even when it comes to basic rights like the ability to vote:

It’s always good when leaders tell the truth, especially if that wasn’t their intention. So we should be grateful to Leung Chun-ying, the Beijing-backed leader of Hong Kong, for blurting out the real reason pro-democracy demonstrators can’t get what they want: With open voting, “You would be talking to half of the people in Hong Kong who earn less than $1,800 a month. Then you would end up with that kind of politics and policies” — policies, presumably, that would make the rich less rich and provide more aid to those with lower incomes.
...
(T)he political right has always been uncomfortable with democracy. No matter how well conservatives do in elections, no matter how thoroughly free-market ideology dominates discourse, there is always an undercurrent of fear that the great unwashed will vote in left-wingers who will tax the rich, hand out largess to the poor, and destroy the economy.
...
(T)hese strategies for protecting plutocrats from the mob are indirect and imperfect. The obvious answer is Mr. Leung’s: Don’t let the bottom half, or maybe even the bottom 90 percent, vote.

And now you understand why there’s so much furor on the right over the alleged but actually almost nonexistent problem of voter fraud, and so much support for voter ID laws that make it hard for the poor and even the working class to cast ballots. American politicians don’t dare say outright that only the wealthy should have political rights — at least not yet. But if you follow the currents of thought now prevalent on the political right to their logical conclusion, that’s where you end up.

- Meanwhile, Heather Digby Parton discusses the latest in Republican anti-voting hysteria. And Don Davies points out that a free trade agreement with Honduras represents yet another blow for business against democratic governance and human rights.

- But on the bright side, Poverty Costs highlights the fact that Saskatchewan has finally (if belatedly) joined its provincial counterparts in announcing an outline of a poverty reduction plan.

- Finally, Andrew Coyne notes that this week's tragic shootings in Ottawa resulted in a brief moment of the type of measured political discussion we should expect more often. But Thomas Walkom and Linda McQuaig are rightly concerned about the Cons' easily-anticipated pivot toward fomenting panic for their own partisan gain. And Alison reminds us just how many important causes figure to fall within the Cons' selective definition of dissent to be suppressed.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Yves Smith notes that a short-sighted focus on returns for shareholders generally represents a poor allocation of resources even on the level of a single corporation - while also pointing out what that mindset does when shared across the business sector:

As the Occupy Wall Street movement correctly recognized, the concentration of income and wealth of the economic top “one percent” of society has left the rest of us largely high and dry. Corporate profits are increasingly going to share buybacks or dividend distribution, but very little is going back into research and development efforts, capital reinvestment, and employment.

Corporations, in other words, are devoting increasing amounts of their considerable and growing financial resources to redistribution rather than innovation. And they are doing so based on the justification of 
“increasing shareholder value.”

However, as Lazonick points out, when the shareholder-value mantra becomes the main focus for companies executives usually concentrate on avoiding taxes for the sake of higher profits and don’t think twice about permanently axing workers. They also increase distributions of corporate cash to shareholders in the form of dividends and, even more prominently, stock buybacks.

When a corporation becomes financialized in this way, the top executives no longer concern themselves with investing in the productive capabilities of employees, the foundation for rising living standards. Instead they become focused on generating financial profits that can justify ever higher stock prices – in large part because, through their stock-based compensation, high stock prices translate into megabucks for these corporate executives themselves.

It’s not a pretty state of affairs. Lazonick discusses how we evolved from a society in which corporate interests were largely aligned with those of broader public purpose into a state where crony capitalism, accounting fraud, and corporate predation are predominant characteristics.

Lazonick makes a very powerful case that the ideology of “maximizing shareholder value” primarily works to the benefit of the very corporate executives who make corporate resource allocation decisions, and who derive high levels of remuneration from munificent stock option awards. As for the rest of us, we’re left to fight over the crumbs.

- Meanwhile, Nick Cohen writes that the ample funding and brazen dishonesty of climate-change denialists has thus far trounced scientific facts in the battle to set environmental policy.

- Lana Payne offers her take on the Unfair Elections Act, while the Globe and Mail calls for the bill to be scrapped. Laura Payton observes that while the Cons have conjured up plenty of imaginary issues to be resolved by decrees from on high, they've done nothing to address very real concerns about voter privacy. And Malcolm French highlights a worrisome step toward U.S.-style partisan oversight of elections:

To this day, no honest observer can say with absolute confidence which of Al Gore or George W. Bush received the larger number of votes in Florida. At the end of the day, the election was decided by the fact that there were more Republican state officials and Republican appointed judges involved in the adjudication of the results than Democratic state officials and Democratic appointed judges.

As a Canadian, I thought the oddest thing about the entire Florida recount was that every single official and every single judge acted according to partisan interests. That applies as much for the Democrats as the Republicans. No one actually cared about finding the democratic outcome of the vote. Unlike a Canadian judicial recount by a judge legally obliged to be impartial, the American system is an entirely partisan affair at every level.

It seems our present government likes the American model, where democracy is less about who gets the most votes than about who gets to appoint the most officials.  The Harper government's Orwellianly named Fair Elections Act (dubbed by pretty much everyone else as the Unfair Elections Act) takes every lesson of the far right assault on the American electoral process and imposes it on our hitherto non-partisan process.

- Meanwhile, Susan Delacourt sees the Cons' desire to radically overhaul elections, other political institutions and judicial appointments without the slightest bit of input from the public or from other parties as ample reason for a federal election.

- Finally, Michael Harris lists a few of the questions we should expect to see answered as the Robocon investigation continues.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- The New York Times editorial board points out that a higher minimum wage can produce clear economic benefits for businesses as well as for workers:

One 2013 study by three economists — Arindrajit Dube, T. William Lester and Michael Reich — compared the experiences of businesses in neighboring counties in different states and found less turnover in states that had raised the minimum wage. Workers were less likely to leave on their own, and managers were more likely to keep the workers they had on staff to avoid the cost of recruiting and training replacements.

Other studies on the effect of local minimum wage increases in places like San Francisco and Los Angeles have found similar results, according to a recent overview published by the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington.
...
There is another way in which a higher minimum wage helps businesses: by increasing consumer spending. When poor families earn more, they spend more. A group of more than 600 economists, including seven Nobel laureates, recently told President Obama and congressional leaders that an increase in the minimum wage would stimulate today’s weak economy. Even Walmart, the country’s largest retailer, has previously called on policy makers to increase the federal minimum wage. A spokesman for the company recently told Bloomberg News that it was “looking at” supporting the current Democratic proposal.

The argument that a higher minimum wage would hurt business is old and tired. There is clear and compelling evidence that the economy and companies enjoy real benefits when workers are paid more.

- And Tim Stacey suggests that in light of the connections between poor wages, insecure work and poor health as obstacles to future opportunities, governments should be looking for ways to foster jobs which offer some prospect of security - rather than pointing to temporary and precarious jobs as a sign of success.

- Don Cayo reminds us why the Cons seemed to have it right in temporarily nixing income splitting - making Stephen Harper's more recent declaration that he's fully committed to channeling wealth upward all the more inexplicable. And Kevin Milligan notes there's less than meets the eye in Statistics Canada's latest wealth survey, while Andrew Jackson recognizes that younger workers are facing a nasty combination of high debts, high entry barriers to homeownership and low asset levels.

- Carol Goar comments on the false economy the Cons are trying to claim by cutting health services to refugees.

- Finally, Susan Delacourt writes about the systemic damage done to Canada's democracy by the Cons' well-established pattern of using public office solely for their own ends:

The cumulative, long-term effects are emerging though. The ever-growing list of “enemies’ of the government — Liberals, New Democrats, public-service watchdogs, journalists, environmentalists, election officials, charities — expect to find themselves on Harper’s bad side.

But this newest poll shows that a large number of non-political citizens, armed only with their voting rights, may expect to find themselves on the wrong side too.

Our democratic life can go on, whether or not the public likes, respects or even pays attention to the people in power.

But when two-thirds of the public expresses doubts about the fairness of future elections, that’s a problem — not just for Conservatives, but to the institution of government altogether.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Jenny Carson asks what governments are doing to lift poor workers out of poverty. (Spoiler alert: the Cons' answer is "why would we want to do that?").

- Meanwhile, Kemal Dervis and Uri Dadush discuss the desperate need to rein in inequality in the U.S.:

As it turns out, high and rising levels of inequality may well be a cause of increased macroeconomic instability. But the negative spiral doesn’t end there: High inequality also contributes to a fraying of the political consensus, is associated with boom-bust credit cycles and may ultimately lead to a chronic weakness of economic demand.

The United States is now caught in a vicious cycle. The cycle starts with stagnant incomes and a biting credit constraint at the middle and low end of the income distribution. As dramatically exemplified by the large numbers of continuing and still unresolved home foreclosures, this has led to low expectations for effective demand growth – and therefore low business investment in the U.S. economy at large.
...
(I)t is the rebalancing of the distribution of income within the United States that would play a key role in unlocking the U.S. economy’s growth potential in a sustainable way.
...
Social balancing programs – such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, food stamps, unemployment benefits and work-share – provide transfers to boost the incomes of low-income or unemployed groups.

These instruments are believed to be four to five times as effective in stimulating demand as policies that benefit high-income groups, such as tax cuts for those with high incomes, for corporations and in the capital gains arena.
...
An economy such as that of the United States, where nearly all of the income growth accrues to the very rich, is unlikely to generate a corresponding growth in broad-based demand – especially after the Great Recession ravaged the credit scores of a large part of its middle class and poor.

- Pat Atkinson points out why Canadians should be nothing but skeptical about the Cons' economic branding:

When questioned about the advertising tender, Harper said: "Canadians understand and are very proud of the fact that Canada's economy has performed so much better than other developed countries during these challenging times." What's so galling about his response is that Australia and most Scandinavian countries have outperformed Canada's economy since 2009. Harper is sticking to the adage, "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story."

What the government neglects to tell us is that Canada's national debt has ballooned under Harper's stewardship. When he took office in 2006, the debt stood at $481 billion. Today our collective debt is at its highest level in history, at more than $612 billion with Finance Minister Jim Flaherty projecting an additional $18.7-billion deficit this year.

It simply didn't have to get this bad had the government made some different choices.

 - Aaron Wherry argues that while the Cons' latest prorogation itself shouldn't be a source of as much outrage as their previous choices to padlock Parliament, the elimination of 20 sitting days of a House of Commons already being regularly strongarmed into rushing through legislation raises some serious questions. And Tim Harper calls out the Cons' efforts to turn a regulatory issue about wireless communications into a source of partisan bait.

- Alison offers a theory as to how the UK's raid of the Guardian may be little more than a piece of NSA-friendly surveillance theatre.

- Finally, Robin Russell-Jones draws a parallel between the current debate over fracking, and the longtime corporate effort to convince policy-makers that lead in our air and water wouldn't harm people in the slightest:

(W)hat lessons can we draw from the story of lead? First, that society will enthusiastically adopt new technology without considering the consequences. Second, that you cannot rely on industry to act in the public interest, even when their practices are going to pollute the entire planet. Third, that politicians are no more responsive to issues of public health than they were in the 18th century. Fourth, that remedial action only happens when individuals make their voices heard above the clamour of vested interest. And finally disinformation is a standard industry tactic whenever profits are under threat.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Frances Russell discusses the inevitable collateral damage to our planet from the Cons' war on science:

Over the past 200 years, Canadians built on flood plains because "we thought we had relatively stable climate -- the climate we experienced over the past century," Sandford told his CBC Radio audience. "We thought it would stay the same. We also thought we had a good grasp of how variable we could expect climate conditions to be based on what we've experienced in the last century.

"And now we've discovered that neither assumption was correct. We do not have adequate means to protect development in flood plains. Climate conditions are more variable than we thought. And that variability is increasing as climate changes and we've also discovered that our hydrologic conditions are changing."
...
Today, the atmosphere holds about seven per cent more water vapour than before for each degree Celsius temperature increase. North America is also experiencing disruption of the jet stream allowing climate events to cluster and remain in places for longer periods, causing more intense floods and droughts.

Sandford's most graphic analysis came when he asked his radio audience to imagine the unimaginable - "huge rivers, great courses of water vapour aloft that can carry between seven and 15 times the daily flow of the Mississippi River"- now flowing through the skies above our planet.

When these 'rivers' touch ground or are confronted by cooler temperatures, "that water precipitates out and what we see is huge storms of long duration and the potential for much greater flooding events."

The old math and the old methods and predictions of flood protection won't work anymore, Sandford warned. "Until we find a new way of substantiating appropriate action in the absence of this hydrologic stability, flood risks are going to be increasingly difficult to predict or to price, not just in Calgary and Canmore, but everywhere."

Sandford called the loss of hydrologic stability a "societal game-changer. It's already causing a great deal of human misery...We're...going to have to invest more in science so that we can improve our flood predictions."

But investing in more science is exactly what the Harper Conservatives are committed not to do - to serve the interests of multinational oil.

- But then, Sixth Estate notes that the Cons who are so eager to torch basic services for the needy in the name of fiscal probity see no problem with effective social insurance in the form of flood aid - while also highlighting the wider political problem:

In the meantime, thinking through the government’s obligations in the event of a disaster is obviously something that needs to urgently happen — and because of the rather decrepit nature of politics and the media in this country, we can be sure that the conversation won’t happen until after the fact, which is precisely the worst time to have it. If you think I’m being alarmist here, instead of thinking about the cost of a few homes in Calgary, try imagining what the cost of a property owner bailout will be when one-third of Vancouver is underwater, much of the rest has been toppled by an earthquake, and Vancouver Island is virtually inaccessible for months because all major harbours and airports have been destroyed. Relatively soon now, that will happen. And we have no plan for that either.

It’s worth noting the utter inability of our political system to plan in advance for something as incredibly and inanely simple as the fact that a mountain river which has flooded in the past might do so again. That’s precisely why we are so pathologically unable to prevent or mitigate climate change. Our brains simply aren’t evolved enough to handle problems of that magnitude.

- Charles Pierce writes that PRISM and other surveillance systems aren't the only disturbing form of top-down monitoring of individual action - as U.S. government employees are being ordered to spy on their co-workers in the name of avoiding the public disclosure of information.

- Meanwhile, Ryan Lizza (via David Graham) provides a window into the daily fund-raising routine of a member of the House of Representatives. And while the report offers a discouraging look at how a dollar-driven political system works, it should also raise serious questions as to whether we want to count on representatives to provide meaningful oversight on intrusions into individual rights.

- Finally, speaking of examples of how a political system shouldn't function, the Cons continue to set the standard. And while Michael Sona is outside the tent looking in, he's admitting that he and others on the Cons' Guelph campaign wanted to break the rules about identifying the source of robocalls:

“We were getting hit by unidentified robocalls, very, very negative stuff. We wanted to mount a robocall campaign against Frank Valeriote that couldn’t be traced back to us — Frank the Flip-Flopper. But none of us knew how to do it. So I asked John White (a fellow campaign worker) and he told me to contact Matt McBain (Conservative war room official) to find out. McBain emailed White to see if I was okay, White said I was on the team and a good guy and to go ahead and talk to me. We talked. I later texted McBain but never heard back.”

(Both White and McBain have told Elections Canada investigators that they advised Sona against any shady operations the party wouldn’t stand for.)

Although White and McBain apparently worried about breaking ethical and perhaps legal standards, Michael Sona reports receiving some nudge-nudge, wink-wink advice from senior party officials that was less rigorous when it came to playing politics by gentleman’s rules during the 2011 general election.

“We were told that that they weren’t telling us to go out and destroy the other guys signs, but if we did, the best thing to use was oven-cleaner. The guy said acetone would work just as well and we could get plenty of that from the printing company we were using. Then one of the top guys told us how to get around spending limits, which I thought was funny, since they were still tangled up in the In-and-Out thing.”

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Bea Vongdouangchanh reports on Kevin Page's concerns that the Cons are set to effectively destroy the PBO. And the Star's editorial board slams Stephen Harper's war against transparency and accountability in general:

Stonewalling, foot-dragging and contempt for Parliament pay. At least that’s what the federal government appears to have concluded in the wake of the 2011 election. Toppled two years ago after being found in contempt of Parliament for failing to disclose fiscal information, the Conservatives were nonetheless rewarded in the polls with a majority government — a victory that has served as positive reinforcement for their modus operandi of obfuscation.

Things have only gotten worse. As Kevin Page, Canada’s first parliamentary budget officer, prepares to leave his post later this month, he remains locked in a legal battle with the government — the culmination of a year-long struggle to access details on the specific nature of the deep cuts contained in the last federal budget.

Evidently, the Conservatives are tired of fighting with the PBO. The job description for Page’s replacement, released last Thursday, seems to be a direct rebuke to the outgoing watchdog. The suitable candidate will be “tactful and discreet,” it says, and capable of “achieving consensus.” (Though why an economic analyst whose job is to crunch numbers would ever need to “achieve consensus” is a mystery to us.)
...
Until the government starts to show some respect for Parliament and the transparency necessary for good government, we can only wonder what it has to hide.

- Alison rightly notes that if the B.C. Libs' deliberate use of public resources for partisan political purposes is an outrageous scandal, then the Harper Cons should face at least as much public backlash for their constant transfer of personal information from Canada's public service apparatus into party databases.

 

- Penny Collennette raises the possibility that Canada could follow in Switzerland's footsteps by implementing limits on CEO pay - noting in particular that there's little evidence that outsized pay for the corporate elite benefits anybody but executives themselves:

The compensation issue, which had previously more or less been confined to boardrooms and corporate insiders, was no longer about income clarity and disclosure of packages, perks and products. Instead, the debate shifted to themes of inequity and lack of fairness, spilling into public space, both physical and virtual. In Canada, the disgraceful behaviour of Nortel corporate executives who ran off with inflated bonuses while Nortel pensioners were left to salvage scraps, served as a stark reminder that we too must be mindful.

It’s ironic that Jim Collins’ well-regarded 2001 business book Good to Great concluded: “We found no systematic pattern linking executive compensation to the process of going from good to great... the purpose of a compensation system should not be to get the right behaviours from the wrong people, but to get the right people on the bus in the first place, and to keep them there.”

In other words, are we really sure there’s a link between excessive compensation and higher performance?

- Finally, Thomas Walkom highlights how the Cons' obsession with oil exports over all other forms of economic development has made all of Canada vulnerable to the bust cycles inherent in resource economies.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Bill Curry reports on what looks like a thoroughly warped view of the role of the Minister of Justice and Parliament in assessing the constitutionality of legislation (h/t to bigcitylib):

Ottawa is crafting legislation that risks running afoul of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms without informing Parliament, a federal lawyer charges.

In a highly unusual case, Department of Justice lawyer Edgar Schmidt is challenging his own department in Federal Court and revealing details about the internal guidelines used by federal lawyers. The department accuses Mr. Schmidt of violating his duties as a lawyer and public servant and has suspended him without pay.
...
Both sides agree that the Minister of Justice has a duty to report to the House of Commons if proposed legislation or regulations are inconsistent with the Charter. Where Mr. Schmidt and his superiors disagree is over how that requirement should be interpreted.

Mr. Schmidt argues that Parliament originally expected the test for this would be whether, on balance, a measure is likely not in compliance. However Mr. Schmidt says that since as far back as 1993, government lawyers have been directed to approve all measures as long as they can imagine an argument in favour of compliance that would have a 5 per cent chance of success. The government does not confirm this, arguing any internal instructions must be kept secret as solicitor client privilege and cabinet confidences. 

- Meanwhile, Jeremy Nuttall reports that the Cons are choosing to serve as puppets for HD Mining in arguing that nobody has any right to question the assertions of an applicant for a temporary foreign worker permit - including the department responsible to evaluate an application.
 
- Kady O'Malley and Sixth Estate both discuss Julian Fantino's gross misuse of public resources for partisan attacks - with the latter post also raising this rather noteworthy point about Fantino's general competence:

Here’s the first one, written to the NDP. Notice that in the final paragraph Julian Fantino singles out Canada’s aid program in Haiti as a particularly successful one, worthy of attention. A few days ago, Fantino announced that he was not satisfied with the Haiti program and that Canada should eliminate its aid to that country. How you want to square these remarks is up to you.

- Lest anybody think Canada's Senate is the only obvious example of a non-elected actor which can interfere in legislative processes, Robert Booth reports on the stunningly regular exercise of veto power by the Queen over bills passed in the UK.

- And finally, speaking of unaccountable interference by privileged political actors, David Climenhaga discusses the continued links between the Koch brothers and the Fraser Institute - which of course hasn't come under the same scrutiny as analogous charities who aren't such regular cheerleaders for the Cons or right-wing causes.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Daniel Wilson takes a look at how far too many in the media went along with the Harper Cons' hatchet job against First Nations:

(C)ompare the generalized outrage last week to the shrug elicited by the non-indigenous mayors around the country who have resigned after corruption allegations, are currently being investigated for fraud or sued for conflict of interest. 

By the standard applied to First Nations, the situations in Montreal, Laval, Mascouche, London, Toronto, Mississauga and Winnipeg are proof that all non-indigenous governments are corrupt and mismanaged and should have their funding cut off.  Such logic would suggest that Canadian citizens don’t deserve clean drinking water or schools for their kids since they are too lazy to insist on proper governance.

The unabashed complicity of the mainstream media in carrying out this hatchet job for the Harper government and unleashing a torrent of racism should be the subject of professional examination and deep personal shame for those involved.

- But then, Tobold Rollo points out that it's far from a first for the corporate press to be on the wrong side of history:

No one can know for sure just how long it takes for a journalist to “go soft”. The conservative commentator William F. Buckley Jr. once stood (sorry, wrote) courageously in opposition to the civil rights movement, reserving some of his most heroic denigrating prose for leaders such as Martin Luther King. Two decades later, Ronald Reagan would oppose the creation of Martin Luther King Day because of its economic impact only to sign it in the face of public pressure. But Buckley, still resilient, boldly pointed out the irony of creating a holiday in King’s name given the man’s laziness: “it rankles that we should be asked to take the day off to remember a man whose career was built on leisure.” Yet Buckley, too, would succumb. Fatigued by decades of demeaning the labours of the subjugated, Buckley finally gave in and pronounced his admiration for Martin Luther King. Truly heartbreaking.


If today’s writers have half the tenacity as our friend Buckley, we should see them exhibiting the first signs of quiet approval for Chief Theresa Spence and the Idle No More movement in about ten years. But for the time being we are a truly privileged audience, living in a time when the artful denigration of Indigenous peoples invites us to reflect on those heroes of the past who mocked the words and deeds of blacks, women, and homosexuals. These are truly amazing times.

 - Meanwhile, the #ottawapiskat hashtag has been offering the public an opportunity to judge the Harper Cons by the standards they've set for First Nations. Here are a few particular favourites.

- And needless to say, the comparison leads nicely to Jessica Bruno's report on how the Cons' use of public dollars can only be explained as a matter of partisan gain rather than reasonable public administration.

- Which looks rather consistent with the Cons' security apparatus - which is placing a higher priority on silencing left-wing voices who might dare to "bring attention to perceived policy failures" than dealing with neo-Nazi or white supremacist threats.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Tim Harper slams the Cons for yet another omnibus abuse of parliamentary democracy:

Stephen Harper didn’t invent prorogation and omnibus legislation, but he has made two arcane polysyllabic political terms part of our everyday lexicon, improving our vocabulary but diminishing our democracy.

His shut-it-down and take-it-or-leave-it approach to procedure and legislation has gone viral, with the Ontario legislature now sitting dark, prorogued by Dalton McGuinty.

This is the second chapter of a very cynical story by the Harper government, NDP House leader Nathan Cullen said, but it’s not clear whether the opposition response will be different in chapter two.

The last omnibus budget bill began the process of gutting environmental regulations and this one takes the process another step further.
...
Whether these changes are good or bad isn’t the point. The point is that they cannot be properly scrutinized by the people sent to this place to hold a government to account.

New Democrats, with their opposition partners, went as far as they could in opposition last spring, given the reality of a majority government.

The Conservatives have clearly determined that a lost night’s sleep in the Commons is an easy price to pay for passing legislation their way, and the opposition may have to look for another way to engage Canadians this time around.

 - Meanwhile, plenty of journalists are rightly testing Jim Flaherty's nonsensical claim that brand-new attacks on environmental laws were somehow included in a March budget that mentioned nothing of the sort.

- Lest there be any doubt, there's every reason to criticize the McGuinty Libs for treating the Harper Cons' anti-democratic cynicism as the new normal. And both Thomas Walkom and Andrew Coyne duly blast McGuinty and the general degradation of parliamentary democracy as a result.

- No, we shouldn't be the least bit surprised that the Cons' strategy of treating everything as an opportunity for partisan gain includes foreign election monitoring.

- Finally, Josh Mandryk criticizes the Cons' attacks on unions and workers - and points out the privacy implications of the Cons' attempt to silence political countermovements:

Far from atypical, (C-377) is but the latest instance in a well-documented pattern of the Conservative government lashing out against groups seen as standing in its way.

Worse than the character assassination of former Opposition leaders Stéphane Dion and Michael Ignatieff has been the systematic attack on its opponents in civil society. From slashing funding to women’s groups, to suppressing dissenters in the federal bureaucracy, to attacking environmental charities as “foreign-funded radicals,” this government has shown an unprecedented willingness to come down on groups who either actively or passively oppose its agenda.

And now they’ve come for the trade unionists.
...
Two examples help illustrate just how invasive the bill is.

First, suppose you pass away while an active union member and your spouse receives a death benefit from your union’s pension plan. Bill C-377 would require your spouse’s name and address to be posted online, along with an explanation that he/she has received a sizeable payment as a result of your passing.

Or suppose you have a disability or require medication for a serious illness not covered by your province’s health-care plan. If you receive more than $5,000 in benefits from your union’s plan, your name and address, along with an explanation of why you’ve received that money, would be published online for your family, friends and employer to see.
...
By demanding carte blanche financial disclosure with little justification, Hiebert appears to be swinging aimlessly in hopes of finding dirt on the labour movement.

Unfortunately, he and the rest of the world will have to dig through personal information about millions of Canadians before they find it.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading...

- No, we shouldn't read too much into the first wave of polling following Thomas Mulcair's election as NDP leader. But there are a couple of points where the early returns are far enough out of line with expectations to be worth pointing out. First, there's the comparison between a leader just elected and one who's been given the profile normally reserved for the leader of the Official Opposition for the better part of a year:

Mr. Harper had a moderate lead nationally when voters were asked which of the three leaders they thought would make the best prime minister. Thirty three per cent of respondents nationally favoured Mr. Harper as best choice for prime minister, with Mr. Mulcair at 27 per cent and Mr. Rae at 22 per cent. Seventeen per cent of the respondents said they did not know who they preferred.

And even more interestingly, there's this data point on the question of whether Mulcair can be successful in Western Canada:

The survey found Mr. Mulcair more popular than the other two leaders among young voters and middle income voters. His support was also stronger in the Prairie provinces and the Atlantic, but he placed behind Mr. Rae and Mr. Harper in Ontario as preference for best prime minister.

- Saskatchewan's electoral redistribution commission is up and running, and interested in public input until April 15 on its first proposal. And Gregory Beatty reminds us why it's well worth taking the time to participate.

- Susan Delacourt quotes Peter Aucoin on the use of the levers of government to entrench partisan gain and control over the public service - which the Cons look to be using to maximum effect in today's federal budget.

- Meanwhile, Andrea Horwath is nicely carrying on the NDP's tradition of working with other parties toward better budgets than they'd ever consider on their own.

- Finally, CTV points out another example of distinctive Saskatchewan culture that's withering away under the Wall government, as the Western Development Museum is being forced to start cutting hours for lack of funding.

On malign neglect

The CP's story about the Cons breaking rules about avoiding partisanship on government websites is certainly noteworthy on its own. But it's particularly worth highlighting how one part of the story also fits into Paul Wells' classic critique of the Harper government:

According to federal documents obtained by The Canadian Press, bureaucrats advised that the Economic Action Plan website didn't meet rules (to ensure they are credible, technically accessible, uniform and non-partisan) – and didn't merit an exemption from those rules.

However, the website was given the green light anyway by then-Treasury Board president Vic Toews.

He justified it by writing that the rules – which only came into effect in 2009 – were going to be changed at some future date.
...
More than a year after the exemption, the rules remain in place – as does the website.

Of course, it's a problem as well that the Cons couldn't care less whether or not they're following the rules - particularly those which they've put in place themselves. But it's particularly worth noting that whether due to disorganization, neglect or some other factor, they also can't be bothered to follow through on their own supposed plans to change them - even when they've stated their intention to do so in order to offer some retroactive justification for their actions.

In other words, the problems with the Cons involve flat-out incompetence in addition to blatant ethical failures. And while we might take some comfort in hoping that the former may limit their ability to capitalize on the latter, both serve as rather compelling reasons for a change in government.

Friday Afternoon Links

A few notes to close out your week...

- Gerald Caplan's column on the hidden attacks on Ontario's lone NDP government to date is well worth a read. But it's worth wondering to what extent the same phenomenon is still in effect: while it's far from a secret that other provinces have similarly faced capital strikes and other corporate tantrums over the election of NDP governments in the past, is there any indication that, say, Darrell Dexter's government in Nova Scotia is facing anything of the sort?

- Susan Delacourt points out Stephen Harper's apparent philosophy in choosing who to trust:

(H)ere's the secret to Harper -- he doesn't value people with whom he shares friendships or old associations (that's why you get former loyalists like Tom Flanagan, Gerry Nicholls on the outs with him). He values people who share his enmity and his single-minded fixation on destroying his enemies of the moment. Look at his favourite word in the Commons...and that of his most loyal lieutenant, John Baird.
...
By now, nearly five years later, we in the media are used to this. The worst thing you can call someone in Harperland is a Liberal. Hence, Lawrence Martin is dismissed as a "big-L Liberal" by the PMO after his book is released. Being a liberal, small-l or big-L, is something for which people, in Conservative Ottawa, should be deeply ashamed. There's an element of hysteria to all this too -- witness the slightly off-the-rails, anti-Liberal rhetoric of Lawrence Cannon and Jim Flaherty in recent speeches to non-political audiences.

A few months ago, I saw a quote that keeps rattling around my head. It's from philosopher Eric Hoffer, a man himself who apparently celebrated his standing as an anti-intellectual, anti-elite outcast. Here's the quote:

"You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you."

That is enormously useful information in the hyper-partisan capital right now. The more that the word "Liberal" is used as a swear word, the more I wonder where that fear is coming from.

Of course, it's worth building on Delacourt's analysis and noting that the Cons are trying even more desperately to attack the concept of a coalition. And the Libs would be smart to note just what it is that scares Harper most.

- The coverup is always worse than the crime. But both look to be signs of some painfully bad judgment and partisan focus in the public service.

- Finally, the NDP's effort to fix the long-gun registry is getting at least some media attention. But I'm not sure the NDP is best off adopting its strategy of focusing mostly on the Libs and Bloc for support: isn't much of the appeal of making the registry less onerous the prospect of forcing the Cons onto the defensive in arguing against improvements?

On test cases

Kady has the text of Wayne Wouters' letter responding to Marlene Jennings' complaint about a partisan departmental press release. And it's even worse than I'd thought this morning, as it seems to leave the door open for the Cons to insert whatever partisan attacks they want into departmental materials as long as they're said to originate with a minister.

Or to put Wouters' distinction in simple terms...

Inserting "Neener neener neener, Ignatieff's a weiner" in a departmental press release: not OK.

Inserting "According to the Honourable Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Minister of State (Agriculture), 'Neener neener neener, Ignatieff's a weiner'" in a departmental press release: OK.

Needless to say, I'm skeptical as to whether that's where most Canadians think the line ought to be drawn in the use of public resources for partisan purposes. And if the individual currently charged with interpreting the rules thinks otherwise, then Parliament may want to take a close look at how it can go about making reality reflect what people should expect.

On half measures

It's undoubtedly for the best that Wayne Wouters has acknowledged that the Cons' use of departmental press releases for partisan attacks was improper. But it's hard to see much prospect of improvement based on Wouters' conclusion as to how the matter was handled:

Canada's top bureaucrat admitted a news release from the Justice Department announcing the appointment of new Senators to clear the way for the Conservatives law and order agenda was partisan and didn't conform with federal communications policy.

In a letter, Privy Council Clerk Wayne Wouters said the breach was discovered the same day as it was posted and publicly released, but it was 'swiftly' handled to clarify that the partisan statements were the views of the minister and not the department. The changes were made the same day.

Of course, it's certainly a problem for the Cons to be imputing their views to federal departments. But that's far from the only - or even the most important - problem with the release reviewed by Wouters.

What's obviously left out of Wouters' letter (at least as reported so far) is any analysis as to why it's supposed to be acceptable for minister to use a public department's resources to broadcast his or her own partisan views - which seems to be the inevitable inference if the "clarification" is seen as having brought the Cons back within the rules. And given the Cons' track record of pushing the limits of non-stop partisanship, it'll be a shock if we don't get to see that apparent loophole in Wouters' decision tested in the very near future.

It all makes sense

Sure, at first glance it might seem like Shelly Glover is speaking absolute nonsense in claiming she can't conceive of any way to promote French immersion other than by distributing Con propaganda. But after some reflection, the statement may not be quite as far-fetched as it seems.

After all, as a Con MP under Stephen Harper, Glover long since signed away her own ability to think for herself. So it would make sense that she doesn't have any ideas beyond what her party gives her.

And it's equally well-documented that the Cons themselves can't think of anything other than pure partisan advantage. So even if Glover asked for some idea as to what she could give students that didn't have the Cons' logo on it, they too would probably draw a blank.

So let's not look at Glover as an offender. Instead, let's just politely point out that it's indeed possible to offer congratulations - and even accompanying tokens of appreciation - without slapping a partisan logo on them. And hopefully Glover and her partymates can then take today's events as a learning experience.

(Edit: fixed typo.)

Then and now

Then:

Peter Van Loan, a fiery House leader who thrilled colleagues with his frequent finger-jabbing diatribes against the Liberals, moves to Public Safety.

Government insiders say his replacement by the less-partisan Jay Hill is in keeping with Harper's desire to strike a more convivial tone in the next Parliament.

Now:

Mr. Jack Harris (St. John's East, NDP):

Mr. Speaker, my point of order refers to the response of the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Hill) to the traditional question as to what will be going on over the next few days so that parliamentarians can prepare for debates. I did not understand that this was an opportunity for the government House leader to make partisan swipes at other parties of the House or engage in debate that cannot be responded to. Is that not an abuse of the traditions of the House?