Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Greg Jericho rightly notes that the COVID pandemic showed beyond doubt that poverty is a policy choice - which makes it all the more maddening that the powers that be are so determined to inflict it on people as part of any new "normal". And Ian Welsh invites us to imagine a world where the violence and need that characterize our political economy are themselves treated as unthinkable.

- Henry Giroux highlights the overlap between neoliberalism and fascism in treating large numbers of people as disposable. And Paul Dechene writes about the choice of Regina's City Council to disclaim any responsibility for, or interest in, ensuring people have homes as one of the aspects of city politics which needs to be burned up. 

- Joe Fish discusses the tragic gap between the Canadian research discovering vaccines which could save countless lives, and the complete lack of interest in developing and producing them due to an insufficiently profitable market. 

- Finally, Eugene Boisvert and Anisha Pillarisetty write about new modelling showing the risk of cascading extinctions caused by climate change. James Hansen et al. warn that existing greenhouse gas forcing could result in a 10 degree increase in global temperatures - far beyond the scenarios treated as even worst-case results of fossil fuel lock-in. And Dana Drugman reports on a new study showing how the oil industry has poured billions of dollars into preventing any action to ameliorate any climate breakdown.

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your long weekend reading.

- Umair Haque theorizes that the relatively benign outcome of the U.S.' recent election reflects a public that's finally rejecting Trumpism. But Krystal Ball notes that some of the most important Democratic success stories (notably including John Fetterman) included a message based on the recognition that government can use its power to help people, rather than a weary position that elections can't accomplish more than minimizing the damage inflicted by the other side.

- Ryan Patrick Jones and Nicole Brockbank list the well-connected landowners who stand to be enriched by Doug Ford's plan to turn protected greenbelt land into developers' profits. And Dale Smith points out that Ford's gratuitous use of the notwithstanding clause to attack workers out of sheer impatience and stubbornness signals that all human rights are at risk.

- Gaby Galvin offers a reminder that publicly-funded stadiums seldom accomplish anything other than to funnel money to a city's best-connected business figures. And Paul Dechene discusses how a push to put an arena downtown is leading Regina into another round of discarding social benefits in favour of corporate playthings. 

- Finally, Yasmine Ghania reports on the John Howard Society's push for the provincial government to invest in the social issues at the root of crime. But Adam Hunter reports that the Moe government is instead bent on establishing more - and more politically-controlled - police and security forces even when all available evidence points to an absence of benefit for the cost.

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Erin Prater reports on research showing how long COVID may be traced to excessive pruning of connections in the brain. Faye Flam highlights why anybody who's been infected will need to be on the outlook for stroke symptoms. And Norman Swan warns of the aging effect COVID-19 has on a person's body. 

- Adam Morton reports on a study suggesting that Australia's system of carbon credits managed to reward businesses for "forest regeneration" even as they reduced tree cover. And Nicholas Kusnetz discusses the likelihood that private equity is snapping up unviable fossil fuel properties with the intention of continuing to spew carbon pollution long past the point when any publicly-traded company could justify that course of action to shareholders. 

- Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood and Noah Kathen outline what a green industrial policy could look like if Canada wanted to invest in a liveable future, rather than prolonging the damage done by reliance on oil and gas. And David Macdonald highlights how the federal government (like its provincial counterparts) has plenty of fiscal room for both industrial policy and social supports if it wasn't bent on pushing austerity. 

- John Anderson laments that Canada Post's theoretical nod to postal banking has been set up as a corporate income stream rather than a service for people. And Paul Dechene reports on the City of Regina's farcical attempt to force a series of entertainment projects onto residents rather than paying any attention to its previous consultations and promises. 

- Finally, Nora Loreto points out how authoritarianism has consistently been the establishment response to meaningful labour activism in Canada. 

Monday Evening Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- CBS reports on the Walk to Remember intended to highlight the continued need for long COVID supports. And Elizabeth Thompson reports on the federal government workers who are rightly challenging the demand to return to offices for little apparent reason (and with no regard for their well-being).

- Salmaan Farooqi points out the epidemic of hospital and emergency room closures as an uncontrolled COVID wave slams into a health care system already set up to fail (to the point where nursing students are receiving specific instruction on the extreme stress of their future work environments). And Matt Gurney writes that the Ford PCs aren't willing to do more than issue self-aggrandizing press releases even as people in need of health care die from their neglect.

- Rosa Saba discusses how inflation is affecting people already struggling to get by on lower incomes - though it goes without saying that a round of wage and benefit suppression isn't any help. To the contrary, Samir Sonti recognizes that collective bargaining is one of the few means for workers to at least avoid falling further behind.

- Adam Johnson writes that a distinct increase in visible suffering is being used by the right as an excuse to promote state violence, rather than a reason to care for each other.

- Finally, Paul Dechene offers a reminder of the promise of housing which was used to sell public investment in Regina's football stadium - and which has apparently been fully discarded as opportunistic entertainment industries demand yet another round of shiny new buildings at the expense of people's basic needs.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your long weekend reading.

- David Macdonald writes that if there's a risk of a recession being caused by interest rate hikes, it's because people with wealth and power have chosen to engineer one on purpose. And Ken Klippenstein and Jon Schwarz report on an internal Bank of America memo stating that the hope is to undercut labour strength at a point when people are in a position to demand higher wages and better treatment.

- Zeke Hausfather discusses how we're on track for yet another summer of record-breaking heat as a result of a worsening climate breakdown, while Robin McKie writes about Bill McGuire's observations on both how much had gone awry already and how much worse matters will get if we don't reverse course immediately. And Julia Conley reports that catastrophic flooding in Kentucky represents another extreme weather event traceable to the climate crisis.

- Justin Mikulka writes about the hopeful signs that the gas industry won't lock us into methane-dependent "blue" hydrogen due to the lower cost of renewable alternatives - though we still need to be wary of fossil fuel sector lobbying to have governments put a thumb on the scale. And Paris Marx writes that a shift to electric vehicles alone won't be anywhere near enough to make a dent if it's not paired with policies to reduce car dependence.

- Meanwhile, Paul Dechene offers a reminder of the City of Regina's broken promises to address people's core needs eventually after funneling money toward shiny megaprojects - as it's now looking at a new round of sports and entertainment spending after doing nothing to work on the housing and revitalization which was supposed to be paired with the construction of a brand new Mosaic Stadium.

- Finally, Andrea Hsu discusses the millions of Americans suffering from long COVID, and the ripple effects of their being unable to work as before in an environment where employers don't bother offering required accommodations.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- William J. Barber and Tope Folarin write that the U.S.' grim milestone of one million COVID-19 deaths already serves as a searing indictment of its policy choices and disregard for people living in poverty - and this before a combination of Republican cruelty and Democratic fecklessness results in there being no resources at all to meet a new wave of the coronavirus. And Alicia Wittmeyer looks at some of the human toll through the last messages between victims and their loved ones.

- John Smith discusses how rising costs and declining standards of living are pushing people living in poverty into perpetual fear and desperation. And Listen Chen examines how supportive housing may do as much harm as good in attempting to address homelessness - particularly by creating excuses for commercial landlords to evict the people in need of a home. 

- Bill McKibben points out how major corporations are feeding into the climate breakdown through their financial holdings while pretending to be green in their direct operations. And Emily Chung highlights how Canada's oil sector is trying to claim credit for carbon emission reductions when all it's done is to disclaim responsibility for the dirty energy it exports - or as Paul Dechene puts it:

Oil companies going "net zero" is like a gun manufacturer installing metal detectors in their factories and calling the resulting 90% decrease in workplace shootings "progress on reducing gun violence." https://t.co/eHB0M6hWNa

— Paul Dechene (@PaulDechene) May 20, 2022

- Meanwhile, Kevin Philipupillai reports on the Libs' latest move to avoid answering for continuing to pour public money into the Trans Mountain pipeline (among other fossil fuel subsidies), this time by reclassifying Trans Mountain Corporation to evade a need for Parliamentary approval for financing.

- Finally, Adam Serwer discusses how the "great replacement" bigotry underlying the Buffalo mass shooting (among other massacres) has become mainstream Republican messaging.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Peter Kalmus discusses how climate scientists are increasingly turning to civil disobedience to try to alert people to the need for immediate action. Adam Radwanski discusses how the Libs' budget falls far short of the needed focus and ambition, while James Wilt notes the stark contrast between penny-pinching on crucial environmental priorities and the readily availability of tens of billions of dollars for war and weapons. 

- Meanwhile, Paul Dechene offers the most positive review he possibly can of the City of Regina's much-delayed sustainability framework.

- Elias Visontay reports on the abandonment of a plan to ban dark roofs as showing how even the most frivolous whims of capital are being given precedence over averting climate breakdown. And Rina Torchinsky reports that one of the most tedious criticisms of solar energy has been overcome by scientific progress, as Stanford engineers have developed panels capable of continuing to provide power at night through thermoelectric generation.

- Finally, Alanna Smith exposes the UCP's sudden and arbitrary cancellation of an overdose prevention pilot project. Lisa Schick reports on the Saskatchewan Party's equally thoughtless decision to eliminate access to mental health medication for children in care. And Linda McQuaig discusses how Doug Ford has given the #FluTruxKlan everything it could possibly have asked for, while endangering many Ontarians in the process of abandoning and forbidding even the most basic public health measures.

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Guy Quenneville reports on Dr. Saqib Shahab's warning that Saskatchewan needs to improve its vaccination rates and minimize social mixing to avoid a fifth COVID wave this winter. And Kelly Skjerven reports on modelling showing that delays in testing and seeking treatment are resulting in the majority of COVID admissions to ICU are happening within a day of admission to a hospital - signaling that people are ending up with more severe cases after delaying testing and treatment. 

- Meanwhile, Trevor Wilhelm reports on the belated arrest of an anti-vaxxer who bombed a Windsor assembly plant. 

- Arno Kopecky writes that the multiple calamities which have hit British Columbia this year should warn us what awaits everybody if we don't take immediate action to avert a climate breakdown, while Judith Lavoie discusses the connection between clear-cutting and the recent floods and landslides. And Damian Carrington reports on new mapping showing the natural carbon sinks which need to be preserved to avoid exacerbating the climate crisis. 

- Finally, Linda McQuaig warns that big oil continues to dictate the terms of any climate discussion. Cameron Fenton calls out the new language of climate denial grounded in delay and inaction, while Paul Dechene examines those principles as they apply to Regina's reluctance to accept even a statement of intention to join other municipalities in pursuing net zero emissions. And Rebecca Solnit offers some tips for confronting the climate challenge without losing hope. 

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Jonathan Howard writes that the recognition of higher COVID-19 risks in adults has been used as a means of misleadingly minimizing the risks of death and long-term effects in children. And Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz offers the receipts as to how the dangers of COVID itself are far more severe than any effect of public health measures intended to reduce its spread.

- Ahmed Mushfiq Moborak and Saad Moer recognize that we should be sending vaccines to the countries where they're most needed, rather than allowing them to expire in the midst of populations unwilling to receive them. And Sasa Petricic discusses how glaring failures in the face of the pandemic are leading to the unraveling of longstanding governance structures around the globe. 

- Liz Walker and Shanice Regis-Wilkins talk to Jim Stanford about the prospect of increasing the use of sectoral bargaining to increase the bargaining power of Canadian workers.

- John Woodside reports on the difference between the Libs and the NDP as to whether new infrastructure necessitated by a climate breakdown should primarily be built with public money for public benefit, or whether (as the Libs prefer) any planning is going to bake in private profit-taking.

- Finally, Paul Dechene discusses the downside of increased sprawl which seems to be under consideration by Regina's City Council. And Katelyn Duncan highlights how the Moe government has gone out of its way to make it difficult for Saskatchewan residents to mitigate some of the effects of car and truck-focused cities by switching to electric vehicles.

On stark choices

The advance polls are now open in Regina's municipal election, while mail-in ballots have been available for some time. So I'll take the opportunity to discuss voters' options - beginning with the City Council races which make for perhaps the most interesting set of possibilities we've seen in decades.

I've already pointed out Paul Dechene's view of the possible downsides. And Sara Birlios' report includes pessimism as to the prospect of achieving much through electoral means, especially at the municipal level.

But to the extent it's possible to make positive change through municipal government, this year's set of options provides a stronger prospect of that than any in recent memory.

To start with, there's at least some room to build on existing votes and relationships on Council, including a strong majority willing to voting for a renewable energy plan, and multiple votes from what I'd hope are safe Council seats to fund an anti-homelessness program.

From there, it's not hard to see how the election could plausibly result in a durable majority of progressive Council members, plus at least a couple of incumbents (one of whom has already been acclaimed) willing to work on issues as they arise.

Of course, the downside is that there's an equally foreseeable path to a Council littered with rank bigotry, planned giveaways to developers, reliance on overpolicing, and a bevy of anti-revenue rhetoric. We could realistically see John Findura remain the most backward councillor in the city on renewable energy based on his wanting to put off voting on a sustainability framework; we could also realistically end up saddled with a majority of councillors far worse than him on that and many other issues.

We've certainly approached municipal elections from a worse starting point than having a somewhat responsive Council, and an opportunity to elect better. And the uninspiring choices for mayor (which I'll address next) may seem a lot more palatable if we can do the work to elect councillors who will put people first.

So for those looking to make a difference (particularly after the disappointment of the provincial election), now is the time to get people out to support Cheryl Stadnichuk, Andrew Stevens, Dan LeBlanc, Shobna Radons, Shanon Zachidniak, Jason Mancinelli (as a cooperative councillor in a ward with no RDLC endorsement), and Landon Mohl.

On local decisions

I haven't paid a lot of attention yet to Saskatchewan's municipal elections, due primarily to the reality that anything which happens at that level can be undone by a provincial governments which considers itself entitled to override the will of municipalities. (And sadly, there's little indication that respect for other levels of government is going to find its way into the Sask Party's plans anytime soon.)

But I'll start now by pointing out Paul Dechene's summary of the state of the races in Regina, as well as an exceptionally strong set of candidates endorsed by the Regina & District Labour Council. Because while our local officials may not be able to override the provincial government, it would certainly be nice to avoid having a mayor and council desperate to defund transit and housing in order to build a downtown Quidditch stadium.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Ryan Meili points out the unduly limited view of climate policy arising out of political posturing over the federal carbon tax. Ed Finn writes about the importance of ensuring our only home remains inhabitable. Bruce Anderson and David Colleto examine the growing importance of our climate breakdown as a ballot box question for Canadian voters. And George Monbiot suggests that ecocide should be viewed and prosecuted as a crime against humanity.

- Meanwhile, Richard Blackwell reports that renewable energy already generates more employment for Canadians than the oil sands, while Sharon Riley discusses the risk of relying on an oil industry facing a predictable decline for future economic development.

- Paul Dechene writes about the connection between climate denial and right-wing bigotry. Andray Domise questions who so much of Canada's media is choosing to amplify racist messages rather than challenging them. And Kevin Metcalf discusses the attempt by self-proclaimed right-wing "speech warriors" to silence anybody who disagrees through the courts.

- PressProgress offers some suggestions from this year's Progress Summir as to what left-wing populism should look like.

- And finally, Raquel Rolnik discusses how poverty and inequality are only getting worse in the UK under a Conservative government which has pushed nothing but domestic deprivation and international isolationism.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Dani Rodrik writes that today's brand of trade agreement has little to do with economic theory as opposed to political power:

What purpose do trade agreements really serve? The answer would seem obvious: countries negotiate trade agreements to achieve freer trade. But the reality is considerably more complex. It’s not just that today’s trade agreements extend to many other policy areas, such as health and safety regulations, patents and copyrights, capital-account regulations, and investor rights. It’s also unclear whether they really have much to do with free trade.
...

When trade agreements were largely about import tariffs, negotiated exchange of market access generally produced lower import barriers – an example of the benefits of lobbies acting as counterweights to one another. But there are certainly plenty of examples of international collusion among special interests as well. The WTO’s prohibition on export subsidies has no real economic rationale, as I have already noted. The rules on anti-dumping are similarly explicitly protectionist in intent. 

Such perverse cases have proliferated more recently. Newer trade agreements incorporate rules on “intellectual property,” capital flows, and investment protections that are mainly designed to generate and preserve profits for financial institutions and multinational enterprises at the expense of other legitimate policy goals. These rules provide special protections to foreign investors that often come into conflict with public health or environmental regulations. They make it harder for developing countries to access technology, manage volatile capital flows, and diversify their economies through industrial policies. 

Trade policies driven by domestic political lobbying and special interests are beggar-thyself policies. They may have beggar-thy-neighbor consequences, but that is not their motive. They reflect power asymmetries and political failures within societies. International trade agreements can contribute only in limited ways to remedying such domestic political failures, and sometimes they aggravate those failures. Addressing beggar-thyself policies requires improving domestic governance, not establishing international rules. 

- The Star rightly argues that Canada can't claim to have a plan to meet its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets without actually doing the math as to how to get there.

- Lynell Anderson, Morna Ballantyne, Martha Friendly set out a plan for a national child care system - though unfortunately there's no indication that the federal government has any interest in putting the idea into action. 

- Paul Dechene highlights the disingenuousness of Brad Wall's Twitter tantrums. And David Climenhaga spreads the word about Wall's Bradsplaining, while noting that Brad Trost is exhibiting exactly the same tendencies.

- Finally, Tara Katrusiak Baran discusses the dangers of threatening violence and suppression based on political disagreement - while pointing out that economic anxiety is no excuse for dehumanizing our fellow citizens. And Danny Quah and Kishore Mahbubani theorize that the rise of the authoritarian right has more to do with a perceived loss of control than with any economic factors.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Greg Jericho is the latest to weigh in on the false promises of neoliberalism:

An article in the IMF’s latest issue of is journal Finance and Development notes that “instead of delivering growth, some neoliberal policies have increased inequality” and jeopardised “durable” growth.

The authors note that there actually scant proof that the standard policies of encouraging foreign investment and reducing deficits and debt levels has improved economic growth.

They found that it’s tough to actually establish “the benefits in terms of increased growth” from these polices but that the costs from “increased inequality are prominent”. Even worse for those who desire economic growth above all else, they found that the “increased inequality in turn hurts the level and sustainability of growth.”

The authors note that their study of economies found that “austerity policies not only generate substantial welfare costs due to supply-side channels, they also hurt demand – and thus worsen employment and unemployment”.

And as I have noted (repeatedly) lack of demand is a massive issue for our economy. Right now Malcolm Turnbull would have you believe that it is an absolute given that more foreign investment and lower taxation and government spending will deliver economic growth. The reality is such belief is based on a model that struggles to deliver proof that is actually works and which crucially ignores factors such as inequality that can actually undermine their goal of economic growth.

- David Calnitsky writes that a basic income would ensure a reasonable standard of living for everybody without the stigma that comes with a patchy social safety net. Teuila Fuatai discusses how Employment Insurance has been designed to cover perpetually fewer workers over the past few decades, leaving more and more without any fallback at all. And the Star's editorial board calls for Canada Pension Plan reform to ensure all workers have enough for a secure retirement.

- Pamela Cowan reports on the desperate - and thus far ignored - need for improved mental health services in Saskatchewan. And the U.S.' Council of Economic Advisers summarizes how mental health and other social factors affect incarceration rates.

- Noah Zon points out that the reinstatement of the long-form census is just the start of collecting the additional data we need to assess and meet Canada's social needs. And Anna Stanley writes about the continued discrimination against First Nations built into our federal fiscal framework.

- Finally, Paul Dechene points out how the Saskatchewan Party has in fact imposed somewhat of carbon price through their obsession with carbon capture and storage - only without any of the actual emission reductions which are supposed to accompany any sane pricing policy. And Andrew Nikiforuk comments on the alarming pollution emanating from the oil sands.

New column day

Here, on how Regina City Council's embarrassing heel-dragging in response to the David Suzuki Foundation's Blue Dot Declaration on environmental rights contrasts against the spread of trade agreements with virtually no scrutiny.

For further reading...
- Shawn Fraser both introduced the motion supporting the Blue Dot Declaration, and discussed it here. And the list of cities who have already signed on is here. 
- Meanwhile, CBC reported on Council's demurral. And Paul Dechene was duly outraged here.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your election day reading.

- Ed Finn discusses how neoliberalism is damaging Canada, and what we need to do to reverse its influence:

Corporate influence on federal politics, the country’s flawed electoral system, and the staunch pursuit of a political and economic ideology since the 1980s that has threatened some of Canada’s greatest political achievements, like universal health care, while exacerbating inequality and eroding the state of Canada’s democracy, he said, are all topics that should be on the table at leaders’ debates and in public discourse if Canada is to begin moving toward a brighter future.
...
Finn said while much of the current focus among Canadian voters is on Stephen Harper, it’s important to note that “Harper’s offence is not that he initiated the regressive policies that set Canada on a downward course 30 years ago, but that during his decade in power he greatly expanded and intensified them.”

If things are to change, it’s not simply a matter of voting Harper out of office, but assessing the big picture and voting for politicians and parties that offer socially and economically progressive alternatives, he said. 

- And Scott Vrooman likewise observes that we should see ourselves as citizens whose role goes far beyond voting alone, rather than as mere consumers of party brands.

- Jon Herriot and Naheed Dosani offer a few suggestions as to issues which voters should keep in mind in deciding who has earned their support. And Dr. Daniel Boudreau points out how important a national pharmacare program can be for everybody's health.

- Paul Dechene reminds us why ethics should be a thoroughly toxic issue for the Harper Cons. And Roger Annis writes that the Libs' goal is to take Canadian politics back to a past we should be looking to leave behind us.

- Finally, Ian Welsh offers a concise take on the campaign that we've seen so far. And John Oliver captures both the absurd and the embarrassing within the campaign:

On game theories

Paul Dechene's riff off of this post is definitely worth a read. But while we're largely in agreement on the significance of polls, I will challenge his wider view as to what election coverage means:

Policies? Platforms? These are not the weapons political parties wield in an election. Those are the clothes political hopefuls wear. They define the personalities of the contestants. They’re the pixeled skins that overlay each blank politician sprite. This guy here is the angry Bowser who’s scary and likes to blow things up but at least he’ll cut your taxes. Here’s the cheerful Princess Peach who’s kind and generous, but oh, her naivete is going to get her into trouble. And look! Over there it’s Yoshi! He’s a dinosaur! He’s green! And he has a sticky tongue! How can you not vote for him?

In other words, you root for the guy in the costume you like best.

All that stuff that the activists and academics and huffy old columnists dismiss as political theatre is the actual election.

Is most of that morass of petty conflicts, dirty tricks, flubbed press conferences and debate shenanigans nothing more than random noise? Hellz ya. But humans are storytelling creatures and taking a chaotic pile of stupid nonsense and constructing a narrative from it is one of our brains’ favourite things to do.

And polls are just one more expression of our storytelling natures. They gather up a bunch of people’s opinions, quantify them, put them on graphs. Then everybody makes guesses about what it all means and what’s going to happen next.

Polls take the noise of a real life election and turn it into a game involving little racing red and blue and orange and green avatars in exactly the same way that a Nintendo machine takes a bunch of random numbers and the inputs from your controller and turns them into Super Mario Kart.

I've commented before on the concept of elections being treated and commented on as a game rather than an event of political and social importance. But Dechene effectively raises two related questions arising out of the view that's how campaigns are currently covered: can we treat campaigns as something more than a game whose primary importance is as a source of entertainment? And if so, should we bother?

On my reading, Dechene seems to answer the first question with a no, rendering the second irrelevant. But even if we recognize that elections will fall short of a "lost Platonic state of democracy", that doesn't mean we're stuck with it instead representing nothing more than a matter of rooting for laundry.

In fact, the same experts who have pointed out our tendency to jump to conclusions and frame what we see around biases and preferred narratives have also noted that we do have another cognitive system available - one which requires more effort to use, but results in a far more thorough analysis than our initial reaction to events. And a conscious effort to use the latter system seems to be largely successful in providing an appropriate challenge to the surface analysis.

There's no prospect of analyzing everything that happens in a campaign through that more detailed lens even on an individual level. But I'd suggest it is possible to prioritize coverage to shift how we see politics on the margins: by talking more about substantive issues than trivia, by evaluating them with something going beyond a surface analysis, and by encouraging others to do the same.

And the potential importance of doing so is hard to overstate. While the election itself can be lumped in with any given sporting event as having a winner, one or more losers, and lots of characters to be discussed, the result of an election (being the election of the people empowered to chart a social course on our behalf) has profound implications for everybody within the influence of political decision-making.

If we currently lack a critical mass of voters willing and able to shape our democratic future based on more than either entrenched affiliations or nebulous narratives, I'd consider that a problem worth solving, not an inevitability to be accepted. And while the political theatre which shapes votes absolutely does matter, we can work within that reality without giving up on the cause of a better-informed electorate.

Apparently they'll let anybody blather away on the intertoobz

Here, for instance, is me chatting with Paul Dechene.

(And to correct myself, the impending provincial election is the second under fixed election dates - though the first where it's lining up with an associated federal election.)

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Duncan Cameron discusses how Canada can respond to being stalled economically:

In 2011 median earnings in Canada were $30,000. That means one-half of Canadian workers earned less than $30,000. What is more to the point is that earnings in 2011 were $1,800 below the level attained in 1977 (inflation adjusted 2011 dollars)! The pay packet for workers shrunk over that 24 year period.

It's a big stall -- an awful lot of Canadians are not getting ahead.
...
What has escaped economic stagnation, and gone up in value is what Thomas Piketty called patrimonial capital: inheritances, tax sheltered investments, ownership of private companies, public stock holdings, real estate and private art collections.

Piketty shows that patrimonial capital is not just inherited from parents. Important as inherited wealth is in the upper reaches of the Canadian economy -- think Thompson, Irvings, McCains, Desmarais, Péladeau, where new generations have taken over from wealth accumulators -- Piketty shows wealth also grows out of high incomes like those paid in the FIRE sector: finance, insurance and real estate.

Wealth accumulation is outpacing income growth. This is an overall trend in Western economies according to statistics collected by Piketty through extensive research in tax returns around the world. This trend is what the big stall is about.

It should be obvious to anyone (other than the very rich) that it is good idea to take additional money from those who have much more than they need, or could ever spend, and transfer it to people who are barely surviving on social transfers.

- Meanwhile, Carol Goar notes that we stand out internationally in our large number of well-educated workers earning low incomes - meaning that our investment in education isn't translating into economic benefits. And PressProgress suggests that contrary to the Cons' inclinations, free money for the corporate lobby won't solve anything.

- Dave Gilson and Mattias Mackler chart the combination of greater inequality and more precarious lives for most U.S. residents. And Natasha Boddy reports on the work being done to act on the social determinants of health in Australia.

- Jacques Gallant reports on Amir Attaran's latest study showing that Canada is paying far more than it should for generic prescription drugs. And Andre Picard examines the even more worrisome trend of overreliance on antibiotics - which looks all too likely to create resistance which won't be met by insufficient research.

- Finally, Paul Dechene tears into the Regina Public School Board for teaching students all the wrong lessons:

Oh sure, they have a “unit” on “sustainability” somewhere in the school curriculum. I think I remember my kid bringing home a blue papier-mâché globe she made on Earth Day or something. I threw that shit out.


But we all know the three Rs — Reduce, Reuse and Recycle — can’t power a fossil fuel economy.
Neither can words like “sustainability” or “the environment.” And we’re within spitting distance of the epicentre of our fossil fuel economy (if you could spit on Alberta from Regina, that is). So we have to support the fossil fuel economy. It’s our patriotic duty.

If we don’t, who will?

And that’s why I’m glad the school board is doing an end run around those socialist Rs and setting a strong example in the three Cs: Combustion, Construction and Consumption.

Tearing down Connaught is a win on ALL THREE!!

Kids, you know all those plastic juice bottles you put in the blue bin because it’s good for the environment? Your school board has more than offset all that work you did by throwing the bulk of a two-storey building in the dump and then busing all of Connaught across town for three or more years. You could start composting the crusts off your jam sandwiches too and it wouldn’t amount to a hill of organic soy beans at this point!
...
So why exactly is the Public School Board tearing down Connaught? Because the building was not maintained adequately. Because renovation work that was done on the foundation exacerbated problems. Because heritage elements have already been removed from the building.

When Connaught kids graduate to high school, they’ll learn that these are all examples of the passive voice. That’s a way of playing with verbs that skilled wordsmiths employ to hide who actually did a thing.

In this case, it means no one ever has to say, “The Regina Public School Board and the Saskatchewan Ministry of Education did not maintain Connaught and did renovation work that exacerbated foundation problems and removed heritage elements from the building.”

With the passive voice, it looks like absolutely no one did any of this. And that means no one ever has to take responsibility for what happens, no one ever has to say “Sorry,” and no one ever has to learn anything. And that means the Regina Public School Board can keep doing the same thing over and over. 

New column day

Here, discussing what elements of Saskatchewan's referendum law look to have worked properly in Regina's wastewater treatment plant referendum process - and where there's some obvious room for improvement where future issues call for a vote among citizens.

For further reading...
- While I note in the column that the 10% signature threshold seems to serve its intended purpose nicely, that of course requires that a municipality apply it fairly. And I'll point back to Paul Dechene's timeline of questionable City steps which attempted to avoid a referendum even though the standard was met by any fair measurement.
- CBC reported on the City's approved funding for the referendum here, and on the money spent by all campaigns here.
- Finally, Shawn Fraser reflects on the referendum - pointing out what's wrong with the City's current decision-making processes (while leaving open the question of whether he'll stake some political capital on changing the culture if the establishment pushes back):

(T)his whole thing could have likely been avoided if there was better public engagement around this decision before council voted on it. I take as much responsibility for this as anyone. It also speaks to a culture at city hall of decisions being made, council voting on them, and then it being council’s job to tell people about a decision that is already going forward. There will no doubt be many other important and divisive issue to come before council in the coming years, and we need to work at changing this.