New column day

Here, questioning why so many of our political leaders spend so much time talking about pipelines which are neither economically necessary nor environmentally sustainable.

For further reading...
- J. David Hughes' study cited in the column is here (PDF). And Bruce Cheadle reported on the federal government's internal analysis showing that Canada's current transport capacity is plenty until at least 2025.
- Jason Proctor reported on the Federal Court of Appeal's decision finding the Cons' approval of Northern Gateway to be unconstitutional due to the lack of dialogue with First Nations during the assessment process. 
- Don Pittis points out why we can't realistically expect oil prices to rise to any point which would make substantially greater production feasible.
- Finally, Peter Prebble argues that it's long past time for Saskatchewan to start taking climate change seriously.

Update: Or, to more concisely sum up the entire case for pipelines at this point:

The message, [said TransCanada CEO Russ Girling about Energy East], is "build it and we'll see what happens."

Your mileage may vary as to whether that should represent anybody's top public policy priority.

[Edit: updated link.]

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Friday reading.

- The Cons' latest line of talking-point addiction isn't passing without some substantial comment from Canada's political press. Today, Jeffrey Simpson lambastes Stephen Harper and his party for trying to wipe out their own history and promises, while Dan Gardner considers the Cons to be a Monty Python skit in progress (minus the humour of course). And Aaron Wherry continues to document the farce. 

- Meanwhile, Susan Delacourt suggests that we should expect any government to leave out democracy in no worse condition than when it took power - and I'll readily agree with that as a general principle. But it's also worth noting that the surest way to continue in the wrong direction is to focus solely on the problems with any given government, rather than holding all parties to the standard.

- Likewise, I appreciate the purposes behind Steve's proposal for a political code of ethics (including a requirement that public statements have some basis in fact). But I'm rather wary of any policy which may give top-down parties just one more way to force MPs to stay on a predetermined script - as MPs will surely see it as safer to take their party's word for the facts than to strike out on their own.

- Christopher Majka thoroughly reviews the effect of voter suppression in the 2011 federal election.

- Finally, Peter Prebble rightly criticizes the combination of Con neglect and Sask Party coal boosterism that's locking Saskatchewan into a needless dependency on coal power.

Sunday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading.

- Janet Bagnall discusses Canada's steadily-growing income inequality:

In the last 20 years, the income of 80 per cent of Americans has stagnated while that of the richest one per cent has nearly doubled. Similarly, the Conference Board of Canada reported this week that a third of the wealth created in this country in the past 22 years has gone to the top one per cent of the population. The story for most other Canadians was income stagnation or slight growth.

That top one per cent of Canadians - who number about 246,000 - made their phenomenal gains mainly in the years 1998 to 2007, years when Canada experienced its fastest economic growth since the 1950s and '60s. Fifty years ago, however, the richest one per cent of Canadians took a much smaller portion of the country's income growth: eight per cent.
...
This extreme inequality in income - a feature in many developed countries today - can have serious consequences. It can undermine the social and economic health of a country, if the skills and capabilities of all its citizens are not being used. Citizens who feel cut off unfairly from their country's wealth won't want to invest in a society that refuses to reward their efforts.

For years, Canada's progressive social programs and tax policies helped keep the income gap in check. More recently, however, a number of forces began driving the gap wider: stagnating minimum wages, decreased unionization, tighter access to unemployment benefits, lower welfare payments and the halving of the top marginal tax rate between 1948 and 2009, from 80 per cent to 42.9 per cent. Quebec, with its tradition of social solidarity backed by legislation, is the province where income inequality has grown the slowest. Market forces - especially globalization and high demand for skilled labour - also drive income inequality.

- And Rick Salution points out a substantial part of the reason why we've reached that point:

We are a society that has largely lost sight of the fact that there is anything to debate in politics except how to save money. So even when (the Rob and Doug Fords) lose, they win — by reinforcing the ground rules. Don’t credit Rob and Doug for inventing this mindset. It’s been drummed into the public ear for decades by think-tanks, pundits and politicians. But the Fords reproduce it ably.
...
We’re now mired in this profiteering, privatizing mentality. It cuts off every alternative viewpoint. Brian Topp is running for NDP leader. The worst the Harper Tories can say about him is, he has “deep union ties” and can’t “speak on behalf of all Canadians.” They don’t say why, it’s taken for granted. But tell me one thing unions have done that was even slightly as damaging as a business class that shipped out good industrial jobs (and factories) to cheap labour zones; or a financial sector that concocted useless and incomprehensible “devices” that contributed to an economic meltdown rivalling the 1930s. Yet no one challenges the ability of people with “deep business ties” to represent us.

CBC News’ nightly hour on business promotes itself with host-journalist Amanda Lang saying: “I think what is really special about the show is that it does celebrate business.” What — are they feeling needy? They don’t get enough support? They need a party every night? Is there a whole hour per year celebrating unions, librarians or teachers? And this is our public network.

- The Saskatchewan NDP's latest policy launch deals with renewable energy and recycling - with a particularly noteworthy target to achieve 50% renewable energy by 2025. And some commenters wondering whether the party would adopt a "team" approach will also have reason to like the announcement, as it rightly gives Peter Prebble prominent billing as a voice for the environment.

- Finally, pogge highlights the fact that the Cons plan to lock Canada into an information-sharing agreement with the U.S. without the slightest public input - then declare their willingness to listen only when it's too late to change anything.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Ian Welsh serves up some tough commentary as to whether Canadian voters saddled with unrepresentative and downright destructive governments are merely getting what we deserve:

(W)e have selected, to rule our societies, sociopaths at best and psychopaths at worse. They have contempt for those they rule, do not see them as even truly human, and enjoy hurting them. They feel tough when they make the hard decisions, which are somehow always hard for others, but never for themselves. They encourage cruelty in society, from the ground up, and routinely subject the population to humiliating surveillance, force them to abase themselves to the least appearance of authority, whether legitimately used or not, and condone murder and torture and routine humiliation. They don’t do these things to themselves, of course, the rich, for example, don’t get groped in airports, but they routinely do it to those below them.

And in so doing they teach those below them, to do it to those below them, and below them, and below them, and so on. The sickness comes from the top, a rotten poison which has altered the character of nations. But it came from the bottom, first. It came from a population who became lazy and complacent and thought they had rights they didn’t have to guard like a dog with a bone; who thought they could just live their lives and leave politics to other people except for pulling a lever or marking a ballot every four years. It came from people who felt “I’ve got mine, who cares what happens to anyone I don’t know?” Unable to see themselves in others for longer than the gossamer blink of an eye, they were also unable to understand that what was done to others would also be done to them.

We have become contemptible. Our leaders, perhaps, are most contemptible of all, but we continue to consent. Oh perhaps polls might say we’re not happy, but who cares what polls say? We do nothing, we let our leaders do as they will, and we take on their mores, becoming cruel and debased and uncaring of what happens to our fellows, not even the care of enlightened self interest, the clear understanding that what is done unfairly, cruely, to someone else, could, probably will, one day be done to us. We pretend to care most about our children, making such a fetish of it that allowing children to roam unattended is virtually treated as a crime, yet we are creating a world in which they will suffer, unimaginably, a world in which hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of our grandchildren will die.

Lord save us from what we deserve, because what we deserve is what’s going to happen: war and revolution, famine and drought, climate change on a scale we truly don’t understand.

- But one of the most important ways of fighting back is to call out manipulative and dishonest spin for what it is. Which brings us to Linda McQuaig:

(T)he genius of the architects of today’s conservative revolution has been to obscure the class war they’ve been quietly waging, keeping us distracted with foreign military ventures, royals and other celebrity sightings.

Behind all these diversions, the class war has been relentlessly proceeding. While incomes at the top have steadily climbed, incomes of ordinary Canadians have steadily eroded. The real median Canadian family income hasn’t risen since the late 1970s — even though today’s typical family now has two earners, compared to just one earner 30 years ago. In other words, Canadian families are working about twice as hard to keep up to where they were a generation ago.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crunch, ordinary Canadians stand to lose even more ground. As the recent labour battles at Air Canada and Canada Post show, employers — now with firm backing from Ottawa — have new wind in their sails as they demand concessions and insist that new employees be hired at lower wage and benefit levels.

This means that employers are demanding the next generation of workers be paid less than today’s workers. If this isn’t evidence of an ongoing class war, it’s hard to think what would be.
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(W)hile only about 30 per cent of Canadian workers are unionized, fully 52 per cent would like to be. (Ironically, this is roughly the same percentage of Canadians who support the monarchy, according to an Ipsos Reid poll taken after the royal wedding.)

Apparently Canadians want both unions and the monarchy. But they’re not allowed to have both.

- And Peter Prebble's response to Bronwyn Eyre's embarrassing claim that there's no evidence to support concerns about climate change also fits the bill.

- Call me old-fashioned if you will. But as far as I can tell, an agreement not to have national housing standards (but to negotiate single-province standards at some point in the future) isn't a deal on housing.

- Finally, Adam Radwanski suggests that home care could actually be an area of consensus in Ontario's fall election.

Saskatoon Greystone - Peter Prebble to Seek NDP Nomination

James Wood reports on the biggest development to date in what looks to be one of the most hotly contested ridings in the province, as longtime MLA and cabinet minister Peter Prebble has announced his intention to run to retake Saskatoon Greystone. While any nomination meeting will presumably wait until this fall, it would be a surprise if anybody mounts a serious challenge to Prebble now that he's thrown his hat back in the ring.

But what can we expect in the general election? Prebble posted a higher raw vote in 2003 and a higher percentage vote in 1999 and 2003 than Norris managed to achieve in his narrow 2007 victory, meaning that he'll likely rank as a slight favourite despite Norris' incumbency advantage. But there can't be much doubt that the Sask Party will fight tooth and nail to keep the seat, and it'll certainly be worth watching where Norris gets placed in the impending Sask Party cabinet shuffle after two and a half years leading the Wall government's charge against Saskatchewan workers.

(Edit: fixed typo.)

On battle lines

James Wood offers up some more details about yesterday's nomination news in Saskatoon Sutherland. And the picture looks to be a positive one for the NDP on a couple of fronts.

First, there's a possible explanation as to what might have tipped the balance for Ryan Meili in seeking the NDP's nomination in Saskatoon Sutherland rather than Saskatoon Greystone - as one of his strong leadership supporters may be back for another run in the latter riding:

(F)ormer NDP cabinet minister Peter Prebble said Friday he has been approached by the Saskatoon Greystone nomination committee and isn't ruling out running again in his old seat -- although he strongly emphasized he has not made any decision.

"I haven't said yes to any proposition," he said Friday.

"It would be a big decision to re-enter."

Needless to say, Prebble's background in Greystone would figure to position him extremely well for the general election if he does decide to take the plunge. And it makes sense that Meili wouldn't want to pursue Greystone if the likely result would have been to rule out Prebble's return (or set up a nomination battle which would see one or the other removed from the party's slate of candidates).

Of course, the flip side is that the NDP surely won't want to wait too long to get its candidate in place to challenge for what looks to be an important seat. And hopefully we'll see Prebble or another candidate in place before long.

Meanwhile, Saskatoon Sutherland may also be looking like an even juicier target for the general election than I would have figured. While rookie MLA Joceline Schriemer isn't exactly a household name, the NDP's chances of retaking the seat should improve substantially if the Sask Party doesn't have an incumbency advantage - and apparently Schriemer is considering stepping down:

Like Norris, Joceline Schriemer was a rookie Sask. Party MLA in 2007 -- knocking off the NDP's Graham Addley in Saskatoon Sutherland.

But she said this week she's still weighing whether she will run again in 2011.

On leave from her duties as a city police officer, Schriemer said in an interview her first love is policing and noted it would be easier to return to that job after four years rather than the eight-year gap that would occur if she ran again and won a second term.

Now, I'd expect the Sask Party to want a decision one way or the other in relatively short order. After all, it has to be their worst-case scenario for a prominent opponent like Meili to have a year and a half working the riding while an unknown Sask Party candidate gets a late start due to indecision on Schriemer's part.

But it's hard to see any possible outcome for the Sask Party that doesn't represent a somewhat weaker position than having a motivated incumbent working to hold the seat from day one. While an early decision on Schriemer's part to step down would limit any disadvantage resulting from the NDP's early start, it would still result in a loss of the incumbency advantage. Conversely, if Schriemer now decides to run again, voters will surely have to wonder whether her stated preference for police work and uncertainty as to whether she really wants the job will affect their representation.

Of course, the Sask Party's hope seems to be that top-line voter preferences will work in their favour so as to minimize the impact of constituency-level considerations. But there's plenty of risk involved in banking on that possibility - and the NDP surely won't be disappointed to see the Sask Party gamble and lose.

Update: For those looking for extra reason for excitement about Saskatoon Sutherland, Jason's retrospective on the Meili leadership campaign is worth a read.

A costly choice

It's generally safe to say that the public is being brutally misinformed on a subject when CanWest's reporting stands out as an example of relative balance in a conversation. But after giving Peter Prebble plenty of space yesterday, its series on nuclear power has allowed Prebble and others to point out that the costs of nuclear are high to start with and only tend to go up from there:

Nuclear reactor construction will fall behind schedule by a few years and go over budget by billions of dollars, say experts.

"None of the reactors have ever come in on time or on budget," said Michal Moore, professor of economics with the University of Calgary and senior fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economy.

"Cost overruns are consistent across the world," said Peter Prebble, director of energy and water policy for the Saskatchewan Environmental Society and a former provincial NDP cabinet minister.

"We will pay for these cost overruns on our electrical bills."
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Delays and ballooning budgets of nuclear projects are responsible for $15 billion of a $20-billion debt left by Ontario Hydro. Residents now pay a tax on electricity bills to pay off the debt.

"That's quite a legacy to leave," said Prebble.

The actual costs of a nuclear reactor go beyond its normal operations.

If the system is shut down, replacement energy has to be found, said Prebble. "You have to have a backup system to replace the lost base load power. That starts to get expensive, especially if you import additional power."
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With the high costs and risk associated with nuclear reactors, private industry will only invest in projects that have the financial backing of governments, that have guaranteed profits and markets and that assume the risk and liabilities for cost overruns, waste disposal, decommissioning and accidents, says the Pembina Institute.

Of course, it's that last point which looks most important: any supposed benefit in bringing in private-sector power generation (whether nuclear or otherwise) is obviously illusory if it's ultimately the public who pays the tab if anything doesn't go according to a corporate plan. And with all indications being that Saskatchewan's citizens stand to be left holding the bill for whatever the Sask Party tries to foist on them, there's every reason to make sure that the move toward a nuclear megaproject is stopped at the earliest opportunity.