Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Derrick O'Keefe writes about the possibilities raised by the B.C. NDP's majority election win - as well as a need for far more ambition to achieve them.

- Elise von Scheel reports on new polling results showing that no matter how desperately Jason Kenney tries to fan the flames of separatism, Albertans aren't actually interested in abandoning Canada. But Arthur White-Crummey reports on Scott Moe's determination to keep echoing Kenney's laughable rhetoric about independence in order to avoid actually dealing with the provincial issues where he's failing miserably.

- Gwynne Dyer points out that regardless of the final results (which are looking somewhat less damning than the early returns), the U.S.' election is giving the rest of the world ample reason not to trust it as a rational actor. And Erik Strikwerda discusses the "Kenney stink" which is enveloping the people willing to risk their reputations to serve him.

- Finally, Chantal Hebert writes about the justified push by the NDP and the Bloc to secure an apology for Pierre Trudeau's blanket negation of civil rights through the War Measures Act. 

On legacies

For all the campaign talk about how this year's election campaign could have proven a parallel of the 1972 result, we've instead ended up seeing Justin Trudeau repudiate his father's response to another contentious result.

When he won a majority government in 1980 which lacked representation from the western provinces, Pierre Trudeau - to his credit - made an effort to seek cooperation from MPs in the region on a specific means to remedy the problem.

Faced with a regional wipeout along with the potential instability of a minority Parliament, Justin is instead responding by rejecting any form of structural cooperation whatsoever.

Instead, he's insisting that the same platform which underpinned his party's prairie losses is somehow a response to their cause - while planning to try to govern through perpetual games of chicken in Parliament like his most recent Liberal prime ministerial predecessor. And any outreach to the areas lacking representation is being limited to closed-door political maneuvering which figures to be as ineffective as it is cynical.

That sets up a thoroughly unflattering comparison between Justin and his father. And it certainly won't do anything to make the Trudeau name any less toxic for many.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Crawford Kilian reviews Christo Aivalis' The Constant Liberal, and discusses how Justin Trudeau is continuing a family tradition of betraying progressive voters:

[Pierre Trudeau] wanted to strengthen unions and workers in general — up to a point. It wasn’t to help the workers; it was to use them “instrumentally,” to rescue liberalism from the dead end of the Duplessistes and right-wing Liberals and Progressive Conservatives in the rest of Canada. Otherwise, labour would move left again, back to its 1930s socialism.
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Trudeau mocked Tory leader Robert Stanfield’s promise of wage and price controls in a time of soaring inflation, won the election with working-class votes, and promptly brought in wage and price controls. Labour and the NDP were furious because they’d been led to hope for “tripartism,” whereby workers, corporations, and the government would be equal partners. Instead, Trudeau cast unions as the greedy drivers of inflation and locked down their wages while the corporations found loopholes. Worse yet, the Charter was adopted without any guarantees of social or labour rights. 
...
Aivalis finds Justin Trudeau very much like his father: politically able to “hamstring” the NDP by attracting left-wing voters and then disappointing them by reneging on his promises (proportional voting) and taking labour-hostile measures (legislating an end to the postal workers’ strike).

“Ultimately,” he concludes, if it truly is ‘like father, like son,’ Canadians on the left might be wise to prepare for years, if not a generation, of deep disappointment.”

- Kerensa Cadenas points out how the U.S.' National Climate Assessment confirms that climate denialism only stands to be a drag on economic development in the long run. Jeff Lewis, Jeffrey Jones, Chen Wang and Renata D'Alesio report on the financial and environmental mess being made of Alberta's oil patch as the oil industry tries to simultaneously extract short-term profits and offload long-term responsibility. And Regan Boychuk comments on the massive cleanup costs likely to be left for the province after the oil barons have cleared any liabilities off their books.

- Meanwhile, Martin Regg Cohn discusses how Ontario's environment stands to suffer from the Ford Cons' plans to place any watchdog function in the hands of an auditor general's office which both isn't equipped for the job, and has been inexplicably cavalier toward environmental actions in the past. And Christen Shepherd comments on the elimination of Ontario's child advocate who served as a desperately-needed source of hope for vulnerable children.

- And in case there was any doubt how little interest Ford's government has in ensuring that any oversight is effective or unbiased, Rob Ferguson reports on directions from Ford's chief of staff to use law enforcement to raid cannabis stores in order to generate photo ops.

- Finally, Lori Culbert and Dan Fumano report on the failure of one of the B.C. Libs' private housing projects. And the Canadian Press reports that rather than following the same model, the Horgan government is providing direct funding for 1,100 homes for Indigenous residents.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Frances Ryan rightly calls out the anti-choice right for having no interest in the well-being of children once they're born:

(S)mall-state ideology can make it devastatingly difficult for a low-income parent to look after a child. Look at the controversial “two-child” limit to child tax credits under universal credit (UC). From its inception, it was predicted the policy would lead to hundreds of thousands of additional children living in poverty, but it’s now emerging that some women are even feeling forced to have abortions because they can’t afford to go ahead with the pregnancy. “It wasn’t planned but it was very much wanted. I was crying as they wheeled me in,” one woman told the Mirror this month about her abortion; without the safety net of tax credits, she had no way to afford another baby. Women in Northern Ireland in similar positions have an even more restricted choice: the rape-exemption clause that gives some women on UC a financial reprieve endangers women who haven’t reported their attack to the police (in Northern Ireland, failure to report a crime is an offence) and, as the renewed calls for reproductive rights in light of the Irish vote has highlighted, Northern Irish women have no legal access to abortion in their own country if they feel they can’t raise a child.

Recent years have in fact seen a determined removal of support from low-income mothers – everything from forcing single parents (90% of whom are women) to look for work once their child turns three or have their benefits sanctioned, to the benefit cap, a policy so regressive it was actually ruled to be unlawful when forced on single parents with toddlers.
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In the post-crash austerity era, this sense of social solidarity towards children has noticeably lessened. Under each policy to remove state support from parents there’s a lurking narrative that working-class women are “breeding too much” or that low-income children are drains on the “hardworking taxpayer”. (“Why should I pay for someone else to have more kids?” is the rejoinder on most articles advocating child benefits). In the real world, pregnancy is rarely predictable – contraception fails, relationships end, and jobs are lost – and besides, even the most ardent individualist would admit low-income children have done nothing to “deserve” their own poverty.

We are at the point in which it is not rare to hear of infants living in B&Bs, sleeping on cardboard, or even scrambling for food in school bins. If the ongoing debate over abortion rights teaches us anything, it’s that there are no shortage of voices content to defend the “unborn”. It’s a shame few are willing to give the same care to those children who are already here.

- And Elizabeth Wall-Weiler points out the vicious cycle of separating children from teenage mothers in care - which tends only to ensure a lack of family security across generations.

- Edgardo Sepulveda examines the effect on inequality of the party platforms in Ontario's provincial election, showing the stark distinction between the increased fairness of the NDP's platform and the exacerbated inequality on offer from Doug Ford. And Michael Laxer's roundup contrasts the real Conservative scandals which have been downplayed by the media against the contrived attempts to manufacture controversy surrounding the NDP. 

- Andrew Jackson reviews Christo Aivailis' The Constant Liberal on Pierre Trudeau's consistent pattern of trying absorb progressive activity into centrist power structures to dilute its ultimate effect.

- Finally, Helene Laverdiere criticizes the Libs' insistence on enabling the sale of arms to human rights abusers.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your long weekend reading.

- Cole Stangler interviews Raquel Garrido about the political critique behind Jean-Luc Melenchon's emerging presidential campaign - and it sounds equally applicable in Canada:

One of the reasons why the current regime is lacking consent in French society is because the process for electing officials allows them to behave inconsistently with their campaign promises. The main cultural characteristic of the current political class is impunity. They do whatever they want because they are absolutely unaccountable.

That culture of impunity starts with the president himself. We’re the only self-identified democratic country where you have one man who has such concentrated power — elections of hundreds and hundreds of people in different institutions and he actually decides what the parliament will be talking about, the parliamentary agenda. The president behaves in such an unaccountable fashion that it actually spreads like a cascade across the entire political class.

Most elected officials in France today lack legitimacy, are elected with very low turnouts. There’s a deep sense of disgust among citizens with this political class. That creates chaos and instability.
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There are other big themes of the campaign — wealth redistribution and social justice — which are classic proposals in a situation of great inequality. Then you have climate change and protecting the only ecosystem which allows life for human beings. But before we address those issues, we need to gain the power to actually have an impact. 

- And in a prime example of Canada's culture of impunity, Chantal Hebert writes about the Trudeau Libs' cynical political choices around marijuana legalization - and how those fit with Trudeau's repudiated promise of electoral reform.

- Jon Stone reports on UK Labour's plans to ensure that public money doesn't subsidize bad corporate behaviour (including a refusal to recognize collective bargaining). And Larry Bartels studies (PDF) the gap between the policies which would result from an accurate representation of U.S. citizens' preferences, and those which are in fact seen due to the influence of wealth in politics.

- Sara Mojtehedzadeh writes about the Ontario miners who were used as guinea pigs for untested - and ultimately harmful - powders intended to serve as substitutes for reasonable health and safety precautions.

- Finally, Henry Farrell examines the circumstances in which economists have - and haven't - been able to move the needle on public policy. And George Monbiot discusses Kate Raworth's doughnut model as a means of conceptualizing the desirability and sustainability of our economic choices.

On cautionary tales

I've previously offered my take on why all opposition parties - including the Libs - should and will ultimately vote the Harper Cons out of power when given the chance. But I'll note that Don Lenihan's argument toward the same conclusion actually offers a reminder why there's reason for concern.

Whatever lesson one wants to take from C-51 and Eve Adams (among so many other stories), one can't claim for a second that they offer examples of Justin Trudeau and company valuing the support of progressive voters over cynical measures to appease the right. And there's been no evidence that the Libs have learned much in the meantime.

Of course, it would be for the best if the Libs decided that they should consider a "storm of anger...among friends and allies" as reason to think carefully about a choice. But in light of their track record, I wouldn't hold my breath - meaning that our best hope to get the Libs on board probably lies in political calculations rather than any newfound concern for progressive principle.

On extended intrusions

There's been plenty of discussion as to the similarities between the Cons' terror bill and Pierre Trudeau's 1970 invocation of the War Measures Act. And it's certainly worth reminding ourselves that even in the face of an identifiable security concern, the impulse to attack civil rights tends to prove wrong upon reflection.

But there's a key difference between the C-51 debate and Trudeau's invocation of the War Measures Act - and it's one which makes the present-day Cons and Libs look even worse than their predecessors.

Keep in mind that the War Measures Act was aimed at providing extreme but temporary powers in the face of an apprehended threat. Those powers still exist under a statute which replaced the War Measures Act, which provides barely-fettered authority under a few key conditions: the government is required to publicly declare a state of emergency, its declaration is temporary unless extended, and its decision is subject to the will of Parliament.

In contrast, the key parts of the security apparatus set up under C-51 lack some or all of those protections.

C-51's warrant process provides for the actions which require judicial approval to be time-limited in theory. But just as the granting of a warrant takes place away from the public eye and without opposition, so too does the extension of a warrant.

What's worse, the no-warrant provisions of C-51 operate any time CSIS decides for itself - without any debate or notice - that a "particular activity" should be limited. Once that standard is met, CSIS is authorized to take whatever actions it sees as reasonable, with no limit on the time or scope of any intrusion into the lives of Canadians other than CSIS' own evaluation.

And there's no process for anybody to challenge or review CSIS' secret actions - which again can be carried out indefinitely - except to the extent SIRC is up to the task.

In retrospect, history has proven Tommy Douglas right in arguing that the 1970 application of the War Measures Act resulted in the Trudeau government using a sledgehammer to crack a single peanut. But by that standard, the Cons' C-51 is based on implementing the vision of a sledgehammer being used to smash a pile of peanuts forever.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

On greatness

Plenty of commentators have pointed to Dean Beeby's report on public consultations about Canada's most inspiring people as evidence that Stephen Harper and his Cons couldn't be much further from the mark. And that point is fair enough on its own.

But it's worth noting something else as well: respondents to the Canadian Heritage Department's survey seem to have drawn a close link between political greatness, and signature achievements in institution-building:

The Canadian Heritage Department extracted a Top 10 list for an April 29 briefing note for the minister, Shelly Glover.

Only one clearly identifiable Conservative appears: Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister, in eighth place.

The list was topped by former Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau, followed by marathon-of-hope runner Terry Fox; NDP leader Tommy Douglas; former Liberal prime minister Lester B. Pearson; astronaut Chris Hadfield; environmental activist David Suzuki; NDP leader Jack Layton; Sir. John A.; hockey legend Wayne Gretzky; and Romeo Dallaire, the soldier and Liberal senator who recently announced his resignation.

The consultation also asked which of Canada’s accomplishments of the last 150 years “make you most proud to be a Canadian?”

Medicare topped that list, followed by peacekeeping, then the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms at No. 3.

The Conservative government, which has recently been buffeted by a series of Charter-based losses at the Supreme Court of Canada, did not mark the 25th anniversary of the Charter in 2007, nor the 30th in 2012.

The rest of the accomplishments list, in order: contribution to the Second World War; the Canadarm; multiculturalism; contribution to the First World War; bilingualism; space exploration; and the Constitution Act of 1982.

And it's also noteworthy who's missing: relatively recent, long-serving politicians whose time was marked mostly by cuts and tinkering (Jean Chretien), or whose big plans produced few or negative results (Brian Mulroney, Stephen Harper). In effect, with the exception of Jack Layton, respondents didn't see anything about the last 20-plus years of Canadian politics to be the least bit inspiring.

Which leads to an obvious question: if we're indeed inspired by big ideas and strong principles, then why aren't there more of those on offer in our current political system?

It's well and good to recognize in retrospect the importance of Medicare, the Charter, multiculturalism and bilingualism. But in recent election cycles, anything of comparable ambition has been not only left off the table, but labeled unfit for political consumption: anybody proposing a new social program or constitutional change is immediately shouted down for trying to accomplish something which isn't easy, quick and poll-tested.

Which serves Stephen Harper and his ilk fairly well in the long run. If Harper is doomed to the "uninspiring" pile (due to the fact that his plans for giant pipelines, climate obstruction and capacity slashing tilt distinctly toward the negative side of the ledger), he'll probably accept as a second-best outcome a legacy of chipping away at past accomplishments and salting the earth so that nothing inspiring can ever grow again.

But it's less clear why anybody else should be willing to accept that inspiring politics (as a matter of setting and meeting big public goals, not merely personal branding) should be a thing of the past. And any current politician wanting to join the list of leaders who have made a lasting impact should be laying the groundwork to do more than simply outlast one or two opponents an election at a time.

One of these things is not like the others

Pierre Trudeau: In his first leadership campaign shortly after joining the Libs, mobilized an unprecedented army of young and new activists to build a popular image with a message of generational change.

Barack Obama: In his first national campaign relatively shortly after joining the Senate, mobilized an unprecedented army of young and new activists to build a popular image with a message of hope and change.

Michael Ignatieff: In his first leadership campaign shortly after joining the Libs, managed to motivate so little activist support as to hand the title to Stephane Dion despite being the favourite of most party insiders. After ascending to the leadership by elite consensus, now seeking to reach the broader public with a message of inevitability.