Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Richard Thaler criticizes Mitt Romney's obsession with upper-end tax cuts by pointing out the factors which actually serve to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship:

Romney wants to cut top rates by 20 percent, maintain the favorable treatment given to capital gains and dividends, and completely eliminate the estate tax, which currently only kicks in on estates in excess of $5 million for an individual or $10 million for a (heterosexual) married couple.

In other words, this is a strategy that emphasizes maximizing the after-tax returns if and when you hit it big. Yet if you think about the way most new businesses are started, it should be clear that these tax incentives have very little to do with the decisions facing most new entrepreneurs.

The typical business startup (think Joe the Plumber) begins with an initial stake that has been saved or borrowed, and 97 percent of small-business owners make less than $250,000 a year. It is a good bet that when Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Larry Page were creating their new businesses in their proverbial garages, they weren’t giving much thought to the tax rate they would have to pay if they struck it rich. Rather, they were hoping their startups would survive, something that less than half of new businesses succeed in doing.
...
Research in behavioral economics shows that when people consider risky propositions, they are especially concerned about the downside. Roughly speaking, people weigh losses about twice as heavily as gains, a phenomenon called “loss aversion.”

So if we really want to encourage risk takers and job creators, we should concentrate on what will happen to them in the all-too-likely event that their brilliant idea doesn’t pan out and the new venture flops.
...
Cutting taxes on high-income earners is unlikely to be the most cost-effective way of stimulating new business startups. If entrepreneurs who hit it big have to pay the same tax rate on their capital gains as on their ordinary income, they are unlikely to give up on their dreams. When people are contemplating starting a new enterprise, the last thing they are worried about is the tax rate their heirs might have to pay if they die as billionaires. But if they aren’t sure they can provide health insurance and a home to live in for their family should they fail, they may play it safe. 

- Meanwhile, Rebecca Leber discusses the return on investment in tax breaks for the oil industry - with the main effect of handing free money to already-profitable businesses being to ensure that they lobby for even more freebies.

- John Geddes documents the long-standing link between water protection and the environment which the Cons are apparently determined to write out of existence.

- But while the Cons are obviously still determined to read from predetermined scripts with no regard for any connection to reality, I'd think it's noteworthy that they're barely able to keep a straight face while spouting their most prominent (and farcical) set of talking points.

- And finally, for those who haven't yet seen them, Regina's unofficial election results are here - featuring more than a few disappointments, but some reason for optimism based on both some far closer races than we've seen recently and a few strong new voices within the city's representative bodies.

#yqrvotes Endorsements

As promised, I'll close off my posting about the municipal elections with a quick round of endorsements.

I won't try to cover all of the wards and races, nor will I suggest that any of the candidates share all of my personal views as to how our city should be run. Instead, but I'll focus on those where the difference between candidates seems most likely to have a meaningful impact on Regina's governance for the years to come.

Mayor - Marian Donnelly

It's difficult to stand out in a field of nine candidates, but Donnelly looks to me to be at the head of the pack for both electability and policy. And with the Wall government looking to drive cultural activity out of the province, Donnelly's strong ties to Regina's arts community should help to fight the tide.

Ward 1 Councillor - John Klein

I've had my differences of opinion with Klein through our respective blogs - largely where the political conversation has turned to partisanship rather than issues of values. But he's been working to foster both democratic discussion and sustainable policy choices for years, and both would make for important themes on council.

Ward 2 Councillor - Heather McIntyre

Even among the candidates discussed in this post, McIntyre stands out as a must-support addition to council. She's been consistently active in municipal and provincial politics over the past few years, and has managed to work effectively with longtime power brokers and new volunteers alike without losing her core values.

Ward 3 Councillor - Shawn Fraser

As usual, there are plenty of progressive candidates running in Ward 3 - and there are at least a couple of others who would earn my endorsement in most of the city's wards. But based on Fraser's personal experience working to address Regina's most glaring social needs, he looks to be far better positioned to chart a more progressive course for the entire council rather than being limited to a support role.

Ward 5 Councillor - Femi Ogunrinde

In a ward which otherwise features an uninspiring race between two past Councillors jockeying for position as the insider candidate, Ogunrinde has made a strong case based on both general accountability and specific policy concerns focused on housing, transportation, infrastructure and community development.

Ward 9 Councillor - Dawn Thomas

Any of the challengers would make for a huge improvement over the incumbent Terry Hincks. But Thomas stands out as a driving force behind the city-wide stadium petition - and that commitment to giving citizens a voice should make for a valuable addition to council.

Subdivision 1 Public School Board Trustee - Jane Ekong

Ekong's message of greater integration between the school system and post-school life offers a valuable template for educational development. And a stellar resume makes it all the more likely that the rest of the school board will work with the concept.

Subdivision 3 Public School Board Trustee - Heather Lau

In a division where the other three candidates are effectively running status-quo campaigns, Lau is rightly pointing out the problem with school closures which create a disconnect between neighbourhoods and schools, as well as promising to advocate for students who require extra help.

Subdivision 6 Public School Board Trustee - Lauren Numrich

Of course, older schools can only be kept open if they're properly maintained. And alongside a strong general platform, Numrich is rightly highlighting the need for ongoing investment in our existing schools.

Separate School Board Trustee - Kendra Strong-Garcia

Like many of the candidates, Strong-Garcia brings a strong education and work background of her own to the city-wide race for the separate school board. But Strong-Garcia supplements that with a noteworthy combination of inclusiveness toward marginalized students, and an emphasis on modernizing both the classroom and the board.

Separate School Board Trustee - Nicole Sarauer

Finally, Sarauer is a former work colleague of mine who has already stepped away from private-firm legal practice to work for Pro Bono Law Saskatchewan, and is looking to add a place on the separate school board to that spirit of working toward the greater good.

Needless to say, I'll encourage all readers who haven't yet decided who to support to research Regina's candidates, then get out and vote. And hopefully, we'll see more than a few candidates from the above list joining a strong group of new city and school board representatives by this time tomorrow.

On upcoming decisions

Others have rightly taken umbrage at the use of this weekend's Saskatchewan Roughriders game to try to push a new stadium on Regina voters. But while I'll agree the 'Riders' move was unseemly, it's at least arguably within the mandate of a privately-controlled organization which stands to get what amounts to a massive subsidy to advocate on behalf of a benefit for itself.

In contrast, the City of Regina has no business whatsoever advocating for one position over another in the elections which will choose representatives who are supposed to be able to make the City's decisions, nor declaring that the election is irrelevant to the City's eventual choices. Which means that the most alarming statement on a new stadium from the past weekend is this one:

Brent Sjoberg, Regina's chief financial officer and stadium project lead, said the option of renovating Mosaic Stadium was taken off the table when the province indicated it would not chip in funding. The city then decided to move forward with a "prudent" plan to build a new stadium with the least impact to city coffers.

He dismisses the argument that an adequate financial plan has not been presented to the public, adding the city has been transparent throughout the process by providing the true costs of the new facility.

"(I'm) comfortable with it so far. From my perspective, I've heard (the plan is) on balance," Sjoberg says. "Of course not everybody agrees, and that's fine. That's how communities work. But ultimately the new council will make some decisions in the coming months to say that yes, they believe this plan and all the elements are the right ones to move forward with."

Now, I presume Sjoberg hasn't actually been provided with an advance copy of this week's election results. But he seems to be trying to say that it doesn't much matter who gets elected - that some combination of the previous council and the city administration has made the decision, and that the sole role for our new elected representatives will be to rubber-stamp it.

Needless to say, a City employee is in no position to make that call for himself if voters decide otherwise. And Sjoberg's combined attempt to both swing the election and declare it irrelevant should offer Regina's citizens an obvious reason to elect councillors who have a rather more appropriate view of how representative government works.

[Edit: fixed formatting.]

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Friday reading.

- In writing recently about employer efforts to intimidate workers into backing corporate-friendly candidates, I figured that the best examples we'd see would come from individual corporate magnates - as the candidates themselves would surely be smart enough not to state publicly that they support having employers dictate their employees' votes. But Mitt Romney has proven me wrong.

- Meanwhile, pogge rightly questions the reality-challenged spin about "union bosses" somehow exercising any power beyond that which workers have democratically voted to authorize. And Timothy Noah comments on the need to start reinforcing the labour movement in order to encourage greater equality.

- Which leads nicely to Miles Corak's discussion of new research as to what kind of policy will best serve to rein in inequality (rather than exacerbating it as the Cons' tax baubles have done consistently since they took power):

Just as interesting are Prof. Veall’s views on the policy implications. He suggests that there is probably not much scope to raise marginal tax rates on the very rich, but favours a broadening of the base:

“… my review of research on tax responsiveness in Canada leads me to believe that ... there is some risk that increases in the top marginal tax rates might raise little or no revenue. If the goal is to increase taxes on those with high incomes, I would argue that the immediate priority should instead be broadening the personal income tax base, particularly eliminating tax preferences that are likely to be taken advantage of by the upper end of the income distribution.”

The preferential treatment of different types of capital income is one of his concerns.

- Plenty of others have pointed with approval to Andrew Coyne's column on the respective merits of institutional and reputational power in Canada. But to me, the most important takeaway is that the prospect that the same respect for principle which gives our independent officers some enduring moral authority can apply in the political sphere as well:

What is interesting is what happens when power collides with principle: when the pack confronts, not another pack, but a determined individual of conscience. Nothing has prepared the pack for this. Faced with someone they cannot frighten, and who does not want anything from them, they are bewildered. All of their normal tactics and approaches are suddenly useless. All of their power turns to dust.
...
As cynical as we may be about our politicians, there is something ingrained in Canadians that honours the individual who will not “be reasonable,” will not “go along,” will not accept that “this is how it has always been done.” That isn’t true everywhere, but it is here. When the call to conscience comes, it finds an echo. But the reason we know what it sounds like is because we have had examples — because of those individuals in our past who have been willing to stand up, alone if necessary, against the power of the pack. 

- Finally, RPIRG has released a report card on social and environmental issues among Regina's mayoral candidates. Insightrix' poll gives us a strong indication which three candidates have a plausible chance of winning. And taken together, the two seem to point to a rather clear choice for Regina's voters.

New column day

Here, following up on this blog post as to how we should expect a huge increase in Regina's municipal election turnout both for the sake of good governance, and for the sake of the City's legitimacy.

Again, Simon Schuster's report on the regional vote in Novgorod is here. And Vanessa Brown's report on Regina voter turnout is here.

On telling signs

Time reports on how voter turnout was affected by news that Russian elections are purely stage-managed affairs in which the governing party chooses which opponents it sees fit to allow to run:

There was, however, a downside to choosing the uncompetitive scenario. The voter turnout was low in Novgorod — a dismal 36% — because without a real alternative, voters simply saw no point in going to the polls, says Zhukovsky, the co-author of the governor’s strategy.

Needless to say, 36% turnout would look like substantial progress compared to the 25% registered in Regina's last civic election. And hopefully a far wider range of alternatives will help us to leave that sad level of citizen disengagement far behind.

On end goals

Since the Regina Chamber of Commerce apparently isn't too fond of having its own words pointed out publicly, I'll offer a quick refresher as to how its statements about its desire to shut down workers' political activity compare to its sad claim to free speech.

Again, here are two separate questions and answers from the Chamber's submission on labour legislation. First up...

Are trade unions sufficiently accountable?

No, the issue is that unions will on many occasions support causes or political parties that do not reflect some of the membership.

Now, I'll first note that the answer doesn't particularly reflect the question. (Which, as we'll see, makes for a rather important common thread.) But if we assume there is a relationship between the two themes, it only makes sense if one takes the position that an organization is insufficiently accountable if it may "support causes or political parties that do not reflect some of the membership".

And by all indications, the Chamber has no interest in meeting that standard for itself - both based on its electoral boundary submission as noted in comments to my previous post, and its "if they don't like it, they can leave" position made explicit in today's letter.

That leads to the second question and answer which by all accounts puts the Chamber's desire to attack workers in its full context:

Should union members be able to stipulate what their dues are used for?

Yes, this would stop unions from being quasi political entities and force them to represent the interest of the workers they represent.

Once again, there's an obvious gap between the question and the answer - and one which gives the game away for the Chamber.

The question is indeed aimed at directed dues, where individual union members - unlike individual members of any other collective body, the Chamber included - would be entitled to set limits on how contributions would be used. And by implication, a union wouldn't be stopped from political participation except to the extent individual members' choices so dictate.

But that's not enough for the Chamber. Instead, it goes a step further by answering that there should be some separate intention to "stop unions from being quasi political entities" - suggesting that contrary to the newest spin, the Chamber wants to make sure that unions can't carry out effective action no matter how many members support it.

At best, one might argue that the Chamber's answer merely assumes that not a single union member would accept having dues used for political purposes. From that assumption, its unprompted comment on completely silencing the labour movement would merely be a direct consequence of the stipulated dues policy.

But I wonder how much that constitutes projection on its own part. Again, the Chamber's members don't seem to be receiving much chance to offer contrary views before having dues used for its own misleading ad campaign - and the next hint the Chamber sees any problem with that will be the first.

Either way, it's the Chamber that's somewhere between unconcerned and downright giddy at the prospect that changes to labour law might stop unions from having any political involvement. And the more the Chamber tries to silence unions in the name of free speech, the more reason its members will have to wonder just what it is that they're funding.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

#withoutanewstadium

I've written plenty about Regina's municipal election over the past few days. But I'll take some time to encourage readers to join the conversation as early voting approaches.

With the City having released a stadium design concept at the start of the election campaign, it's been far too easy to fall into the trap of assuming that it's both a reality and a done deal. But it should be fairly simple to take to Twitter and offer some reminders that there's plenty we can do in Regina...#withoutanewstadium.

So how can we put the hashtag to good use? Well, here are a few suggestions.

First, by contrasting the current council's stadium obsession against other policy choices...

We could start building needed housing *now* #withoutanewstadium

We'll be able to save public money for far better purposes #withoutanewstadium

Second, with a dose of humour...

ZOMG!!! #withoutanewstadium, the #riders will TOTALLY move to *FLIN FLON*!

However will we teach young Reginans about "cost overruns" #withoutanewstadium?

And finally, as a response to the constant flow of business jingoism which so conveniently neglects the fact that our current stadium isn't exactly standing between Regina and the corporate community's goals either:

2668 jobs on saskjobs for yqr #withoutanewstadium

Riders generate $82 million impact annually - and #withoutanewstadium!

Of course, there are other important issues to be dealt with in the campaign as well. And I certainly hope readers and voters will take them into account at the polls.

But the most immediate choice facing for our municipal representatives is whether to let proponents of a new stadium buy their way to the front of the line while more important issues are left unaddressed. And it's long past time to recognize that Regina can keep thriving #withoutanewstadium.

The litmus test

Regina's municipal election is fast approaching - with advance voting set to begin this week. Unfortunately, the sheer volume of candidates (which, to be clear, I take to be a positive sign as to public interest in the election) will limit my ability to write about all of the options individually. But I'll take some time to discuss both the criteria I'm looking for in determining who to support, and a few candidates who look particularly promising as potential additions to Regina's municipal governing bodies.

At the outset, in the absence of a party system, it's absolutely essential for a successful municipal representative to be able to work with others and try to build consensus around issues. It's possible to make plenty of noise criticizing the status quo, but impossible to actually bring about change without some ability to reach out to others who won't agree on all issues.

But a healthy interest in cooperation shouldn't be seen as a reason to turn the city's governing bodies into closed clubs with no interest in listening to public input. And that's where matters have gone off the rails in recent years: all too often, our representatives have done nothing but circle the wagons and shut down debate on issues which plainly call for serious discussion.

What's more, in addition to ensuring that representatives are out of touch generally, that philosophy also ensures that city policy is easily captured by the big-money special interests who have hand-selected so many of our candidates.

So my two-part test for municipal candidates is this. Does the candidate hold a strong enough core of values to ensure that he or she will be more than just a yes-person parroting whatever schemes get drawn up for a rubber-stamp? And at the same time, does the candidate have the inclination and skill to put those values into practice by working with others?

Needless to say, the above isn't an easy test to meet. But again, I'll offer a few suggestions in a future post.

Free speech for me, but not for thee

Needless to say, the Regina Chamber of Commerce's attempts to paint concerns about its purporting to speak on behalf of the City as having anything to do with free speech generally have no basis in reality.

But if we want to look for somebody who's making a concerted effort to silence key voices on the political scene, we can look no further than...the Regina Chamber of Commerce, seeking to make it more difficult for unions to participate in politics through its submission to the provincial employment law consultation (PDF; bold in original, italics added):

Are trade unions sufficiently accountable?

No, the issue is that unions will on many occasions support causes or political parties that do not reflect some of the membership.
...
Should union members be able to stipulate what their dues are used for?

Yes, this would stop unions from being quasi political entities and force them to represent the interest of the workers they represent.

So let's ask a few questions: does the Chamber assert that every single one of its members supports every single political statement it's making surrounding the municipal election? Does its dues process include some means to ensure businesses who disagree don't see any of their contributions go to the Chamber's advertising?

And how in the world can it reconcile its bleatings about "free speech" on behalf of a representative organization with an express intention to "stop unions from being quasi political entities"?

On blurred lines

In today's Leader-Post, John Hopkins responds to this week's column. But while he tries to point some fingers away from the Regina Chamber of Commerce, he only raises larger issues as to the relationship between the Chamber and the City.

In effect, Hopkins argues that it wasn't the Chamber that copied the City's "Regina Votes" theme, but the other way around. (Which is difficult to verify, as archives seem to be rather sparse in trying to track down the history of both sites.)

But of course, that doesn't address the use of what's unmistakably a City logo (and indeed, now an updated one) on the Chamber's site. And more importantly, it simply feeds into the concern that we have no way of knowing where our public institutions end and where the Chamber's influence begins.

If the current city administration has indeed copied an election theme from the Chamber, and doesn't see any concern with the Chamber in turn splashing its logo on an advocacy site, all at the same time that the City hawks the Chamber-backed stadium project in the middle of an election campaign which should determine whether or not Regina residents actually want to push ahead...well, that looks all the worse to me as a matter of overall perception and electoral fairness, even if it shifts a bit of the immediate blame from the Chamber to the City.

At higher levels of government, similar issues are resolved by drawing clear lines between general administration, electoral oversight and campaigning. But this year's campaign is only highlighting a glaring absence of similar protections at the municipal level. And if the Chamber genuinely doesn't see why anybody would be concerned, that probably signals that it sees itself as benefitting from a city administration which hasn't addressed the issue.

[Edit: fixed typo, wording.]

New column day

Here, on how the Regina Chamber of Commerce is taking election misdirection to new lows in this fall's municipal campaign.

For further reading...
- Vanda Schmokel pointed out the same issue earlier this week.
- The Chamber's Regina Votes site is here. The City of Regina's official site with the same theme is here. The City's rules surrounding the use of its logo (or at least its latest version) are here.
- In contrast to the Chamber, David Robert Loblaw's entirely neutral site includes a clear statement to avoid confusion (along with a thorough set of information about the candidates):

This is NOT an official election website.  The official City of Regina election site is at Regina.ca/residents/elections
Election questions should be directed to the official City Election Office

- Finally, CUPE Local 21's Wants vs Needs site doesn't pretend to be official - but it does mention some of the issues conspicuously excluded by the Chamber.

Deep thought

I'm pretty sure the monorail salesmen concerned business interests spending so much money equating "keeping Regina growing" with "sticking Regina with the tab for a new stadium" will start showing their evidence linking the two any day now. Yesiree, any day now...

On single issues

Apparently today is Stadium Cheerleading Day in the Leader-Post. But in correctly noting that this fall's election will be decisive in determining whether a stadium goes ahead, Bruce Johnstone seems to me to give away the real choice voters face:

Of course, this doesn't mean that the stadium is the only issue in the coming municipal election. But it's the biggest single issue to face this council and this city in a generation.

Who isn't in favour of building a new water treatment plant, or fixing the roads or broken watermains, or recycling, or keeping taxes down? The stadium project is the big wedge issue in this campaign that very quickly divides voters into one camp or the other.

Now, it's probably true that few candidates want to admit they couldn't care less about such obvious needs as infrastructure and city services. 

But it's also obvious that the council incumbents mouthing their interest in those subjects have done nothing during their time in office to address them. Which makes for a stark contrast against how the current council has closed ranks and agreed to a long-term tax increase - just as long as it's directed toward the circus rather than bread, water or housing. 

So the question facing voters isn't merely whether to approve of a stadium, but whether to endorse a council which sees no other priorities as worth anywhere near the same level of time and effort. And I'll argue that anybody who can't see more important problems facing the city which deserve more attention can be dismissed as a viable candidate on that basis alone.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Andrew Jackson thoroughly demolishes the argument that after three decades of wage stagnation and soaring corporate profits, Canada's economy somehow needs to see workers suffer even more:

The reality is that the pay of most workers has stagnated in real terms over the past thirty years as the profit share of  GDP has increased at the expense of wages, and as wages have become much more unequal with more and more of the total wage and salary bill going to the top 1% made up mainly of senior executives. As the OECD recently reported, since 1990, 6% of total national income has been shifted from wages to profits and the pay of the top 1% combined.

And a recent Statistics Canada study documents the stagnation of real hourly wages of the majority of Canadian workers between 1981 and 2011. Over that entire thirty year period, the average hourly wage of full-time workers rose by just 14% (and that includes the top 1%.) . This compares to growth of over 50% in real GDP per person over the same period.

The view that wages are “too high” boils down to saying that workers have no right to share in rising national income, all of which should go to profits and senior managers. That is, to say the least, a curious basis on which to sell the proposition that workers have any kind of stake in our current economic arrangements.

- Following up on yesterday's column, Mark Lemstra also sees plenty of reason for optimism in the Canadian Medical Association's focus on the social determinants of health.

- Althia Raj writes about the electoral boundary revision process in B.C. (featuring a commissioner's remarkable declaration that public input will be ignored) and Alberta (where there's reason for optimism in a shift toward better urban representation similar to that proposed in Saskatchewan).

- Sixth Estate is far too kind in responding to David Akin's pointless criticism of one of the most useful tools for accountability we've seen in Canadian politics.

- Finally, I'll give Michael Fougere this much: he's absolutely right that at the moment, the City of Regina's core business isn't so much land development or public administration as catering to private land developers. But this fall's election would seem like a rather important opportunity to change that focus.

Thursday Evening Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Robyn Allan notes that there's plenty of weakness in Christy Clark's position on the Gateway pipeline. But Barbara Yaffe writes that Clark has little choice but to stick to at least the requests she's made so far - and Vaughn Palmer points out that those alone may be enough to derail the project. And there figures to be little that shadowy committees of oil barons and Alberta and federal politicians can do to change that political reality in British Columbia.

- John Ibbitson and Janyce McGregor both discussed some fascinating Nanos polling on the gap between the issues Canadians consider most important, and those they think governments are actually able to address at the moment. But while the Cons may have cynically exploited the lowest-hanging fruit, there would seem to be a massive opportunity for anybody who can offer more credibility when it comes to health care, jobs and education.

- And a series of stories surrounding the anniversary of Jack Layton's death - along with a public discussion of the values of love, hope and optimism - would seem likely to help guide discussions toward what we can do.

- Finally, there's a noteworthy new source for information about Regina's municipal election candidates - including far more challengers for Council seats than I'd heard about so far.

On rubber stamps

There's been plenty of coverage from last night's Regina City Council meeting, with more surely to come. But aside from the complete refusal of any current Council member to respond to the concerns of the delegations who suggested giving citizens some say in a stadium proposal, perhaps the most striking comment is this one:

Audience members groaned with Clipsham (when he) said the city isn't ready for a referendum because "we don't know what we're voting on."

Which raises a rather obvious question: what exactly is there for Council to ram through (and the Premier and Mayor to hold PR stunts about) if we don't know what the plan actually entails? And given that a Council vote is no less binding than a referendum result, wouldn't we expect our elected representatives to actually ferret out some answers before offering their approval?

On known unknowns

Others have already weighed in on City Council's rush to lock in a stadium plan before anybody has a chance to ask serious questions about it. But let's take a closer look at what looks to be the most important additional question beyond the ones I already identified here.

Bruce Johnstone's defence of the agreement so far includes an assumption that the Saskatchewan Roughriders will cover $100 million in operating costs through a new lease - which looks to be based on his conflating the money raised from an unrelated facility fee with the terms of the team's lease.

But the City's actual summary of the project (see chart at bottom of this story) leaves any lease with the 'Riders "to be negotiated".  Which means we have no information whatsoever as to what the anchor tenant for a new stadium can or will pay in a lease to use a facility being built primarily for its benefit - leaving the City entirely on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in operating and maintenance expenses.

And that in turn figures to allow the team to reinforce assumptions like these put together by CBC that it won't have to contribute another dime. Indeed, if CBC's breakdown is correct, the 'Riders would siphon off all the benefits of a building designed to maximize the team's revenue, while contributing nothing but its small share of initial construction costs.

Now, I very much hope that won't be how any eventual lease is actually structured. But the fact that nothing on paper suggests otherwise signals that the City has done absolutely nothing to ensure the main beneficiary of a stadium makes a fair contribution to the costs of its administration and maintenance - even while negotiating the terms of construction with that same tenant.

So it's looking like there's more and more reason for residents to speak out against an attempt to lock Regina's citizens into who-knows-what at the behest of a lame-duck Council. If nothing else, it's impossible to make an informed choice without knowing what the 'Riders can and will contribute toward operating costs - and any Council vote based on wilful blindness on that point should be a firing offence.