Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Linda McQuaig discusses how a politically-oriented audit of the CCPA fits with the shock-and-awe part of the right's war against independent (and public-minded) thought:

In the conservative quest to shape public debate in recent years, no tool has proved more useful than the think tank. Nobody understood this better than the director of the ultra-right wing U.S.-based ATLAS Foundation, who once stated that his mission was “to litter the world with free-market think tanks.”

Mission accomplished. Certainly the Canadian landscape is cluttered with right-wing think tanks — the Fraser Institute, the C.D. Howe Institute, the Montreal Economic Institute, the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, the Frontier Institute, just to name a few — all well-funded by a business elite keen to have its message packaged in a manner that makes it appear grounded in serious research.

These right-wing policy shops have played a huge role in implanting an ideology that treats the rich as ‘wealth creators’ who must be freed from government regulation — and whose goodwill must be constantly cultivated, lest they be discouraged from investing. This has boiled down to a simple message — government bad, private sector good — that has become the mantra of our times, the guiding force in shaping public policy.
...
For years, the corporate world has bestowed bountiful, tax-deductible resources on right-wing think tanks, allowing them to baffle the public with this sort of misinformation.

Meanwhile, alone and often ignored by the media, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives keeps churning out quality research exposing the fallacies of the right-wing arguments that have come to dominate our public conversation.

What choice is there for a paranoid, controlling, undemocratic, right-wing government but to call in the auditors?

- Meanwhile, Matt Bruenig argues that capitalism in its current form falls far short of any of the theoretical justifications for rewarding greed. Melissa Boteach and Shawn Fremstad note that matters are only getting worse even in the face of what's supposed to be an economic recovery. Andrew Brenier comments on the connection between fossil fuel use and inequality. And Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett discuss what we've learned since The Spirit Level brought the issue to the forefront:

Most important has been the rapid accumulation of evidence confirming the psychosocial processes through which inequality gets under the skin. When we were writing, evidence of causality often relied on psychological experiments that showed how extraordinarily sensitive people are to being looked down on and regarded as inferior.

They demonstrated that social relationships, insecurities about social status and how others see us have powerful effects on stress, cognitive performance and the emotions. Almost absent were studies explicitly linking income inequality to these psychological states in whole societies. But new studies have now filled that gap. That inequality damages family life is shown by higher rates of child abuse, and increased status competition is likely to explain the higher rates of bullying confirmed in schools in more unequal countries.

We showed that mental illnesses are more prevalent in more unequal societies: this has now been confirmed by more specific studies of depression and schizophrenia, as well as by evidence that your income ranking is a better predictor of developing illness than your absolute income.

Strengthening community life is hampered by the difficulty of breaking the ice between people, but greater inequality amplifies the impression that some people are worth so much more than others, making us all more anxious about how we are seen and judged. Some are so overcome by lack of confidence that social contact becomes an ordeal. Others try instead to enhance self-presentation and how they appear to others. US data also show that narcissism increased in line with inequality. The economic effects of inequality have also gained more attention. Research has shown that greater inequality leads to shorter spells of economic expansion and more frequent and severe boom-and-bust cycles that make economies more vulnerable to crisis. The International Monetary Fund suggests that reducing inequality and bolstering longer-term economic growth may be "two sides of the same coin". And development experts point out how inequality compromises poverty reduction.

- Stephanie Levitz reports on the Mowat Centre's latest study of income-splitting - which finds that in addition to being grossly inequitable in handing money to the people who need it least, the Cons' pet policy would also siphon billions out of provincial treasuries.

- Connie Walker reports on the Cons' choice to summarily discard any proposals from the Assembly of First Nations and other individuals and groups who want to see both meaningful studies and policy responses to the crisis of murdered and missing aboriginal women.

- Finally, Scott Feschuk rightly skewers Stephen Harper for a foreign policy that's all bluster and no substance.

[Edit: fixed typo.]

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Deirdre Fulton discusses the UN's 2014 Human Development Report, featuring recognition that precarious jobs and vulnerable workers are all too often the norm regardless of a country's level of development or high-end wealth. And as Dylan Matthews points out (h/t to David Atkins), the lack of worker benefits from increased corporate wealth figures to make a guaranteed annual income into a logical solution:

So here's my takeaway: a negative income tax or basic income of sufficient size would, by definition, eliminate poverty. We still don't know if there'd be much of a cost in terms of people working and earning less. If there is, the effect is almost certainly small enough that a negative income tax can offset the lost earnings and remain affordable. The worst case scenario is that we eliminate poverty but see a modest decline in employment. The best case scenario is we eliminate poverty at even lower cost and don't see much of an effect on employment. That's a gamble I'm willing to take.

- Meanwhile, Andrew Jackson points out that the supposed job recovery following the 2008 recession has been far less than advertised. And Angella MacEwen writes that we should see the steady flow of funds from EI premiums into general revenue as an indication that too many people are being denied benefits - particularly when a strong majority of unemployed Canadians aren't benefiting from a program they helped to fund.

- Tom Henheffer questions why the Canada Revenue Agency is being pushed by the Cons to attack progressive charities, particularly when it's being starved of resources to do its job of actually collecting revenue. Heather Mallick takes a closer look at the CRA's intrusion on Oxfam in particular. And Lana Payne sees the crackdown on charities as part of the Cons' general pattern of silencing any dissenting voices:

Binders full of enemies? Let’s try libraries.

The government has, for all intents and purposes, successfully defunded Canada’s advocacy movement — well, those advocates that disagree with them anyway, like women’s rights and child-care activists, environmental and scientific researchers. They have eliminated funding for roundtable consensus-building initiatives as well as non-governmental organizations dedicated to promoting human rights and equality for women around the globe.

The list is long and depressing.

The government has used, or rather abused, its power in so many ways that Canadians have perhaps grown immune to the attacks on democracy and civil society.
...
Sadly, we have a government that relishes divisions abroad and at home. Divisions create opportunities.

Consider its aggressive attack on anyone and everyone who disagrees with their ideology or policy — charities, unions, feminists, environmentalists, scientists and academics.

And yet when Harper was in opposition, he had an entirely different view of dissent and democracy: “When a government starts trying to cancel dissent or avoid dissent is when it’s rapidly losing its moral authority to govern,” he said.

That time is now for his government.

- But Scott Feschuk suggests we should be a bit more understanding of a figurehead who's so plainly at the mercy of his minions (at least until he's thrown them under various large vehicles).

- Finally, Ryan Meili explains why we shouldn't accept simplistic arguments to the effect that we should run our health care system more like a veterinary clinic (or indeed a European system facing different challenges).

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Friday reading.

- Jennifer Ditchburn reports that the Harper Cons are making ample progress in their goal of removing Canada from any list of socially-developed welfare states, as Canada has dropped from being the world's leader in the UN's Human Development Index to a position outside the top 10 countries by that measure.

- Peter Penashue's resignation in the wake of a campaign financing scandal will open up plenty of lines of discussion - as well as an opportunity to flip a seat into opposition hands. But let's ask another question arising out of his stepping down from Cabinet: will anybody notice he's gone?

- Carol Goar expands on the futility of trying to apply business principles to government management (with help from Donald Savoie):

To Savoie, this anecdote encapsulated what has happened to Canada’s public service over the past 30 years: front-line workers have been sacrificed to make way for offices full of paper-pushers, managers, supervisors and evaluators. “It is ill-conceived, costly and misguided.”

The bottom-line doctrine took hold under prime minister Brian Mulroney, who decided the public sector should operate with the same market discipline as private enterprise. His four successors have adhered to it slavishly.

It has never worked and it never will, Savoie says.

The first problem is that the public sector is not in the business of making money. In the absence of profit-loss statement, it has no way of measuring how well it is doing. So it fabricates yardsticks and backs them up with reams of reports showing how efficient, effective and indispensable it is.

The second problem is that government is incapable of “creative destruction,” the process by which industry gets rid of outmoded products and develops new ones. Bureaucrats don’t have the power to pull the plug and politicians seldom do it for fear of offending vested interests. “The problem is not that government is spending more on new things, but that it spends massively on old things.”

...

The remedy is obvious, Savoie says with the same clear-sightedness that once scandalized his boss. Figure out what a government department is supposed to do, then fit the employment level to the workload.

- David Climenhaga proposes that the Alberta NDP make a concerted effort to become the province's "city party".

- Finally, Scott Feschuk nicely summarizes the effect of the unaccountable Senate - and the futility of trying to defend it:

Having existed for more than a century, the Senate has produced a number of memorable achievements, such as having existed for more than a century. Also, there was one day that a plucky young upstart openly defied the two-nap minimum. He was subjected to a thorough harrumphing.

Being a senator sounds like a pretty sweet gig. You get an office, a staff and an annual salary of $132,000. You are also entitled to collect up to $22,000 a year in living expenses if a) your primary residence is more than 100 km from Parliament Hill, or b) you feel like it.


Are there any downsides? Not a ton. Sure, you become: a drain on the federal treasury; an object of national mockery, stereotype and derision; and a feckless member of a legislative chamber that Liberal and Conservative prime ministers alike have sullied and undermined over decades by treating it as a repository for cronies, bagmen and talentless, self-promoting partisans.

But on the other hand: Taco Tuesdays!

Alas, now that Canadians have been made aware of the existence of the Senate, a lot of them want to abolish it—simply because it’s a wasteful appendage that costs hundreds of millions of dollars a year and provides no tangible or intangible benefits to any human.
...
The bottom line is that even though our senators are beleaguered, they have the opportunity to be viewed by Canadians with a more sympathetic eye—if only they can draw attention away from every aspect of their job, everything they do and all that their institution has come to represent.

Saturday Morning Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- Plenty more commentators are taking a turn duly mocking the Cons' Senate shenanigans. Here's Tabatha Southey:

In fact, Mr. Duffy lives and votes in Kanata, a suburb of Ottawa, in a home he purchased five years before he was appointed to the Senate in 2008. He has a modest, seasonal cottage in Cavendish, PEI, which is reportedly seldom used.

There are signs there may be a number of these houses across the country – dark, lifeless, spooky places children rush by after sundown because some people say those houses have senators. Conservative Senator Pamela Wallin, now-independent Senator Patrick Brazeau and Liberal Senator Mac Harb are also being investigated for questionable secondary-residence expenses.
...
Marjory LeBreton, government leader in the Senate, said this that week the mere signing of a declaration of qualification form claiming to be from the Island qualifies one for the Senate. Apparently there’s an “if I clap my hands, I am actually Tinkerbell” clause in there somewhere, officially making being a senator the best job in the world.

And Scott Feschuk:

1. Belittle. When reporters suggested Duffy was inappropriately pocketing up to $22,000 a year in living expenses (he claimed his primary residence is in P.E.I., even though he’s lived near Ottawa for decades), the senator’s response was to mock them. Do some “adult work,” he said. When that didn’t end the scrutiny, he told one journalist: “It’s none of your business.” This is a great way to win over taxpayers, who love it when a partisan crony—appointed by fiat to a cushy job with a great pension—explains that what he does with their money is none of their concern.
...
4. Deflect. For weeks, Duffy told reporters there’s no story here. He urged them to instead focus on “real issues” like energy development. This is a great gambit because reporters always do what they’re told by a politician who’s up to his neck in it. For instance, if you’re caught cheating on your spouse, just tell those nosy reporters to focus on what really matters: the fact that mangoes are delicious. Yes, when they find you naked in a motel, they’ll probably ask questions like, “What does this say about your personal integrity?” and “What’s with the clown mask?” But give them the skinny on mangoes and they’ll be rushing to the pay phones to yell: “STOP THE PRESSES—I’VE GOT BREAKING FRUIT NEWS!” Works every time.

And finally Thomas Walkom:

Duffy’s problem, which he appears to share with others, is that if he doesn’t live in P.E.I. he is constitutionally barred from occupying any of that province’s four Senate seats.

Whoops! When the Senate leadership went after the former television reporter for his expense accounts, they didn’t mean to open that particular can of worms.

So their solution is to say that, yes, Duffy lives in P.E.I. because he said so when the current Parliament began two years ago.

But no, he appears not to live in P.E.I. and therefore may not be eligible for any housing allowances received. His expense accounts have been put to external auditors for investigation.

How can he be a resident and non-resident at the same time? In the world most of us inhabit, he cannot. Only in theoretical physics and the parallel universe that is the Senate is such a thing possible.

- The Star's editorial board rightly notes that Claude Patry should seek a new mandate from voters after abandoning the NDP for the Bloc, while Chantal Hebert sees the departure as "more like a paper cut than a puncture wound". And I'll point back to my take on the last similar case - which proved to be an isolated move by an isolated MP rather than a harbinger of anything to come.

- Finally, Ezra Klein writes about the limits of a president's persuasive powers. But while his conclusion distinguishes between the U.S.' system of divided government and parliamentary structures, I have to wonder whether it applies even more strongly in Canada: where a president may see the need to marshal some form of persuasion in order to get anything passed, far too many majority governments seem to believe they're better off not even trying to justify massive bills which can be rammed through without debate rather than engaging in a discussion which could call attention to their actions.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Paul Krugman highlights the anti-social austerity agenda at work in the U.K. and U.S.:

(T)he austerity drive in Britain isn’t really about debt and deficits at all; it’s about using deficit panic as an excuse to dismantle social programs. And this is, of course, exactly the same thing that has been happening in America.

In fairness to Britain’s conservatives, they aren’t quite as crude as their American counterparts. They don’t rail against the evils of deficits in one breath, then demand huge tax cuts for the wealthy in the next (although the Cameron government has, in fact, significantly cut the top tax rate). And, in general, they seem less determined than America’s right to aid the rich and punish the poor. Still, the direction of policy is the same — and so is the fundamental insincerity of the calls for austerity.

The big question here is whether the evident failure of austerity to produce an economic recovery will lead to a “Plan B.” Maybe. But my guess is that even if such a plan is announced, it won’t amount to much. For economic recovery was never the point; the drive for austerity was about using the crisis, not solving it. And it still is. 

- Meanwhile, Les Whittington identifies the Cons' attacks on fair wages as an example of the same in Canada. And Gerald Caplan points out that even as they demand nothing but sacrifice from the general public, the Cons are more than generous in handing out money to anybody who passes a partisan loyalty test.

- I've regularly criticized commentators in the past for using their own ignorance as a basis to claim the NDP somehow didn't exist on the political scene. And let's leave no doubt that the claim is equally asinine when applied to the Libs.

- Finally, Susan Delacourt nicely documents how the Cons have gone out of their way to tailor public images to political narratives which have nothing at all to do with reality. And I have to figure there's a delightful story to be written out of Scott Feschuk's description of David Wilks as "a brick in the toilet tank of democracy".

- Update: Before it's too late, I'll also point out rabble's list of budget protest events across Canada today - with a particular emphasis on the fact that they're reaching well beyond the largest urban centres.

Sunday Evening Links

Assorted content to end your weekend.

- Brian Mason makes the closing argument for Alberta's NDP in tomorrow's provincial election:



- Meanwhile in Ontario, Keith Leslie reports that the McGuinty Libs are still dragging their heels on Andrea Horwath's entirely reasonable set of budget requests. But while Martin Regg Cohn calls on them to match the NDP's willingness to reach a deal, Adam Radwanski theorizes that based on the relative public appeal of the provincial parties' leaders and platforms, it's the PCs that have the most to lose from a possible spring election in any event.

- Scott Feschuk comments on the ongoing F-35 fiasco with exactly the level of seriousness and respect the Cons deserve in light of the news that they've known just as well as the rest of us how inaccurate their spin has been.

- And Bruce Johnstone notes that the Harper Cons' transition from a minority to a majority hasn't changed the pattern of Saskatchewan getting nothing from its 13 Con MPs.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Jim Stanford thoroughly debunks the tired claim that corporate tax cuts will magically lead to increased investment and economic growth by looking at the actual results of decades of cuts in Canada.

- Meanwhile, it's enough of a plus that we've seen more discussion lately on the need to promote equality rather than accepting growth (concentrated among the wealthy) as the only economic goal worth pursuing. But Toby Sanger points to an IMF study showing that even those who want to focus on growth are best off working to fight inequality.

- It's tough to disagree with Andrew Coyne's take on Tuesday's English debate, particularly as to the strategic box the Libs are now stuck in. But I'll note once again that they could have given themselves a far more coherent position by actively and publicly seeking a place at the head of a coalition, rather than twisting themselves into pretzels trying to pitch a need for cooperation by others but not by themselves in order to work for change.

- Maxwell Cameron challenges Tom Flanagan's attempt to equate politics with war:

(T)he great evolutionary advantage enjoyed by humans arises from our capacity for co-operation, not competition. Great civilizations have never been built on competition alone. The human capacity for empathy, for social problem-solving, and for moral judgment are the foundation of human progress. Without our ability to imitate, collaborate, learn, and understand one another, we would have developed neither language nor tools, neither art nor, indeed, war.

Yet over and again, our public discourse emphasizes conflict and competition over empathy and co-operation. Tom Flanagan’s claim in a recent commentary in The Globe and Mail that “an election is war by other means” is a good example of this bias. Since all is fair in love and war, why should we worry when politicians attack each other, bend or misrepresent the truth, and present themselves, not their ideas, before the electorate? To think otherwise is high-mindedness, says Flanagan.
...
When we treat politics like war, our adversaries become enemies. They are no longer collaborators as well as competitors in a struggle to serve the common good, but nuisances or worse. They must be crushed or eliminated. This is indeed a step toward war.

Campaigns are not only about selecting leaders. Our deliberative institutions are weakened when we obsessively focus on the horse race among leaders and ignore the platforms they propose to implement. There is nothing particularly high-minded about the expectation that substantive debate occur around an election. We want to know not only who is going to govern us but also how they are going to govern us.

One of the reasons we are in this election campaign is precisely because of the contempt for Parliament exhibited by a government that does not accept that truth in politics matters and that ministerial responsibility is an inherent and indispensable part of our system of government – a government that thinks it is OK to bully top civil servants into submission, punish whistleblowers, and hide from accountability.

- Finally, Scott Feschuk offers the definitive take on Canada's Ethnic Costume Party government.

- Update: No, the brilliant return of Points of Information hasn't gone unnoticed.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Purple Library Guy highlights the internal inconsistency behind regressive economics:

If you hold onto the "poor people are poor because they make sub-optimal choices" claim but admit that means free markets will not be efficient, then a compassionate person would suggest that if the economy isn't going to be efficient anyway it should at least try to take care of people. If you hold onto the efficient markets, then people's poverty must happen to them despite their making optimal choices, in which case you have to start wondering just what the "efficiency" is for.

These ideas can both be false, and in the real world they are. But they can't both be true; right wing economics combined with right wing justifications for poverty involve a basic contradiction.

- And both Jeffrey Simpson and David MacDonald rightly criticize the Cons' efforts to make our tax system even more regressive.

- David Olive joins the parade of commentators who have rightly concluded that they've had enough of the Harper Cons' contempt and deception:

Since we've not challenged Harper on his past, we're all condemned to relive it. In the fake costing of 65 jet-fighter planes (Harper cost, $17 billion; real cost, $29 billion) to the non-costing of new and expanded prisons that would be required by Harper's proposed tougher sentencing guidelines. (The outside estimates are roughly $9 billion.) It was a vote on that contempt of the people's house, and not the budget, that brought this government down last Friday.

But this episode is astonishing, a Harper rewrite of events that unfolded just yesterday. To the question of how far Harper will go in insulting the voters, there is no apparent answer.

- Saskboy is looking for a consensus around the idea of "more debates, not fewer debates". I for one couldn't agree more strongly with the idea.

- Finally, Scott Feschuk documents the tragicomedy of errors that's been the first week of the election campaign for the Cons.

Monday Morning Links

Assorted reading to pass a chilly Family Day.

- Your non sequitur of the day comes from Con MP Ed Holder responding to the concerns of Kevin Page and the opposition parties about the use of "cabinet confidences" to hide the actual costs of Harper policies:

Conservative MP Ed Holder (London West, Ont.) said it wasn't so much about resources, but rather a lack of time, and MPs focusing on "salacious" issues rather than what they're in Parliament to do. He said the Library of Parliament is an excellent resource for MPs who need help understanding the budget or estimates or any piece of legislation.

How that's supposed to help in the absence of estimates related to a particular bill is left as an exercise for the reader - at least, assuming there isn't a "cabinet confidences" section of the library where full information can be found.

- Susan Delacourt gives her take on why Bev Oda's forgery and cover-up - and the Cons' continued defiance - are well worth some continuing coverage:

You want to know why this government spends so much time controlling its "message" and its portrayal in public? Because it's trying to enforce power over who writes its history -- criticism is tantamount to taking the enemies' side. We reporters in Ottawa are used to this by now.

The Bev Oda controversy is not staying in the headlines because we journalists are trying to bring down the government (much as many Conservatives love to believe). Most of us actually aren't in that good-versus-evil frame of mind. It's being reported because it was an open, ham-handed effort to distort the record. And it's part of a pattern. (See cases above -- there are more.) So is it a big deal? Yes. Precisely because it's so ordinary, and it's being portrayed that way by Oda's supporters.

- And Brian Topp theorizes that there's somewhat more to the Oda ado than the Cons are letting on:

Given Ms. Oda's impressive background and real qualities, her first round of testimony on this matter was more credible than her second. Notwithstanding her belated fess-up, I doubt she doctored that memo. In changing her story and claiming that she did, I speculate, she is taking the fall for someone else.

Someone dumb. Someone who is cavalier about the integrity of public servants. Someone who has a notably loose relationship with the truth. Someone in a position to give orders to ministers – orders in contempt of Parliament – even at the price of their credibility and (possibly) their careers.

Who could that be?

- Though in fairness, it's worth noting that no mistake, offence or outrage is actually a career-ender for a right-wing ideologue. Just ask Tim Powers, who's taken up Russell Ullyatt's defence after Ulyatt merely torpedoed an entire budget consultation process for his own personal gain.

- Finally, Scott Feschuk notes that the Cons are also taking embarrassing steps to try to revise the language used to rewrite their history:

The Conservatives imported the expression “job creators” from Republicans in the United States, who are masters at putting a positive spin on negative concepts like cuts to social programs (“budget relief”) and extending tax breaks for the super rich (“Gimme!”). Since some in the media here have obligingly begun to use the term, we can expect to see more of the same from Conservatives. Farewell words with negative connotations!

Old term: Deficit.
New term: Aspiring surplus.
Used in a sentence: “Mr. Speaker, I am proud to say it was this Conservative government that presided over the largest aspiring surplus in our history.”

Old term: Tar sands.
New term: Money juice.
Used in a sentence: “Hey, how did these 3,000 dead ducks wind up in our money juice?”
...
Those expressions and more await us. For now, it’s just “job creators” and what we can do for them so that maybe they can possibly do something for us perhaps. And if they later slash jobs by the thousands to protect the bottom line, the government can praise them as “leisure creators.”

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted reading material for your weekend.

- Alice has all the background you could need to the much-discussed bill on seat redistribution.

- Apparently it's time for a reminder which party to the contracts surrounding the G20 is actually in charge of running the country:

Anne White, Deerhurst communications director, says it is against company policy to make public how much the resort was paid by the federal government to run the central venue for the G8 meeting.

Which, last I checked, wouldn't seem to trump the law of the land. But I suppose we can never rule out the possibility that the Access to Information Act passed by Parliament setting out a right to information about how Canada's government works has quietly been made subordinate to corporate policy.

- Thomas Walkom follows up on Kevin Page's report showing that the Cons' stimulus didn't actually do anything much to create jobs:

u(U)employment remains persistently high. Even Friday’s announcement that the official jobless rate fell to 7.6 per cent must be seen in the context of a labour market where thousands have simply given up looking for work.

So perhaps the economists — and the government — should pay more attention to Page on this. Granted, those he interviewed may not have taken into account the spin-offs from stimulus spending (as, for instance, when a construction worker laying sewer-pipe buys a submarine sandwich).

Granted also that recipients of federal cash may not have considered the jobs that stimulus spending saved from being lost.

But if one-fifth of those at the sharp end found that the government money they spent reduced employment in their communities, alarm bells should ring.

- Finally, Scott Feschuk's compilation of Julian Fantino's childhood correspondence nicely skewers his post-election diatribe.

Sunday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to complete your weekend...

- Scott Feschuk has the definitive commentary on the Cons' attempt to distract Canadian voters with pandas:

We must be in tight with the Chinese now because they’ve rented us pandas for an exorbitant sum—the kind of transaction they’ve entered into with only their very bestest friends, such as Germany and Australia. And the United States. And Spain and Thailand and Singapore and Mexico and Japan and Taiwan and wait are we the last country on Earth to get some freaking bears out of these people? Are we going to be stuck with the slow-witted pandas—the ones every other nation passed on? Mommy, why does the cuddly panda bear keep falling out of the tree?
...
What’s really important is this: after five years, Stephen Harper finally has a legacy. He didn’t cut wait times or create those child-care spaces he promised. He didn’t balance the budget or protect the environment or smile without physical effort. But he did send half his cabinet around the world to beg for 600 lb. of panda bear for zoo visitors to enjoy and, presumably, Peter MacKay to wrestle late one night to impress a girl.

Sleep easy, Canada. Our long national nightmare of pandalessness will soon be over.

- In case anybody was still willing to give the benefit of any doubt about the Cons' jaw-droppingly flawed decision-making that resulted in the expenses of the G8 and G20 conferences, this should put that to rest:

Accommodations for the RCMP, who sent nearly 20,000 officers to the two summits, topped $65-million, including big bills from nearly every major hotel in Toronto.

But most of the accommodation cost, $57-million, went to a massive trailer camp in Muskoka – a cost of $700 per room per night, according to RCMP officials. The lack of available hotel rooms near the Deerhurst summit left no other option, RCMP officials said.

So for the sake of giving Tony Clement bragging rights about holding the G8 in his backyard, the Harper government made a choice to spend tens of millions more on accommodations to protect the smaller, barely-protested conference - when it was possible to accommodate more officers in Toronto for far less.

- And in other news about the Cons' consistent choices to waste public money...

- Finally, David Livingstone offers up a friendly reminder as to where the Fraser Institute's constant attacks on social values come from and why. (H/t to Next Year Country.)

Anonymous sources tell us Jane Taber continues to be a hack

But fortunately, Scott Feschuk is willing to go on the record.

The reviews are in

Presumably the Cons' goal in going along with yesterday's hearings on the census was to try to pretend that the census crisis is more a case of "two legitimate sides, we've chosen one" rather than "we have no clue what we're doing". But if there was ever any hope that a full day's repetition of already-debunked talking points would manage to make the Cons look any less ridiculous, we can now say conclusively that the attempt failed, thanks to the likes of...

Scott Feschuk:

Let us pause now and spare a thought for poor Tony Clement. The minister in charge of Statistics Canada – or, as it will soon be known, Vague Hunches Canada – is not that different from you or me. He has a job. He likes his job. He wants to keep his job.

But to keep his job, Tony Clement must now wake up each morning, walk out into the world and say things that make him sound like a wet-lipped halfwit.

John Ivison:

the government’s solution — to make the mandatory form voluntary — has received such blanket condemnation — even from those who are normally staunch Conservative allies, such as seniors organization CARP — that the government is looking not so much out of touch, as out to lunch.

Mr. Clement claimed that a $30-million advertising campaign and a much larger sample size will eliminate concerns about the quality of the data gathered in the 2011 census.

But a number of other witnesses disagreed. Former chief statistician Ivan Fellegi, said the next census could be “unusable” because the information will not be comparable to data from previous years. He urged the government to follow the recommendation suggested by the National Statistics Council (NSC), the government’s advisory group, which has called for the threat of jail sentences to be removed and some questions on household activities to be dropped for the next census in 2016.

This seems to be a common sense compromise but common sense and a willingness to compromise seem to have deserted this government of late.

John Ibbitson:

Industry Minister Tony Clement’s obdurate testimony at Tuesday’s Industry committee hearing, the hostility of Conservative MPs on the committee to witnesses defending the census, and the rapidly diminishing opportunities for compromise point to a government determined to eliminate the mandatory long-form version of the census, no matter what anyone says or pleads.
...
Mr. Clement’s argument was a masterful defence of a false fact. Canadians, he said, were disturbed by the intrusive nature of the questions that traditionally go out to 20 per cent of Canadian households...

But the National Statistics Council, whose 40 members are appointed by the government to advise Statistics Canada, asked the agency to provide data on all complaints registered either directly with Statscan, or referred to Statscan from MPs or any other source, concerning the last census in 2006. The total number of questions, complaints and concerns: 166. From a census that was sent to 12 million households.

NDP MP Charlie Angus was entirely right to call this a “manufactured crisis.”

And Dan Gardner:

(H)ang on, the government's defenders say. People quote data from voluntary surveys all the time. Every opinion poll that appears in the media is voluntary. How can that be squared with the insistence that the census must be mandatory to be as accurate as possible?

The short answer: It can't.

"Opinion polls are generally trash," Ron Melchers, a statistician at the University of Ottawa says. Response rates on private surveys are low and falling. It's not uncommon for four out of five people to refuse to answer. Or more. That creates huge opportunities for bias to creep in. "My aged mother will answer any survey she's asked to answer. She's isolated, she's alone, she's grumpy and irritable, and she hasn't got all of her marbles. These are the people who are most likely to respond to a lot of these polling surveys," says Melchers.

StatsCan conducts voluntary surveys but it uses the census data to "weight" the results -- that is, to adjust it and correct for bias. Private pollsters generally don't or can't do that. And soon, thanks to the government's decision on the census long form, neither will StatsCan.
...
(T)he census is unique. And uniquely valuable.

Or at least it was until Stephen Harper came along.

Update: And let's not forget Aaron Wherry:

(I)f we can say anything about the quinquennial census, perhaps it is this: not until it was made an issue, did it become an issue.

This morning of hearings, an industry minister and two former chief statisticians summoned to Parliament Hill to discuss the nature of data collection in a democratic society, was often so profound. And if the 2011 census is destined to be rendered useless to future generations, at least our descendants will have these two hours to tell them all they need to know about the state of this nation’s management as it embarks on the second decade of the 21st century.
...
(I)f the source of this present debate is not great public outrage with the machinery of government, the explanation would seem to be simply this. That what we see here, and what we saw today, is simply a government made greatly uncomfortable by its own role and place in society.

The reviews are in

Scott Feschuk:

Let’s face it: No Canadian – and I fear this includes Michael Ignatieff – currently has any idea exactly what series of events and nature of responses from Harper would prompt the Liberal leader to vote to bring down the government. This doesn’t exactly make for a catchy call to arms:

What do we want? Further numerical information pursuant to a number of ongoing political files!

When do we want it? By Friday. Or perhaps later. Listen, we’re flexible on that!

If this is Michael Ignatieff’s idea of “messing with” Stephen Harper, I’m looking forward to the point when he’s “done” doing that.

Nicely done

It takes some effort to come up with a suitable amount of derision for PMS' announcement that the Cons have kept their wait-times promise through their laughable budget announcement and subsequent one-procedure agreements. So kudos to Scott Feschuk for doing the job.