Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Luke Savage warns that the Libs' election win may ring hollow for Canadian progressives:

Throughout its democratic history, Canadian politics have basically oscillated between two parties that do not seriously threaten the status quo or the injustices it perpetuates. Occasionally goaded by organized populist movements, they have both been compelled, particularly during minority parliaments, to make concessions while preserving the basic contours of the political order.

Against this, a third current has always insisted that fundamental change is necessary to build a truly just society. This ethos gave us medicare — an institution built by from the ashes of war and depression on principles of universalism and social solidarity.

Neither sweeping platitudes nor bureaucratic conservatism will ever deliver social progress of this kind, eradicate poverty, or save the planet from the economic structures that degrade it every day.

From where many of us stand, what happened last night cannot be read as anything other than a setback, and a major one, for these efforts. It's time we stopped marginalizing social justice or patronizingly relegating it to the fringes.

Democracy isn't a spectator sport. Elections aren't meant to be experienced as affirmative infotainment.

Achieving social progress requires more than just a perpetual return to the traditional, professionalized politics that leaves one in seven of us in poverty, tolerates people having to sleep on the streets, and allows thousands of children to wake up hungry and badly housed every single day in one of the richest societies in the world.

We have to demand better. And plenty of us believe and hope that, one day, we will.

- David Bush and Doug Nesbitt point out just a few of the areas where Canadians will need to hold the Trudeau Libs' feet to the fire. Rick Smith offers his suggestions as to the progressive change we should expect from a new federal government, while Maude Barlow maps out the road ahead. And Scott Reid writes the the first step needs to be an immediate break from Stephen Harper's paranoia and the destructive politics that went with it.

- Laura Stymiest and Elizabeth Lee-Ford Jones discuss the need to fight poverty in order to improve individual health. And Ryan Meili and Danielle Martin highlight the need to push back against user fees and other barriers to health care access - including the ones being introduced in Quebec in recent months.

- Finally, Patricia Cohen examines what tax increases on the richest few can accomplish - particularly in light of the growth of extreme top-end incomes. The Economist comments on the continuing problem of corporate and top-end tax evasion. And the Institute for Research on Public Policy has released a few noteworthy chapters on inequality in Canada - featuring confirmation both that high incomes have more to do with specific industries than individual contributions, and that education is far from a magic bullet in equalizing either outcomes or opportunities.

The Lemming Party of Canada

Shorter Scott Reid:

There is no indignity which we Libs we won't suffer, and no evil which we won't allow ourselves to be strongarmed into supporting, if it means marginally saving face for the leader irresponsible enough to embrace them in the first place.

From beyond the grave

Andrew Coyne wants to pretend we shouldn't worry what legislation gets passed by the Harper Cons on the theory that there's absolutely nothing stopping a future elected government from reversing course.

Which means it's a good thing there's no antiquated, undemocratic chamber of Parliament where regardless of the results of any federal election, a Conservative majority will continue to hold the power to unilaterally negate the decisions of elected representatives.

Oh, wait.

Sunday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your Sunday reading.

- Joan Walsh discusses Elizabeth Warren's work on improving wages and enhancing the strength of workers in the U.S., while Jeremy Nuttall interviews Hassan Yussuff about the labour movement's work to elect a better government in Canada.

- Bob Hepburn argues that getting rid of the Harper Cons is a first step toward regaining some faith in our political system. And Scott Reid worries that Stephen Harper's cynical view of government in anybody's hands may have spread to Canada's electorate - though while there's plenty of work to be done in the longer term, the short-term Con message of "you shouldn't trust government!" would seem to be readily supplemented with "especially this one!".

- Speaking of which, Joanna Smith catches Chris Alexander interfering in a response to questions about the Cons' immigration mess. And the argument that it's too much work to actually track outcomes hardly speaks well to the Cons' supposed management skills.

- Toby Helm reports on Ed Miliband's plan to set up a Living Standards Index to measure well-being beyond GDP alone as part of a push to show that right-wing orthodoxy misses the impact of the economy on the vast majority of people. And Ron Lieber observes that gross inequality can be toxic for the people who grow up with extreme privilege.

- Finally, Guy Dauncey responds to Sarah Petrescu's series on poverty in Victoria by pointing out that we'll need some big ideas to eradicate it altogether - though I'd note that he may miss the most important one.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Paul Krugman highlights why inequality is indeed an issue which demands action - both for its own sake, and for its impact on other goals such as economic sustainability. And Bill Moyers discusses the difference between a government responsive to its people and one completely controlled by elites:

The historian Plutarch warned us long ago of what happens when there is no brake on the power of great wealth to subvert the electorate. "The abuse of buying and selling votes," he wrote of Rome, "crept in and money began to play an important part in determining elections. Later on, this process of corruption spread in the law courts and to the army, and finally, when even the sword became enslaved by the power of gold, the republic was subjected to the rule of emperors."
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Why are record numbers of Americans on food stamps? Because record numbers of Americans are in poverty. Why are people falling through the cracks? Because there are cracks to fall through. It is simply astonishing that in this rich nation more than 21 million Americans are still in need of full-time work, many of them running out of jobless benefits, while our financial class pockets record profits, spends lavishly on campaigns to secure a political order that serves its own interests, and demands that our political class push for further austerity. Meanwhile, roughly 46 million Americans live at or below the poverty line and, with the exception of Romania, no developed country has a higher percent of kids in poverty than we do. Yet a study by scholars at Northwestern University and Vanderbilt finds little support among the wealthiest Americans for policy reforms to reduce income inequality.
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I should make it clear that I don't harbor any idealized notion of politics and democracy. Remember, I worked for Lyndon Johnson. Nor do I romanticize "the people." You should read my mail and posts on right-wing websites. I understand the politician in Texas who said of the state legislature, "If you think these guys are bad, you should see their constituents."

But there is nothing idealized or romantic about the difference between a society whose arrangements roughly serve all its citizens (something otherwise known as social justice) and one whose institutions have been converted into a stupendous fraud. That can be the difference between democracy and plutocracy.

 - Andrew Sullivan makes a similar point in commenting on the impact of Pope Francis' discussion of market zealotry (h/t to Cathie):

(T)he way in which market capitalism has become a good in itself on the American right is, well, perniciously wrong. As soon as a system ceases to be a means to a human good, and becomes an end in itself, it has become a false idol. Perhaps the apotheosis of that idol worship was the belief – brandished on the degenerate right in the past decade or two – that markets are self-regulating. Of course they’re not, as Adam Smith would have been the first to inform you. Another assumption embedded on the American right is that more wealth is always a good thing. The Church must say no. This is a lie. Wealth is a neutral thing above a certain basic level of non-drudgery. Above that, it can be an absolutely evil, deceptive thing, distorting human souls, warping their dignity, vulgarizing their character. An American right that worships at the altar of both free markets and material wealth, and that takes these two idols as their primary goods, is not just non-Catholic. It is anathema to Catholicism and to the Gospels.

- Michael Valpy writes about the connection between extractive economics, inequality and social exclusion - while observing that those exact factors are serving to reinforce each other in Canada.

- Meanwhile, Matthew Hays offers a devastating look at how Canada is beginning to look from abroad - with Rob Ford serving only as the most prominent example of a crude, selfish and thoughtless persona. And Scott Reid points out the systematic elimination of any sense of shame from right-wing politics as a substantial part of the problem.

- Finally, John Geddes writes that the Cons' patently absurd attacks on improvements to the Canada Pension Plan are making it needlessly difficult to discuss how to ensure retirement security for Canadians. And Tammy Schirle and Kevin Milligan offer their own proposal to bolster the CPP.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Jim Stanford highlights a trend of employers forcing work stoppages in order to force massive concessions out of their employees - and notes that the Harper Cons seem to be entirely in favour of that kind of economic disruption as long as it's workers who stand to lose out:

(B)usiness leaders have warmed to work stoppages. In the current bargaining environment, companies (especially multinational firms) hold the best cards. And executives are increasingly willing to precipitate their own work stoppages – through management lockouts – to enforce demands for lower wages and benefits.

Two New Year’s Day lockouts highlighted this strategy. U.S.-based Caterpillar Inc. locked out 450 locomotive builders in London, Ont., demanding wage cuts of more than 50 per cent. The same day, Rio Tinto, the U.K.-based mining giant, locked out 755 smelter workers in Alma, Que. That company’s demand to outsource all future bargaining-unit openings would ultimately achieve an even larger reduction in wages. In both cases, the future of middle-class incomes in our manufacturing and resource sectors is at stake. And in both cases, executives are willing to lock the doors until workers swallow their pill.
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The popularity of lockouts reflects the dramatic tilting of the labour relations playing field in recent years. With unions on the defensive, management is eager to go for the jugular. Government has stood back or, worse, egged on the lockouts (as Ottawa did with Canada Post). Multinational firms are especially aggressive, given their ability (underwritten by free-trade agreements) to shift production and capital seamlessly between jurisdictions.

This trend is troubling, for macroeconomic as well as ethical reasons. As employers ratchet down compensation, income shifts from consumers (who spend every penny) to corporations (which sit on a growing pile of uninvested cash). That undermines aggregate spending and weakens the recovery. And the more employers succeed in driving down wages, the greater the danger of setting off a cycle of deflation in wages and prices (such as the one that bedevilled Japan for a decade).

- Meanwhile, Paul Krugman cuts through Mitt Romney's spin about the tax rate Romney pays personally to raise a deeper point about the main excuse proffered for constant corporate tax slashing:

(I)t’s kind of peculiar to see conservatives jumping up and down to say that Mitt Romney does too pay reasonable taxes if you include the profits taxes on the corporations in which he invests. Because if memory serves me, just a few years ago conservatives were denouncing the “flypaper theory” of tax incidence, arguing that much of the burden of corporate taxes really falls on labor, not on stockholders. Is it just my imagination?

No, it isn’t. They really did make this argument. Repeatedly.

And the truth is that I always took this argument semi-seriously...

(T)here is a strong sense of trying to have it both ways. When people raise questions about big tax cuts for corporations, we’re told not to worry, because corporate taxes mainly fall on labor, not on stockholders. When people raise questions about low taxes on the very rich, we’re told not to worry because once you include all the taxes corporations have paid on their behalf as stockholders, their taxes aren’t really that low.

Funny how that works.

- The NCC's attacks on Bob Rae have a few of the country's better-informed political observers thinking about how to address the ability of big-money donors to exert disproportionate influence on Canada's political debate. Kady O'Malley and Scot Reid suggest that the problem can be dealt with through disclosure requirements, while Andrew Coyne proposes that third-party groups should be subject to the same pool of funds as political parties (with a cap on individual donations applying to both).

- Finally, Andrew Potter considers the Cons' latest blather about "red tape" to be just the latest example of Tony Clement being instructed to introduce policy targeted toward the non-thinking:

How does one-for-one help us determine what regulations are good, and which are bad? This emphasis on the absolute numbers of rules, as opposed to their relative effectiveness, is just as brainless as the old Soviet practice of treating hours worked or widgets produced as the mark of economic growth. Who cares what the work was on, or whether anyone wanted any widgets.

To see how confused this is, try applying the one-for-one rule to everything else the government does. How about, for every new law the government wants to enact, it has to eliminate one. For every criminal it wants to imprison, it has to release one. For every tax it wants to cut, it has to increase another. For every cabinet member it wants to add, it has to fire another.

This could actually be a fun little parlour game, but it is no way to run a country. Except it is the same brand of bucktoothed libertarianism that has become this government’s signature approach to public policy. Whether it is about treating drug abuse, dealing with crime, running a statistics agency, or engaging in just about any of the other routine tasks of keeping a G8 country going, the Conservatives have made a habit of giving Canadians policy cooked up by people who can’t figure out whether they have a bigger crush on Robert Heinlein, or Ann Coulter.

This isn’t just some amusing little fanboy fugue. It has real consequences for the country and for our ability to make sensible and effective laws and policy.

[Edit: fixed attribution for last column.]

Tuesday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your day.

- Lawrence Martin's column taking Canada's media to task is well worth a read. But perhaps most important is his declaration as to what needs to happen now:

During the election campaign, there were stories of voter-suppression tactics by the Tories, of barring people from rallies, of pork-barrelling with G8 funds and the like. In the last week of the campaign, there was a seeming attempt by a Conservative operative to present Michael Ignatieff as an Iraq war planner. One can imagine what would happen if this kind of thing, straight out of Nixonland, happened in a U.S. campaign. The media would blow the roof off. Here, the story passed in a day or two without further comment.

Our media, particularly The Canadian Press, have performed well in breaking stories on ethical abuse. And there have been examples, such as The Globe’s reporting for several years running on the Afghan detainee controversy, of staying with a story. But we get softer with time. In the Chrétien era, there was less let up. With much help from the Auditor-General, we chased the Liberals down on Shawinigate and Adscam.

In a majority government, particularly one headed by an all-controlling Prime Minister, one of the few checks on power is strong journalism. It is what holds the government to account. If the standards of the media decline in carrying out this function, the standards and quality of democracy itself will decline.

- And for those looking for examples of serious issues deserving of substantial investigation, Canada's embarrassing showing when it comes to addressing corruption and bribery would seem to be near the top of the list.

- Truly, nobody could have suspected that the Alliance wing of the Cons might decide to change the rules once it had removed the PCs from the scene. But I do have to wonder whether the duplicity is being allowed based on the hope that it'll make it more difficult for the Cons' opponents to work through a similar process to the one that assembled Harper's coalition.

- Finally, there's a ways to go yet, but this looks like a rather strong introduction for the NDP's new official opposition caucus.

On party interests

Scott Reid is probably right in describing what he thinks the Libs' strategy is driving at as our election campaign draws to a close. But let's take a step back and ask what it says about the party's desperation:

The least conventional ballot question in Canadian history is taking shape: Do you care about the Liberal party's future?
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Harper and Layton may discover that many others dislike the idea of overlooking an institution that offers a reliably sensible and centrist option.

They may learn that Canadians are none too eager to reduce future national debates to twin poles of extreme opinion.

They may find that in the quiet of the ballot box, there are many voters who decide they value the Liberal party and will vote to preserve its ability to positively influence their future. Just as it has their past.

Leaving aside Reid's own personal stake in the Libs, let's turn the question around.

If, in an election where there was a close race between the Libs and Cons for government, the NDP had ever ended a campaign by declaring that voters should ignore policy, principle, leadership and strategy alike, and vote simply based on a desire to preserve their party's brand...

How well would that have gone over as a direct appeal?

And perhaps more importantly, how savagely would it have been shredded by a Lib party declaring that it proved the NDP wasn't interested in stopping a mutual opponent?

In effect, Reid's analysis looks to be the next stage of the Libs' culture of entitlement. Having failed in their effort to dictate that nobody else could stop the Harper Cons, they're now asking that voters put on hold every real consideration at play in the current election campaign - every prospect of replacing the Harper Cons with a better government - solely for the benefit of a party which has shown it can't win support on the merits.

Now, one might point to cases where a relatively similar message has fallen flat (anybody else hearing an echo of Ujjal Dosanjh's plea to at least allow for some B.C. opposition in 2001?). But Reid's pitch looks to be even less justifiable, since he's trying to make the case in an election whose outcome is actually in doubt.

If there's any saving grace for the Libs, it's that enough Canadians may have tuned them out that the message isn't certain to reach all of the voters who may yet vote Lib out of habit. But if "save the furniture" is now the Libs' public appeal rather than merely their internal rallying cry, then there's reason to think there are plenty more votes for the NDP to win as the campaign reaches an end.

Compare and contrast

A Lib who gets it:

People don't give a tinker's damn if Harper is rotten to his political opponents. They care if he's rotten to them. And so far, the Liberals have not convincingly made the case that Harper's contempt of Parliament translates into a threat that resonates personally with the public.

And one who doesn't (emphasis added):

In response, (Michael Ignatieff) accused the Tories of twisting the facts and acting outside the bounds of decency. “Their attack on me is a disgrace. They’ve attacked my patriotism. They’ve attacked my commitment to the country. And now they’re attacking my family.”

Sunday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading (and participating).

- Tom Levenson points out one of the greatest ironies of the current Wisconsin showdown in particular and the attack on public employees in general, as they result in workers giving up exactly the type of intelligent retirement planning that we're supposed to be pursuing:

Wisconsin’s public service employees are not overpaid relative to their private sector counterparts. Rutgers University professor Jeffrey Keefe has done the analysis. (See his complete study on our Employment Policy Research Network website: www.employmentpolicy.org.) Controlling for education and other standard human capital variables he found that Wisconsin’s public sector workers earn 8.2 percent less than their private sector counterparts in wages and salaries. Taking fringe benefits into account shrinks the difference to 4.2 percent. Thus, public sector workers have lower wages and higher fringe benefits (yes, pensions and health care benefits are the two standouts). But overall, they are not overpaid compared to the private sector. No easy scapegoat here.

That is: Wisconsin state workers are living exactly the way their fellow citizens should want them to: they are deferring present consumption for income security in retirement. This is what every financial counselor begs their clients to do. It is what as a society we want to happen—better by far that our citizens anticipate and prepare for life after work than to hit the bricks with a grin and a sawbuck in their pockets.

- Scott Reid nicely sums up what the Cons' advertising scandal (among other cover-ups) ultimately means:

What can — and what must — still be explored is whether the only principle that remains standing in Stephen Harper's Ottawa is that the ends justify the means. Whether the Conservatives will be held to account for their actions — if indeed it is shown they deliberately and willfully broke election law. And how can the wrong be righted since we cannot of course, turn back time and conduct again an election held a half-decade ago on different terms.

Stephen Harper will say he doesn't care. That it's a minor disagreement as to how a rule might be interpreted. But that is plainly disingenuous. Harper is the Roger Clemens of federal politics. A man who fights against any and all evidence he did wrong. Who accuses his accusers of ulterior motives. Who bullies those he can and demeans those he cannot. And who, in the final analysis, if — and we should say if — is confirmed as a cheat, will employ his supporters to argue that it does nothing to undermine his achievements. But it does. It undermines everything. Because it undermines his personal integrity.

In that respect, the historic issue at stake is not the result of the 2006 election. It is the legacy of the man who still leads Canada in 2011. Once the outcome of these charges has been fully adjudicated let's hope the finding takes a central, not marginal place in our permanent assessment of Stephen Harper. And let's hope that others refuse to follow his lead — whether it works or not.

- Meanwhile, Malcolm offers his take on the cause of Bev Oda's impending demise:

Despite Stephen Harper's bluster and misdirection, no one has disputed Bev Oda's right to suspend the funding - or, more accurately, to reject the proposal to continue funding.

If Bev Oda had the competence God gave a particularly stupid goldfish, she would have sent the documents back to the officials unsigned. She would have informed them that she was not going to approve the funding, and that would have been that. Alternatively, she could have instructed them to prepare another version of the document with an "I do / do not approve" option.
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(F)or me, it isn't the dishonesty that's shocking. I've known politicians to be dishonest before. Heck, in the great scheme of political dishonesty, this isn't even a big one.

No. For me it's the stupidity.

Lying when you're caught out at something is, if not admirable, at least understandable.

Lying for no reason at all is simply inexcuseable.

In fact, it's just plain dumb.

Bev Oda may not be thrown under the bus immediately - but you can rest assured that her political advancement in the Harper heirarchy is done like dinner. She's an embarrassment - and Harper doesn't like to be embarrassed.

When her political obituary is written within the next year or so, people will blame her demise on the fact that she lied to Parliament and to the people of Canada.

The reality, though, is that she torpedoed her own political career because she is mind-numbingly stupid. The lie is merely a symbol of her incredible incompetence.

- Finally, time is running out to participate in the Mapping the Canadian Political Blogosphere survey - so for those with a few minutes, now is the time to help give as accurate a picture as possible of Canada's blogging community.

And this is why the debate is deteriorating

Does anybody doubt that if any person remotely affiliated with an opposition party had said anything anywhere near as offensive or inflammatory as Tom Flanagan's declaration that Julian Assange should be summarily executed, a harsh spin on the quote would have been a staple in Con press releases, members' statements and retorts for months (if not years) afterward?

Just wondering, since the first apparent response to Flanagan's eliminationist rhetoric from a prominent Lib is...to validate it as being entirely innocent.

[Edit: fixed wording, added labels.]

An obvious solution

Robert Silver and Scott Tribe want the Libs to embrace open nominations rather than insulating MPs from democratic accountability. But there's no indication that the Libs' hierarchy will stand for such a loss of control.

Scott Reid thinks the Libs should start paying more attention to the deteriorating well-being of working Canadians. But there doesn't seem to be much interest in actually confronting the Lib power structure's role in exacerbating the problem.

So let's ask the question: if everybody who reasonably wishes the Libs were more like the NDP actually made the jump themselves, wouldn't we have a far better chance of actually overcoming the Lib institutions which are holding back progress?

Cheque please

The Cons are apparently ensuring that while the rest of Canada's economy declines, the giant novelty cheque industry will continue to see exponential growth. But while the tactic might have seemed to have no downside in the past, the Photoshop era would seem to leave the Cons ripe for well-deserved scorn. So without further ado, a couple of easy ones to get started...

Authoritarianism in action

Apparently the Cons aren't satisfied with merely arresting civil servants and stalling access to information. Now, one of their MPs is going several steps further, claiming that Canadians (or at least opposition MPs) should be punished for repeating what they've read in the newspapers:

Tory MP Scott Reid suggested that New Democrat Pat Martin may have broken the law by giving committee members copies of secret documents in which information that was to be blacked out for public consumption could be read. Even though the supposedly secret excerpts were first published in two newspapers, Reid asked Parliament's law clerk to rule on whether Martin was "guilty of an offence" under the Security of Information Act.

Just when one thinks the Cons can't get any lower, one of their MPs always seems to be waiting with a shovel to dig down even further. Which leaves only the question of whether they'll be duly recognized for how far they've sunk when Canadians next have the chance to permanently remove them from power.