Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Michelle Girash and Chandra Pasma write from personal experience about the uncertainty COVID-19 creates for workers. Bryan Borzykowski notes that the needed extension of the CERB through the summer has merely delayed the approach to a cliff for people who have rightly relied on public support. And Rachel Aiello reports on the Libs' stingy "volunteer" program for students which will pay less than minimum wage to participants while lining the pockets of a Trudeau-connected non-profit.

- Jean-Pierre Colin points out the opportunity to build a green economy in the course of redeveloping from the coronavirus pandemic. And Glen Pearson argues that we should take the opportunity to move away from an emphasis on growth at all costs.

- Shadia Nasralla reports on new research showing how just one pipeline has been emitting massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere - confirming the folly of allowing natural gas operators to ignore what they spew. Laura Tretheway discusses the "plastic superhighway" of waste finding its way into the environment and our food chain. And Jimmy Tobias reports on the Trump administration's use of cyanide bombs to wage war against wildlife on behalf of businesses.

- Rebecca Gao offers a primer on the definition and reality of systemic racism for the many leaders who seem utterly unaware of it.

- Finally, Sarath Peiris recognizes that police should be a last resort rather than a first option in responding to social ills. And Shawn Fraser writes that spending on remand beds represents an expensive way to avoid addressing the real causes of crime and insecurity.

New column day

Here, on the noteworthy successes of the first year of Regina's Housing First program - along with the appalling failure of our provincial and municipal governments to fund a full version.

For further reading...
- CBC reported on the program as it was introduced, while Kendall Latimer followed up with a report from this week's anniversary announcement.
- Regina Homelessness offers both background information on the state of housing and homelessness in Regina, as well as a summary of the results of Housing First.
- And finally, even Licia Corbella recognizes the importance of social housing based on the difficulty people face finding a place to live in Calgary and the public costs of homelessness.

New column day

Here, on Shawn Fraser's attempt to move Regina toward a living wage - and the the sad delay tactics in response from Michael Fougere and the rest of City Council.

For further reading...
- Fraser posted about the motion here. And Natascia Lypny reported on the response.
- The CCPA study cited in the column is here (PDF), while anybody looking to adjust for inflation since 2014 can look to Saskatchewan's historical Consumer Price Index tables (PDF). And Living Wage Canada has details on the movement across the country, while Tom Cooper and Trish Hennessy again discussed its impact in Ontario.
- Finally, David Dayen looks to Seattle's minimum-wage increase as a prominent example of corporate spin about increased wages leading to higher costs bearing no resemblance to reality, while the Center for Economic and Policy Research likewise observed no effect on employment levels in other cities with their own minimum wages. And Jordan Brennan and Jim Stanford similarly found (PDF) no adverse effect on employment from Canadian minimum wage increases.

New column day

Here, on how Regina City Council's embarrassing heel-dragging in response to the David Suzuki Foundation's Blue Dot Declaration on environmental rights contrasts against the spread of trade agreements with virtually no scrutiny.

For further reading...
- Shawn Fraser both introduced the motion supporting the Blue Dot Declaration, and discussed it here. And the list of cities who have already signed on is here. 
- Meanwhile, CBC reported on Council's demurral. And Paul Dechene was duly outraged here.

New column day

Here, on the appalling failure of both the province of Saskatchewan and the city of Regina to contribute a nickel to a long-overdue Housing First pilot project.

For further reading...
- D.C. Fraser reported on the project here, with this serving as the money quote:

The one-year pilot project will get $400,000 from the federal government. Roberts is confident that money will lead to success, but is realistic about how far those funds can be stretched.

“It’s only $400,000. There’s only so much you can do with that, only so many people you can hire,” he said. “If we suddenly shoot for the stars and say we’re going to end homelessness in Regina tomorrow, that’s not a realistic expectation.”

It is unlikely the city or province will add money to what is being made available by the federal government, according to Roberts. Other jurisdictions using Housing First models have received money from other levels of government.

- Fraser's follow-up story shows Michael Fougere lapping up credit and attention notwithstanding the city's lack of any contribution, while the province simply stays on the sidelines. And CBC's report mentions how few people are expected to be helped in the first year. 
- As for the other past broken promises and failed plans mentioned in the story, the report (PDF) of the provincial government's much-ballyhooed advisory group on poverty was announced last August. And Fraser noted this week that a promised strategy has never been unveiled.
- Meanwhile, Regina points to its committee involvement and some off-hand mentions of homelessness in housing plans (PDF) without seeming to go any further. And Shawn Fraser has rightly highlighted the city's refusal to actually take steps of its own even while it endorses federal action.

New column day

Here, reminding us that it's our communities who ultimately pay the price for the poorly-thought-out election announcements from senior levels of government that we've seen so frequently recently.

For further reading...
- CTV reported on last week's Evraz Place expansion announcement, while the Leader-Post offered an all-too-obvious example of cheerleading for a shiny new project while paying no attention to the opportunity costs involved.
- Meanwhile, the Saskatchewan Party's regular announcements and re-announcements of what proved to be an ill-thought-out scheme for new school construction have lasted from last July to last November to just last month.
- And finally, CBC reported on City Council's hasty revision to the plan foisted on it by the province, while Shawn Fraser offered his take on the school debacle.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Greg Keenan exposes how corporations are demanding perpetually more from municipalities while refusing to contribute their fair share of taxes to fund the services needed by any community. And Sean McElwee points out how big-money donations are translating into a warped U.S. political system:

Available data reveals that donors not only have disproportionate influence over politics, but that influence is wielded largely to keep issues that would benefit the working and middle classes off of the table.

Do donors really rule the world? Recent research suggests that indeed they do. Three political scientists recently discovered that a 1 percent increase in donor support for a policy leads to a 1 percent increase in the probability the president supports the policy, if the president and donor are in the same party. On the other hand, they find no similar effect from general public opinion on presidential policies. In another study, Brian Schaffner and Jesse Rhodes find, “the roll call voting of members of Congress may be more strongly associated with the views of their donors (including outside donors) than with those of their voting constituents.”
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The solution to big money is two-fold. First, we need mass voter participation. The path is simple: Eliminate unnecessary barriers to voting, shift the burden of registration off of people and onto the government and expand nonpartisan mobilization efforts. But that won’t be enough as long as donors rule democracy. So we should broaden the donor pool with a vibrant public financing system. Evidence from New York suggests that a donor-matching system could increase the diversity of the donor pool, further bolstering democracy. Demos has profiled a number of candidates that fight for working class and non-white Americans but were massively out-raised by their opponents, and showed how small donor democracy would boost their chances of winning. Candidate Eric Adams, when commenting on the New York public matching system noted that, “a large number of people who contribute to my campaign have never contributed to a campaign before.” A world in which big donors are less powerful is a world where average Americans have more of a say in politics.

- Ole Hendrickson writes about the absurdity of austerity as a philosophical foundation for public policy. And Bruce Johnstone notes that the Cons' austerian economic plan is failing by all standards - including the Cons' own arbitrary measures of fiscal management. 

- Shawn Fraser discusses Regina's first count of its homeless residents, while summarizing a few of the policies needed to ensure that they can find the housing they need. And Justin Miller offers an abominable example of how social support systems are set up to punish the poor, as a Michigan mother was cut off welfare due to her daughter's brain cancer which kept her out of school.

- Natasha Geiling reports on the continued effect of Enbridge's Kalamazoo River spill five years after the fact. And Andrew Nikiforuk comments that British Columbia (like so many other places) is seeing a dramatic increase in earthquake activity as a result of fracking.

- Frances Woolley highlights how the "sharing" economy may only serve to perpetuate prejudice and inequality.

- Finally, Alison presents the Harper Cons' new advisory system for fearmongering about terrorism.

New column day

Here, on how the City of Regina has taken a first step - but only that so far - in making sure that new development doesn't result in the perpetual subsidization of developers by current residents.

For further reading...
- Shawn Fraser's thoughtful post on the new interim phasing and financing plan is here. And the plan was approved (PDF) (with an amendment for a single project) earlier this week.
- The Calgary study on the time it takes for a neighbourhood to start providing net benefits to a city is discussed here.
- And for those with reading time to spare, the full report from Regina's administration can be found here (PDF). Among the points referenced in the column, I'll highlight two.

First, there's the limited scope of participation in the study:

The Administration engaged the Regina & Region Home Builders’ Association (RRHBA), developers, and major landowners of the 300K growth areas. Four in-person sessions were held and two opportunities for written feedback were provided.

This was then matched by the one-sided turnout at the Executive Committee meeting which considered the report:

The following addressed and answered questions of the Committee:
-        Stu Niebergall, representing the Regina and Region Home Builders Association;
-        Bob Linner and Pat Mah, representing  North Ridge Development Corporation;
-        John Nostrand, Rev. Jerven Weekes and Daryl Brown, representing Rosewood Park Alliance Church;
-        Paul Moroz, Ned Kosteniuk and Evan Hunchak, representing Dream Development;
-        Kevin Reese, representing The Creeks;
-        Blair Forster and Chad Jedlic, representing Harvard Developments; and
-        Lorne Yagelniski, representing Kensington Greens Corporation

Second, here's the contrast between the respective views of the administration and the participating developers on the issue of municipal debt:

[The] Administration concluded that the City cannot afford to continue to pay for growth-related capital projects in accordance with the current...policy...without phasing growth. The reason for this is there would be too many projects that require SAF funding that would not generate the required revenue to pay for the projects until years after the capital expenditure had been made. This would result in the need for the City to exceed its debt limit and taxpayers to take on significant risk. Furthermore, based on the current policy, the City, and thus taxpayers, would be required to generate considerably more tax revenue to pay for its share of the plan, approximately equivalent to a one-time 7 per cent mill rate increase.
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A number of Stakeholders reject debt limitations as a rationale for the need to phase development or increase SAF rates. Alternatives suggested include requesting an increase to the City’s debt limit or allocating more of the available debt to financing development.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Robert Reich proposes that the best way to address corporate criminality is to make sure that those responsible go to jail - rather than simply being able to pay a fine out of corporate coffers and pretend nothing ever happened.

- And Shawn Fraser suggests that Regina developers should pick up the tab for the costs they impose on the city - even as the city itself has opportunities to both better shape residential growth, and turn a profit through its own own development corporation.

- Meanwhile, the CP reports on the clash between biased markets and free speech - as Greenpeace was rejected in its effort to purchase billboard space from the same business which didn't hesitate a second to provide a platform for climate change denialists.

- Andrew Coyne writes that Stephen Harper is racking up scandals and abuses of power at an unprecedented pace. But Chantal Hebert notes that none of the Cons' manipulations can help them avoid responsibility for governing - including by deciding between serving their oil-industry masters and listening to the public about the Northern Gateway pipeline.

- Susan Delacourt takes note that political parties are increasingly looking to brand themselves through means that have nothing to do with politics - while identifying what that says about their seeming mandate to discuss policy choices:

When a political ad arrives through the mail, does the average citizen pore over its contents to determine who paid for it? Again, probably not. A marketing-research fact sheet distributed by Canada Post a few years ago said that the response rate for all direct-mail advertising — not just political ads — was a scant 2.18 per cent. Political parties, in short, might be better off mailing those pamphlets directly to the local recycling stations.

The trick these days, it seems, is to make political advertising look like something slightly more useful: a World Cup schedule, for instance, or the front page of a newspaper.
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Advertisers, private or political, are always going to try to slip their sales messages into products that are useful to consumers or citizens: pens, T-shirts, newspapers, World Cup schedules. 
...
A harder question, though, is why political advertising is held in such low esteem that it now has to masquerade as something more relevant to Canadians. Educating the public doesn’t have to be a mission that’s gone entirely out of fashion.

- Finally, Vaughn Palmer reviews the B.C. Libs' consistent pattern of bad faith in dealing with teachers.

New column day

Here, discussing what elements of Saskatchewan's referendum law look to have worked properly in Regina's wastewater treatment plant referendum process - and where there's some obvious room for improvement where future issues call for a vote among citizens.

For further reading...
- While I note in the column that the 10% signature threshold seems to serve its intended purpose nicely, that of course requires that a municipality apply it fairly. And I'll point back to Paul Dechene's timeline of questionable City steps which attempted to avoid a referendum even though the standard was met by any fair measurement.
- CBC reported on the City's approved funding for the referendum here, and on the money spent by all campaigns here.
- Finally, Shawn Fraser reflects on the referendum - pointing out what's wrong with the City's current decision-making processes (while leaving open the question of whether he'll stake some political capital on changing the culture if the establishment pushes back):

(T)his whole thing could have likely been avoided if there was better public engagement around this decision before council voted on it. I take as much responsibility for this as anyone. It also speaks to a culture at city hall of decisions being made, council voting on them, and then it being council’s job to tell people about a decision that is already going forward. There will no doubt be many other important and divisive issue to come before council in the coming years, and we need to work at changing this.