Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Jessica Corsetti reports on Greta Thunberg's message that the wealthiest few value their own short-term profit-taking over the future of humanity. Paul Kahnert discusses how the privatization of health care is just the latest example of conservative heists from the public. And Sophia Harris reports on the lack of progress in the Competition Bureau's investigation into bread price fixing even in the face of Loblaws' confession.  

- Jordan Uhl reports on a fossil fuel tycoon's attempt to silence Beto O'Rourke from even talking about the connection between massive donations and preferential treatment from a Republican governor. And Lisa Song examines the current state of knowledge as to the dangers of gas stoves (even as the oil and gas sector tries to shout down any inquiry into their effects). 

- The Red Deer Advocate reports on a new study showing the cost of starting up new, politically-controlled police services is far higher than assumed by the UCP (as well as the Sask Party). And Ryan Little, Adam Willis and Ben Conarck report on the impact of group violence reduction strategies in reducing the homicide rate in West Baltimore. 

- Gregory Beatty writes about the attempt by private religious schools to undermine the public education system in Saskatchewan.

- Finally, Carolyn Harper talks to Eric Topol about the lack of resources being put into preventing and treating long COVID at a point when a large proportion of the population is being set up to suffer from it. 

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- David MacDonald discusses the need to start tackling some of Canada's most expensive and least justifiable tax handouts to the rich:

The richest 10 per cent of Canadians enjoy an average of $20,500 a year in tax exemptions, credits, and other loopholes. That’s $6,000 more than in 1992 and it costs the federal government $58 billion—double what it paid in tax expenditures in 1992.

The cost to the federal government for all preferential personal income tax treatments, not just for the rich, has ballooned from $90 billion in 1992 to a projected $152 billion in 2018. That’s a 69 per cent cost increase since 1992.
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This is about taking a clear-eyed look at how Ottawa has been prioritizing tax expenditures that disproportionately benefit a few at the expense of the many.

Meanwhile, government after government puts off making proper investments to ensure clean water and decent housing on Aboriginal reserves as well as delaying bold action on poverty reduction and homelessness.

In some Canadian cities, some working families are paying the equivalent of a second monthly mortgage just to get their children in child care.

Millennials are being asked to pay record-high tuition in order to get a university degree, only to graduate with record-high student debt and limited work opportunities.

The case for closing tax loopholes, shutting down tax credits and exemptions tilted heavily in favour of the rich and corporate Canada is really about diverting that money to pay for programs and services that benefit everyone—even the rich and corporations, because they benefit from a healthy, well-functioning society.

- Meanwhile, Benjamin Locke points out that Donald Trump's plan to favour the rich over the public includes his refusal to sign on to international efforts to combat tax evasion.

- Kathy Tomlinson exposes the widespread double-billing practices which make Canada's health care system far less universal than it's supposed to be. And Theresa Boyle reports on how medical care is influenced by secret payments from the big pharma to Canada's doctors.

- Ian Mulgrew points out that anti-SLAPP legislation is just one of the progressive steps forward British Columbia can expect once a Green-supported NDP government has a chance to get to work.

- Finally, Alex Boutilier reports on CSIS' illegal retention of all the metadata about people not under investigation which it collected without authority for a period of a decade.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Baratunde Thurston makes the point that even beyond income and wealth inequality, there's an obviously unfair distribution of second chances in the U.S. depending on one's race and class. Denis Campbell reports on the link between poverty and childhood obesity, while Jen St. Denis highlights how poverty can cause and exacerbate mental health problems.

- Kyle Bakx points out how a systematic effort to encourage people living in poverty to file their tax returns can result in help getting where it's needed most. And conversely, the Star 's editorial board writes that piling fines on people with no means to pay them serves no useful purpose.

- David Cay Johnston examines the U.S.' tax rolls and finds a large number of wealthy Americans paying no income tax at all:

In 2014, the latest year for which we have data, more than two million of the 148.6 million tax-filing households reported negative incomes. The number of such households has been rising for years. In 1994 it was 0.8% of income tax returns, but in 2014 it hit 1.4%. That's one in 73, up from one in 125.

Some of these households have one-time losses, usually from failed business. But many must be wealthy, too, benefiting from liberal tax avoidance laws set by Congress.

My detailed analysis of the official data shows that those who reported negative incomes on average are wealthier and enjoy more cash flow by far than the average American.

Some surprising facts:

• More than a fourth of these non-taxpaying households had paying jobs in 2014.
• These households had vastly more investment income than all but the top half of 1% of all households.
• One in three negative-income households reported receiving taxable interest, compared to 29% of all taxpayers. The average amount they reported was $6,939. For comparison, those making $75,000 to $100,000 in 2014 reported average taxable interest of just $860.

What we do not know is how many of these are people reporting negative income just once – and how many, like Trump, have reported negative income year-after-year, despite huge incomes that they collect free of income tax.
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When you get to even richer households, Donald Trump territory, you still find negative-income taxpayers: The 410,300 tax households reporting incomes of $1 million or more in 2014 had an average income that was more than $3.3 million. But 444 of these million-dollar-plus households – about one in 900 – paid no income tax.

- Doreen Nichol rightly argues that children living on reserves shouldn't face continued systemic discrimination, while Jody Porter reports that First Nations residents needing medical travel are facing regular breaches of privacy compared to other patients. And CBC reports that the Idle No More movement is rightly demanding that Justin Trudeau live up to his promises, rather than pretending that rhetoric is enough to make up for continued unfair treatment.

- In a similar vein, Nathan Cullen discusses the need to hold the Libs to their promise of electoral reform. And Tavia Grant reports on the Libs' failure to follow through on a commitment to ban the use of asbestos.

- Finally, Judith Lavoie comments on the need for renewed anti-SLAPP protection to allow people to participate meaningfully in public debates about the issues that affect them. And Michael Geist offers his suggestions for the future of Canadian journalism.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Saturday reading.

- Lana Payne writes that we're seeing exactly the results we should expect from Stephen Harper's foolish choice to push money upward:

A recent Globe and Mail story, using data from Statistics Canada, pointed out just how poorly the job market is doing under Stephen Harper’s leadership.

“Employment growth has been below 1 per cent for 15 months in a row.  The longest stretch … outside of recessions in almost 40 years of record-keeping,” according to the article by economics reporter Tavia Grant.

At the same time, corporate Canada is flush with cash, including billions of dollars in tax cuts from the federal government. Tax cuts that are not being spent to create jobs or invest in wages, despite the rhetoric behind them.

Indeed, corporate Canada, according to a recent report from CIBC WorldMarkets, is laughing all the way to the bank with the highest profit margins in 27 years.

But while the profit share of the country’s GDP continues to grow, the labour share continues to decline. The same report found that one-third of the country’s GDP was produced in sectors with falling labour costs.

The report noted that even with falling oil prices it doesn’t expect the profit market trend to be reversed. In other words, high profits are here to stay.

This may work for Bay Street, but on Main Street where politicians — even Stephen Harper — have to get elected, this is a mess. On Main Street, high profits and weak employment are not exactly a winning combination. The question is how or will the other two political parties capitalize on Harper’s failed economic record.

- Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Branko Milanovic study (PDF) the incentives of the ultra-rich and find that they're motivated primarily by increasing inequality rather than improving overall economic conditions. And George Monbiot highlights the distinction between the people who produce what matters, and those who merely exploit others around them:

One of the most painful lessons a young adult learns is that the wrong traits are rewarded. We celebrate originality and courage, but those who rise to the top are often conformists and sycophants. We are taught that cheats never prosper, yet the country is run by spivs. A study testing British senior managers and chief executives found that on certain indicators of psychopathy their scores exceeded those of patients diagnosed with psychopathic personality disorders in the Broadmoor special hospital.

If you possess the one indispensable skill – battering and blustering your way to the top – incompetence in other areas is no impediment. ...
As the pay gap widens – chief executives in the UK took 60 times as much as the average worker in the 1990s and 180 times as much today – the uselessness ratio is going through the roof I propose a name for this phenomenon: klepto-remuneration.

There is no end to this theft except robust government intervention: a redistribution of wages through maximum ratios and enhanced taxation. But this won’t happen until we challenge the infrastructure of justification, built so carefully by politicians and the press. Our lives are damaged not by the undeserving poor but by the undeserving rich.

- Meanwhile, Emily Dugan reports on the British Sociological Association's conclusion that a strong social safety net actually encourages more people to want to work.

- Thomas Walkom reminds us that Canada Post remains highly profitable while continuing to provide door-to-door delivery - meaning that the Cons' desire to destroy it is based on nothing more than general contempt for public services. But that obsession with privatizing isn't limited to the Cons, as Martin Regg Cohn warns the Ontario Libs against needlessly selling off parts of Hydro One.

- Finally, Sean Craig writes that the Wynne Libs have also selectively rewritten an anti-SLAPP bill for the benefit of themselves and their key donors. And Chris Wiseman duly criticizes the federal Libs for trying to silence Leadnow's grassroots opposition to C-51.

New column day

Here, on how user reviews and the wisdom of crowds don't do us much good if businesses are able to silence anything that raises concerns about them.

For further reading...
- Laura K makes a similar point here.
- CBC reports on libel chill here, including a discussion of the Ottawa property manager which managed to intimidate a tenant into pulling an unfavourable review.
- Again, Mike De Souza discusses Exxon Mobil's attempts to silence his reporting on ALEC here. Jenny Uechl and Warren Bell expose Canada's links to the Western Energy Alliance - including its dirty war against the public - here.
- And finally, CBC reports on Kinder Morgan's attempt to silence protestors and the #kmface movement which responded, while Lauren Krugel notes that there's ample reason to doubt Kinder Morgan's own spin.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Chris Matthews takes note of the gross growth of inequality in the U.S. Dean Baker notes that much of the wealth built on what's branded as "innovation" reflects little more than successful attempts to evade health, safety and consumer protection laws. And Mike De Souza explores how the notorious ALEC pushes climate denial and other anti-social policies with an alarming amount of support from businesses who (once challenged) claim not to know who they're funding.

- Meanwhile, Digby points out that the corporatist right is downright eager to work people to the point where they have to focus on bare survival rather than improving their lot in life. And Lana Payne warns us that the Cons are turning retirement into a luxury good rather than a reasonable expectation for most workers:

More and more Canadians believe they will never be able to retire, giving whole new meaning to the phrase “work till you drop.”
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(A) full 60 per cent (of Canadians) do not believe they have saved enough to retire in comfort. Not surprisingly, women and lower-income earners were even less likely to have saved enough.

Shockingly, one in five Canadians reported that they will never retire. In addition, nearly one-third of those surveyed said they didn’t know when they’d be able to retire. Stagnant wages are coming home to roost.

The survey also found that over 40 per cent of employers surveyed said their employees are overly optimistic with respect to their assessment of when they will be able to retire.

That is rather astonishing, considering the dreary outlook so many Canadians seem to hold about their ability to retire in comfort. Yet even Canadians’ low expectations about retirement are considered optimistic.
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CARP, the Canadian Association of Retired Persons, also supports enhancing CPP and notes the majority of Canadians agree. Indeed, the vast majority of CARP members see it as a ballot box question.

“We need federal and provincial governments willing to work together on a national solution to the national retirement savings problem,” CARP said in a statement.

It is clear that this won’t happen as long as the Harper Conservatives are in power.

We may as well add retirement income crisis to their legacy of neglect. Harper has been quoted as saying we won’t recognize Canada when he is done.

But damage can be undone, just as a new federal government can address the looming retirement crisis.

- But of course, the Cons are instead more interested in handing free money to families wealthy enough that they can already afford to have a parent stay home voluntarily. And even the Cons aren't pretending that income splitting could possibly offer meaningful help to households without a high-income worker - using that fact as an excuse to avoid offering any similar advantage for single-parent families.

- Mitch Jones points out that privatized water markets figure to do nothing but damage as we try to ensure the continued availability of a vital (and increasingly scarce) resource.

- Andrew Jackson reminds us that commodity markets are inevitably boom-and-bust - while recognizing that the Cons' obsession with pushing an oil-only economy has exposed Canada to dangerous risks as prices drop. And Mychaylo Prystupa reports that Kinder Morgan is SLAPPing Burnaby residents concerned about the effect of a pipeline expansion on their community.

- Finally, the Telegram slams the Cons for their continued contempt for election law - as well as their refusal to take responsibility for what's now a consistent, multiple-election pattern of illegality in their party. And Gerald Caplan writes that we should distinguish between mere members of Parliament and those who earn the title of "parliamentarian".

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Bill Maher offers some simple math and important observations about inequality:



- And Gary Engler proposes ten ways to build a better economic system.

- Vanessa Brcic points out that corporatized medicine is as unethical as it is inefficient. And Garry Patterson laments the premiers' weak response to the Harper Cons' attacks on health care.

- Dean Beeby reports that the CRA's investigation of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is focused squarely on the question of whether the CCPA is adequately complying with the Cons' definition of rightthink, while Dr. Dawg is duly appalled. And I'll also point out that the CCPA example surely answers Matt Gurney's rhetorical questions about CRA bias: surely it can't be anything but a gross abuse of power if Canada's tax authority is conducting investigations which respond solely to the concerns of Stephen Harper's former staffers (who may themselves have had inside knowledge that such complaints would be met with new money).

- Meanwhile, Shelina Ali discusses how anti-SLAPP legislation can help to ensure a genuine exchange of ideas despite corporate attempts to silence criticism.

- Finally, the Star writes about Barack Obama's push for global action against climate change - and how that focus may finally drag Canada along for the ride despite Stephen Harper's determination to value oil profits ahead of human welfare.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Neera Tanden points out that a wide range of citizens rely on a strong safety net at one time or another - and suggests that it's long past time to start discussing how important social programs have been in our own lives:

I believe we have a historic opportunity to address poverty today, because the interests of low-income people and the middle class are converging. Median wages—the wages of middle-income earners—have been stagnant for twelve years. People recognize there is growing inequality in this country and that something is amiss when companies are doing well but people aren’t—when dividends, stock prices, and CEO salaries rise but wages don’t.

And while we have a clear opportunity to make the connection between the interests of people in poverty and the interests of the middle class, we have our work cut out for us. Conservatives have successfully pitted people in the middle against people struggling near the bottom. They are skilled at exploiting economic anger and anxiety, fear and distrust. For example, they have convinced many Americans that many people who turn to the safety net want to be on welfare rather than having a job. This mistaken notion is particularly troubling right now, when the hardest-hit communities face high unemployment rates of 20 to 30 percent. Conservatives say we have to break up the safety net or people won’t pursue jobs. But the truth is those jobs just don’t exist right now. So the real effect of these heartless policies will be more people hungry, more people homeless, and more children with fewer opportunities to succeed—children just like my brother and I.

For my family, as for many American families, the safety net was a bridge that carried us through hard times. That’s why it’s important that I tell my story.
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When we take on the assumptions and stereotypes directly—and actually look at the lives of poor people—we see in fact that their lives are full of struggle (including the struggle to navigate a welfare system that seems designed to make it as hard as possible for people to receive benefits).

- Alex Boutilier writes that the Cons are now scrambling for accurate labour market information in an effort to figure out what to do with temporary foreign workers - after having slashed exactly that type of data collection as part of their war on evidence. But as Andrew Coyne points out, there's a fairly obvious answer if the Cons are willing to let newly-arrived workers have a future in Canada by eliminating the "temporary" part of their designation, rather than wanting to make sure they remain disposable at an employer's behest.

- Meanwhile, Paul Adams discusses how Stephen Harper has become a leading figure for climate denialists around the globe (much to Canada's embarrassment):

More than anything, Abbott admires Harper because he sees him as a world leader in the fight against doing anything meaningful to contain global warming.

Like Harper, at one time Abbott was close to being an outright climate change denier. “The argument (behind climate change) is absolute crap,” he once remarked.

Nowadays, Abbott, like Harper, could best be described as a “skeptic”. He acknowledges that climate change is occurring but doubts the role that carbon emissions play in it. He got into a scrap with a UN climate change official and Australia’s own Climate Council over the possible link between climate change and his country’s unusually severe wildfires last October.

(Abbott took a page out of Harper’s book by abolishing the state-funded Climate Council, whose mission is to provide independent scientific information...)
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Like Canada, whose economic dependence on dirty tar sands oil has grown under Harper, Australia has an emissions problem. In fact, Abbott seems bent on increasing the growth of his country’s coal industry, which is closely linked to China’s economic expansion.

That’s why Abbott is joining Harper in forming a cabal of nations trying to slow efforts to contain emissions. He is trying to repeal the carbon tax imposed by Gillard. And he has been an outspoken critic of President Obama’s recent climate-change initiative.

As chairman of the G-20 meeting slated for November in Brisbane, Abbott is resolute in keeping climate change off the agenda.

- Finally, Justin Ling reports on the Canadian military's extensive monitoring of Idle No More protestors. And CBC finds the Cape Breton and Central Nova Scotia Railway to be rather less subtle in its efforts to shut down any discussion of rail safety - including by threatening elected officials with legal action if they say or do anything about crumbling rail lines.

Friday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Friday reading.

- Susan Riley points out that nothing positive figures to come from the Cons' plans to slash Canada's public service:

No good will come of proposed public service cuts, if experience is any guide. Not a leaner, more nimble public service, certainly, and not a more affordable one. Any savings, history suggests, will be illusory, counter-productive or transient.
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It is "theoretically possible" to redesign a bureaucracy to reward enterprise, improve efficiency and prune outdated programs and unproductive individuals, says Carleton University business professor Linda Duxbury. And she believes the federal shop, which has grown relentlessly in the Harper years, is due for a downsizing.

"But the practical reality is that it rarely happens," she says. That's because politicians don't start by asking what they want the public service to do - and what skills will be needed - but focus obsessively on saving money.

And the easiest way to save money is to reduce staffing. Whenever the economy falters, politicians resort to easy caricature - the public servant as indulged, pencil-pushing slacker - and out come the pink slips and running shoes.
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Next week, Clement, nine other ministers and senior mandarins - along with a private consultant making $90,000 a day - will receive plans from 70 departments and agencies outlining potential five-per-cent cuts, and 10-per-cent cuts, in ongoing spending. And, while Treasury Board isn't promising retirement, or buyout, incentives to workers, apparently senior executives will get bonuses (bounty is such an ugly word) based on the savings they find.

It adds up to a disaster-in-themaking: impulsive cuts motivated by optics and ideology, with notional savings devoured by new priorities - more prisons, more foreign military interventions and those expensive fighter jets.

- But then, Dan Gardner once again notes that evidence of any expected positive outcome has been deemed utterly unnecessary as the Cons continue to push their dumb-on-crime agenda:

The Conservatives had long claimed that mandatory minimums worked. They campaigned on it. But they didn't actually have any evidence that this was true, so when I called the minister's office, the minister's office demanded the civil service whip up some evidence. Pronto.

What the civil service came up with was the best case they could make for the minister's claim. Lipstick on a pig, in other words.

Now, one might think the minister and his staff would have been taken aback by this experience. This was a key claim about a critical issue. And they had been forced to confront the fact that they had no evidence. Maybe that would make them worry a little. Experience some doubt. Even - let us speak in whispers - reconsider.

I don't know if they worried or doubted. But they did reconsider: From then on, the Conservatives stopped even pretending to have evidence to support their claims.
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Research is a drag. Assessing evidence is boring. Marshalling arguments takes work. And the Conservatives have made it absolutely clear that they have no intention of engaging in a meaningful, evidence-based discussion about crime policy.

Maybe that will change some day. I hope so. This is important stuff. I'd love to have the sort of substantive, back-and-forth debate that helps the public decide what is and isn't true.

But until then, I'll simply make an assertion - this government is cynical, contemptuous, and intellectually bankrupt - and leave it that.

- Apparently the NDP is doing more than just calling out Sebastien Togneri for trying to stifle criticism: it's also introducing terminology unfamiliar to Canada's media as to how parties try to shut down public discussion. So for the benefit of Jennifer Ditchburn and others who may be going off of audio rather than written references: the term is SLAPP.

- Finally, there seems to be an entertaining finger-pointing war going on between the Cons and the defence department over - with lower-level officials joining Walt Natynczyk in getting called out for overuse of publicly-owned jets, while Peter MacKay tries to answer for using a search and rescue helicopter to get back from vacation and a Challenger jet to get to a lobster festival. But let's note that there seems to be a common theme of expensive government transportation being used on both sides of the institutional divide between the Cons and the department - which may call into question whether there's a genuine need for planes which apparently weren't being used otherwise.