Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Christina Maxouris and Alaa Elassar report on a new study showing the U.S. could save tens of thousands of lives by requiring universal mask use. And the Economist notes that a single person wearing a mask for a day can produce over $50 in value through that act alone.

- The Leader-Post and Star-Phoenix' editorial boards team up to argue for stronger provincial action to ensure safe schools this fall. But they notably fall short of addressing the problems of class size and facilities which loom as the issues requiring the most investment - particularly in light of the research reported on by Chase Banger which shows how increased class sizes could cause COVID-19 to spread by large multiples.

- Meanwhile, Natalie Nanowski discusses how a return to less-than-safe schools is likely to force isolation within families as vulnerable people have to choose between maintaining contact with children and staff exposed to school populations, and their own health.

- Ismail Ibrahim and Joey Jamil write about the need for action to avoid an eviction crisis in Ontario as landlords have been given the ability to hike rent and push people out of their homes even as temporary income supports are disappearing. And Melissa Lopez-Martinez reports on Mumilaaq Qaqqaq's work highlighting the desperate need for safe and healthy housing in Nunavut.

- Finally, Mark Melnychuk reports on the continued lack of mental health supports in Saskatchewan, as well as the activists fighting to make them available.

New column day

Here, on how Scott Moe's equalization bluster ultimately shows only that he's more interested in political posturing than responsible governance.

For further reading...
- Gregory Beatty reviews how Saskatchewan's effort to remove renewable resource revenue from the equalization formula was abandoned when Brad Wall decided it was inconvenient to remind the public of Stephen Harper's broken promises, while Murray Mandryk also traced the history in connection with the Saskatchewan Party's leadership campaign. And Tim Cook reported on Lorne Calvert's plan for a constitutional challenge when it was raised.
- The Star-Phoenix' editorial board calls for an adult conversation about equalization. And Daniel Beland, Gregory Marchildon, Andre Lecours and Rose Olfert rightly argue that Moe's attempt to undermine the concept of equalization itself falls far short of the mark.
- Finally, the column's reference to the expected returns from a carbon price are based on this policy brief (PDF) from Dale Eisler, Margot Hurlbert, Jim Marshall and Jeremy Rayner.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- The Star-Phoenix calls for Saskatchewan's election campaign to focus on the future rather than the past. And Paul Orlowski reminds us of the continued callous corporatism that's in store if Brad Wall holds on to power.

- Meanwhile, Bruce Johnstone points out that the Saskatchewan Party's spin on the past bears no resemblance whatsoever to reality. And Geoff Leo fact-checks Wall's attempts to avoid responsibility for his government's Global Transportation Hub land scandal.

- The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives offers up its alternative federal budget aimed at both reducing poverty and generating development. And in one hopeful (if only preliminary) step, the Libs appear willing to consider strengthening Canada Post by looking at banking and other services, rather than treating stagnation and privatization as the only options.

- Danyaal Raza and Ryan Meili discuss the economic and health costs of expecting people to work while sick (or requiring them to forfeit pay if they can't).

- Finally, Tabatha Southey rightfully challenges the idea that activism is something to be criticized rather than applauded - and its roots in the belief that there are few if any social problems left to be ameliorated:

In part, the rejection of activism as a concept stems from a belief that a sufficient amount of change has already been made. It has to stop. We’ve literally done enough as a society – not-society can stop asking for stuff now.

It’s a way of thinking that emerges when people frame the righting of great historic wrongs (letting the other half of the population vote, not literally owning people) as concessions that one group has personally made, as largesse bestowed in some sort of ongoing negotiation for which there must be quid pro quo.

That’s just not how this better-society thing works, people. Yes, it’s not illegal to be gay any more. That doesn’t mean straight people get to demand more seasons of Everyone Loves Raymond and free Dockers when next everyone’s back at the bargaining table.

The constant disparaging of activism – the casual acceptance of the idea that the more dedicated a person is to a subject, the less they are worth listening to on that subject – has been fashionable for a while now.

The plethora of “Taxpayers for …” and “Concerned Citizens Against …” groups is a reaction to that trend. These people are “concerned,” about an issue, you see, having apparently rejected “Peeved” and “Indignant” as descriptors. We are to understand that while, yes, these groups are campaigning to bring about political or societal change through vigorous action, the difference is they’re right.

All of this is how we come to the less-than-clarion call to arms, “I am not an activist.”

Well, lady, take out another bus shelter, when you’re ready to say you are.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- The Star-Phoenix duly calls out the Wall government's short-sighted slashing of funding for homeless shelters:

Regardless of how the government frames the changes, access to services is being denied to some of the most vulnerable people in the communities of Saskatoon and North Battleford.

And the government is saving money or aims to save money in the long run. This is short-sighted.

Taking away essential services only shifts the costs. The provincial government may be saving money, but the municipalities funding police may find their resources strained.

Studies have proven that housing the homeless can be far cheaper than leaving them on the streets and letting police and other emergency services deal with them. Offloading the cost and deflecting the criticism offers the attraction of making the province’s books look slightly better while sticking to the perception no cuts are being made.
...
Social Services officials need to realize their tightening of rules has really ripped holes in the social safety net and is allowing the most vulnerable to slip through. It will cost us all more in the long run.

[Update: And Cathie points out how the decision fits into the Saskatchewan Party's usual modus operandi.]

- Meanwhile, CBC reports on the federal government's refusal to fund medically necessary services for First Nations patients.

- Paul Willcocks reviews how the Christy Clark Libs' budget is designed to exacerbate inequality. And the Vancouver Sun is particularly critical of a rapidly-growing health care premium.

- Aleksandra Sagan highlights how increasing food prices are putting ever more pressure on lower-income households.

- Kelsey Johnston reports on the Libs' decision to abandon the Canadian Wheat Board or anything remotely resembling it. And PressProgress charts how farmers are suffering as a result of the ill-advised choice with the Libs are seemingly backing.

- Finally, Monia Mazigh looks at the Canadian Border Services Agency's extended detention of asylum seekers as an example of what happens when a state security apparatus lacks both a clearly-defined purpose and any meaningful accountability.

You say "glib", I say "callous and dehumanizing". Let's just call the whole thing off.

Sadly, even a modicum of criticism of Brad Wall on Saskatchewan's editorial pages is all too rare. But while the Star-Phoenix offers at least that much, is there any doubt that Wall's contempt for inmates (among others who rely on provincial services) goes far beyond problems with his tone?

Update: Murray Mandryk gets closer to the mark. 

Update II: And Robyn Urback is right on:

Barbarous societies revel in treating inmates like chattel; the Canadian system should aspire to draw no parallel.

New column day

Here, on Donna Harpauer and the Saskatchewan Party are dismissing their own advisory group's recommendation to work to cut Saskatchewan poverty in half by the end of the decade.

For further reading...
- The StarPhoenix echoes Donna Harpauer's defeatism.
- Danielle Martin and Ryan Meili make the case for a basic income, which appears as one of the advisory group's recommendations. 
- And for a review of the multiplier effects of different fiscal choices, see Mark Zandi's analysis here (PDF) - showing infrastructure spending and income supports accomplishing far more than tax cuts or corporate giveaways.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Ezra Klein discusses how a corporate focus on buybacks and dividends rather than actually investing capital leads to less opportunities for workers. Nora Loreto offers her take on precarious work in Canada. And Lynne Fernandez and Kirsten Bernas make the case for a living wage in Manitoba and elsewhere.

- Paul Krugman writes that if the Republicans manage to take both houses of Congress, we can expect them to turn voodoo economics into the default means of evaluating policy choices.

- Murray Mandryk crunches some numbers and finds that the main effect of the much-ballyhooed SaskPower carbon capture and sequestration project is to transfer a massive amount of money from the public to the oil sector. And SaskWind follows up by pointing out that it's already possible to secure better value for money investing in wind power.

- Andrew MacLeod exposes how the B.C. Libs want to take another step in silencing non-profits - this time by giving outsiders (and particularly those with enough money to fund constant court proceedings) the ability to force any non-profit to comply with their view of the public interest. And Vaughn Palmer notes that it's nothing new for the Clark Libs to bully people using the power of the state and the public purse.

- Finally, Karl Nerenberg writes that the purpose of the latest Iraq war is simply to defend the legacy of failure arising out of previous ones. And the Star-Phoenix' editorial board argues that it's time to stop the march to war before it's too late.

On public priorities

I'm not sure whether last week's column played a role, but there have been an awful lot of attacks on Saskatchewan's Crowns since then at a time when the parties don't seem to be highlighting the issue. So let's sum up the arguments being made to undermine the public enterprises that are serving Saskatchewan so well.

Shorter Will Chabun:

Sure, actual people may be better off because of Crown competition in the wireless sector. But won't somebody think of the rent-seekers?

And shorter Star-Phoenix editorial board:

The Wall Saskatchewan Party has no coherent or sensible policy when it comes to the Crowns. So let's eliminate the only legal barrier to a wholesale sell-off and see what happens.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- The Star-Phoenix discusses how the Cons are systematically attacking the independent institutions which are necessary to ensure a functioning democratic system:

When a handful of Conservative MPs from Saskatchewan attacked the integrity of the province's electoral boundaries commissioners last year in an attempt to subvert the democratic process, it may have seemed to be a rogue act of an outlier group of politicians concerned with their electoral future.

But when you consider the tactics of the MPs, who accused Justice Ronald Mills and political scientist Prof. John Courtney on the commission of attempting to gerrymander the boundaries, as well as the Conservative party's illegal use of robocalls, push polls and misleading mass mail-outs in the context of its other attempts to pull end runs around Canada's democratic institutions, it creates a chilling narrative.
...
Unlike the government's poor handling of such things as grain transportation, for which Canada was told at a recent international conference that it's no longer considered a reliable global supplier, these attempts to undermine democracy aren't simple cases of mismanagement. They suggest a pattern of behaviour detrimental to the very foundation of Canadian democracy.

- Meanwhile, Jeffrey Simpson notes that Canada's other federal party leaders - along with the occasional Con MP - can agree to iVote's view that we need to foster broad political participation by youth in particular. But Simpson is also right to note that parties will need to do more to speak to the long-term interest of younger voters.

- And Newfoundland and Labrador's new budget offers one example of that type of policy - as the governing PCs have taken up the NDP's proposal to shift from student loans to grants.

- If we needed any further indication that constant tar-sands cheerleading is a loser if exposed to the light of day, the Cons have sunk to the level of pretending that their highly visible, publicly-funded ad campaign didn't happen. And the U.S. loudly announced sorely-needed regulations governing the shipment of explosive oil products by rail - only to gut them quietly only nine days later.

- Finally, Paul Dechene reports on the Regina Public School Board's determination to shutter Connaught School - while Stephen Whitworth looks at how some parents are pushing back.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Paul Krugman points out how the U.S.' corporate elites are agitating to make sure that any economic recovery helps only those at the top, rather than reaching most workers in the form of wage increases:

Suddenly, it seems as if all the serious people are telling each other that despite high unemployment there’s hardly any “slack” in labor markets — as evidenced by a supposed surge in wages — and that the Federal Reserve needs to start raising interest rates very soon to head off the danger of inflation.

To be fair, those making the case for monetary tightening are more thoughtful and less overtly political than the archons of austerity who drove the last wrong turn in policy. But the advice they’re giving could be just as destructive.
...
(A)lthough the current monetary debate isn’t as openly political as the previous fiscal debate, it’s hard to escape the suspicion that class interests are playing a role. A fair number of commentators seem oddly upset by the notion of workers getting raises, especially while returns to bondholders remain low. It’s almost as if they identify with the investor class, and feel uncomfortable with anything that brings us close to full employment, and thereby gives workers more bargaining power.
...
Is wage growth actually taking off? That’s far from clear. But if it is, we should see rising wages as a development to cheer and promote, not a threat to be squashed with tight money.

- And Robert Reich writes that neither soaring executive compensation nor the suppression of most workers' wages has anything to do with productivity or merit:

Fifty years ago, when General Motors was the largest employer in America, the typical GM worker got paid $35 an hour in today’s dollars. Today, America’s largest employer is Walmart, and the typical Walmart workers earns $8.80 an hour.

Does this mean the typical GM employee a half-century ago was worth four times what today’s typical Walmart employee is worth? Not at all. Yes, that GM worker helped produce cars rather than retail sales. But he wasn’t much better educated or even that much more productive. He often hadn’t graduated from high school. And he worked on a slow-moving assembly line. Today’s Walmart worker is surrounded by digital gadgets — mobile inventory controls, instant checkout devices, retail search engines — making him or her quite productive.

The real difference is the GM worker a half-century ago had a strong union behind him that summoned the collective bargaining power of all autoworkers to get a substantial share of company revenues for its members. And because more than a third of workers across America belonged to a labor union, the bargains those unions struck with employers raised the wages and benefits of non-unionized workers as well. Non-union firms knew they’d be unionized if they didn’t come close to matching the union contracts.

Today’s Walmart workers don’t have a union to negotiate a better deal. They’re on their own. And because fewer than 7 percent of today’s private-sector workers are unionized, non-union employers across America don’t have to match union contracts. This puts unionized firms at a competitive disadvantage. The result has been a race to the bottom.

By the same token, today’s CEOs don’t rake in 300 times the pay of average workers because they’re “worth” it. They get these humongous pay packages because they appoint the compensation committees on their boards that decide executive pay. Or their boards don’t want to be seen by investors as having hired a “second-string” CEO who’s paid less than the CEOs of their major competitors. Either way, the result has been a race to the top.

...
The “paid-what-[you're]-worth” argument is fundamentally misleading because it ignores power, overlooks institutions, and disregards politics. As such, it lures the unsuspecting into thinking nothing whatever should be done to change what people are paid, because nothing can be done. 

Don’t buy it.

- The Star-Phoenix notes that the Sask Party's ideology is preventing it from even considering a poverty strategy or other steps which might give Saskatchewan's poor a fair chance (even when they could also reflect a sound investment from a money standpoint alone). Murray Mandryk writes that the Wall government is similarly evidence-averse when it comes to evaluating the tens of millions of dollars being poured into "lean" consulting. And Craig Jones observes that the Cons' dumb-on-crime agenda is likewise based purely on political calculation rather than any public policy purpose.

- But Thomas Walkom laments the unwillingness of our major political parties to make the case to fund social goods. And based in large part on similar concerns, Matthew Taylor theorizes that much of the work to be done in developing policy which actually considers the public interest will have to take place outside of the partisan sphere.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Hassan Arif theorizes that a failure to identify and address growing inequality may have played a significant role in the rise of Rob Ford's destructive anti-socialism:

The Toronto of towering new condos, of downtown coffee shops and trendy restaurants and stores, is far removed from the Toronto of these low-income, suburban, and largely visible minority residents. A “plain-talking” politician who rails against downtown elites, against “slick talking lawyers”, “consultants”, and recipients of “research grants” appeals to those who feel left behind.
...
These concerns, about suburban alienation, about inequality, are concerns that need to be seriously addressed in Toronto. While Rob Ford has not concretely tackled the issues concerning the inner-suburban poor, he has politically benefitted from their discontent.
...
Toronto ultimately needs a public discourse – and public officials including a new mayor – focussed on seriously addressing the concerns of poverty and alienation in the inner-suburbs while also prioritizing the economic development and growth of an emerging global city. Prosperity is important, but it must benefit everyone. Ultimately, the focus must be on governing for all of Toronto, not neglecting parts of it, or – worse yet – pitting different elements against each other.

- Meanwhile, Alan Broadbent takes the position that the solution to inequality revolves entirely around slightly improved conditions for the poor - and has some positive suggestions on that front, including echoing Jim Stanford's take on the importance of unions. But David Atkins rightly points out that a truly effective policy will need to properly balance the relative social influence of the poor, the middle class and the wealthy. And Nafeez Ahmed describes the type of widespread, private-sector surveillance and control that develops when too much wealth gets clustered in the hands of too few corporate elites.

- Laurie Monsbraaten reports on the Ontario Libs' planned legislation to protect workers facing precarious employment. But while the plan looks like a positive move, it remains to be seen how much effort is put into enforcing the law - assuming it gets passed in the first place.

- Tim Harper writes that the refusal of Senate Cons to hear from auditors who were instructed to change their review of questioned expenses reflects a scandal playing out in broad daylight. Rod Love thinks the Cons' biggest problem is that they could have gone to greater lengths to cover up their bribery and corruption. And Michael Harris counters by arguing that Stephen Harper should step down.

- Finally, the Star-Phoenix' editorial board rightly slams the Wall government for budget practices which have become so shady as to have drawn an adverse opinion from the provincial auditor.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Gordon Hoekstra reports on a study by British Columbia determining that Canada lacks any hope of containing the types of oil spills which will become inevitable if the Cons' pipe-and-ship plans come to fruition. But once again, the Cons' response is to make clear that they consider an ounce of self-delusion and denial to be worth a pound of cure.

- Meanwhile, the Star-Phoenix' editorial board recognizes the desperate need for resource-rich provinces to handle their wealth responsibility:

(P)rovinces such as Saskatchewan and Alberta are dipping ever deeper into their one-time resource revenue to pay their bills. Saskatchewan, for example, now depends on resources for about 25 per cent of spending, up from less than 10 per cent in the 1990s.

Alberta is in even deeper trouble. This led University of Calgary economist Jack Mintz to recently recommend that Alberta adopt a 13 per cent HST. Rod Love, former premier Ralph Klein's adviser, responded by saying westerners would destroy any politician who proposed any sort of taxes.

That illustrates why Alberta and Saskatchewan's governments would rather squander their future than introduce a rational tax strategy. It's worth noting that after nearly four decades, Alberta has an estimated $16 billion in its wealth fund while Norway has socked away more than $600 billion over the same period.

Norway had the advantage of being a national government. Canada's resource wealthy provinces must better manage their advantage before Ottawa is compelled by its Constitution to do the job for them.

- The Wellesley Institute takes a closer look at minimum-wage earners in Ontario - and finds hundreds of thousands of adults aged 25 and up trying to make a living at or near the minimum. Vincent McDermott reports on the replacement of hundreds of employees in Fort McMurray with temporary foreign workers in an attempt to lower wages and undercut unions. And the Canadian Press discusses a push for stronger enforcement of workplace safety standards in Manitoba - including real consequences for employers who suppress employee injuries.

- Andrew Mitrovica points out why we should be particularly concerned to know that a surveillance apparatus set up in the name of security is being used for all kinds of other purposes:

So what that they suck at catching the bad guys? (Anyone remember the murderous Tsarnaev brothers?) So what that the CSEC, NSA and Britain’s GCHQ can invade, unchecked, every aspect of our lives in the electronic ether? So what that together these agencies can, as The Guardian newspaper aptly put it, “harvest, store, and analyze millions of phone calls, emails and search engine queries,” every day? So what that they can keep that information about you for however long they like? So what that they break every bit of encryption you might use to afford you even the illusion of security?

I think what Shorten and Snowden have done is a courageous and eloquent rebuttal to the so-what crowd. This stuff does matter, and we need to know about it. We need to know about it because publicly the powers that be insist, like Boisvert, that the CSEC and its sister agencies exist to protect you and me from the bad guys. But we now know, courtesy of Shorten and Snowden, that we’re the real targets. They’re spying on us.

- And finally, Dr. Dawg discusses Canada's ignominious week resulting from the Cons' choice to use government resources for the exclusive benefit of private resource extractors:

Doing some industrial espionage in Brazil for private corporations—and getting caught. Instructing the Maldives on how to run clean elections. Threatening the Commonwealth.

Why is the Canadian state running errands for mining companies? Well, it’s not the first time, of course. Our trade alliance with the bloody narco-state of Colombia was based upon mining interests. The deep-sixing of a private member’s bill to enforce mining company ethics abroad is another example. (No surprise, the Harper government was supported by the Liberals in each case.) But when our government grossly misuses the public service—CSEC is supposed to be ensuring national security, not working to enhance corporate profits—we’ve gone well past the usual pro-business politics. Even as a gofer, the state has no place in the boardrooms of the nation. And to be caught at it—thank you, Edward Snowden—is plain cringeworthy.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Tim Harper writes about Scott Vaughan's final report as the federal environmental commissioner:

Scott Vaughan doesn’t have the profile of some of his contemporaries but as the environmental commissioner bowed out with a final report Tuesday, he reminded official Ottawa how much he will be missed.

Vaughan is leaving after five years of what he calls — in typical understatement — identifying “gaps” in the environmental policies of the Conservative government. More often than not, those gaps are more like chasms.

He also departs at a time when the environment and the economy has never been so intertwined in this country, a point he hammered home before taking his leave.

...

“We know that there’s a boom in natural resources in this country and I think what we need now, given the gaps, given the problems we found, is a boom in environmental protection in this country as well,” he said.

- Meanwhile, Aaron Wherry has some suggestions to make the Parliamentary Budget Officer more effective based on the U.S.' Congressional Budget Office. But I'm not sure there's much hope the Cons will accept "more resources" as an answer if it might cut into their advertising budget.

- The Star-Phoenix rightly called the Cons' robocall attacks against Saskatchewan's federal electoral boundaries commission "disgusting" - and just in time for the Cons to fess up only once the case had been proven against them.

- And Bill Tieleman is working on exposing the shadowy figures behind B.C.'s million-dollar corporatist media blitz.

- Finally, NDP MP Laurin Liu offers her ideas to make Parliament more effective and representative.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Jeffrey Simpson rightly notes that Alberta (like other resource-heavy jurisdictions) should be trying to diversify its revenue sources and economic development instead of relying on the one-time sale of publicly-owned resources to pay the bills. And Robyn Allan points out why we shouldn't let oil barons pretend they need yet more concessions when it comes to pipeline construction:

U.S. consumers are not benefiting at our expense. A benefit from lower-priced Western Canadian crude oil at the refinery gate in the U.S. is not passed onto U.S. consumers in the form of lower prices for gasoline, jet fuel or diesel. U.S. consumers in the Midwest are price gouged.

It's the refining sector that sees the benefit of lower priced WCS in the form of windfall profits from low feedstock costs. To the extent U.S.-based refineries are owned by companies producing oil in Canada, there are no losses -- real or imaginary. Cenovus is one of those companies. After claiming a huge hit for the industry, and by implication, Cenovus, five minutes later Ferguson told his audience, "we are substantially benefiting (from the wide differentials) at our refinery in Wood River" where 130,000 barrels a day -- the majority of crude Cenovus produces -- is delivered.

So Ferguson's company is not suffering. And any other integrated oil company with refinery interests is not suffering.

- Michel Barnier, the EU's Internal Markets Commissioner, makes the case for a financial transactions tax as both a source of revenue and a check on rampant speculative trading:

"The financial crisis ... broke the back of growth and after all we helped out the financial sector, it's perfectly right and fair that it should give something back," he said.

The controversial tax on trading in stocks, bonds and derivatives came a step closer on Tuesday when European Union finance ministers allowed some member states to proceed with the plan, intended to reap billions of euros for struggling European nations.

Barnier said the tax was "perfectly bearable," and could be "applied fairly easily in technical terms."

Barnier acknowledged the fact the tax would be limited to Europe was a weakness.

"I would prefer it of course if this tax were a worldwide tax," he said. "I would prefer it if the UK and even the U.S. were on board."

- Mark Kennedy and Jason Fekete report that Stephen Harper doesn't consider Canada's First Nations to rate even a mention in his discussion with the Con caucus. But even the fact that's hardly the most hostile response the aboriginal movement has seen from Harper and his party just this week seems to fall short of capturing the Cons' wilful neglect of First Nations: instead, the Cons seem to have decided that they've heard more out of the Idle No More movement in the past few months than they expect to have to address in their entire stay in office, and are working to sever any remaining lines of communication so they can get back to their trained seal routine.

- Finally, the Star Phoenix weighs in on how Saskatchewan's new electoral boundaries finally bring us closer to nationally-recognized standards for communities of interest. But naturally, the Cons have laid the groundwork to preserve artificial divisions which serve their electoral purposes.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- The Ottawa Citizen asks whether Stephen Harper's Conservatives think Canadians are stupid enough to fall for their asinine carbon tax spin. Aaron Wherry confirms that the answer is an emphatic "yes".

- But then, we shouldn't be surprised to see the Cons unveiling ever more blatant distractions to try to call attention away from their continued contempt for democracy.

- The Star-Phoenix editorial board echoes Erin Weir's call to ban corporate and union donations to Saskatchewan political parties:

For a government that cites concerns about the undue influence unions have wielded over the decades on Saskatchewan labour legislation and has expressed annoyance with unionpaid ads that criticize its policies, it's a cynical stance to respond to Mr. Weir's proposal by saying, "We have no plans to change the current policy, which has been in place for many years under both NDP and Sask. Party governments."

Mr. Wall could well end up regretting poking a stick into this hornet's nest. Not only will it bring into sharper focus the policy choices being made by a governing party that's backed heavily by the corporate sector, but it also raises questions about the role of third-party advertising during writ periods. After all, if unions shouldn't be spending their members' money on political ads, what about corporations spending money from shareholders - among them mutual funds investing union members' pension money, for instance - for the same purpose?

Rather than remain the wild west of political party financing, with no limits on donations - even perennially conservative Alberta has a limit, albeit a whopping $30,000 per union or company during an election year, while Ontario's limit is $9,300 - Saskatchewan should act to put the control back in the hands of actual voters by eliminating corporate and union contributions.

- And finally, a new Ipsos Reid poll makes clear that Canadians don't want to hand over billions in free money to big pharma for the sake of closing a free trade agreement with Europe.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- The Star-Phoenix editorial board comments on the need to crack down on tax havens:

(T)he scale of the avoidance Mr. Henry detailed in his report, The Price of Offshore Revisited, drives home just how immoral is the practice of tax avoidance, particularly at a time when even rich countries such as Spain and the United States are staggering under their debt loads and deficits because they can't raise enough tax revenue.

As Gwynne Dyer, a Canadian journalist based in Britain, notes in a recent column published in Embassy magazine, despite efforts by some governments to recoup tax revenues lost offshore, the problem has more than doubled over the last five years just as debt crises and resulting austerity measures have thrown millions out work.

The fact there are relatively few people hiding so much in a relatively few places such as Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Cayman Islands, and Jersey should make it simple for the international community to exert pressure to collect the taxes that governments are owed.

Since the tax revenue and corrupt funds come from all countries - from small developing nations to outlaw states to the largest economies in the world - a global agreement not only should be possible but imperative.

- But lest anybody think it'll be easy to get the 1% to live up to social obligations, the same Canadian corporate sector that's hoarding giant piles of unused cash is demanding approval not to use its reserves to properly fund employee pensions.

- Even as they claim to have no resources to provide for basic social needs, the Cons have set up a secret torture committee and plan to burn $1 billion on drone warfare. Which means it's no wonder they're so determined to silence anybody who might point out a principled need for action.

- Speaking of which, Don Lenihan and Graham Fox discuss how the Cons have inverted Canadian federalism by refusing to take any responsibility for the public policy areas Canadians care about most:

(T)he federal government seems to have opted for a more transactional approach to governance, concentrating on issues like border security, crime and natural resources. The Harper government seems uncomfortable with complex processes and relationships, so its guiding principle is to keep things as simple as possible.

By contrast, the Council of the Federation (COF) is emerging as a new kind of collaborative forum. The provinces are using it to build and test the strategies and coalitions they think governments need to solve complex issues...

...The provinces, recall, have responsibility for many of the issues that register the least confidence (and highest complexity), such as health, education and other social services.
As a result, the pressure on them to experiment and collaborate is growing exponentially.

This, in turn, is pushing them toward more pan-Canadian approaches, while the federal government, which views its responsibilities as more transactional, is returning to watertight compartments and bilateral relationships.
...
(I)f the provincial effort is even modestly successful, we don’t think the federal government can avoid engaging for long. We believe it has a natural leadership role in this new, pan-Canadian environment. Its networks, infrastructure, resources, and legislative authority would make an essential contribution to solving issues around energy, healthcare and innovation. Eventually, the federal government will have to come back to the table — whether it be this government or some future one.

Friday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to end your week.

- Tim Harper suggests that the Cons are running out of options to try to push the Gateway pipeline on a thoroughly-opposed public in British Columbia. But in keeping with the Cons' general view of the world as nothing but a public relations problem to be shouted down for financial gain, James Moore and Gwyn Morgan are sure they have the answer: more high-priced spin from Enbridge and other tar-sands operators. And pogge rightly notes that part of the anti-environment strategy figures to include an effort to paint all environmental activism and advocacy as "terrorism".

- Carol Goar comments on the continuing efforts of Canadian doctors to save health care for refugees from the Cons' cuts:

Rashid, a family physician, is one of the founders of Canadian Doctors for Refugee Care, which has vowed to track and report cases of death or serious harm resulting from Kenney’s $20-million-a-year cutback.

It took effect a month ago. But reports already are coming in: a 7-year-old epileptic boy in Hamilton was hospitalized for a severe seizure because he could not get medicine; a woman who had endured multiple rapes after she was sold into the sex trade couldn’t get an ultrasound for the fetus she was carrying; a Colombian man is desperately fundraising to pay Toronto General Hospital for life-saving abdominal surgery; two refugee claimants in Ottawa — one Peruvian, the other El Salvadoran — have stopped taking their post-traumatic stress medications.

By fall, the doctors hope to have a compendium of cases from across the country. A local delegation of medical workers will show up every time a cabinet minister makes an announcement, the government calls a news conference or Parliament holds public hearings to highlight specific cases. “None of us wants to disrupt meetings, but we really feel we have no choice,” said Tim O’Shea of McMaster University, who works as a medical consultant at the Shelter Health Network in Hamilton.

Since April, the doctors have been asking Kenney for a meeting on this issue. So far he has refused.

- Meanwhile, the Star rightly points out that the Cons' thoroughly-discredited finger-pointing over Attawapiskat did nothing to help the underlying housing crisis.

- Finally, the Star-Phoenix weighs in on the need for some answers about Robocon:

It is rare for Elections Canada officials to speak out about investigations before they are concluded, and the agency receives dozens of complaints after every election. Often it takes years to clear these files.

But the allegations that voters in some ridings received socalled robocalls misdirecting them to wrong voter stations, or calls from people alleging to be from particular parties who acted in an obnoxious or insulting manner in an apparent attempt to discourage their votes, is a little more serious than candidates complaining their signs have been defaced.

If these allegations are true, it strikes to the heart of Canada's electoral system. For a democratic system to function properly the electoral process must be considered trustworthy. And for a democratic government to rule with authority, the public must have confidence it legitimately came to power.

Sunday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your weekend.

- Lana Payne criticizes two forms of cash hoarding: both the assets sitting idle in corporate coffers, and the money that's been funneled offshore by wealthy individuals:

By the end of each episode (of "Hoarders")...the audience finds out if the featured hoarders have been able to get their behaviour under control or if they have “fallen into the deep end of this painful disease.”
The difference between these hoarders and those we have been reading about in recent days in newspapers like The Guardian and The Globe and Mail is that one group acquires “a large number of possessions that others would consider useless,” and the other acquires possessions of value like cash and assets.

But both suffer from the inability to discard their hoarded possessions.

Take corporate Canada. Progressive economists have been complaining for some time about their cash and asset hoarding. Canada’s Governor of the Bank of Canada, Mark Carney, has also been critical of corporate Canada’s hoarding practices, saying there is no reason keeping Canadian companies from investing.

Certainly they have been given incentive enough to do so. But billions in corporate tax cuts have instead been stockpiled on top of their more than half a trillion dollars in cash reserves, rather than invested in the economy.

 - The Star-Phoenix editorial board worries that the Council of the Federation's attempts to encourage cooperation on health care will come to nothing if we can't count on a federal government to take on exactly the leadership role the Harper Cons have abandoned:

Although eight years ago Ottawa was setting conditions on its grants and even talking about a national pharmacare program, including a universal bulk-buying strategy to control costs, the Harper government is clear about its disinclination to be a big part of Canada's flagship social contract.

Without any federal leadership, Canadians can expect their health system, like the dream of a national energy strategy, to be sacrificed at the altar of narrow-minded provincial politics.

- Dr. Dawg highlights the absurdity of the RCMP labeling anybody who dares to express concern about an anti-environment government and its resource-sector puppeteers as a security threat.

- Finally, I don't expect the suggestion to get far for a multitude of reasons. But Ralph Surette's proposal that younger Liberals (including Justin Trudeau) ought to turn their individual efforts to building the NDP at least offers a more plausible means to unite the vast majority of Canadian progressives than formal merger plans which would inevitably result in years of wrangling among two separate party structures.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Zach Carter shines a spotlight on the few types of interests who stand to gain from austerity:

But the austerity game also has winners. Cutting or eliminating government programs that benefit the less advantaged has long been an ideological goal of conservatives. Doing so also generates a tidy windfall for the corporate class, as government services are privatized and savings from austerity pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest citizens.
...
"Austerity policies are literally a redistribution from the bottom of the income spectrum to the top," said Dorian Warren, a professor of political science at Columbia University and a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, an economic policy think tank. "In Wisconsin, both wealthy people and businesses got tax breaks, while middle-class and working-class employees of the state essentially got crushed."

Warren emphasized that there are political dimensions to the austerity push. Efforts to curb collective bargaining rights -- and thus pay and benefits -- for state employees cut to the heart of the American labor movement. With only 7 percent of the private-sector workforce unionized, public-sector unions are a critical component of labor's political influence and an important bloc in Democratic Party operations.

Governments in Europe, most notably the United Kingdom, have also pursued tax cuts for the rich while imposing austerity measures on the working classes. And the European financier class has benefited even more directly than their American counterparts from these budgets.

Every time the European Union has reached a crisis point on the debt carried by Greece or Spain, EU leaders, especially German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have come to the rescue with bailout funds. That money goes to the banks that own Greek and Spanish debt, whose holdings would take a hit if either country were unable to repay. But the bailout comes with harsh austerity requirements intended to encourage budgetary discipline, so it's ordinary citizens who end up taking the hit. The most vulnerable populations are harmed by the bailouts, while the well-paid financial professionals who made the deals to finance Greek and Spanish deficits in the first place continue profiting handsomely.

- Chris Hedges recognizes the need for thoughtful questioning of self-serving "conventional wisdom":

And here is the dilemma we face as a civilization. We march collectively toward self-annihilation. Corporate capitalism, if left unchecked, will kill us. Yet we refuse, because we cannot think and no longer listen to those who do think, to see what is about to happen to us. We have created entertaining mechanisms to obscure and silence the harsh truths, from climate change to the collapse of globalization to our enslavement to corporate power, that will mean our self-destruction. If we can do nothing else we must, even as individuals, nurture the private dialogue and the solitude that make thought possible.

- Erin Weir makes the point that massive potash profits only confirm that Saskatchewan is forfeiting massive amounts of public wealth to the Saskatchewan Party's corporate benefactors. And Tom Shelstad notes that a reasonable royalty regime would provide ample money to fund projects like a Regina stadium up front - rather than requiring the city to take on decades of debt.

- Meanwhile, the Star-Phoenix editorial board is duly skeptical about the Wall government's pretending to listen to cultural industries only after driving them out of the province.

- Finally, I've tended to view Regina's housing crisis as a significant issue demanding a policy response. But apparently I should have known it was nothing more than a charming human interest story all along. (I'm just surprised the featuredidn't end with a down-on-his luck new arrival marrying the campground manager's daughter.)

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Michael Harris continues to highlight some of the fundamental problems with the Cons' view of politics, this time identifying Stephen Harper as being afflicted with "master of the universe syndrome":

When you control all the levers of power, when you have no scruples, when you are surrounded by nutters who will do anything you say without thinking, when you conceive of language as disconnected from objective reality, when you believe biz bull and Beatle songs are enough to bamboozle the Great Unwashed, it’s understandable in certain personality types that the conviction begins to take hold that you are a master of the universe.

Here are the main symptoms of MOUS. You stop caring about what others think about you. They are merely the Plankton People – Vladimir Putin’s ringing coinage for the human flotsam and jetsam who throng to those soon-to-be terminated protests against his dark dominion in Russia. The kind of people, I might add, who now find themselves under arrest when a Harper cabinet minister is heckled...

When you have MOUS, it never crosses your mind that people would like more from their government than a cattle prod in their junk. That’s because being Boss is in your blood. You, and you alone, know what’s good for everybody. And what’s good for everybody? Well, it just happens to be what’s good for your friends. The pipeline people, the military, and of course, the Harper Party.

- NUPGE identifies several pieces of the Sask Party's labour and employment plans which violate well-established and internationally-recognized labour rights:

Implementing any of the following legislative changes would be seen as a violation of Canada's (and Saskatchewan's) commitment to adhere to ILO fundamental principles of freedom of association:

• excluding some employees from the right to collective bargaining;
• restricting unions from democratically deciding how they spend dues revenues;
• allowing individual members to opt out of paying dues;
• allowing individual members to make decisions on what their dues are used for that are contrary to the financial decisions made democratically by the majority of union members;
• eliminating 'dues check off', the process where an employer deducts union dues from employees' pay on behalf of the union; and
• denying essential employees the right to strike without access to impartial third party arbitration.

- Vass Bednar and Mark Stabile comment on the Cons' continued attacks on evidence-based policy in general and Statistics Canada in particular:

We would argue that there is a strong case to be made for a publicly funded and administered statistical agency that collects the kind of robust information required for government, business and individuals to make the best decisions they can.

For without being able to accurately describe the characteristics and trends of what that "problem" is, society will simply have to make policy in the dark.

Evidence-based policy-making requires just that - evidence - standard, reliable metrics whose quantification and legitimacy is widely agreed upon. In their absence, policy-making at all levels and in every sector will be as expensive as it is hopeful, while policy actors are forced to gingerly "guess and check" over time.

In the absence of good data, our ability to fully comprehend complex policy issues will grow anecdotal and inconsistent. As admirable as the quest for efficiency in the public sector is, it can't be worth the confusion that it will promise in the future. Truly realizing the kind of savings that Statistics Canada claims to strive for in this budgetary cycle means continuing to invest in the foundational information that has wisely informed our nation for decades.

- Stephen Maher reports on the latest in Helena Guergis' defamation claim. But the most noteworthy part of the story may be the one tossed in as an afterthought: all investigation and discussion of the criminal case against a past Conservative MP - who was married to a then-current MP and cabinet minister - was shot down by yet another future MP and cabinet minister in Julian Fantino.

 - Finally, the Star-Phoenix editorial board has some pointed questions about the plan for a new Regina stadium.