Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Andrew Phillips offers a reminder that Canada will pay the price for a climate breakdown whether or not it partially prices emissions in the moment - though it's worth noting that even the existing combination of taxes and regulations falls far short of the investments we should be making in transitioning to a clean society (especially when compared to the massive subsidies incentivizing increased fossil fuel extraction). And Aaron Wherry notes that thanks in part to the know-nothingism of the Cons and their oil industry backers, there's very little public awareness of the rebate side of the federal carbon pricing system. 

- Andrew Nikiforuk points out that Danielle Smith is adopting some of the most laughable coal baron talking points on the planet in an attempt to excuse pushing further extraction with no regard for the climate crisis or the need for potable water. 

- David Climenhaga writes about the UCP's plans to assemble a provincial police force under their political control. And Jim Bronskill reports that the bigoted Flu Trux Klan was given primacy over any interest in police safety, as officers weren't warned of active threats to harm police.   

- David Moscrop writes about the immense power accumulated by Loblaws as a provider of everything, and corporate tech giants as the largest monopolists on the planet. And Erica Johnson et al. report on the continued pressure banks are putting on their employees to push financial products which consumers don't want or need. 

- Finally, Susan Riley writes that the prescription drug plan being developed at the federal level represents only a few baby steps toward a full pharmacare program - and wonders whether we'll ever see that latter goal reached. 

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Susan Riley points out the glaring gap between the urgency of the climate crisis, and the Canadian political response which (Charlie Angus aside) ranges from mealy-mouthed corporatism to outright sabotage. And Gillian Steward calls out the UCP's continued climate denial which is preventing Alberta from responding to fires, droughts and other disasters caused by the climate breakdown. 

- Meanwhile, Andrew Nikiforuk discusses the UCP's insistence on barging ahead with a coal mine repeatedly rejected by the courts as a painful example of how petropoliticians will never accept any environmental regulation on fossil fuel extraction, while Amanda Stephenson reports on the continued escalation of the up-front cost of the Trans Mountain pipeline which the Libs insist on funding at public expense.

- Max Fawcett discusses why a federal wealth tax would represent both good politics and good policy. 

- Linda McQuaig highlights how the Cons' claims to care about responsible public spending and affordability are utterly irreconcilable with their determination to shovel public money into the military-industrial complex as a sop to Donald Trump. And Rhianna Schmunk, Angelina King and Lori Ward report on the exploitation of Doug Ford's corporatist health care plans by systematically billing for unnecessary medication reviews (at rates far higher than doctors receive for prescribing). 

- Finally, Luke LeBrun exposes how Ottawa's police once again allowed right-wing extremists the run of the city - and are only now reviewing their lies about that course of action after they've been exposed in the media. 

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Bruce Campbell writes that we have a needed opportunity to reimagine how our economy and society are organized, while Gregory Beatty rightly argues that we need to push for better than merely getting back to the previous normal. Alfredo Saad-Filho points out how the coronavirus pandemic has exposed many of the weaknesses of a neoliberal model. Mathew Lawrence, Adrienne Buller, Joseph Baines and Sandy Hager discuss the need for corporations to be restructured to serve the common good, rather than enriching shareholders and executives at the expense of communities and workers. And even Mark Carney recognizes the need for markets to reflect people's interests and values, rather than being given priority over them. 

- Sharon Riley discusses the Libs' plan to put the public on the hook for remediation costs which have been neglected by the oil sector. And Duncan Cameron writes about the futility of dumping ever more public resources into the fossil fuel money pit.

- Rebecca Smith reports on how UK residents are making do with less food - including by making better use of the food already produced - in the wake of COVID-19.

- Stephen Bush writes that the pandemic is highlighting the importance of having a means to deliver a basic income to everybody, rather than requiring the development of new distribution mechanisms. And Andrew Langille discusses how Canada's CERB is continuing to fall short of the needs of people with precarious work and low incomes.

- Finally, Melanie Bechard and Thara Kumar discuss the importance of universal medical care in a pandemic. And Ralph Benmergui interviews Katy Kamkar about the need to strengthen our mental health system as people face a traumatic reality without being able to seek out the usual social supports.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Julie Delahanty comments on Canada's crisis of inequality and poverty. And Sean McElwee highlights how the ill-founded belief that income inequality is more a matter of merit than luck tends to lead people to accept far more of it than should be tolerable.

- Susan Riley rightly challenges the myth of "tax relief" - which typically results in tiny individual returns at the expense of any capacity to build a functional society.

- Paris Marx argues that a basic income serves as the most promising support system to allow for the growth of art and culture. And Angella MacEwen points out that employment insurance is the most obvious means of targeting stimulus money toward both social needs and economic growth.

- Finally, Colin Horgan examines the future of media as a public good in Canada, including this suggestion as to how to develop new opportunities for focused discussion of issues:

(T)he CBC’s online division offers the best chance at producing more new, niche-oriented media, given that it continues to receive federal funding — and if the current government has anything to do with it, apparently will receive more. This is not to say that all out-of-work journalists could work for the CBC, but rather that it may be there where experimentation could work, as it bears fewer (though still some) of the pressures of private media.

More specifically, this might mean launching an iPlayer-style TV app, and commissioning programming for it that otherwise might not make it to the main network simply because it appeals only to a small sub-section of viewers. Similarly, expanding its battery of podcasts beyond merely recordings of its radio shows, to include specific — or even random — topics (Video games? TV recaps? Vacations in continental Europe? WHL team coverage? The Aboriginal music scene?) would be inexpensive and, more importantly, allow advertisers more specific audiences to target. Likewise with its journalism: why not open sub-sites? Why not, for example, a data-journalism site akin to FiveThirtyEight? Any of these ventures that proves successful at the CBC might strike out on its own, starting another series of similar shows or podcasts, complete with a website garnered toward those viewers or listeners. Who knows?

There are problems with this idea — I can name a few already. For one, it would take a major shift in the way we conceive of a public broadcaster (as part start-up incubator). But if a varied, engaged, and thoughtful media sphere is indeed a public policy concern, then it might be incumbent of us to at least spitball some ideas about what we can do with the media corporation we all still own.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Murray Mandryk and Bruce Johnstone both thoroughly slam Gerry Ritz and the Cons for their food-safety negligence. But Johnstone hints at the larger issue:

Ritz, for all his faults, is not the cause of this latest debacle. He's merely a symptom of a bigger problem with the Harper government: specifically, it's (sic) ideological fixation on smaller government, it's (sic) blind faith in self-regulation and its tendency to micromanage every aspect of government policy.

- And Lana Payne reminds us why we should know better than to think there's any merit to anti-regulatory corporatism:

The latest food safety scandal begs the question: does anyone sitting in the federal Conservative caucus remember the lessons of Walkerton?

It was, after all, just a little over a decade ago that Canada’s worst outbreak of E. coli in the water supply of the small Ontario community of Walkerton took place, killing seven people. Another 2,300 residents fell ill in the same tainted water scandal.

The deaths and the subsequent outrage forced then Conservative premier Mike Harris to call a judicial inquiry — an inquiry he, as premier, was also compelled to testify at.

Certainly federal ministers Jim Flaherty and Tony Clement should remember the lessons of Walkerton. After all, they were part of the Harris government that ravaged public services, privatized important safety tests and gutted regulations.

Justice Dennis O’Connor, in his January 2002 report into the Walkerton tainted water scandal, concluded that had funding at the Department of Environment not been slashed, the worst-outbreak of E. coli could have been avoided. In other words, government cutbacks were partly to blame for the death of seven Ontarians.

And here we are again.

Some of the faces are the same. Certainly the ideology is. Hacking and slashing government jobs, programs and services without a mind or a thought to how those cuts will impact or hurt Canadians.

- Meanwhile, Stephen Maher reports that the Cons aren't exactly escaping responsibility for drinking their own Kool-Aid in other areas - as MPs are now on the hook for costs after a dismally-failed attempt to put roadblocks in the way of the Council of Canadians' challenge to Robocon-influenced election results.

- Finally, Susan Riley points out that we shouldn't be too quick to assume that younger politicians will offer up new ideas - especially if relative inexperience make a younger leader more easily captured by party insiders.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Mike McBane and Stuart Trew note that Canada can't afford to sign on to yet another massive giveaway to big pharma:

An Ipsos Reid poll commissioned by the Council and the health coalition and released last week shows that what would normally be high support for a Canada-EU trade deal in principle (81 per cent) bottoms out to only 31 per cent when asked if CETA should extend patent protections for brand name drugs. Canadians clearly recognize the importance of trade to the economy, but they are not comfortable with those parts of CETA that will give more monopoly rights to Big Pharma.

And really, why should they be? This is an industry that can’t seem to make enough money but which consistently spends twice as much (at least) on advertising as it does on new research and development for truly new products. In 2011, according to the Forbes 500 list of richest companies, the top 10 pharmaceuticals makers collected over $74 billion in profits. Pfizer, the richest Big Pharma firm on the list, took home profits of $10 billion.

But as a percentage of sales, brand name R&D funding for innovation is now 5.6 per cent, the lowest rate since 1988, according to the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board’s 2012 annual report. This is despite a promise from the brand name drug sector to the Mulroney government way back when to spend 10 per cent of sales consistently on new product development in return for patent extensions and other new protections.

If these firms are not living up to that promise today, should we trust them to live up to it after Canada signs this new trade deal with the EU?

-  Daniel Schwartz figures out how Jason Kenney may have used a privacy loophole to send out his creepy e-mail to LGBT rights supporters: if the petition supporting Alvaro Orozco went to Kenney's parliamentary e-mail address, it wouldn't be subject to the same protection that would apply if it went only to his department.

- Which is to say that much as I agree with her diagnosis that the Harper Cons are undermining democracy, Carol Goar's suggestion to try to get the attention of Con MPs may only provide them with information they can use to harass or manipulate voters as they see fit. (Instead, I'd suggest that the "political activism" option deserves rather more attention than Goar gives it.)

- Meanwhile, Lawrence Martin identifies the same problem while fearing there's not much of a solution to be found.

- Finally, Susan Riley theorizes that the Cons will eventually accept carbon pricing. And while I'm not so optimistic, I'd have to agree with Riley's view as to what it will take for that to happen: if and only if the oil sector itself demands greenhouse gas emission regulation, then the Cons will establish the weakest system anybody is prepared to accept as sufficient.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Frances Russell comments on how the Harper Cons are ready to impose exactly the kind of centralized and unresponsive decision-making they've long loathed - but only when it comes to favouring Alberta's interests over B.C.'s real environmental concerns. But Michael Harris notes that Harper is entirely likely to see his job as nothing more than serving the interests of the oil patch.

- Meanwhile, Susan Riley confirms that the problem with the Gateway pipeline is indeed one of environmental risk, not Christy Clark's money grab:

(T)he Northern Gateway is not worth the risk, environmentally, or politically.

And, while pipeline boosters enthuse about the schools, hospitals and jobs enhanced oil exports to China will provide, they ignore the social and economic costs of responding to crop failures, water shortages, forest fires and the other baleful consequences of rising global temperatures.

Outside of an increasingly frayed consensus, there are dissenters — notably, federal NDP leader Thomas Mulcair, the Green party, and B.C.’s NDP opposition, all of whom oppose the Northern Gateway.

As Quebec Premier Jean Charest said at the premiers’ annual gabfest this week, “you cannot disassociate the issues of energy with issues that touch climate change.”

In fact, the environment has to be at the centre of future energy policy — not from virtue, but from necessity. It isn’t about changing their messaging; oil-addicted political leaders have to change course.

If they don’t figure that out soon, with luck, they’ll be gone.

- John Geddes thoroughly reviews the Cons' regressive drug policy, which features massive cuts to already-limited rehabilitation programs in order to pour millions more into criminalization. And David Hutton reports on the sheer lunacy of a Saskatoon methadone program which provides support only after a user is already pregnant or infected with HIV - with Ryan Meili contributing some commentary.

- Finally, Erik Loomis provides two vivid examples of workers fired merely for recognizing problems with their employers in an apparent effort to intimidate others into silence. But there shouldn't be much doubt what happens when workers lack a voice altogether.

Sunday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for a sunny Sunday.

- Paul Wells offers some theories as to why the Cons haven't yet launched attack ads against Thomas Mulcair. But I'd think the more important aberration is the fact that they did do so against Bob Rae before he ever became the Libs' permanent leader: the purpose of the Cons' attacks has otherwise always been fairly focused on softening up Lib leaders in advance of potentially imminent elections, and I'd fully expect the Cons to test out as many possibilities as they can through less expensive means before launching their usual saturated-airwave attacks against Mulcair in advance of 2015.

- Meanwhile, I find it striking that Susan Riley seems surprised that Mulcair has been effective as the NDP's leader, particularly on the environment where his leadership campaign focused largely on exactly the experience and principles we've seen in practice:

(A)s a former Liberal environment minister in Quebec, Mulcair “gets” the issue, he means it, and he has the intellectual acuity and debating skills to fend off inevitable accusations that he is anti-jobs, anti-Alberta. 

Although he must avoid needlessly inflaming western sensitivities, the environment is one issue where an “uncompromising” approach from a federal leader — politicians are charged with safeguarding the public interest, after all, not running interference for the oil industry — is long overdue.

- Dr. Dawg spots the latest example of the Cons breaking both promises and the law - this time in withholding publicly-funded polling numbers.

- Finally, Michael Geist explores the real reason the Cons are so determined to push the TPP and other corporate trade agreements:

The price of admission was very steep – Canada appears to have agreed to conditions that grant it second-tier status – and the economic benefits from improved access to TPP economies are likely to be relatively minor since we already have free-trade agreements with four of the ten participants.

Given those conditions, why aggressively pursue entry into the negotiations? The reason stems less from gaining barrier-free access to a handful of relatively small economies and far more about using the TPP as a backdoor mechanism to promote regulatory changes in Canada.

Given Canada’s late entry into the TPP process, the U.S. was able to extract two onerous conditions that Prime Minister Stephen Harper downplayed as the “accession process.” First, Canada will not be able to reopen any chapters where agreement has already been reached among the current nine TPP partners. This means Canada has already agreed to be bound by TPP terms without having had any input. Since the TPP remains secret, the government can’t even tell us what has been agreed upon.
...
With Canada already surrendering negotiation leverage and few important markets at stake, our participation is less about other TPP countries and much more about us. Business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce applauded Canada’s entry into the TPP, expressing the hope that it would force further changes to Canadian intellectual property laws less than 24 hours after Bill C-11 passed in the House of Commons.

For the Canadian government, the TPP offers cover for major reforms to supply management, the combination of tariffs, quotas and price supports that increase costs for dairy, eggs, chicken, turkey and broiler hatching eggs. The system has been politically untouchable for decades, but using a backdoor approach of mandating change through trade agreement might provide the mechanism to garner the necessary popular support.

While backers maintain that the TPP will open up new markets to Canadian companies, the reality is that the agreement’s biggest impact is likely to come from major domestic legislative reforms that would otherwise face considerable opposition and serious political risk.

 [Edit: added link.]

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Julian Beltrame reports on the Cons' concerted efforts to add to corporate bottom lines by attacking working Canadians:

One of the measures is so sneaky, says NDP MP Pat Martin, nobody seemed to notice the line buried deep in the 452-page Bill C-38 that simply states, "The Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act is repealed," giving no explanation.

With those 10 words, Ottawa intends to wipe out a 1985 law compelling contractors bidding on federal contracts to pay "fair wages" and overtime.

"I would have missed it and I'm from that industry. It was number 68 of 70 bills that they changed," said Martin, a former journeyman carpenter and construction worker.

Martin notes that unlike most measures in the budget bill, there was no prior discussion of the measure or even a signal such a change was contemplated.

"It's a solution without a problem. The only conclusion I can come up with is that it's a war on labour and the left. It's what the Americans did with the right-to-work states and the end result is $8 or $9 an hour is now the average wage in places like North Carolina."
...
(Perrin Beatty's claim that employers will take anybody willing to work) is hard to square with a national unemployment rate of 7.3 per cent, and new figures showing there are 5.8 unemployed workers for every vacancy. Officially, there were 1.37 million Canadians actively looking for work in April, and that doesn't count the hundreds of thousands of discouraged workers, involuntarily self-employed or part-timers wishing to be employed full-time.

Labour economist Erin Weir of the United Steelworkers says he has never bought the labour shortage argument, noting that in a market economy if that were the case wages would be increasing. Instead, they are barely keeping up with inflation.

 - Tim Harper criticizes the Cons' EI slashing as well for pushing Canadians into dead-end jobs. And Susan Riley echoes the point that the Cons' plan has nothing at all to do with evidence or reality:

It sometimes seems the only people slow to understand that the majority of jobless Canadians are not scofflaws, living the high life on their $485 (maximum) weekly benefit while “suitable” jobs go begging, sit in the Harper cabinet.

Finley has repeatedly advanced the hoary myth that EI benefits can be a “disincentive” to finding work. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, hearkening back to his days as a taxi driver and hockey referee, grumped that “there are no bad jobs.” And Jason Kenney, the hard-working immigration minister, seems to think the unemployed need to be prodded to drive to the next community to work, even though his home province is teeming with Maritimers who have left behind family and friends in pursuit of a paycheque.

In fact, senior federal officials predict fewer than one per cent of current EI recipients will be denied benefits as a result of these changes — which suggests “abuse” is hardly widespread. In that light, the Finley reforms look like a solution in search of a problem.
... 

Like other elements of the sprawling “budget” bill, the EI measures, to take effect in 2013, seem hasty, driven by anecdote rather than evidence, much less face-to-face consultation with those affected. They will likely be marginal in impact, for better or worse.

- Seth Klein points out that increasing inequality (which the Cons are doing so much to exacerbate) figures to be a major obstacle in the way of action on climate change.

- Finally, Dan Arnold nicely sums up the most important takeaway from David Wilks' remarkable shift from claiming he'd oppose his government's omnibus bill if only he thought it could make a difference, to falling back in line:

(T)he man has no one to blame for this controversy other than himself. If he truly supports the budget - as he now claims to do - he should have thanked his constituents for their feedback, said he'd consider what they said, then explained to them why he supported the budget.

If he truly opposes the budget - as he said he did yesterday - he should vote against it. Wilks is wrong when he says one MP can't make a difference. John Nunziata and Bill Casey brought more attention to the budgets they opposed than they ever would have by meekly supporting them. Michael Chong's opposition to the Quebec Nation resolution may have prevented Harper from going further down that road. I also like to think that the more acts of defiance we get, the more likely we are to see an attitudinal change in Ottawa that gives a greater say to individual MPs. Some may disagree with me, but I think that would be a welcome shift.

 [Update: fixed formatting.]

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- John Cassidy neatly contrasts growth in the postwar period against that in recent decades - with the former seeing a "picket fence" growth pattern where all segments of society benefited roughly equally, while the latter produces a "staircase" effect (aside from an utterly unreachable jump between the top 1% and those below).

- Meanwhile, the CP corrects Jim Flaherty's blatantly false spin about the effect of slashing corporate tax rates by pointing out that it'll be another 5 years before we return to past revenue levels. And Thomas Walkom weighs in on the developing recognition that many voters see a commitment to tax fairness as a plus:

Tax fairness is back as a mainstream topic of conversation. For years, it was consigned to the margins, championed by a few advocates such as author Linda McQuaig or economist Armine Yalnizyan, but pretty much ignored by everyone else — including the NDP.

Now it’s back in style.

The Occupy Movement, with its talk of the richest one per cent, has made tax fairness cool. Rumblings from the U.S., where even billionaire Warren Buffet argues that the rich pay too little, has given it a new air of respectability.

Here in Ontario, a campaign by a group called Doctors for Fair Taxation has gained a surprising amount of attention. A poll commissioned by the left-leaning Broadbent Institute argues that almost two-thirds of Canadians would pay “slightly higher taxes” to protect social programs.

I’d take that poll with a grain of salt since it never specified what was meant by “slightly higher.”

Still, there is something going on here. If even the ultra-cautious NDP is willing to talk about higher taxes, the public mood must be shifting. Perhaps more understand the simple truth of government finance — that we can’t have public services without paying for them.

- Terrence McCoy discusses the sophisticated data mining now happening in U.S. politics - with a particularly interesting set of charts comparing both turnout and voter preferences to consumer preferences.

- Finally, while there's ample room for doubt as to whether the Cons have made any case for taking an axe to public services in the first place, Susan Riley points out that they're going about it all wrong even if there was some reason to do so:

(W)hile it is theoretically possible to improve service while shedding jobs, this government's management style has been so arbitrary, contradictory and - especially with the F-35 project - dishonest, it doesn't inspire confidence.

Cabinet's stunning lack of curiosity about the costing of the F-35s and the government's readiness to downplay the true costs of the warplanes to blunt public reaction undermine its supposed commitment to fiscal prudence. So do Clement's Muskoka shenanigans, shifting money for border infrastructure to build gazebos in the minister's riding.

Yet the government is ready to deny free Internet service to the homeless, the disabled and the poor by cutting a small Industry Canada program that helped libraries and social agencies provide computer access. Industry Canada says the service isn't needed since 79 per cent of Canadians have home access, and it isn't, except by the poor.
...
Meanwhile, some federal services have already been "streamlined" into uselessness. Service Canada, which is supposed to help with everything from citizenship to pension to EI inquiries, is so under-staffed that it doesn't answer its phones. Passport offices are as crowded as emergency rooms. Government websites are useless for anything but general information.

Luckily for Conservatives, widespread indifference to the fate of public servants and general failure to connect today's spending cuts with deteriorating services, provide some cover. But, when the smoke clears, we could well be left with dial tones instead of answers, longer lines at the border, more incidents of food poisoning and some very expensive jets. That's when the chickens come home to roost.

[Edit: fixed link as per comments.]

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- On the Robocon front, Terry Milewski connects the dots between identification of voters as non-Con supporters and the deceptive robocalls that followed. Steven Chase and Daniel Leblanc discuss how Elections Canada figures to determine who placed the Cons' fraudulent calls, while Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher suggest it's already making plenty of progress. The Chronicle Herald and the Star implore the Cons to ensure Elections Canada has the authority it needs to investigate properly. The Ottawa Citizen writes about the link between Robocon calls and suppressed voter turnout. Parker distinguishes between illegal deception and legitimate voter contact. And Sixth Estate takes a closer look at CIMS.

- The CCPA has released its Alternative Federal Budget, pointing out both the global need for countries not to engage in gratuitous austerity and the benefits that would be possible if we had a federal government interested in investing in an improved Canada.

- Sarah Schmidt reports on the form of copyright bill the Cons forced through committee after deciding they could afford to trample on consumers' rights:

Charlie Angus, digital affairs critic for the NDP, said he's been pressing for a new copyright bill since 2004, but this is "still a flawed" piece of legislation.

"It seems they're choosing a corporate business model over the rights of average Canadians, and that's not going to help build the creative economy here. The digital locks provisions are huge for us."

Angus added that the Tories "talk about the market deciding, but they're constructing a market that favours one set of corporate interests over the rights of average citizens."

Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, said it's "certainly disappointing that the government was unwilling to find a compromise on the digital lock rules," saying defeating amendments "that groups representing those with perceptual disabilities feared create barriers to access for the blind is simply unconscionable."

- Meanwhile, Kyle Kipp follows up on the NDP's revelation that nearly 85% of federal funding for disability projects is being funnelled into Con ridings.

- Finally, Susan Riley comments on the Cons' war against anybody who doesn't parrot tar sands talking points:

While European countries experiment with cap-and-trade and Norway socks away oil wealth in a $500-billion fund, Canada's government is still pitting the economy against the environment - refighting last decade's battle instead of preparing for the future.

Every day, the economic benefits of the petro-economy are oversold and environmental consequences trivialized.
...
There is a lunatic fringe, of course, anti-Canadian zealots unconcerned with how many jobs are shipped offshore or how much we poison the planet. They fiercely defend foreign oil companies' right to exploit our resources without limits, or conditions.

You won't find them at clandestine gatherings of green extremists, however. They sit in the Senate of Canada.

Sunday Morning Links

Assorted content for your pre-debate reading.

- Dave connects a few more dots as to who's behind Robocon. Guy Giorno helpfully acknowledges that the Cons were supposed to have business-style processes to avoid the exact kind of electoral fraud that's been discovered across Canada - signalling both that they're indeed on the hook for any illegality in their midst, and that they seem to have followed the familiar corporate pattern of prioritizing immediate profit over mere trifles such as legality or human decency. Susan Riley wonders whether Robocon will have much staying power, but I tend to think Warren Kinsella is right in theorizing that it will - particularly as the Cons desperately try to cover up facts which are bound to come to light as the next federal election approaches even when a bit more willingness to acknowledge reality might serve both they and the country better in the long run.

- Erin points out some good economic news which shows that matters are getting somewhat better despite corporate tax slashing rather than because of it. And Paul Krugman continues to expose the completely contradictory claims about corporate taxes which are alternately used by corporate apologists to suggest either that the wealthiest already pay their fair share, or that the brunt of any taxes is felt entirely by workers.

- Which leads nicely to Marc Zwelling's commentary as to how we need to reframe discussion of taxes:

The correct way to talk about taxes is to tie them to the services taxes deliver and the outcomes they generate. Say taxes and services in the same breath. For instance:

* In a Vector Poll™ in 2010, 57 percent favoured more government spending for health care "even if it means higher taxes."

* 56 percent in an Angus Reid Public Opinion survey this year agreed that "even if it means increasing taxes" the federal government "has an important role to play to redistribute the wealth and intervene in the economy." Some 36 percent disagreed, and 8 percent were unsure.

* Despite the Right's 30 years of anti-tax rhetoric, six in 10 people (63 percent) in a 2010 Vector Poll™ say they would rather have good public services even if it costs more in taxes, not lower taxes "if public services are not as good" (37 percent).

Arch-conservatives will continue shrieking about taxes the way the Puritans talked about the Salem witches. But there's no excuse for progressive people to help the Right with burning at the stake.

- Finally, Martin Regg Cohn nicely highlights the absurdity of Alison Redford demanding that Ontario take its side in promoting the tar sands over any other economic development. And that pressure combined with the Cons' service to the oil industry in refusing to work with anybody who might raise concerns about pipeline construction and oil tanker traffic (even with donated money) only amplifies Bruce Livesey's concern that petrotyranny isn't far down the road.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Susan Riley brilliantly slams the message that austerity is necessary for everybody but those who already have the most:

Is anyone else getting tired of being lectured about austerity by wealthy consultants in expensive suits who charge $1,500 a day for their advice and have comfortable government pensions, besides?

And do we really need another warning about saving for old age - instead of frittering away money on escalating tuition for our children; or scrambling to compensate for unexpected job loss, or medical expenses - from disapproving cabinet ministers with fat salaries and fatter pensions?

Notice how these apostles of austerity rarely want to impose sacrifices on their fellow HNW (highnet-worth) individuals in the drive to restore fiscal sanity. They talk about fairness, but there is always an excuse for not halting corporate tax cuts, for not eliminating costly, quirky tax credits for people who don't need them. And their zeal for slashing redundant public service jobs and frivolous spending always seems to exclude their pet projects. (The Office for Religious Freedom, anyone? Those problematic F-35s?)
...
Oddly, the federal government takes the opposite approach when it comes to Old Age Security: no saving is too small. It will soon propose moving the eligibility age from 65 to 67, phased in over time. Aside from hurting the most vulnerable seniors, experts say eventual savings, as a percentage of GDP, will be slight.

Maybe they should call their bill Restoring Senior Poverty.

Meanwhile, there is no talk of trimming other pension plans - especially the RRSP, but also the taxfree savings account - that benefit those with ample money to save. Fewer than one-third of Canadians contribute to RRSPs, and a tiny number make the maximum contribution of $22,000 a year. But, by some estimates, RRSP breaks for the richest Canadians cost the treasury $12 billion in 2010.

The issues differ for different levels of government and different parties hold power across the country. But the austerity refrain is the same: protect the rich, hit the middle class and leave the poor for later.

- It's a shame other commentators haven't put the two together yet. But could there be a better contrast for than NDP than that between the Cons dictating attacks on Old Age Security even as experts beg them to consult at least a bit, and the NDP's public engagement to discuss the effect of service cuts?

- Terry Milewski points out how Orwellian the Cons' online snooping bill is in providing for total surveillance of all online activity. And Dan Gardner makes it clear that Stephen Harper is at best a libertarian of convenience:

This week, the Conservative government introduced legislation which would create a vast system of warrantless Internet surveillance. Civil libertarians howled in protest.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews told them they could either support the government's plan or side "with the child pornographers."

Many more people howled, including conservative newspaper columnists. A few Conservative MPs even dared to suggest that maybe the legislation wasn't entirely perfect and righteous in every way.

By the end of the week, Toews suggested that perhaps it might be possible to modestly amend the bill in unspecified ways - without aiding and abetting child pornographers.

As farce, this was amusing. As governance, it was appalling. But as an illustration of the thinking of the prime minister and his circle, it was invaluable.
...
One moment Stephen Harper is Ayn Rand. The next he's J. Edgar Hoover.

So how can we explain this? The prime minister could be suffering from some sort of personality disorder. But unless and until there's a diagnosis we'll have to go with something else.

It is this: Stephen Harper is interested in advancing certain political goals. Sometimes, a strong civil libertarian position helps do that. The long-form census, for example, generates the data that support social housing, employment equity, and other programs the prime minister doesn't like.

Taking the Randian position was a way of undermining those programs indirectly, and looking principled doing it.

But sometimes civil liberties get in the way of doing what the prime minister wants to do. So he goes all Hoover.

And that provides an obvious follow-up question which Harper shouldn't be able to escape: just what is it that he wants to do with all the surveillance information he gets about Canadians' online activities?

- Finally, Erin highlights that Don Drummond's slash-and-burn plan for Ontario is based on the assumption that interest rates will soar far beyond what anybody is currently predicting - even though fiscal hawks have been nothing but wrong in trying to put nonexistent inflation worries ahead of actual economic development.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Mike Ward nicely describes the "Orwellian reverie" being used by the Cons to try to manipulate the public into acceding to the every wish of the oil sector:

In what other world could the delivery of jobs, profits and unrefined oil to a totalitarian foreign government be considered an act of patriotism? In what other sphere could dirty oil be called "ethical," and a fragile pipeline, strung across 700 rivers before spilling its contents into balloon-skinned tankers, be eulogized as enlightened?

Unless peace is war, how can First Nations peoples be cast as alien-controlled enemies of the state; unless ignorance is strength, how can a paltry 200 jobs justify the endangerment of 200,000?

- Jeff Davis unfortunately misstates what Dick Harris' private member's bill on Employment Insurance figures to accomplish. (And of course, plenty of right-wing mouthpieces are entirely eager to repeat the inaccuracies.) So let's set the record straight.

No, the current EI system doesn't allow an incarcerated individual to "collect double the (EI)" of anybody else. Instead, it provides for an extension on the time limit in which to apply for precisely the same amount of EI benefits which would otherwise be available. And that makes some sense based on the fact that a person who's incarcerated won't have a need to start collecting EI to meet living expenses until after being released.

Of course, it's fair enough to suggest that other applicants with a valid reason for not applying immediately shouldn't be worse off for waiting. But Harris isn't doing anything in the slightest to help anybody else; instead, he's merely looking for an excuse to vilify and exclude people who paid into EI and meet all other qualifications to receive it.

- Meanwhile, Susan Riley offers some suggestions as to what the NDP can propose as an alternative to the Cons' mean-spirited and inefficient government. Gerald Caplan wonders when we'll see a stronger extraparliamentary opposition develop. And the NDP offers up a useful image to help build the outrage the Cons have so determinedly earned.

- Finally, there seems to be plenty of reason for concern that decisions have been made about the future of the Regina Public Library's downtown home with cursory "consultation" to happen only after it's too late. And a wall of silence from the RPL board certainly isn't helping matters.

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Jack Knox comments on how the rest of the world sees Canada under the Harper Cons:

A week after bleating about foreign radicals slowing the Northern Gateway pipeline proposal, you have to figure Joe Oliver just wishes he had kept his cakehole corked.

Instead of turning public opinion against the interference of well-heeled American environmentalists, Stephen Harper's natural resources minister succeeded mainly in A) awakening Canadians to the growing extent of Asian influence in the Alberta oil patch and B) alerting the rest of the world that the Canadian cowboy now wears a black hat.

When did the Americans sell us to China, Canadians asked.

When did Canada become a global bad boy, asked the foreign media.

- In "mostly competent government!" news, Jeffrey Simpson notes that the Cons are paying more "information officers" to release as little information as possible. Greg Weston questions the ongoing funding being thrown into supporting a public appointments commission which doesn't actually exist. And most importantly, the Cons are just now backtracking on months of assurances that they didn't need to think about alternatives to spending tens of billions of dollars on F-35s.

- Which is to say that Susan Riley is exactly right in observing that Harper's electoral success looks to be based largely on voters getting lulled to sleep.

- Stuart Trew updates us on the latest developments surrounding the CETA.

- Finally, Christine McLaughlin discusses the dangers of the Cons' bill to criminalize anonymous protesting.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Carol Goar criticizes the tax giveaways that have blown a massive hole in the federal budget:

But there is one area of government activity that will escape (Tony Clement's budget-slashing) scrutiny. Every year Ottawa gives up billions of taxes in deductions, exemptions, deferrals, credits, rebates and concessions. Because no money actually goes out the door, these tax breaks don’t count as spending. But they cost the federal treasury billions.

Opposition MPs would like to know how much revenue the government is forgoing. The auditor general would like to do a cost/benefit analysis. Taxpayers would like to know who’s actually paying the freight in this country.

They’re unlikely to find out. The government refuses to provide a tally. All it offers is an annual compendium of all its “tax expenditures” with a warning not to add them up.
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here is the value of all the tax expenditures in the 2011 report, released this week: $152 billion.

To put that in perspective, the government’s total program spending in 2011 amounted to $248 billion.

Since Prime Minister Stephen Harper took power in 2006, tax expenditures have grown by $20 billion. Part of the increase was beyond his control; the child tax benefit is programmed to increase annually and the aging of the population drove up the cost of retirement support. But that’s only half the story. The Tories have created a profusion of new tax expenditures.

Here is a sample: the children’s fitness tax credit, the children’s arts tax credit, the universal child care benefit, the public transit tax credit, the first-time homebuyers’ tax credit, the volunteer firefighters tax credit, the working income tax benefit, the family caregivers tax credit, plus two sheltered-savings vehicles, registered disability savings plans and the tax-free savings accounts.
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At a time of austerity, does it make sense to sacrifice badly needed revenue to give parents tax breaks on sports equipment and dance lessons? Given its dismal success rate, is it smart to keep pouring $2.7 billion a year into the scientific research and experimental development investment tax credit? At a time when an affluent minority is acquiring an ever-greater share of the nation’s wealth, do corporations need a tax deduction for meals and entertainment?

These questions are never discussed in Parliament. They are not open for public debate. They are not part of Flaherty’s budgetary consultations. They are not part of Clement’s spending review.

- Alison catches some familiar right-wing dirty tricks at work in trying to contaminate the list of intervenors in the Gateway pipeline with false names. [Update: Though see BCL's clarification that one of the environmentalists involved has confirmed plans to participate in the process.] Andrew Nikiforuk replies to Joe Oliver's embarrassing attack on democracy in shilling for the tar sands. The Globe and Mail points out that the threat of attacks on charitable status may serve as one of the Cons' strategies to silence the environmental movement. And Susan Riley sums up the effects of the Gateway project:

Since we're using strong language, let's call the Conservative government's eagerness to ship tarsands oil to China through the Northern Gateway Pipeline what it is: humiliating, irresponsible and short-sighted.

That may sound "radical," perhaps; unpatriotic to some. But our government, in our name, is ready to accelerate climate change, imperil pristine British Columbia wilderness, risk a catastrophic oil spill on the Pacific coast - and for what? The almighty dollar. Specifically, for highly uncertain, and certainly exaggerated, economic gains.
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There will be leaks. The Citizen's Glen McGregor uncovered U.S. figures that list 150 leaks from Enbridge pipelines over the years. The most publicized occurred in 2010, when 20,000 barrels of oil escaped, some into Michigan's waterways. There was a small gas leak from an Enbridge pipeline near Louisiana this week.

The Northern Gateway route crosses mountainous territory in central B.C., some of it prone to landslides, and some 600 streams alive with salmon and other fish. No matter how carefully crossings are built, accidents are inevitable - and potentially ruinous to an $800-million commercial fishery, to tourism, and the fresh water First Nations depend on.

As for the giant oil tankers that will ply the shallow, stormy and often fogbound channels and fiords around Kitimat, loaded with oil bound for Asia, that is another disaster in the making. And it only takes one, as the 1989 Exxon Valdez, and the ruinous spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 prove. Claims that tankers safely manoeuvre the Great Lakes daily are irrelevant; these are different, more difficult, waters.

Every megaproject has its environmental costs, but this one is particularly pernicious because it will triple production from Alberta's oilsands, pumping ever more greenhouse gas into the world's atmosphere. And is this still "ethical" oil, when the primary customer is China?

- Meanwhile, the Cons have left absolutely no doubt what they think of actual evidence in environmental policy by hacking away at 60 more scientific and research positions at Environment Canada.

- Finally, the NDP responds to the Cons' declarations that they couldn't possibly have known about federal interventions against the legitimacy of international gay marriages by highlighting the fact that Randall Garrison raised the exact same issue in question period last fall.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading.

- Susan Riley comments on Brian Topp's mention of raising taxes as a necessary price of greater equality and better social programs:

(H)owever reasonable, limited or incremental (Topp's) plan turns out to be - he says he will proceed in "practical" steps - it will be greeted with howls from "high-net-worth individuals," their political protectors and media defenders. You can envision the Conservative attack ads. We know what happens to anyone (Michael Ignatieff, Stéphane Dion) who ventures beyond the ferociously guarded borders of the politically acceptable.

Yet this time might be different. The Reaganite anti-tax gospel, so deeply absorbed by Stephen Harper, is getting old. It seems particularly indefensible during recessionary times to continue doling out generous exemptions to the well-heeled, particularly when they aren't using their advantage to create jobs. The smart shops on Toronto's Bloor Street are enjoying their best sales in years, while youth unemployment is at a worrying 14 per cent. People notice.
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(Jim Flaherty) ignores the fairness argument - warmly advanced by American billionaire Warren Buffett, who pronounced it ridiculous that he is taxed at 17 per cent, compared to his office staff which averages 36 per cent. Buffett, along with some of the European super-rich (including Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo), are ready to pay more.

They are not entirely motivated by altruism; unequal societies are not happy places to live, or stable places to invest. The wealthy retreat into gated communities; the poor and unemployed turn inner cities into dangerous, dispiriting slums.

- And it's worth noting that it isn't just an isolated few more wealthy individuals calling for fairer taxes, with 68% of U.S. millionaires supporting an increase to their own taxes. Which means that the still-growing talk about inequality sparked by the Occupy protests already looks to be meeting with success in convincing even those who have the most to gain on paper by maintaining the status quo.

- If the Cons are eager to kill off the CBC as a source of meaningful journalism, their insistence on ordering that confidential sources be revealed to a Parliamentary committee would seem like a great place to start. And the more the Cons push forward, the less there will figure to be any "if" to speak of.

- But the Cons' complete unwillingness to listen to anybody is having some effects which could produce some significant backlash in the long run. And one could hardly ask for a better example than the gun registry, as even NDP MPs who were willing to vote to repeal the registry are uniting against legislation designed to salt the earth so that no provincial registries can replace the federal one that's being dismantled.

- Finally, pogge points out the absurd levels of corporatization of government - culminating in Illinois requiring employees to pay taxes to their employers. But it's worth noting that the source of that competition to bribe private industry lies at least in part in a lack of willingness to consider public-sector alternatives - resulting in a gross imbalance of power between governments looking to take credit for any jobs they can, and the employers who can count on multiple jurisdictions bidding for their services as good-news providers.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Dan Gardner rightly points out that the Cons' continued efforts to trash our parliamentary institutions now that they have a majority shouldn't come as any surprise - even if they still demand plenty of outrage:

Got that? If a member of Parliament insists on knowing the cost of the crime bill - fulfilling the most basic function of Parliament as guardian of the public purse - then he doesn't care about victims of crime. The swine.

This is the Harper government exactly as we have always known it.

If you are critical of the government's policy on Afghanistan, you support the Taliban. Question military spending and you hate the troops. Express concern about the cost of the crime bill and you don't care about victims of crime.
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Want to debate the crime bill on the floor of the House? Too bad. Want to ask Tony Clement about his blatantly political misappropriation of $50 million, or the promotion of Tony Gazebo to a cabinet position which requires him to guard against precisely that sort of greasy-fingered management? Fugeddaboutit.

And then there was the bizarre decision of a Conservative-dominated ethics committee to examine the CBC's efforts to avoid access to information requests. How many other far more pressing matters are there in the ethics file? A dozen? And what is it the Conservatives hope to discover? New techniques for stonewalling access requests? Not likely given all the ways the government keeps information locked down. Observers were also stunned by the list of witnesses sought by the committee. Among many odd choices was a federal court judge called to discuss a decision he delivered last year - something which is never done because it violates the separation of legislature and judiciary. But why let the Constitution get in the way of a cheap shot at the CBC?

And in the same vein, Susan Riley has her own take on what Con majority government has meant:

Government MPs now dominate Commons committees and they have been busily burying leftover scandals, lingering embarrassments, and uncomfortable findings from previous auditor-generals' reports. They are excising troublesome items from committee agendas, sometimes behind closed doors, which means opposition MPs cannot even disclose what was said.

They are imposing closure on their controversial "tough on crime" omnibus bill, apparently; they know what the experts say, they know what the Opposition thinks and they don't care.
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All authoritarian regimes find it more efficient to dispense with democratic protocol, but, while tempting, it can be dangerous - especially when this same impatience with criticism, and unwillingness to compromise, attends the introduction of new bills, or responses to unexpected events. Sometimes the devil is in the details; sometimes what looks like "common sense" - forcing prisoners to clean up city parks, say - is costly, dangerous and impractical.

Anyone who remembers the Chrétien era will recall that resistance was futile: what his close cadre of advisers decided became law and dissent, within or without, was ignored or ruthlessly shut down.

Harper used to hate that. Now he takes it a step further.

- And if Riley needed more examples of the Cons' abuses of their position, they continue to prove that they think accountability is nothing more than a punishment to be imposed on others - this time by simultaneously trying to tie up the Parliamentary Budget Officer with studies of every single private members' bill while holding their own government bills to a lower standard of study.

- pogge reminds us that while the Cons are pushing a myriad of questionable trade agreements, the Libs have proudly taken credit for their role in promoting one of the worst signed to date.

- And finally, the Star weighs in on why Tony Clement is unfit for cabinet.

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.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted and environmentally-themed content to end your week.

- Lloyd Alter highlights the Cons' contrasting treatment of environmental scientists (who are being fired in droves) and oil lobbyists (who figure never to lack for work).

- And allies around the world are starting to take notice of the Cons' dirty reputation.

- Fortunately, though, the oil lobby's advantage in money seems to be compensated for in creativity. While the tar sands lobby engages in clumsy manipulations to try to sell its case publicly, the Yes Men managed a slick PR move to smoke out the difference between anybody concerned with truly "ethical oil" and those who just want to paper over the entire industry's abuses.

- And finally, Susan Riley notes that we've managed to make strides on at least some environmental issues such as smog:

There is another factor at play, although it is often downplayed: the cumulative impact of government regulation. Starting in 1991, with the signature of a Canada-U.S. acid rain accord, there has been a steady decline in various pollutants in central Canadian air, not only those linked to acidification of lakes.

Last March, on the 20th anniversary of the pact signed by Brian Mulroney and Ronald Reagan, Environment Canada released an update, trumpeting a one-third reduction in smog-related pollutants and elimination of 50 per cent of sulphur dioxide since the accord was signed, along with declines in nitrous oxide and particulate emissions.
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We have, figuratively and literally, breathing space this summer. But clean air shouldn't depend on prevailing winds. It will also take politicians blessed with the foresight of their predecessors - including their conservative predecessors.