Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Lana Payne offers her take on the need for Canada to catch up to the rest of the developed world in providing social supports:

Canada is sitting at a dismal 17 per cent, down at the bottom of the pack with Ireland, Israel, and Latvia. No bragging rights here.

Indeed, Canada doesn’t even reach the OECD average of 21 per cent. It was a surprising finding for many who follow such things.

Perhaps it shouldn’t have been though considering what’s been happening in Canada for the past 20 years or so and the dominant narrative that Canada just can’t afford to build a stronger social safety net. And yet based on the size of our economy (our GDP) which really should define our ability to pay, Canada has lots of room to develop a stronger social fabric, including universal childcare.

Of course, that means having an adult conversation about taxes and fair taxation and climbing back from the decades long race-to-the-bottom started by the United States.

In the last 25 years, Canada has reduced taxes by the tens and tens of billions, especially to corporations. At the same time, it has introduced a smorgasbord of tax breaks to the wealthy. We don’t have an affordability problem, we have a revenue problem.

And in the narrow box that public policy and budget discussions have occurred in pushing for increased social spending has become an uphill battle. Those who pushed for a different and more equal kind of Canada were ridiculed by the right and Conservatives who for too long controlled the public policy debate ensuring that cuts to social spending became inevitable and indeed the goal.

But the conversation is shifting.

The conversation now in many circles, even banking circles, is focused on growing the economy by reducing inequality. How do we do that when Canadian household spending has maxed out? Social supports and higher wages.

- CBC News reports on the findings of Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault confirming the Harper Cons' muzzling of federal scientists on climate change among other issues. And the Star recounts the difficulties its reporters have had trying to access public documents.

- James Wilt discusses the importance of supply-side policy as part of a transition away from dirty energy, while Brett Dolter highlights the Saskatchewan Party's refusal to deal with the demand side.

- Finally, Cam Fuller offers an apt review of the Sask Party's treatment of the film industry. And Alex MacPherson reports on Scott Moe's personal bankruptcy - which looks to have represented ideal preparation for the leadership of a party bent on pushing the province in the same direction.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Elizabeth Piper reports on Jeremy Corbyn's much-needed declaration that under a Labour government, the financial sector will serve the public rather than the other way around. And George Monbiot comments on the role the left needs to play in reversing the accumulation of wealth and power:

(O)nce you have money and property, you can use it to accumulate more money and property, taking an ever greater share of society’s wealth, through the harvesting of economic rent. By economic rent I mean charging people over the odds to use a non-reproducible resource over which you exercise exclusive control. Think, for example, of the ridiculous price we pay in the UK for train tickets, because the train companies have us over a barrel.

By this means, through no enterprise of their own, the rich become richer and the poor become poorer. This process has no natural limits. Eventually, as we’ve seen in the past, the very rich can capture almost the entire production of society.

At this point, the debt, destitution and unemployment that results can cause economic collapse: the Great Depression is a good example.

This predicament is not a perversity of the system. It is an innate characteristic. It is bound to work this way, unless there is a political movement capable of breaking the vicious circle of wealth accumulation.
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The right will never break the power of patrimonial wealth, because the right exists to defend it. But the left, when it remembers what it’s for, exists to confront it.

During the 1940s, when the left was arguably at the peak of its power in mainstream politics, the top rate of income tax in the US rose to 94%, and in the UK to 98%. Economists today look back on these rates and describe them as irrational. They argue that the Laffer Curve suggests that governments raise no further revenue above a rate of about 70%. But this is to miss the point. The point of these taxes was not just to raise revenue, but to break the power of patrimonial capital, and the vicious circle of wealth accumulation and inequality.

- Meanwhile, Frances Ryan discusses how the UK's punitive system for social benefit recipients is doing nothing but adding gratuitous stress for people already struggling to get by.

- Mike de Souza reports on the National Energy Board's attempt to weed out staff for providing accurate information to the media. And Barry Saxifrage examines how continued expansion of the tar sands is utterly incompatible with any serious attempt to meet Canada's already-unambitious greenhouse gas emissions targets, while Marc Jaccard calls out Justin Trudeau's Orwellian attempt to claim we can only cut carbon pollution by increasing it.

- Finally, Daniel Leblanc reports on the parting message of retiring Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault - and particularly the reality that access to information isn't getting any better under the Libs than it was under the Cons. And de Souza notes that the Harper Cons' habit of muzzling federal scientists remains standard operating procedure under Trudeau.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Bill McKibben highlights Justin Trudeau's disingenuousness in pretending to care about climate change while insisting on exploiting enough fossil fuels to irreparably damage our planet.

- Juliet Eilperin examines how Donald Trump is letting industry lobbyists trash any protections for U.S. workers. And Dave Jamieson reminds us of the human cost of the human cost of deregulation.

- Matt Stoller looks at the airline industry as an example of how reduced government involvement only ensures that other powerful actors make choices which affect - and predictably harm - the public. And Erica Johnson reports on Canada's financial industry as another example in which customers' interests take a back seat to employer demands.

- John Geddes interviews Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault about her unsuccessful attempts to get the Trudeau Libs to keep their promise to modernize access to information.

- Finally, the Courage Coalition has released the results of its survey as to the future of progressive Canada, notably featuring this view of the NDP's role:

“Things I'd like to see the NDP do”:
Mobilize members between elections: 84%
Engage in non-electoral campaigns: 83%
Hold educational events: 69%
Attend protests: 69%
Training and leadership development: 64%
Give more control to EDAs: 39%

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Katie Hyslop contrasts Canada's longstanding recognition that housing is a human right against the gross lack of policy action to ensure its availability:

Canada has signed and ratified the 1976 United Nations' International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and in Article 11 it does recognize "the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions."

"Parties will take appropriate steps to ensure the realization of this right," the next sentence of the covenant says.
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Canada has also ratified the UN's International Convention on Women's Rights, and had a hand in drafting the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Both of these also mention a right to housing, either as part of a right to "a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family," or on a basis of equity with men who enjoy a right to adequate housing.

"Essentially, Canada has committed on the international scene to respecting a right to adequate housing for every resident in Canada," said Margot Young, law professor at the University of British Columbia.
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Evidence that Canada is failing to deliver on that right is in our overcrowded shelters, tent cities, or sidewalk camps, where an estimated 235,000 people experience homelessness every year. By definition, it would seem, their right to housing as guaranteed by the covenants Canada has signed, is being denied. 
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The Canadian Homelessness Research Network estimated in a 2014 report that a comprehensive national housing strategy that included maintaining and expanding social and indigenous housing, as well as rental and home owner subsidies, could be implemented for about $4 billion a year -- twice what the federal government has been spending on social housing in recent years. Offsetting that, however, would be annual savings in emergency and social services that the Network estimated at $7 billion.

But the pay off would be more than financial, Larkin says. "One of my hopes would be that it would change the social structure of our cities," she says, "to accept that we should have diversity in all of our cities, that people who are not the richest of the rich should also be allowed to live in Vancouver, and that people should be able to age in place."

Meanwhile, Canadians may have a moral right to adequate housing enshrined in international covenants -- and our federal government has signed on in principle. But 40 years later, it's still not ready to put that principle into action. Getting it to do so, experts agree, will be a job for politics rather than the law.

- Meanwhile, Vineeth Sekharan examines the connection between adverse childhood experiences and later homelessness. And Denise Leduc documents how the Wall government's attacks on Saskatchewan corrections conditions are leading to dangerous results for inmates and their children.

- Art Eggleton makes the case for Canada to test - and ultimately implement - a basic income. 

- Tom Randall discusses how a major shift toward electric vehicles may be just a few years away - and would fundamentally reshape our current level of reliance on oil.

- Finally, Jim Bronskill reports on Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault's call for cabinet offices to be included in Canada's access to information legislation. And Andrew Mitrovica points to a recent hearing with CSIS and RCMP officials as a prime example of how we can't leave oversight of state action solely in the hands of MPs.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Dean Baker reminds us that we shouldn't let ourselves get distracted from the serious problems with inequality when defenders of the status quo try to change the subject to mobility:

(M)any of the policies that would most obviously promote equality also promote growth. For example, a Fed policy committed to high employment, even at the risk of somewhat higher rates of inflation, would lead to stronger wage growth at the middle and bottom of the wage ladder, while also likely leading to more investment and growth.
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It is also important to remember that the well-being of children depends to a large extent on the well-being of their parents. If the minimum wage had kept pace with productivity growth since 1968 (as it did between 1938 and 1968) it would be over $17 an hour today. The children of a single parent earning $34,000 a year would have much better life prospects than the children of a single parent earning $14,500 a year. In this sense there is a very direct relationship between inequality and mobility.

The long and short is that we know of many measures that can both reduce inequality and increase growth. And, if we want to make sure that everyone's children have a shot at a better standard of living in the future then we should make sure that their parents have a better standard of living today.

- Nina Glinski discusses how the rich are the only people seeing any income gains in the U.S. Vijay Das comments on the desperate need for laws to reduce worker exploitation by at least ensuring employees aren't bound to be at an employer's beck and call even when there's minimal hope of receiving actual work. And Murray Dobbin examines how corporatism is threatening Canadian workers in an era of soaring profits and stagnating wages.

- Meanwhile, Paul Krugman takes a look at the damage done by austerity in the UK - even as the Cameron Cons try to claim victory based on the fact that morale improved slightly after their floggings were reduced.

- Joanna Kao offers a range of accounts as to how the U.S. (like other countries) is set up to add to the burden of people already facing the challenge of homelessness. But Arthur Delaney reminds us that the solution to homelessness is as obvious as it is effective.

- Alexander Panetta reports that plenty of people within the CIA had their own misgivings about the decision to render Maher Arar for torture which were ignored due to the sheer stubbornness of single officer. And Jim Bronskill discovers that CSIS is already working on sharing yet more questionable "intelligence" internationally with no apparent concern for the people caught in their net. Which means that there's all the more reason for worry about the implications of C-51 identified by Michael Kempa.

- Finally, Suzanne Legault calls for a much-needed update to Canada's access to information laws.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- The CP reports on Suzanne Legault's much-needed warning about the Cons' secrecy in government:

In a closed-door session with dozens of bureaucrats Thursday, Suzanne Legault cited a series of novel measures she says are damaging an already tottering system.

"I am seeing signs of a system in crisis, where departments are unable to fulfil even their most basic obligations under the act," Legault told the group.

As an example, she cited a directive in April this year from the Treasury Board warning bureaucrats to steer clear of ministers' offices when looking for documents to respond to an access-to-information request.
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The directive imposes strict conditions under which documents can even be requested from a minister's office, and allows political staff members to make a final decision about whether the information is relevant to a request.

Legault drew on other examples of departments that do not bother to retrieve and examine documents before claiming they are exempt or excluded from the Access to Information Act.

- Meanwhile, Elizabeth Thompson points out the lack of any clear privacy rules at all governing most political parties and actors.

- Hugh Wagner highlights the need for the provincial government to get labour legislation right, rather than pushing through attacks on workers with little thought about the consequences for people:

Saskatchewan's workplaces should be moving forward with a view to benefiting the whole of society, not just empowering employers at the expense of employees.

Nationally recognized and respected labour relations scholar and lawyer Prof. David Doorey of York University observes in his review of the legislation that "Bill 85 in its final version remains a onesided package of reforms.

The bill's labour relations provisions in particular are designed to impose new obligations, new restrictions, new costs and new challenges on unions."

If this is not the intent of the legislation, I ask again that the government consult fully and openly with all stakeholders, to ensure the act is further amended or to ensure the impending regulations address the following issues: Obstacles to workers' ability to organize and secure collective bargaining rights should be removed. Concerns that families may no longer be able to spend weekends together and employees may be denied lunch breaks if the employer decides it's necessary should be explicitly dealt with. These seemingly small changes reflect a legislative thrust that expands employer control over working conditions. The regulations must address the lack of checks and balances over how employers exercise this discretion.

- Ryan Meili introduces a national audience to his philosophy of upstream thinking. And for those interested, the Regina launch of the Upstream think tank will take place this afternoon.

- Finally, Ed Broadbent's Jack Layton Lecture is well worth a view:

Sunday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your Sunday reading.

- Ian Lovett reports on the use of "capital appreciation bonds" in California to ensure that future generations pay an inflated price to private-sector developers for infrastructure today.

- Justin Ling's review of Joyce Murray's message about electoral non-competition pacts is well worth a read - but I'll particularly highlight this part:

Do you want Stephen Harper to be defeated in the next federal election?

Alright, we’re already off to a rocky start.

Politics of negation is dangerous, ugly, and unfortunately rears its ugly head very often in leadership campaigns.

“Elect me and I’ll stop [gay marriage/abortion/separatists/Toronto elitists]” has long between a rhetorical sledgehammer that’s good at getting gut reaction from ignorant people. Nothing more.

So when Joyce Murray asks me if I want Stephen Harper to be defeated, my immediate answer is ‘no’ — I want a government that, if possible, is more competent than our current one. Everyone should want that. Murray, like Trudeau or Garneau, should be making a case that she can do that. Not offering an Ocean’s Eleven caper on how to dupe the prime minister.

- But of course, there's loads of room for improvement on the government we're currently stuck with. And on that front, Steven Shrybman points out just the latest example in commenting on Harper's dubious assertion that his party's misleading robocalls weren't in breach of CRTC regulations, while Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault laments the fact that the Cons are trampling on access to information more and more as their stay in office drags on.

- Herbert Gans discusses how the U.S. media can contribute to genuine democratic debate far better than it currently does. And Rick Salutin laments the state of the CBC in having fallen into the same infotainment format as other broadcasters:

The gold standard for anchors was the U.S.’s Walter Cronkite. He was ready to stand up against the state and the flow and was solid as the bronze statue of the American revolutionary minuteman who stood “by the rude bridge that spanned the flood/ His flag to April’s breeze unfurled.” He had rhetoric and a voice to accompany it: “All things are as they were then except — You Are There.” When president Lyndon Johnson heard Cronkite turn against the Vietnam War, he said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost the country.” Compared to Cronkite, Mansbridge isn’t an icon, he’s a barometer.

He’s happily gone with the flow — and the pressure. CBC has become numero uno for crime stories, weather coverage (today’s snow), product launches, celebrities and awards gossip. None of this is new, or news, and CBC itself doesn’t contest the point. The penny story was another example but the one that probably propelled me into this anchor obit was their infinite overkill on the new BlackBerry. (To give CBC radio its due, Carol Off did an item about that on As It Happens.) Also, to be clear, the Z10 drowned in pseudo-journalism everywhere. That’s my point: why have a public broadcaster if it duplicates everybody else’s obsessions? Nor do I want to romanticize the old CBC news. It was pompous and often misleading. But at least it distorted stories I cared about.

- Finally, Murray Mandryk rightly recognizes the significance of Jack Mintz' report on Saskatchewan's incoherent potash royalty structure.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Jim Stanford points out that when it comes to manufacturing, any talk of an "invisible hand" doing much for productivity is based purely on faith rather than evidence:

When it comes to Canada’s lousy record in productivity and innovation, the standard prescription of economists is both clear and predictable. They believe unregulated markets are the best way to allocate resources and determine the composition of output. Therefore, to improve efficiency and innovation, simply improve markets: Eliminate “distorting” taxes. Eliminate regulations. Sign more free-trade agreements. Cut “red tape.” That will unleash the full potential of the private sector to innovate and optimize, and Canada will become a northern tiger.

Canadian economic and social policy has been generally following this advice for a quarter-century. Taxes are lower, globalization is embraced, labour markets are unforgiving, business is freer (and more profitable) than any time in our history. Ironically, however, the more vigorously we pursue the holy grail of self-adjusting markets, the worse our productivity and innovation has been.
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This seeming contradiction between Canada’s business-friendly policy environment and the failure of the resulting empowered private sector to deliver innovation and productivity growth puzzles economists who advocate market-driven approaches. They search for some remaining imperfections or residual market impediments to explain the failure of Canadian productivity and innovation to take off.

But what if the starting assumption of their model – namely, that unconstrained private market forces always produce the most efficient, innovative economy – is not justified? What if, in fact, markets work more productively and creatively when they are guided, supported, and constrained, rather than simply being unleashed? What if the best approach is to challenge and direct markets to more productive and innovative outcomes?

International experience reinforces my skepticism of market-driven policy. The successful state-led industrialization experience of several Asian and Latin American economies in recent decades, where policy was proactive and interventionist, suggests that innovative, productivity-enhancing growth does not occur spontaneously as a result of market forces. Instead, the “visible hand” of government intervention, manifested in a wide range of forms, is more strongly associated with qualitative and quantitative economic progress. Targeted subsidies, strategic trade interventions, active industrial strategies in high-tech industries, domestic procurement strategies, and even public ownership of key firms have all been more effective in promoting innovation and export success than Canada’s hands-off approach.

- And speaking of evidence, interim Auditor General found none that the Cons cared in the slightest whether their stimulus spending saved any jobs other than their own.

- Meanwhile, Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault has pointed out that the Cons' move to destroy the data supporting the long gun registry makes for a disturbing precedent. But I have to wonder whether as secretive a government as Stephen Harper's will see that precedent as a feature rather than a bug: what better way to cover its tracks for future misdeeds than to make the disappearance of information into standard operating procedure?

- Finally, while engaging in a bit more "they all do it" than seems justified, John Ivison rightly slams the Cons' contempt for Parliament.