Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Tinker Ready discusses how the decision to let COVID-19 spread unabated in the name of "business as usual" has lead to an entirely foreseeable spike in cases of long COVID. Accesswire notes that the carnage from COVID includes an increase in thyroid disorders. And new research from USC sheds some light on how delayed inflammation following infection can prove dangerous or even deadly, while Emma Partiot et al. study some of the molecular effects of COVID on the brain. 

- Brian Kateman argues that the ultimate effects of a climate breakdown are best depicted as involving massive suffering rather than a dead planet - though our experience with COVID should surely disabuse us of the notion that we'll be particularly motivated to avert that outcome. Steve Lorteau points out that the Canadian public is paying far more in subsidies to fossil fuel companies than in carbon taxes. And Natasha Bulowski looks at new polling confirming that the Canadian public is well aware of the need for a just transition to a clean economy - even as we're presented with a relentless stream of propaganda from petropoliticians and media outlets alike in the service of continued carbon pollution. 

- Liam O'Connor reports on Eric Cline's call for Saskatchewan to work on getting fair value for its potash, rather than windfall profits for multinational mining conglomerates as the highest and best use of natural resources. (And it's particularly remarkable to see even Jack Mintz recognize that corporate operators are set to take more than their fair share of the returns.) 

- Finally, John Hall's analysis of the false choice between corporatist parties in the UK has plenty of application to Canada's political scene as well. 

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Tom Parkin discusses the contrived war between the Libs' fake progressives and the Cons' phony populists:

In Canada, under Conservatives and Liberals, income polarization continues, social programs get cut, workers’ economic strength weakens, infrastructure is turned into a finance rent-seeking scheme and oil and gas companies get billions in subsidies — currently by a government that claims to be a global climate leader.

Not surprisingly, this might make some people believe the political-economic elite and the Canadian people aren’t on the same team.

There is, of course, a perfectly rational way out of the economic and political disaster foisted on us. The high cost of everyday life needs to be unwound using policy initiatives, including a public drug plan and childcare. We need to attack money laundering and tax housing speculation. Critical monopolies like power grids should be turned into ratepayer-owned co-ops. Public investment in infrastructure needs to be delivered on-time and on-budget by ending the finance of the finance sector. And the labour market should expand bargaining power for people, especially those who are precarious and with low income. The billions being spent on oil and gas subsidies should be reinvested in what’s being labelled a Green New Deal. We should seek international trade and diplomatic alliances with countries that share our social and democratic values. We should stop arming tyrants.

It’s a pretty obvious plan. But it doesn’t help the political and economic elite. So to replace the obvious solutions, we have political fakery — in two brands. And you better believe it. Or at least one of them.

Brand A pushes the fake populist narrative that refugees are today’s crisis, tax cuts for the rich will raise wages, and the oil and gas industry needs more public subsidies. Brand B sells the fake progressive line that things are great, ending racism is one call-out away, and life-changing investments in people are just around the corner.

But surely Canadians understand that, whether it’s Brand A or Brand B, fake populists or fake progressives, Conservatives or Liberals, their reality doesn’t change.

- And Lynne Fernandez writes about the real challenges facing Manitoba (in contrast to the trumped-up deficit fears being used by Brian Pallister as an excuse to slash social investments).

- Sara Peach offers some suggestions in conducting difficult but necessary conversations about the realities of climate change. Jonathan Watts writes about the risks of climate tipping points - but also points out that they signal the value of taking action. Robert Hackett and Philippa Adams point out how mainstream coverage of pipeline issues tends to freeze out any voices other than oil industry backers. Bonnie Heilman reviews the Just Transition summit which discussed how Saskatchewan can do its part, while Vanessa Williamson comments on France's Gilets Jaunes protests (as opposed to the astroturf Alberta knockoff) as an indication that the price of climate action can't be imposed solely on the working class.

- David Climenhaga examines the corporate funding behind a "protest" which served mostly to confirm how clueless Andrew Scheer is. And Dave Cournoyer calls out the recent spate of separatist blather as the toddler's temper tantrum that it is, while Mitchell Anderson notes that reality wouldn't be kind to any Alberta attempt to go it alone.

- Finally, Sarah O'Connor examines how the UK Cons' freeze of housing benefits seems positively calculated to force people out of their homes. And Brittany Shoot discusses the obvious link between soaring rents and increased homelessness.

Saturday Morning Links

Plenty of good news for your weekend reading.

- When even Chantal Hebert can't help but to acknowledge the NDP's surge in Quebec, you know something significant is afoot:

By the time the election was called, the NDP had already overtaken the other federalist parties for second place among francophone voters.

Four weeks later, Layton has cracked the glass ceiling that insulated the Bloc Québécois from the federalist pack. He could not have achieved that without a hand from Gilles Duceppe.

Fatigue with the Bloc has been a recurring trend in Quebec for the best part of a decade. In this campaign, Duceppe’s tired approach has played to that feeling.

The old Gilles Duceppe would not have spent the first week of a campaign talking about how Stephen Harper had made a tentative deal with the Bloc to oust Paul Martin from power in 2004.

He would have realized that, for many Quebec voters, the salient point of his Ottawa insider’s narrative was that the Bloc had actively entertained the notion of accelerating Harper’s rise to government.

Duceppe’s call may have been in the spirit of the times in 2004 but two Conservative mandates later it is Layton’s decision to opt out of Harper’s opposition boat that comes across as prescient to many Quebec voters.

The 2011 French-language election debate will go down as the first that a Bloc leader did not win hands down. Duceppe had to share the honours with Layton and it was an uneven split in the latter’s favour.

- Which is just one more indication that the NDP is, in Dr. Dawg's words, smashing the Matrix:

The polls are now consistent over time: the NDP is surging, even in second place, and it’s not losing momentum. Prisoners no more, Canadian electors are learning that, even under the antiquated, undemocratic “first past the post” electoral system, their votes may well count after all.
...
The NDP juggernaut is sweeping on, crushing smug assumptions and leaving a trail of bruised pundits’ egos in its wake. Canadians are taking the red pill at last—and there’s not a damned thing the usual media suspects can do about it.

- While Murray Mandryk ends up being too generous to Brad Wall, he does ask some rather important questions about Wall's ill-advised posturing on the federal election:

(W)hat service is Wall providing Saskatchewan voters by repeating Harper's talking point that whichever party gets the most seats wins - even if that single party doesn't get a majority of the 308 House of Commons seats?

Where in either our constitution or our 1,000-year Parliamentary democracy tradition has Wall found this gem of democratic enlightenment? Why is being governed by a coalition government formed by two parties with 60 per cent of House of Commons seats a worse case of "overturning democracy" than being ruled by a single party with 40 per cent of Parliament's seats? Wasn't Wall's Sask. Party a "coalition" that "overturned democracy" by seizing opposition in 1997? Wasn't that against the rules? How is any government - minority or majority - having unfettered power for a specific period even healthy?

Really, sir, when you reach the point where you're arguing Canadians desperately need the stability of a majority government to deal with the current economic instability driven by the horrors of rising oil prices (I kid you not - this is what a premier of Saskatchewan told reporters Thursday), isn't it time to step back and rethink your position?

- At least one business expert is working on convincing Canadians that a Harper majority would be the absolute worst possible outcome for our country's economy:

Mintzberg’s critique of the Harper government has less to do with specific policy positions than with an attitude that he sees as embodying the same unhealthy values that dominated the presidency of George W. Bush. Some key elements are the glorification of overpaid corporate leaders and short-term profits. That’s tied to the denigration of government’s role in providing a regulatory and socially conscious counterweight to business.

The U.S. financial crash and its devastating recession were directly related to this skewed view of the world, Mintzberg believes. As a result of Canada’s having followed a different path, with more willingness to let government regulate financial institutions, “we’re doing better than the Americans,” with an economy that suffered far less and unemployment that’s lower.

- And finally, Tabatha Southey skewers the predictably embarrassing start for Sun News Network:

Sun TV has come unstuck in time. It’s as if, in its first few days, its pundits felt that they had a duty to diligently cover all the events they had missed before it existed. It’s a news network for the recently cryogenically unfrozen, who may be lying in bed and wondering about this Fidel Castro guy or the CBC “Vote Compass” story that was exhausted weeks ago.
...
So far, Sun TV is a network about being a network. It spent most of its first day congratulating itself for being there and most of its second day retelling its nascent creation myth with telethon-esque levels of self-regarding pathos, full of awe at the amazing odds its staff feels it overcame to make it to air.

That’s right: all the triumphalism of pirate radio, with absolutely none of the cool.
...
My son came downstairs while I was watching Sun TV. Fifteen minutes into his oatmeal, not five years from voting age, he laughed and said, “Wow, they’re like little kids who’ve built a cardboard fort, and now they’re pretending dragons are attacking it.”

Exactly.

By way of illustration

Following up on this post, let's consider a couple of hypothetical questions about the election which most clearly highlights the absurdity of allowing two party leaders to take the national stage for themselves by choosing to exclude all others from a debate.

Suppose the 1993 election had seen a similar debate procedure, with the Libs and PCs choosing to square off against each other while leaving the NDP, Bloc and Reform out of the picture.

Would the end result then have been that the "real contenders" debate would have been presented an entirely misleading two-way choice, including a party which ultimately wound up in fifth place?

Or would it have been that the seat counts would have changed, as the ideas which in fact won out over those of the PCs were suppressed rather than being compared directly in one of the most important phases of the campaign?

And can either of those alternatives be seen as a remotely acceptable development?

The false dichotomy coalition

The two party leaders who are going out of their way to present a false binary choice to Canadian voters are both eager to exclude the rest of Canada's party leaders from a debate in order to reinforce that spin. Who could have guessed?

On false opposition

Andrew Coyne rightfully skewers the Libs for not believing a word of their rhetoric on what's supposed to set them apart from the Harper Cons:

The difference between them and the Conservatives, the Liberals would like you to know, is all about “values.” That is, it’s about “priorities.” I mean to say, it’s about “your Canada” versus “Stephen Harper’s Canada.” Indeed, the Liberals have three favourite examples of how the two parties’ values diverge, which they will rhyme off for you at the least provocation. In a phrase, they are: fighter jets, prison cells, and corporate tax cuts.
...
There isn’t any doubt about where the Liberals would like you to think they stand on these. “Instead of spending $16 billion on untendered stealth fighters and…borrowing $6 billion more to give tax breaks to the largest corporations,” the Liberal website proclaims, “Liberals want to address the economic pressures facing Canadian families when it comes to family care, pensions, learning and jobs.”

Unveiling a new French-language campaign, the MP Denis Coderre fumes: “[Harper's] priorities have nothing to do with us: billions for stealth Fighters and American-style mega-prisons, yet nothing for families.” Addressing partisan crowds on his periodic road trips, Michael Ignatieff often expresses his devotion to building “schools, not prisons.”

Got that? If you don’t like jets, jails or, um, jorporate tax cuts, vote Liberal. Except… that’s not actually the Liberal position on any of these. Or to the extent that it is, it’s at best a recent conversion. The merits of all three policies may be debated. But you have to actually be on the other side to do so.
...
I understand the Liberals’ need to differentiate themselves from the Tories. But, really: what kind of chumps do they take us for?

Are they really Liberals?

Susan Delacourt is right to be wary of the seemingly endless supply of sources proclaiming themselves to be Liberal strategists based on past affiliation while announcing their desire to see the party fail in the present. But there's a flip side to that reason for skepticism which also deserves some attention.

After all, the assumption that the Libs should be considered the alternative government in waiting is itself based in no small part on the party's historical record - in which those same fair-weather supporters presumably played a part. So if the media is going to start noting that some substantial portion of those proclaiming themselves to be Liberals out of habit are actually working to undermine the party, it should also take the opportunity to question exactly how much of a natural party base the Libs can actually claim.

Tuesday Morning Links

Content goes here.

- Brian Topp highlights one of the main lessons coming out of David Miller's time as mayor of Toronto:

The current debate about Toronto’s government and future demonstrates a hard political fact. If citizens cannot see what their government is doing, then, politically, to some extent, it is as if those achievements didn’t happen. It is extremely difficult for any government at any level to communicate what it doing to citizens. Speeches by the chief executive don’t do the job.

Lesson for the future: the next time there is a progressive administration in Toronto, it needs to find a way to clean the dirty boys out of the back door while still operating a muscular and unabashedly political strategic/communications team.

- I'm all for creative efforts to engage citizens online. But keeping in mind the enthusiasm for Rick Mercer's Doris Day petition just a decade ago, what are the odds that the Online Party of Canada won't vote itself out of existence if it's in any danger of getting anywhere?

- Needless to say, it's not at all surprising that knowledge about Sean Bruyea's now-vindicated privacy concerns went all the way to the top. But don't worry: while the PMO is perpetually involved in message control, it does seem to be willing to accept limitations on its power when it comes time to actually doing anything useful:

On Sept. 26, 2006, Shaw wrote Bruyea to inform him that neither the PMO or veterans affairs minister’s office could get involved in the handling of his personal file in order to deal with his benefit entitlements. She referred Bruyea to a department official. The e-mail did not address Bruyea’s concerns about the mishandling of his private information.

- Finally, today's Angus Reid poll would be a lot more meaningful if it hadn't unduly limited its scope to respondents' opinions of the Cons and Libs. But there's still an interesting gap between questions of high-level economic policy - where the Cons have a lead - and the one dealing with jobs which is currently a wash between the two parties included in the poll. And the more Canadians start to distinguish between job issues that affect them directly and more abstract issues like debt and inflation, the more trouble the Cons figure to have in trying to run a campaign on the economy.

On glaring omissions

Today's column is far from the first time Bruce Anderson has gone to absurd lengths in trying to limit the choices of Canadian voters by serving up only a Lib/Con false dichotomy, then pretending that results reflecting an artificially-limited set of choices should be taken at face value.

But it's worth noting that Anderson's choice to cut the NDP out of the picture was made in areas where it actually tends to perform particularly well, as past polls on second-choice support and "would consider voting" numbers have tended to place the NDP on an equal footing or better as compared to the Libs. And while we may not be able to confirm that the same applies now due to Harris Decima's selective omission, the only part of Anderson's column that should be seen as boding poorly for the NDP in the slightest is his continued refusal to offer respondents a full range of choices.

Same Old Story (Alf Apps Remix)

Lib president Alf Apps is taking heat from at least a few angles for his idea of "perspective and context", primarily for his attack on the media. But there's another theme underlying Apps' memo that's even more important for Canadians looking for genuine change from the Harper government, rather than more of the same in a red uniform.

Apps' message is based on the idea that the lone tasks for an opposition party are to hang around within striking distance of the government, and then assume power by default when the governing party becomes unpopular. Never mind discussing or promoting any particular values which he thinks Libs might want to support: in fact, he draws no distinction whatsoever between changes of government from Lib to Con and those from Con to Lib in describing what he thinks the Libs should be aiming for.

Needless to say, when the Libs' national president sees no substantive difference between his party and the Cons, I don't see much reason to argue with that assessment. But that concession tends to thoroughly undermine the ability of the Ignatieff Libs to make a case for meaningful change, since they've effectively admitted that their plan is simply to continue the same old political cycle in hopes that they'll be able to use it to their advantage.

And that mindset has plenty of consequences for what Canadians can expect from any future Lib government as well. After all, if Ignatieff's inner circle sees Stephen Harper as a model to be emulated rather than a problem to be fixed, then it figures to be downright eager to govern with a similar disregard for both previous commitments and the interests of the public.

Fortunately, Apps' admission that Ignatieff is entirely focused on putting a new coat of paint on the same old politics should go a long way toward convincing activists in their midst that their priorities won't be taken any more seriously by the Lib central command in the future than they've been in the past. And that in turn should make it easier for Canadians to put their support behind a party which not only has a vision for Canada, but also recognizes that change means more than the opposite side of the same Con/Lib coin.

The third option

Today's columns couldn't fit much better with my suspicions as to how the press would ultimately handle the combination of Dion's muffed interview and Harper's knee-jerk attack in response.

Stephen Maher: Dion = bumbling, Harper = mean.
Michael Den Tandt: Dion = silly and confused, Harper = tawdry, cheap and sad.
Barbara Yaffe: Dion = doofus, Harper = Mr. Nasty.
Greg Weston: Dion = utterly muddled, Harper = cheap and dirty.

Now if only a single one of those columnists would think to mention that there's another, better choice...

(Edit: fixed wording.)

Less than noble sentiments

Shorter Haroon Siddiqui:
I implore all Canadians to eschew needlessly simplistic analysis of the federal election, and instead fully exercise their democratic franchise by casting a ballot for the party whose policies best mirror their values. That is, after they've accepted my advice to arbitrarily ignore all but two of the options.

Foul polling

It's bad enough when pollsters limit Canadians' perceived choices by omission - for example, by only collecting full leadership data about Harper and Dion. But Decima Harris's latest poll for the CP not only does the same with questions about the parties involved, but manages to take a couple more steps in the wrong direction by actively pushing for results which would exclude the NDP, Greens and Bloc in favour of the false dichotomy - then spinning those results to say something they don't:

A polarized electorate may be tilting toward the federal Liberals at the expense of Stephen Harper's Conservative government, a new poll suggested Monday.

The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey compared attitudes toward the Tories and Liberals in a head-to-head, two-party format. The telephone poll of just over 1,000 Canadians found that 44 per cent of respondents said they'd prefer a Liberal government after the next election, compared with 37 per cent who preferred the Conservatives...

Since the 2006 election, the Conservatives "have not been able to enlarge their tent," said Harris-Decima president Bruce Anderson - notwithstanding a generally strong economy, fat government coffers and the incumbent's opportunity to control the agenda.

"If anything, the leaning and the second-choice support profile of Canadians is disproportionately headed in the direction of the Liberals right now," said Anderson.

He said the poll, conducted Thursday through Sunday, was premised on the idea of a sharply polarized election campaign in which the ballot question becomes a stark choice between the incumbent Tories and the only practical alternative.

Now, it's bizarre enough that the poll would be premised on limiting what "practical alternatives" voters have.

But the analysis manages to get even worse than the poll itself. After all, the numbers don't deal at all with actual "leaning" or "second choice" support (which would be exactly where the parties other than the Cons and Libs would have a chance to make up ground). And the poll didn't ask whether respondents were actually willing to vote for either the Libs or Cons - merely which would be the least distasteful of the two if no other options existed.

Having already limited respondents' choices for no apparent reason, though, Anderson then manages to pretend that a question where the Libs (or Cons) could be labeled as the preferred option based on being a respondent's fourth choice out of five says anything about their actual potential to win votes.

Fortunately, there's no indication that voters are in fact prepared to accept the assumption that their only choices are Harper and the non-opposition which has propped him up. And with the Cons and Libs thoroughly botching their respective government and opposition roles, there should be plenty of reason for Canadians to decide that the only practical option is to demand better than both.

On disapproval

While the headlines have focused on Stephane Dion's woeful 10% approval number, the latest Angus Reid poll also shows that a minimum of 58% of all respondents don't approve of the leadership of either Dion or Stephen Harper. So isn't it long past time for pollsters to start offering a few more choices beyond the ones who obviously aren't winning public support?

Update: MCG notes in the comments that the full breakdown (note: PDF) includes basic approve/disapprove numbers for the other federal leaders. Layton leads the pack at 34% approval nationally, and is tied with May at a net +3% approval - compared to -10% for Harper and a stunning -50% for Dion.

But let's not let the poll structure off the hook, as Layton and May weren't included in polling in qualities and characteristics, or on the "best PM" measure where "neither" ties the combined score for Harper and Dion.

On mushiness

Just over a year ago, the Libs went through a convention which was supposed to offer a chance for party renewal. So let's take a look at just what kind of inspiring new vision they've managed to develop under their new leader. From David McGuinty in the Hill Times:

"When Mr. Dion kicks off the campaign, in due course, whenever that happens, I'm confident that he will present to the Canadian people the same kind of scenario and that is if you want to stop a right-wing Republican-like party, which is embedded in its Alliance Reform DNA, then you have to make the choice. You either have to vote for the Liberal Party of Canada who can form the government or you'll have to vote directly or indirectly to support the Conservative Party of Canada," said Mr. McGuinty.

"They [NDP] fear what they know is coming, which is ultimately a two-way race in Canadian society to decide whether they want a centrist party possibly even a centrist-left party, i.e., the Liberal Party of Canada, or do they want a right-wing party."

Now, the gap between words and actions is reason enough not to take the Libs seriously. After all, the same party which now plans to sell itself as devoted to "stopping" the Cons is also the one which has been deliberately propping up the Harper government since this fall's throne speech. And an opposition party trying to position itself as the comparatively left-wing option presumably shouldn't be egging a right-wing government on toward even more gratuitous corporate tax cuts than it already had planned.

But perhaps more interesting is McGuinty's choice to portray the Lib/Con dichotomy as centre-against-right - with "possibly even centre-left" seemingly tossed out as McGuinty's idea of a carrot for progressive voters.

From what I can tell, McGuinty is operating under the assumption that left-wing Canadians will be entirely happy to see a continued shift of Canada's political centre toward the right as left-of-centre ideas receive - at best - some "possible" role within the Libs. And of course, that effect can only be amplified by both the Libs' track record of shifting to the right in government, and their unwillingness to stand up to the Cons while in opposition.

Fortunately, voters aren't stuck taking McGuinty's word as to what options they'll have at the polls. And with the Libs having shown no sign of new ideas or new principles after their effort at internal renewal, a wholesale electoral shift to the NDP offers the best opportunity for a real countervailing force against the Cons - and the only option for a strong left-wing voice on the federal political scene.

On choice results

Steve has already discussed the latest Angus Reid leadership poll where "Neither" is not only outpolling both Stephen Harper and Stephane Dion for PM, but appears to be in majority-government territory with a steady standing in the high 30s to low 40s.

It's worth pointing out though that it isn't the leaders alone who look bad as a result of the unduly narrow poll. After all, after three months of a plurality saying they don't want either Harper or Dion in charge, it's surely long past time for Angus Reid to stop pretending that Canadians have only two choices.