Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Darlene O'Leary sets out the results from public consultations for a national anti-poverty strategy. And Dennis Howlett writes that our tax system could (and should) be set up to build a far more fair and supportive society.

- Meanwhile, Ryan Cooper makes the case for public services which are simple to use, rather than imposing avoidable stress on the people who are supposed to be benefiting.

- Jeff Minerd discusses how NAFTA has affected Canada's food supply by vastly increasing the quantity of unhealthy food imported from the U.S. And Scott Sinclair weighs in on the Trade in Services Agreement as the next threat to democratic control over public services.

- Didier Jacobs argues that the U.S. needs to rein in the use of shell corporations to facilitate corruption and tax evasion.

- But the CP reports that SNC-Lavalin is reorganizing itself to avoid taxes on income derived from Canadian P3 projects. And Dermod Travis notes that the B.C. Libs instead provided tax breaks to scam artists through their AdvantageBC crony support system. 

- Finally, Yanis Varoufakis comments on the false choice between the corporate establishment and the reactionary right - while appropriately labeling the latter the "Nationalist International". 

New column day

Here, examining how Chris Hamby's brilliant reports on the effect of investor-state dispute settlement terms in past trade agreements should inform our choices in discussing new ones.

For further reading...
- Haley Edwards offers another worthwhile look at the effects of ISDS provisions. 
- Marc Montgomery reports on the reasons to doubt a Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement with Europe would offer any real benefits for Canada.
- Nika Knight offers a summary of the Trade in Services Agreement which has largely gone undiscussed - and indeed, was planned to be so secretive as to suppress any information about its negotiation for five years after coming into effect.
- And Julian Rose examines the dangers of the combination of CETA, the mirror agreement between the U.S. and EU, and the TISA.