Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Ryan Meili examines why Craig Alexander of the TD Bank is calling for a move toward greater income equality in Canada:

The OECD reports that income inequality is at the highest level in 30 years, and that economic growth has been slowed by as much as 10 per cent in some countries as a result. A 2014 IMF study showed that redistributive policies through tax and transfers not only do no harm to the economy, but can improve performance in the long-term. In fact, it appears that public investments in child care and other services are far more effective in creating jobs and increasing economic growth than corporate or income tax cuts.

Returning to the TD report, it recommends a variety of key public investments to reduce inequality, including affordable housing, health and social services, early childhood development and decreasing barriers to all levels of higher education, from skills training to professional colleges. These are encouraging comments, as they also address key social determinants of health, meaning they are not only good for the economy, but more importantly, good for Canadians.
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(I)t’s extremely encouraging to see this shift in thinking coming from so many directions. When economists working for one of the Big Five banks — Canada’s largest lender, in fact — come out with a strong position on income inequality, it’s indicative of how much this has moved from being a fringe concern to economic orthodoxy.

Last year at this time we heard Conservative Minister James Moore channel his inner Scrooge, implying that the poverty of his neighbour’s child was none of his concern, and neither was the poverty of Canadians any business of the federal government. How delightful to hear a message far more in keeping with the spirit of the season, however unlikely the source. 

- Meanwhile, Alex Himelfarb talks to Possible Canadas about the damaging effects of inequality and austerity. And LOLGOP points out that slightly more progressive taxes under the Obama administration have been put in place at the same time the U.S. has experienced its best job growth of this century.

- Justin Ling interviews Tony Clement about access to information under the Cons, only to find that Clement's own responses consist solely of talking points and redactions. And Torstar reports on the Cons' use of a paid PR service at public expense to manufacture government-approved "news".

- Radical Centrist discusses the need for Canada to talk realistically about the meaning of minority election outcomes - and notes that the U.K. offers a readily-available basis for comparison. And Frank Graves finds that there's plenty of popular support for a coalition government to replace the Harper Cons, even as the Libs once again try to order Canadians not to accept change other than on their own unilaterally-dictated terms.

- Rob Drinkwater reports on CNRL's contamination of drinking water near Cold Lake.

- Finally, Naomi Klein writes about the scant attention paid to murdered and missing aboriginal women by Canadian authorities (with the full support of a callous government), while highlighting the movement to end the silence.

On managerial lapses

Shorter Tony Clement:

I believe there's an art to managing public money. And that's why I see no problem whatsoever with budgets which are works of fiction.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Glen McGregor reports on Michael Sona's conviction as part of the Cons' voter suppression in 2011. But both Michael den Tandt and Sujata Dey emphasize that Sona's conviction was based on his being only one participant in the wider Robocon scheme - and that Stephen Harper and company remain fully responsible for covering up the rest of it.

- Meanwhile, Carol Goar duly mocks Tony Clement's attempt to talk up open government while serving as one of the least accountable ministers in the most secretive Canadian government ever.

- And Justin Ling discusses the myriad of areas in which the Cons are signing away Canadian sovereignty through closed-door trade deals while refusing to admit to what they're doing. 

- David Sirota writes about Los Angeles' attempts to reverse credit swap arrangements which are handing hundreds of millions of dollars from the public to the financial sector - and points out in the process that the city spends more on giveaways to Wall Street than on its own roads.

- Mike de Souza exposes Alberta's sad publicity campaign intended to greenwash the tar sands - or at least muddy the waters in the U.S. But Bob Weber reports that long after that misinformation campaign intended to portray Alberta oil as well-regulated and environmentally responsible, Alberta's government is refusing to regulate pollution based on its assertion that it has no clue how to do so.

- Finally, David Gratzer examines the urgent need for stronger public policy on mental health:

Mental illness is a human tragedy. A patient – off work and sick with depression – recently told me what he missed most from his old life: the ability to laugh. Stuck in darkness, he wished to laugh again. Health-care professionals like me hear such things too often: stories of lost jobs, lost loves, lost years. A recent Danish study suggests that more than a third of the population will have some form of mental illness over their lifetime, with mood and anxiety disorders being the most common.

Mental illness is also a societal tragedy. By one estimate, 500,000 Canadians missed work today because of a mental health problem. The lost productivity and direct health expenses have an economic cost; in a recent analysis for the Mental Health Commission of Canada, the value was pegged at $50-billion a year. Labour economist Richard Layard argues that such estimates are inherently conservative: Mental illness casts a long shadow, over our jails and emergency departments, with total costs of more than 8 per cent of a country’s GDP.

But if mental illness is devastating, common, and costly, there is good news. In many cases, it’s also highly treatable.
...
Yet studies show that people with mental illness routinely fall through the cracks. Only about 1 in 3 will get the health care they need. A pathetic paradox, then: Psychiatry has never been better able to help people yet many don’t get the help they need.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Murray Dobbin recognizes that there's more at stake on the federal political scene than merely replacing the Harper Cons - and that the most important debate may be found within the NDP. Meanwhile, Tim Harper is concern trolling on that front, demanding that Thomas Mulcair silence Linda McQuaig and anybody else whose principles might not align perfectly with Fraser Institute talking points.

- Carol Goar makes the case (as I've done before) to deal with the Senate through a new convention which simply avoids future appointments. But Andrew Coyne proposes a far more difficult path, proposing to deal with constitutional amendment procedures rather than the single illegitimate institution which cries out for action. And Don Lenihan uses that opening to argue for inaction on all fronts.

- Glen Pearson questions the corporatist orthodoxy that the rich must be appeased with preferential access and policy treatment lest they stop creating wealth for themselves. But Tony Clement makes it abundantly clear that his government isn't interested in anything but all-out war against Canadian workers.

- Finally, Jim Stanford calls for another look at the relative merits of infrastructure investment and corporate tax cuts:

Because corporations are taking in so much more than they are spending, liquid cash assets in the non-financial corporate sector continue to swell, and now total almost $600 billion.  Many blue-chip companies, literally holding more money than they know what to do with, are finding ways to distribute excess cash to their owners — either through share buy-backs (like the Royal Bank and CN Rail) or boosting dividends (like Enbridge, Brookfield, and Fortis).  While this may reduce the amount of cash sitting idly in corporate coffers, it will have no direct impact on real business investment, which is what the economy really needs.

The stagnation of business capital spending is a huge disappointment to the advocates of the dramatic reduction in corporate income taxes which has been a central feature of Canada’s fiscal policy in recent years.  Since 2007 the Harper government has cut the federal CIT rate from 22.1% (including a former surtax) to 15% today: that’s a decline of 7.1 points, or about one-third.  Many provinces also cut their rates, bringing the combined federal-provincial average rate down to around 26% today — among the lower rates of industrialized countries, and far lower than America’s 35% federal statutory rate (closer to 40% when we include state CITs).  The federal CIT cut has reduced federal revenues by about $13 billion per year.

The argument has been that tax cuts would elicit more business investment spending.  In 2006, the year before the Harper CIT tax cuts were announced, non-residential business investment equaled 10.5% of GDP.  In the first half of 2013, with corporate taxes reduced by one-third, non-residential business investment has equaled 10.7%  of GDP.  That apparent increment of 0.2% of GDP represents $4.6 billion in “extra” capital spending.  Motivated from a $13 billion tax cut.  In other words, the government had to spend almost $3, for each $1 in new business spending.  (Of course, there are many other factors influencing investment that vary from one year to another, so it’s hard to isolate the impact of the tax cut.)  So far in 2013, business investment has actually declined, making a bad situation worse.

Three times as much investment would have been motivated if the government simply spent the $13 billion directly on new public infrastructure (something we badly need, and that would boost private sector productivity.  And here’s the biggest irony of all: econometric evidence suggests that the biggest influence on business investment is the pace of economic growth (since businesses won’t invest, if they are worried final demand for their products will be unable to ratify the capacity added through their investment).  Growth generates investment (and hence more growth) via multiplier and accelerator effects that are stronger, based on econometric evidence, than any positive effect of lower taxes on business investment.

Saturday Afternoon Links

This and that to end your Saturday.

- Bill Curry breaks the news of the Cons' next round of public service slashing - with Canada Revenue Agency employees whose work far more than pays for itself once more looming as one of the main targets of a government determined to ease the way for tax evasion and avoidance.

- Jodie Sinnema reports on the Parkland Institute's ideas for a more progressive tax system in Alberta. And it's particularly worth noting that Albertans themselves recognize the value of fair taxes even as their government continues to insist on the need to cater to the wealthy:

A survey of 1,207 residents in 2012 found 60 per cent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed higher-income earners should pay a greater share in taxes.

“They’re quite open, certainly much more open than the pervasive mythology that you see perpetuated by the government and some other pundits around this issue,” Stunden Bower said. “People who have the capacity to pay more should pay more.”

- Stephen Maher rightly questions why the Cons are so eager to harass EI recipients while simply taking Senate appointees at their word that we should keep shovelling public largesse their way:

I would like the government to treat those two sins — filing a fake EI claim and filing a false declaration of primary residence — in exactly the same way.

There should not be one rule for senators and another for fish plant workers, who smell worse but are more honest than a lot of politicians.

If it’s OK for Duffy to just pay back the money he received as result of an incorrectly filled out form, then it should also be OK for people who fill out those EI forms incorrectly to just pay the money back.

And neither Duffy nor jobless fish-plant workers should have inspectors popping by their frigging houses unannounced.

- Finally, Bruce Owen's story about an unprovoked physical attack on Manitoba NDP MLA Kevin Chief is well worth a read - both in highlighting Chief's personal response, and as a reminder that there are other (and more constructive) responses to crime beyond the obsession with vengeance that serves as the Cons' inevitable reaction.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Chris Hayes notes that Mitt Romney's $50,000-a-plate dinner caught on video represents a rare glimpse inside the U.S.' plutocracy - as well as a strong argument as to why we shouldn't allow that group to decide policy affecting the public at large:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

- Meanwhile, Linda McQuaig notes that Mitt Romney's great mistake was to expose a bit too much of what his party has long stood for.

- The CP documents the latest example of the Cons trying to distance themselves from mere commoners - as a much-ballyhooed Tony Clement Twitter town hall actually involved an exercise in underlings delivering pre-determined spin on his behalf.

- But that of course ranks a distant second as the most disturbing story about the Cons' manipulation of online interaction with Canadians, as Glen McGregor posts and writes about Jason Kenney's creepy e-mail to GLBT advocates. And it's well worth noting that the use of e-mail addresses supplied on a petition to a federal department as conduits for talking point delivery looks to be as clear an example as we've seen of the Cons' politicization of every piece of information they can collect - not to mention flagrant disregard for the federal Privacy Act and its protection of personal information.

- Finally, the Mound of Sound notes that income inequality in the U.S. may be worse today than in the era of slavery.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Jim Stanford neatly sums up how the Cons' obsession with selling off both natural resources and natural resource producers affects other industries:

There is no doubting the statistical correlation between oil prices and the loonie. Econometric analysis indicates that since the turn of the century, oil prices explain 86 per cent of the dollar’s rise. The precise reasons for this correlation are unclear. It certainly is not due to a strong trade balance. In fact, Canada has experienced a deepening international payments deficit in recent years, because non-petroleum exports are falling faster than our energy exports surge (see graph). My own research suggests it is foreign takeovers of petroleum companies and reserves, not current production and export of the stuff, that is driving the loonie up.

It is equally clear that the Canadian dollar is overvalued, relative to both historical averages and economic fundamentals. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the current “fair value” for the Canadian dollar (based on purchasing power parity analysis) is about 81 cents U.S. Anything higher and Canadian-made products and services look disproportionately expensive (including manufacturing, services, tourism — and even Big Macs, according to the Economist’s famous hamburger index).

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In my books, the best way to short-circuit the damaging link between oil prices and the loonie would be to carefully regulate foreign takeovers of resource companies. That’s a worthwhile policy to consider for many reasons (not just for avoiding Dutch Disease). And this hardly implies bombing Alberta’s economy back to the stone age; if anything, a more careful and strategic approach to managing this non-renewable resource would allow Albertans, too, to capture more lasting benefits than the current what-me-worry strategy can ever deliver.

Methinks the bitumen boosters doth protest too much, with their loud attempt to suppress any debate over the potential downsides of Canada’s current energy strategy — which consists of scraping as much bitumen, as quickly as possible, and exporting it raw. Are there important national spinoff benefits generated by the petroleum boom in Alberta? Absolutely. But are there also important costs and risks associated with this economic strategy based on the unregulated extraction and export of a non-renewable resource? Certainly. Could we do a better job of managing those costs and risks? Undoubtedly … unless we continue pretending they don’t exist.

Stanford then decries the tar-sands McCarthyism of the Cons and their petro-state allies. And Erin points out Michael Den Tandt as an example of a commentator completely contradicting himself from one column to the next in order to try to attack Thomas Mulcair.

- Meanwhile, Bea Vongdouangchanh reports on the Cons' abdication of any responsibility for Canada's environment. And Tim Harper suggests that as a result, Alison Redford may have to be the one to implement an environmental plan covering the oil sands.

- Barrie McKenna unloads on the Cons' secrecy and misdirection in trying to make it as difficult as possible for anybody to figure out exactly what's being cut in their budget:

Last week, Mr. Clement’s office released its annual “reports on plans and priorities,” which converts the estimates into detailed spending plans for all 97 federal departments and agencies. Typically, these also reflect changes in the budget.

Not this year. Mr. Clement, the Prince of Darkness, specifically directed departments to exclude the budget cuts, even though they have been known for more than a month.
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Is the department shrinking or growing? Damned if anyone outside government knows. And that, in the bizarro world of federal accounting, just might be the intent.

If Ottawa Inc. were a public company, regulators would probably delist its shares.

Federal financial reporting has become so murky, inconsistent and retrospective that no outsider has a clear picture of what is actually being spent, or cut. Multiple and overlapping reports are produced using different accounting methodologies. Money not spent in one year is quietly shifted into another, conveniently creating moveable baselines for advertised “cuts.”

- And Don Lenihan points out yet another ruling from Andrew Scheer which will serve to insulate the Cons from any accountability whatsoever for lying to Parliament and the public - this one a requirement that anybody seeking to challenge a false statement be able to prove a direct intention to mislead. As Lenihan notes, that ruling fits nicely into the Cons' general preference for one-way "comms" over meaningful debate.

- Finally, Bruce Cheadle reports on the growing doubt about Senate elections from many of the parties and figures who previously pushed the model. But the point most worth highlighting (particularly given the prospect of a Con Senate majority holding at least theoretical power to utterly stymie the efforts of an NDP government in 2015) is the recognition that the Senate can't legitimately interfere with the decisions of elected representatives now.

[Edit: fixed formatting.]

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Carol Goar notes that the Cons' decision to mess with retirement security may be just the type of issue to rouse voters who had been lulled to sleep by promises of stability - which seems more plausible than Chantal Hebert's theory that the Cons can reasonably expect to benefit politically by focusing attention on exactly the kind of cuts they can only get away with in relative silence. Meanwhile, Ellen Roseman points out that an increase in the eligibility age makes no sense at all and Trish Hennessy runs the numbers on how cuts to OAS might play out.

- Meanwhile, in the "accountability for thee but not for me" department, the Cons want to stoke outrage over CBC salaries while jealously hiding what we're paying Stephen Harper's PMO spinners. And the Cons are also making the stunning claim that e-mails sent in response to media questions can't be quoted.

- But in fairness, encounters with reality have had a tendency not to end well for the Cons.

- Finally, Paul Moist weighs in on the NDP's leadership campaign by pointing out the wider role the party needs to play in speaking for workers.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Jim Stanford highlights a trend of employers forcing work stoppages in order to force massive concessions out of their employees - and notes that the Harper Cons seem to be entirely in favour of that kind of economic disruption as long as it's workers who stand to lose out:

(B)usiness leaders have warmed to work stoppages. In the current bargaining environment, companies (especially multinational firms) hold the best cards. And executives are increasingly willing to precipitate their own work stoppages – through management lockouts – to enforce demands for lower wages and benefits.

Two New Year’s Day lockouts highlighted this strategy. U.S.-based Caterpillar Inc. locked out 450 locomotive builders in London, Ont., demanding wage cuts of more than 50 per cent. The same day, Rio Tinto, the U.K.-based mining giant, locked out 755 smelter workers in Alma, Que. That company’s demand to outsource all future bargaining-unit openings would ultimately achieve an even larger reduction in wages. In both cases, the future of middle-class incomes in our manufacturing and resource sectors is at stake. And in both cases, executives are willing to lock the doors until workers swallow their pill.
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The popularity of lockouts reflects the dramatic tilting of the labour relations playing field in recent years. With unions on the defensive, management is eager to go for the jugular. Government has stood back or, worse, egged on the lockouts (as Ottawa did with Canada Post). Multinational firms are especially aggressive, given their ability (underwritten by free-trade agreements) to shift production and capital seamlessly between jurisdictions.

This trend is troubling, for macroeconomic as well as ethical reasons. As employers ratchet down compensation, income shifts from consumers (who spend every penny) to corporations (which sit on a growing pile of uninvested cash). That undermines aggregate spending and weakens the recovery. And the more employers succeed in driving down wages, the greater the danger of setting off a cycle of deflation in wages and prices (such as the one that bedevilled Japan for a decade).

- Meanwhile, Paul Krugman cuts through Mitt Romney's spin about the tax rate Romney pays personally to raise a deeper point about the main excuse proffered for constant corporate tax slashing:

(I)t’s kind of peculiar to see conservatives jumping up and down to say that Mitt Romney does too pay reasonable taxes if you include the profits taxes on the corporations in which he invests. Because if memory serves me, just a few years ago conservatives were denouncing the “flypaper theory” of tax incidence, arguing that much of the burden of corporate taxes really falls on labor, not on stockholders. Is it just my imagination?

No, it isn’t. They really did make this argument. Repeatedly.

And the truth is that I always took this argument semi-seriously...

(T)here is a strong sense of trying to have it both ways. When people raise questions about big tax cuts for corporations, we’re told not to worry, because corporate taxes mainly fall on labor, not on stockholders. When people raise questions about low taxes on the very rich, we’re told not to worry because once you include all the taxes corporations have paid on their behalf as stockholders, their taxes aren’t really that low.

Funny how that works.

- The NCC's attacks on Bob Rae have a few of the country's better-informed political observers thinking about how to address the ability of big-money donors to exert disproportionate influence on Canada's political debate. Kady O'Malley and Scot Reid suggest that the problem can be dealt with through disclosure requirements, while Andrew Coyne proposes that third-party groups should be subject to the same pool of funds as political parties (with a cap on individual donations applying to both).

- Finally, Andrew Potter considers the Cons' latest blather about "red tape" to be just the latest example of Tony Clement being instructed to introduce policy targeted toward the non-thinking:

How does one-for-one help us determine what regulations are good, and which are bad? This emphasis on the absolute numbers of rules, as opposed to their relative effectiveness, is just as brainless as the old Soviet practice of treating hours worked or widgets produced as the mark of economic growth. Who cares what the work was on, or whether anyone wanted any widgets.

To see how confused this is, try applying the one-for-one rule to everything else the government does. How about, for every new law the government wants to enact, it has to eliminate one. For every criminal it wants to imprison, it has to release one. For every tax it wants to cut, it has to increase another. For every cabinet member it wants to add, it has to fire another.

This could actually be a fun little parlour game, but it is no way to run a country. Except it is the same brand of bucktoothed libertarianism that has become this government’s signature approach to public policy. Whether it is about treating drug abuse, dealing with crime, running a statistics agency, or engaging in just about any of the other routine tasks of keeping a G8 country going, the Conservatives have made a habit of giving Canadians policy cooked up by people who can’t figure out whether they have a bigger crush on Robert Heinlein, or Ann Coulter.

This isn’t just some amusing little fanboy fugue. It has real consequences for the country and for our ability to make sensible and effective laws and policy.

[Edit: fixed attribution for last column.]

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Frances Russell criticizes the Cons' latest attempts to stifle parliamentary accountability. And the Citizen can only scoff at Tony Clement's claim to be an advocate for open government:

What matters is whether government makes information available. The statistics from access-to-information requests suggest that less information is getting out under this government, not more. And the Conservatives' highly defensive position on such matters as the detainee documents, or who put "not" on an international-development funding document, has not increased Canadians' trust in their government.

Public servants and scientists are too scared to talk to reporters. Even communications staff want questions in writing, and some are slow to respond.

In fact, Clement himself has damaged his credibility by refusing to be candid about the funding decisions that were made under the guise of G8 legacy projects in his riding. It's a bit much for a minister so closely identified with a slush fund and with obfuscation to be the champion of open government.

- If there's any sure signal as to how ill-advised the Cons' corporate tax-slashing strategy is, just look at Neil Reynolds' latest - where Reynolds has to selectively cite the same pack of Republican presidential candidates seen as a "hodge-podge of marginal types" who are destroying their own party to find anybody else on the planet so obsessed with handing out money to the corporate sector, and even then finds himself offside against the front-runner.

- Meanwhile, a more reasonable take on the impact of corporate tax cuts comes from Glen Pearson:

Just this week the Government of Canada reduced the corporate tax rate. It stood at 21% in 2005 but is now a mere 15%. In the last two years the government has lost $11.5 billion in annual tax revenue because of the scaled reductions.

We are constantly being informed that such reductions are necessary to keep us competitive and our economy healthy. There are surely boatloads of money being made each and every year in Canada but the 99% can’t find it or get some kind of boost in their standard of living because of it.

- And the constant corporate tax slashing looks all the more unproductive in light of the revelation that those billions of free dollars haven't stopped employers from retrenching on pension funding - not to mention the attacks on workers from Stephen Harper's own poster employer.

- Finally, Alice presents a fascinating look at a poll carried out by Brian Topp for the NDP's leadership race.

Parliament In Review: October 31, 2011

Monday, October 31 saw a study in contrasts as two matters were debated in the House of Commons: a private member's bill which understandably saw broad agreement, and an opposition motion which should have but was instead met with a painful level of denial from the Cons.

The Big Issue

That of course would be Claude Gravelle's motion calling for Canada to end the mining, use and export of asbestos. But you'd never know it from the Cons' response - as the first two Con speeches stuck so dutifully to the party's talking points that they didn't even deign to mention the word "asbestos" once in dealing with the motion. Which surely speaks volumes as to how indefensible the Cons know it is to stick so stubbornly to their defence of the industry.

Mind you, the streak was finally broken in a response from Wladyslaw Lizon in defence of dangerous substances generally. And even that may not have been the most jaw-droppingly callous moment from the Cons, as Christian Paradis argued that we should keep encouraging the use of substances which have been proven to be unsafe by pointing to a lack of data about possible substitutes.

Not surprisingly, Pat Martin played a prominent role in the debate - highlighting the amount of public money and time the Cons have used to tar Canada with the reputation as the lone developed country which refuses to acknowledge the dangers of all forms of asbestos, duly mocking the lone study supposedly supporting the use of chrysotile asbestos on the basis that it's harmful enough to boost the immune system of those exposed to it, and proposing that the public money now going into propping up the asbestos industry instead be used to remediate buildings still laced with it. Elizabeth May questioned why the Cons are willing to ignore hundreds of thousands of asbestos-related deaths while shedding crocodile tears over much smaller humanitarian crises. May also pointed out the environmental damage that asbestos mining has inflicted in Quebec, while Anne Marie Day noted the health impacts of asbestos mining. Dennis Bevington countered the Cons' attempt to paint the motion as an attack on the mining industry as a whole by noting that we'll have a much tougher time exporting anything at all if we send the message that all of our products are as unsafe as asbestos - which figures to be a particular problem as the Cons turn Canada into an international pariah. Joe Comartin, Nathan Cullen and Francois Lapointe all noted the entirely justified concern expressed about asbestos by Cons past and present. And Cullen nicely summed up the the dangers when a government sees itself primarily as a lobbying arm of an industry (as the Cons are doing just as much for asbestos as for the tar sands):

I have some experience with this argument because I introduced a private member's bill in a previous Parliament to ban a certain type of chemical in plastics, a softener that was an endocrine disrupter and a known carcinogen. As it moved through Parliament, the government raised the same issues, as did industry. They said there were no good replacements. Government members said there were no known replacements and that any replacement they could find would be very expensive. This is exactly how industry, which is being targeted for exposing people to risky products, always responds. It is the same argument in reverse that the tobacco industry used for years. It asked for proof that smoking gave people cancer, said it could not be done, and said it would provide experts who would say otherwise.

Of course, industry is going to defend itself to the nth degree, because that is what it does, but the role of government is to defend the rights and interests of Canadians and, as a further extension, to stop promoting the use of something that we know kills people and at the very least to slap a label on it that says it is dangerous.

First Contact

Meanwhile, Con MP Patricia Davidson spoke to her legislation to regulate non-corrective cosmetic contact lenses - which received support from all parties who spoke to it. But it was hard not to suspect that if exactly the same bill had been introduced by an opposition member, the Cons would have received orders to vote against it en masse as an attack on Canadian jobs.

In Brief

Nycole Turmel mused that oil and gas is the only sector of Canada's economy that hasn't been stagnant under the oil-backed Con government. Cullen spoke against the Cons' determination to torch the data from the federal gun registry. Helene Laverdiere challenged the Cons to take the lead against the criminalization of homosexuality in the Commonwealth. Harold Albrecht's bill on an suicide prevention strategy received positive responses from all parties. Charlie Angus raised the e-mail in which Tony Clement directly stated that he'd be flowing funds to municipalities, only to be met with the usual change of subject from the minister not responsible. Jean Crowder questioned the Cons on their cuts to Service Canada. And finally, Rathika Sitsabaiesan's question about the lack of jobs available for new graduates struggling under the burden of massive student debt was met with the Cons' usual spin about providing tax breaks for those lucky enough not to face that problem.

Like that'll work

Sure, a reasonable government would have some shame over its obvious doctoring of Hansard. But isn't the most likely outcome of the NDP's new complaint for Clement's departmental officials to formally certify that no such committee hearing ever took place?

Update: Or that would make sense too - particularly if John Baird starts declaring that he's the minister responsible for the change in wording.

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Barrie McKenna thoroughly debunks the claim that "financial literacy" alone is enough to put ordinary citizens on a level playing field with the financial industry:

Looking to financial literacy to fill the void is like asking ordinary Canadians to be their own brain surgeons and airline pilots. The dizzying array of financial products, mixed with chaotic and increasingly irrational financial markets, makes the job of do-it-yourself financial planning almost impossible – no matter how literate you are. The average credit-card agreement is as intuitive as quantum physics.

The financial services industry wants it both ways. It preaches literacy and it advises government on sound policy. Mr. Flaherty’s task force is headed by Sun Life Financial Inc. chief executive officer Donald Stewart and BMO Nesbitt Burns chairman Jacques Ménard.

But literacy isn’t particularly lucrative. Armed with hundreds of millions in advertising dollars, Mr. Stewart’s and Mr. Ménard’s industry is simultaneously selling another story to consumers. Canadians are constantly bombarded with pitches to take on more debt, whether it’s right for them or not. They’re often blindly steered toward high-fee products and complex financial instruments. The accompanying disclosure statements are written by, and for, lawyers.

Central banks aren’t much help, either. Their vows to keep interest rates near zero indefinitely have made us all a generation of reluctant speculators, desperately seeking a better-than-2-per-cent return.

Financial literacy is a smokescreen.

- The CP highlights a few of the more inexplicable numbers in a detailed review of Tony Clement's G8 porkfest. David Pugliese warns that the Cons' choice to hitch a ride with another failing U.S. program - this time on satellite communications - may be the next great boondoggle in the making. And Mike de Souza catches the Cons misleading Canada about the effect of ozone monitoring cuts.

- Aaron Wherry reminds us of a time when the Cons pretended to care about Parliamentary debate.

- Finally, the Globe and Mail slams the Cons for information suppression that's more consistent with the developing world than a modern democracy.

Parliament In Review: October 26, 2011

Wednesday, October 26 saw a rare opportunity for the opposition parties to set the agenda. And as a result, the big issue was one which the Cons prefer to discuss as little as possible - even if it's far more relevant to more Canadians than most of the Harper government's distraction tactics.

The Big Issue

And that issue is...transit, which was dealt with in a second-reading debate on Olivia Chow's private member's bill. Chow in particular pointed out that municipalities themselves aren't the least bit interested in having the federal government wash its hands of the issue:

Hazel McCallion was just ranked number one in a Canadian poll as the most popular mayor. Naheed Nenshi, the major of Calgary, is number two. He is the Prime Minister's mayor and he supports a national transit strategy. Gregor Robertson, the mayor of Vancouver, is number three and he too supports a national transit strategy. These mayors are all in touch with their constituents. They all know what is needed.

Here are some more words: “We would encourage all parliamentarians and all parties to support the creation of a national transit strategy” They are not the words of a big city mayor. They are the words of the mayor of Grande Prairie.

The mayor of Winnipeg said that this provides an excellent framework for a national transit strategy. He was talking about the bill.

On the east coast, the Charlottetown city council supports the bill for a national transit strategy. That endorsement is echoed in all parts of the country, the transit authorities of London, Ottawa, Kelowna, the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties , the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities which represent over 2,000 cities large and small, from coast to coast to coast.

Business groups such as the Toronto Board of Trade, and just today, the Victoria Chamber of Commerce, are on board.

There is a reason that all these great community leaders, business groups and ordinary Canadians are crying out for us to act. Transit is important; in fact, it is vital.

...which could only mean that the Cons were determined to do just that.

Meanwhile, Chow pointed out why the current general gas tax transfers aren't enough to ensure the development of well-planned transit systems. Elizabeth May seconded the bill and pointed out that Canada is the lone OECD country without a national transit policy. Kevin Lamoureux raised the idea of making transit free for seniors during off-peak hours. And Fin Donnelly pointed out the health and economic benefits of an effective transit policy.


The Race to Respond

Ralph Goodale raised a point of order as to why a Con spinmeister had been recognized to answer a question directed toward an opposition committee chair - a tactic which looks to be a sadly effective response to the idea of limiting the Cons' ability to provide non-answers in question period as long as the Speaker is so interested in giving the maximum possible speaking time to his party that he doesn't care in the slightest where a question is directed.

In Brief

Robert Aubin raised homelessness and housing in question period, only to have his call for a long-term strategy met with a statement that the Cons had already done plenty as far as they're concerned. Chris Charlton introduced a private member's bill to establish an oil and gas ombudsman. Jack Harris moved another motion to split up the Cons' dumb-on-crime legislation to allow the more problematic aspects to receive the scrutiny they deserve, while noting that the Cons' new bill left out amendments agreed to when earlier versions actually received some study. And in question period, Harris challenged Vic Toews on the differences between the Cons' previous gun registry bills and the one they're so determined to ram through now. Joe Comartin expanded on his ultimately-successful challenge to Russ Hiebert's anti-union bill. Alexandre Boulerice wondered whether the Cons' acceptance of the Auditor General's recommendations out of Tony Clement's G8 scandal included any willingness to allow Parliament to investigate, rather than taking Clement at his thoroughly-debunked word. Pat Martin pointed out another Con MP who campaigned on the idea of a vote on the future of the Canadian Wheat Board's single desk, rather than its destruction by fiat. And Rathika Sitsabaiesan called for an investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sri Lanka - only to be met with Deepak Obhrai's response that diplomacy works behind the scenes rather than in public. (Which surely needs to be passed along to whoever's been directing the Harper Cons' all-bloviation, all-the-time strategy on the Middle East.)

Too close to home

Yes, the threat of a slander suit probably had something to do with Gerry Ritz' desperate retreat after attacking the Canadian Wheat Board. But more important is the significance of Ritz' allegation based on what his own party has done: if one considers it theft to use quasi-public money for unapproved purposes and to promote political ends, then surely the Cons would qualify as a full-on criminal enterprise.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Stephen Maher nicely summarizes Tony Clement's sad committee appearance yesterday:

The evidence shows that Clement chose the projects himself, in some kind of mysterious process in his riding office. He has steadfastly denied that, and even helpfully pointed out to reporters in September why that would have been wrong.

“If I was the decision-maker, if I had set up a parallel process — and created a situation where the auditor general did not know, that’s their accusation — I’d be resigning right now and turning myself into the local police office.”

Clement’s logic is plain: since choosing the projects himself would have been wrong, he obviously did not do so. He must deny it, forever and with great sincerity, which is what he spent Wednesday doing.
...
New Democrat MP Charlie Angus, the fiery former punk singer from Timmins, Ont., made a strong argument on Wednesday that Clement should get a new assignment.

“This is about your fundamental competence,” he said. “It gets to the question of how you do business, when the auditor general says you broke the rules.”

Clement — who is now president of the Treasury Board, the minister in charge of interpreting and administering the spending rules for the federal government — admitted he made mistakes.

“The auditor general said she was concerned about the lack of documentation,” he said. “I take that to heart. The paperwork for this was not perfect.”

“Not perfect?” Angus interrupted, incredulous. “It doesn’t exist.”

“I take my share of responsibility for that and certainly I have learned that there are different ways and better ways to provide these kinds of intake processes, and I commit myself to using them,” said Clement.

Angus was not mollified.

“When people started asking questions, you said, ‘I’m sorry, the dog ate my homework. I’ll do better the next time.’ What are you doing at Treasury Board?”

It’s a good question.

- Meanwhile, Vic Toews helped Clement out by offering his own jaw-droppingly ignorant spin, criticizing the NDP's Joe Comartin for having acted as a defence lawyer.

- Yes, it's true enough that a series of provincial elections likely cut into the federal NDP's fund-raising efforts. But I'd still think the third-quarter numbers present a clear indication that the party has a long way to go in making sure that its fund-raising and other member involvement catch up to its vote and seat totals - and we'll have to keep a close eye on how the numbers change over the next two quarters when the base should be fully involved.

- Finally, Paul Gingrich examines the state of post-secondary education costs in Saskatchewan, and finds that the Sask Party's tuition hikes have undone much of the good accomplished by the NDP' previous freeze.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- I'd think it's long past the time where any informed observer could cling to hope that the Harper Cons see good government as a goal worth pursuing. But Dan Gardner points out the role that Parliament should play if they actually did have some interest in that result:

Of course one may complain about the hypocrisy of Stephen Harper and other senior Conservatives who furiously denounced the Chrétien government when it did precisely what they are doing now. (Well, not "precisely." Harper has imposed time limits at a much higher rate than Chrétien did, even at his most imperious, and he is on track to set an all-time record. But let's not get distracted by trivia, as the PMO flack would say.)

Or one may complain that it's undemocratic. And contemptuous. One may note that almost one-third of MPs have never debated these issues in the House of Commons and, if Parliament is to be something more than a fig leaf covering the prime minister's naughty bits, parliamentarians must have the right to stand up and debate as long as they damned well want.

But these arguments are based on principle and respect for parliamentary tradition. Think that's going to wash with the Harperites? You might as well make your case by quoting the Koran.

There is, however, another reason for thinking this is a terrible mistake. It's one that even Conservatives may care about.
...
(I)t is not reassuring that the minister intends to change something whose existence he and his staff were unaware of until critics forced them to see it given that the government is determined to push heaps of complex legislation through Parliament with little opportunity for other critics to find other concerns that other ministers need to know about.

And, no, this isn't just about catching drafting errors. It's about different perspectives, new ideas, reconsiderations, modifications, additions. It's about all the reasons why we have a Parliament, and why the name of that institution comes from the Old French "Parlement," meaning a place to talk.

It's about good government. Conservatives are in favour of that, right?

- Greg Weston has some important questions for Tony Clement on his G8 scandal. But given the Cons' anti-CBC paranoia, I'm sure the fact that Weston has raised them will result in a new set of talking points as to how they're utterly illegitimate.

- No, it's not surprising that the Saskatchewan Party has more attacks in store for the province's workers. Instead, the only surprise is that Brad Wall allowed part of that reality to slip out before the election - in contrast to 2007, when he claimed no interest in imposing an essential services law before making it one of the first acts of his new government.

- Finally, Andrew Jackson points out that after decades of calculated wage suppression by business and government alike, higher wages may be a necessity as part of an economic recovery.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your afternoon reading.

- Lawrence Martin argues that with an NDP Official Opposition at the same time as the effects of inequality and greed continue to send shockwaves across the globe, there's no time like the present for Canada to debate higher taxes as the price of needed public services:

As the official Opposition party, the NDP for the first time has a megaphone. When the party speaks of social justice, it no longer speaks from the margins. Interim leader Nycole Turmel is not a strong performer, but in Mr. Topp, in Thomas Mulcair, in Peggy Nash and others they have an impressive set of leadership candidates who are unflinching. Throughout the recent downturn, the Conservatives have had the great cover-all rationale working for them, it being that Canada isn’t doing as badly as other countries. They trumpet the splendid economic fundamentals, many of which – an example being the regulation of the financial sector – were put in place by previous governments.

While the country is doing better than others, the New Democrats have no shortage of ammunition. A society in which the gap between the wealthy and the rest is continually widening is a retrogressive, not a progressive, society.

In contrast to their southern neighbours, Canadians have a history, until recently at least, of accepting higher taxation levels as the price for a more just and egalitarian society. Mr. Topp and his fellow travellers must remind them of that.

- And Linda McQuaig has some suggestions as to how to make inequality obsolete:

Adding a new marginal tax rate of 60 per cent to those earning over $500,000 a year, and a 70 per cent rate to those earning over $2.5 million a year — rates that would simply restore the progressivity that existed during Canada’s booming postwar decades — would raise almost $8 billion a year, according to Osgoode Hall tax professor Neil Brooks.

Yet this $8 billion interests Flaherty so little that he can’t be bothered to collect it.

Compare this to Flaherty’s relentless pursuit of spending cuts, no matter how tiny the saving. He’s refused to back down for instance on closing the St. John’s maritime rescue centre — which answers hundreds of distress calls annually — even though its closure will save less than $56 million, a pittance compared to $8 billion.

Flaherty has assured us that, while Americans have legitimate concerns about inequality, Canada has a “very progressive tax system.”

But it’s Flaherty who’s got the dreamy ideas here. Our tax system as a whole — including sales, excise and property taxes as well as income taxes — isn’t actually progressive. A study by Marc Lee of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives showed that when all taxes are included, the poorest 10 per cent of Canadians — those earning less than $13,500 a year — paid fully 30.7 per cent of their tiny incomes in tax, while the top 1 per cent — with incomes above $300,000 — had a slightly lighter burden, paying 30.5 per cent of their incomes in tax.

- Jesse Lafleur documents some of the pieces of Saskatchewan's proud CCF/NDP legacy which have already been destroyed by the Wall government.

- Finally, if Tony Clement is right in suggesting that Vern Freedlander is completely off base in the advice he gave to the town of Huntsville, doesn't that only serve as all the more evidence of Clement's own bad judgment in pushing for his hiring?

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Marc Lee reminds us that income disparities are only a small part of the picture of an increasingly unequal economy - with wealth inequality looking far worse:

These numbers are striking, with 58% of wealth in the hands of the top 10%. But we hit a bit of a wall when it comes to looking further up. There does tend to be a bit of fractal pattern that happens with distribution, so if the top 10% get 58% of the wealth, a rough estimate is that the top 1% would get 58% of the income of the top 10%, so about one-third of the total wealth. Meanwhile, the bottom half of households have a teensy 3% of total wealth, with the bottom 10% completely underwater (liabilities greater than assets, or negative net worth).

- Dr. Dawg documents the Cons' latest Parliamentary abuses:

Closure is not a new measure, but using it on the very first day of debate, as it was last evening, is uncommon, and using it so routinely is, I believe, unprecedented.

Parliamentary committees, too, have been effectively shut down by the ruling Conservatives: in the past, when they were in a minority, the tactic was maximum disruption.

And the war on various independent watchdogs/agencies continues apace. One after another, they have been hobbled or neutered. Dictatorship, after all, doesn’t require independent assessment.

Harper’s Conservatives—elected by only 39% of those who voted—have shown themselves to be literally contemptuous of parliamentary tradition, and the rule of law.

In a nutshell, the Conservatives hate democracy. Canadians are just beginning to realize, I think, how viscerally and deeply this hatred runs.

- In the department of taking good news where we can get it, at least one Con MP is willing to discuss climate change as a problem. But while Michael Chong deserves full credit for joining the multi-party climate change caucus, it surely speaks volumes that the rest of his party-mates can't be bothered.

- Finally, Stephen Maher unloads on Tony Clement and the party that's keeping him in Cabinet:

Clement's defence is that the mayors made the recommendations, which they didn't, and that Baird made the decision, which he didn't.

We need to know why there was no paperwork for the auditor general, because we are up Muskoka River without a paddle if politicians are able to hide their files from the auditor general, the only official with the power to pierce the veil of secrecy in Ottawa.

Clement's explanations are gibberish, and he does not appear to have the judgment necessary for his current job as president of Treasury Board, the minister in charge of enforcing spending rules.
...
Clement owes his seat and his job to Harper, and he seems to do whatever the prime minister asks, cheerfully acting as Harper's smiling spear carrier on ugly files, such as the government's unsuccessful push to shut down Vancouver's Insite program for drug addicts, and the successful push to kill the mandatory long-form census.

Prime ministers need loyal servants, so even though Clement's G8 shenanigans show that he is farcically ill-equipped to carry out his job, Harper is unlikely to move him or to force him to fully account for the rule-breaking porkfest in Muskoka.

Monday Morning Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- Dan Gardner eviscerates the Cons for their stubborn insistence on mandatory minimum sentences in even the most ridiculous of cases:

Imagine a university student living in a rented apartment with her boyfriend, suggests University of Toronto criminologist Tony Doob. She grows a single marijuana plant. She rolls a joint for her and her boyfriend. And just like that she's a "trafficker" subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of nine months in jail.

Are these outcomes simple, clear, and predictable? Hardly. They're shocking as hell. But mandatory minimums have a nasty tendency to do that.

Remember the infamous case of the pizza thief sent to prison for life in California? The law didn't say "pizza thieves shall get a life sentence." The law said anyone convicted of a third felony would get a life sentence. Pizza theft is normally a misdemeanour. But that poor sap had committed previous felonies and a different law said that petty theft committed by anyone convicted of felonies must be prosecuted as a felony. So misdemeanour pizza theft became his third felony and he was sent to prison for life - an outcome almost everyone thought was insane.
...
(M)andatory minimums don't actually do away with discretion.

They merely transfer it from judges, by restricting their ability to choose the sentence, to prosecutors, who choose the charge. The system is still ambiguous, uncertain, and unpredictable. It's just ambiguous, uncertain, and unpredictable in a different way.

Mandatory minimums are a fraud.

- Adrienne Clarkson profiles Rathika Sitsabaiesan's journey from refugee to MP - precisely at a time when Canadians are being asked to crack down on such new arrivals.

- Yes, it's impressive to see even Mark Carney taking a positive view of the Occupy movement. But let's wait to see whether that recognition is reflected in the monetary policy Carney coordinates with a government far more inclined toward empty words than any meaningful action to ensure a fairer or more stable economy.

- Finally, Paul Krugman points out that institutions tend to generate patterns of behaviour - meaning that an utter refusal to acknowledge obvious misconduct both figures to reflect greater problems that already exist, and creates an expectation that even worse actions will go similarly unaddressed. Insert Tony Clement reference here.