Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Michael Marshall discusses the growing body of knowledge about the persistence of long COVID - with people still suffering symptoms after a year tending to suffer from it as a chronic condition thereafter, and no effective treatment available once long COVID sets in. And the UN points out new research indicating that 36 million people in Europe alone may have experienced long COVID, while Erin Durkin writes about the choice of New York (and many other jurisdictions) to effectively abandon the patients suffering from it.  

- Jing-Xin Li et al. find that a nasal vaccine is both safe and effective to boost COVID immunity. And Richa Naidu reports on the potential for air sanitizing spray to offer some defence against airborne pathogens - though as others have pointed out, that shouldn't be taken as an excuse for failing to work on improved ventilation and other air safety improvements. 

- Fabio Falchi and Salvador Bara study how light pollution has been continually worsening over the past dozen years.

- Jillian Ambrose reports on the Energy Institute's analysis showing that carbon pollution from fossil fuels continues to rise. Emily Wilmsen discusses the reality that even if we achieve a "net zero" emissions target, we'd still see temperatures continue to rise for a decade or more due to the damage already done to our planet. 

- Stefan Labbé reports on the grim reality that Canada has already experienced its worst year for wildfires in recorded history before the normal wildfire season even begins, while Drew Anderson examines the multiple causes of the fires. And Natasha White and Zahra Hirji report on the damage the fires have done to one British Columbia carbon offset project, wiping out what's supposed to be work to reverse the damage from carbon emissions and replacing it with further harm. 

- Clive Thompson notes that subsidizing e-bikes has proven to be a popular and effective way to rein in at least one source of greenhouse gas emissions. And Gaurab Basu and Jonathan Jay point out that "greening" efforts for cities also have the benefit of helping to remediate existing inequalities. 

- Finally, John Michael McGrath offers best wishes to Olivia Chow in winning Toronto's mayoralty - but also a warning that she may be pushed off a glass cliff due to the wreckage left behind by JOhn Tory and his Con co-conspirators. 

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- The Canadian Press reports that the Ford PCs' COVID negligence includes shutting down a rapid test program still distributing hundreds of thousands of tests each week.

- Denise Balkissoon writes about the need for Toronto (like other cities) to elect representatives who recognize the severity of the climate crisis, while lamenting that most of its mayoral candidates are barely paying lip service to the great challenge of our time. And Imperial College London warns that we can't meet our climate goals without all current net-zero pledges being met in full - even as 90% appear to be based on little more than wishcasting.

- Irina Ivanova reports on new research showing how a climate breakdown is driving up the cost of food. Michelle Gamage discusses how wildfire smoke is making people sick. And the University of Reading explores how climate change is also causing increased airplane turbulence - in case mild inconvenience for the wealthy is a better driver of motivation to change than loss of the necessities of life for everybody else.

- P.E. Moskovitz discusses how the suburbanization of the U.S. has proven to be a breeding ground for fascism in taking away community venues while encouraging messages about excluding outsiders from isolated communities.

- Finally, Beth Mole reports on new research estimating the death count from just three of the U.S. Supreme Court's more antisocial decisions - with a conservative estimate suggesting that the partisan actions of half a dozen Republican hacks will personally cause 6,000 deaths over the next decade.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Hussein Kadhem Al-Hakeim et al. examine the relationship between oxygen deprivation and severe long COVID symptoms. Crawford Kilian makes the case for an inquiry to show where our pandemic response has gone wrong, while recognizing that the people responsible for those very decisions won't be eager to see their actions put under the microscope. And CBC News reports on the reality that the pandemic remains an ongoing nightmare for health care workers even as far too many others try to deny its continuing existence. 

- Alec Salloum reports on the justified frustrations of those working to help homeless people in Regina and encountering a mix of neglect and outright hostility from the governments who should be taking responsibility for people's safety and well-being. And CBC News reports on the similar choices made in Toronto (which don't figure to change any in light of an austerian mayor winning re-election). 

- Mark Schapiro highlights the financial interests pushing for continued climate degradation, while noting most people have far more to gain from a transition to a sustainable economic model. Simon Evans writes about a new study from the International Institute for Sustainable Development concluding that new fossil fuel development is entirely incompatible with our meeting existing climate targets. 

- Peter Schadt and Hans Zobel interview Hans-Jurgen Urban about the options to make sure workers don't pay the price for an energy crisis based on continued fossil fuel dependence. 

- Finally, AFP reports on new Greenpeace research into the gross failure of plastic recycling in the U.S., which is seeing only 5% of plastic waste (and falling) actually being repurposed. 

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- David Axe reports on the spread of a new COVID-19 subvariant which pairs increased transmissibility with resistance to antibody therapies. And Andrew Gregory reports on the World Health Organization's pleas for some recognition of the damage being done by long COVID, while Benjamin Mazer writes about the particular dangers of the post-infection phase in causing long-term damage.  

- Darren Major reports that the disaster relief fund intended to respond to climate change-fuelled disasters until 2031 has run out of money to deal with even the damage done to date.

- Damian Carrington reports on new research showing that the spread of toxic microplastics extends into humans' breast milk.

- Leyland Cecco reports on the AusterityTO public art which is bringing attention to the costs of municipal neglect - even as the establishment looks to lock it in for yet another term. Jennifer Pagliaro points out the gross underinvestment in community supports as money is instead funneled into an already-inflated police budget. And Alec Salloum reports on the continued lack of resources for unhoused people in Regina, as Sandra Masters focuses the city's immediate attention on dismantling any help they might obtain through mutual aid while putting off even a preliminary discussion of funding until the dead of winter. 

- Finally, Katie Hyslop is able to offer a look at the socially conservative school board candidates being advance in order to make bigotry a central element of public education.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Gary Younge writes about the need to respond to a bleak reality with the dedication to imagine and create something better. And Vickie Cammack and Donna Thomson highlight how the response to a climate breakdown includes mobilizing our capacity to care for others.

- CBC News talks to John Pomeroy about the effects of a changing climate on Saskatchewan agriculture - and particularly the dangers to the province's water supply.

- But Nick Cohen weighs in on the reality denial of the right-wing government and media in Australia (which of course matches that of their counterparts in Canada).

- In the wake of last week's sabre-rattling over Iran, Toula Drimonis reminds us that we have far more in common with the civilians trapped by the poor judgment of their governing class than with the elites pushing for war on both sites. And Shree Paradkar calls out the CBC for demonizing minorities by amplifying the Cons' spin about "anchor babies".

- Finally, Royson James highlights the opportunities Toronto - like so many communities - has lost by obsessing over property tax levels rather than investing in social development.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Ben Chu reports on the conclusion from the chief economist of the Bank of England that decreased unionization in the UK is responsible for reducing wages for all workers by .75% per year over the past 30 years.

- Hassan Yussuff warns that Doug Ford's insistence on reversing any gains for workers at the first opportunity will put many women in avoidable danger. And David Climenhaga comments on Jason Kenney's plans to similarly launch an all-out attack on workers, with no regard for evidence or public input.

- Eliza Barclay and Umair Irfan offer a list of suggestions to avert climate breakdown, while Noah Smith discusses the importance of clean energy development in China as part of the global fight against climate change. Matt Henderson points out the unfairness of pushing carbon debts onto future generations, while Brent Patterson makes the case for holding corporations to account for their carbon pollution.

- The Star's editorial board weighs in on the need to reduce traffic congestion in Toronto. And Kim Willsher reports on the success of Dunkirk's implementation of free public transportation.

- Finally, Sheila Block comments on the absurdity of obsessing over artificial limits on tax revenue:

Any politician promising better public services without touching property taxes isn’t telling the whole story.

Just to maintain the status quo — which shouldn’t be the goal in an expanding city — Toronto would need property tax increases that grow with both population and inflation. That would be about 50 per cent higher than inflationary increases only.
...
We see the impact of this unsustainable fiscal approach all around our city: dangerous crowding in subway stations, a desperate need for repairs in Toronto Community Housing, flooded streets during climate events, insufficient shelter beds in the height of winter, timid investments in the city’s poverty reduction strategy, and digital line ups to get kids into recreational programs.

Did I mention $30 billion in unfunded capital projects?

Even worse, each year that we delay increasing property taxes has an impact on both our current and future capacity to fund essential city services.

But what if we approached property taxes in a grown-up fashion?

As grown ups, we know that we’re better off changing the oil in our cars on schedule as part of a good maintenance program. We know that dealing with the mould in the basement as soon as possible is the best financial and health strategy. And when we can, we know that putting money aside for our retirement is the prudent thing to do.

We are doing none of this for our larger home, the City of Toronto. We are letting the mould spread. We are emptying our saving accounts. We are not investing in our children’s futures.
...
As residents, we also don’t get a free pass. Voters who choose tax-freezing candidates must come to terms with deteriorating public services and sticking the bill to our kids and grandkids.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Jessica Corbett writes that Earth's atmospheric carbon concentration has reached levels not seen in 80,000 years, while Jonathan Watts reports on a new study showing that climate change may be pushing our planet toward a "hothouse" state which might threaten human life. The Daily Mail reports that the California city of Imperial recently saw the hottest rain recorded on record. And Simon Lewis writes that while it's not too late to avert the worst possible climate catastrophe, we need large-scale and immediate political change to do so.

- Meanwhile, Norm Farrell compares the virtually-nonexistent punishment for the corporate sector's deliberate environmental destruction to the lock-'em-up attitude being displayed toward environmental activists.

- The Economist's Bartleby writes about the constant stress facing American workers.

- Tuomas Maraja highlights the psychological benefits of receiving a basic income rather than heavily conditional welfare payments. Jessie Golem discusses the disappointment of having the prospect of financial security stripped away by Doug Ford's PCs out of nothing but contempt for people facing poverty and precarity. And Stephen Tweedale wonders whether the better path toward a basic income involves incremental benefits for everybody, rather than small-scale pilot programs which exclude most citizens.

- Finally, in the wake of John Tory's promise to use new strongman powers to impose austerity on Toronto, Heather Mallick offers a reminder that tax revenue is vital for a population to thrive.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Peter Gowan discusses UK Labour's push for greater social control over economic development. And Rainer Kattel, Mariana Mazzucato, Josh Ryan-Collins and Simon Sharpe set out a useful framework to evaluate policies which are intended to shape markets rather than merely attempting to fix them.

- Anis Heydari reports on the choice far too many Albertans face between food and housing when neither is affordable. And Glen Pearson comments on how poverty can trap people in a cycle of deprivation and pessimism:

What do kids in low-income situations do, for instance, when school is out? For many, camps are beyond reach because of the expense, vacations to other regions virtually impossible, and for some, hunger pangs will increase with the loss of school breakfast and feeding programs. It’s a sad irony of our times that agricultural growing seasons flourish at the same time as kids go more hungry than usual.

For working parents pressed down with precarious or vulnerable work, inquiring as to what their plans are for the summer can prove to be a moment of insensitivity. They possess no cottage, boat, travel agenda or, for some, even a car. They can enjoy the sun like everyone else, but not in those more exotic locations most citizens can get to.

This is what modern-day poverty looks like — not just a lack of resources but also a loss of hope.

It is this psychological state that presents democracy and politicians with one of their greatest challenges because there seem to be no solutions if the economic status quo prevails. And those losing faith in their future are frequently working adults, trapped in vulnerable employment, unable to escape their situation.
...
The longer we put off pressing for change, the closer the tentacles of poverty come to us. We all know people in our neighbourhoods and among our friends and families who have become increasingly vulnerable to low-income pressures, despite their best efforts to retrain, finish their education and work unbearable hours. There is more of this to come.

- But on the bright side, Matt Robinson reports on Vancouver's action to expropriate slum hotels to ensure they can be properly maintained and made available for people who need the housing. And Cami Kepke reports on a push by several Regina city councillors to stop further commercial development in Wascana Park. 

- Finally, Michael Harris weighs in on Doug Ford's choice to impose chaos on Toronto's municipal governance.

Monday Morning Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- Robert Reich examines how a concerted attack on organized labour has pushed the vast majority of American workers into living paycheque-to-paycheque (or worse) while income and wealth have become increasingly concentrated at the top end of the spectrum:

Almost 80% of Americans say they live from paycheck to paycheck, many not knowing how big their next one will be.

Blanketing all of this are stagnant wages and vanishing job benefits. The typical American worker now earns around $44,500 a year, not much more than what the typical worker earned in 40 years ago, adjusted for inflation. Although the US economy continues to grow, most of the gains have been going to a relatively few top executives of large companies, financiers, and inventors and owners of digital devices.
...
(T)he share of total income going to the richest 10 percent of Americans over the last century is almost exactly inversely related to the share of the nation’s workers who are unionized. (See chart below). When it comes to dividing up the pie, most American workers today have little or no say. The pie is growing but they’re getting only the crumbs.

Over the same period time, antitrust enforcement has gone into remission. The US government has essentially given a green light to companies seeking to gain monopoly power over digital platforms and networks (Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook); wanting to merge into giant oligopolies (pharmaceuticals, health insurers, airlines, seed producers, food processors, military contractors, Wall Street banks, internet service providers); or intent on creating local monopolies (food distributors, waste disposal companies, hospitals).

This means workers are spending more on such goods and services than they would were these markets more competitive. It’s exactly as if their paychecks were cut. Concentrated economic power has also given corporations more ability to hold down wages, because workers have less choice of whom to work for. And it has let companies impose on workers provisions that further weaken their bargaining power, such as anti-poaching and mandatory arbitration agreements.
...
The combination of high corporate profits and growing corporate political power has created a vicious cycle: higher profits have generated more political influence, which has altered the rules of the game through legislative, congressional, and judicial action – enabling corporations to extract even more profit. The biggest losers, from whom most profits have been extracted, have been average workers. 

- William Davies points out how the trumped-up complaints about campus free speech peddled by the right serve primarily to distract from the takeover of most other spaces by the corporate sector. And Nora Loreto comments on the deliberate choice by right-wing pundits to stoke fear and hatred in the wake of the Toronto Danforth shooting.

- Robert Booth exposes how a UK right-wing "think tank" has been actively selling both research outcomes, and access to the Con government. 

- Alan Freeman points out the fiscal price of mindless populism. And Tom Parkin highlights the need for a plan for citizens to organize against the authoritarian tendencies of the likes of Doug Ford.

- Finally, Edward Keenan calls out Ford's choice to gratuitously undermine municipal democracy for the sole purpose of wreaking vengeance against perceived political opponents.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Dan Levin writes that Christy Clark and her B.C. Libs have turned British Columbia into a haven for capital to run wild without any social responsibility or public benefit:

Like many places, British Columbia set up a system of tax incentives to lure businesses to the far western Canadian province in the hopes of creating jobs and transforming Vancouver into a global financial center.

But if the program has been good for business, it’s been less beneficial for British Columbia.

Participating companies have created few jobs, according to government figures, while more than 140 million Canadian dollars ($106 million) have been doled out in tax refunds since 2008, when the initiative was expanded.

The incentives operate under a cloak of secrecy that is unusual for similar efforts in Canada and the United States, critics say. The province will not name the companies that get the breaks. The only information available about them is on the website of a nonprofit that promotes the program.

“This is essentially a temporary foreign-worker program for the rich, with secret government subsidies for multinational corporations,” said Dermod Travis, the executive director of IntegrityBC, a nonpartisan political watchdog group based in Victoria, the provincial capital. “The government is selling B.C. as a tax haven for the global elite to park investment here, but not have to contribute.”

- Meanwhile, Jeremy Nuttall exposes just a few of the more blatant lies which Clark is substituting for any reasonable defence of her record or plans.

- Branko Milanovic examines just a few of the reasons why we need to be concerned about inequality - as well as some of the areas where there's room for far more study as to its effects. 
 
- Andre Picard highlights how Canada's current patchwork of prescription drug coverage is contrary to the principles of universal health care. And Steve Morgan makes the case for universal pharmacare, while Martin Regg Cohn emphasizes the importance of making such a program available to everybody.

- Finally, Alan Broadbent criticizes the City of Toronto for leaving needed city-owned social housing to rot.

Thursday Evening Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Peter Goodman observes that any meaningful action to build a more equal economy needs to involve bolstering wages and workers' rights - meaning that the elites-only musings in Davos miss the point entirely:

Davos is — at least rhetorically — consumed with worries about the shortcomings of globalization. About the deepening anxieties of the middle class in many developed economies. About the threat of trade protectionism and its attendant hit to economic growth. About the fear that robots are on the verge of sowing mass unemployment.

It is a conversation fueled in part by fear: If the world is indeed in the throes of a populist insurrection, the pitchforks could do worse than to point here. The Davos elites have enjoyed outsize influence over economic policies in recent decades as a growing share of wealth has, perhaps not coincidentally, landed in the coffers of people with a need for bank accounts in the British Virgin Islands, while poor and middle-class households have seen their earnings stagnate and decline.

Yet the solutions that have currency seem calculated to spare corporations and the wealthiest people from having to make any sacrifices at all, as if there is a way to be found to tilt the balance of inequality while those at the top hang on to everything they have.

...
“People talk about inequality, how it’s a major problem, the greatest threat to globalization and the global economy,” Mr. Stiglitz said. “You have to recognize that the way we have managed globalization has contributed significantly to inequality. But I have not yet heard a good conversation about what changes in globalization would address inequality.”

That is not an accident, he surmised. Any sincere list would have to include items that involve transferring wealth and power from the sorts of people who come to Davos to ordinary workers via more progressive taxation, increased bargaining rights for labor unions, and greater protections for labor in general.

Same as every other year, Davos is again plastered with the slogan of the World Economic Forum: “Committed to Improving the State of the World.” But whatever improvements are supposed to be made, one can safely assume they will not conflict with those in attendance continuing to enjoy the state of the world as it is now, with canapés and aged Bordeaux and private jets at the ready.

- Meanwhile, David Ball reports on a reminder from UNICEF's David Morley that Canada is backsliding even compared to other countries in our growing inequality.

- Desmond Cole laments Toronto's decision to take social housing away from people who desperately need it in order to throw more money at expressways and subways.

- Jorge Barrera reports on how Health Canada's callous refusal to fund mental health services in the face of urgent First Nations needs contributed to the suicides of two young girls at Wapekeka First Nation. And Mike De Souza and Riley Sparks note that Justin Trudeau is now explicitly breaking his promise to implement the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission by deciding to suppress the federal government's legal opinions about indigenous rights.

- Finally, Jessica Botelho-Urbanski reports on Niki Ashton's findings in consulting with millenials across Canada - including the glaring need to reverse a sense of hopelessness.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Ann McFeatters reminds us of the good a government can do when it dedicates itself to identifying and responding to urgent public needs. And Bill McKibben makes the case for an all-out mobilization against climate change:

We’re used to war as metaphor: the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on cancer. Usually this is just a rhetorical device, a way of saying, “We need to focus our attention and marshal our forces to fix something we don’t like.” But this is no metaphor. By most of the ways we measure wars, climate change is the real deal: Carbon and methane are seizing physical territory, sowing havoc and panic, racking up casualties, and even destabilizing governments. (Over the past few years, record-setting droughts have helped undermine the brutal strongman of Syria and fuel the rise of Boko Haram in Nigeria.) It’s not that global warming is like a world war. It is a world war. Its first victims, ironically, are those who have done the least to cause the crisis. But it’s a world war aimed at us all. And if we lose, we will be as decimated and helpless as the losers in every conflict--except that this time, there will be no winners, and no end to the planetwide occupation that follows.

The question is not, are we in a world war? The question is, will we fight back? And if we do, can we actually defeat an enemy as powerful and inexorable as the laws of physics?
...
Today we live in the privatized, siloed, business-dominated world that took root under McNamara and flourished under Reagan. The actual wars we fight are marked by profiteering, and employ as many private contractors as they do soldiers. Our spirit of social solidarity is, to put it mildly, thin. (The modern-day equivalent of Father Coughlin is now the Republican candidate for president.) So it’s reasonable to ask if we can find the collective will to fight back in this war against global warming, as we once fought fascism.

For starters, it’s important to remember that a truly global mobilization to defeat climate change wouldn’t wreck our economy or throw coal miners out of work. Quite the contrary: Gearing up to stop global warming would provide a host of social and economic benefits, just as World War II did. It would save lives. (A worldwide switch to renewable energy would cut air pollution deaths by 4 to 7 million a year, according to the Stanford data.) It would produce an awful lot of jobs. (An estimated net gain of roughly two million in the United States alone.) It would provide safer, better-paying employment to energy workers. (A new study by Michigan Technological University found that we could retrain everyone in the coal fields to work in solar power for as little as $181 million, and the guy installing solar panels on a roof averages about $4,000 more a year than the guy risking his life down in the hole.) It would rescue the world’s struggling economies. (British economist Nicholas Stern calculates that the economic impacts of unchecked global warming could far exceed those of the world wars or the Great Depression.) And fighting this war would be socially transformative. (Just as World War II sped up the push for racial and gender equality, a climate campaign should focus its first efforts on the frontline communities most poisoned by the fossil fuel era. It would help ease income inequality with higher employment, revive our hollowed-out rural states with wind farms, and transform our decaying suburbs with real investments in public transit.)
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The next president doesn’t have to wait for a climate equivalent of Pearl Harbor to galvanize Congress. Much of what we need to do can—and must—be accomplished immediately, through the same use of executive action that FDR relied on to lay the groundwork for a wider mobilization. The president could immediately put a halt to drilling and mining on public lands and waters, which contain at least half of all the untapped carbon left in America. She could slow the build-out of the natural gas system simply by correcting the outmoded way the EPA calculates the warming effect of methane, just as Obama reined in coal-fired power plants. She could tell her various commissioners to put a stop to the federal practice of rubber-stamping new fossil fuel projects, rejecting those that would “significantly exacerbate” global warming. She could instruct every federal agency to buy all their power from green sources and rely exclusively on plug-in cars, creating new markets overnight. She could set a price on carbon for her agencies to follow internally, even without the congressional action that probably won’t be forthcoming. And just as FDR brought in experts from the private sector to plan for the defense build-out, she could get the blueprints for a full-scale climate mobilization in place even as she rallies the political will to make them plausible. Without the same urgency and foresight displayed by FDR—without immediate executive action—we will lose this war.

- David Camfield discusses the clash in visions as to Canada Post's future as either a long-term provider of needed public services, or an organization devoted to shrinking services and expectations for workers and the public alike. And Katie Simpson examines how federal workers are justifiably reluctant to take overtime work when they're unlikely to get paid for it.

- Bianca Wylie points out the lack of funding for Toronto's anti-poverty strategy, while recognizing the importance of following through on the commitment. And Poverty Free Saskatchewan offers its take (PDF) on a provincial budget which looks to be going backwards in the name of corporate-run "transformation".

- Finally, Alison highlights the Libs' choice to facilitate the sale of arms to human rights abusers - and their bizarre spin about revisiting the desirability of the loopholes they've opened up.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Edward Keenan is the latest to point out that any reasonable political decision-making process needs to include an adult conversation about taxes and why we need them:

This week, when asked about the prospect of raising taxes beyond the rate of inflation in coming years, John Tory called the idea “an admission of failure.”

This is distressing to hear. Consider the context: Tory’s current budget turns out to require a lot of dipsy-doodling that edges the city perilously close to its debt ceiling while hiking TTC fares and garbage fees. Meanwhile the unexpected bills keep rolling in: lookee here, Metrolinx just tossed another $95 million onto the city’s obligations! Whoah, lookee there, Toronto’s Union Station obligations just went up another $60 million because the province and feds are telling us to stuff our pleas for help. That’s without beginning to even ponder the 10-figure numbers involved in keeping the TTC and social housing in good enough shape that they can safely continue operating.

What Tory calls admitting failure, we might instead call “math.”

It’s difficult math to face up to, but it’s the result of more than a decade of childishly pretending we can avoid the calculations by thinking happy thoughts and wishing on the first star to the right.
...
The federal and provincial governments have refused to rain money on us from their own tax revenue. The quest for “efficiencies” has been on a long time, but has never shown the potential to be a miracle cure for our revenue woes. The City of Toronto needs to raise more money, either through property taxes or new “revenue tools.”

Maybe people don’t want to hear that. But telling it to them straight is not “admitting failure.” It’s owning up to reality, in the hopes of avoiding a civic failure that will follow if we continue to act like children who can’t handle basic math.

- But then, Ian Welsh reminds us that often what's right is also what's most efficient - as in the case of providing homes for the homeless.

- Bruce Western and Linda Forman Naval make the point that governments should make a concerted effort to make work available to released offenders - particularly if the alternative is to exploit current prisoners. But Jacob Boon reports on Drew Butler's sad example of how people are instead treated even after serving a sentence in full.

- Meanwhile, Thomas Walkom writes that while the Cons fearmonger about terrorism, they're deliberately ignoring the far greater security threat posed by climate change. And Thomas Mulcair presents the NDP's case against the Cons' terror bill.

- Kimberly Brown reports on the Canadian government's shameful interventions in Mexico on behalf of human rights abuses in the mining sector.

- Finally, Paul Adams muses about what we could expect from a Lib government and reaches exactly the right conclusion (if not one which is any surprise based on historical precedent): when it comes to the economy and social programs, Justin Trudeau and his party will be exactly as progressive as the NDP can force them to be and not an iota more.

New column day

Here, on how the rewriting of Rob Ford's budget by Toronto's City Council should serve as a reminder that legislators at all levels of government can do more than merely rubber-stamp the whims of the executive.

For further reading, see the Star's report on the Toronto budget, and compare to the outcome of the council budget discussion seen in Regina last month.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday.

- Heather Mallick nicely sums up much of the philosophy behind the Cons' train wreck of a pension proposal:

Flaherty seems to regard the CPP as communism. It isn’t. It’s brilliant in a sensible Canadian sort of way. Hard-right governments — American, British and Canadian — are always droning out about “financial literacy.” CAW economist Jim Stanford, who is a director of the Canadian Foundation for Economic Education, points out that this drive, while helpful, also places a greater burden of blame on consumers whose investments tanked recently. It wasn’t the stock market being run like a casino, it was the fault of the dopey investor. Don’t expect the government to help, Flaherty is saying. You’re on your own. (The American Republican phrase is “no government interference.” The British call it “the Big Society.”)

But of course, it's worth keeping in mind the flip side that the financial sector can always count on a giveaway.

- Meanwhile, Michael Shapcott points out reason for concern that a business-first mindset is having a toxic effect on charities which are forced to move outside their intended purposes in the hope of chasing down funding.

- After an election that saw about as solid a showing as was possible without winning a seat, the New Brunswick NDP has a leadership race on its hands. And it'll be particularly interesting to see how the candidates can do in building on the party's positive profile from this year's election campaign.

- And finally, it's certainly progress that the first charges have been laid related to police actions at the G20. But we'll have to wait and see whether the charges against Constable Babak Andalib-Goortani prove to be anything more than an attempt to charge somebody to avoid a more thorough examination of responsibility for the trampling of civil rights in Canada's largest city.

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.

Lies upon lies

There's rightfully been plenty of outcry about Bill Blair's smug declaration that Toronto's police pulled a fast one on the public by conjuring up a "five-metre rule" which didn't actually exist. But the truth is a bit more complex than that - and Blair's admitted lies to the public only make the actual law all the more indefensible.

It's true that if one parses the wording of the regulation carefully enough, the "five-metre" language in Schedule 2 applies only to areas "within the area described in Schedule 1", referring to the fenced-in area.

But as I pointed out earlier, it's also true that the law involved declares that a court is required to take the word of a provincial official as to the boundaries of a "public work":

For the purposes of this Act, the statement under oath of an officer or employee of the government, board, commission, municipal or other corporation or other person owning, operating or having control of a public work, as to the boundaries of the public work is conclusive evidence thereof.

So under the law as written, it didn't much matter where the actual boundaries were. So long as a member of a police force was willing to testify that a protester (or any other person) was located within the boundaries of a public work, a court would have no choice but to accept that statement as fact. Or in other words: for all intents and purposes, Blair's lies (whether of omission or commission) became the law.

From there, Blair's statement today serves only to rub the public's face in the fact that the Public Works Protection Act puts civil liberties entirely at the mercy of a police department which has no compunction about misleading its citizens. And while it may be all too true that the law as drafted allows for civil liberties to be suspended on the whim of public officials, hopefully today's news will result both in severe discipline for the decision-makers responsible, and a closer look at whether such laws can possibly be justified.

Update: Vanessa Long makes the same point.

(Edit: fixed wording; added links.)

Question and answer

Andrew Coyne asks a few questions whose answers look far too likely to prove unsatisfactory:

(W)ill the opposition allow themselves to be played in this way? Will they heed the voices telling them that this is not worth fighting an election over? Will they chicken out? Or will they, you should pardon the expression, man up?

Mind you, there's always some potential danger in lumping all of the opposition parties together. But it only makes matters worse that it'll only take one to allow the Cons to turn a Speaker's ruling affirming the supremacy of Parliament into yet another opportunity for delay and denial about their role in facilitating torture. And it's tough to be optimistic at this point.

Ever cooperative

Shorter Dean Del Mastro, as the Cons' apparent spokesflack on prorogation:

We'll give you the truth about the Afghanistan torture coverup when you pry it from our cold, dead hands.

Plan B

Following up on last night's post, it seems that there's some consensus that a committee meeting can't officially operate in the absence of quorum - whether due to the clerk having to take notice of the numbers, or otherwise. So carrying on formal hearings in the absence of the Cons apparently isn't an option - as dangerous as it is for Stephen Harper to have an effective veto over any formal oversight from Parliament.

But while the Cons may have fled their workplace in order to try to silence the Afghan torture story over the holidays, there's no need for the opposition to let them avoid the damaging headlines they so richly deserve. At last notice, there still seemed to be plenty of documents which hadn't yet been publicly compared between the form supposedly redacted in the name of national security and that openly disclosed in court or through other processes. So now might be a great time to present a "cover-up of the day" to make sure the Cons' past lies get a full airing before the next time they show up to answer to the committee.