Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Faiza Shaheen discusses the UK Cons' attempts to paper over the harmful effects of austerity. And Amir Fleischmann points out that while the human cost of cuts to public services is all too real, the supposed fiscal benefits are usually illusory:

Many social programs that fiscal conservatives advocate cutting have been shown to actually save the government money in the long run.

Let’s take providing affordable housing and adequate shelters in order to end homelessness as an example. In the rare moments such policies are even discussed, we are told that public affordable housing provision and shelters are too expensive to be feasible.

But academic research has shown that homelessness is actually very expensive, because homeless people tend to cost the government a great deal of money in healthcare and criminal justice system services. In fact, people experiencing homelessness tend to cost $3,810 per person per year greater than the average citizen in terms of justice services and $10,217 per person greater than the average citizen in terms of healthcare services. The cost of homelessness support programs range from a couple thousand dollars to just over $14,000 per person annually.

Set aside any moral obligation we might have to help the homeless — failing to meaningfully address homelessness is the more costly policy. We simply cannot afford austerity.

The same logic applies to universal early childcare. While fiscal conservatives tell us that we cannot afford quality universal early childcare, the truth is that we can’t afford not to have it.

- Charles Hugh Smith comments on the difference between free trade generally, and the capital-biased agreements which are sold using its rhetoric. But then, Jonathan Chait points out that right-wing corporatist dogma only seems to become further entrenched no matter how many times it proves to be utterly detached from reality. 

- Damon Matthews and Daniel Horen Greenford write that it's impossible to reconcile a rational climate change policy with continued fossil fuel expansion. But Paul Jay reports on the oil money and influence which has pushed Canada's public policy discussion away from that reality.

- Meanwhile, Graham Readfearn reports on new research showing high concentrations of plastic particles in bottled water.

- Finally, Adam Serwer discusses the culture of impunity surrounding the U.S.' use of torture - which he also sees as applying to a wide range of other activity by privileged people as well.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Anushka Asthana, Jessica Elgot and Rowena Mason report on Jeremy Corbyn's path as Labour leader - which include genuinely moving the UK's political centre of gravity to the left while improving his party's electoral prospects in the process.

- Andrew Boozary and Danielle Martin write that the U.S.' health care debate should lead us to discuss how to improve Canada's universal health care - including by adding pharmacare into our public system.

- Christina Gray discusses how an increased minimum wage helps the working poor in particular.

- Chris Arsenault reports on newly-revealed details showing how insiders have long known B.C.'s Site C dam was an expensive failure - even while trying to push to spend billions more on it. And Jessica Glenzain compares the treatment of the public to the corporate sector in Michigan, where Nestle offers up a pittance to bottle publicly-owned water while Flint residents pay exorbitant prices for an unsafe supply.

- Finally, Michael Harris takes note of the fact that Ralph Goodale and the Libs seem to have no more conscience when it comes to the fruits of torture than the Harper Cons.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Derrick O'Keefe makes the case for much-needed regime change in British Columbia, while Nancy MacDonald notes that such a result is far from guaranteed despite the Christy Clark Libs' gross abuses of the public trust. And Christopher Pollon examines the close link between political donations and the distribution of Site C contracts, while Maximilian Kniewasser reminds us that Clark's LNG promises turned into nothing but an expensive failure.

- Azfar Ali Khan and Randall Bartlett discuss the complete lack of a business case for the federal Libs' planned infrastructure bank (that is, as long as one recognizes that enriching the financial sector isn't a justification worth accepting). Andy Blatchford reports that the Libs have received - and are apparently ignoring - the same advice from the public service about the dangers of privately-proposed infrastructure. And Bill Curry reports on the control capital has held over the process of developing the bank proposal.

- Meanwhile, the Canadian Press also points out that Ontario's Libs are the latest government to use Donald Trump as an excuse for yet more tax giveaways to the corporate sector.

- Bruce Livesey examines how Canadian spies have been used to undermine citizens raising questions about the fossil fuel industry. And Alex Boutilier and Tonda McCharles' report on the use of CSIS' powers of disruption under Bill C-51 reveals that new authority are not only being used (contrary to the unfortunate lede), but are being systematically used only in ways which avoid judicial oversight.

- Finally, Tom Parkin notes that the controversy over Harjit Sajjan's role in Afghanistan is particularly significant as a reminder of the questions which have never been answered about Canada's complicity in torture.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Terry Glavin argues that Canada's response to Donald Trump's Muslim ban needs to consist of more than the platitudes offered by Justin Trudeau, while Tom Parkin and Chantal Hebert point out that even Trudeau's words to date have unduly downplayed Trump's dangers. And Andrew Coyne writes about the common hatred behind multiple attacks on Muslims - along with the politicians and pundits who have encouraged it.

- Meanwhile, Owen Jones writes that it will take a strong popular resistance to answer Trump's abuses of power. Martin Lukacs notes that the same principle applies to pushing for more humane refugee and immigration policies in Canada, while Heather Libby makes a compelling case that we need to offer more than thoughts and prayers in response to the Quebec mosque attack. And PressProgress highlights Ed Broadbent's suggestions as to how to make a difference.

- Jeremy Nuttall reminds us that Trump isn't the only recent U.S. president to facilitate the use of torture - and that Canada is still waiting on the Libs to reverse the Harper Cons' willingness to play along.

- Robin Sears discusses the importance of journalists in exposing and countering the power of a corrupted state.

- Finally, Karl Nerenberg examines Donald Trump's selective interest in limited government - as he's fully dedicated to using the power of the state to enrich himself and his corporate cronies. And Charles Pierce takes a look at the consequences - both intended and unintended - of the demolition of a functional regulatory system.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Mainly Macro offers a useful definition of neoliberalism, while highlighting its relationship to austerity. And Ed Finn writes that we shouldn't be too quick to presume neoliberalism is going to disappear just because it's proven to be harmful in practice - and that it will take a massive shift in our politics to actually create real change:

We should always keep in mind that neoliberalism is as much a methodology as it is an ideology. Perhaps more so. It is the deeply entrenched doctrine through and by which corporations exert and maintain their dominant economic system. Global capitalism could not survive without the prevalence of neoliberalism, or some equivalent belief system that rationalizes its brutally inequitable operations.

No matter how vigorous the upsurge of anti-establishment populism becomes, it will never on its own topple the titans of corporate rule. That could only happen when countries have genuinely democratic governments instead of governments that function mainly as the flunkeys of big business. We live in a world where nearly all governments (including Canada’s) have embraced and deployed neoliberalism as zealously as the corporations — and on behalf of the corporations.

As long as the corporations can rely on this powerful political support, neoliberalism will remain unassailable. Without the levers of reform that only governments can provide, the dissidents can never succeed in their crusade, no matter how large their numbers. This is the grim reality.
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There is some hope that, if a massive multitude of voters could be mobilized against the nabobs of neoliberalism, it could be concentrated into a powerful electoral force. What if every MP who favoured neoliberalism — or even a majority of them — were defeated in the next election and replaced by a candidate who wanted it scrapped? If duplicated in every large industrial country, could this international tsunami of anti-establishment populism sink global neoliberalism?

Simply to pose this fanciful scenario, however, exposes its improbability — if only because the destruction of neoliberalism also entails the destruction of capitalism.

Neoliberalism is the lifeblood, the very beating heart, of modern capitalism. So it will be fiercely defended by both corporations and their obsequious political allies, regardless of the social, economic, and environmental devastation it wreaks.

- Alison Grizwold discusses how the gig labour market looks disturbingly like the pre-industrial economy in its total lack of security or protection for workers.

- Aditya Chakrabortty writes that anti-social populism is a natural response to the spread of trade agreements as a substitute for democratic control over policy. Steven Shrybman analyzes (PDF) the utterly ineffective "interpretative declaration" which is supposed to offer some comfort against the obviously worrisome terms of the CETA. And Brent Patterson points out that Ontario is claiming it's bound by existing trade rules as an excuse for refusing to protect needed water sources from corporate exploitation.

- Finally, Elizabeth Goiten calls attention to the U.S. government's reliance on secret laws, while pointing out the obvious dangers of sidestepping both public review as to what laws are in place and the ability to know what legal burdens have been applied. Edward Snowden discusses the politics of fear behind C-51 and other surveillance legislation. And Matthew Behrens laments the fact that even CSIS' supposed watchdog is going out of its way to defend the use of information obtained by torture (however grossly that violates international law).

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Lucy Shaddock offers a response to the Institute for Fiscal Studies' report on poverty and inequality in the UK, while McKinsey finds that hundreds of millions of people in advanced economies are seeing their real incomes stagnate or decline. And Mariana Mazzucato and Michael Jacobs provide their take on what the UK needs to reduce inequality:

Can May succeed in building an economy of broadly shared prosperity? Only if she is willing to govern with the revolutionary zeal seen in that speech. To address the problems she identified will require a complete departure from Osborne’s failed plans. But more than that, it will require a departure the orthodox economics that shaped them.

Policymaking over the past half-century has relied on a narrow school of economic thought, dominated by a simplistic idea of “markets” and “market failures”, of “competition” and “shareholder value”. May’s new agenda will need to draw on a much richer palette.

...(M)arkets are not external forces that bind firms to inevitable choices. They are created by the decisions made inside private and public institutions, as well as pressures from civil society. So not only can policymakers fix “market failures”, but they can also actively reshape and create markets for better ends.

- Andre Picard rightly argues that global targets to reduce the spread of AIDS can't be met without a thorough effort to fight poverty and prejudice.
 
- Chris Hatch weighs in on the need to revamp how Canada evaluates and regulates pipelines and other environmental risks. Will Horter notes that there's no reason for optimism based on the Libs' attempt to paper over the National Energy Board's failings. And the Toronto Star criticizes the Libs' lack of follow-up on a loud announcement about removing and banning asbestos.

- Jim Bronskill reports on the Communications Security Establishmen's newfound refusal to provide even statistical data about the sharing of information which may lead to torture.

- Finally, Marc-André Miron, Marie-Claude Bertrand and Cym Gomery point out that the typical talking points against proportional representation lack any basis in reality.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- George Monbiot discusses how neoliberal ideology has managed to take over as the default assumption in global governance - despite its disastrous and readily visible effects:

(T)he past four decades have been characterised by a transfer of wealth not only from the poor to the rich, but within the ranks of the wealthy: from those who make their money by producing new goods or services to those who make their money by controlling existing assets and harvesting rent, interest or capital gains. Earned income has been supplanted by unearned income.

Neoliberal policies are everywhere beset by market failures. Not only are the banks too big to fail, but so are the corporations now charged with delivering public services. As Tony Judt pointed out in Ill Fares the Land, Hayek forgot that vital national services cannot be allowed to collapse, which means that competition cannot run its course. Business takes the profits, the state keeps the risk.

The greater the failure, the more extreme the ideology becomes. Governments use neoliberal crises as both excuse and opportunity to cut taxes, privatise remaining public services, rip holes in the social safety net, deregulate corporations and re-regulate citizens. The self-hating state now sinks its teeth into every organ of the public sector.

Perhaps the most dangerous impact of neoliberalism is not the economic crises it has caused, but the political crisis. As the domain of the state is reduced, our ability to change the course of our lives through voting also contracts. Instead, neoliberal theory asserts, people can exercise choice through spending. But some have more to spend than others: in the great consumer or shareholder democracy, votes are not equally distributed. The result is a disempowerment of the poor and middle. As parties of the right and former left adopt similar neoliberal policies, disempowerment turns to disenfranchisement. Large numbers of people have been shed from politics.

- And Mike Small highlights how privatization schemes are predictably enriching private contractors at the expense of the general public without delivering the promised services. 

- Steven Chase reports on the Libs' deceptive attempt to dodge responsibility for approving the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia. Alison succinctly links the sale to its known consequences, while Neil MacDonald points out that there's no difference at all between the Cons and Libs in their determination to push military exports at the expense of human rights. And both Michael Harris and the Globe and Mail's editorial board tear into the Libs for their hypocrisy and dishonesty.

- Meanwhile, Desmond Cole reminds us that Canadian torture victims are being met with utter contempt by the Trudeau Libs.

- Finally, Bruce Campbell writes that there's been virtually no progress on rail safety since the Lac-Mégantic disaster. And Mike De Souza notes that contrary to the spin of pipeline proponents, there's reason for concern that similar regulatory neglect and corporate greed connected to pipelines can result in damage on an equally large scale.

On constitutional questions

Most of the analysis surrounding the Cons' terror bill so far has assumed that CSIS' powers will be interpreted based on a plain reading of the legislation. Under this reading of C-51, any action which could violate the Charter or other Canadian law would only be authorized by a warrant, meaning that deprivations of rights and freedoms would be subject to judicial oversight (however flawed the process itself may be). In contrast, CSIS' authority to act unilaterally would be limited to intrusions on property or other matters which don't affect Charter rights or legal entitlements.

But that assumption may grant the benefit of the doubt where none is warranted. And before C-51 is rammed through Parliament, we should take a close look at what might be authorized if the federal government chooses to interpret the standard of constitutionality and legality of CSIS' actions using exactly the same standard it actually applies to its own laws.

Thanks to Edgar Schmidt's whistleblowing, we already know what test past federal governments (Lib and Con alike) have applied in assessing the constitutionality of legislation. Legislation is generally subject to all three of the below standards (via Slaw):

• s.3 of the Canadian Bill of Rights, SC 1960, c 44:
  

  . . . the Minister of Justice shall . . . examine every regulation . . . and every Bill introduced in or presented to the House of Commons by a Minister of the Crown, in order to ascertain whether any of the provisions thereof are inconsistent with the purposes and provisions of this Part and he shall report any such inconsistency to the House of Commons

• s.3(2), (3) of the Statutory Instruments Act, RSC 1985, c S-22, which require an examination of regulations to ensure they’re not ultra vires and:
  

  [do] not trespass unduly on existing rights and freedoms and [are] not, in any case, inconsistent with the purposes and provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Bill of Rights

• s.3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms Examination Regulations, SOR/85-781 (pursuant to the Department of Justice Act, RSC 1985, c J-2):
  

  the Minister shall . . . (a) examine the Bill in order to determine whether any of the provisions thereof are inconsistent with the purposes and provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms . . .

A plain reading of each of those provisions would require the government to carry out an analysis as to whether laws are more likely than not compliant with the Charter and other laws on at least a balance of probabilities standard. But here's the standard that's been applied instead:

Since about 1993, with the knowledge and approval of the Deputy Minister, an interpretation of the statutory examination provisions has been adopted in the Department to the effect that what they require is the formation of an opinion as to whether any provision of the legislative text being examined is manifestIy or certainly inconsistent with the Bill of Rights or the Charter and, in the case of proposed regulations, whether any provision is manifestly or certainly not authorized by the Act under which the regulation is to be made.

In other words, faced with multiple laws requiring an evaluation as to whether legislation is in fact compliant with the Charter, Lib and Con governments alike have instead limited themselves to asking whether the legislation is at most arguably compliant, having as little as a 5% chance of being found valid. And if the latter standard is met, Parliament and the public have been told that laws are in fact constitutional - at least, until courts predictably apply the proper standard which the government has chosen to overlook.

By way of comparison, here's the provision of C-51 which determines whether CSIS is required to seek a warrant to carry out a particular action:

(3) The Service shall not take measures to reduce a threat to the security of Canada if those measures will contravene a right or freedom guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or will be contrary to other Canadian law, unless the Service is authorized to take them by a warrant issued under section 21.1.

If anything, C-51 may be more slanted toward allowing Charter violations than the provisions which have been so blithely ignored in assessing past legislation. The no-warrant provisions can be read to allow CSIS to do whatever it wants in the absence of a warrant unless it is certain that the action will be contrary to the Charter or to other law.

As a further reason for concern, all of the rights and freedoms set out in the Charter are subject to section 1:

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. 

By pointing to the Charter definition of rights, Bill C-51 then allows CSIS to consider the potential application of section 1 in determining whether a violation arises. That means it could approve of an action based solely on speculation that it could be justified under what's known as the Oakes test, even if the action plainly violates a Charter right or freedom on its face.

If that interpretation were applied, the warrant provisions of C-51 would effectively become superfluous except in cases where CSIS wanted authorization to breach the terms of the proposed section 12.2 dealing with wilful killings, obstruction of justice and violations of sexual integrity.

To put the above into perspective, let's consider a couple of familiar examples.

The Charter provides "everyone" with the right not to be deprived of life, liberty or security except in accordance with fundamental justice (section 7), the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned (section 9), and the right not to be subjected to cruel or unusual treatment or punishment (section 12). And those rights have been subject to enough analysis in past case law for us to be relatively sure that a black site detention program or torture program would represent violations of Charter rights (among other standards and obligations).

But the combination of the government's historical interpretation of Charter compliance, the wording of C-51 and the effect of section 1 of the Charter might point toward a radically different test. Applying those factors, I wouldn't want to bet against some Canadian equivalent of John Yoo twisting enough words to opine that black sites or torture could be found to be constitutional under some circumstances. And that analysis in turn could be taken under C-51 as a green light for CSIS to go ahead with them.

What's worse, there would be no ready means for anybody to test CSIS' interpretation.

Unlike in the case of non-compliant legislation, there would be no public record of what's been done to allow for a challenge in court.

While anybody actually having their constitutional rights infringed would want to be able to pursue legal action, that possibility might only be seen as reason to hold detainees incommunicado. In this respect, keep in mind that the non-warrant provisions of C-51 are subject to no time limits whatsoever, meaning that locking people away indefinitely rather than allowing them to argue for their rights would be an available option.

And we can safely figure that whatever "general description" CSIS provides of its own activity (the only reporting required for the non-warrant process) would gloss over any obvious abuses.

As a result, one of the most important questions to be asked about C-51 may revolve around the Cons' intentions in defining when the non-warrant provisions will apply. In principle, a relatively simple set of amendments could provide for a stronger version of individual rights to be taken into account, confirm that a warrant is required if there's any risk at all that an action might breach those rights, and require enough reporting to test whether that obligation is being met.

But if the Cons aren't willing to both accept those amendments and admit to having been wholly wrong in their constitutional analysis in the past, then there's real risk that C-51 could facilitate gross human rights abuses.

On oversight

Since one of the main issues talked about so far in relation to the Cons' terror bill is the question of oversight, I'll point back to what I said the last time we were told that the way to split the difference between abuses of power and a desire for secrecy was to allow only a small number of elected officials to know - but not act on - what's going on:

Remember that many of the worst abuses by the U.S. government under Bushco were defended later on the basis that Democrats were informed of their existence. And that the fact that the opposition officials were sworn to secrecy and lacked any practical means to stop the abuse didn't stop a bullying government from claiming that their failure to act immediately made for tacit agreement with the policy.

Of course, that wasn't a reasonable position by any stretch of the imagination. But it did create a handy distraction tactic as soon as revelations did leak into the public eye - ensuring that the governing party wouldn't bear sole responsibility for its own actions, while the public would perceive insiders of all parties as having hidden information. 

And the need is even more glaring in the case of C-51. Instead of merely investigating past misconduct as in the case of the Afghan detainee scandal, any oversight mechanism would need to be able to assess and respond to the use of nearly-unfettered powers on an ongoing basis. And a term of tightly-scripted Con majority government should put to rest any hope that MPs from the party currently in power will lift a finger to hold the executive accountable for anything.

Of course, the best option for now is to challenge whether those powers are actually needed in the first place. On that front, the answer looks to be an emphatic "no".

But we should also press to make sure that any powers which might be granted are accompanied by full and public disclosure as soon as the immediate reason for action has abated. Because if the Cons think so little of the public as to believe we should have no knowledge of what's being done in our name, there's no reason for confidence they'll think any more of us when it comes to using and overseeing new secret police powers.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Jordon Cooper rightly argues that we should move away from forcing people to rely on homeless shelters and other stopgap measures when we can afford to provide permanent homes:

We fill a bus for the hungry while ignoring that the reason for it is that social service programs depend in part on our generosity to feed people. We bring care packages to shelters and forget that cities elsewhere in Canada have drastically reduced the number of people in shelters and the time they spend there, and that it's cheaper than keeping people in shelters. One can make Christmas at shelters an extremely pleasant experience. I have seen shelters provide fabulous food, nice gifts, good movies and quality entertainment over the holidays. Staff, volunteers and even residents go all out to make things pleasant and inviting.

Yet, at the same time, you are left with people who remain homeless. If you ask them if they would rather be in a dorm or a their own apartment, the answer would be the same for each: They want a place to call home.
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As important as it is to be charitable toward the poor, it is more important to find long term solutions to social problems and implement them. As great as it is to help someone in a shelter at Christmas, it would be even better if they didn't have to be there.

- Zoe Williams laments the UK's move toward different classes of new citizenship based on wealth. And Susana Mas reports that the Cons are being even less subtle about making cash up front the default standard for immigrants to Canada.

- Jim Tankersley writes that far too many of the U.S.' best and brightest young minds are being diverted into a financial system which does nothing but extract wealth for itself. And Michael Lewis has a few suggestions to reverse that pattern.

- Scott Clark and Peter DeVries comment on the absurdity of being governed by a party which is fundamentally opposed to the idea of government. And Michael Harris highlights the gap between what the Cons plan to campaign on next year, and what Canadians actually want out of a federal government.

- And finally, Linda McQuaig reminds us of Canada's appalling role in encouraging and facilitating torture in the wake of the U.S.' long-awaited report. 

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- The Star-Phoenix editorial board comments on the need to crack down on tax havens:

(T)he scale of the avoidance Mr. Henry detailed in his report, The Price of Offshore Revisited, drives home just how immoral is the practice of tax avoidance, particularly at a time when even rich countries such as Spain and the United States are staggering under their debt loads and deficits because they can't raise enough tax revenue.

As Gwynne Dyer, a Canadian journalist based in Britain, notes in a recent column published in Embassy magazine, despite efforts by some governments to recoup tax revenues lost offshore, the problem has more than doubled over the last five years just as debt crises and resulting austerity measures have thrown millions out work.

The fact there are relatively few people hiding so much in a relatively few places such as Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Cayman Islands, and Jersey should make it simple for the international community to exert pressure to collect the taxes that governments are owed.

Since the tax revenue and corrupt funds come from all countries - from small developing nations to outlaw states to the largest economies in the world - a global agreement not only should be possible but imperative.

- But lest anybody think it'll be easy to get the 1% to live up to social obligations, the same Canadian corporate sector that's hoarding giant piles of unused cash is demanding approval not to use its reserves to properly fund employee pensions.

- Even as they claim to have no resources to provide for basic social needs, the Cons have set up a secret torture committee and plan to burn $1 billion on drone warfare. Which means it's no wonder they're so determined to silence anybody who might point out a principled need for action.

- Speaking of which, Don Lenihan and Graham Fox discuss how the Cons have inverted Canadian federalism by refusing to take any responsibility for the public policy areas Canadians care about most:

(T)he federal government seems to have opted for a more transactional approach to governance, concentrating on issues like border security, crime and natural resources. The Harper government seems uncomfortable with complex processes and relationships, so its guiding principle is to keep things as simple as possible.

By contrast, the Council of the Federation (COF) is emerging as a new kind of collaborative forum. The provinces are using it to build and test the strategies and coalitions they think governments need to solve complex issues...

...The provinces, recall, have responsibility for many of the issues that register the least confidence (and highest complexity), such as health, education and other social services.
As a result, the pressure on them to experiment and collaborate is growing exponentially.

This, in turn, is pushing them toward more pan-Canadian approaches, while the federal government, which views its responsibilities as more transactional, is returning to watertight compartments and bilateral relationships.
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(I)f the provincial effort is even modestly successful, we don’t think the federal government can avoid engaging for long. We believe it has a natural leadership role in this new, pan-Canadian environment. Its networks, infrastructure, resources, and legislative authority would make an essential contribution to solving issues around energy, healthcare and innovation. Eventually, the federal government will have to come back to the table — whether it be this government or some future one.

Sunday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your weekend.

- David Olive highlights the complete lack of need for the Cons' planned attacks on Old Age Security:

Say what you will of Stephen Harper’s success in scaring Canadian seniors with his recent musings about cutting seniors’ benefits. It does not warrant the public debate that the most charitable of the PM’s critics on this issue have tepidly welcomed.

The affordability of a higher-quality health care system does merit debate. Also affordable housing, the cornerstone of poverty reduction. Also education reform that better matches students with a workplace that, as a business think tank complained last week, is suffering a “desperate shortage” of skilled workers despite 1.42 million Canadians out of work.

The PM is wrong about the sustainability of Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement, paid to the poorest Canadians. And Canadians have let him know it.
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On his return from swanning with the swells in Davos, the improbable venue where Harper first floated his soak-the-seniors idea, the PM was given an earful from his own caucus. They have been inundated with complaints from constituents fearful and angry about the prospect of either themselves or someone they love being deprived of some portion of their average modest $500 a month in OAS payments. (That’s $6,000 a year, considerably below the poverty line. Hence the Guaranteed Income Supplement paid to the poorest seniors.)

Neither Harper or his more excitable ministers have explained why OAS and GIS suddenly are a “crisis.”

Nor have they offered a scintilla of convincing evidence for their case. Which is not surprising, perhaps, given the weight of contrary evidence in the many reports on this topic. But you’d think the PM would at least have read those reports before needlessly frightening a large part of the population.

- Meanwhile, Selena Ross reports from an NDP meeting to consult with citizens about the rumoured cuts to OAS.

- Thomas Walkom points out the futility of trying to justify torture as a matter of evidence-gathering as the Cons are determined to do:

(T)icking-time-bomb cases are so rare as to be almost non-existent. Countries like Morocco that use torture employ it not just for exceptional threats but as a standard investigative technique.

Thus Syrian jailers tortured Canadian Maher Arar in 2002 — not because they believed he was about to blow up downtown Damascus, but because that’s what Syrian jailers do.

Naturally, Arar told his torturers whatever they wanted to hear. His “confession” was then passed on to Canada.

But, as Justice Dennis O’Connor’s inquiry into the affair later discovered (and CSIS, to its credit, confirmed), the confession was useless — because it just wasn’t true.

And that is the practical problem with torture. It is unreliable.

- Tria Donaldson and Max Fineday write that Romeo Saganash's leadership campaign offered important inspiration to young First Nations activists.

- And finally, Alice offers a look at whether the Toront-Danforth by-election campaign stands in its early stages, while Linda Diebel presents Olivia Chow's take.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Mind you, some of the stories are a couple of days old precisely because there's been an embarrassment of riches in the Con criticism department this week. Most of the time, stories about a government violating immigrants' privacy for the sake of a photo op, blatantly politicizing a gratuitously extravagant system of medal-awarding or going far over the top in claiming political disagreement means undermining a country's troops would rank relatively high on any weekly list of outrages.

- But instead, the Cons are reaching the cartoon-villain standard of pushing trans fats and torture.

- Yet even those affronts to reason and human decency may not quite say as much about the mindset of the party governing our country as the fact that the Cons are under orders to be needlessly disagreeable:

At the time, it was explained to me by a staffer that the snub was unintentional -- Conservative MPs are simply told to deny any request for unanimous consent not emanating from the government side.

- All of which is to say that whatever morality supposedly guides the Harper Cons doesn't figure to serve much purpose other than as an example of how to get it wrong.

- So what can we do to change matters? Well, George Lakey points out what peoples' movements were able to accomplish in Norway and Sweden.

- And in another great opportunity to work toward something positive at home, Alice discusses the impending Toronto-Danforth by-election, while Megan O'Toole notes that the Libs' oft-repeated promises of a star candidate have fallen by the wayside.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Susan Delacourt points out some analysis from Greg Lyle which looks to confirm my general take on the real balance of popular opinion between the Cons and the opposition:

It's important to understand that the Tories have been winning by fighting on issues that most people *don't* support. If you think for a second, most of us, and certainly most of the people that are on the margins of whether they're going to vote or not think the way democracy works is that government does what most people want, most of the time.

But on most of the issues that mattered in this campaign, the Tories got a very strong mandate to do what the minority want.
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Given a choice, most people would raise corporate taxes rather than trust trickle-down to work. However, if you look at how vote support works, if you think the way to go is to cut corporate taxes, you're a Tory, 84 per cent Tory. But if you are on the side of the spectrum, a few people are Tory and the others are split (among the other parties) halfway to Sunday.

And so long as you have this situation, which to me is reminiscent of the free-trade election... one party got all the people who supported free trade, the other parties split the opponents and free trade was policy.
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And the same thing happens if the government introduces new policies to deal with crime. Should it focus more on getting tougher on crime or should it focus more on dealing with the causes of crime? 57 per cent of Canadians say 'focus on the causes of crime.' Only 38 per cent say 'get tough on crime' -- almost identical to what the Tory vote was. Seventy-three per cent of the people who say get tough on crime voted Tory, only 16 per cent who said deal with the causes of crime.

And I did this on five different issues... and it's the same story, again and again. The topical issues in the debate, Tories were in the minority point of view, but they got all the votes of people who shared that point of view. So I'll just leave you to think about how the world's going to evolve in the next four years, if the Tories are going to do what they were elected to do, which is stuff that most people don't agree with.

- Ethan Baron expands on the absurdity of the Cons' crime bill which would set up a more severe minimum sentence for marijuana growers than child rapists. And Stephen Maher not only slams the dumb-on-crime mandatory minimums, but questions whether there's any point to criminalizing marijuana at all.

- Paul Koring breaks the story that Canadian officials fought to prevent Abousfian Abdelrazik from returning home as far back as 2004 when there was no reason whatsoever to do so - and that the effect could have been to allow him to be rendered to Guantanamo. And pogge rightly asks why such bombshells aren't receiving much attention.

- Finally, Andrew Leach highlights the fact that most of the beneficiaries of the utterly dishonest "ethical oil" campaign have operations in - and profit from - exactly the same despotic regimes which are being slammed by the campaign.

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Plenty of observers have noted the Cons' complete lack of a reasonable explanation for standing in the way of a global consensus to at least ensure that asbestos is accurately labeled as a hazardous substance. But you'll find the best examples of sheer, evidence-free spin documented by Sarah Schmidt (on the media side) and Nathan Cullen (on the parliamentary side).

- And Susan Riley discusses how the Cons' asbestos stance conflicts with their self-image when it comes to foreign policy:

(T)here is ample evidence developing countries, like India, pay no heed to safety, and that Indian workers, like the young Chuck Strahl, are being directly compromised. But Harper seems to imply it isn't our concern.

His indifference is strangely at odds with his moral, even moralistic, approach to foreign policy generally. He famously refused to remain silent on China's human rights abuses despite potential trade repercussions, yet is prepared to isolate Canada internationally to prop up a dying industry.
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Two Conservative MPs - Mark Warawa and Patricia Davidson - have also been discreetly questioning asbestos exports, which suggests the Harper decision isn't resting easily on every Conservative conscience. Even federal Liberals are belatedly opposed.

Unlike the seal hunt, which harms no one but the seals, or the tarsands, which are environmentally damaging but economically important, there is no justification - moral, political or economic - for continued federal support for the asbestos industry.

But we should never discount one man's stubbornness.

- Terry Milewski points out that as part of its role in helping the Cons to cover up the facts, the now-defunct Afghanistan torture documents panel managed to redact information which was already on the public record. And Greg Weston notes that such an outcome fits perfectly with the Cons' normal modus operandi.

- And finally, while the Cons try to avoid any actual analysis as to how neutering the Canadian Wheat Board will affect farmers and others, the groups who stand to lose out are starting to go public - with the town of Churchill looking like one of the major victims if the Cons decide to push ahead.

Stonewalled

Not that it should come as much surprise that the release of the first report (PDF) from the Afghan detainee document panel fits the pattern of delay and distraction from the Cons. But this declaration (italics added) looks to take the stonewalling to a new low:

Status of the Panel’s Review of Cabinet Confidentiality Claims

71. The government provided the Panel only recently with its claims of Cabinet confidences in relation to the documents provided by the government to date. The Panel’s intent has been to complete its review of the redactions based on these claims as expeditiously as possible.

The report isn't clear on how "recently" the Cons bothered to make one of their supposedly vital claims to confidentiality. But it's hard to see how their refusal to so much as present one of the main claims to be evaluated by the panel can be squared with the regular assurances from the Libs and Bloc that the process was humming along to be completed at any moment. And that delay, combined with the complete suppression of the legal advice which lies at the heart of the underlying issue, makes it all the more clear that the NDP was right not to put any faith in a panel process where the Cons never had any incentive to act reasonably.

Update: And in case there was any doubt, the Cons are treating their delay tactics as having permanently ruled out any evaluation of their claims of cabinet privilege. (At least, that's what their repeated message about the process being "over" would seem to want to emphasize.)

On issue identification

For all the talk about the NDP's surge to Official Opposition status being based primarily on Jack Layton's popularity, the reality is that there's much more to the upswing - including strong party-based issue identification that significantly predates any improvement in voting intentions. And in keeping with the lessons learned in 1988 about focusing too much on personality in a "big issue" election campaign, one of the challenges for the next four years will be to take ownership of as many issues as possible in building toward 2015.

And on that front, the first post-election push on pensions has been followed up by a concerted effort on ethics and accountability, featuring both a proposal to protect whistleblowers and an appeal for the Cons to follow through on releasing Afghan detainee documents.

Of course, there's no longer any ability to even theoretically compel the Cons to respond as long as they're prepared to stonewall. But the answer to "or else what?" is that if we don't see any action in the wake of a persistent opposition message, then the NDP to be able to take the upper ground in areas which have served the Cons well in the past. And if the party can build a strong enough connection to the issues where it's already managed to build a positive image, that will figure to benefit the NDP for a long time to come.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- There doesn't seem to be much doubt that the Cons' main focus during the election campaign has been on strictly restricting access to the people they're looking to have elected to office. And the latest addition to the list deemed unfit for interaction with their Con betters is...an advocate for homeless veterans.

- But that doesn't mean anybody has taken a break from working to suppress the facts about Afghanistan, both through continued fights against the Military Police Complaints Commission, and through the detainee document suppression tribunal. (And there, the Libs are apparently just now starting to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, the Harper Cons might not be acting in good faith - only a year after the NDP recognized the same.)

- Rick Mercer deservedly slams Mike Duffy for serving as the Cons' point man in attacking Jack Layton's health:

Jack Layton didn’t reveal personal information about his health because the gallery wanted to know, he did it because, earlier that day, Conservatives had fanned out across the country and were practising the dark arts. The whisper campaign about Jack’s health they had been carrying on in the shadows was stepped up a notch.

Conservative Sen. Mike Duffy, who can perhaps kindly be described as the most amoral partisan hack to ever draw a breath, went on radio in Nova Scotia, a province of potential growth for the NDP, and in a hushed tone usually reserved for a palliative care unit told the radio audience that he personally saw Jack on the Hill and “up close it doesn’t look good, Jack doesn’t look good… he is a valiant man for carrying on.”

It takes a certain kind of man to gleefully trade on a man’s battle with cancer, and Mike Duffy is that man. It is why Stephen Harper appointed him to the chamber of sober second thought.

- Finally, Alice tweets that the NDP is on the verge of reaching the threshold of 40% female candidates, becoming the first Canadian party to do so in a general election. Of course there's plenty more left to both to balance the numbers within the party and to work on the number of women elected - but it's without a doubt a plus to be headed in the right direction.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- thwap points out what needs to happen for a change in government to lead to more meaningful changes to our federal political system:

We shouldn't become bullies. But we shouldn't be the cynical enablers. We should make sure that the Liberals don't behave like US Democrats, "looking forward, not backwards" and allowing past crimes to go unpunished and past anti-democratic excesses to become incorporated into Canadian politics as capitalism unravels.

One can be law-abiding, classy, and principled, without being a doormat.
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My point is that after we take power, we should step up our demands for accountability. We can play by the rules and still be absolutely ruthless in destroying the harpercon mentality and setting the precedent that blatantly undemocratic and blatantly criminal behaviour is not tolerated in this country.

- Aaron Wherry rightly points out that the Afghan detainee document process doesn't contain a clear disclosure process when the House isn't sitting to allow documents to be tabled. Which raises the question: have the Cons ever allowed anything embarrassing to be made public when faced with anything short of an absolutely clear obligation?

- In case anybody thought the Cons might have made their nomination processes somewhat more democratic in open seats than they allowed for their incumbents, think again.

- Finally, Jim Stanford's thorough takedown of John Manley's spin on corporate tax cuts is too consistently on target to excerpt - so go read if you haven't already.

[Edit: fixed attribution as per pogge's comment.]

On empty promises

My first reaction to the theory that some Afghan detainee documents might be released during an election campaign (which doesn't seem to have any backers from the party that's fought hardest to keep the truth about Afghanistan from seeing the light of day) was that if any material is released, it most certainly won't be anything embarrassing to the Harper Cons.

But ultimately, there isn't much that could be released without meeting that standard. Any documents that contain meaningful content about the handling of detainees will be embarrassing in substance, while any which don't will be a source of embarrassment to the extent they've been needlessly covered up.

So there's even more reason than usual to be dubious about the latest round of excuses and promises from the Libs and Bloc. And the smartest bet in the election campaign may be that the detainee documents will stay under wraps until it's done.