Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Jason Sattler rightly notes that by the time Donald Trump is removed from power in the U.S., there's going to be no meaningful amount of pre-existing "normal" government to return to. Jerusalem Demsas writes that the same principle applies to economic relationships as trade partners have little choice but to route their plans around an entirely unreliable partner. And Will Hutton points out that Europe (like Canada) can treat the destruction of U.S. hegemony as an opportunity to shape a new international order.

- Bruce Arthur highlights why nobody can feel safe traveling to the U.S. under Trump. Daisy Dumas reports on the detention and deportation of an Australian worker with a valid visa - along with the gleeful cruelty of the border officers given the responsiblity to round up and eject immigrants. And Sherrilyn Ifill writes about the importance of fighting for the rights of the prisoners being rendered to offshore gulags.

- Stephen Maher discusses how Pierre Poilievre's involvement with the Flu Trux Klan has made him unpalatable to far more voters than he can afford. And Brian Owens notes that Poilievre's plan to silence science which doesn't fit his regressive worldview is indistinguishable from Trump's.

- Geoff Girvitz discusses how health and well-being should be central goals of public policy - and how only the NDP is offering any prospect of improving Canada's performance in those areas.

- Finally, George Monbiot writes that the only truly effective means of challenging right-wing discriminatory populism is to reduce the inequality that fuels it.

On guardrails

There seems to be a general (and rightful) consensus that Elon Musk's demand to eliminate all regulations as a baseline position is high on the list of his unauthorized plans, based solely on libertarian fervour and wilful ignorance, which stand to create catastrophic risks for the American public. 

But if we recognize that compulsive deregulation is one of the most obvious and dangerous symptoms of antisocial corporatist disease, shouldn't we also recognize that it's worth defending our governments' ability to enact protections in the public interest - rather than using Trump's administration as an excuse to subject ourselves to the same type of presumption that all regulations should be invalid in Canada? 

Update: See more from Chris Roberts and Stuart Trew, as well as Dougald Lamont. 

[Edit: fixed wording.]

Monday Morning Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- Jessica Wildfire discusses how the Trump/Musk administration is meeting or exceeding the most damning predictions, while Ian Dunt points out the similar pattern following from Brexit as the same anti-social right undermined the public interest in the UK. Timothy Snyder writes about the effects of government based on the logic of destruction, while Taya Graham interviews Stephen Janis about the acceleration of the U.S.' decline already in progress. And Ezra Klein highlights the dangers of trusting Trump's false claims to dictatorial authority, while Thom Hartmann rightly calls out the seizure of invented power as a form of treason.  

- Alex Kirshner interviews Ed Zitron about the dystopian future we'll face if tech tycoons get their way.  Caleb Ecarma and Judd Legum report on the pillaging of Americans' personal information in government data banks by Elon Musk and his incel cultists, while Mike Masnick notes that Musk is following the playbook which destroyed Twitter in dealing with the U.S.' state apparatus. 

- Stephen Marche writes that Trump's threats to conquer Canada will come to nothing (at least as long as we don't let his apologists dictate our response), while David Moscrop comments on the type of nationalism which will best defend Canada's identity as a country capable of recognizing and improving upon its own failings. Adam King argues that the lesson to be drawn from Trump is to confirm the longstanding need to become less tied to the U.S. Blayne Haggart notes that nothing that happens with the current round of tariffs will change the reality that the U.S. is an unreliable actor, while Stewart Prest sets out some principles to deal with that lack of trust and credibility (including the need for other countries to work together). Jennifer Robson discusses how the public response to the COVID-19 pandemic offers lessons in how to structure supports in the wake of a tariff war, with a key consideration being to support workers' livelihood rather than to funnel money to businesses. And in another analogy to the pandemic, Nora Loreto offers a warning that we can fully expect unscrupulous businesses to profiteer off of the imposition of tariffs. 

- Luke LeBrun reports on the labour movement's call to hit back hard against Trump's attack on Canada, while the Climate Action Network sets out a civil society response looking to put people first and build resilience. Taylor Noakes discusses how Canada's long-term defence is best served by investing in a climate army. And Evan Scrimshaw notes that the corruption of the Trump regime sets up opportunities for a targeted response against his cronies. 

- Finally, Lois Ross discusses how the Libs have chosen to allow for still more concentration of wealth and power in the agricultural sector through a corporate merger. And Maura Forrest reports on new research showing that Canadian preschoolers get more than half of their calorie intake from ultra-processed foods. 

On litmus tests

Plenty of Canadian political figures seem to have reacted to the announcement that we won't face tariffs just yet with a sigh a relief, and an apparent view that we don't need to worry about what's happening to our south until such time as profits are immediately affected. 

Others will note that Trump's first day included attacks on the personhood of trans people and the protection of minorities, as well as the existence of anybody who might be perceived as an immigrant - and work on ensuring that people threatened by the new administration aren't trapped by it. 

When assessing who's resisting Trump in solidarity with the people most in need of help as opposed to looking out only for the interests of capital, there shouldn't be much doubt which we should want our leaders to be. We'll find out very soon who falls into which category.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Katha Pollitt reviews Matthew Desmond’s Evicted, and identifies the problem that profiteers have a vested interest in perpetuating poverty:

What if the dominant discourse on poverty is just wrong? What if the problem isn’t that poor people have bad morals – that they’re lazy and impulsive and irresponsible and have no family values – or that they lack the skills and smarts to fit in with our shiny 21st-century economy? What if the problem is that poverty is profitable? These are the questions at the heart of Evicted, Matthew Desmond’s extraordinary ethnographic study of tenants in low-income housing in the deindustrialised middle-sized city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

You might not think that there is a lot of money to be extracted from a dilapidated trailer park or a black neighbourhood of “sagging duplexes, fading murals, 24-hour daycares”. But you would be wrong. Tobin Charney makes $400,000 a year out of his 131 trailers, some of which are little better than hovels. Sherrena Tarver, a former schoolteacher who is one of the only black female landlords in the city, makes enough in rents on her numerous properties – some presentable, others squalid – to holiday in Jamaica and attend conferences on real estate.
...
Desmond lays out the crucial role housing plays in creating and reinforcing white privilege. In Milwaukee, one of the most segregated cities in the US, all black people suffer from housing discrimination and all white people benefit at least a little from the racial dividend – a landlord who will rent to them but not to black people, for instance, or offer them a nicer apartment. Black people have the worst housing in the worst neighbourhoods – the great fear of the trailer-park people, who are all white, is that they will end up on the black side of town. Eviction hits black women hardest of all, and the bleak benches of housing courts, which deal with disputes between landlords and tenants, are full of black women and their children: “If incarceration had come to define the lives of men from impoverished black neighbourhoods, eviction was shaping the lives of women. Poor black men were locked up. Poor black women were locked out.”

What are the social costs of eviction? It puts incredible stress on families. It prevents people from saving the comparatively small sums that would let them stabilise their situation. They are always starting over from scratch, losing their possessions in the chaos of removal, or putting them in storage and losing them when they can’t pay the fees. An eviction on your record makes the next apartment harder to get. Eviction damages children, who are always changing schools, giving up friends and toys and pets – and living with the exhaustion and depression of their parents. We watch Jori go from a sweet, protective older brother to an angry, sullen boy subject to violent outbursts who is falling way behind in school.

Eviction makes it hard to keep up with the many appointments required by the courts and the byzantine welfare system: several characters have their benefits cut because notices are sent to the wrong address. Eviction destroys communities: when people move frequently, they don’t form the social bonds and pride in place that encourage them to care for their block and look out for their neighbours.

- Christina Starmans, Mark Sheskin and Paul Bloom examine the relationship between fairness and inequality, and find that people's more intuitions are aimed more toward the former than the latter.

- Frank Fear discusses how "progressive neoliberalism" is undermining the progressive movement by opening up even more space for neoliberal management theories to dominate politics. And Jared Bernstein argues that we'll achieve better policy results by directly providing for the outcomes we want, rather than hoping for market mechanisms or other complex structures to achieve them indirectly. 

- Meanwhile, Tyler Cowen points out that trade over long distances as a proportion of total trade hasn't changed over the past three decades - meaning that the growing dominance of capital in that time can't be explained solely by globalization as a value-neutral principle. 

- Finally, Steve Lambert reports on Wab Kinew's entry into the Manitoba NDP's leadership race.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Martha Friendly examines what a "national child care program" actually means. And Jim Stanford makes a compelling economic case as to why Canada needs one:

In the case of early childhood education, however, this standard claim of government “poverty” is exactly backwards.  Because there is overwhelming and credible economic evidence that investing in universal ECE programs is actually a money-maker for governments.  In this case, the argument is truly not whether government can afford to provide universal quality care.  In reality, especially at a moment in history when economists worry about long-run fiscal capacity and future labour supply, it is clear that governments cannot afford to ignore any longer this pressing economic and social priority.

The economic benefits of a universal public child care program can be grouped into four broad categories:

1. Positive impact on women’s labour force participation and employment.
2. Direct and indirect job-creation associated with the provision of child care services.
3. Improvements in household and family financial well-being.
4. Superior child development, resulting in better health, employment, income, and community outcomes in future years.

Various economists have considered each of these classes of economic benefits, and attempted to measure the positive employment, income, and GDP effects generated through all of these channels.  Their combined effect makes it undeniable that providing quality, accessible child care services leaves the economy, society, and government in better shape.

- Christopher Hume comments on the loss of ability to act in the public interest when governments privatize public assets and operations. And Michael Geist weighs in on the enormous concessions the Cons made in an unsuccessful attempt to foist the Trans-Pacific Partnership on Canada before the election campaign began.

- Warren Bell worries about Stephen Harper's dystopian vision for our country, while Michael Harris points out that Harper doesn't have much to pitch to supporters other than to ask them to suspend their disbelief. And Linda Solomon Wood and Jenny Uechl report on secret hearings being held in response to revelations about coordinated interference with environmental groups. 

- Paul Willcocks argues that campaign coverage should better inform voters about the big picture behind their electoral choices, rather than being limited to repeating lines from scripted political theatre. And Kalina Laframboise reports on one effort by Concordia students to get young voters to the polls.

- Finally, Crawford Kilian takes note of the rise of left populism around the world, and argues that Canada's progressive parties would do well to adopt that theme rather than apologizing for inequality and corporate control.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- We shouldn't be surprised that the corporate sector is reacting with contrived outrage to the Cons' tinkering with a severely flawed temporary foreign worker program. But Jim Stanford points out what it would take to actually move labour standards upward rather than including Canadian workers in a race to the bottom:

(T)he Harper government is now moving to avert a political disaster in the making. Advance coverage in the Globe and Mail indicates its proposed changes will include a new fee for temporary foreign worker permits, and requirements that employers promise to step up their advertising and training to eventually recruit Canadians for the jobs.

But those promises won’t be worth the paper they are printed on. Federal bureaucrats have no concrete basis on which to judge whether training or recruitment promises are realistic or not, let alone have power to meaningfully enforce them. So long as access to migrant labour remains open, companies can always come back complaining about “shortages.” Even today, the so-called Labour Market Opinions which must be issued before employers can tap the program are no more than a symbolic ritual; approving employers’ “training plans” will be just another rubber stamp.

If we really want employers to find qualified Canadians instead of importing cheap replacements, the whole loophole must be closed down. The low-skill window currently allowed under the program should be cancelled completely (along with the provision allowing employers to pay 15 per cent less-than-going wages). There is absolutely no legitimate reason unemployed Canadians can’t be tapped to fill every one of those jobs: from coal mines to factories to hotels to donut shops. Employers in these industries tap the program only as a handy source of cheap, compliant labour. This whole section of the program gives the lie to the claim that we need migrant workers for their “skills” in the first place.

For genuine, specialized high-skill vacancies, the guest worker program must only be used as a temporary stop-gap, with hard caps on both numbers and length. Specialists should be allowed in for six months only, with a maximum of one renewal. That gives employers ample time to recruit Canadians – so long as they are willing to pay them. Employers who use the program for skilled-trades positions must set up their own apprenticeship programs to meet future needs.

Every migrant should be entitled to normal employment rights (including access to EI and CPP benefits), as well as having access to normal immigration opportunities. After all, if their skill truly cannot be replaced from within Canada, then they should be invited to live and work here like the rest of us, with full legal protections (instead of being fenced off in low-wage, unpoliced job ghettos).

Finally, full transparency should be required – regularly publishing which employers hire temporary foreign workers, in which jobs, and for how long. Apart from providing unemployed Canadians with a valuable source of information on job opportunities, this sunshine would help ensure that companies use the program for true skills shortages only.

- Meanwhile, Shiv Malik discusses the latest gratuitous slaps at the unemployed in the UK - as the Cons' cousins are forcing anybody out of work to participate in utterly frivolous psychometric testing.

- And Dr. Dawg offers a modest suggestion as to how outsourcing could actually benefit workers in less-developed countries. (Needless to say, I don't see our corporate overlords taking him up on the proposal.)

- Mike de Souza reports on the Cons' latest decision to eliminate any environmental assessment of major projects ranging from pipelines to chemical explosive plants. Which fits nicely with Justin Ling's interpretation of the Cons' agenda - but doesn't exactly provide reason for confidence among those of us paying attention to what laissez-faire zealotry is doing elsewhere.

- Finally, Sean Reardon discusses how income inequality - particularly between the middle class and the plutocrats - is translating into inequality of opportunity through educational outcomes.

On unbalanced trade

When it comes to trying to justify perpetually-increasing restrictions on democratic governance in the guise of "free trade" agreements, advocates present two polar opposite views as to what such agreements are intended to accomplish.

The first - and more plausible - view of the actual and intended effect of trade agreements is that they primarily serve the purposes of the parties who push and negotiate them. When corporate interests and their pet Randians meet behind closed doors to draft agreements which will be subject to zero public accountability, it's a safe bet that it's the general public which stands to lose out as a result. And there's certainly a constituency for the view that democracy should be subordinate to the profit motive - making trade agreements into a rational if cynical strategy to tie the hands of elected officials while ensuring that business ultimately rules everywhere.

But that constituency is rather smaller than the number of people who might be persuaded that there's a problem with encouraging plutocrats write the rules of international trade in a way which lets them override the democratic will of the public. And so we also tend to hear another excuse for free trade agreements: that such agreements aren't intended to protect wealthy investors or corporate interests at all, but instead to ensure the availability of the greatest range of goods and services at the lowest possible cost to consumers.

In principle, this second argument is entirely vulnerable to a fairly obvious criticism. If the need for free trade agreements is based solely on a desire to reduce and ultimately eliminate our own tariffs, then there's a far more direct path to that goal: reduce and eliminate our own tariffs, rather than signing agreements which carry a myriad of other consequences including asymmetrical rights for businesses to extort their desired policy from states. But most of the time, we don't get to test whether advocates of the consumer-focused position will be as interested in tariffs when they aren't linked to government suicide pacts.

Well, the Harper Conservatives have created just such an opportunity. In the midst of a campaign to lock Canada into ever more dubious free trade agreements - granting preferential trade and investment status to Colombia despite (if not because of) its recent history of anti-labour goon squads, granting China a multi-decade stranglehold over Canadian public policy, and apparently increasing the cost of prescription drugs to appease big pharma as represented by European negotiators - the Cons have declared that they're implementing an increase in tariffs on imports from developing countries. Which in principle represents both a beggar-the-poor philosophy from the perspective of those who see tariffs as primarily affecting producers, and a direct cost to Canadian consumers for those who see trade policy primarily in terms of purchasing power.

Now, it could be that there's a long game being played by the Cons: the affected countries might well get pushed into negotiating free-trade agreements if their exporters demand some means of reversing the tariffs. But once again, that explanation wouldn't hold water as a matter of consumer interests: the end result would simply be the elimination of the Cons' new tariffs, accompanied by a superfluous set of giveaways to the investor class.

In other words, the Cons have made clear that their gleeful pursuit of any free trade agreement which another country can find time to sign is rooted solely on the first argument: as a means of exacerbating inequality in wealth and power, with consumer interests serving at best as an excuse to implement that agenda. And I'll be curious to see whether we see adherents to the second theory show anywhere near the level of concern about the Cons' direct and deliberate increase in consumer prices that they tend to offer whenever progressive voices point out the real effects of free trade agreements.

Update: Following up on the conclusion above, Stephen Gordon and Mike Moffatt step up to the plate.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

Leadership 2012 Links and Policy Roundup 3

Assorted policy and punditry from the NDP leadership campaign.

- On the policy front, it's looking like time to give Nathan Cullen full credit for being well ahead of the pack with a well-rounded and detailed set of policies. I missed his democratic reform proposal in my last policy roundup - and others have noted that Cullen goes a step beyond most of the NDP's contenders in calling for a referendum the role of the monarchy in addition to backing proportional representation and Senate abolition. Since then, Cullen has also released an Arctic policy that calls for infrastructure and resource development based on local needs rather than outside assumptions, as well as a trade policy that looks to raise global standards through trade agreements.

- Meanwhile, Niki Ashton's position on foreign investment looks like a noteworthy start in her policy development - though again I'll hope to see it fleshed out as the campaign progresses.

- UPDATE: And Peggy Nash has released a proposal of her own on foreign investment, calling for a more transparent "net benefit" test and better enforcement of investors' commitments.

- That's about it for policy news over a relatively quiet time in the campaign - but there's been plenty more to note on the candidate messaging front. Ashton has focused her public message on dealing with inequality. Cullen has called for an anyone-but-Harper movement over the next few years. Thomas Mulcair has nicely summarized his campaign theme as one of sustainable development. Peggy Nash has painted herself as a bridge-builder with a focus on the economy. And Brian Topp is rightly noting that the leadership campaign shouldn't be a boring one.

- But then, there isn't too much risk of that when pundits like Stephen Maher are having to walk back from their initial assumptions about the race to take a closer look at the field. And Bill Tieleman helps those who haven't been paying attention so far by surveying his top tier of candidates.

Buy Canadian is the end of the world! It's an affront to all that is good and Free Market Holy! It's...

...current federal policy in the shipbuilding sector!

In an e-mail, Mr. MacKay's office said that any shipbuilding projects to stimulate the economy were already announced in the Canada First defence strategy a year ago. "The government believes that the Buy Canada Policy will return enormous economic benefits," spokesman Jay Paxton said. That policy, which requires federal vessels be built in Canada, has been in place under Liberal and Tory governments.

Mind you, the shipbuilding example isn't exactly an example of a successful policy when the Cons aren't following through on their promised spending in the sector. But that's more a symptom of the Cons' continued inability to find their own ass with a map and a flashlight than an indictment of the concept of making sure that purchasing by the federal government benefits Canadian industry.

On close ties

There's been no lack of crowing from the Cons about how the end of George W. Bush's stay in power in the U.S. will make it more difficult to tie Harper and his government to their thoroughly despised Repulican soulmates.

But there may be ample reason to keep drawing the connection if Harper continues to to help Dubya tie Barack Obama's hands in dealing with the financial meltdown. And it surely can't be an accident that Harper and Bush were the two loudest voices demanding an APEC declaration perfectly timed to try to limit Obama's ability to maneuver by ruling out anything that could be construed as a "trade barrier" once he actually takes the reins.

Update: In fairness, the risk of Obama actually being held to the declaration would seem to be reduced when Harper himself is now slamming the same joint statement which he signed onto on Canada's behalf.

On social irresponsibility

Embassy reports that there's some talk of trying to include references to corporate social responsibility in new trade agreements. But it appears all too obvious that the actual corporations involved have no interest in such agreements including anything but a weapon to wield against governments:

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, which is leading the business community in the consultations, has made a submission to the government, said the chamber's international policy analyst, Brian Zeiler-Kligman...

"We would support a reference being made to voluntary corporate initiatives in free trade agreements, provided that the reference is directed to [the two countries] and not to companies," it adds. "The reference should remind the parties of their role in promoting and facilitating, but certainly not mandating, voluntary corporate initiatives."...

The letter goes on to state that any reference should be carefully crafted to prevent foreign governments from using it to bilk money from a Canadian company, and it should appear in the preamble to reflect that it is voluntary and non-binding.

Mr. Zeiler-Kligman said the chamber does not generally support the idea of including corporate social responsibility in free trade agreements.

The article notes other difficulties in trying to include as nebulous a principle as corporate social responsibility within a trade deal. And it's worth pointing out how far removed even the principle of corporate responsibility would be from any binding agreement on social or environmental issues to parallel the seemingly unquestioned obligation to facilitate trade.

But Canada's business representatives apparently aren't willing to countenance even as small a step as recognizing corporate responsibility as a matter of substance. Instead, they're fighting tooth and nail against any portion of an agreement which could possibly suggest that any interest other than trade could matter, or that anybody besides the governments involved should take on any obligations. And that should speak volumes about which interests are met and which ones are entirely ignored as the current unbalanced form of agreement spreads.

Disaster averted

While talk about the latest anti-government fad agreement heats up in Saskatchewan and nationwide, CUPW reports that the previous one thankfully hasn't proven quite as harmful as it could have, as UPS' challenge against Canada Post has been rejected by a NAFTA tribunal:

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) and Council of Canadians (Council) are pleased that United Parcel Service's complaint under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been rejected by the tribunal hearing the case.

United Parcel Service (UPS) sued Canada over six years ago, under NAFTA’s Chapter 11, which allows corporations to challenge governments if they think their investments are restricted by government measures. UPS claimed that its investments were being restricted by Canada’s publicly funded network of mailboxes and post offices because this network allegedly provided Canada Post with an unfair advantage. The tribunal had already dismissed several elements of the claim.

The federal government’s media release on the final decision indicates that the tribunal dismissed allegations of unfair treatment with respect to the postal network, customs and the Canadian Heritage Publications Assistance Program. The government says that it will release the full decision within thirty days.

“We are very happy that the tribunal rejected UPS’s complaint but that doesn’t mean we think NAFTA works,” said CUPW National President Deborah Bourque. “NAFTA allowed UPS to put public postal service and jobs on trial. A secret trial.”

Unfortunately, there's no assurance that the next equally dangerous challenge under NAFTA won't lead to massive intrusions against Canada's ability to act for itself. But it's at least a plus that Canada Post is safe for now - even if the challenge only highlights just how much we stand to lose through ill-thought-out trade deals.

Valuing diversity

The Globe and Mail reports that Canada's exports to Europe have been skyrocketing over the past 5 years, resulting in both a large amount of business and a significant decline in Canada's dependence on the U.S.

Which would seem to be a fairly obvious plus for the country. But somewhere, Canada's most-prominent right-wingers are working to reverse the trend.

On real costs

Erin's discussion about a federal conference on internal trade highlights the fact that while the TILMA's alleged benefits have been properly debunked in the minds of all but the most reality-averse corporate shills, its costs need to be far more strongly considered:

The academic and policy people all agreed that the material costs of alleged inter-provincial barriers are insignificantly small relative to the economy. Representatives of nursing and legal associations indicated that their members have no difficulty transferring between provinces and perceive no meaningful barriers to labour mobility...

Despite the near consensus that there is not much of a problem, there was some discussion of potential “solutions”: expanding TILMA, deepening the Agreement on Internal Trade, or applying the World Trade Organization’s rules to intra-national trade...

Many participants had not scrutinized TILMA and its likely negative consequences. Although John Helliwell and I tried to raise some of these potential pitfalls, I fear that many people have concluded that this agreement entails minor benefits but no costs...

The optimistic conclusion is that Marc, I, and others have been somewhat successful in dispelling the fantasy that TILMA will yield significant economic benefits. The pessimistic conclusion is that much more needs to be done to inform people of TILMA’s economic, social, and environmental costs.

As noted by Erin, much of the debate over the TILMA has centred on the wildly-inflated claims about the possible benefits. But that focus on debating the size (or existence) of any benefit may result in the anti-TILMA side paying short shrift to the even more important costs of any agreement which puts a straitjacket on government in the name of increased corporate profits.

Of course, it's virtually impossible to quantify what some of those costs could be - though it's not hard to extrapolate from the Sierra Club's legal analysis to see how the TILMA could constrain governments now in ways which result in far larger environmental costs in the future.

But even immediate dollar amounts aside, it's also worth noting the political cost when governments are preventing from governing. Any problem faced by governments under a TILMA-type regime will have a far more limited range of potential solutions, with a strong bias toward corporate-friendly ones even if these do less to resolve the core issue. And that real reduction in what government actually does is only likely to lead to further cynicism on the question of whether government can in fact do better.

Needless to say, that kind of shift from (relatively) people-centred decision-making to an enforced corporate-friendly focus is probably exactly what makes the TILMA so appealing to businesses. But it's also a serious danger which would itself make for reason to be highly skeptical of the TILMA even if the Conference Board's invented benefits were even close to realistic.

Con/Lib Inc.

So much for all the talk about the Libs supposedly moving to the left to offer an alternative to the Cons, as those parties' respective members of the International Trade Committee couldn't agree more in wanting to divert federal resources toward more free-trade agreements and U.S. integration:

A Commons committee is urging the federal government to invest a lot more money and effort into securing bilateral trade and investment deals around the world.

The international trade committee calls for a 50 per cent increase in federal spending on trade and investment promotion, including more trips abroad by Canadian officials and MPs.

However, NDP and Bloc Quebecois MPs on the committee warn some of the 22 recommendations in the report tabled late last week pose an economic, social or political threat...

The NDP dissenting report is especially critical of recommendations urging greater integration of the Canadian economy into the U.S. dominated North American economy...

“Generally, the report is based on the assumption that fast-tracking deregulation and blind faith in bilateral free trade will create sustainable and positive prosperity and employment,” the NDP says in its dissenting report...

“This report, based on an ideology that was popular in the 1980s and 1990s and according to which market openness has no harmful secondary effects and no need for safeguards, is now completely outmoded and unsuited to Quebec’s economic reality,” the Bloc report stated.

Of course, both the Libs and Cons are fighting each other for the backing of corporate Canada (which presumably has much to do with the "natural governing party" status that each wants to claim). Which means that it's not entirely surprising that neither wants to go on record pointing out the real concerns about yet another round of deregulation and integration.

But then, the Libs' calls for effective government are bound to ring hollow one it's pointed out that they're eager to restrain government action as long as it's matched by a similar commitment in another country. And one would think that the official opposition would at least be willing to point out some issues with the Security and Prosperity Partnership to at least shape where future talks end up going, rather than simply choosing not to deal with it (or worse yet providing what sounds like unconditional supprt).

As usual, it's worth clarifying that expanding trade is indeed a worthy effort, and the recommendation to increase and improve Canada's presence abroad should be followed. But there's no reason why such an effort has to be accompanied by agreements to tie down Canada's governments. And ultimately, Canadians who want effective governments at both the provincial and federal levels should be just as concerned about the Libs' willingness to limit our scope of action through agreement as they are about the Cons' plan to dismantle the state from within.