Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- The Guardian's editorial board writes that stagnating and even declining life expectancies and nother indications of declining social health are the result of purely political choices:

In 2010 a government-commissioned review looking at the relationship between health and wealth – only the third officially sanctioned attempt to do so in 30 years – came to the conclusion that life expectancy is linked to social standing and so is the time spent in good health. Lower life expectancies in the UK were not those associated with destitution but rather despair and expectation. Poorer people suffer diseases because of bad diets, a lack of exercise, smoking, poor pay and job insecurity. Its message was twofold. First, government intervention was necessary to ensure that people’s freedoms were not bad for their health. Second, the state had a responsibility to assure people’s material security. Tory health secretaries did no more than pay lip service to such ideas. The result has been rising death rates.
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...In terms of length of life, the UK lags behind other developed nations. Young people are now less likely to live longer than their parents. Ministers initially blamed the figures on flu deaths. A more plausible explanation is the politics of austerity, which had an excessive impact on the poor, the disabled and the elderly. Local councils cannot pay for home visits, cuts have led to rising levels of homelessness, fuel poverty and food bank visits. It is shocking that 18-year-olds with learning disabilities may well not live long enough to draw their pension.
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At the heart of this debate is the government’s refusal to engage with inequality. This is an error borne out of ideology. We know that children from poorer backgrounds are more affected by the rise in childhood obesity. So why allow the number of children living in poverty to breach 5 million by 2022, up from around 4 million at present? It is because a key belief in free-market societies is that they reward the industrious and punish the idle. In this system, individuals must have the freedom to choose – and with that freedom would come responsibility. The market, in this system, would not only improve British society; it would remoralise it. To have faith in such an unfettered model of capitalism is a political choice. When applied to public health, the appalling price appears to be to stall progress in life expectancy.

- Meanwhile, Chris Buckley and Mary Marrone highlight how Doug Ford is going out of his way to make life even more precarious for Ontario workers. Noah Smith comments on the effect of crushing student loan debt on millennials. Paul Davidson reports on a new study showing that nearly two-thirds of U.S. jobs are insufficient to support a middle-class standard of living. And Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson and Ed Crooks discuss yet more evidence that tax giveaways to the rich have done nothing to even indirectly benefit anybody else.

- Andrew Jackson points out that rather than putting an end to Donald Trump's preposterous tariffs on steel and aluminum, the Trudeau Libs have actually handed the U.S. even more ability to control trade with unverifiable claims of "national security".

- Finally, Andrea Huncar reports on the observation of the Office of the Correctional Investigator that Canada's prison system far too frequently uses force as a response to mental health issues.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Andrew Jackson argues that Canada has nothing to gain in trying to race Donald Trump to the bottom when it comes to corporate taxes:

While marginal effective corporate-tax rates are clearly a factor in business investment decisions, they are by no means the only or most decisive factor.

Non-tax factors such as access to natural resources, skills, energy costs, house prices, urban amenities and other locational advantages play a major role in investment decisions, especially in the knowledge-intensive sectors. And investment will be limited if demand is sluggish, even if the after-tax cost of capital is relatively low.

Further, cuts to the corporate-tax rate are costly since most of the benefit goes to existing firms making profits from past investments, rather than to new firms or those thinking about expansion. A cut in the tax rate is also irrelevant to companies earning so-called rents or above-average profits compared to the international norm. For example, during the resource-boom companies would have invested in the oil sands even if the corporate-tax rate had been much higher, since expected profits were very high.

Canadian banks, utilities, airlines, railways, retailers and cultural industries among others all have to operate mainly in Canada to serve the Canadian market, so they are not very responsive to changes in tax rates compared to other countries.

It is striking that the level of business investment in Canada as a share of GDP remained almost unchanged in recent years as the Harper government cut the federal corporate-income-tax rate to 15 per cent today from 22.1 per cent in 2006, at a cost of about $12-billion in annual tax revenue.

Deep corporate-tax cuts came at the price of foregone public investments in areas such as infrastructure, research, education and skills that could have contributed more to productivity growth. Introduced at a time of deficits, these tax cuts also increased the public debt.

- Stuart Trew points out how the USCMA is designed to prevent regulators from fulfilling their mission of protecting the public interest. And Jeremias Prassl offers some suggestions as to how to bring collective bargaining into the gig economy.

- Cory Doctorow writes that the researchers whose first outlier study was initially used to criticize Seattle's minimum wage increase have clarified that all kinds of lower-earning workers were better off for the boost.

- Matt Ford discusses the growing gap in civil rights under the Trump administration. And Tyson Brown explains how discrimination and associated social factors lead to long-term disparities in health outcomes.  

- Emily Chung reports on the findings of the Living Planet Report of a 60% decline in vertebrate populations since 1970 due to overdevelopment and climate change.

- Finally, Andrew Coyne writes that the most important question on British Columbia's referendum ballot is the first one - and that there's no justification for clinging to the unrepresentative status quo based on process complaints.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Rupert Neate reports on the latest Credit Suisse study showing that wealth continues to concentrate in the hands of a few ultra-rich individuals. And Lawrence Mishel and Julia Wolfe take note of a similar trend for U.S. wages, particularly when it comes to the soaring amount being claimed by CEOs.

- Sharon Treat discusses how the USCMA only figures to put large corporations even further beyond the reach of any regulation in the public interest. And Marie Aspiazu points out its effect on digital rights, including its extension of already-excessive copyright terms.

- The Star's editorial board takes a look at the costs of Doug Ford's cancellation of Ontario's cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions. And both Lars Osberg and the C.D. Howe Institute make the case for full fee-and-dividend systems - though it's still worth raising the value of ensuring that some money collected as a result of carbon pollution actually gets applied to reducing the scope of the problem.

- Finally, Simon Enoch argues that climate sanctions may be needed to ensure that the worst offenders don't undermine any effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And George Monbiot writes that in the absence of sorely-needed government action to avert a total climate breakdown, there looks to be little alternative but civil disobedience.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Michael Harris writes that we shouldn't expect politicians to lead the way toward the action we need to combat climate change. Katie Dangerfield reports on new research showing that the economic effects of carbon pricing are modest, while ignoring climate change will have massive costs. But Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood examines how the USCMA figures to lock in a fossil-fuel economy while failing to pay even lip service to our most fundamental challenge.
 
- Amanda Agan and Michael Makowsky study the social effects of a higher minimum wage, including a decrease in criminal recidivism.

- The CP reports on Doug Ford's latest move to prioritize cheap intoxicants over necessary public services.

- Finally, Naomi Klein discusses Donald Trump's standing as the U.S.' most glaring example of dynastic privilege being used to suppress the hopes of anybody who doesn't share the same fortune. And Christo Aivalis comments on the ongoing relevance of Mouseland as a metaphor for Canadian politics:

The story of Mouseland—which can be seen here in animated form—described a society where mice formed the majority of the population, and yet consistently elected governments comprised of cats. Those cats—be they white cats or black cats or spotted cats—passed laws that benefitted them, often to the detriment of the mice majority.

The story turns for Douglas when a little mouse comes along with a bold idea, which is that instead of electing a government of cats, they should choose their leadership from amongst themselves. Of course, that little mouse was branded a dangerous subversive and was locked up, but as Douglas says, “you can lock up a mouse or a man but you can’t lock up an idea.”

The allegory is clearly meant to apply to Canadian society, and Douglas makes that explicit: “Now if you think it strange that mice should elect a government made up of cats, you just look at the history of Canada…and maybe you’ll see that they weren’t any stupider than we are.” For him, the story of Canadian politics was one where Liberal and Conservative cats ruled the roost while the masses of mice languished in poverty, precarity, and inequality. But when pioneering mice like J.S. Woodsworth stepped up to form the Labour Party and eventually the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, they offered a new path forward.
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Mouseland is clearly a populist narrative. In our own times, many people, especially among the centrist elite, have equated populism with Trumpian far-right politics. Certainly, the right has been successful at tapping into popular discontent with the status quo, and has been able to portray wealthy leaders like Trump and Ford as regular joes. But as I’ve noted in other venues, populism is an essential component to any left wing programme which sincerely seeks to represent the masses of working-class people. Mouseland is just the sort of fable that sparks a populist understanding of politics, where the 99% of mice stop deferring to the feline elite, and start doing politics differently. Where politicians who share their life experience are elected to represent them, and in turn can pass good laws—that is—laws that are good for mice.

One of the Canadian left’s key failings over the past couple decades has been a belief that we have to move beyond class conflict as a vehicle for social, political, and economic change; that regular Canadians don’t see themselves as mice anymore, or simply see themselves as cats-in-waiting. Some of this may well be true, but the reality is that class conflict isn’t going anywhere, and the social and economic elite understand this best of all. The left in Canada needs to centre politics of the many over the few, even if that makes enemies among the people unlikely to support them in the first place. Mouseland may well just be a fable, but it is nonetheless instructive, and can be used in part to illustrate a class consciousness among the masses of people in this country, matching that class solidarity which has never dissipated among the wealthy and well-connected.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Charles Smith writes about the importance of a living wage as a matter of fairness and justice. But Stephanie Taylor reports on Regina City Council's lamentable vote against ensuring that the people who make the city function are able to earn enough to live. 

- Meanwhile, Ipsos surveys the impact of debt on Canadian households - with nearly a quarter of respondents considering themselves overwhelmed by what they owe.

- Sara Mojtehedzadeh examines some of the recently-passed protections for workers which are on the chopping block under Doug Ford's anti-labour government. And Trish Hennessy worries that Ontario's workers will end up worse off than they were before the Wynne Libs' last-gasp attempt to appear progressive.

- Scott Sinclair notes that the small amount of good news in the new USMCA involves some reduction in the power of investor-driven dispute resolution. But Alexander Panetta examines a few of the ways in which the deal puts more power in the hands of the U.S. to dictate economic terms to Canada and Mexico.

- Finally, Yves Engler makes the case for free public transit as a means of improving both local equality and the global environment.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Jim Stanford discusses how abusing precarious workers has become the primary job of big business. But Owen Jones notes that strikes against McDonald's in the UK represent just the latest example of workers taking collective action to fight for a more fair economy.

- Meanwhile, Kevin Rawlinson reports on a new estimate of the amount of unpaid work performed in the UK every year.

- Alexandra Shimo reports on the contrast between Nestle's extraction of millions of litres of water from Six Nations of the Grand River treaty land, and residents' need to go without running water at all. And Brent Patterson writes that the oil industry is predictably one of the main winners in the new NAFTA.

- Anna Desmarais reports on the Environment Commissioner's conclusion that Canada isn't properly tracking the disposal of businesses' toxic waste. 

- Finally, Linda Leon points out the entrenched interests trying to undermine electoral reform due to the possibility that it might make governmental capture more difficult.

New column day

Here, on the corporate sellouts in the Libs' new version of NAFTA - including a little-discussed chapter designed to turn anti-regulatory bias into official policy for an entire continent.

For further reading...
- The text of the USCMA is here, with Chapter 28 (PDF) forming the subject of most of the column. And by way of comparison, I'll point to the "regulatory cooperation" chapter of the CETA, which provides for some level of coordination without the obligation to systematically question domestic regulations.
- I've already linked to some noteworthy USCMA commentary, including pieces from Neil MacDonald, Duncan Cameron and David Moscrop. Janyce McGregor summarizes some of the key changes under the USCMA. Alex Ballingall points out the increase in drug costs arising out of Trudeau's concessions. 
- Finally, for a reminder of the attitude toward regulation driving the U.S.' position, see reporting on the Trump administration's undermining of rules governing asbestos, radiation, and mercury, as well as the Environmental Integrity Project's full list of regulatory slippage under Trump.