On implausible impersonators

Other commentators have taken note of Erin O'Toole's attempt to co-opt the language of labour unions in an effort to portray himself as less hostile than his predecessors.

There's certainly reason to be concerned about this being yet another area where right-wing leaders pretend to be sympathetic on fundamental issues while planning to do as much damage as possible if given the chance. But in assessing how credible voters should find O'Toole's pitch, let's note that his attacks on unions aren't even limited to what would be expected from a garden-variety Con MP.

It's true, as others have noted, that O'Toole voted in favour of the Cons' attacks on labour rights in bills C-377 and C-525. But it's particularly worth noting that he did so gratuitously in at least the former case: while five Con MPs voting against intrusions into union operations in the third-reading vote which passed C-377, O'Toole wasn't one of them.

Moreover, one can tell what O'Toole really thinks about unions from what he's chosen to say beyond the limitations on a single-bill vote.

On that front, he's dismissed as "not sincere" advocacy and activism on behalf of veterans based solely on the fact that union support was involved. 

He went out of his way to fight the the legislation which ultimately repealed C-377 and C-525.

And in launching his leadership campaign, he's brought out the "union boss" trope (aimed at Unifor's Jerry Dias) as part of his fund-raising efforts.

So O'Toole's idea of an acceptable union is one with no leadership, no role in advocating for people in the community at large, and needless barriers in its way if it tries to get certified or represent its members. 

Needless to say, solidarity on those stunted terms would do nothing but further enrich the O'Toole class of elites and corporate owners. And there should be a teaching opportunity in contrasting O'Toole's impoverished idea of labour against what unions can actually accomplish.

Leadership 2017 Candidate Profile: Pat Stogran

The latest putative entrant in the leadership race is Pat Stogran - well-known for challenging the Harper Cons' callous treatment of veterans in his role as veterans' ombudsman.

So how does Stogran fit into a field of current MPs and longtime activists, particularly when his own goal is largely to raise issues?

Strengths

The primary advantage Stogran brings to the race is the combination of broader name recognition and perceived media credibility. It's not clear exactly how familiar he'll be to the public, but between a prominently-featured book and a number of media appearances he seems at least to be enjoying slightly more attention than his competitors.

In addition, Stogran has staked out some policy turf for himself with a focus on veterans' issues, open government and managerial experience.

Weaknesses

That said, Stogran faces a steep hill to climb in pursuing the NDP's leadership. All of his opponents have multiple terms of experience as MPs and a long history of political organization. In contrast, Stogran's introduction has included mention of his own unfamiliarity with the political process in general as well as the NDP in particular.

What's more, Stogran's inexperience has manifested itself in some dubious messaging, including reinforcing other parties' talking points about the NDP's economic credibility. It's difficult enough to win over the membership of a party as an outsider; it figures to be even tougher when part of the pitch is one which party members are likely to see as a tired and hostile line of criticism.

Key Indicator

While Stogran will surely need to win over some existing NDP members, it's hard to see how he has much of a path to victory among party loyalists. With that in mind, the key figure for him will be the number of new party members he can sign up (presumably with a heavy focus on veterans as a constituency): if he's going to mount a serious challenge, he needs to bring people into the NDP tent who wouldn't make the effort to join otherwise.

Key Opponent

In order to generate any traction as an outside voice on the economy and governance, Stogran will at least need to show more command of the subjects than his competitors. And that sets up a noteworthy contrast with Guy Caron.

If Stogran can meaningfully challenge Caron's themes to the same effect, his critique may resonate somewhat - shaking loose some down-ballot voters while weakening the strongest competitor for governance-based ballots. But if he can't, any continued criticism of the NDP's ability to govern will serve only to alienate members while providing a boost to Caron in defending the party's qualifications.

Plausible Outcomes

Best-case: A strong influx of new members which pushes him onto multiple ballots and allows for growth in an anything-can-happen scenario
Worst-case: A last-place leadership campaign finish based on a lack of membership support, coupled with a failure to establish a place within the NDP generally

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Jim Hightower argues that there's no reason the U.S. can't develop an economic model which leads to shared prosperity - and the ideas are no less relevant in Canada:

Take On Wall Street is both the name and the feisty attitude of a nationwide campaign that a coalition of grassroots groups has launched to do just that: take on Wall Street. The coalition, spearheaded by the Communication Workers of America, points out there is nothing natural or sacred about today’s money-grabbing financial complex. Far from sacrosanct, the system of finance that now rules over us has been designed by and for Wall Street speculators, money managers and big bank flimflammers. So, big surprise, rather than serving our common good, the system is corrupt, routinely serving their uncommon greed at everyone else’s expense.
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The coalition’s structural reforms include:
1. Getting the corrupting cash of corporations and the superrich out of politics with an overturning of Citizens United v. FEC and providing a public system for financing America’s elections.

2. Stopping “too big to fail” banks from subsidizing their high-risk speculative gambling with the deposits of  ordinary customers. Make them choose to be a consumer bank or a casino, but not both.

3. Institute a tiny “Robin Hood tax” on Wall Street speculators to discourage their computerized gaming of the system, while also generating hundreds of billions of tax dollars to invest in America’s real economy.

4. Restore low-cost, convenient “postal banking” in our post offices to serve millions of Americans who’re now at the mercy of predatory payday lenders and check-cashing chains.

- Juliette Garside reports on the EU's efforts to get the U.S. to agree to basic reporting to rein in offshore tax evasion. And Heather Long points out Joseph Stiglitz' criticisms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership as enriching corporations at the expense of citizens.

- Amy Maxmen notes that a non-profit system can develop new drugs far more affordably than the current corporate model - and without creating the expectation of windfall profits that currently underlies the pharmaceutical industry.

- Jordan Press offers a preview of a federal strategy for homeless veterans featuring rental subsidies and the building of targeted housing units - which leads only to the question of why the same plan wouldn't be applied to address homelessness generally.

- Alan Shanoff comments on the many holes in Ontario's employment standards (which are generally matched elsewhere as well).

- Finally, Dougald Lamont highlights the many ways in which the Fraser Institute's anti-tax spin misleads the media about how citizens relate to Canadian governments.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Andrew Jackson discusses a few of the choices the Trudeau Libs need to get right in order to actually set Canada on a more progressive fiscal path:

Progressives who worry about growing income inequality will note two key features of the new government's tax plans. First, the plan is not quite as redistributive as it looks at first sight since it  leaves out below-average income workers. Second, the net effect is not to expand the federal income tax base.

True, the Liberal platform talks of examining some loopholes, such as the favourable taxation of stock options, but it rejected major revenue-raising measures – including higher corporate taxes or higher income taxes on anybody except the top 1%. This leaves little fiscal room to fund needed social programs such as child care or pharmacare.
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The key problem facing the new government is that its three major short-term promises – child benefits, income tax cuts and infrastructure investment  – effectively use up all of the fiscal resources it has at hand, including temporary deficits.

This shows up in the Liberal platform in the very modest amounts allocated to new spending on health care (which goes from just $400 million in year one to $1 billion in year four.) This is far from the amounts needed to offset the Harper government's pending cuts to transfers to the provinces, as the premiers will quickly point out when they meet with the new Prime Minister.

The Liberal platform also allocates very limited new funds to such “priorities” as educational and other programs for indigenous peoples, employment insurance reform, social housing programs, environmental programs, enhanced government regulatory capacity, and the list goes on. Short-term term deficits cannot sustain needed long-term public investments in all of these areas.

We can expect few surprises and some very welcome new policies from the Trudeau government in the next budget. But progressives will have to press hard for broader tax reform to expand the choices at hand.

- And Frances Woolley uses the example of pumpkin seeds to point out that rhetoric about "waste" is far too easily substituted for genuine value judgments about resource allocation.

- Bruce Johnstone summarizes the burgeoning disaster that is the Boundary Dam carbon capture project - featuring Brad Wall regularly misleading the province by substituting hoped-for outcomes for actual ones even as he tries to sell non-functional technology to other gullible buyers. And Murray Mandryk is skeptical as to whether Wall's coal cheerleading and climate inaction will accomplish anything at the upcoming Paris climate change conference.

- Mark Gollom writes that there's little time to waste in ensuring that Canada has a more fair electoral system in place for the next federal election. And Stuart Parker argues that we need to set a higher standard on that front than "anything but first-past-the-post".

- Finally, Renata D'Aliesio exposes the epidemic of suicide among Canadian veterans - along with the Cons' callous attempts to hide the problem while portraying themselves as defenders of the military.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Thomas Walkom discusses how Canadian workers are feeling the pain of decades of policy designed to suppress wages - and notes there's plenty more all parties should be doing to change that reality. And Doug Saunders points out what we should want our next federal government to pursue to bring about lasting growth:

Many economists came to realize not only that government intervention bailed many countries out of the post-2008 recession and restored growth and employment, but that the crisis itself may have been caused, in good part, by the disappearance of active government support in the economy – the sort of direct investment and partnership that had existed in earlier decades.
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Economists began noticing that the great economic boom of the 1990s and 2000s had been a direct product of targeted state investments in specific companies and sectors. The Italian economist Mariana Mazzucato, in her influential book The Entrepreneurial State, chronicled the emergence of the iPhone as a direct product of Washington’s large-scale investments in Silicon Valley – not just through state spending on technology products and tax incentives to high-tech industry, but through the specific choice of Apple, in the 1970s and 1980s, as a company Washington would invest in (though small-business investments that put $2 into Apple for every dollar of private investment). Intel and Compaq were also targets of this active state investment, much as Elon Musk’s Tesla electric-car company is today.

Dr. Mazzucato, in an interview from her University of Sussex office, describes the heavily funded state banks that have allowed Germany, China and the United States to build globally competitive companies – and notes that Canada, despite having earned a fortune in petroleum revenues in the past 15 years that could have created a similar major institution, has nothing substantial of the sort, nor any proposal to create one.

“Canada is interesting,” she said. “It is one of the most skewed countries, not only in terms of sectors – lots of emphasis on the extractive stuff – but also in terms of instruments: It’s very, very indirect. It does most of its government investment through tax incentives. Compare that to the United States or China or Germany, where it’s all direct: If they want to do something, they do it. They directly finance a sector or the most innovative companies, and they create grants or guaranteed loans to do it, not an indirect tax credit. And on top of that, these Canadian investments are not so mission-oriented: At best, there’s a list of sectors to be supported indirectly, but no targeting of specific companies or industries. And then they get surprised when they’re not on the top any more in any of the big innovations.”

- Andrew Coyne rightly argues that we shouldn't spend so much of an election campaign attacking past personal statements from candidates, while noting that part of the problem lies in the vetting authority that's been taken over by the parties' leaders.

- Meanwhile, Kevin Grandia highlights Cheryl Gallant's climate change denialism as a symptom of the Cons' real unfitness for office. And Donald Gutstein comments on Doug Black's role as an oil lobbyist within the Senate.

- Tabatha Southey writes that the Cons are offering nothing but fear, uncertainty and doubt for voters, while Sandy Garossino weighs on that message as it applies to refugees in particular. And Terry Glavin zeroes in on how that strategy involves ignoring the plain facts even of high-profile events such as the tragic deaths in the Kurdi family.

- Finally, Parker Donham sets out why Canada can't afford any more of Stephen Harper. And Fram Dimshaw reports that the veterans who once served as Harper's political cover are joining the cause in demanding more responsible government.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Michael Hurley and Sam Gindin discuss the need for workers to organize to reverse the trend of precarious work, while the Star recognizes that the work is already well underway. PressProgress highlights the benefits of joining a union, while Tom Sandborn offers a to-do list for people looking to ensure fairness for all workers. And Haseena Manek points out the need to rebuild in the wake of longtime attacks on the labour movement by the Cons and other governments.

- Shawn McCarthy highlights the NDP's promise for far stronger action to rein in climate change than the Cons or the Libs are willing to propose.

- Dave Squires reports on the work being done to ensure that marginalized voters are able to cast ballots despite the Cons' best efforts, while Elections Canada's voter registration checkup allows people to make sure they're registered at their current address. And Colin Perkel notes that at least some of the Canadian voters living abroad who seemed to have been disenfranchised by the Cons are finding a way to participate - so long as they have the spare time and money to vote in person.

- David Climenhaga documents the Cons' long history of contempt for refugees. And Nora Loreto rejects the Cons' spin that what people fleeing war zones really need is for us to drop more bombs.

- Finally, Michael Harris sees the Cons' treatment of Canada's veterans as the ultimate signal of their complete lack of compassion.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Stephen Burgen reports on Thomas Piketty's view that it's long past time for voters to have anti-austerity options where none existed in the past. And along similar lines, Murray Dobbin sets out the stark choice facing Canadians:

Canadians will have to continue to watch their Scandinavian neighbours use the wheel and prosper while we remain captives to the free market priesthood. Norway is the logical choice of neighbour to compare ourselves to, if you can stomach it. In Canada we have virtually given away our energy heritage through criminally low royalty rates over a period of some 70 years. Norway bargained hard with oil companies to develop its relatively newfound resource -- and kept ownership of it. The result, as reported in The Tyee last year, is a heritage fund of (as of a year ago) $909,364 billion (Canadian). That puts tiny Norway $1.5 trillion ahead of us and while each Canadian has a $17,000 share of our $600 billion debt national debt, each Norwegian has a $178,000 stake in their surplus. Norway puts aside a billion dollars a week from its oil resource.

But all that oil money aside (literally), Norway actually funds its government services through taxes which its citizens gladly pay. And why not? As Mitch Andersen reported, "Norwegians enjoy universal day care, free university tuition, per capita spending on health care 30 per cent higher than Canada and 25 days of paid vacation every year." We, on the other hand, live in a country where a third of citizens believe in Harper's fiscal self-flagellation, in an extremist religion that calls upon us all to deliberately impoverish ourselves. Hallelujah.

- Meanwhile, Carol Goar notes that we could build a stronger society by ensuring that the wealthiest among us pay their fair share:

For decades there have been sporadic calls from economists, think-tanks and opposition MPs to jack up tax rates for the privileged elite. The response of the finance department is best captured by a 1985 remark from then finance minister Michael Wilson. “Canada has an acute shortage of rich people,” he told the Canadian Economics Association, dismissing the budgetary impact as negligible.

That mindset prevailed through five Conservative and Liberal governments although no politician has expressed it as bluntly as Wilson. It still holds sway, despite a dramatic widening of the gap between rich and poor; a proliferation of self-styled “supermanagers” who rake in 170 times as much as the average worker; and a deepening sense of injustice among young people, victims of corporate cost-cutting, struggling wage earners and worried middle-class families.

It is true, as Wilson observed, that imposing higher taxes on the ultra-rich wouldn’t produce a fiscal bonanza. But it would slow the growth of inequality, ensure high-income earners pay their share of the cost of running the country and give the stalled majority a stake in Canada’s economic success. It would also bring Canada’s tax code into the 21st century. When the current rules were enacted, a salary of $137,000 put an individual in the economic stratosphere. Stock options were unheard of. The distribution of wealth was relatively stable.

None of those assumptions pertain to today’s socio-economic landscape.

- Keith Reynolds discusses another scathing report on P3s - this time from British Columbia, where a provincial cheerleading agency has regularly avoided considering publicly-owned options in order to make privatization look palatable.

- Aurin Squire notes that many in New York are far better off as a result of police refusing to enforce "quality of life" offences.

- Finally, Lana Payne comments on the broken relationship between the Harper Cons and the veterans who were used as political props for so long. And Tim Naumetz reports that a minor cabinet shuffle has done nothing to change the Cons' preference for silencing veterans rather than listening to them.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Jeremy Warren reports on the latest Canadians for Tax Fairness events working to ensure that Cameco and other megacorporations pay at least their fair share. And Sheila Block and Kaylie Tiessen point out that Ontario could do plenty to reduce its deficit by reining in regressive tax giveaways.

- APTN documents the devastating reality that people who can't afford overpriced food in Northern communities are having to forage through garbage dumps in order to scrape by. And naturally, Leona Aglukkaq and the Cons are concerned...that anybody's finding out about that fact, leading them to try to gag the officials speaking up.

- Which is to say that if the Cons were to apply the standard proposed by Michael Harris - taking the simple step of removing each cabinet minister who can reasonably be seen as the last person fit for the job - they'd be left with no cabinet at all.

- Gary Mason observes that there's ample reason for an increasing number of political leaders to raise red flags about pipelines - as that stance merely reflects the public's concern about climate change and other environmental damage:

Despite conditional approval from the National Energy Board, most believe the Northern Gateway pipeline will never get built because of opposition to it. The courts have given First Nations new powers to fight developments that encroach on their land. Outside of aboriginal communities, public opinion regarding pipelines is at best divided – although there seems to be a growing societal angst about climate change that is palpable.

Kinder Morgan, which also wants to add a pipeline to the West Coast, is encountering that sentiment now. Protests at Burnaby Mountain, where the company is trying to do some exploratory work, have become daily events and have spawned arrests and ugly international headlines. Once upon a time, the odds of the Kinder Morgan pipeline going ahead were considered extremely good. Not any more.

 - And CBC reports on Kinder Morgan's failed attempt to criminalize opposition to its pipeline expansion.

- Finally, the new chair of the Transportation Safety Board argues that Canada is well short of having appropriate regulations in place to be able to count on the safe shipment of oil by rail.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Dennis Raphael and Toba Bryant write about the devastating health effects of income inequality in Canada:

Imagine the response, from industry, government and the public, if a plane was crashing every day. If there were something that killed as many people in a day as this kind of disaster, you’d expect it to provoke a similarly concentrated response.

A recent report by Statistics Canada highlights a preventable cause of premature death that is having exactly that kind of impact. This study demonstrates that income inequality is associated with the premature death of 40,000 Canadians a year. That’s equal to 110 Canadians dying prematurely each day. To put that into context, imagine a Bombardier CS-100 jet airplane full of passengers falling out of the sky every day for a year.
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The Statistics Canada report also makes clear that these differences in health outcomes are primarily due to the material living circumstances and the associated psychosocial stresses associated with not being as well off as the wealthiest 20% of Canadians: “Income influences health most directly through access to material resources such as better quality food and shelter.” Income inequality is not only bad for our quality of life and economic productivity, it is directly related to the deaths of Canadians on an almost unimaginable scale.

Canadians are increasingly concerned about growing income inequality and are becoming more aware of its health effects. It’s time for a serious response from policy-makers, media and the public. Otherwise we’ll simply continue to watch 110 Canadians falling out of the sky every day, each day, 365 days a year.

- Meanwhile, Seumas Milne notes that the UK Cons are continuing to push pointless austerity even as its damage to the economy becomes inescapable.

- And we shouldn't be suckered into believing that austerity happens only through relatively transparent budgeting processes. In fact, recent reports show that the Cons have simply chosen not to bother with approved funding both for veterans at home, and for the world's poorest people abroad - imposing massive cuts from the amounts approved by our elected representatives without any debate.

- Carol Goar discusses how Canada is losing allies around the world due to the Cons' obstinate refusal to do anything - or even allow anything to be done - to meaningfully fight climate change.

- And finally, Michael Den Tandt comments on the Cons' disreputable politics - with Michael Sona's sentence (and the Cons' refusal to acknowledge jail-worthy wrongdoing within their own ranks) serving as just the latest example.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Jonas Fossli Gherso discusses the unfortunate (and unnecessary) acceptance of burgeoning inequality even by the people who suffer most from its presence. And Ryan Meili interviews Gabor Mate about the ill health effects of an economic system designed to keep people under stress:

(T)he very nature of the system in which people live their lives is a significant source of illness. Now there are obvious factors like environmental pollution, toxins, and then of course there are the social determinants of health that you write about in A Healthy Society: the impact of poverty, the impact of inequality, the impact of history and continued racism. There’s an article in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix today about sentencing practices in the courts of Saskatchewan. People who are identified as Aboriginal are likely to get double the sentences of people who are not identified as Aboriginal. That’s going to have a health impact.

But I’m going to go beyond even that and say that even the people who are not on the wrong end of economic inequality or systemic racism are still made ill just by how we live our lives. The stress that we live under, the competition, the aggressiveness, the uncertainty, the loss of control that we experience in our lives. The gender inequalities, these are not just social phenomena, they have an actual impact on community health. The isolation people are experiencing.

- Meanwhile, Charles Smith points out how young workers are losing out as a result of policy choices designed to maximize employer leverage at their expense:

Canadian young people are among the most educated in the world. According to the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development, in 2014 Canada had the highest percentage of university or college trained population in the world. Recognizing that, Statistics Canada reported in 2010 that most OECD countries were more successful than Canada in employing individuals with university or college education.

In other words, the problem with finding full and meaningful employment is not necessarily a problem with individual young people, but a broader problem of government and private sector employers.
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Outside the classroom, students are demanding social change, pushing our organizations in new and exciting directions, challenging traditional pedagogy, and creating a new generation of community and ecological awareness.

At the University of Saskatchewan, young women are challenging traditional forms of power by creating new organizations and demanding justice in public and private life. Indigenous students are reclaiming space and demanding greater access to opportunities long denied to them.

All of this suggests that today's students are multi-talented, skilled and ready to lead. It is time that government and private employers recognized this by promoting an industrial policy designed to create meaningful full employment.

- Alan Kors reports on Stephen Lewis' advice in advocating for child care as a public good, not a benefit limited to those who immediately find spaces. And Jeffrey Simpson highlights how much work there is to be done in fixing a tax system built around the Cons' trinkets and baubles.

- Finally, Michael Den Tandt recognizes that the Cons' interest in Canadian troops goes no further than using them in photo ops. And Michael Harris notes that a direct clash between the Cons and the veterans they've left behind may make for an important piece of Canada's next election campaign.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Robert Reich discusses how our economic system is set up to direct risk toward the people who can least afford to bear it (while also directing the spoils to those who need them least):

Bankruptcy was designed so people could start over. But these days, the only ones starting over are big corporations, wealthy moguls, and Wall Street.

Corporations are even using bankruptcy to break contracts with their employees. When American Airlines went into bankruptcy three years ago, it voided its labor agreements and froze its employee pension plan.

After it emerged from bankruptcy last year and merged with U.S. Airways, America's creditors were fully repaid, its shareholders came out richer than they went in, and its CEO got a severance package valued at $19.9 million.

But American's former employees got shafted.

Wall Street doesn't worry about failure, either. As you recall, the Street almost went belly up six years ago after risking hundreds of billions of dollars on bad bets.

A generous bailout from the federal government kept the bankers afloat. And since then, most of the denizens of the Street have come out just fine.

Yet more than 4 million American families have so far have lost their homes. They were caught in the downdraft of the Street's gambling excesses.
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There's no starting over for millions of people laden with student debt, either.

Student loan debt has more than doubled since 2006, from $509 billion to $1.3 trillion. It now accounts for 40 percent of all personal debt -- more than credit card debts and auto loans.

But the bankruptcy law doesn't cover student debts. The student loan industry made sure of that.
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Economies are risky. Some industries rise and others implode, like housing. Some places get richer, and others drop, like Atlantic City. Some people get new jobs that pay better, many lose their jobs or their wages.

The basic question is who should bear these risks. As long as the laws shield large investors while putting the risks on ordinary people, investors will continue to make big bets that deliver jackpots when they win but create losses for everyone else.

- And Murray Dobbin discusses how an age of constant anxiety is making it more difficult for working Canadians to stand up for themselves.

- Meanwhile, Pedro Nicolaci da Costa notes that even the financial sector which has done so much to exacerbate inequality is starting to take notice of the problem. The Washington Post weighs in on how Sam Brownback's experiment in even more extreme corporatism has proven exactly as disastrous as we should have expected. And Paul Krugman debunks the Republicans' spin that inequality is a matter of merit rather than structural unfairness, while the CP reports on the Conference Board of Canada's research showing an unprecedented generational divide.

- Moira Donovan points out the sad state of early childhood education in Nova Scotia. CBC News reveals that injured Canadian soldiers are being forced to keep quiet about their injuries in order to secure some pension income. And Karl Nerenberg writes about the Cons' continued war against refugees - this time consisting of an attempt to deny even the most basic standard of living.

- Finally, Stephen Maher discusses the need to acknowledge and confront Canada's legacy of genocide toward aboriginal peoples.

Sunday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Sunday reading.

- Zoe Williams interviews George Lakoff about the need for progressive activists and parties to work on changing minds rather than merely pursuing an elusive (and illusory) middle ground:

(T)he left, he argues, is losing the political argument – every year, it cedes more ground to the right, under the mistaken impression that this will bring everything closer to the centre. In fact, there is no centre: the more progressives capitulate, the more boldly the conservatives express their vision, and the further to the right the mainstream moves. The reason is that conservatives speak from an authentic moral position, and appeal to voters' values. Liberals try to argue against them using evidence; they are embarrassed by emotionality. They think that if you can just demonstrate to voters how their self-interest is served by a socially egalitarian position, that will work, and everyone will vote for them and the debate will be over. In fact, Lakoff asserts, voters don't vote for bald self-interest; self-interest fails to ignite, it inspires nothing – progressives, of all people, ought to understand this.

When he talks about the collapse of the left, he clearly doesn't mean that those parties have disintegrated: they could be in government, as the Democrats are in the US. But their vision of progressive politics is compromised and weak. So in the UK there have been racist "Go home" vans and there is an immigration bill going through parliament, unopposed, that mandates doctors, the DVLA, banks and landlords to interrogate the immigration status of us all; Hungary has vigilante groups attacking Roma, and its government recently tried to criminalise homelessness; the leaders of the Golden Dawn in Greece have only just been arrested, having been flirting with fascism since the collapse of the eurozone. We see, time and again, people in need being dehumanised, in a way that seems like a throwback to 60 or 70 years ago. Nobody could say the left was winning.
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Lakoff's work on the conceptual systems around morals and politics (and how they show up in language) has yielded two-dozen metaphors for morality, most of them universal across cultures. Of those, the two key frames informing political judgment involve the idea of government as a family: the strict-father model (conservative) versus the nurturant-parent model (progressive).
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If the two systems are poised in pure opposition, if they are each as moral, as metaphorical, as anciently rooted, as solidly grounded as the other, then why is one winning? "Progressives want to follow the polls … Conservatives don't follow the polls; they want to change them. Political ground is gained not when you successfully inhabit the middle ground, but when you successfully impose your framing as the 'common-sense' position."

- And Sean Holman highlights USA Today's challenge to its readers as to why they focus more on celebrity gossip than substantive news.

- The CCPA takes a look at the cost of living in Regina - and finds that a living wage for a family with two working adults would be $16.36 per hour.

- Alison cuts through some of CSEC's spin about its tracking travellers passing through Canadian airports. And Ron Diebert asks what we can do now that we know about CSEC's belief that it can spy on Canadians with impunity:

The CSEC presentation describes ubiquitous surveillance programs clearly directed at Canadians, involving data associated with Canadian airports, hotels, wi-fi cafes, enterprises and other domestic locations. The presentation outlines the challenges of discerning specific internet addresses and IDs associated with users within the universe of bulk data, paying special attention to challenges involving the movement of people through airports. It outlines results of experiments undertaken at a medium-sized city airport, which could possibly mean Calgary or Halifax, and which includes observations at “other domestic airports,” “hotels in many cities” and “mobile gateways in many cities.” Observations are made with detailed graphs of specific patterns of communications, noting differences as to how individuals communicate upon arrival and during departure, how long they spend in transit lounges, wi-fi cafes, hotel visits and even places of work. The objectives, the presentation says, are to separate the “needle from the haystack” – the haystack being, of course, all of us.

The presentation specifies that at least some of the bulk data from these locations was obtained through the cooperation of what’s only described as a “Canadian Special Source,” which is likely a Canadian telecommunications provider. If so, such revelations would make a mockery of Canadian carriers advertising their services as a “safe haven” from the snooping U.S. National Security Agency. From an accountability and oversight point of view, moving data hosting from the United States to Canada is like moving from a dimly lit cave to a pitch-black tunnel at the back of the cave.

What’s this mean for Canadians? When you go to the airport and flip open your phone to get your flight status, the government could have a record. When you check into your hotel and log on to the Internet, there’s another data point that could be collected. When you surf the Web at the local cafe hotspot, the spies could be watching. Even if you’re just going about your usual routine at your place of work, they may be following your communications trail.

Ingenious? Yes. Audacious? Yes. Unlawful? Time for the courts to decide...
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The revelations require an immediate response. They throw into sharp relief the obvious inadequacy of the existing “oversight” mechanism, which operates entirely within the security tent. They cast into doubt all government statements made about the limits of such programs. They raise the alarming prospect that Canada’s intelligence agencies may be routinely obtaining data on Canadian citizens from private companies – which includes revealing personal data – on the basis of a unilateral and highly dubious definition of “metadata” (the information sent by cellphones and mobile devices describing their location, numbers called and so on) as somehow not being “communications.” Such operations go well beyond invasions of privacy; the potential for the abuse of unchecked power contained here is practically limitless.

- Tabatha Southey suggests that the solution to Julian Fantino's contempt for Canadian veterans should be a fairly simple one if the Cons were willing to listen to reality. But then, the Cons and their provincial counterparts don't tend to fit that bill - as Murray Mandryk points out in discussing the Sask Party's vehement refusal to conduct a fair evaluation of P3s compared to public alternatives.

- Finally, Paul McLeod reports that the Cons have effectively eliminated federal anti-smoking programs in Canada - replacing the public health priority of reducing smoking with an industry-favoured push against contraband cigarettes alone.

Parliament in Review - March 29, 2012

There's been much ado about the NDP's position on trade agreements based on the Cons' recent publicly-funded cheerleading for free trade at any price. But for anybody looking for the NDP's actual view on trade, the House of Commons debates from March 29 offer a rather thorough indication.

The Big Issue

That's thanks to a Parliamentary debate on the Cons' legislation to implement a free trade agreement with Panama. And the NDP made clear that it's willing to reasonably review and support trade agreements in general - but that it won't be bullied into backing deals that give preferential treatment to tax havens and serve to attack international labour rights.

Hoang Mai and Laurin Liu emphasized the former concern when it came to Panama. Helene Laverdiere focused on the Cons' refusal to insist on a tax information exchange agreement as part of the package, while noting that the NDP didn't have similar concerns about a deal with Jordan. (Incidentally, Con MP Mike Wallace recognized that distinction as well - which only shows how dishonest the Cons have been in their recent push to claim the NDP opposes trade of any kind.) And Jinny Sims rightly pointed out that if we're interested in doing anything about tax havens, we need to incorporate that concern into a free trade agreement at the outset - rather than rewarding a bad actor with preferential treatment then hoping for something to change without our doing anything.

On the labour side, Lois Brown pointed to a checklist of as labour rights attached as an unenforceable schedule as justifying pushing through the deal without any further review. But Chris Charlton rightly shot back that a statement of principles isn't the same thing as the binding investor rights forced into the agreement. Jean Crowder pointed out that workers in both countries stand to suffer from the deal, while Dennis Bevington lamented the Cons' determination to lead a race to the bottom.

But the best overall statement of the NDP's position came from Don Davies:

Trade allows goods and services that are within the productive capacity or local expertise or resources of one country to be exchanged with those of another. That is why I can say certainly on behalf of the New Democrats that we believe trade is good. We believe it is desirable. We believe it is critical to our economy.

 

The question that should be raised with respect to any trade deal is the terms on which that trade ought to be conducted. Are there any principles, policies or rules that should be applied when Canadians consider the exchange of goods and services out of our country and the entrance of goods and services into our country?

...

(W)e believe that we should have a policy that pursues well-managed trade, not free trade, not a closed approach to trade, but fair trade. That is the approach to trade this party has taken every since the free trade debates opened up in this country some decades ago.


Why do we take this position? We believe that Canadians do not want goods and services that use child labour to enter Canada. We do not want goods and services that are the product of destructive environmental practices to enter this country. Canadians do not want goods coming to this country from countries that have very poor human rights records. Canadians do not want goods and services to enter this country when those goods and services come from an economy that is so fundamentally different from ours, with such lower standards that it actually hurts Canadian employers' ability to compete.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth May noted that the Panama deal figured to influence only a minimal amount of trade, then commented on the dangers of investor-state provisions which allow wealthy corporations to dictate government policy. Megan Leslie wondered whether the dealings between Canada and Panama would set up an exploitative relationship. Pat Martin observed that to the extent there is a disparity in influence, Canada's clout should allow it to help to elevate conditions in the smaller country rather than accepting that our employers will have to compete with Panama's wages and living conditions. Mathieu Ravignat noted that some Canadian companies have exploited workers and countries around the world, and that there's no value in defending the indefensible based on misplaced patriotism. Crowder criticized the Cons' secrecy in negotiating free trade agreements generally. Sims proposed a focus on multilateral rather than bilateral trade agreements. And Chris Charlton neatly summed up the Cons' position as "having espoused the principles of...robber barons".

In Brief

The other legislation debated on the day was the Cons' military justice bill. Jack Harris pointed out that the Cons had once again shredded agreements reached between multiple parties in the previous Parliament in order to dictate the terms of the legislation, while Chris Alexander then had the nerve to demand that the NDP approve the unilaterally-dictated legislation without debate. And Raymond Cote raised a concern about summary trials for minor offences resulting in a criminal record, while the Cons' "dumb on crime" posturing - including a refusal to distinguish between military and civilian crimes - apparently took precedence over "support the troops" when it came to their position on the rights of military defendants.

Meanwhile, Sean Casey rendered Steven Blaney redundant by anticipating his talking points to try to excuse repeated violations of veterans' privacy. Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe and Wayne Marston both noted that the OECD, the PBO and the Government of Canada's chief actuary had all rejected the Cons' spin that there was any need at all to cut Old Age Security, and asked why the Cons would plunge seniors into poverty by choice. In light of the Cons' plans to push through a pipeline owned by PetroChina, May asked when we could expect a national security test for foreign investment. Joe Comartin's Thursday question nicely framed a few of the bills which hadn't found their way before Parliament for some time. And finally, while Jim Flaherty's budget speech received plenty of attention, his attempt to excuse OAS cuts based on their being "far away" rather than, say, remotely justifiable as a matter of public policy looks to have deserved a bit more.

A sad commentary indeed

Yes, it probably is a victory for the federal opposition parties to win hearings into the effect of cuts to Veterans Affairs as a result of Con members who failed to show up in time for today's meeting. But isn't something fundamentally wrong when any actual investigation into government action is seen as an exception arising solely from neglect, rather than the default expectation of our elected representatives?

Sunday Morning Links

Assorted weekend reading...

- Gerald Caplan delivers a stinging critique of military jingoism that's linked to deliberate attempts to avoid recognizing and sharing the real costs of war:

The truth is that for most of us, whether we support or oppose Canadian participation, the Afghan war is a remote abstraction. Except for the tiny number who have enlisted and their families, the war touches no Canadian directly. Despite the extra costs of waging war, no extra contributions are asked of us, including those among us who keep getting richer and richer even as the war and recession continue. Imagine the heartfelt sacrifice Defence Minister Peter MacKay seems about to make on behalf of his boys and girls if, following Jim Prentice, he too jumps to Bay Street.

Not a single business person has stood up and offered to share the sacrifices of those noble soldiers they all support so patriotically. None is offering to take home a less staggering amount in earnings. Those powerful lobbies representing business interests have not demanded higher taxes from their members to help the government provide jobs and training and scholarships and homes and proper treatment for returning troops. In fact, as everyone knows, they very publicly demand the very opposite.

Not only do our vets sacrifice alone, when they return home their sacrifices are somehow forgotten. Somehow, we’re more committed to honouring them than to helping them. A Progressive Conservative member of the Ontario Legislature wants to honour our troops even more by giving the rest of us a statutory holiday every Remembrance Day. Hey, more time for shopping! But how does it honour wounded or traumatized returnees if they can’t get the support they need and have earned?

- I don't entirely agree with Doug Saunders' efforts to downplay the effects of inequality at all income levels. But his concern about the dangers of social exclusion is definitely worth a look:

There is a terrible danger that the solutions to the financial crisis, whether domestic fiscal policies or international trade and currency measures, will create walls that will prevent people and nations from improving their lot when growth resumes.
...
At core is a problem of inequality: While a minority of people, and countries, will have the wherewithal to get themselves going again, a much larger group are increasingly unable to participate.

I live in a country where there are 10 million working adults who earn less than $24,000 a year (and stuff is expensive here), but policies are aimed at the 400,000 who make more than $160,000. Postsecondary education has become prohibitively expensive, as has living in the regions where quality jobs and entrepreneurial activities exist.

This is what the economist Will Hutton – an adviser to the Cameron government on its public-sector wage policy – calls, in his new book Them and Us, “a disastrous social geography,” in which “the poor and disadvantaged live in ever more concentrated wards that are blighted by run-down social housing and over-stretched schools.” Indeed, life expectancy for Britain’s wealthy is 14 years more than for the poor. The economic bubble, he writes, “fostered social polarization” in many countries.
...
If we manage to bring back growth at the expense of equal opportunity, it will be, as the mayor suggests, a time of social cleansing and lasting impoverishment and division. The consequences of that would be far more serious than a mere recession.

- Not that the Cons likely needed more excuses to throw a monkey wrench in the works at last year's Copenhagen climate change talks. But it shouldn't be much surprise if they were happy to accept the claim that if we just ignore what's actually happening, nobody will be able to ask for help in fixing it.

- Finally, Catherine Porter points out what's really at stake as we decide what to do about the treatment of G20 protesters (not to mention the unrelated civilians caught up in the security apparatus):

Twice, I heard the sad statement, “I wasn’t even protesting.” A businessman was so frightened by what he saw on the streets that weekend he didn’t want to be photographed at the hearing. He worried police were watching him.

It reminded me of that slippery slope and a line from Auden’s Refugee Blues: “Once we had a country and we thought it fair.”

First it was the anarchists, who deserved the draconian measures. Then the protesters. Then anyone wearing black. Then anyone on Queen Street. Then anyone in a cab who casually said something nice to a police officer.

Rights are not easily gained. Nor should they be easily withdrawn, for a weekend, for an evening, for a moment.

Our faith in our police was effortlessly broken. It will take careful effort and months of hard work to rebuild it.

Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your afternoon reading.

- Thomas Walkom notes the absurdity of the Cons' explanation for wanting to keep troops in Afghanistan:

Perhaps the most illogical element of the training argument is the premise. Afghans hardly need to be trained for battle. Since 1979, this has been a country consumed by war, where every male over the age of puberty is a potential fighter and where Kalashnikovs are common household items.

The problem with the Afghan army and police is not that they don’t know how to fight. It is that a good many don’t want to fight for a corrupt government propped up by foreigners. Condemning more of our own soldiers to death won’t solve that.

- But then, paying attention to the obvious consequences of war has apparently never been a strong point for the Cons.

- A question to ponder: exactly how far down the road toward outright cancelling all or part of the F-35 development program will the U.S. have to go before the Cons admit that staking Canada's ability to patrol its territory on the planes? I ask only because at this rate, we may soon get the answer.

- Finally, the Citizen reports on an effort to work across party lines to establish a set of "out of bounds" targets for the province's next election campaign. Which leads me to wonder: if the parties in Canada's most populous province are apparently able to discuss such an agreement for no reason beyond wanting to improve the level of debate, doesn't that tend to suggest it should be possible for federal parties to do the same with some more self-interested goals in mind?

On routine breaches

The bombshell news about regular and glaring breaches of Sean Bruyea's privacy by the Department of Veterans Affairs is obviously an important story in and of itself. But while most of the attention figures to be focused on Bruyea's case in particular, it's worth noting that he seems to be far from the only veteran whose privacy was violated:

Mr. Stogran said he was shocked to learn about what had been written about Mr. Bruyea. He said the security officer at the department told him around the time of his appointment in 2007 that his own file had been accessed at least 400 times.

Mr. Stogran said he thought it was just routine curiosity, but is now wondering.

Of course, one of the purposes of privacy law is to ensure that "routine curiosity" can't be satisfied at the expense of individual rights - meaning that Stogran's example too calls out for a follow-up investigation. And if anybody with a remotely high profile can expect to have been subject to similar intrusions which don't appear to have raised any concerns even when information reached the ministerial or PMO levels, then there's ample reason to wonder just what other personal information has been misused - particularly since the Harper Cons started seeing any Canadian with a dissenting view as an enemy to be crushed.

Comparing bills

As a follow-up to this post, a commenter over at Closet Liberal tries to claim that the Veterans' Bill of Rights put into force by the Cons meaningfully resembles what veterans themselves wanted. So let's take a look at the Bill of Rights which the Royal Canadian Legion proposed a year ago, presumably in response to the Cons' promise to implement such a bill:

Canadian veterans, who have committed their lives and “service” for the freedoms Canadians enjoy today are special citizens. They deserve recognition, benefits and services to maintain an appropriate quality of life during all stages of their lives. Their special status should be recognized in all jurisdictions, federal, provincial and municipal.

Veterans have a right to be treated with courtesy, with respect and in a timely fashion in all their contacts with Veterans Affairs Canada at all levels of the Department. This respect, courtesy and timeliness of service must also be demonstrated to their families and dependants.

Veterans have a right to be fully informed of all programs and benefits to which they are eligible. In that respect, Veterans Affairs Canada has a responsibility to inform not only their current clients; it also has a responsibility to reach out in providing information to potential clients.

Veterans have a right to be provided with equal benefits in any part of the country in which they or their dependants reside. Geographical location should not determine the quality or level of service provided. Confidentiality of information must be preserved.

Veterans have a right to receive fair and equal treatment, irrespective of rank, position, or status. They should be treated with tact, comprehension and understanding. They should be involved in the decisions affecting their care and the formulation of programs and benefits.

Veterans have a right to receive referral and representational assistance in presenting their claims for benefits and services in the official language of their choice. This assistance should be broad based, and should not be restricted to governmental agencies.

In other words, the Royal Canadian Legion's original request for a bill of rights provided all the substance that the Cons' final draft doesn't: it contained substantive rights beyond those which already existed by statute, and placed a direct onus on the government to ensure that veterans were made aware of the benefits available to them (rather than merely saying that the government would pay those benefits as required). Indeed, a comparison between the two only highlights just how empty the Cons' final draft was.

Of course, it's fair enough to point out that the Royal Canadian Legion's official line is that the Cons' bill represents some progress. But that should surely come with acknowledgement that some veterans have also criticized the bill's flaws:

"It's far too vague, it's far too wishy-washy to give veterans what they really deserve," said Sean Bruyea, an ex-captain in the intelligence corps.

Meanwhile, it's also worth noting that the Cons are refusing to act on yet another reasonable request from veterans - this one for hearing aids to help veterans who may have suffered hearing loss in combat. Which adds one more reason to think the Cons' commitment to Canada's veterans doesn't extend any further than the bare minimum to provide them with an immediate political benefit.

A false bill of sale

Remarkably, the Cons' "declare victory and leave" strategy on wait times may not even have made for their most embarrassingly empty piece of electioneering this week. It was sad enough when Harper announced a Veterans' Bill of Rights without having even the slightest clue what was supposed to be included. But judging from what appears to be the actual document, the Cons have scrupulously avoided providing anything of substance to veterans.

The entire list of "rights" set out by the Cons is as follows:

You have the right to:
o Be treated with respect, dignity, fairness and courtesy.
o Take part in discussions that involve you and your family.
o Have someone with you for support when you deal with Veterans Affairs.
o Receive clear, easy-to-understand information about our programs and services, in English or French, as set out in the Official Languages Act.
o Have your privacy protected as set out in the Privacy Act.
o Receive benefits and services as set out in our published service standards and to know your appeal rights.
o You have the right to make a complaint and have the matter looked into if you feel that any of your rights have not been upheld.

In other words, the most substantive of the supposedly new "rights" granted to Canadian veterans consist of nothing more than a restatement of what already exists under other laws. And indeed, the specific references to the Official Languages Act, Privacy Act and "published service standards" strongly imply that if the Cons are able to change these for the worse, then veterans will explicitly share in the loss of that benefit.

Meanwhile, the Cons themselves have voted against actual improvements to the benefits available to veterans' widows. But then, "honest government" doesn't appear either in the bill of rights, or in the Cons' general vocabulary.

Unfortunately, it doesn't get any better from there. Most of the remaining "rights" are nothing more than basic principles of natural justice, which should likewise apply to all Canadians. (Unless the Cons think that only veterans should be able to take part in discussions which affect their interests, to bring another person for support in dealing with government entities, or to make complaints.)

Which means that we're now down to the first clause - which would itself easily be lumped into the category of "things that should be reasonably expected by anybody dealing with the government" if it weren't too vague to be even remotely enforceable.

In sum, the Cons' much-publicized announcement effectively amounts to nothing more than a declaration that the law which applies to Canadians generally also applies to veterans. And that lack of honesty in what the Cons have presented - not to mention their broken promise on widows' benefits - can only be seen as antithetical to the respect the Cons pretend to hold for those who have fought for Canada.