#Elxn44 Roundup

The latest from Canada's federal election campaign.

- PressProgress offers some background on the agitators disrupting Justin Trudeau's campaign events, while Max Fawcett points out why there's no reason for us to lend any undeserved credence to anti-vaxxers. But Meshall Awan notes that we also shouldn't allow posturing over fringe views to distract us from fundamental issues including the climate crisis.  

- Gillian Steward is rightly appalled at Erin O'Toole's willingness to follow the Kenney/Moe road to disaster in responding to COVID-19 and handling our Medicare system. 

- Adam Radwanski takes note of the seemingly unanimous agreement on the need for a rapid transition to electric vehicles. 

- Camellia Wong criticizes Elections Canada's refusal to allow for on-campus voting as a failure for democracy - which is particularly unacceptable when concentrated within a population which is about to set habits defining its level of participation for decades to come. 

- Finally, Luke Savage discusses why Justin Trudeau's attempt to manufacture a majority for himself is backfiring as voters decide they're ready for change. 

#Elxn44 Roundup

The latest from Canada's federal election campaign.

- The Maple examines how the timing and format of the campaign chosen by Justin Trudeau could hardly have been designed for lower expected turnout.

- PressProgress looks into the background of Lib candidate Mary-Jane Bennett as both a cheerleader for privatization, and a senior fellow connected to climate change and residential school deniers at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. 

- Jim Stanford discusses how the Cons' plans predictably involve crushing austerity for Canadians in the name of balancing budgets, but no plan to actually reach that outcome. Stephanie Taylor points out how Erin O'Toole is rejecting the latest round of global agreements on climate change. And Aidan Chamandy talks to experts about how that choice to backtrack would violate Canada's commitments under the Paris agreement.

- Meanwhile, Matthew Alexandris points out how the NDP's benefit for renters can put a substantial dent in poverty and homelessness. And Pat Armstrong and Hugh Armstrong make the case to build a truly universal and complete health care system.

- Finally, Loretta Fisher interviews Paul Taylor about the importance of working through the political system to make sure nobody is left behind.

#Elxn44 Roundup

 The latest from Canada's federal election. 

- Alex Ballingall writes about the NDP's task in translating the general popularity of Jagmeet Singh into votes and seats. And Gary Mason highlights how Singh's strong campaign is complicating the Libs' expectation of waltzing into a majority. 

- PressProgress examines the superficiality of the Cons' plan to give workers token representation on corporate boards compared to their real track record of undermining workers' bargaining power. 

- David Macdonald crunches the numbers as to how parents would be far better off with a real child care system than with the Cons' limited tax baubles. And Chen Zhou talks to climate experts about the Cons' platform who agree it's at best far out of date and insufficient to meet the current crisis (particularly due to the irresponsibility of conservative premiers). 

- Finally, Jackie Sharkey reports on the effects of Elections Canada's plan to discontinue the Vote on Campus program due to unclear logistical concerns - as well as the organizing efforts seeking to ensure young voters don't face undue barriers to participating.  

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Louis-Philippe Rochon writes that while American voters had to know what they'd get in casting their most recent ballots, far too many Canadians may have believed the Libs' promises of something else:

On this side of the 49th parallel, however, when Canadians elected Trudeau a little over 15 months ago, on Oct. 19, 2015, we were led to believe he was some sort of a progressive politician with respect to social and economic issues, which essentially is what got him elected.

What a difference a year makes.

In recent months Trudeau has behaved very little like a progressive economist and has instead embraced with great fanfare some oddly conservative policies. In doing so, has Trudeau revealed himself to be a conservative wolf in liberal clothing? If so, it would appear the fix is in: Canadians voted for one guy but got another.  It was the classic political bait and switch: the great Canadian hoodwink.
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[Under a privatized structure,] any infrastructure project will easily cost twice as much over a 30-year period. In other words, for any project, Canadian taxpayers will end up holding the fiscal bag through higher fees and taxes, whereas the government could finance the project at much cheaper rates. This makes no economic sense, which raises the question, is the government doing this simply as a way of thanking their financial supporters?

There is a more sinister argument looming under all this, and it regards the role of public spending and the privatization of the state. Indeed, with all these musings about privatizing airports, ports and public spending, Trudeau is in fact championing the privatization of the state itself, robbing it further of its powers to create jobs and regulate unstable markets. This is clearly not what Canadians were expecting when they elected him last year.

- Christopher Majka highlights how Justin Trudeau's choice to break a core promise on electoral reform can only be explained by his taking Canadian voters for fools, while Scott Baker and Mark Dance write that it's bound to fuel voter cynicism. Tom Parkin discusses Trudeau's dishonesty on the issue, while Lawrence Martin emphasizes the damage the decision will do to Trudeau's core brand. And Karl Nerenberg points out how the retention of first-past-the-post is a gift to the right wing.

- Meanwhile, Michael Taube rightly observes that the Liberals' choice to nix electoral reform doesn't mean the issue will disappear. And Michael Morden and Michael Crawford Urban comment on the need for improved voter turnout as a means of ensuring better governance.

- Jugal Patel reports on a giant crack in Antarctica's ice shelf as yet another vivid reminder of the drastic effects of climate change.

- Finally, Andre Picard rightly questions why the Quebec City mosque massacre hasn't led to a discussion of gun control.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Claudia Chwalisz points out that in addition to relying on a distortionary electoral system, the Trudeau Libs' majority was built on a bubble which now seems likely to pop. Michael Harris wagers that Canadians will remember the broken core promise when they go to the polls in 2019. John Ivison highlights how Trudeau's personal choice to nix electoral reform feeds into exactly the cynicism which he claimed to want to end, while Aaron Wherry traces the shift from promising better to delivering the same old betrayal of the public trust. Alison documents some of Trudeau's past false statements about being open to something other than his own preferred system. And Stephen Tweedale and John Geddes expose the patent absurdity of the Libs' excuses for breaking a crucial commitment.

- Meanwhile, Brent Patterson notes that oil barons have had no problem getting their slightest whims catered to by Trudeau and his government - including by having an anticipated NAFTA renegotiation biased toward oil exports rather than any other public priority.

- Theda Skocpol offers a guide to rebuilding the U.S. Democratic Party which should serve as a useful checklist for progressive organizing elsewhere as well. And CBC reports on Elections Saskatchewan's report on the 2016 election - pointing particularly to the lack of voter turnout.

- Geoff Leo reports on still more evidence trickling out about the Saskatchewan Party's Global Transportation Hub scandal - this time confirming that the most damning decisions were made solely at the political level without the knowledge of the officials whose organizations were used to make land purchases.

- Finally, Ashley Cowburn reports on the UK Labour Party's move to study a basic income in advance of the next election.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Nick Dearden discusses how the latest wave of corporate power agreements - including the CETA - stands to undermine democracy in participating countries:

Like the US deal, Ceta contains a new legal system, open only to foreign corporations and investors. Should the British government make a decision, say, to outlaw dangerous chemicals, improve food safety or put cigarettes in plain packaging, a Canadian company can sue the British government for “unfairness”. And by unfairness this simply means they can’t make as much profit as they expected. The “trial” would be held as a special tribunal, overseen by corporate lawyers.
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The whole purpose of Ceta is to reduce regulation on business, the idea being that it will make it easier to export. But it will do far more than that. Through the pleasant-sounding “regulatory cooperation”, standards would be reduced across the board on the basis that they are “obstacles to trade”. That could include food safety, workers’ rights and environmental regulation.

Just consider financial regulation. The ability of governments to control banks and financial markets would be further impaired. Limiting the growth of banks that have become “too big to fail” could land a government in a secret tribunal.
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Finally, through something called a “ratchet clause”, current levels of privatisation would be “locked in” on any services not specifically exempted. If Canadian or EU governments want to bring certain services back into public ownership, they could be breaking the terms of the agreement.
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If you needed proof that modern trade agreements are actually nothing more than an excuse to hand big business power at our expense, you need look no further than Ceta. No wonder the public outcry is growing, and opposition to TTIP is spilling over to the Canadian deal.

- Meanwhile, James Wilt takes a look at how past trade agreements have painted Canadian governments into a corner, while also pointing out the ongoing lobbying effort by one oil industry claimant to grab a massive payout.

- Robson Fletcher reports on a new Policy Horizons Canada study discussing the reality that fossil fuels may be obsolete in a matter of decades, while the Economist (in a slightly dated report) discusses how many developing countries are skipping directly to renewables rather than building new, dirty infrastructure. And Gary Fuller reports on the climate damage caused by fracking.

- Finally, Sean McElwee highlights the connection between voter mobilization and progressive stances from nominally left-of-centre politicians:

Democratic politicians use the information of their vote margin to adjust their votes: a loss in vote share leads Democrats to vote in a more conservative way than they would have otherwise. They find, “a 2.5% Democratic loss results in an average 12.8 switches per incumbent.” A study by political scientists Thad Kousser, Jeffrey B. Lewis and Seth Masket finds that after a 2003 recall election in California recalled the Democratic governor, Democratic assembly members shifted their votes to the left. Previous research by political scientists Daniel Butler and David Nickerson suggests that when legislators are given accurate information about their constituents preferences, they are more likely to vote in line with those preferences.

It’s important to note that it’s difficult to disentangle the information effect from the turnout effect. It could be that representatives are gaining information about their constituents or it could be that higher turnout and thus larger vote share leads representatives to feel that they can move left.  Either way, the core finding – that a loss in vote share causes Democratic politicians to be more conservative – has important implications.
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As I’ve argued repeatedly, higher turnout could shift change the American political landscape by shifting the constraints under which politicians make policy. A study of ten OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries by Jonas Pontusson and David Rueda find that, “Left parties will respond to an increase in inequality only when low-income voters are politically mobilized.” As Matt Grossmann tells me, “Democrats nearly always fear the electoral consequences of moving too far left, whereas Republicans tend not to view ideological conservatism and electability as a trade-off.” Thus, higher turnout would signal to Democratic politicians that they have space to move to the left.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Fred Dews highlights Alice Rivkin's suggestions as to consensus policies which can reduce inequality while facilitating economic development. And Sheila Regehr looks at how a basic income can work in practice, while Monica Oss reminds us that investments in reducing poverty and inequality can often be recouped in reduced health care costs alone.

- But Sean McElwee echoes Bernie Sanders' point that we're far less likely to see policy choices which reflect our common interest when we don't have sufficient voter turnout to demand them:

(P)olitical scientist Anthony Fowler notes that when compulsory voting was implemented in Australia, the increased voter turnout by 24 percentage points and the result was increased vote and seat shares for the Labor Party of 7 to 10 percent. Fowler used several methods to examine what the impact of universal turnout might be in the United States. One method used is to compare on-cycle gubernatorial elections (ones that coincide with a federal election) with off-cycle elections. He finds a stunning result: On-cycle gubernatorial elections increase turnout by 17 points, and Democratic vote share by 6 points, enough to shift many elections.

Voter turnout would also influence policy. In a new study at the state level, political scientists Christopher Witko, Nathan Kelly and William Franko confirm this analysis. They find that states with higher levels of class bias in turnout have higher levels of economic inequality because high levels of class bias limits the power of progressive policymakers and reduces the liberalism of economic policymaking. This relationship was also discovered in a recent paper by James Avery, who finds, “states with greater income bias in turnout have higher levels of income inequality.”

In an early study on the influence of class in turnout, Kim Hill and Jan Leighley find that higher turnout among the poor (and thus lower class bias) leads to higher spending on welfare programs. Economists Timothy Besley and Anne Case find that,

“Less costly voter registration— through motor-voter rules, or through day-of-polling registration—is generally associated with higher taxes, higher spending, and larger family assistance and workers’ compensation payments.”

- Mike de Souza reports on Imperial Oil's longtime knowledge that the oil industry has been engaged in anti-social environmental destruction. And Arthur Neslen exposes Chevron's express intent to use new trade agreements to try to prevent governments from developing new policies including fracking regulations.

- Finally, Larry Brown discusses how the Trans-Pacific Partnership fits into the business lobby's desire to take power out of the hands of people and the governments we elect. Paul Dewar points out the need to crack down on child labour and other other international abuses, rather than entrenching them as part of a corporate-driven system. And PressProgress points out Statistics Canada's latest estimates showing that corporate Canada has hidden $270 billion in offshore tax havens.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Thomas Piketty writes that regardless of the end result, Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign may mark the start of a fundamental change in U.S. politics:

Sanders’ success today shows that much of America is tired of rising inequality and these so-called political changes, and intends to revive both a progressive agenda and the American tradition of egalitarianism. Hillary Clinton, who fought to the left of Barack Obama in 2008 on topics such as health insurance, appears today as if she is defending the status quo, just another heiress of the Reagan-Clinton-Obama political regime.

Sanders makes clear he wants to restore progressive taxation and a higher minimum wage ($15 an hour). To this he adds free healthcare and higher education in a country where inequality in access to education has reached unprecedented heights, highlighting a gulf standing between the lives of most Americans, and the soothing meritocratic speeches pronounced by the winners of the system.

- Richard Shillington studies the economic status of Canadian near-seniors and finds that very few people are prepared for retirement. And PressProgress points out that the result may be a reversal of Canada's past success in fighting seniors' poverty.

- Meanwhile, Iglika Ivanova reviews B.C.'s provincial budget and finds that it's falling far short of what's needed to rein in poverty and inequality.

- Amir Attaran reminds us of the money Canada's health system is wasting on artificially high prices for generic drugs.

- Matthew Behrens weighs in on the next steps for Canada's surveillance state (including C-51) and argues that we shouldn't settle for secret, after-the-fact parliamentary reviews of state disruptions.

- Finally, Maciej Gorecki examines the possibility that voter turnout trends may be driven more by social expectations and maturation than by individual habit-forming.

On turnout

Daniel Schwartz reports on the final vote count from last month's federal election. And given the record vote total and unusually high turnout based on the percentage of eligible voters, it's particularly worth noting what's changed since previous, lower-turnout elections.

Since 2011, the Conservatives eliminated the per-vote subsidy, which provided political parties with a direct financial incentive to seek out votes even where they were less likely to flip seats. To the extent Canada's political parties included the subsidy in their election planning, we'd thus have expected a lower turnout this time out.

Since 2011, the Conservatives also eliminated Elections Canada's authority to promote voting, while also restricting access to the ballot box through multiple amendments to Canada's electoral law. And that too would have been expected to reduce turnout.

Of course, the other difference from the perspective of the parties since 2011 is that we aw an unusually large number of parties targeting enough seats to form government for years in advance of the 2015 election. And it's possible that led to a greater amount of work persuading people to vote than might have existed otherwise.

(Anybody looking for support for that theory might look to the point at which turnout dropped after 1993.)

But it's worth recognizing that the choice of more people to participate seems to have outweighed the systemic changes the Cons put in place to limit voting. Which means there's room for growth to the extent the Cons' voter suppression tactics are reversed - but also real danger of slippage if we can't maintain the interest that pulled people to the polls this time.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Roheena Saxena points out that personal privilege tends to correlate to selfishness in distributing scarce resources. And that in turn may explain in part why extreme top-end wealth isn't even mentioned in a new inequality target under development by the UN.

- Or, for that matter, the Calgary Board of Education's continued provision of free lunches to executives while students lack food and supplies. Meanwhile, Laurie Monsebraaten reports on the spread of hunger in Toronto's suburbs, while Karena Walter points out the need for more action on poverty in Canada's federal election.

- Michael Harris notes that Stephen Harper's definition of "old stock Canadians" (along with his belief in the significance of such status) represents yet another effort to cut First Nations out of Canada's history.

- Ralph Surette offers a reminder that voters need to make sure they haven't potentially been disenfranchised by the Cons' voter suppression tactics. And the CP reports that Elections Canada is expecting even more cheating in the election to come - which can't be a surprise given the Cons' consistent law-breaking in every election they've won.

- Tom Parkin highlights why the NDP is the credible progressive choice for Canadian voters, while Scott Piatkowski duly questions the Libs' claim to be running from the left of the NDP:

This election is also about who will repeal the draconian Bill C-51. The NDP will. The Liberals won't (Why would they? They voted for it.)

It's about who will deliver quality affordable child care and pharmacare to Canadians. The NDP will. The Liberals won't (they used to at least pretend that they were in favour of both; now they denounce both as unaffordable).

It's about who will increase corporate taxes, crack down on tax havens and remove the stock option tax loophole that costs the tax base $750 million each year. The NDP will. The Liberals won't.

The NDP will reinstate the federal minimum wage that the Liberals abolished and to move it to a living wage of $15 an hour. They've also promised to restore the federal role in housing that that the Liberals ended and to renew expiring federal subsidies to housing co-op members.

The NDP has promised to launch an inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women within 100 days of being sworn in. They've promised to expand the CPP, increase the Guaranteed Income Supplement for Seniors, prohibit changes to private pension plans, and restore the retirement age to 65. They've promised to increase funding for infrastructure and transit and to cancel plans to end home delivery of mail. The Liberals have offered similar or lesser versions of the commitments listed in this paragraph.

None of these ambitious commitments are the sign of a New Democratic Party that is moving to the centre. In fact, quite the opposite. There's absolutely no evidence that the NDP is running to the right of the Liberals (or even in the same lane).

- Finally, Karl Nerenberg wonders whether there are too many attacks on both sides of the NDP/Lib divide - raising a point which I'll expand on in future posts.

[Edit: Updated link.]

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.

- 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.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Scott Clark and Peter De Vries discuss the need for a Canadian economic plan which involves investment in the long term rather than politically-oriented payoffs only within a single election cycle. And Joseph Stiglitz points out the obvious need for a global system of investment and financial regulation which better puts existing resources to work:

(D)eveloping countries and emerging markets have demonstrated their ability to absorb huge amounts of money productively. Indeed, the tasks that these countries are undertaking – investing in infrastructure (roads, electricity, ports, and much else), building cities that will one day be home to billions, and moving toward a green economy – are truly enormous.

At the same time, there is no shortage of money waiting to be put to productive use. Just a few years ago, Ben Bernanke, then the chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board, talked about a global savings glut. And yet investment projects with high social returns were being starved of funds. That remains true today. The problem, then as now, is that the world’s financial markets, meant to intermediate efficiently between savings and investment opportunities, instead misallocate capital and create risk. 

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Private investment is important, too. But the new investment provisions embedded in the trade agreements that the Obama administration is negotiating across both oceans imply that accompanying any such foreign direct investment comes a marked reduction in governments’ abilities to regulate the environment, health, working conditions, and even the economy. 

The US stance concerning the most disputed part of the Addis Ababa conference was particularly disappointing. As developing countries and emerging markets open themselves to multinationals, it becomes increasingly important that they can tax these behemoths on the profits generated by the business that occurs within their borders. Apple, Google, and General Electric have demonstrated a genius for avoiding taxes that exceeds what they employed in creating innovative products. 

All countries – both developed and developing – have been losing billions of dollars in tax revenues. Last year, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists released information about Luxembourg’s tax rulings that exposed the scale of tax avoidance and evasion. While a rich country like the US arguably can afford the behavior described in the so-called Luxembourg Leaks, the poor cannot.

- Doug Cuthand argues that western Canada needs to start paying far more attention to how resource policy affects our climate among other issues of long-term sustainability.

- Justin Miller discusses the importance of a $15 minimum wage in a banking sector which has been slashing wages for ages - offering an analysis which applies similarly to the federal minimum wage in Canada. Lydia DePillis and Jim Tankersley point out that the $15 level (unlike increases at substantially lower levels) would have a ripple effect large enough to grow the middle class. And Julie Alderman refutes the latest Republican anti-labour talking point by documenting how unionized workplaces offer far more fair wages for women.

- The CP lists the people who were in the loop about Nigel Wright's payoff to Mike Duffy at the time Stephen Harper previously claimed only two people were involved, while CBC compares what Harper said before to what's being proven now. And Justin Ling, Karl Nerenberg, Tonda MacCharles and Bruce Campion-Smith, Althia Raj look in more detail at the role of the inner circle of the PMO. [Update: And Andrew Coyne notes that the Duffy payoff can be explained only by the desire of Harper and his handlers to avoid having an unbiased audit look into his other expenses.]

- Finally, Anna Mehler Paperny reports that a growing number of Canadians want to see change in this fall's election and are happy to see parties cooperate toward that end. And Kyle Duggan examines a high level of voter interest which bodes well for turnout this October.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Scott Santens argues that a basic income represents the best way to ensure that the gains from technological advancement are shared by everybody. And Thom Hartmann makes the case for a guaranteed income based on its simplicity and cost-effectiveness, while Mark Sarner sees it mostly as a mechanism to reduce poverty.

- Meanwhile, Lane Windham highlights the need for social benefits to be pursued through public policy rather than through employment relationships alone. And Sean McElwee writes that increased voter turnout in the U.S. figures to bring out far more progressive citizens to have their voices heard:

To examine how boosting voting might affect policy on inequality, I asked Pew about its inequality survey. These data also show that the nonregistered population is more liberal than the registered population. Pew asked people which would do more to reduce poverty: “Raising taxes on wealthy people and corporations in order to expand programs for the poor” or “Lowering taxes on wealthy people and corporations in order to encourage more investment and economic growth.” While majorities of both registered and nonregistered Americans say that raising taxes on the wealthy would do more to reduce poverty, nonregistered respondents were more supportive than registered ones (59 percent and 51 percent, respectively). In addition, while 69 percent of registered respondents supported raising the minimum wage, 82 percent of nonregistered Americans did. While 60 percent of registered respondents supported a one-year extension of unemployment benefits, 69 percent of those who are not registered did. These findings conform to other research suggesting nonregistered Americans favor a far stronger economic role for government.
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(I)f states with the lowest class bias — New Hampshire, for instance — had the same high class bias as, say, Kentucky, the change would lead to a decrease of 17 percent in support for the introduction of bills related to welfare and 22 percent in bills related to housing. The opposite is also true: Decreasing the class bias of the electorate would lead to more bills related to these issues. In a recent paper, Franko finds that lower class bias leads to more spending on health care for children, higher minimum wages and more anti-predatory-lending policies.

Parties can change the composition of the electorate, but they have failed entirely to bolster voting among the poor. According to ANES data, only 37 percent of those earning less than $30,000 reported receiving contact from either party regarding the 2012 elections, compared to 47 percent of those earning more than $100,000. And this sort of outreach makes a difference. Using the ANES data set, I examined Americans earning less than $60,000 who did not vote in 2008. I found that 41.5 percent of those who were contacted by a party voted in 2012, compared with only 28.1 percent of those who were not contacted by a party. When I removed the control for those who did not vote in 2008, the effect became much stronger, with 85 percent of those earning less than $60,000 who were contacted by a political party voting in 2012, compared with only 64 percent of those who were not contacted by a party.

- But then, there's plenty of room for more progressive policy even with the electorate we already have - as Mainstreet finds that Alberta's voters are supportive of NDP platform planks including a higher minimum wage and meaningful carbon pricing even as the corporate press demands that Rachel Notley discard them.

- The Ottawa Citizen notes that the Cons' election strategy is all smoke and mirrors at this point. And PressProgress highlights the bleak economic reality which they're trying to deny.

- Finally, Tabatha Southey's fake interview with Kory Teneycke eviscerates the Cons' fearmongering, featuring what would strike me as a devastating conclusion for anybody with a conscience:

Me: So, will you be using more terrorist video as the campaign goes on?

You: What in God’s name have I done with my life that I can legitimately be asked this question?

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Citizens for Public Justice provides a useful set of fact sheets on the importance of tax revenues in funding a civilized society. And Daphne Bramham follows up with a look at what we've lost from tax cuts - and the public demand for more tax fairness:

Tax cuts during the past decade have meant that $45 billion has been trimmed from government spending and programs each year since 2006 and almost 30,000 jobs have been lost.

One reason Canadians willingly pay taxes is they believe it’s a fair system. But as the fact sheets point out, the system has been skewed for the past 15 years. It’s not so much by the tax rates themselves; it’s because of two other changes. The first are what the group calls “boutique tax credits” and deductions that favour middle- and upper-income earners.

The second is a shift to regressive taxes such as sales tax, property tax and fees that disadvantage low-income earners.

It’s at the point where some middle- and high-income earners now pay a lower percentage of tax than some of the poorest families, according to research by the OECD.
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The idea behind those tax cuts was that the money would be invested in improvements and upgrades or hiring more people. But that didn’t happen. Most of the money has gone into bank accounts.

When corporate taxes fell to record lows between 2000 and 2014, total cash reserves of private, non-financial corporations increased nearly 370 per cent to $673.5 billion, according to Statistics Canada.

So it’s hardly surprising that recent polls indicate that nearly three-quarters of Canadians support raising corporate tax rates.

- Digby highlights some of the Republicans' more recent efforts to demonize and attack the poor. And concerted attempts to dehumanize the poor only figure to exacerbate the "inverse care law" - which, as Julian Tudor Hart points out, results in a pattern of market-based health care services being least available where they're most needed.

- Ella Bedard writes that insecure and precarious work is the new normal. And Sara Mojtehedzadeh reports on the barely-existent help Ontario workers receive when they report employer abuses.

- Scott Sinclair and Stuart Trew nicely boil down the Trans-Pacific Partnership's dangers for Canada. And C. Robert Gibson and Taylor Channing expose the business sector's efforts to buy U.S. Senate votes to wave the TPP through.

- Finally, Brent Patterson reminds us that public participation is key to the election results we want - particularly given the Cons' focus on suppressing turnout. And Bob Hepburn writes about Mel Hurtig's efforts to push for a change from continued Harper government.

On youth outreach

David Akin claims that Canada's political parties should ignore youth turnout in an election year and focus on older citizens who are more likely to vote. But it's worth taking some time to examine the issue in a bit more detail.

At the outset, I'd think there's little doubt Canada's main political parties have a far more sophisticated view of potential voter pools than Akin. Yes, older voters may turn out in larger number as a whole, but all age groups can be split into numerous subgroups based on other demographic subgroups - and there are certainly some younger ones which would have a higher turnout than some older ones.

But let's put that issue aside and ask: what does a political party have to gain in making a strong effort to win younger supporters? And the most important answer arises from exactly the factor which makes Akin think it's worth focusing on older voters alone.

Younger voters may not yet have developed the habit of voting at all. But by the same token, it's equally true that they're less likely to have developed the habit of voting a particular way.

So even for the current election cycle, if a party is calculating the value of outreach efforts based on the likelihood of winning votes, there's a simple trade-off to be made. The value of reaching a voter is presumably defined by how that contact can change in the voter's likelihood of going to the polls, and how it can change the voter's preference as between parties and candidates.

Akin effectively hand-waves away the possibility that participation rates can be improved. But it's not clear that he has any basis for doing so based on the factors which actually affect youth participation rates. The best evidence suggests that younger voters who have contact with candidates and parties are in fact far more likely to make the effort to vote - so a refusal to try may represent little more than a self-inflicted injury.

Moreover, even if one assumes that rates of voting won't change, younger voters will have less-entrenched voting patterns than people who have participated in elections (and formed preferences among parties) over a period of decades. Even if the youth turnout rate is then half that for older voters, that gap could be cancelled out entirely by a proportional willingness to consider a wider range of options rather than following past voting habits.

And that's before we get into the potential spinoff effects of reaching younger voters from a partisan perspective.

For one thing, younger voters figure to be at the point of forming habits for the longer term - meaning that an investment in earning support today is disproportionately likely to offer continued benefits in future campaigns.

What's more, the existence of a large pool of younger non-voters means that a successful pitch may have greater effects in the current election. Given the importance of personal connections in influencing voter behaviour, a single young voter persuaded to take democracy seriously is likely to have at least some impact on friends and family. And the large pool of non-voters means there are far more new votes to be gained than by similarly reaching a single older voter whose personal connections are less likely to be subject to persuasion.

Of course, there are also broader civic benefits in encouraging people to join the voting pool. But even if we assume our political parties place no value on that outcome (which it itself a questionable view, particularly for parties with relative strength among Canada's youth), they still have ample reason to make a strong effort to reach out to younger voters.

For further reading, see Frances Woolley on the disproportionate input political parties receive from older Canadians, David McGrane on the factors shaping youth voting preferences, and RossK on Brigitte DePape's work to mobilize younger voters.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Joe Gunn reminds us that ignoring the issue of poverty won't make it go away. And Sara Mojtehedzadeh reports on a national campaign demanding a plan to deal with poverty at the federal level.

- Roderick Benns discusses the prospect of a guaranteed annual income with Wayne Simpson. And Whitney Mallett is the latest to look in depth at how the successful Mincome basic income plan might spread much further:

Critics of basic income guarantees have insisted that giving the poor money would disincentivize them to work, and point to studies that show ​a drop in peoples' willingness to work under pilot programs. But in Dauphin—thought to be the largest such experiment conducted in North America—the experimenters found that the primary breadwinner in the families who received stipends were in fact not less motivated to work than before. Though there was some reduction in work effort from mothers of young children and teenagers still in high school—mothers wanted to stay at home longer with their newborns and teenagers weren’t under as much pressure to support their families—the reduction was not anywhere close to disastrous, as skeptics had predicted.
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The recovered data from “Mincome,” as the Dauphin experiment was known, has given more impetus to a growing call for some sort of guaranteed income. This year, the Swis​s Parliament will vote on whether to extend a monthly stipend to all residents, and the Indian government has already begun replacing aid programs with direct cash transfers. Former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich has called a BIG “alm​ost inevitable.” In the US, Canada, and much of Western Europe, where the conversation around radically adapting social security remains mostly hypothetical, the lessons of Dauphin might be especially relevant in helping these ideas materialize sooner rather than later.

There are other compelling arguments for a guaranteed income now. Despite record corporate earnings, most people are not benefitting. Wages are stagnant, unemployment is high, ​student debt and health care costs are soaring, and the job market is not rewarding those who are already employed with enough money for a decent way of life. The so-called ​Uberization of the workforce, in which workers are paid by the task rather than on a salary or under an established hourly rate—is increasing the precariousness of work. (And that's not to mention ​robots and artificial intelligence taking away jobs.) As the concept of universal healthcare spreads and minimum wage is debated, conversations around reconsidering or expanding social security are growing.

- Ryan Meili interviews Harsha Walia about the importance of building healthy connections between immigrants, refugees and our wider communities.

- Michael Adams and Maryantonett Flumian muse about some of the causes of low voter participation rates. But as Craig Scott points out, the Cons' message to (selected) voters that their democratic involvement isn't welcome can't be helping matters.

- Finally, Thomas Walkom rightly argues that even if the Cons would accept some parliamentary oversight over new CSIS powers, that wouldn't represent an acceptable tradeoff for the public. Karl Nerenberg offers four reasons to be alarmed by C-51. And the Winnipeg Free Press concludes that the Cons' terror bill risks far too much for no apparent benefit.

Saturday Morning Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- The Economist discusses how a tiny elite group is taking a startling share of the U.S.' total wealth:

The ratio of household wealth to national income has risen back toward the level of the 1920s, but the share in the hands of middle-class families has tumbled (see chart). Tepid growth in middle-class incomes is partly to blame; real incomes for the top 1% of families grew 3.4% a year from 1986-2012 while those for the bottom 90% grew 0.7%. But Messrs Saez and Zucman reckon the main cause of falling middle-class net worth is soaring debt. Rising home values did little to raise middle-class wealth since mortgage debt also soared. The recession battered home prices but left the debt untouched, further squeezing middle-class wealth.
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On the other side of the spectrum, the fortunes of the wealthy have grown, especially at the very top. The 16,000 families making up the richest 0.01%, with an average net worth of $371m, now control 11.2% of total wealth—back to the 1916 share, which is the highest on record. Those down the distribution have not done quite so well: the top 0.1% (consisting of 160,000 families worth $73m on average) hold 22% of America’s wealth, just shy of the 1929 peak—and exactly the same share as the bottom 90% of the population.

- Meanwhile, Lana Payne points out that the Cons are looking to set up the same level of inequality in Canada by pushing tax giveaways at the top end of the income spectrum. And Mike Konczal and Bryce Covert rightly challenge the regressive claim that pushing people toward marriage is somehow a solution to inequality.

- Thomas Walkom and Jeffrey Simpson are both duly skeptical as to whether Stephen Harper will do anything of substance in response to the new greenhouse gas emission reduction agreement between the U.S. and China. But even if we should fully expect continued stonewalling from the Cons, it's not such a bad thing for Harper to be forced to explain that choice.

- Harsha Walia calls out the Cons' "managed migration" which serves primarily to limit individual rights and freedoms:

While Canada is often cast as a liberal counterpoint to aggressive U.S. immigration enforcement tactics, the U.S. has actually pointed to Canada as the model to implement for U.S. migration policy. This is because Canada has perfected a system of managed migration to ensure the steady supply of cheap labour within neoliberalism while entrenching racialized citizenship.
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Canada currently accepts more migrants under temporary permits than those who can immigrate permanently. Permanent residency for refugees, skilled workers and family members is restricted, citizenship is becoming harder to get and easier to lose, but the migrant worker program is exploding.

These changes are drastic. The number of family-class immigrants dropped by 10,000 in the first four years the Conservative Party of Canada formed government.

According to Avvy Yao-Yao Go, Director of the Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, "Thirty years ago, family-class immigrants made up the majority of all immigrants. Today, they account for less than 20 per cent of the total intake."
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For the few refugees and migrants who do become permanent residents or citizens, the battle for secure legal status doesn't end there. The Immigrant Criminalization law that passed last year allows for deportations of thousands of permanent residents who have been convicted for minor offences including traffic offenses.

And the new Stealing Citizenship law makes it possible to revoke citizenship from dual nationals or even from Canadian-born children who have the possibility of accessing dual citizenship.

- Finally, David Broockman and Joshua Kalla examine the effectiveness of direct personal contact with voters - both in making an immediate impression, and actually inspiring people to vote. And it's well worth contrasting Broockman and Kalla's findings that genuine conversations represent the most important result of door-to-door canvassing against Derek Willis' claim that it's a problem for volunteers to have their own principles and values rather than merely seeking to match a voter's preexisting views.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Tony Burman comments on the increasing recognition of the dangers of inequality even among corporate and financial elites:

(I)t is significant that the policy debate among many decision-makers seems to be changing. Rather than the nonsense about “the makers versus the takers,” there is increasing focus on the notion that income inequality could be a key factor in why overall economic growth has been sluggish in recent years.

There has always been a “common sense’ element to this argument. The wealthy tend to save a larger percentage of their income because they are able to. In contrast, middle- and lower-income people spend virtually all of what they earn because they have to. If the rich have more to save and the rest have less to spend, is it surprising that the current economy has remain stalled?

But a glimmer of hope can be seen in these latest appeals from Yellen and Carney. Their message to the business and political class was not only that the increase of inequality was morally wrong. But, perhaps more convincing with this crowd, they are arguing that it is dumb economics.

If the vaunted rulers of our flawed economic system can finally get their heads around this simple truth, the world may miraculously escape another recession.

- And the Observer weighs in on the desperate need for the corporate sector to start paying its fair share rather than evading any social responsibility:

Companies such as Facebook and Google earn enormous sums of money from UK consumers – and then avoid paying tax on that revenue by processing the sale in Ireland.

They benefit in myriad ways from the UK’s infrastructure, culture and rule of law and yet do everything in their considerable power to cheat the British exchequer out of monies that would help sustain those virtues of British life. It is no wonder that the cool and edgy ambience that once surrounded tech companies has dulled. And not content with the Irish tax swerve, many technology companies that do business in the UK also drive down their tax rate further – below 5% in some cases – by holding key intellectual property in tax havens such as Luxembourg.  Royalty payments for the use of intellectual property (IP) are sent to a company that is in Ireland but has its headquarters in a tax haven.

Tax avoidance that allows multinationals to grow ever richer also damages the fabric of democracy. In the US, as the midterm elections approach, the tech companies are spending billions of dollars to protect their interests, exercising undue influence on legislators. Last year, Google spent more money on political donations in America than Goldman Sachs. There was a time when we believed that the cultures of a Google differed considerably from that of a Goldman Sachs. Not any more. Don’t be evil? Don’t be gullible, more like.

But there is a wider, more fundamental point. The perception, particularly in America, that Congress is overly influenced by major business interests that can bend legislation in their favour, erodes trust in an already enfeebled political institution.
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Taxes matter.  They build schools, hospitals and roads and finance public services.  They also indicate a  society’s commitment to fairness. As Sandel writes in What Money Can’t Buy: “Democracy does not require perfect equality but it does require that citizens share in a common life… for this is how we come to care for the common good.”

- Meanwhile, Murray Mandryk notes that Brad Wall's obsession with forcing a corporate mindset on Saskatchewan's public health care system is proving disastrous.

- Ian Mulgrew writes about how Michael Zehaf-Bibeau's known mental health issues - and the lack of treatment even when they were pointed out - contributed to last week's tragic shootings:

Wednesday’s tragedy exposed not so much a failure of our security forces as the gaping holes in our appallingly frayed social safety net.

Homeless and troubled, Montreal-born Michael Zehaf-Bibeau knew he wasn’t coping, sought assistance, begged from the sounds of it; no one listened closely enough.

During his adult life, we spent a small fortune in two provinces providing the 32-year-old with plenty of “due process” and stretches of free room and board at Her Majesty’s motels.

But we didn’t help him and, if anything, the legal system only exacerbated his frustrations.

The vast amount of tax money devoted to his petty crimes would have been far better spent providing him with appropriate psychiatric and social care.
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We can change our approach and begin to help [people like Zehaf-Bibeau] or we can curtail civil liberties and invest in more cops, metal detectors, fences and listening equipment.

I know which approach would make me feel safer, what I would call real security measures: a social safety net that caught those in obvious need before they went postal, people like Zehaf-Bibeau.

- Mitchell Anderson expands on the same point. Doug Saunders discusses the interplay between ideology (of whatever origin) and pathology in cases like Zehaf-Bibeau's. And Stephen Walt proposes what would make for the most reasonable response to the tragedy - while worrying that Stephen Harper is pushing in exactly the wrong direction by looking to meet futile and misdirected violence with futile and misdirected violence.

- Finally, digby highlights yet another step in the right's attempt to demonize participatory politics, as even simple encouragement to get people out to the polls is now being labeled as "fraud" by a Republican party which prefers to see as few people as possible having a say in elections.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Linda McQuaig criticizes the Cons' use of the tax system to try to silence charities who don't match their political message:

PEN now joins Amnesty International, the David Suzuki Foundation, Canada Without Poverty, the United Church and other groups that, having criticized an array of Harper policies, have been obliged to devote precious resources to defending themselves from a special probe of charities ordered by the Harper government.

This beefing-up of tax audits of charities is particularly striking when compared to Harper’s laid-back approach to auditing the real bad guys: corporations and citizens using offshore tax havens to cheat the government out of billions of dollars in revenue.

Indeed, the allocation of an extra $13 million to carry out audits of charities has taken place even as the government slashes the overall Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) budget by $250 million over three years and lays off hundreds of auditors.
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Internal CRA documents, obtained under access-to-information by Sen. Percy Downe, reveal that an infusion of $30 million by Ottawa in 2005 to counter “aggressive international tax planning” resulted in the collection of an extra $2.5 billion over four years.

By contrast, putting extra resources into auditing charities will almost certainly produce no additional revenue.
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(W)hile there aren’t enough auditors to go after many of the wealthy Canadian corporations and individuals hiding money offshore, the government managed to find two auditors to spend three days this week at PEN’s little Toronto office — the beginning of an audit that will go on for many months.

The Harperites may be inept at using audits to collect vast sums of revenue hidden by the rich — but they sure know how to beat up on defenceless groups trying to promote the public good.

- And Dean Beeby breaks the news that the Cons aren't satisfied going after charitable organizations, and instead want to be able to compile their own list of individual donors as well. But there is some push for disclosure where it's actually needed as a check on undue institutional influence, as MoveOn is calling for corporate spending in U.S. politics to be subject to public scrutiny.

- Bill Curry reports on the C.D. Howe Institute's recommendation that the federal government focus on economic development rather than deficit scolding - with Joe Oliver naturally responding that he has no interest in job creation if it might conflict with his political goals. And Rick Goldman comments on the futility of using austerity policies in the name of fighting deficits when they ultimately cause more harm than good even by that measure.

- Steven Chase discusses the latest application of the Baird Doctrine that bluster matters more than action in foreign policy - as a much-trumpeted aid announcement for the Ukraine four months ago has led to zero actual contribution from Canada.

- Finally, David Atkins connects the U.S.' drift to the right with participation in party primaries - as the Tea Party and other right-wing groups have driven Republican turnout (and thus policy oriented toward its base) while Democrats have been increasingly staying on the sidelines over the past 40 years:

When conservatives don't get what they want, they tend to double down at the ballot box. When progressives don't get what they want, many of us tend to storm away and fantasize about engaging the system outside of electoral politics somehow. This is part of why conservatives have been successful in moving the country to right.

I've brought these points up again and again. Politicians don't care about people who don't vote, and the Tea Party gets coddled because they actually vote in primaries and Democrats tend not to.

But, of course, Democratic politicians also bear a lot of the blame. It's awfully hard to get motivated to vote when you know that not much is going to change regardless of the outcome.

Even so, you can't lay the entire blame for the problem at the feet of centrist corporate Democrats. The trend toward lower turnout started in 1970, hardly the heyday of the DLC. Yes, Democratic politicians need to do a better job of advancing progressive priorities and building base enthusiasm. But progressive voters also need to come out and actually vote, too.