Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- David Olive weighs in on the disastrous results of the all-too-prevalent obsession with austerity when economic conditions are still fragile around the globe:

From London to Berlin, and Ottawa to Washington, the world’s leading economies reacted swiftly to the onset of the Great Recession with massive stimulus programs to relieve the financial stress of their people.

The stimulus worked like a charm.
...
Then the roof caved in after the stimulus programs dried up.

We should have known better. One of the few calamitous mistakes of Franklin Roosevelt was to ease up on stimulus efforts after his 1936 re-election landslide. Unduly sanguine that the Depression was by then a spent volcano, FDR brought on a significant increase in joblessness, wiping out much of his earlier New Deal gains.

With the world economy still in the ICU, public opinion polls now find respondents imploring governments to resume economic stimulus as their chief priority.

- It's a huge plus to see Mark Carney criticizing corporatists who want to pretend that the interests of society at large are subordinate to those of bankers who want free rein to squeeze out every dime they possibly can. But is there any reason for him not to follow up with similar commentary on other obvious examples?

- Tabatha Southey theorizes as to what might be behind the Cons' war on facts.

- Finally, Warren McCall rightly slams the Sask Party's effort to make it more difficult for First Nations citizens to vote:

The Sask Party knows full well that the NDP has enjoyed tremendous support from First Nations people across the province and in particular in constituencies such as Athabasca, Cumberland, Meadow Lake and Saskatchewan Rivers. As a matter of fact, without the support of on-reserve First Nations people, the NDP would not have won these seats in past elections. By targeting on-reserve voters, the Sask Party is trying to increase its chances of winning these seats while disenfranchising First Nations voters in the process. It is simply wrong.

There is simply no evidence of any voting irregularities that would require such legislative changes. These changes target people who are typically less likely to vote – urban poor, seniors, young people and in particular First Nations people – and who, when they do vote, don’t tend to cast their ballots for right wing parties like the Sask Party.

These changes go beyond party politics and right to the core of extending democratic rights to all Saskatchewan citizens. In particular, on-reserve First Nations people were denied the right to vote in provincial elections until only very recently and their voter turnout in elections they have been eligible to vote in has not been typically high. With the Sask Party purposely and blatantly putting obstacles in place to prevent First Nations people from voting, it will only breed more division and mistrust in our province long after this election is over.

Pattern generation

The Saskatchewan NDP has already issued a strong response to the Sask Party's latest private-sector giveaway of 20 years' worth of taxpayer money.

But let's note that the new deal also seems to involve the same problems as the Wall government's previous generating agreement with Northland Power, including both the decision to have a plant operated by a private-sector entity with far less experience or expertise than SaskPower itself, and a price which looks to be completely out of line with the cost of generating gas-fired power anywhere else. And a string of sweetheart deals for the same private developer can only raise ever more serious questions as to who it is that the Sask Party is actually looking out for.

Everyone's a critic

The Saskatchewan NDP's new critic list is here. And the inevitable speculative second-guessing is here, courtesy of Murray Mandryk:

Nor is it all completely surprising that Higgins supporter Pat Atkinson lost her agricultural critic duties to Lingenfelter, along with her deputy leader status. But doesn't demoting Atkinson in this way undo the unity you're supposedly trying to build?

And doesn't the appointment of loyalist Trent Wotherspoon as critic responsible for finance, SaskPower and SaskEnergy over arguably more capable Higgins supporters like Cam Broten (advanced education) or even Warren McCall (First Nations and Metis relations) send the wrong message about rebuilding the party with your stronger young members?

Now, it would seem obvious that in the same column where he criticizes the lack of party renewal involved in replacing Harry Van Mulligen with Dwain Lingenfelter, Mandryk might at least consider the possibility that Lingenfelter has also talked with his other current MLAs about who does and doesn't plan to stay on after 2011. And while that's publicly only a matter of speculation right now (and I'd have concerns about any effort to push current MLAs out the door), Atkinson's length of tenure in the Legislature makes her an obvious candidate to step aside.

Mind you, I'd agree that Atkinson's reduced responsibilities could be seen as a slight if her plans don't match that theory. But it can hardly be a sign of internal division to concentrate responsibilities in the hands of MLAs who are more likely to stay around - particularly when the candidate Atkinson supported for leader is one of the beneficiaries.

As for the allocation of responsibilities among the younger critics, the key word in the passage quoted above is "arguably". Mandryk doesn't offer up any particular reason why any choice among the three MLAs would be a matter of leadership loyalties rather than being based on the party's best interests. And in fact, Wotherspoon held a wider range of critic duties than the other two under Lorne Calvert (carrying responsibility for education, early childhood development and literacy) - so it's hard to see how another promotion under Lingenfelter would be a matter of controversy.

Of course, Broten and McCall should undoubtedly be in the mix for increased roles within the party as well, and hopefully that will happen once Lingenfelter's transition phase is done. But for now, there's little apparent reason to search for hidden messages in Wotherspoon's critic assignment - even if purely hypothetical threads of discontent might make for a more interesting story than the lack thereof.