Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Peter Whoriskey examines how inequality is becoming increasingly pronounced among U.S. seniors. And Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson discuss how inequality contributes to entrenching social divisions:

The toll which inequality exacts from the vast majority of society is one of the most important limitations on the quality of life – particularly in developed countries.  It damages the quality of social relations essential to life satisfaction and happiness. Numerous studies have shown that community life is stronger in more equal societies.  People are more likely to be involved in local groups and voluntary organisations.  They are more likely to feel they can trust each other, and a recent study has shown that they are also more willing to help each other – to help the elderly or disabled.  But as inequality increases, trust, reciprocity and involvement in community life all atrophy.  In their place – as numerous studies have shown – comes a rise in violence, usually measured by homicide rates.  In short, inequality makes societies less affiliative and more antisocial. 

If you look at some of the most unequal societies such as South Africa or Mexico, it is clear from the way that houses are barricaded, with bars on windows and doors and fences and razor wire round gardens, that people are frightened of each other.  That is dramatically confirmed by a quite different indication of exactly the same process: studies have shown that in more unequal societies a higher proportion of a society’s labour force is employed in what is classified as ‘guard labour’ – that is security staff, police, prisons officers etc.. Essentially, these are the occupations people use to protect themselves from each other.  
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Important to understanding the effects of inequality is the way it affects mental health.  An international study has shown that more unequal societies have higher levels of status anxiety – not just among the poor, but at all income levels, including the richest decile.  Living in societies where some people seem extremely important and others are regarded as almost worthless does indeed make us all more worried about how we are seen and judged.  There are two very different ways people can respond to these worries.  They may respond by feeling overcome by a lack of confidence, self-doubt and low self-esteem, so that social gatherings feel too stressful and are seen as ordeals to be avoided and people retreat into depression.  Alternatively, and yet usually still a response to the same insecurities, people may go in for a process of self-enhancement or self-advertisement, trying to big themselves up in other’s eyes.  Instead of being modest about their achievements and abilities, they flaunt them, finding ways of bringing references into conversation of almost anything which helps them present themselves as capable and successful. 
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But the real tragedy of this is not simply the costs of so much additional security or the human costs in terms of increasing violence.  It is, as research makes very clear, that social involvement and the quality of social relations, friendship and involvement in community life, are powerful determinants of both health and happiness.  Inequality strikes at the foundations of the quality of life.  Status insecurity and competition makes social life more stressful: we worry increasingly about self-presentation and how we are judged. Instead of the relationships of friendship and reciprocity which add so much to health and happiness, inequality means we prop ourselves up with narcissistic purchases or withdraw from social life.  Though this suits business and sales, it is not a sound basis for learning to live within the planetary boundaries.  

-  Dr. Dawg, the Star's editorial board and Sadiya Ansari each criticize the Quebec Libs' bigoted attack on women who wear niqabs. And Emmett Macfarlane highlights why Bill 62's deliberate discrimination isn't likely to survive a challenge in court.

- Danyaal Raza offers some lessons for the U.S. from his experience working in Canada's health care system. And Gillian Steward writes that Donald Trump's actions to strip health insurance from Americans shows how important it is that Canada didn't settle for anything less than universality.

- Meanwhile, Ian Welsh argues that Barack Obama missed an important opportunity to reshape the U.S.' economy through both stimulus legislation and executive action.

- Finally, Susan Scutti reports on new research showing that exposure to air pollution in the womb has life-long consequences for a person's health. And Bob Weber reports on new research showing that methane releases from Alberta's oil industry may be far worse than previously assumed.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- I'll start in on my own review of the NDP's election campaign over the next few days, focusing on what I see as being the crucial decisions as the campaign played out. But for those looking for some of what's been written already, I'll point out recaps and analysis from Charlie Demers, Tim Ellis, Hassan Arif, Evan Dyer, Jenn Jefferys, Christopher Majka, Gerald Caplan, Jim Quail, Elizabeth McSheffrey and Paul Dechene - while noting that I'll be challenging and/or expanding on some of their analysis in my future posts.

- Scott Leon, Kwame McKenzie and Steve Barnes comment on how the Trans-Pacific Partnership stands to put our health at risk in the name of corporate control. And Janyce McGregor notes that it will open the door to dairy products from cows receiving growth hormones which are currently banned in Canada.

- Dr. Dawg challenges any attempt to treat the Harper Cons' abuses as anything but a natural - if extreme - outgrowth of a conservative ideology.

- Finally, Andrew MacLeod reports on the B.C Libs' deliberate practice of destroying information or ensuring that it was never recorded in the first place. Gary Mason notes that the revelations confirm that any claim to open and accountable government was a sham - though the Clark government doesn't seem to have any shame about having been caught. And Vaughn Palmer sees the Libs' response as being nothing but empty words.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Mariana Mazzucato argues that we need to change our conversation and our policy choices on public investment in Canada's economy:

As in many other countries, the conversation about government and public investment in Canada has for decades distorted and underplayed the role of the state as a crucial agent in shaping and creating markets.

In a country where inequality has grown as the progressive state has been dismantled, I learned that corporate tax rates have been reduced, and generous tax credits given out to promote R&D, all while Canadian corporations hoard over $600 billion in “dead money.” As I outlined in an article for the Toronto Star at the time of my first visit, and explained in an interview for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a visionary state with the courage to direct mission-oriented investments, rather than just ‘de-risk’ the private sector, is needed to spur smart innovation-led growth. The conversation should be around the kind of broad challenges and missions that public and private actors can rally around, rather than on policies that simply increase profits in the short-term. This is particularly important in a country heavily reliant on natural resource exports (see the current oil bust) and with chronically-low business spending on R&D.
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If Canada wants to shift away from oil and its extractive sector to an innovation-led economy, then bold leadership and investment in new directions are needed. ‘Green growth’ is one such potential direction. However, across the globe the countries that are leading in green transformations are precisely those where the State plays a more active role. If Canada wants to compete in this area, it will have to courageously envisage the direction of change to create and shape the new markets that could set it on a path to sustainable and inclusive growth.

As I have argued elsewhere, mission oriented investments require new evaluation tools which account for the market shaping/creating role of the public sector, not just ‘market fixing’ role– and new ideas on how to build public sector organisations that welcome the explorative uncertain process that innovation entails, rather than fearing it.

- But of course, it's also essential that public-sector investment be put toward reasonable development. And on that front, Jim Snyder, Mark Drajem and Matthew Phillips write that the Obama administration is recognizing that there's no point in pouring billions of dollars into "clean coal" which undermines its own raison d'etre, while Bruce Johnstone suggests that Saskatchewan should be asking the same types of questions.

- Jeremy Nuttall interviews Mark Blyth about the need to avoid the gratuitous austerity that's led to social and economic disaster in Europe.

- Anna Mehler Paperny offers low-income workers a chance to tell their stories about the effect of precarious work. And Robert Reich discusses how the corporate lobby's spin on work is indistinguishable from a 19th-century "worker beware" standard:

My recent column about the growth of on-demand jobs like Uber making life less predictable and secure for workers unleashed a small barrage of criticism that workers get what they’re worth in the market.

A Forbes Magazine contributor, for example, writes that jobs exist only  “when both employer and employee are happy with the deal being made.” So if the new jobs are low-paying and irregular, too bad.

Much the same argument was voiced in the late nineteenth century over alleged “freedom of contract.” Any deal between employees and workers was assumed to be fine if both sides voluntarily agreed to it.

It was an era when many workers were “happy” to toil twelve-hour days in sweat shops for lack of any better alternative.

It was also a time of great wealth for a few and squalor for many. And of corruption, as the lackeys of robber barons deposited sacks of cash on the desks of pliant legislators.
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(S)ince around 1980, even though the economy has doubled once again (the Great Recession notwithstanding), the wages most Americans have stagnated. And their benefits and working conditions have deteriorated.

This isn’t because most Americans are worth less. In fact, worker productivity is higher than ever.

It’s because big corporations, Wall Street, and some enormously rich individuals have gained political power to organize the market in ways that have enhanced their wealth while leaving most Americans behind.

- Finally, Michael Laxer discusses the Islamophobic dog-whistles which make up most of the Cons' excuse for constant election-year fearmongering. And Dr. Dawg comments on the Cons' broader terror agenda.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Larry Bartels highlights how class plays a particularly large role in U.S. politics, as opinions about the role of government are particularly polarized based on income. And Paul Krugman notes that as a consequence, any demand to "stop class warfare" in favour of imposing the austerity preferred by the upper class amounts to a demand that lower-income citizens forfeit their right to be heard.

- Carol Goar discusses how poverty and inequality are serious barriers to access to health care in Canada, particularly when it comes to increasingly-costly prescription drugs:

People with debilitating — in some cases life-threatening — diseases are mortgaging their homes, borrowing huge sums, holding auctions, organizing fundraisers or quietly giving up.

The Canada Health Act says all permanent residents of this country are entitled to “reasonable access to health services without financial or other barriers.” But for an increasing number of low-wage workers, seniors without personal savings and families with no health insurance, cost is a barrier — an unscalable one.

The extent of this inequity was underlined last week by a new report from Statistics Canada. It showed that out-of-pocket expenditures for health-care (primarily prescription drugs, dental services and private insurance premiums) shot up by 63 per cent for the poorest fifth of the population between 1997 and 2009. Those in the middle-and upper-income quintiles experienced increases ranging from 36 per cent to 48 per cent.
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Governments are pushing patients out of hospitals faster, saddling them (except those on social assistance and old age security) with the cost of their own prescriptions. What this means is that the core principle of medicare — that every Canadian should have equal access to health care regardless of wealth — is deteriorating.

As always, the poor are first and hardest hit. The majority of middle-income Canadians have private health insurance. The rich don’t need pharmacare; they can cover the cost of their own medications.

But what typically happens when a universal program erodes is that damage works its way up the income ladder. There are already isolated cases of patients whose insurers won’t pay for astronomically priced drugs. There are stories in the media about families of all socio-economic levels begging governments to help them pay for rare and costly medications.

There is still time to fix this problem. What is missing is the political will.

- Tara Carman reports on the C.D. Howe Institute's observation that the abuse of temporary foreign workers is driving up unemployment rates. Both Murray Mandryk and the Star-Phoenix editorial board discuss the obvious flaws in the Cons' push toward disposable labour (along with the eagerness of employers to abuse their privileged status). And Karl Nerenberg views the use of temporary foreign workers as just one part of the Cons' regressive immigration policy.

[Also, what thwap said.]

- Dr. Dawg writes that we shouldn't be surprised to see the Robocon investigation falter due to a lack of investigatory authority which Elections Canada has long pointed out as a problem. Alison documents the type of misdirection which has apparently been treated as legitimate (or at least incapable of being investigated). And Saskboy rounds up yesterday's news about the Elections Commissioner's decision to give up on Robocon.

- Finally, Paul Adams reminds us of the rights at stake when the Cons look to rewrite elections law to restrict access to the polls:

(T)his isn’t just about most Canadians. Most Canadians don’t live on reserves. Most Canadians don’t have parents or grandparents who were forbidden from voting by law. And most Canadians would have trouble imagining the circumstances of those who do.

As First Nations leaders have pointed out, many people living on reserves don’t have driver’s licences or even bank accounts. Interestingly, ‘status cards’ — the core identification document on reserves — have a photograph but not the address required by the proposed bill. Moreover, these cards expire and may be difficult to renew.

We know that aboriginal people rely on the vouching provisions of the current law to a far greater degree than other Canadians for precisely those reasons.

Lurking not far beneath the suggestion that most Canadians think it is reasonable for voters to have ID in their pockets on election day is the sense that only the “deserving” — the upright, respectable citizens — should be participating in our democracy.
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Democracy is both more and less than the right of everyone to vote. Athens had a democracy — just not for women and slaves. For most of the last century, South Africa had one excluding blacks. Israel has one, but it excludes many of the Palestinians ruled by its laws and power.

Canada was a democracy before it gave women or aboriginal people or 18-year olds the vote because it was governed by representative institutions; because power was diffused among federal and provincial governments as well as between Parliament and the courts; and because it was built on the rule of law.

But it was a democracy for the few.

Most of us have come to believe that we should have a democracy for all.

And that is why this isn’t just a matter of election administration. It’s a matter of civil rights.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Matthew O'Brien is the latest to pick up on the connection between pre-transfer income equality, redistribution and sustainable economic growth:

Redistribution overall helps, and at least doesn't harm, growth spells. That's because the positive effects of less inequality add to or offset the negligible, or negative, effects of redistribution itself. When redistribution is in the bottom 75 percent, these positive effects are the only ones, and growth lasts longer. And when redistribution is in the top 25 percent, these positive effects make up for the negative ones from taxing-and-transferring so much—it's a statistically insignificant wash.

So countries that spread the wealth around more seem to grow more and grow longer than countries that don't.

[Update: Paul Krugman has more. ]

- And Laura D'Andrea Tyson points out that minimum wage increases are particularly important for women (who make up a disproportionate number of low-wage workers):

Less than half of all workers are women, but they account for 75 percent of workers in the 10 lowest-paid occupations and about 60 percent of minimum wage workers. And most women earning the minimum wage are not teenagers, or wives who can rely on a spouse’s income.

About three-quarters of female minimum wage workers are above the age of 20, and about three-quarters of these women are on their own. Many, of course, are working and taking care of children.
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(T)he prevailing view among economists, reinforced by rigorous studies over the last decade, is that a modest increase would boost the wages of millions of workers and have little to no negative effect on employment. A higher minimum wage would also enhance labor productivity, reduce worker turnover and absenteeism, and lower the costs of recruiting and training employees.

Despite the evidence, Congressional Republicans have pounced on a recent estimate by the Congressional Budget Office that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, as Democrats have proposed, could reduce employment by 0.3 percent, or 500,000 jobs, by the end of 2015. For reasons that have been raised by a variety of experts, I doubt this estimate.

But even if it’s correct, let’s be careful to recognize what the C.B.O. also emphasized: The higher wage would directly benefit 16.5 million workers currently making less than $10.10 an hour, and as many as 8 million additional workers currently earning slightly more, and would lift 900,000 people out of poverty.

- Dr. Dawg and Stephen Maher both weigh in on the judicial appointment of Vic Toews. And on a similar theme, Michael Harris uses the Cons' cover-up of Brad Butt's legislative fraud to discuss how Stephen Harper rewards blatant lying within his caucus.

- Meanwhile, Jeffrey Simpson discusses the Cons' continued misuse of public resources for partisan self-promotion.

- Finally, Josh Bolotsky comments on the right's success in determining what issues are acceptable for public debate - and what progressive activists need to do to turn the tide in our favour:

The most important thing about the Overton window...is that it can be shifted to the left or the right, with the once merely “acceptable” becoming “popular” or even imminent policy, and formerly “unthinkable” positions becoming the open position of a partisan base. The challenge for activists and advocates is to move the window in the direction of their preferred outcomes, so their desired outcome moves closer and closer to “common sense.”

There are two ways to do this: the long, hard way and the short, easy way. The long, hard way is to continue making your actual case persistently and persuasively until your position becomes more politically mainstream, whether it be due to the strength of your rhetoric or a long-term shift in societal values. By contrast, the short, easy way is to amplify and echo the voices of those who take a position a few notches more radical than what you really want.

For example, if what you actually want is a public health care option in the United States, coordinate with and promote those pushing for single-payer, universal health care. If the single-payer approach constitutes the “acceptable left” flank of the discourse, then the public option looks, by comparison, like the conservative option it was once considered back when it was first proposed by Orrin Hatch in 1994.

This is Negotiating 101. Unfortunately, the right has been far ahead of the left in moving the Overton window in their desired direction for a long time. If anything, the left often plays it in the exact wrong way, actively policing and seeking to silence its radicals for fear that strong left positions will serve to discredit moderate left positions. The irony is that the Overton window should actually be easier for progressives to play: if you look at the polling on issue after issue, from education to jobs to foreign policy, the actual majority stances tend to be to the left of the range of policy proposals on offer.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Alison and PressProgress both discuss how Brad Butt's attempt to defend voter suppression is based on what even he had to concede was nothing short of legislative fraud. And Stephen Maher notes that the Cons' unilateral rewrite of election rules figures to force Elections Canada to cover up the Cons' pattern of illegal activity.

- Meanwhile, Jason Fekete reports on the Cons' deliberate ignorance of deputy ministers' advice that the government can't keep stonewalling against action on climate change - and follows up by pointing out the NDP's work to challenge the Cons on the issue in Parliament.

- And CBC reports that it took a since-fired whistleblower to force TransCanada to live up to its regulatory obligations - as neither the company nor the government had any apparent interest in enforcing the rules otherwise.

- Duncan Cameron observes that the Libs' federal convention featured discussion of a few eminently worthy policies - most notably a basic income guarantee. But Dr. Dawg notes that there's a massive difference between talk, commitment and action:

A policy document like the one just produced is really little more than a statement of faith, although I’d argue that this is the case for any party in Canada’s present political culture. The process of creating policy builds an illusory feel-good solidarity, affiliation and loyalty, while not committing adherents to anything at all except to get their party into power—which is what the “Hope and Hard Work” slogan at the convention was all about. Nor does it commit that party, once in power, to anything either. As a piece of mass audience-participation theatre it serves its purpose, creating bonds of loyalty and galvanizing activists. But let’s not imagine it’s a mirror of the future under Justin Trudeau.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s great to get this stuff on the record. It sets a general political tone and direction, and, more importantly, from a progressive point of view, it provides a little leverage for holding politicians to account. I’ve been hungrily awaiting policy ever since the remarkably policy-free Trudeau assumed the leadership of his party. Well, now the Liberals have some. It remains to be seen, however, just how seriously it will be defended by the Leader and his inner circle.

- Finally, Global POV highlights the importance of public support for citizens across all classes - while noting that the corporate class benefits more than anybody from the strategic use of welfare benefits:

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Murray Dobbin points to the oil sector's utter domination of Canada's federal political scene. And Dr. Dawg sums up the problem:

Briefly, the Harperium has now taken to grossly misusing the state apparatus to spy upon and intimidate citizens who dare to disagree with the Prime Minister. The RCMP and CSIS have been improperly deployed against perfectly non-violent folks who happen to oppose the development of the filthy, polluting Alberta Tar Sands—including a story-telling seniors’ group.

The cop-and-spook brigade have, as it turns out, been meeting in cabal with oil company execs, the Department of National Defence and National Energy Board honchos: the last meeting was sponsored by energy heavies Enbridge, Brookfield, and Bruce Power. (Meanwhile, our ultra-secret spy agency, CSEC, has been busy keeping tabs on ordinary folks in airports, perhaps just because they can. They, too, have been attending these top-level meetings.)
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The Harper regime is now doubling down. In response to a question on the anything-but-random audits, Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty attempted to connect these organizations to international terrorism. And the new budget contains monies to be used to counter this alleged threat to national security.

It’s not hard to connect the dots here. The audits are a deliberate form of harassment. Much of this can be traced back to Environment Minister Joe Oliver’s outlandish claim that environmentalism is a plot by foreign radicals to destabilize Canada. And we now know that Harper will pass legislation on request: all Big Oil need do is send a nice letter.

This is, to put it bluntly, exactly how corporatist regimes operate. Coercive state apparatuses are used to squelch dissent. Political opponents are demonized as traitors, amid grave talk of foreign influences and terrorism. And business and government operate as one to get the job done.

- Meanwhile, Bruce Cheadle reports on the consequences of the Harper regime's view of itself as a fully-owned subsidiary of the tar sands, as climate change and the environment have been wiped out of any government plans.

- Matt Taibbi writes about the financial industry's latest scheme to extract massive profits by effectively placing bets on industries which they control directly - when the result is to favour that extraction rather than productive economic development:

(B)anks aren't just buying stuff, they're buying whole industrial processes. They're buying oil that's still in the ground, the tankers that move it across the sea, the refineries that turn it into fuel, and the pipelines that bring it to your home. Then, just for kicks, they're also betting on the timing and efficiency of these same industrial processes in the financial markets – buying and selling oil stocks on the stock exchange, oil futures on the futures market, swaps on the swaps market, etc.

Allowing one company to control the supply of crucial physical commodities, and also trade in the financial products that might be related to those markets, is an open invitation to commit mass manipulation. It's something akin to letting casino owners who take book on NFL games during the week also coach all the teams on Sundays.

The situation has opened a Pandora's box of horrifying new corruption possibilities, but it's been hard for the public to notice, since regulators have struggled to put even the slightest dent in Wall Street's older, more familiar scams. In just the past few years we've seen an explosion of scandals – from the multitrillion-dollar Libor saga (major international banks gaming world interest rates), to the more recent foreign-currency-exchange fiasco (many of the same banks suspected of rigging prices in the $5.3-trillion-a-day currency markets), to lesser scandals involving manipulation of interest-rate swaps, and gold and silver prices.

But those are purely financial schemes. In these new, even scarier kinds of manipulations, banks that own whole chains of physical business interests have been caught rigging prices in those industries. For instance, in just the past two years, fines in excess of $400 million have been levied against both JPMorgan Chase and Barclays for allegedly manipulating the delivery of electricity in several states, including California. In the case of Barclays, which is contesting the fine, regulators claim prices were manipulated to help the bank win financial bets it had made on those same energy markets.

- Finally, Laura Payton finds that the Cons' excuses for eliminating anything resembling voter turnout from Elections Canada's mandate lack any basis in fact - as motivation, not information, is the main current obstacle to voting (though of course the Cons want to make accessibility a problem for more voters as well). And Bruce Anderson wonders whether voters will rightly punish the Cons for rigging the electoral system for partisan gain rather than the public good.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Gordon Hoekstra reports on a study by British Columbia determining that Canada lacks any hope of containing the types of oil spills which will become inevitable if the Cons' pipe-and-ship plans come to fruition. But once again, the Cons' response is to make clear that they consider an ounce of self-delusion and denial to be worth a pound of cure.

- Meanwhile, the Star-Phoenix' editorial board recognizes the desperate need for resource-rich provinces to handle their wealth responsibility:

(P)rovinces such as Saskatchewan and Alberta are dipping ever deeper into their one-time resource revenue to pay their bills. Saskatchewan, for example, now depends on resources for about 25 per cent of spending, up from less than 10 per cent in the 1990s.

Alberta is in even deeper trouble. This led University of Calgary economist Jack Mintz to recently recommend that Alberta adopt a 13 per cent HST. Rod Love, former premier Ralph Klein's adviser, responded by saying westerners would destroy any politician who proposed any sort of taxes.

That illustrates why Alberta and Saskatchewan's governments would rather squander their future than introduce a rational tax strategy. It's worth noting that after nearly four decades, Alberta has an estimated $16 billion in its wealth fund while Norway has socked away more than $600 billion over the same period.

Norway had the advantage of being a national government. Canada's resource wealthy provinces must better manage their advantage before Ottawa is compelled by its Constitution to do the job for them.

- The Wellesley Institute takes a closer look at minimum-wage earners in Ontario - and finds hundreds of thousands of adults aged 25 and up trying to make a living at or near the minimum. Vincent McDermott reports on the replacement of hundreds of employees in Fort McMurray with temporary foreign workers in an attempt to lower wages and undercut unions. And the Canadian Press discusses a push for stronger enforcement of workplace safety standards in Manitoba - including real consequences for employers who suppress employee injuries.

- Andrew Mitrovica points out why we should be particularly concerned to know that a surveillance apparatus set up in the name of security is being used for all kinds of other purposes:

So what that they suck at catching the bad guys? (Anyone remember the murderous Tsarnaev brothers?) So what that the CSEC, NSA and Britain’s GCHQ can invade, unchecked, every aspect of our lives in the electronic ether? So what that together these agencies can, as The Guardian newspaper aptly put it, “harvest, store, and analyze millions of phone calls, emails and search engine queries,” every day? So what that they can keep that information about you for however long they like? So what that they break every bit of encryption you might use to afford you even the illusion of security?

I think what Shorten and Snowden have done is a courageous and eloquent rebuttal to the so-what crowd. This stuff does matter, and we need to know about it. We need to know about it because publicly the powers that be insist, like Boisvert, that the CSEC and its sister agencies exist to protect you and me from the bad guys. But we now know, courtesy of Shorten and Snowden, that we’re the real targets. They’re spying on us.

- And finally, Dr. Dawg discusses Canada's ignominious week resulting from the Cons' choice to use government resources for the exclusive benefit of private resource extractors:

Doing some industrial espionage in Brazil for private corporations—and getting caught. Instructing the Maldives on how to run clean elections. Threatening the Commonwealth.

Why is the Canadian state running errands for mining companies? Well, it’s not the first time, of course. Our trade alliance with the bloody narco-state of Colombia was based upon mining interests. The deep-sixing of a private member’s bill to enforce mining company ethics abroad is another example. (No surprise, the Harper government was supported by the Liberals in each case.) But when our government grossly misuses the public service—CSEC is supposed to be ensuring national security, not working to enhance corporate profits—we’ve gone well past the usual pro-business politics. Even as a gofer, the state has no place in the boardrooms of the nation. And to be caught at it—thank you, Edward Snowden—is plain cringeworthy.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- David Atkins comments on the ever-growing disconnect between the interests of a few making a killing on Wall Street and the lives of people stuck in the real economy:

(T)the entirety of supply-side economic thinking is based on the idea that inflating the assets of the wealthy will lead to more jobs for working people. If inflating middle-class assets like housing leads to dangerous bubbles while boosting stock values that largely benefit the rich does nothing for the greater economy, the entire edifice of conservative economics comes crashing down.

But it's not just the way conservatives describe the economy. Even progressives and liberals in Congress use language that suggests the link between Wall Street and Main Street still exists, but that it has simply become blocked or frayed. "Gains on Wall Street haven't reached the middle class," one often hears--as if it should naturally happen but for some evil gremlin getting in the way.

There's a reason that even liberal politicians won't say the chain has been broken, and a reason why the media largely refuses to even report on the phenomenon: the implications are terrifying. If helping Wall Street doesn't actually help Main Street, then the foundations of the capitalist economy are shaken to their roots. Capitalist economics is supposed to be a virtuous circle: companies generate profits which generate reinvestment, which generates employment, which boosts demand, which in turn generates higher profits. When certain industries take on too much weight or grow obsolete, or when supply outstrips demand, there are temporary but necessary corrections called recessions that keep the system in check.

But what if profits don't generate reinvestment and companies simply hold onto the loot? What if "reinvestment" takes the form of financialization rather than real product development? What if boosting productivity means mechanization that leads to job gains, rather than job losses? What if the few job gains that do accrue, happen in countries with such depressed wages that middle-class workers in advanced economies (the ones who create the demand for high-cost, profitable products) simply cannot compete?

And what if, in order to disguise this phenomenon, policy makers attempted to bribe the public with free trade agreements that lowered the cost of electronics and plastic toys while quietly destroying jobs? What if policy makers' next step in a failing wage environment was to boost asset prices like housing so that the currently middle-class homeowner could feel artificially wealthy, all while obliterating any prospect that the next generation could afford even a modest home in areas with strong job markets without help from their parents? What if the low-skill job market deteriorated to such an extent that young people needed an outrageously expensive college education or more--and only in the "right" fields--to attain any sort of job security, all while policymakers refused to lift a finger to help make that education more affordable? And what if policy makers made it easier for underwater Americans with failing wages to take on debt via credit cards, while doing nothing to prevent predatory lenders from taking advantage of them?

In that world, the virtuous circle of capitalism becomes a death spiral. Recoveries become shorter and more jobless. Recessions and depressions become longer, even as asset markets remain curiously "healthy." This happens a few times until eventually supply-side Wile E. Coyote runs out of demand-side cliff and comes crashing at terminal velocity into the canyon below.

- Thomas Walkom highlights the Harper Cons' sellout of Canadian sovereignty - including their willingness to declare U.S. police officers operating in our country to be above Canadian law:

The U.S. government wants American police agents working in Canada exempted from Canadian law. If this is a surprise, it shouldn’t be.

The secret American demand was unearthed this week by Canadian Press reporters looking into Ottawa’s much ballyhooed border deal with the U.S.
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A 2012 RCMP briefing note obtained by The Canadian Press points out that Washington and Ottawa have been at daggers drawn over whether U.S. agents and police officers who commit crimes in Canada would be subject to Canadian law.
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Under a 1951 treaty, even Canada has ceded some rights over U.S. and other NATO troops operating inside this country.

But the 1951 treaty does give Canada the right to arrest and try NATO soldiers or their dependants who have committed non-military crimes such as murder.

It seems now that the U.S. wants more. According to the RCMP memo, Washington is demanding that its police agents operating in Canada be entirely exempt from Canadian criminal law.

- And Dr. Dawg provides the appropriate response - if coupled with justified concern that the Harper Cons are perfectly happy to allow the U.S. to control Canada with impunity.

- Jeff Jedras offers his take on party discipline and the role of elected representatives:

I also think a larger issue is one of public perception, or misconception, about the role of the parliamentarian in our political process. Technically, we're electing an individual representative to speak for us and act on our behalf; there may be a party name on the ballot, but we're electing Joe Blow the individual. More and more though, people see the individual and secondary and irrelevant next to the party brand and vote based on the leader. This is because discipline has rendered the individual indistinguishable from their peers, further fueling the argument for discipline because the individual owes their position to the party and leader, not the people...

Several times during the debate, party leaders were called to “give” or “allow” more freedom for parliamentarians. It’s not something for leaders to give – parliamentarians have the freedom already. They just need to take it.

- Don Lieber discusses how Suncor's rip-and-ship plan includes a deliberate choice to cut down on safety checks and maintenance in order to extract as much bitumen as possible - presumably before the damage done by insufficient planning and maintenance catches up.

- Finally, Doug Cuthand criticizes the Cons' narrow focus on colonial history - pointing out the gap between a multi-million dollar campaign surrounding the War of 1812 and a complete lack of recognition of the treaty relationship between First Nations and the Crown.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Linda McQuaig discusses Stephen Harper's class war:

Canadians don’t like Harper’s anti-worker agenda — when they notice it. That’s why there’s been such a public outcry since the temporary foreign worker program was exposed as a mechanism by which the Harper government has flooded the country with hundreds of thousands of cheap foreign workers, thereby suppressing Canadian wages in the interests of helping corporations.

Apart from this clumsy fiasco, the Harperites have been adroit at keeping their anti-worker bias under the radar. Instead, they’ve directed their attacks against unions, portraying them as undemocratic organizations run by “union bosses” who ignore the interests of ordinary workers.

It’s revealing that this harsh critique of unions largely comes from business think-tanks and conservative politicians — folks who aren’t generally known for championing workers’ rights but who apparently can’t sleep at night at the thought workers aren’t being well represented by the people they elect to run their unions.

Of course, the real reason Harper attacks unions is because they’ve been effective in promoting the interests of working people over the past century. By establishing norms for higher wages and benefits in the workplace, and by pushing governments to implement universal social programs, unions are largely the reason we have a middle class in this country.

- Meanwhile, Carol Goar laments that Ontario's Wynne Libs chose not to make a meaningful effort to cut down on poverty. And Dr. Dawg documents the federal Libs' latest attempt to be indistinguishable from the Harper Cons.

- In the latest in conservative transparency, Alison Redford is covering up her own government's pipeline safety report - presumably to avoid the possibility that its conclusions might get noticed in the review processes for new pipelines. Michael Harris discusses the Cons' strategy of blaming their own scandals on unnamed bureaucrats (who are of course prevented from defending themselves with the truth). And the Star finds that the federal government won't answer questions about $2.4 billion in consulting contracts - while contracts ranging up to nine figures seem to have bought the public little more than the contractor's silence:

(S)everal departments and agencies refused to say what services they bought as part of the roughly $700 million in taxpayer money they spent on management consulting.

Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC), in charge of delivering social programs and services, has billed more than $420 million since 2004.

One of the department’s most recognizable divisions, Service Canada, has spent another $129 million for management consulting — more than 70 per cent of which was given to a single recruitment company, according to the government’s contract records.

What consulting work was done for all that money? A spokeswoman with HRSDC refused to say.

The company, Quantum Management Services, was just as tight-lipped.

“I’m not going to answer your questions,” said Anne Cote, a vice-president in the company’s Ottawa office. 

- Fortunately, at least some individuals are working to shed lights on the increasingly-hidden operations of our state and corporate sectors. And Dennis Gruending highlights a few of the examples noted by the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.

- Finally, Joe Bower discusses the effect of standardized testing in Alberta - which has enabled the Fraser Institute to take pot-shots at a school for student parents based on its failure to be sufficiently choosy in recruiting pupils.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- George Monbiot reminds us that the mere fact that neoliberal economic theory has failed by any rational measure doesn't mean there won't still be plenty of well-funded efforts to promote it at the expense of social interests:

The policies that made the global monarchs so rich are the policies squeezing everyone else. This is not what the theory predicted. Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and their disciples – in a thousand business schools, the IMF, the World Bank, the OECD and just about every modern government – have argued that the less governments tax the rich, defend workers and redistribute wealth, the more prosperous everyone will be. Any attempt to reduce inequality would damage the efficiency of the market, impeding the rising tide that lifts all boats. The apostles have conducted a 30-year global experiment, and the results are now in. Total failure.
...
Throughout the OECD countries taxation has become more regressive: the rich pay less, the poor pay more. The result, the neoliberals claimed, would be that economic efficiency and investment would rise, enriching everyone. The opposite occurred. As taxes on the rich and on business diminished, the spending power of both the state and poorer people fell, and demand contracted. The result was that investment rates declined, in step with companies' expectations of growth.

The neoliberals also insisted that unrestrained inequality in incomes and flexible wages would reduce unemployment. But throughout the rich world both inequality and unemployment have soared. The recent jump in unemployment in most developed countries – worse than in any previous recession of the past three decades – was preceded by the lowest level of wages as a share of GDP since the second world war. Bang goes the theory. It failed for the same obvious reason: low wages suppress demand, which suppresses employment.

As wages stagnated, people supplemented their income with debt. Rising debt fed the deregulated banks, with consequences of which we are all aware. The greater inequality becomes, the UN report finds, the less stable the economy and the lower its rates of growth. The policies with which neoliberal governments seek to reduce their deficits and stimulate their economies are counter-productive.
...
I have no dog in this race, except a belief that no one, in this sea of riches, should have to be poor. But staring dumbfounded at the lessons unlearned in Britain, Europe and the US, it strikes me that the entire structure of neoliberal thought is a fraud. The demands of the ultra-rich have been dressed up as sophisticated economic theory and applied regardless of the outcome. The complete failure of this world-scale experiment is no impediment to its repetition. This has nothing to do with economics. It has everything to do with power.

- Meanwhile, EKOS finds (PDF) that Canadians see income inequality as the most important issue facing our country - even as the Cons go out of their way to exacerbate it.

- Dr. Dawg writes about the Ontario government's cynical attempt to use the cover of the "Honour of the Crown" as an excuse for running roughshod over First Nations. And Karl Nerenberg offers up a few different partial perspectives on the difficulties in trying to improve the well-being of First Nations - while hinting at the fact that the truth involves some appreciation of multiple barriers to improvement.

- Finally, both Jennifer Graham and Aaron Wherry discuss the NDP's Lethbridge Declaration process. But I'll suggest going directly to the source - as there are plenty of events coming up over the next few weeks.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Murray Dobbin connects a pattern of economic trends which has seen more and more wealth concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people to the elimination of public discussion about work life:

The neo-liberal revolution of the 1980s proposed unfettered capitalism -- privatization, a downsized state, deregulation, free trade, low taxes and last but not least so-called "labour flexibility." That convenient euphemism simply means reducing the power, and independence of labour through cuts to EI and welfare and maintaining high unemployment levels that suppress wages. All of these initiatives were driven by globalization -- the hyper-competition of a voracious capitalism driven by finance capital.

But globalization is in its death throes and national economies are back. Those countries able to take advantage of robust domestic economies will fare better than those still trying to compete in a world of ever-increasing trade which no longer exists. Domestic economies thrive on high wage jobs and citizens who actually have money to spend and savings to fall back on when things get tough. They thrive when workers thrive -- when they feel valued, have enough leisure time to rest between work days, and are able to fully separate work from family life and, of course, when they have access to child care and elder care.
...
The days of ever-expanding trade are over but suddenly that strong domestic economy -- a safety net at a time of global recession -- has been severely weakened. Corporate CEOs and governments show no sign of having figured this out so the misery is likely to continue. Unions are scarcely any more attuned. Perhaps they should base their organizing and bargaining efforts more on work-life balance issues and demonstrate that they, at least, understand the problem.

- But then, Dr. Dawg notes that another problem has contributed to our continued corporatist drift - and it will take far more discussion about what we can do better (rather than merely what we're trying to preserve) to truly motivate citizens who have tuned out petty squabbles over what slightly different corporate-friendly options are available.

- And Sheila Pratt reports on Environics polling showing both that conservative economic messages have little resonance with the public at large, and that a strong majority of Canadians support protest movements to ensure citizens' needs are better reflected in public policy.

- Meanwhile, Bill Tieleman points out that continued poverty and inequality are antithetical to the spirit that should animate the Christmas season.

- Finally, Susan Delacourt laments the selection of Luka Magnotta as Canada's newsmaker of the year.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Jim Stanford is the latest to point out that the Cons see accountability and transparency solely as punishments to be inflicted on their perceived enemies, not as values to be applied to their own decision-making:

Following Mr. Hiebert's logic, any organization in society that benefits from a tax expenditure (no matter how indirect) should be required to post similarly detailed and intrusive financial and expenditure data on a government website. Here is the current listing of federal tax expenditures. Every organization connected to any expenditure listed in that catalogue (whether the personal, corporate, or HST sections) should be ready for the precedent set by C-377. A partial list of "supported" institutions would include: every small business, anyone who owns farming or fishing property, any company that declared a capital gain, any logging company, any company claiming accelerated depreciation, any company offering flow-through shares (and any investor owning one), anyone with an RRSP or RESP, any mutual fund or life insurer, and financial service provider. In short, everyone and every business is "supported" by the taxpayer, just like unions. Hence each owes us an equivalent degree of accountability and transparency. Some critics of C-377 from within the business community actually worried about the precedent set by this legislation, one day being applied to them.

Another point I've used lately is the asymmetry of the disclosure requirement given the nature of the relationship between unions (who have to disclose anything over $5,000) and businesses (who do not, if they are privately held, have to disclose anything). Unions by their nature confront employers in many bargaining, representation, and organizing situations. Under C-377, the employer will now much detail about how much the union is spending, and on what. In many cases, that will be valuable intelligence for a company resisting a union organizing drive, bargaining demand, or representation case. The union, however, knows nothing about how much the company is spending. That creates a very uneven playing field.

Imagine if the TD Bank had to disclose everything it spent over $5,000 on. As one wag put it on Twitter yesterday, all those fancy Bay Street restaurants would be out of business in a week if every bill in excess of $5,000 had to be posted on a government website!

- Michael Harris and John Baglow both point out the sad contrast between the Cons' empty gestures, and their lack of action to improve the living conditions for aboriginal Canadians. But while Stephen Harper has callously dismissed plenty of similar messages before, the developing activism of aboriginal citizens may be rather more difficult to ignore:



- Carol Goar discusses the Caledon Institute's proposal to extend the Working Income Tax Benefit to meaningfully reduce poverty among lower-income Canadians. But Armine Yalnizyan rightly recognizes that we can't meaningfully address poverty without seeing it in the context of greater inequality:

(I)mproving the lives of the poor means providing either more opportunity or more cold, hard cash. That involves money, which is where follow-through usually falls off, because it means some form of redistribution. And that brings us back to income inequality.

The IMF has warned that higher inequality is correlated to shorter spells of growth, and more market volatility. The Conference Board of Canada cautions that Canada’s levels of inequality mean squandered potential. Just this week, TD Bank CEO Ed Clarke acknowledged inequality in Canada has been growing for the last 30 years, raising a challenge for society that demands discussion.

Whether you want less poverty or a more robust economy, greater innovation or improved productivity, better life chances or a healthier democracy, the way forward in Canada involves reducing income inequality.

- Finally, pogge points out that the same Con government currently insisting on social benefit cuts due to projected cost increases had no interest whatsoever in making sure that past surpluses were used to actually fund the benefits - signalling that they're really more interested in attacking benefits for the sake of attacking benefits rather than ensuring that they're sustainable.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- The Economist adds a noteworthy voice to the chorus calling for greater tax enforcement to ensure the corporate elite pays its fair share:

Characterising this steady financing as short-term lending is “the ultimate example of form over substance” and undermines a fundamental tenet of American tax policy, huffed Mr Levin. When an HP executive tried to insist the manoeuvre did not constitute profit repatriation, the senator wielded an internal HP document in which it was discussed—in the repatriation-strategy section. The Senate investigators said they suspected other companies were doing the same thing but couldn’t say how prevalent the practice was.

Who to blame for all this darting through loopholes? To no one’s surprise, Mr Levin pointed the finger mostly at the companies that engage in “tax alchemy”.
...
The rule-setters and enforcers deserve their share of the blame. It is true that enforcement of arm’s-length deals is tricky because no two intangible assets are quite the same, making it hard to establish a fair price. Moreover, the IRS has to rely in part on the taxpaying company’s own projections of cash flows, risks and so on. But the agency leans too often on the side of leniency. It does not help that transfer-pricing regulations have grown unwieldy. Some experts describe them as unworkable.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board also took some flak at the hearing. Jack Ciesielski, an independent accounting expert, was scathing about a FASB exception that allows firms to avoid reporting and reserving for American tax liabilities for foreign earnings if they plan to invest these “permanently” overseas—a loophole that they continue to exploit even as they lobby for a tax break so they can bring those same profits home.

By focusing on a few striking cases, Mr Levin and his staff have increased their chances of making a splash with an issue that many find mind-numbingly technical. And profit-shifting is, as he put it, doubly problematic today, given the fragility of the economy and the fact that corporate-tax receipts are at historic lows as a percentage of federal revenue. Expect the IRS to take a dimmer view of avoidance schemes going forward. Whether it will prove a match for the multinationals’ phalanxes of lawyers and beancounters is another matter.

- In case there was any doubt how the power imbalance between employers and workers in Canada is being exploited, CJME confirms that gas station attendants in Saskatchewan - as in Ontario and elsewhere - are being encouraged to risk life and limb to avoid being docked pay based on gas theft. And Wendy Stueck reports on the unsafe living conditions facing temporary agricultural workers in British Columbia.

- For those worried that Robocon wasn't being investigated beyond the most glaring case in Guelph, Stephen Maher and Glen McGregor confirm that Elections Canada is looking into plenty more citizens' concerns.

- Dr. Dawg and Colby Cosh tear into the Globe and Mail and its public editor for a pitiful response to compelling concerns about plagiarism.

- Finally, Rick Mercer rants as to why we need to rant more often. But I'll add that while a good rant can help to define a problem, the words don't go far if not paired with some plan to solve it.

Thursday Evening Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Michael Lewis writes a fascinating piece on Barack Obama's life as president. And I'd think it's particularly noteworthy to consider Obama's self-discipline both as a model for self-improvement in theory, and as a risk factor in opening up a perception gap between a leader and his citizens:

“I want to play that game again,” I said. “Assume that in 30 minutes you will stop being president. I will take your place. Prepare me. Teach me how to be president.”

This was the third time I’d put the question to him, in one form or another. The first time, a month earlier in this same cabin, he’d had a lot of trouble getting his mind around the idea that I, not he, was president. He’d started by saying something he knew to be dull and expected but that—he insisted—was nevertheless perfectly true. “Here is what I would tell you,” he’d said. “I would say that your first and principal task is to think about the hopes and dreams the American people invested in you. Everything you are doing has to be viewed through this prism. And I tell you what every president … I actually think every president understands this responsibility. I don’t know George Bush well. I know Bill Clinton better. But I think they both approached the job in that spirit.” Then he added that the world thinks he spends a lot more time worrying about political angles than he actually does.

This time he covered a lot more ground and was willing to talk about the mundane details of presidential existence. “You have to exercise,” he said, for instance. “Or at some point you’ll just break down.” You also need to remove from your life the day-to-day problems that absorb most people for meaningful parts of their day. “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits,” he said. “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.” He mentioned research that shows the simple act of making decisions degrades one’s ability to make further decisions. It’s why shopping is so exhausting. “You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can’t be going through the day distracted by trivia.”

- I very much hope I'm right in suspecting that Ezra Levant's attempts to foment hatred against Roma Canadians will fall flat based on their sheer absurdity. But Karl Nerenberg and Dr. Dawg are right to make sure Levant's attacks don't go unanswered.

- Meanwhile, Bob Hepburn notes the sad irony in a Prime Minister winning an award for "democracy, freedom and human rights" while fighting each of those principles tooth and nail at home and abroad.

- And Laurel Sutherlin points out how the Trans-Pacific Partnership being pushed by Harper among others looks to leave a gaping hole in the democratic department:

The TPP is called a ‘trade agreement,’ but in actuality it is a long-dreamed-of template for implementing a binding system of global corporate governance as bold as anything the world’s wealthiest elite has attempted before. Of the 26 chapters under negotiation, only a few have to do directly with trade. The other chapters enshrine new rights and privileges for major corporations while weakening the power of nation states to oppose them. The TPP essentially proposes to establish a parallel system of justice where companies can sue countries in a tribunal of judges composed of unaccountable international trade lawyers with little to no process for appeal.

This wild bastardization of the concept of justice endangers everything from affordable medicines, internet freedoms and intellectual property rights to democratically enacted labor laws and environmental protections. And that’s not to mention the massive outsourcing of middle class jobs from the US to countries like Vietnam and Brunei.

This isn’t just a bad trade agreement, it’s a wish list of the 1%—a worldwide corporate power grab of enormous proportions. 

 - Finally, Andrew Jackson rightly challenges the theory that handouts to the corporate sector pay for themselves - at least for anybody who doesn't see increases in untaxed corporate income with no associated social benefits as an unbridled good.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Alice interviews Allan Gregg about his sharp criticism of anti-evidence politics, and finds some optimism on Gregg's part that clear falsehoods will eventually be treated with due disdain:

Q. So, one of your early mentors, [US pollster] Richard Wirthlin, he’s arguing that values trumped issues in the work that he did for Ronald Reagan. He told George Lakoff that this was how Reagan managed to get elected: that people wanted to vote for him based on an appeal to values, in spite of most voters at the time disagreeing with his policies.
So, that being the case, that an appeal values will trump reason every time, how is it that you’re so sure we could use reason and knowledge to “fight back”, which was your closing call?
A. It’s the power, you know, it’s the power of 2 + 2 = 4. It’s irrefutable. It’s not very emotionally compelling; it’s not something that causes people to stand up and give you a standing ovation. But over time, it will prevail. Dick is right to the extent that people make their judgements using irrational criteria in a very rational way. I mean, choice – political choice, consumer choice, what have you – is a fairly rational intersection of self-interest and self-image. People ask themselves these two things: (i) is it like me – self-image, and (ii) is it for me – self-interest. And if the answer to both those things is “yes”, they’re likely to be chosen. But the way you transmit “I am like you” could be “you and I love children, or puppy-dogs” as opposed to “you and I both believe that we have to have a guaranteed annual income program”. So, yeah, there always is the element of the irrational in the rational, I just think it’s something we have to keep our guard up for.
Q. But is it also maybe that “you and I both dislike that other person” or “both fear this phenomenon”?
A. [laughs] Well, there’s always that as well, yes.
Q. Because that’s the basis of wedge politics.
A. Well it is, but I’ve always feared those who try to keep the population ignorant, or try to misdirect them, or fool them. I’ve got no problem with right-wingers. I’ve got no problem with left-wingers. I just want them to be honest, and to base their ideology, and put it out there and have it challenged by facts and reason.

- Meanwhile, Mia Rabson writes that notwithstanding incidents like the shooting at the PQ's election-night party, we shouldn't let fear stand between our leaders and the general public:

Each year, it seems security around our politicians tightens.

The federal government is spending $9 million this year to add new barricades on Parliament Hill.
Last month, a man heading for a regular paddle on a Toronto-area river was stopped and frisked by local police because Prime Minister Stephen Harper was campaigning across the river.

In August, newly minted Manitoba Opposition Leader Brian Pallister asked Elections Manitoba for an exemption from publishing his home address in his nomination papers for security reasons. He is the first leader to request such an exemption.

But compared to the high level of security around American politicians, we are still open. Security is there but most often unobtrusive.

It's the way it should be.

The more security we are forced to bear, the more difficult it becomes for the average person to engage with elected officials, and the more difficult it is for those officials to engage with the public.

- But then, as Jim Stanford notes, it isn't only in politics that there's a push to insulate a privileged few from the masses - as even publicly-funded airport security systems are set up to filter out first-class travelers from mere ordinary people.

- And finally, Dr. Dawg points out why there's ample reason for concern that some voices (which are more and more seen as representing a standard right-wing take) are determined to stoke fear - with no regard for the likelihood of resulting violence.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Dr. Dawg tears into the National Post's gratuitous union-bashing:

(W)hen it comes to unions, a careless disregard for facts seems to affect journos like a disease. They fall back on their prejudices, cutting and pasting their ready-made anti-union copy in their sleep.
...
Unions have one of the only remaining institutionally democratic structures in Canada. Union leadership is far more accountable than the Harper government, held to much stricter standards, and able to move forward only with membership agreement—the latter, of course, being the union.

Members are just ordinary working people cooperating with other ordinary working people. The necessary political and structural changes needed to confront our sworn enemies effectively will take place only with their consent. But it’s precisely that democratic potential that scares the hell out of secretive governments, rigidly hierarchical and undemocratic corporations, and their media mouthpieces. Nothing new here at the National Post—let’s move along, brothers and sisters, and give them something to really make them squeal.

- Thomas Walkom weighs in on the Kitchener-Waterloo byelection that elected NDP MPP Catherine Fife. And while I don't think his mooted move to the right is inevitable, it's certainly worth pointing out the virtuous cycle that comes from higher-profile candidates stepping up to join the NDP's team (and being rewarded with electoral success).

- Dean Bennett reports that the National Energy Board has refused to allow questioning about insurance and cleanup plans involving any oil spill resulting from the Northern Gateway pipeline. And Brian Morton notes that lives are apparently no object when it comes to the Cons' desire to get out of the job of safeguarding our coasts.

- Finally, Kayle Hatt analyzes the NDP's 2011 Quebec support and concludes that the party's gains in fact came mostly from federalist or soft sovereigntist voters.

Sunday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your weekend.

- Lana Payne criticizes two forms of cash hoarding: both the assets sitting idle in corporate coffers, and the money that's been funneled offshore by wealthy individuals:

By the end of each episode (of "Hoarders")...the audience finds out if the featured hoarders have been able to get their behaviour under control or if they have “fallen into the deep end of this painful disease.”
The difference between these hoarders and those we have been reading about in recent days in newspapers like The Guardian and The Globe and Mail is that one group acquires “a large number of possessions that others would consider useless,” and the other acquires possessions of value like cash and assets.

But both suffer from the inability to discard their hoarded possessions.

Take corporate Canada. Progressive economists have been complaining for some time about their cash and asset hoarding. Canada’s Governor of the Bank of Canada, Mark Carney, has also been critical of corporate Canada’s hoarding practices, saying there is no reason keeping Canadian companies from investing.

Certainly they have been given incentive enough to do so. But billions in corporate tax cuts have instead been stockpiled on top of their more than half a trillion dollars in cash reserves, rather than invested in the economy.

 - The Star-Phoenix editorial board worries that the Council of the Federation's attempts to encourage cooperation on health care will come to nothing if we can't count on a federal government to take on exactly the leadership role the Harper Cons have abandoned:

Although eight years ago Ottawa was setting conditions on its grants and even talking about a national pharmacare program, including a universal bulk-buying strategy to control costs, the Harper government is clear about its disinclination to be a big part of Canada's flagship social contract.

Without any federal leadership, Canadians can expect their health system, like the dream of a national energy strategy, to be sacrificed at the altar of narrow-minded provincial politics.

- Dr. Dawg highlights the absurdity of the RCMP labeling anybody who dares to express concern about an anti-environment government and its resource-sector puppeteers as a security threat.

- Finally, I don't expect the suggestion to get far for a multitude of reasons. But Ralph Surette's proposal that younger Liberals (including Justin Trudeau) ought to turn their individual efforts to building the NDP at least offers a more plausible means to unite the vast majority of Canadian progressives than formal merger plans which would inevitably result in years of wrangling among two separate party structures.