Now that's an NDP issue

This year's poll numbers on bank mergers are out, and Layton has to like what he sees:

The Environics Research Group survey found that 56 per cent of Canadians polled said they thought bank mergers weren't in the public interest - almost double the 32 per cent that said such deals would be good for the country.

Fully 36 per cent said their dislike of bank mergers was "very strong" or "strong" - more than double the 17 per cent that said they felt "strong" support for permitting such business deals.

That opposition softened only if Ottawa set strong conditions before approving mergers.

Those might include a federal demand that merging banks must guarantee no branches would be closed in small towns and rural areas. Or Ottawa could encourage greater competition from credit unions and small banks.

Similar conditions have been suggested by some opposition MPs, with little response from the federal Liberals, said NDP finance critic Judy Wasylycia-Leis.

The interesting part to me is just how obvious it is that the Liberals are trying to take a side even while refusing to pursue it - can it be an accident that the poll was carried out in January, but is just now becoming public under a Freedom of Information request? Fortunately, it's public now...and it's obvious that the NDP is squarely in line with public opinion on the issue. The key now is to make sure that the issue stays in the public eye as an added reason not to give the Libs a majority this winter.

On interrelatedness

Ian McKay has an interesting piece at Rabble on the essence of leftism:

Do what is possible, one issue at a time? Of course — there's no realistic alternative. But you will most likely soon reach conclusions about the patterns of opposition and support that shape each and every one of these issues and connect them together. You may well decide that the persistent general reactions behind that specific pattern also need to be understood and changed. You will start to see not just a random pattern of problems, but a system underlying them.

Every leftist, at some level, believes and acts on this insight: there are ways of explaining not just the individual problems but the connections between them. Once grasped in thought, these connections have to be transformed in reality. To tackle even one problem — eliminating HIV/AIDS, preventing global environmental meltdown — means struggling to puzzle out why that problem arose in the first place. As soon as you start pursuing the process of figuring each problem out, and connecting it with other problems, you have started down the road to leftism.

I'm not sure that I'd agree with all the implications of the piece - surely it's possible to have a reasoned, unified right-wing (or centrist) view of the world based on different founding assumptions, and it's obvious that many right-wingers use very similar language to McKay's in justifying some of their policies.

That said, I naturally agree with McKay that the leftist view is the more plausible of the options once one takes a look at the bigger picture. Give it a read.

(Edit: typo.)

A taxing effort

Earlier, I mentioned that I'd try to wade into the question of what policies the NDP should be pursuing in its next election platform. I'll start today with an area that the party generally stays away from, namely that of tax policy.

The current tax policy is found at p. 60-61 of Platform 2004. There are some great ideas there: full indexing, removing the GST from essentials, increasing the child tax benefit, imposing an inheritance tax, closing loopholes and refusing tax treaties with tax havens.

While I like these ideas, some of the other included elements are plainly in the wrong part of the platform, including imposing proper environmental fines on corporations and removing the tax-deductible status of those fines. Especially with the next election due to occur just after the Gomery report, there's going to be a heavy emphasis on accountability, both in government and elsewhere. These proposals should be defined and pressed as an issue of corporate accountability, not placed where they can be seen as an unfounded tax grab.

More fundamentally, the current tax platform seems to dance around the edges of the taxation system more than it demands substantive change. In my view, that's a mistake. Taxes are an inherently unpopular necessity in government, and there's much political hay to be made by validating popular frustration on this point. By defending the status quo in any significant part, the NDP ends up on the wrong side of the frustration.

There's no reason for that to be the case. Instead, the NDP should leave the Liberals to try to defend all the iniquities and complexities in the current tax system, and put forward a proposal for an overhaul and simplification of the federal tax system.

The first step should be a clause-by-clause analysis of the Income Tax Act, scrapping any deduction that doesn't have a demonstrable positive effect. This scrutiny has already been applied to social programs as part of the '90s budget cuts; why shouldn't it apply to tax breaks as well?

After that analysis is applied, tax rates should be set so as to remain roughly revenue-neutral, but with a slightly more progressive slant. The end result will be a lot of people not only paying less taxes, but also having to put in less effort to do so (since the Act will then be simpler to apply). The tradeoff will be relatively slight increases at the top end, as well as an end to pointless deductions.

Alongside that theme, all of the ideas included in the 2004 platform can then become part of the reform package. In particular, concepts such as closing loopholes and imposing an inheritance tax should seem a lot more palatable when the NDP can put forward concrete examples of how most people will see reduced taxes.

I understand that some voters might cringe when the words "NDP" and "tax" are put together - and I'm sure that's a large part of the reason why tax policy was buried in page 60 of the platform. But in order to ever present itself as a future government, the NDP has to tackle that problem head-on, and there may not be a better time for it. With Bush's call for U.S. tax reform, the issue is already somewhat in the public eye, and the Cons will surely make their usual call for a flatter tax structure.

In that context, somebody needs to point out that tax reform doesn't need to involve giveaways to the top end. No other Canadian party can plausibly combine a reform position on taxes with a progressive one; the combination should be a winner for the NDP.

See you in court

For those hoping to see Canada take the issue of softwood lumber to court in the U.S., you've got your wish:

In a lawsuit filed in New York with the U.S. International Trade Court, Ottawa and the Canadian softwood lumber industry are demanding that ''tens of millions of dollars'' in import duties already funnelled to U.S. industries be handed back immediately.

That could easily soar to more than $5-billion in duties collected from Canadian lumber producers being illegally handed over to the U.S. softwood lumber industry in coming years, the Canadian complaint said...

The Canadian lawsuit says that even under American law, the so-called Byrd Amendment -- which diverts punitive import duties from foreign importers to allegedly suffering American industries -- does not apply to Canadian industries because of NAFTA.

There's some merit to the move, though it's not apparent why it would just be starting now; there's no reason why this particular suit couldn't have been launched from the moment money was handed over under the Byrd Amendment.

That said, there may be some downside to this now, both in opportunity cost and in the risk of a negative decision.

On opportunity cost, the article rightly suggests that we won't know for quite some time how long the case would take to get before a judge. But it's easy to guess that it would take at least months, and perhaps years if the U.S. decides to obstruct the process. This may thus be another chance for the U.S. to defer its obligations without immediate consequence.

On the merits, an American court will naturally be expected to see the issue on the terms most favourable to the United States. While courts in most countries would be very likely to recognize the supremacy of international agreements, that may not be so in the U.S., where Republicans have been threatening to impeach judges for applying international law, and where Bushco has been going around for years arguing that current presidential decrees trump the U.S. Constitution. In that environment, can we be the least bit confident that the decision to ratify NAFTA will be given precedence over more recent protectionism?

So, the process will be long (if nothing else, long enough to push it past the next Canadian election to make it seem that the Liberals are taking meaningful action), and it may give the U.S. another domestic precedent to wield against the NAFTA and WTO tribunals.

With that in mind, the real merit in launching the suit is purely symbolic - it's Martin's way of taking some action alongside the heated words of the last week. Which is well enough as a signal, but there's a lot more yet that needs to be done.

Points worth considering

I doubt that the view of Canada's nurses will get as much attention as that of the CMA when it comes to the health care debate. But judging from the Globe's web comment, we'd do well to listen to the Canadian Nurses Association:

The option to allow more private care as a solution to problems in the health system may, at first, seem tempting. But it is a penny-wise, pound-foolish and short-sighted decision that flies in the face of evidence. Waiting times for diagnostic and surgical procedures, often the impetus for debate on the system, represent only a tiny part of what a comprehensive, responsive health system needs to be...

We can no longer tolerate short-sighted decisions that are based on the opinion polls of today, with no vision for tomorrow. It is difficult to transform our disease-focused, medical-care system to a health system focused on prevention and wellness while also meeting the need of providing curative care for our fellow Canadians. But the struggle cannot be overcome until all the parties involved are willing to look honestly at the reasons for the problems we face and not opt for facile and potentially destructive solutions such as privatization.

Agreed on all points, in particular the need for a greater focus on prevention which will reduce treatment costs in the long run. But we'll need to win the debate on public control of the system before we can start planning how best to apply that control.

Punishing the Whistleblower

I haven't seen much elsewhere on it, but this should be relatively big news as a prime example of Bushco in action:

A high-level contracting official who has been a vocal critic of the Pentagon's decision to give Halliburton Co. a multibillion-dollar, no-bid contract for work in Iraq, was removed from her job by the Army Corps of Engineers, effective Saturday.

Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock, commander of the Army Corps, told Bunnatine H. Greenhouse last month that she was being removed from the senior executive service, the top rank of civilian government employees, because of poor performance reviews. Greenhouse's attorney, Michael D. Kohn, appealed the decision Friday in a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, saying it broke an earlier commitment to suspend the demotion until a "sufficient record" was available to address her allegations.


The Army said last October that it would refer her complaints to the Defense Department's inspector general. The failure to abide by the agreement and the circumstances of the removal "are the hallmark of illegal retaliation," Kohn wrote to Rumsfeld. He said the review Strock cited to justify his action "was conducted by the very subjects" of Greenhouse's allegations, including the general.

The above paragraphs summarize the story pretty well, but even they underestimate the injustice of Greenhouse's dismissal. Later on, the WaPo article says the following of Greenhouse's work record:

Greenhouse has developed a reputation among those in both government and industry as being a stickler for the rules. To her critics, she's a foot-dragging, inflexible bureaucrat. To her supporters, she's been a staunch defender of the taxpayers' dime.

The striking question to me is this: what better quality could there be in a contracting official than an insistence on making sure that transactions are properly conducted? Nothing in the article indicates that there was any problem with Greenhouse aside from an unwillingness to lend her approval to questionable contracts. That's exactly the kind of employee who can help to prevent and root out corruption. But apparently such skills are considered a negative at the moment.

Only in the Bush administration could following the rules be grounds for dismissal. We can only hope that an organization with a higher ethical standard will recognize Greenhouse's skills...and that there won't be too much more harm done now that Bushco has made itself even less accountable.

Monitoring the premises

Now this is the kind of military investment that's actually worthwhile:

The Canadian Space Agency is buying $400-million worth of Arctic imagery from Richmond, B.C.-based MacDonald Dettwiler Associates, which owns the soon-to-be-launched Radarsat 2 polar orbiter.

The satellite, scheduled to be airborne next summer, is expected to operate over a seven-year lifespan, said navy Lt.-Cmdr. Robert Quinn, project director.

The federal investment is less than the cost of a new icebreaker — and the satellite can see in all weather, day or night, 365 days a year, Defence officials say.

There's a long way to go in actually defending the Arctic. In addition to putting a lot more effort into the manpower and equipment to enforce our sovereignty, the longer-term plan should include launching Canada's own satellites rather than relying on private-sector observation.

But it'll take time to determine the best possible means to do so, and in the meantime this deal is a significant step in the right direction.

Taking charge

Layton isn't quite calling any shots yet - but his saying "jump" on softwood lumber at least has Martin considering Layton's plans:

"While the government does not believe that the recall of Parliament is warranted at this time, it believes that we cannot exclude such a possibility between now and the scheduled resumption" (said Martin spokesman Marc Roy).

The comment came after NDP Leader Jack Layton publicly appealed to Martin to reconvene the House of Commons immediately to deal with the latest developments in the long-simmering softwood dispute.

Layton, in an interview from Burnaby, B.C., said that getting the Commons back in session would "send a clear signal to the United States that Canadians regard this as a very serious matter."

It would also put pressure on Martin to come up with a comprehensive strategy for dealing with the affair, said the New Democrat leader.

It'll be particularly interesting to see whether any prominent Liberals also take Layton's side on the question of whether export tariffs on oil are justified as a response. In any event, Jack's position plainly has the ear of both the public and the PM - the question now is whether it'll lead to government action.

Consumer response

The CP covers some consumer responses to higher gas prices. The sad part is that it took a huge rise in gas prices to move people toward such common-sense measures as buying more efficient cars:

"I went home and figured out exactly how much (a Chevrolet Avalanche) was going to cost every week in gas and it did not make sense," Schwingenschloegl said.

So he returned the shiny new truck to the dealer and bought a Mazda 3 compact car...

Schwingenschloegl, who estimated he drives up to 50,000 kilometres a year, said he'll spend half of what he would have on gas than if he kept the truck.

Or taking the time to arrange a car pool:

Steven Schoeffler, who operates the carpool website eRideshare.com, said with the recent spike in gas prices he has seen record increases in the number of new listings on his page with 69 new listings in a single day, nearly double the previous record.

Now if people kept up with these sorts of ideas at all times, gas prices would probably be a lot lower to begin with.

Unfortunately, the article doesn't provide much reason for optimism, as the purchaser of the more efficient car points out that he plans to get another truck just as soon as gas prices go down. All too likely, it'll take a long-term increase in gas prices to have a similar effect on consumer behaviour.

Conflict over consensus

For those holding out hope that there were still constitutional negotiations going on in Iraq, the process is over with no Sunni agreement:

Sunni Arab political leaders condemned a draft of Iraq's proposed constitution handed to them on Saturday and made last-ditch efforts to revise the document even as Shiite and Kurdish leaders insisted that it would be published without substantial changes.

The Shiite leaders said late Saturday night that they were already planning the details of the ceremony where the final document will be received by the National Assembly on Sunday afternoon...

Asked what the consequences of such a rupture might be, (a Sunni negotiator) said: "The violence will go up, the hope among the people will go down. And the extremists will be the ones who are in control of the country."

The U.S.' part in all this was to get tired of playing messenger between the Iraqi factions. This should be all the more comfort to the families of slain troops, not to mention the troops still in Iraq. Apparently Bush's vision for Iraq is worth thousands of military lives (not to mention all the Iraqi civilians killed), but it's not important enough for the U.S.' diplomatic envoys to spend any more time on actual diplomacy.

Bank of Corporate Canada

Of all the responses to the recent news of higher corporate profits, I don't recall anybody suggesting that we should try to cut down on economic activity in order to prevent them. But it's a different story when wages and tax receipts increase:

Wage growth by this measure is now running at an eight-year high of 3.4% on a year-over-year basis, up from 1.3% just four months ago -- an "unprecedented acceleration in the 15-year history of this series," Mr. Wolf said.

The rise is highly bullish for the Canadian consumer going forward, providing important offsets to higher energy prices and relief for heavily indebted consumers, Mr. Wolf said.

"But they will be treated with great concern by the Bank of Canada, whose greatest fear has arguably been that the tight labour market -- reflected in the 30-year low in the unemployment rate -- would push up wages and threaten durably higher inflation," he said. "Those fears appear to be rapidly materializing."...

Bank of Canada staff may not be the only ones sweating over the data. The higher numbers, taken directly from payroll receipts, mean the federal government will have pulled in another heavy personal tax load in June, despite protestations the surplus is not surging by the minute.

What we have here is the ultimate rebuttal to the "rising tide lifts all boats" claim that underlies most tax-cutting philosophies. Even if that were otherwise true (which is itself far from clear), the financial system is now set up to make sure that the expected cause and effect can't happen. When the rising tide actually arrives, the Bank of Canada is there to drain the reservoir just as the benefits were about to be felt society-wide.

For those riding the initial wave, it's a great system: the ultimate effect is to promote top-end gains while ensuring that most Canadians don't keep up. For everybody else, though, the main effect is to hurt the relative purchasing power of non-wealthy Canadians compared to wealthy ones.

All the more reason why most people should want and expect a calmer sea in the first place. After all, much fewer people get thrown overboard that way.

The NDP's direction

Awhile back, Koby posted a list of proposed NDP campaign planks. By request, I'll take a moment now to comment on them, then over the next couple of weeks I'll try to toss out a few ideas about the direction the party should be taking.

My main area of disagreement with Koby is a familiar one: his platform seems to me to be primarily a protest platform, while my take is that the NDP should be positioning itself as a future government. I'll examine Koby's ideas in order of how easily I see them being dismissed - while I like a couple of them, I'm far from sure that any of them should be in the party's next platform.

Koby accordingly includes two planks which in my view should be dismissed out of hand. Abolishing the Senate and the monarchy may sound great from a "fight the power!" standpoint, but they're both impossible without constitutional change, and uncertain to bring about better results in any event. Any focus on electoral reform should stay right where it is: toward PR, which is both more easily accomplished, and more likely to lead to better representation of Canadians' interests.

Next comes the euthanasia plank. While it's a worthy enough goal, it's one which should be fought for on an individual basis rather than a society-wide one. It's easy enough to say that a Sue Rodriguez is entitled to make her own decisions when she publicly made her intentions known on as many occasions as she did; it's much harder to draft a statutory provision that'll avoid the risk of unwanted deaths, or avoid accusations of wanting to put lives at the discretion of the state. The NDP's stand here should be to continue to support individual efforts under the Charter as it did with Rodriguez, but to avoid demanding change through Parliament.

Following that, there's the dental care idea. In principle, this is where the country should be going in the long term. But it would be utter lunacy to propose adding an extremely costly, less-necessary component to health care when the health care system is alreadly woefully underfunded. The first step has to be to preserve one-payer health care; maybe a couple of elections out, if the system is in better shape, then we can consider including dental care.

Next to last, there's vacation time. This is an even better long-term issue, but I don't see the NDP as the body to start pushing for it now absent substantial public demand. This is an issue that unions should take up ASAP in order to attract attention; another election cycle down the road, if people respond positively, it'll then be time for the NDP to take up the mantle.

Finally, legalizing marijuana. I'm on the fence as to whether or not this should be included in a platform: I tend toward a libertarian view on drugs myself, and particularly in the case of marijuana there's no real basis for keeping it illegal (even with the recently-reduced penalties for possession). While I'm not a fan of making policy based on polls, this would be one issue for a cost-benefit calculation: it'll resonate mostly with younger voters, and I'd be glad to include it in the platform as long as the votes attracted will be close to the number of law-and-order voters who would be completely alienated.

To sum up, Koby's ideas are by and large good ones, but that shouldn't be enough for admission into the NDP platform. For that, an idea should be not only good in the abstract, but also both realistic, and popular enough to attract positive attention. Again, I'll try to pitch in a few such ideas over the next little while.

Rewarding one's heroes

In trying to rescue others in the aftermath of 9/11, many people may have exposed themselves to harmful substances. Originally, the U.S. planned to monitor that exposure - but according to the Daily News, that monitoring has amounted to nothing:

Programs were developed to check on the health of every other group that rushed to Ground Zero during and after the Sept. 11 attacks, primarily the World Trade Center Medical Screening Program run by the Mount Sinai Medical Center. Officials involved told The News the feds barred their workers from that program because they were setting up their own.

Unfortunately, that program vanished during the bureaucratic shuffle creating the Department of Homeland Security.

After trying for months to find out what happened, Manhattan Rep. Carolyn Maloney's office was able to uncover only that a branch of the Department of Health and Human Services got $3.7 million for the work. But it started and stopped in 2003, seeing fewer than 600 people.

Yet another indication that when it comes to protecting and helping the people who actually made sacrifices in the wake of 9/11, Bushco has done nothing but ignore the problem. For shame.

(Via Suburban Guerrilla.)

As so often happens...

...Billmon nails an issue, this time the question of Pat Robertson's motivation in calling for Chavez' death:

Thanks to soaring oil prices, Chavez has managed to escape the trap that usually awaits leftist Third World leaders who won't dance to the IMF's tune or kowtow to the global superpower, but who also don't want to make the great leap forward into Stalinist repression and communal poverty. For the moment at least, he doesn't have to worry about capital flight, or economic strangulation or "structural adjustments." Not as long as he's got his hands on the spigot that keeps the go juice flowing...

With the U.S. Army bogged down in Iraq, the invasion option is probably off the table -- although with the Cheneyites you never know for sure. The Bay of Pigs gambit (this time in the form of a gang of Columbian paramilitaries) has already been tried, and failed. Last year's recall referendum failed. (Under Chavez Venezuela has become such a communist police state that his opponents were only able to collect 1.9 million signatures on their recall petitions.) Prospects for beating Chavez in Venezuela's next presidential election also look dim -- his popular approval rating is currently north of 70%.

No wonder the right wingers are getting a little hysterical about the guy. He's holding all the high cards, and they know it. Assassination is the only trick that hasn't been played. Thus do our warriors for democracy in the Middle East reveal their true colors in Latin America -- by embracing the functional equivalent of the Brezhnev Doctrine.

Give it a read. There's not much by way of answers, but the post hits all the important questions.

Sometimes worth listening to

Buried in the lower reaches of the latest softwood lumber update: one of the few people who even Bush might listen to puts in a good word against protectionism:

U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan gave Canada some welcome ammunition Friday by warning that increased trade protectionism could come at an economic price.

"Developing protectionism regarding trade and our reluctance to place fiscal policy on a more sustainable path are threatening what may well be our most valued policy asset: the increased flexibility of our economy, which has fostered our extraordinary resilience to shocks," Greenspan said in a speech.

There's almost certainly a strong element of CYA in this quote. Regardless of the U.S.' trade policy, the housing bubble and foreign deficit are significant problems, and this may simply be a way to move some attention away from the Fed for a "recovery" that's managed to be wageless, jobless and unstable all at once.
In addition, it's not too difficult to anticipate Bushco arguing that the quote means that Canada should avoid retaliation while the U.S. does what it pleases.

But with the most-respected financial commentator in the U.S. taking an anti-protectionist line, there are two plausible positive results. At best, Bush could be forced to offer a more reasonable deal than the U.S. has ever done before on softwood lumber. At worst, the U.S. will do nothing differently, and the rest of the world will see that American protectionism is so deeply entrenched as to overcome even the U.S.' economic interests - which should give a lot of countries pause in deciding whether to enter into (or stay in) NAFTA-style treaties, and shift the balance of trade elsewhere. That wouldn't be a huge benefit in the short term, but enough small steps in that direction might well be the best long-term result.

A terrifying and dark future

It's official. Iraq has no agreement on its constitution, and whatever hell hasn't yet broken loose among the Sunni population is headed in that direction:

Iraq's Shiite-dominated constitution committee will submit an amended draft charter to parliament this weekend despite opposition from minority Sunni Arabs who rejected a proposed compromise, negotiators said Saturday.

But Sunni negotiators said they did not accept the revised document...

"There is a terrifying and dark future awaiting Iraq," (a Sunni negotiator) said. "It is important to present services for the Iraqis now, as well as to maintain security, and it is not important to write a piece of paper that all Iraqis disagree on."...

Sadoun Zubaydi, a Sunni member of the drafting committee, blamed the Americans for interfering in what was supposed to be an Iraqi process.

"To the last minute, this supposedly Iraqi process is being dictated by the U.S. government," he said.

The frightening part is that the negotiators were surely among the Sunnis most willing to contemplate solutions through the political process rather than through civil war. If the negotiators themselves couldn't get agreement and a Shiite solution (with U.S. influence) is being pushed down Sunni throats, that only fuels the fire of the insurgents who have stayed away from the political process all along.

Tax breaks and free riders

While Klein is whining about the prospect of another NEP, the Globe points out that he's also trying to make gains at the expense of the rest of Canada:

Mr. Klein argued that his government is being prudent with its windfall and that he favours using cuts to both corporate and personal income taxes in the future to keep attracting workers and investment to Alberta...

Recently, the Canada West Foundation, a western think-tank, warned against that strategy for fear it would disrupt the Canadian economy and set up Alberta as a "tax haven in the federation."

Mr. Klein said that concern is unfounded because other provinces could keep up to Alberta by using incentives such as subsidies and loan guarantees.

Apparently the interrelatedness of Canadian provinces is completely lost on Klein just as it is on the Ontario Chamber of Commerce. Klein makes it clear that he fully expect other provinces to have to pay more to keep up, whether by trying to reduce tax rates to similar levels or by offering subsidies and public financing. However, he believes that Alberta shouldn't bear any obligation to address the national consequences of its proposed policies. Per Klein, the federal government should not only ignore the oil and gas money now pouring into Alberta, but also do nothing if Alberta uses that money to the detriment of the rest of the country.

That makes no sense in a federal system, particularly one with an equalization system as exists in Canada. If the known effect of Alberta's policies is to cause harm to other provinces, then it should rightly be obliged to pay added equalization out of any gains acquired at the expense of the rest of the country. And even from the most ardent pro-business angle, there should be little doubt that the presence of a tax haven distorts the natural flow of business to the detriment of other jurisdictions.

To clarify, that doesn't mean we should be looking at federal controls over energy, or indeed any policy with the effect of harming Alberta's economy; that would be doing to Alberta exactly what it's threatening to do to the rest of the country. Nor does it mean that unemployment and growth can or should be forcibly evened out between regions.

But the equalization system is designed to ensure comparable levels of services across the country. That should also mean a relatively low degree of difference in the capacity of provincial governments to stimulate job growth, whether through tax cuts or public investments. The outcomes may vary, but at the very least the opportunities shouldn't be radically different.

It's bad enough that Klein plans to throw that entire system out of balance; it'll only be worse if the federal government allows him to avoid the consequences of that plan. We have bigger issues to fight with foreign free-riders; the last thing we need is a similar dispute internally.

Good news, bad news

The good news: Bush seems to have learned the meaning of the word "compromise":

President George W. Bush has urged Shiites to make concessions to Sunni Arabs on two key points - federalism and Saddam Hussein's Baath party - to win their support for Iraq's constitution, a Shiite official said Friday following a third extension of the deadline to approve the document...

Al-Adeeb said Bush personally telephoned Shiite leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim and asked him to make compromises on clauses that would purge former members of Saddam's Sunni-dominated Baath party from government jobs and political life and on federalism, which the Sunnis strongly oppose.

The bad news: As expected, the definition is filed under the heading of "Things other people do". And according to the article, it looks like the Shiites are paying more attention to Bush's actions than to his words.

Giving directions

I suspect most visitors are already familiar with CalgaryGrit's Greatest Prime Minister poll. I suspect I take it a lot less seriously than some of the people trying to organize voting blocs, but it's still a very interesting read. Curl up with a copy of Will Ferguson's Bastards and Boneheads and make your vote count.

As for me, I'll simply leave my vote, and start drawing up campaign material for the Greatest Canadian Who Should've Been Prime Minister poll to follow. Since, of course, blog-based polls will be at least as significant as ones that CBC may have run.

Not yet an age of majority

Apparently the Liberals have decided to respond to Trickle Down Truth (or at least David Herle's challenge) with a claim that Canada needs a majority government:

Much of the hallway chatter at a summer Liberal retreat that ended Thursday revolved around shedding the government's minority status - and why that would be good for Canada.

Though he cautioned MPs to avoid sounding "cocky," Prime Minister Paul Martin took the opportunity at a closing news conference to sing the praises of majority - Liberal - government.

"Obviously with a majority government it's much easier to fulfil an agenda," he said after the four-day meeting.

It's no great surprise to see the Liberals testing the boundaries of their current popularity - the polling numbers seem to have stabilized, and it's easy to see how the Libs would want to try to add the extra couple of points to move into majority territory.

But there's going to be an awfully fine line to walk in order to make the case. After all, the bulk of recent Lib policy (most notably Budget '05) was put together in a minority situation: in order to claim that minority government doesn't work, it seems to me that the Liberals would have to try to point to what they'd rather have done with the budget in comparison to what they did do. And that'll leave them facing serious attacks from both sides.

If the Liberals try to argue that they should have been able to pass their attempted corporate tax cut, that'll have the effect of bleeding centre-left support to the NDP. Likewise, any claim that they'd rather have veered left would give the Cons an advantage with fiscal minimalists.

Moreover, the great branding fight after the ultimately-popular budget was over which party could take the most credit for it. If the Liberals start disclaiming responsibility for parts of the budget, or at least implying that they'd prefer to have done otherwise, that gives the NDP a great chance to get on the right side of the apple-cart argument.

The other possibility would be for the Libs to try to claim that the budget roughly approximates what they'd have done anyway. But given how public the negotiations were with the NDP, as well as the Libs' stated intention of reintroducing tax cuts later, that's a claim that would be shot down in a second - and likely to the benefit of the NDP.

So what if the fall session turns into a sniping match where nothing gets done? Even that could backfire on the Liberals, particularly if the NDP continues its full-court press for cooperation. If the governing party can't get anything done despite having a relatively cooperative partner for negotiations, that'll speak to the Liberals' competence in government as well as to the desirability of a minority. The effect would be a highly conflicted mix of factors: some voters might lean toward a Con majority to try to get both the majority factor and a change, others might reward Layton for continuing to be the leader who acts most like he's willing to govern by consensus, and the Liberal outcome would be at best uncertain.

With that said, the NDP shouldn't do much to try to counterbalance the Libs' current bravado. I stand by my position that the best situation for the NDP is to take a substantial chunk of the opposition benches away from the Cons to position itself as one of the two main contenders next time out. That'll be much easier if the Liberals appear to have an easy win than if there's a genuine threat of Harper moving into 24 Sussex. And if the majority talk inspires an angry response from Harper to sink the Cons even further, then all the better for the Dippers.

Why Bush doesn't get along with the CIA

Unlike many branches of the administration, the C.I.A. still dares to demand accountability when its members mess up:

The CIA's independent watchdog has recommended disciplinary reviews for current and former officials who were involved in failed intelligence efforts before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, The Associated Press has learned.

CIA Director Porter Goss now must decide whether the disciplinary proceedings go forward.

Following a two-year review into what went wrong before the suicide hijackings, people familiar with the report say Helgerson harshly criticizes a number of the agency's most senior officials. Among them are former director George Tenet, former clandestine service chief Jim Pavitt and former counterterrorism centre head Cofer Black. The former officials are likely candidates for proceedings before an accountability board.

It can't be by accident that the report leaked out: this is exactly the sort of thing that Bushco specializes in burying, but now that the information is public it'll take an awful lot of sheer arrogance for Goss to avoid giving the go-ahead. I doubt the findings of any further inquiries will see the light of day during this administration, but there's at least some hope that a few of the shills who allowed the U.S. to go to war will yet face some responsibility for their negligence.

Those in need, and those less so

As if we needed more reason to doubt any businesses trying to win dollars, tax breaks or lighter regulations by crying poor, Stats Can releases releases the latest data on corporate profits:

Statistics Canada says profits at Canadian corporations continued to climb in the second quarter, rising 2.9 per cent from the first quarter to $51.9 billion.

The agency says soaring oil prices lifted oil and gas extraction and refining profits to record highs, accounting for three-quarters of the overall profit gain.

It says profits have risen in 12 of the last 14 quarters, although the growth rates have moderated in the last three quarters.

Non-financial industries saw profits increase 4.2 per cent in the second quarter.

Note that the increased oil prices haven't undercut other industries, which still managed to contribute to the gain as well. Only the financial sector struggled due to lower bank profits, but there's a ready explanation for that.

Let's be clear that it's a good thing that businesses are doing well. But at the same time, this is added evidence that the corporate sector is the last part of Canadian society in need of more resources at this point.

No such thing as free trade

Another interesting commentary on NAFTA, this time from Peter Urmetzer in the Globe's web comment:

Canadians have long been aware of the American tendency to play fast and loose with the rules, so it is difficult to understand why the government of the day decided to introduce a deal that made us even more dependent on our southern neighbour. A free-trade agreement, Canadian negotiators had hoped, would tame the elephant. But those hopes have been trampled, as the elephant continues to act - quelle surprise! - like an elephant...

As the United States continues to openly ignore various rulings handed down by NAFTA and the World Trade Organization, Canada might want to reconsider its position on free trade. Retaliation by way of placing tariffs on American imports will prove futile. It is interesting to note that the only weapon we have in our arsenal in terms of compensation are more tariffs. In other words, a trade war - the very thing we tried to avoid in the first place.

I'd again disagree with the position that retaliatory tariffs can't have an effect, as surely the trade war would also be undesirable from the American point of view. And Urmetzer goes too far in seeming to criticize any focus on global trade - there's nothing inherently better about internal trade (particularly in as vast a country as Canada) than foreign. While it's probably best not to devote too much time to negotiating agreements, that doesn't mean that trade barriers themselves are desirable either.

That said, it's refreshing to see such a strong third angle taken on the free trade debate, and Urmetzer's reminder that Canada has been perfectly successful with a relatively inward-looking focus is one worth remembering.

All in a day's work

Not surprisingly, John Bolton's gig at the U.N. is leading to nothing but conflict:

John R. Bolton, in his first public initiative as American ambassador, told envoys at the United Nations on Wednesday that time was running out on efforts to create institutional change, only days after the United States began privately pushing for major revisions to a draft of reforms that was already close to completion.

The new American approach recommends scrapping more than 400 passages in the 38-page draft prepared under the General Assembly president, Jean Ping of Gabon, that was being readied for a summit conference next month after nearly a year of intensive negotiations.

According to the article, the objections are predictable: the U.S. wants no mention of the ICC, the Kyoto Protocol, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, aid targets or disarmament. All this is after the changes in the current draft already sound like something out of a Bush foreign policy address (assuming his typical wilfully blind eye to U.S. human rights abuses):

Among the changes under consideration are the substitution of the Human Rights Commission with a more powerful Human Rights Council that would no longer allow rights violators onto the panel; the creation of a Peacebuilding Commission to help countries emerging from conflict; the defining of terrorism to exclude its justification as a national resistance or liberation tool; and the empowerment of the international community to intervene in countries that fail to protect their people from genocide and ethnic cleansing.

There can be little doubt that the U.S. proposal will fail utterly in any attempt to radically change the draft version, and with good reason. The world at large has worked hard to reach agreement on the current draft and conceded to U.S. interests on at least a few of the above points, especially if the U.S. (as seems likely) will have an effective veto in defining "terrorism" and "human rights violators".

The big question is whether the new demands will completely undercut the consensus version, and result in other states deciding to add a wish list as well. If that happens, the U.N. reform that Bush and Bolton supposedly want will be impossible.

Usually even the neocons aren't quite this efficient in directly undercutting their own stated goals. But apparently Bolton makes it possible.

Day in court

It likely won't lead to any great change through litigation, but it's nonetheless significant that environmental groups have been given standing to sue the U.S. government over global warming:

A federal judge has ruled that environmental groups and four U.S. cities can sue federal development agencies on allegations that the overseas projects they financially back contribute to global warming...

(Friends of the Earth), in addition to Greenpeace and the cities of Boulder, Col., Santa Monica, Oakland and Arcata, Calif., sued Overseas Private Investment Corp. and the Export-Import Bank of the United States. Those government agencies provide loans and insure billions of dollars of U.S. investors' money for development projects overseas. Many of the projects are power plants that emit greenhouses gases that the groups allege cause global warming...

White did not rule whether those agencies must perform environmental assessments of projects they help fund, but simply said the groups have a right to sue. If White's decision stands, the issue of whether U.S. environmental rules apply to the projects backed by the agencies likely will be litigated, Shems said.

Unless there's a radical change in the works, the litigation itself won't lead to much by way of added requirements on the investment agencies. But if nothing else, it'll force the agencies to present their case (and all supporting documentation) to the court, and maybe add some more American public pressure on climate change. That's no panacea, but it's a start.

All too true

Duncan Cameron takes on NAFTA with both barrels:

To their everlasting discredit, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, his principal advisers and his cabinet accepted a trade treaty which provided for a face-saving mechanism of bi-national panels to review domestic trade rulings, and claimed this was free trade. While Mulroney and his people claimed they had a free trade deal it was nothing of the sort. Free trade would bind the U.S. government to respect the free movement of Canadian goods into the U.S. Under NAFTA, like the FTA, the U.S. Congress is free to legislate trade restrictions, and U.S. trade tribunals are bound to respect the U.S. laws.

The NAFTA panels can review U.S. trade tribunal decisions. If the panel disagrees with the interpretation of U.S. law given by the U.S. trade tribunal, the NAFTA panel can send it back to the tribunal for review. That's it. The U.S. government can then change its laws to make them conform, not to the NAFTA panel decision, but to its original intent: i.e. to protect the U.S. producer from Canadian competition. That is what it has done in the past.

I disagree with Cameron on the question of whether the countries are too far out of balance for retaliation to work (particularly when the U.S. is actively making its economy weaker, but he's right in his analysis of how this calls all of NAFTA into question. Give it a look.

Doctor, doctor, give me the news

Great news on multiple fronts from the Canadian Institute for Health Information. The lead story is about a net inflow of doctors in 2004: many less doctors are leaving, and more are arriving than in 2000. But the more interesting point is that concerning gender balance:

Canada's physician workforce is increasingly female. CIHI's latest statistics show that the number of female physicians increased by 14 per cent in the last five years, from 16,945 in 2000 to 19,365 in 2004.

In contrast, the number of male physicians increased only slightly (0.6 per cent), from 40,841 in 2000 to 41,071 in 2004. In 2004, women accounted for almost one-third (32 per cent) of the total supply of physicians, representing a 10-per-cent increase since 2000.

But among physicians age 40 and under, females represented nearly half (47 per cent) of the total physician workforce in 2004.

Based on these numbers, while there's still a ways to go in equalizing the workforce, it looks like we can safely say that there's something resembling gender parity for recent medical graduates. The next task should then be to work on having more doctors of both genders in order to meet the needs of the health care system.

Reading between the lines

The Ontario Chamber of Commerce complains that Ontario is at risk of becoming a have-not province, and demands federal money in response. But while the Chamber hints at a reasonable solution, it wants that solution on a completely unreasonable basis:

(T)he report warns that on a per-capita basis, Ontario will fall further behind other provinces in terms of funding for hospitals, nurses, college grants, university professors and other public services.

And the economic cost to Ontario, home to roughly 40 per cent of Canadians and traditionally the country's manufacturing heartland, could in turn have a disastrous economic impact on Canada as a whole, chamber president Len Crispino argued Wednesday...

The gap between what Ontario pays to Ottawa and what it gets back to fund social programs has in recent months been a favourite topic of Premier Dalton McGuinty, who claims the gap has reached a whopping $23 billion...

Unless the equalization formula is changed, Ontario would only be able to narrow the funding gap by raising taxes - a political nightmare that has little appeal, Crispino noted.

Let's sum up the Chamber of Commerce's position:

Taxes are now too low in Ontario to support the level of social funding deemed appropriate for Canadians in general. Therefore, the rest of Canada should pay more than its proper share under equalization (or, at least, receive less than appropriate) in order to subsidize artificially low tax rates in Ontario.

Now, there are probably some reasons why costs would be lower in Ontario to begin with - surely a business group has at least heard of the concept of "economies of scale". But let's assume for the moment that Ontario's current tax structure can't provide a sufficient level of service to its population. Might it then be time to re-examine just what a "nightmare" it would be to allow Ontario to tax sufficiently to fund its own programs?

In fairness, there is something to Ontario's concern over the equalization side deals. In my view, one of the top priorities for the next majority Parliament should be to completely rework the equalization system so that no exceptions to the rules are necessary. (A return to the 10-province standard would be a good start.) But the reason for that is based on the national interest in having a workable system, not based on a desire to allow Canada's wealthiest province to undertax its corporate base.

We can only hope

The Star has more speculation that Bob Rae will run as a Liberal in the next federal election, and notes that he has a fair amount of support for a future leadership post as well:

"Bob is very popular in Quebec. He speaks French and is well thought of there," said one prominent Liberal, noting that since retiring from politics in 1996, Rae has spent years forging a sterling reputation as one of Canada's leading "statesmen."...

The case for a Rae candidacy was bolstered with the release yesterday of a Toronto Star-SES Research Associates poll.

It said former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna, 57, now the Canadian ambassador to Washington, is the frontrunner in the undeclared leadership contest with support of 23 per cent of the 1,000 people surveyed.

Rae and former deputy prime minister John Manley, 55, were tied for second at 11 per cent apiece followed by former federal minister Martin Cauchon, 42, and Harvard University professor Michael Ignatieff, 58, at 4 per cent.

Among Ontarians polled, 20 per cent favoured Rae compared to 17 per cent who back McKenna.

It's particularly interesting to see Rae so high in the rankings when compared to a lot of longtime Liberal stalwarts (not to mention the most-hyped candidate in Ignatieff). Whither Allan Rock? Anne McLellan? Sheila Copps? They may have merely been left out of the poll, but either way the desire to recruit an outsider over each of them seems to be a slap in the face.

Meanwhile, a Rae Liberal party would probably be the NDP's dream scenario, for reasons which have oft been discussed elsewhere. There'd be a stronger Liberal push for soft-left votes, but that would be more than counterbalanced by the NDP's ability to play off the problems of the Rae Ontario government (rather than being hamstrung by them). The effect will be lessened if Rae doesn't ascend to the leadership, but the same factors should still be in play.

On not showing weakness

The talk of (fully justified) trade retaliation looks like it's at an end, as Jim Peterson throws in the towel on softwood lumber:

It could be well into 2007 before the federal government applies retaliatory tariffs in the softwood lumber dispute, Trade Minister Jim Peterson said Tuesday.

Despite heightened rhetoric earlier in the day by high-ranking cabinet officials and the Prime Minister, Mr. Peterson said Canada would wait until after it received WTO approval and performed extensive consultation with Canadians before retaliatory tariffs would be considered in the softwood lumber dispute.

“We have not made that decision. We will pursue all measures including litigation, possible retaliation, and heightened political advocacy,” Mr. Peterson said.

Now, please correct me if I'm wrong in any of the following.

But as far as I can tell, there's been plenty of time for consultation while the illegal tariffs have been in place.

As far as I can tell, the current U.S. administration has no interest in allowing political advocacy to change its mind on anything.

And as far as I can tell, the reason we need to retaliate now is because the U.S. is merrily thumbing its nose at what was supposed to be binding litigation.

We have one tactic at this point with a chance of getting something accomplished. Peterson has just made it clear that that tactic won't get used until at least a congressional election cycle from now, by which time Bush will be too busy deciding where to put the "My Pet Goat" exhibit in his presidential library to care about foreign trade issues. The fact that Peterson is supposedly looking at sectors where tariffs could be effective doesn't do much good when the picture could change radically before tariffs are ever imposed.

Peterson's backing down leaves nobody in the U.S. political system with any reason to even try to compromise on softwood lumber, let alone accept the NAFTA ruling on its face. I'm not quite sure what justification there was for his statement, but the outcome for Canada's position is disastrous.

If there's any silver lining, it's from a domestic political standpoint. The Liberals' decision to follow tough talk with complete capitulation leaves the NDP as the only party with any claim to be willing to stand up for Canada's interests. Unless Peterson shifts course again, this should turn into a powerful issue next time out.

Gas tax deal

It's official. Saskatchewan has signed an agreement on the federal gas tax rebate:

The Saskatchewan deal will see $147.7 million in federal gas taxes given to municipalities large and small across the province over five years...

The deal springs from the February federal budget, which promised a $5 billion, five-year program to share gas taxes with municipalities across Canada.

The program limits where the money can be spent. Larger cities, for instance, are required to use the cash for environmentally friendly projects, such as improved public transit, better sewage systems or research into reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Definitely a worthy initiative, and both the provincial government and SUMA (the association of municipalities who'll actually be bound by the restrictions) are happy with the deal.

Of course, the Cons and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation had to find some way to complain. In this case, they apparently don't think municipalities can decide for themselves what type of deal is worth signing, and are accordingly up in arms over the requirement that urban municipalities use the money on environmentally-responsible projects.

But that contrarianism aside, the biggest problem with the deal is that it wasn't reached sooner.

Brilliant

The Skwib has the perfect solution to the softwood lumber dispute. Enjoy.

Timing is everything

Apparently there are a few Liberals who aren't all that eager for a winter election:

"Our hands are tied," one senior Liberal MP said as he and his colleagues headed into their three-day summer caucus retreat in Regina, where election-readiness will be a major component of discussions.

And MPs are grumbling, one Liberal said, about "how the hell do we campaign in the winter"...

Ontario Liberal MP Paul Macklin said there is confusion among constituents about Mr. Martin's deadline and what exactly it means -- an election immediately or a few months later.

"I don't think any of us relish the idea of a winter election," he said.

The article theorizes that the point of suggesting a delay now is to lengthen the time between the broken promise and the actual election. But I have a hard time thinking that this is anything but a PR gambit.

For all the complaints about how difficult it would be to campaign in winter, those problems would be borne by all parties, and might well favour incumbents who are more familiar to their areas. Moreover, those problems would be worse in the rural areas which the Conservatives would need to shore up. And most importantly, I can't see the Libs wanting to hold off until the 2005 budget (and fall mini-budget) are in the more distant past.

Strategically, a winter election might then be best for the Libs even if there wasn't a televised promise in play.

Even without actually planning to delay the election, however, the Libs can gain some political points out of the idea. Presumably a fresh "broken promise" to add to Harper's talking points will only make Harper seem all the more negative for the rest of the summer. And better yet, Martin can then claim that the idea was merely floated by backbenchers, that he listened in a spirit of democratic involvement, but that he displayed leadership by deciding that pushing ahead was the best course of action. (Not that many people will still be awake by the end of that, but the spin is easily seen.)

As for the NDP's response, this should be one time where the party stays out of trying to broker an agreement. Let the Liberals offer concessions if they're serious about trying to hold off on the election, and point out that the doubt now was apparently caused by a lack of consultation within the Liberals to begin with.

Quick! Start spinning!

According to the Washington Post, a group of experts has concluded that the leading piece of evidence supporting the claim that Iran has a nuclear weapons program doesn't prove anything with respect to Tehran:

Scientists from the United States, France, Japan, Britain and Russia met in secret during the past nine months to pore over data collected by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to U.S. and foreign officials. Recently, the group, whose existence had not been previously reported, definitively matched samples of the highly enriched uranium -- a key ingredient for a nuclear weapon -- with centrifuge equipment turned over by the government of Pakistan.

Iran has long contended that the uranium traces were the result of contaminated equipment bought years ago from Pakistan. But the Bush administration had pointed to the material as evidence that Iran was making bomb-grade ingredients.

Of course, this does prove that Pakistan was all the more negligent in allowing its nuclear material to be shipped elsewhere. But no worries: that won't affect Abdul Qadeer Khan's non-sentence, or Musharraf's status as a preferred U.S. puppet.

According to the article, the main reason for the presence of American inspectors was to ensure that Bushco wouldn't decide to ignore all evidence and common sense this time out. Mind you, that was before Bush had dropped as far as he has in the polls.

Now, I'm guessing that it'll take just under one news cycle for Republicans to start smearing both the IAEA, and the American experts involved in the project.

Bookworms on the hook

I'm a huge fan of a well-funded and well-run library system as one of the great equalizers of knowledge. Unfortunately, CUPE points out that there's a nationwide crisis in funding that's currently going unnoticed:

Statistics compiled by a group representing public libraries serving larger towns – places with more than 50,000 people – are telling. Between 2001 and 2002, although total funding remained stable, per capita spending on libraries declined by 13 per cent...

And in the meantime, the burden on libraries has been growing, as central libraries in particular have been forced to pick up the slack where social services have been cut.

The last 20 years have seen massive cutbacks to social services across Canada. People with mental conditions, addiction problems, the homeless and other disadvantaged groups are using public libraries more than ever, partly because it’s one place where they know they’ll be treated with dignity. Problems arise because workers are given little or no training to deal with the special needs of these people.

“We have people looking for resources at our library when they should be getting support from government and various agencies,” says Oake. “We have recent suicide survivors asking reference librarians for help. A young woman recently diagnosed as HIV-positive came into the library looking for resources, but she also needed to talk. We have people doing drugs and having sex in the washrooms. We are caring people, but our workers simply aren’t trained as counsellors. These people need proper counselling and help.”

So not only do libraries perform their vital core services, but as a freely accessible public resource, they're also the natural source for information and help when other agencies can't handle their workload. Of course in a perfect world they wouldn't have to fill the extra roles, but the reality is that they do, and will continue to do so until there's a serious revamping of how poverty issues are handled.

Something to keep in mind next time next time your local business group tries to claim that freezing a mill rate is more important than properly funding libraries.

(Via Rabble.)

Blackout

The AP hones in on the oil implications of today's power outage in Iraq - but there's a more significant side to this story:

Government officials blamed the outage on insurgent attacks that toppled key power pylons in central Iraq and darkened broad swaths of the country, including its two largest cities, Baghdad and Basra...

Analysts also noticed that an insurgent attack hundreds of kilometres away from Iraq's export terminals was ominously able to strangle Iraq's lifeblood export...

For Iraq, the outage was expensive. It cost the national treasury some $60 million in lost revenue on daily earnings that average around $85 million, Qureshi said.

Obviously, the implications for oil exports were important. But more significantly, if the insurgency is so well-coordinated as to be able to shut down power throughout parts of both Baghdad and Basra simultaneously, then there's all the less prospect of other industries being able to develop meaningfully. And there can't be much doubt that the insurgents will realize they're on to something with attacks on an insufficiently secured power system.

As if that wasn't enough of a problem, the lights appear to be out on constitutional talks as well. By all indications, the Shiite and Kurdish factions are satisfied with the current draft constitution, while the Sunni faction wants no part of it.

The best option at this point is probably to take a step back from constitutional talks, but it looks like the majority wants to push ahead...which will only alienate all the more Sunnis and feed into the insurgency. Unfortunately that may be the lone growth industry in Iraq at the moment, especially if all other industries are stuck in the dark.

Classless war on terror

Good news for your local wingnuts: the U.S. government has given them a new reason to hate the homeless:

Asking for increased vigilance in the wake of the London bombings, the government is warning that terrorists may pose as vagrants to conduct surveillance of buildings and mass transit stations to plot future attacks.

“In light of the recent bombings in London, it is crucial that police, fire and emergency medical personnel take notice of their surroundings, and be aware of ‘vagrants' who seem out of place or unfamiliar,” said the message, distributed via e-mail to some federal employees in Washington by the U.S. Attorney's office...

Homeless people easily blend into urban landscapes, the message said.

“This is particularly true of our mass transit systems, where homeless people tend to loiter unnoticed,” the e-mail said.

Now who is it that's actively fighting class warfare? (Though in fairness, it should be remembered that Bushco is at least trying to send added reinforcements to the lower classes.)

Back on point, nothing in the article indicates that the e-mail placed anybody else under suspicion, which makes no sense if the purpose was actually preventing terrorism. After all, wouldn't a disguise as a businessperson be far more effective in getting access to most areas? Wouldn't people trying to blend in tend toward more common clothing rather than an outfit which sets them apart in any way?

Of course, that would involve putting the burden of heightened security on everybody. Rather than sending a message of general mistrust, the U.S. Attorney's office has chosen to single out those already in the worst position for added scrutiny. And as a result, the U.S. attorney's office wants the homeless to be the object of active suspicion, instead of merely an ignored part of the urban landscape.

Blogging is good

For those wondering just what they're doing on a blog, here's a handy discussion of what blogging can do:

1. Blogs can promote critical and analytical thinking.
2. Blogging can be a powerful promoter of creative, intuitive, and associational thinking.
3. Blogs promote analogical thinking.
4. Blogging is a powerful medium for increasing access and exposure to quality information.
5. Blogging combines the best of solitary reflection and social interaction.

See the link for expanded discussion.

Of course, this should largely be a matter of preaching to the choir. But I'll be curious to see how many counterarguments there are against the link's points.

(Via the Suburban Guerrilla.)

All faith, no credit

Much has been made about how the U.S.' current consumer spending is driven almost entirely by debt rather than by rising wages. But Kos diarist cskendrick points out that the new U.S. bankruptcy bill will severely curb the debt spending - and will also heavily punish Americans for the spending they've already done on credit cards. The end result should be nothing but disastrous for the American economy, and the consequences don't end there.

($20-80 billion in credit card defaults) would be covered by credit card companies significantly increasing the spread to prime that they charge the surviving debtors, which would both increase the vulnerability of same to falling under the default cloud, and decrease remaining cardholders' willingness to incur additional consumer debt.

Just in time for Christmas 2005, a large fraction of American credit card users are going to be given a very bad case of sticker shock. A small portion of these will be financially ruined, another small portion soon threatened as card rates are jacked to cover losses due to default, or their own rates transcend 30% due to late or insufficient payment on their balances.

I've mentioned before that I'm not a fan of consumer overspending, but also that solutions can easily go too far in trying to prevent spending; as a disease, overspending is far less harmful than the cures I've seen so far. And the the bankruptcy bill is a particularly egregious example. Rather than better informing consumers in a context of attempting to reduce reliance on debt by pointing out alternatives, the bill imposes unforeseen consequences to past spending and helps to prevent responsible use of credit in the future.

What's unclear to me is who's supposed to benefit from this part of the bill. The rationale is supposed to be to discipline debtors, but surely the U.S. wouldn't be that eager to shoot itself in the foot just for the sake of perceived morality - or at least not without some Republican contributors making a buck off it.

It's apparently not the credit card companies who will benefit, as they have to provide for greater credit losses. Consumers will obviously be hurt, and most retailers (and in turn manufacturers) will likely see lower sales as a result.

One industry likely to benefit is the payday loan industry, who will presumably see some added business from people trying to meet the higher payment requirements. But that alone can't justify an otherwise disastrous policy. Right?

The other likely beneficiaries are those concerned about the U.S.' current foreign debt: it does follow that if Americans refuse to spend money, then imports should diminish and exports increase proportionally. (Assuming, of course, that the move won't cause even more people to buy the cheapest foreign-made goods available at the Wal-Marts of the world instead of more expensive domestic alternatives. But let's not assume that the Republicans have thought this through that deeply.)

With this gain, of course, comes a loss for the U.S.' trading partners - and here's where Canada is of course hit worse than anybody. We're making progress in diversifying the destinations for Canadian goods, but we're nonetheless more dependent on the U.S. than almost any other state - so when the U.S. shoots itself in the foot, we end up limping as well.

Unfortunately, there isn't much we can do about the bill for now, other than learn from its mistakes. The consequences are coming, and we can only hope that Canada won't be hit too hard.

Hiatus

I'm on vacation starting tomorrow, so blogging will be sparse (if it happens at all) until the 21st. Here's hoping nothing much happens in the meantime. Enjoy the week!

So obvious it's painful

The CP's headline is:

Ontarians haven't learned the need to conserve since 2003 blackout: experts

My one quibble: it took "experts"to point that out? Wouldn't "anybody who's paying attention" have sufficed given the news out of Ontario this summer?

The second way

As the softwood lumber dispute escalates, word comes out that Canada's trade surplus is higher than expected - and that it isn't the U.S. that's responsible:

Canada's trade balance with the world increased to just short of $5.0-billion in June as our exports to countries other than the United States hit an all-time high...

While exports to the United States slipped slightly, they rose to all other principal trading partners, in particular to the European Union (EU) and other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, which posted gains of 10.4% and 31.4% respectively...

Exports to the EU have increased from $2.2 billion to $2.5 billion since March. Exports to other OECD countries have been on the rise for four consecutive months, increasing from $992.7 million in February to $1.6 billion in June. Exports to Japan were also up in June (+9.8%). Rising coal exports to several European Union countries, other OECD countries and Japan have contributed to each of these increases.

Elsewhere, exports of metal ores to China contributed to a 1.2% increase in exports to all other countries combined.

Lest there be any doubt, Canada's ability to export isn't (and shouldn't be) entirely reliant on the U.S., and right now we're doing a better job than usual of diversifying. That's a trend that has to continue - both for the positive economic impact, and for the added ability to stand up to the U.S. when needed.

Hooray for spines!

Canada finally starts talking tough on softwood lumber:

Federal and provincial officials accused the United States of reneging on the 11-year-old North American free-trade agreement, with Ottawa renewing threats to slap billions of dollars of sanctions on American goods if Washington doesn't recant...

Another top-ranked federal official said Ottawa is prepared to retaliate if the United States repudiates NAFTA. "Those rules cannot be flouted and they cannot be ignored," the official said. "If [the United States] ..... can't see fit to recognize the rule of law, to honour the agreement that it, itself, established, and to work toward a deal that is fair to all, they should not expect this federal government to take that sitting down."

A group of Liberal cabinet ministers, including International Trade Minister Jim Peterson, released a statement that questioned the U.S. government's support for the North American free-trade agreement. "This raises serious and fundamental questions about the United States's commitment to the NAFTA," the ministers said of U.S. intransigence on softwood duties.

Now, the only question is whether the unusually tough words will get translated into action. And it looks like there may be enough anger on the Canadian side for that to happen for a change.

Pollarization

The Globe and Mail reports on an interesting poll, but doesn't take all that close a look at the numbers. Let's fix that:

Decima asked respondents how likely they would be to subscribe to a service that charged $2,300 a year, with a $1,700 initiation fee, to screen for early signs of disease and manage chronic problems such as diabetes and pain.

“In terms of the size of the market, Decima found there are more than five million Canadians who say they would be likely to subscribe to the service,” the company said in a news release.

The firm based its calculations on the fact 5 per cent of respondents said they would be very likely and 18 per cent said they'd be somewhat likely to subscribe to the service.

The question was based on the concept of what one company has announced it will offer patients in Vancouver in October when it opens what is being called Canada's first primary care medical clinic.

I'll begin with the obvious omissions from the poll itself.

First, it doesn't ask whether people believe that the clinic in question should exist in the first place, merely whether they would subscribe given the chance. The question takes privatization as a given - and the Liberals' constant dawdling notwithstanding, there's no reason why that has to be the case.

Second, it doesn't discuss the interplay between the public system and any new private one. Would people respond differently if it was pointed out that the public system - which would presumably still including some care needed by the respondents - would lose staff to the new private clinic and thus be less able to care for patients and deal with waiting lists?

Third, there's a natural problem in posing hypothetical costs within a poll. It's easy to say one would spend money on a program when that doesn't involve any commitment, but does anybody seriously think that all the people who expressed interest in the poll would actually make the choice to subscribe when it came time to decide how to spend that $2,300 a year within the context of a personal budget?

In other words, the poll was essentially ripped out of context. But even with that being the case, the actual numbers don't show anything close to a desire for the private care.

Look at the numbers again: 77% of all respondents wouldn't even consider subscribing to the service. Some of that may be inability to pay for it, the rest presumably reflects other priorities and/or general distaste for the private system. But regardless of the reasons, this is what's known as an "overwhelming majority" - and if the media was anything less than completely biased, the story would be about how many people want nothing to do with the idea of the private clinic.

Another 18% were "somewhat likely" to subscribe - in other words, wouldn't dismiss the concept completely off hand. Can we safely say that these are exactly the people who would consider subscribing, but then ultimately put their money elsewhere?

So the real result of the poll is that 5% of all respondents are sufficiently wealthy and committed enough to privatization as to want to take advantage of the project. The public policy question is whether to let the desires of those 5% win out over the health of the 77% who want no part of the private clinic. Anybody need help in figuring out the answer? (That is, aside from Decima Research?)

(Edit: typo.)

Take a look

Rabble's Isabel Macdonald has assembled all the latest from Haiti's upcoming pseudo-elections. Give it a read.

The impressionistic art of diplomacy

The U.S.' ambassador to Canada met with the premiers today, and nobody's particularly happy with the results:

Canada's premiers gave the new U.S. ambassador a diplomatic earful today on softwood lumber and smuggled guns, but made little headway.

"I listened, I heard the concerns," said David Wilkins, who has been on the job for just six weeks and pledged only to take those concerns back to Washington...

The article cites four different premiers slamming the U.S. on trade policy. It's a plus if Wilkins is at least acknowledging the concerns, but it would be a lot more helpful if he'd shown any inclination to do more than let the issues be ignored in Washington.

Legal limbo: how low can they go?

Apparently there's a new kind of torture in the Maher Arar case, and that's the tortured argument being put forward by the Justice Department:

Mason said the U.S. government is interpreting its powers in such a way that passengers never intending to enter the U.S. connecting to international flights at U.S. airports must prove they are no threat and could be allowed to enter the country.

If passengers are deemed to be inadmissible, they have no constitutional rights even if later taken to an American prison. Mason told Judge David Trager that's because they are deemed to be still outside the U.S., from a legal point of view.

Let's consider the flip side of this: if the passenger then commits a crime while in prison (or better yet, escapes from such custody), is he or she able to avoid prosecution because the crime took place outside the U.S.' jurisdiction? Or is it simply a matter of the U.S. government redefining borders as it sees fit with no regard for logic, common sense and other such nuisances?

Fortunately, the argument is being made in open court, leaving the opportunity for both the judge and the court of public opinion to evaluate the strength of the argument. And in this case, the argument would crumble under the weight of a paperback copy of the Abridged Ethics of Karl Rove.

On choosing words carefully

Doesn't this language sound far too familiar?

Britain, France and Germany have submitted a draft resolution to the United Nations' nuclear agency expressing "serious concern" about Iran's nuclear ambitions...

The three European Union nations...want Iran to suspend all its uranium enrichment activities and have asked the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to verify Iran's compliance, said Reuters, which obtained a full copy of the draft.

"Outstanding issues relating to Iran's nuclear programme have yet to be resolved and ... the [IAEA] is not yet in a position to conclude that there are no undeclared activities in Iran," said the draft.

That's right, it's the War in Iraq special, including two features designed to allow foreign states to do pretty much whatever they please in response to uncertain activities. First, an ambiguously-used "serious" - which is only linked to "concern" this time, but which was interpreted as "justifying war" last time Bush decided to go on the warpath. Second, an impossible onus on the state in question to prove a negative to the same countries on the opposite side of the table.

We know that Britain was all too willing to go along with the Iraq charade, but there's no excuse for France and Germany to let their names be attached to this sort of process. Even American intelligence doesn't suggest that Iran's nuclear poses the slightest bit of threat at this point. Unfortunately, politics have a way of taking precedence over reality, and Europe's giants have just given Bush a lot of undeserved political cover.

Lights out

The battle against smoking isn't won just yet, but it's headed in the right direction. According to Statistics Canada:

The Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey found a slight overall decline in smoking, although 20 per cent of people 15 or older were still puffing...

Among women aged 20 to 24...the percentage of smokers dropped sharply, to 25 per cent last year compared with 30 per cent in 2003.

The smoking rate for men in the age group remained steady at about 31 per cent.

The question now is how to get the point out to the young male demographic. But I'm not entirely sure about the message that would be sent by featuring anti-smoking advertising on packages of beer.

Cutting the brake lines

The Guardian points out that for all the climate change-related problems this year, the most important problems may just be beginning:

A vast expanse of western Sibera (sic) is undergoing an unprecedented thaw that could dramatically increase the rate of global warming, climate scientists warn today.

Researchers who have recently returned from the region found that an area of permafrost spanning a million square kilometres - the size of France and Germany combined - has started to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.

The area, which covers the entire sub-Arctic region of western Siberia, is the world's largest frozen peat bog and scientists fear that as it thaws, it will release billions of tonnes of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere.

So what's the effect of all this released methane?

Climate scientists yesterday reacted with alarm to the finding, and warned that predictions of future global temperatures would have to be revised upwards.

"When you start messing around with these natural systems, you can end up in situations where it's unstoppable. There are no brakes you can apply," said David Viner, a senior scientist at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

The all-too-often-forgotten lesson is that even to the extent that climate change may also be part of a natural cycle, there's inevitably a connection between natural cycles and human activity. And by ignoring those connections this long, we've caused harms which can't be undone.

There are two possible responses to this sort of news - we can throw our hands up and figure that since we're doomed now anyway, we'd might as well continue on our current path. Or we can redouble our efforts to make sure that we don't reach the next tipping point. Unfortunately, it seems all too obvious which choice will ultimately be made.

Money well spent

CBC reports that something's finally being done about money now hidden in tax havens:

The federal government plans to create 11 new "centres of expertise" to track down Canadians who hide their money in illegal tax havens abroad.

The offices will bring together auditors who specialize in international tax, special audits and tax avoidance, according to a release from the Canada Revenue Agency...

National Revenue Minister John McCallum says there's no way for Ottawa to know how much money is being hidden away so that tax scofflaws don't have to give the federal government its share.

The hope is that within a few years, we'll have a much better idea just how much money is currently hidden - and we'll have a good chunk of that rightfully back in Canada's public coffers.

Supply and demand

The AP discusses record oil and gas prices - and points out that they're not stopping anybody from consuming:

Oil prices zoomed higher today, touching a new high of $65 U.S. a barrel, with buyers focused on refinery snags and what they think are shrinking U.S. inventories of gasoline.

The latest rally — crude futures have risen 14 per cent in three weeks — highlights just how nervous the market has become about virtually any threat to output, even though analysts say the U.S. has adequate levels of fuel in inventory to offset routine supply disruptions...

Gasoline prices averaged $2.37 U.S. a gallon nationwide last week (in the range of 95 cents a litre in Canada), while demand picked up by 1.4 per cent from a year ago, according to the government data.

For all the complaints about high prices, if nobody is buying any less gas than last year, then nobody can realistically expect oil companies to reduce prices simply for the sake of making the public happier. It's by buying less fuel now that people have the opportunity to both drive prices down, and ensure that less of a scarce resource gets used up. We'll see how long prices have to stay this high before many people will decide to follow that path.

On easily-foreseen outcomes

Another day, another trade ruling which the U.S. plans to ignore:

An extraordinary challenge panel under the North American Free Trade Agreement has dismissed American claims that an earlier NAFTA ruling in favour of Canada violated trade rules...

"We are, of course, disappointed with the (panel's) decision, but it will have no impact on the antidumping and countervailing duty orders," said Neena Moorjani, press secretary for the U.S. Trade Representative, Rob Portman.

"We continue to have concerns about Canadian pricing and forestry practices. We believe that a negotiated solution is in the best interests of both the United States and Canada, and that litigation will not resolve the dispute."...

A trade official said the Americans still have some options outside NAFTA, including a formal constitutional challenge.

Depending how the U.S. proceeds, we'll see just how desperate the administration is to appease domestic lumber producers. I'll assume that accepting the loss isn't in the U.S. arsenal at the moment. Given that, the sensible (yet still protectionistic) response would be to pay back the wrongfully-collected duties, then put together a subsidy plan which would only be challenged through a new round of NAFTA litigation, buying the U.S. a few more years (and a new administration) before dealing with the fact that its softwood lumber industry isn't competitive.

The insane route would be to actually institute a "formal constitutional challenge". After all, the result of a successful one would presumably be a court ruling that the U.S. cannot constitutionally be bound to follow any provision of a treaty, or at least any provision of NAFTA. And that's the kind of statement that would give even the most ardent internationalist serious doubts about either reaching future agreements with the U.S., or complying with the ones that currently exist.

Will it stay buried?

Predictably, the U.S. administration wants to bury the facts on Maher Arar's rendition. And a judge is about to decide whether or not they'll be able to do just that:

Justice Department attorney Mary Mason said at a federal court hearing that the lawsuit filed by software engineer Maher Arar could force the government to reveal classified information, which supposedly linked Arar to al-Qaida and justified sending him to Syria instead of Canada...

The case is believed to be the first challenging the government's policy of extraordinary rendition, in which terror suspects are transferred to third countries without court approval...

Seeking to dismiss the case Tuesday, Justice Department attorneys argued that Arar was deported because the U.S. had classified evidence linking him to al-Qaida and the discretion to decide where he would be sent.

The government has submitted the classified evidence to U.S. District Judge David Trager, who is overseeing the lawsuit.

The most interesting part of this case is that the evidence is at least being made available to the judge. At the very least, the court will get the opportunity to take a look at the evidence, and perhaps to conclude that there never was any justification for the U.S.' belief.

Mind you, there would be more legitimacy to the process if Arar or his lawyer received any opportunity to answer the evidence. But any conclusion contrary to the U.S.' position will be extremely powerful when the other side isn't even being presented - and even a favourable ruling will be a powerful statement of the lengths to which Bushco has gone to try to hide its actions.

Deal-makers

I'm surprised to see the NDP willing to back bank mergers, but it does appear to have a strategic response to the issue:

(The NDP) says its approval comes at a cost. That price entails the minority Liberal government implementing a number of "stringent" rules aimed at protecting consumers, such as a cap on credit card interest rates and regulations governing the closing of bank branches...

There are seven elements to the NDP's bank merger platform, most of which would involve new legislation or amendments to existing laws. They include requirements that banks invest in communities where they offer loans; assurances that small businesses would face fewer hurdles in accessing loans; a cap on interest rates charged by bank credit cards; and protection for communities against bank branch closings and potential job losses.

Ultimately I like the strategy. Mergers were probably going to happen anyway if the Liberals managed a majority next time out; now, if the Liberals can be forced to accept the NDP's conditions, there'll be some benefit for consumers and small businesses which any future government would have to be wary of removing.

The potential problem is that with both other opposition parties also willing to back mergers, the Liberals may need to meet only one party's terms. If that happens then consumers may be much worse off for a time, but at worst the NDP is left with a solid consumer-protection platform for the 2006 election, along with a shining example of why such a platform is needed.