Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Armine Yalnizyan follows up on the Conference Board of Canada's recognition that growing inequality is a serious problem for Canada by noting the similar observations around the globe:

There is a growing awareness that when the fruits of prosperity are so poorly shared, trouble is not far off, for the economy and for society alike. The Conference Board report is a reflection of the growing concern shown by the business press in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. in recent months, with stories ranging from national and international income trends to firm-level eye-poppers.

At Davos this year, the World Economic Forum named rising inequality as the “most serious challenge for the world”. Their survey of 580 global decision-makers led to the conclusion that “economic disparity and global governance failures both influence the evolution of many other global risks.” Tackle growing inequality, and you tackle the root of much dysfunction in the world.

- Scott Stinson is the latest to question the thesis that Stephen Harper has somehow made Canada into a more conservative country. But I'm not sure his counter is on point either: while the Cons have tried to put on a non-threatening face for the public at large, I'd be curious to see a trace of evidence that their party supporters have generally moved an inch away from the values that were indeed seen as contrary to those shared by most of the country.

- David Climenhaga points out that in the midst of the most volatile political environment Alberta has seen for ages, there's reason for optimism that the provincial NDP can build on the party's federal success.

- And Chantal Hebert notes one of the reasons why the party was able to break through federally:

A stronger focus on values also contributed to the success of the NDP — a party with no government track record but with a long history of treating equality and minority rights as party policy and of voting accordingly in the House of Commons.

On May 2, that history made it easier for many former Bloc Québécois and Liberal supporters in Quebec to find a second home with the NDP.

- Finally, it's no surprise that the U.S. offered the Harper Cons tips on how to better serve the oil industry in selling the tar sands abroad. But given the Cons' constant focus on putting the oil patch first, I would think it's noteworthy that they were seen to need the help.

New column day

Here, on the need for Canadian workers to follow Kai Nagata's example in valuing and insisting on the right to express their opinions.

For further reading...
- Sandra Thomas' rebuttal to Nagata serves mostly to highlight why most workers can't afford to make the same choice he did - without answering the question of whether they should have to:

On a personal level I’m not 24, I have bills, responsibilities and a love of this community I can only afford to live in because of my paycheque.

- Nagata's own followup post is here.
- And finally, here's my previous column on how private intrusions can affect civil rights.

Wednesday Evening Links

Assorted content to end your day.

- Charlie Angus is leading the charge against the Cons' plan to ram through lawful access legislation, labeling it as warrantless snooping and spying on Canadians. We'll have to see how far Angus can get in swaying public opinion, but a concerted effort over the summer could go a long way to at least make this part of the dumb-on-crime strategy into a political loser for the Cons.

- Sun Media isn't prepared to meet basic media standards for accuracy and fairness. On a newsworthiness scale, this ranks somewhere below "dog bites man" - is "dog wants food" common enough to fit the bill?

- Meanwhile, the Conference Board of Canada not only recognizing a growing level of inequality but also hinting that it's a problem actually does qualify as a remarkable turn of events.

The 33-year trend which has accelerated since 1993, raises questions about the country’s economic well-being, including whether Canada is using all the skills and talents of its citizens and whether social cohesion and fairness are being undermined, says How Canada Performs: Is Canada becoming more unequal?

Social policy experts who have been raising the alarm over Canada’s growing income gap since 2006, say the Conference Board report represents a watershed.

“The significance of this report is that it is now firmly on the radar of the business establishment,” said economist Armine Yalnizyan who has written several reports on the issue for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives that are referenced by the Conference Board.

“The jury is no longer out. This is a pressing issue of our era,” Yalnizyan said in an interview.

- Finally, the Cons have officially completed the Harper Shuffle on their earlier suppression of a report on the Champlain Bridge, having completely reversed their position without either admitting they were wrong or even acknowledging that they've changed course.

On devolution

It remains to be seen exactly how much discussion of social policy will move from the federal level to the provincial one as Canadian civil society adjusts to a Harper majority. But I'm not sure a signal that the action is going to be at the provincial level can get much stronger than this.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your midweek reading.

- Stephen Gordon weighs in again on the Cons' census disaster:

Many readers may have thought that the census issue was settled last summer; it wasn’t. We haven’t even begun to deal with the consequences of the decision to replace the mandatory long-form census with the voluntary NHS. As Economy Lab contributor Kevin Milligan and his UBC colleague David Green note in Canadian Public Policy, one of the most striking features of the census is its ‘hidden ubiquity’. The census is an invisible -- and yet essential -- element of virtually all the data that inform policy debates.
...
Employment and inflation data have the power to move markets, and policy-makers need reliable data to guide their decisions. The list is goes on, and is almost endless. For example, the labour market experiences of immigrants will be an increasing preoccupation for policy-makers as the population ages; the only source of information about immigrants is the census.

The most recent census was in 2006, and it looks as though the next usable census will take place in 2021 at the earliest. Our understanding of what is going on in the Canadian economy in the next decades will grow steadily weaker as more cars pile on the census train wreck.

- Marc Lee describes the right strategy for a government which actually wants to boost an economy emerging from a recession, rather than looking for excuses to go on a slashing spree:

Keeping up the stimulus is a top priority, and even leaning more heavily into job creation would be advised. If deficits are of concern, then increase corporate taxes and income taxes on the wealthy. Engage mortgage relief to the millions of US households who are underwater. But don’t buy into the doom and gloom stories about default. While it is true that a default would be uncharted territory, constitutionally, US debt is backed by law. The US issues debt in a currency it controls, and the Fed could play a major role by buying up some of the outstanding debt for cash. But ultimately, as James Galbraith points out, the big holder of US debt is China and it does not really have anywhere else to go to park its money (some gold, Swiss francs and some Canadian dollars on the margin perhaps).

For Canada, this means we need to keep our cool, and NOT play the austerity game revealed in last month’s budget. Piling on with spending cuts and layoffs will only make things worse. Federally and provincially, governments need to focus on employment not deficits in order to maintain robust demand in the economy (climate action is a great place to start). The Bank of Canada also needs to reconsider murmurings of interest rate increases this fall in light of these developments. Our biggest risk is that we harm ourselves to save a summary statistic rather than focus on the real challenges.

- Chantal Hebert points out how the Cons figure to start chipping away at health care across most of Canada:

The Conservative election promise to maintain the 6 per cent rate of increase in the federal health transfer for the duration of the current federal mandate will only translate in a one-year extension to the existing arrangements. And even under that regime, federal funding to most provinces could start to grow more slowly.

In one of its first budgets, the Harper government promised to bring Ontario’s share of the health transfer in line with its population as of 2014.

Topping up Ontario’s share out of the existing pie would mean that there would be less funding to go around for the other provinces.

Despite the promises of the last federal campaign, the next chapter of the medicare saga will most likely be written in red ink in the provinces.

- Finally, E3's analysis of the possible social costs of carbon provides some needed perspective on an issue where even lower-end estimates are all too often treated as making action too costly to be worth pursuing.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Wonder visited the veterinarian today - and purred so loudly the vet couldn't get a reading on his heartbeat.

In his honour, another installment of blissed-out cats.

A bridge to know-nothingness

Shorter Denis Lebel:

Ignorance is bliss. And we're hard at work making sure Canadians are nothing less than euphoric.

Parliament In Review: June 21, 2011

Issue of the Day

Much of the day's debate was taken up with the final debate on the Cons' budget legislation, with the NDP particularly highlighting provisions to subsidize private mortgage insurance - while the Cons responded at times by insisting that there's somehow a need for competition against the CMHC, and others by suggesting we should be willing to trade off a stable mortgage insurance system for promises of transparency.

Once it was time to vote, there was only one slight surprise. It was never a secret that the Bloc planned to vote for the Cons' budget based on the inclusion of HST money for Quebec - but I'm rather curious as to how the Bloc can also justify voting against all of the NDP's proposed amendments as well.

All In Order

Is it a violation of parliamentary procedure to describe Tony Clement as "hiding under his desk"? For some reason, the Cons seemed to want to debate the point. Which led to Charlie Angus' reply:

Mr. Speaker, I want to clarify the record because I do think it is very important. I take my choice of words very seriously. When I said “the missing member for Muskoka” I was not implying that he was missing from the House. I said that he was missing from doing his job.

Fighting Back

The Cons sought unanimous consent to ram through anti-refugee legislation. But instead, Olivia Chow instead delivered a blistering attack on the Cons' disdain for refugees:

the bill would not punish smugglers. Under our present legislation, a smuggler would be jailed for life. We have the most severe punishment for people convicted of smuggling. What could be more severe than putting them away for life? We cannot get more severe. The bill is not really about the smugglers. It is about the refugees.

This legislation would require the mandatory detention of all people arriving in Canada, including women and children, whether they arrive by foot, by boat or by air. A mom and a two year old child, a five year old child, or a baby, would be jailed a minimum of 12 months. After they serve that 12 months they might receive some consideration. They would also be denied permanent residence or family reunification for at least five years.

Let me use as an example a dad who leaves a troubled country and his wife and children are left behind in a refugee camp. He arrives in Canada by himself and gets designated by the minister. The minister could not even explain a few minutes ago what criteria he is going to use. He mentioned those individuals who do not have documentation. Most refugees who come to Canada do not have documentation. How can we expect people who live through an earthquake or arrive from a war-torn country to have identification? A lot of refugees arrive at our shores without identification. They could be designated. More than two refugees who arrive on our shores could be designated as a group.

Let me revert to my example of the dad who arrived in Canada after fleeing from a war-torn country. Under this rule he would be sent to jail for at least a year. Let us say that he goes through the process and is determined to be a genuine refugee. For five years he would not be able to sponsor his wife and children from a refugee camp. What does that mean? It means that he will be separated from his family for at least seven years. These refugees will have to determine whether or not they want to leave their loved ones behind because they will not see them for at least seven years. Do they want to come to this country alone or do they want to make a dangerous journey together? That is why I say the bill is cruel.

In Brief

Let's start with a few noteworthy points on the Canada Post debate which made for the other major theme of the day. First, Pat Martin pointed out that the root of all of Canada Post's problems which were supposed to justify back-to-work legislation lay in money extracted from it and its pension plan. The NDP also nicely highlighted the "orphan clauses" designed to ensure that future Canada Post workers don't enjoy the pay and benefit levels of current employees. And following his much-ballyhooed speech, Yvon Godin had the definitive answer to a question about a six-year-old waiting for her glasses through the mail:

Madam Speaker, I would tell this little six-year-old girl that the Conservative government has refused to tell Canada Post to get back to the table with its collective agreement and negotiate in good faith. I would tell the little girl that when she gets older, I hope it is not a Conservative government in power that would hit on her the way they are doing today. I would tell that little girl that if she wants to buy glasses, I hope she has a decent job with good pay that the Conservative Party will not take away from her. I would make sure that the little girl never voted for the Conservative Party her whole life.

And in other news...

Chris Charlton stood up for the principle that Parliament needs time to review and debate legislation, rather than having it forced through in artificially short time frames. Jim Flaherty answered Terek Brahmi's question about the well-being of families trapped by record debt levels by saying that the corporate sector is doing just fine. Peter Stoffer introduced a bill to establish a right to housing.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Christopher Michael points out the real problem underlying the News of the World's scandalous demise:

The Sun is either clairvoyant at predicting the results of British elections, or instrumental in determining them. It has supported the winning side ever since Margaret Thatcher's victory in 1979. Politicians quickly internalized the idea that you needed Mr. Murdoch on side to win, and lived in fear that The Sun would unleash its worst. Tony Blair quietly flew to Australia in 1995 to court him. The morning after Mr. Cameron became Prime Minster, Mr. Murdoch was seen leaving 10 Downing St. by the back door; former NOTW editor Andy Coulson (arrested Friday) was already on board as Mr. Cameron’s head of PR. Mrs. Thatcher spent Christmases with Mr. Murdoch, yet failed to mention him in her autobiography. As Marina Hyde wrote in the Guardian, “Like Voldemort, he must not be named.”

After The Sun helped sweep Mr. Blair to power in 1997, the Labour PM loosened the UK’s restrictions on foreign media ownership. Indeed, Mr. Murdoch’s shuttering of NOTW was likely calculated to smooth the way for his purchase of a majority stake in the huge British satellite broadcaster BSkyB, which would centralize even more media power in his hands.

Thanks to the scandal, the BSkyB deal may no longer happen. If so, we should all be grateful. Mr. Murdoch’s suffocating influence in Britain has been grossly undemocratic, and deserves to be punctured. From this strange and lurid story of a great democracy brought temporarily low, Canadians can learn a powerful lesson: Keep media ownership as diffusely concentrated as possible, and never be afraid to speak anyone’s name.

- Meanwhile, the current public debate over the ownership and regulation of vital communication tools looks to be getting more interesting by the day, as the CP and Michael Geist summarize the day's CRTC Internet regulation proceedings.

- Murray Mandryk is the latest to point out that the track Saskatchewan is on seems to be leaving mere workers behind while having no particular direction for the future:

If we are "on track", then we also are spinning our wheels in a bit of a rut. And it comes at a time when higher oil prices suggest we should be less vulnerable to such economic problems. After all, Alberta is recovering as well. It's also important to note that some of the biggest losses in June were in construction (3,000 jobs), where Premier Brad Wall's government changed labour legislation last year under the notion we needed more flexibility to meet the boom.

If Saskatchewan is "on track" shouldn't we be seeing signs our economy is less vulnerable to the whims of the resource sector? Shouldn't we be seeing more signs of economic transformation? And with a looming debt default crisis in the U.S. threatening to send the world economy into another recession, how stable is our resource-based economy?

- Finally, Angus Reid provides the latest edition of "Stephen Harper has turned Canada into a more Conservative country!!!" by pointing out that public attitudes toward the Senate are moving toward both abolition over election, and holding a referendum rather than having Harper alone dictate the future of the Senate. [Update: Apparently the Globe and Mail's snark detector is broken.]

Monday Evening Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Janyce McGregor's article on the perils of Senate reform is well worth a read in general. But let's particularly highlight an issue I've raised before - if one which is no less glaring in the absence of any reform:

So why not just abolish the Senate? Indeed, that's the position of other premiers, including Ontario's Dalton McGuinty, and the NDP at both the federal and provincial levels.

The NDP's preference for abolition over reform is another reason Simon Fraser's Heard is uncertain about the prospects for the voluntary elections framework in the current bill.

New Democrats hold power in Nova Scotia and Manitoba, and are serious challengers for government in B.C. in the coming months. The party might be seen as contradicting itself to run candidates to serve in a chamber it believes should be abolished.

"If they maintain this position, then several provinces with a strong NDP presence will not be properly represented," Heard fears.

- Aalya Ahmad and Geoff Bickerton discuss the toxic mix of management, government, paid PR and media which all served to ensure the least fair outcome possible in Canada Post's CBA negotiations.

- Verda Petry points out just a few of the people who have reason to figure that Saskatchewan's current track won't take them anywhere worth going:

No mention of the Health Sciences Association, who have been without a contract for over two years, the Saskatchewan Teachers' Federation, the CUPE Local of educational assistants, the Saskatchewan Cancer Society workers, the Crop Insurers Group, SIAST instructors and support staff. Government interference in free collective bargaining and wage offers below the cost of living create acute distress and anger.

The minimum wage is so low that at full employment a worker doesn't meet the low income cut-off for poverty. All this at a time when government revenue has exceeded expectations by $1 billion. Add to this the federal abuse of postal workers, farmers threatened with the loss of the Canadian Wheat Board, and you have a plethora of workers, their families, and citizens who depend on these workers for services, for whom Saskatchewan is not "on track".

- And for those wondering what comes next in the corporatist arsenal after massive handouts to the rich are paired with "but look how many people we took off the tax rolls!", Orrin Hatch is leading the Republican Party toward the inevitable next step.

On class dynamics

Doug Saunders' post on the political role of the middle class is certainly worth a read. But I'd think the core theory demands some significant tweaking in figuring out how politics have actually tended to operate:

Andy Sumner, a scholar with Britain’s Institute for Development Studies who is working this year at the Washington-based Center for Global Development, looked at the political ramifications of Dr. Palma’s breakdown and asked a provocative question: “Are the middle classes the new revolutionaries?”

“The middle classes generally get half of the economic pie wherever you look, and are incredibly successful about protecting their half,” Dr. Sumner notes. As a result, he says, “politics is increasingly a fight for the remaining half between the richest 10 per cent and the poorest 40 per cent … between the very rich and the very poor over who can win over the middle classes.”

Of course, the problem in applying that theory to countries like Canada is that the middle class actually hasn't been able to hold onto its position, whether framed in terms of wages or total income. And the obvious culprit looks to me to be the ability of upper-income interests to play the two lower categories against each other.

Most of the time, we're told that we have no choice but to send money up the income chain in hopes that it'll result in wage gains focused mostly on the middle class. And far too often, middle-class voters buy into the theory.

But once we reach the point where wages are actually set to rise significantly, it's easy enough for the upper class to then talk up the needs of people on lower and fixed incomes as reason to rein in the growth. (That is, to the point where any spoils are focused solely on the absolute top level of society - which is far enough removed from mere ordinary people to argue that its gains won't influence prices on basic goods.)

So the effort to encourage greater equality isn't as simple as trying to win a single tug-of-war between the poor and the wealthy. Instead, it involves having to keep both the lower and middle classes both engaged enough to see politics as worth pursuing, and skeptical enough to call out the naked greed of the privileged few for what it is.

Monday Morning Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- Trish Hennessy's latest Numbers consist of a comparison between Canada and other OECD countries...featuring some great news on the social front:

84

Percentage of Canadians, on average, who report the highest community tolerance of ethnic minorities, migrants, gays and lesbians. Higher than the OECD average of 61 per cent.

...some rather more sobering news on the economic front:

320

Minutes of paid work or study, per day, reported by Canadians. Higher than the OECD average of 277 minutes per day.
...
85

Percentage of jobless households with children in Canada who are poor. Much higher than the OECD average of 53 per cent.

...and on the crime front, of course yet more Evidence that Stephen Harper has Turned Canada into a Conservative Country:

1

Percentage of Canadians who reported falling victim to assault over a 12-month period, lower than the OECD average of four percent.(Source)

17

Percentage of Canadians who feel unsafe on the street after dark, much lower than the OECD average of 26 per cent.

- Naturally, the NDP should avoid the kind of arrogant victory lap we've seen from the Harper Cons - particularly when it's rightly highlighting the sense of entitlement the Cons have developed.

- But David Climenhaga's post is still worth pointing out in defining a reachable goal for 2015 and beyond:

(W)hile it is certainly true that Harper's government is attempting to move Canada in a conservative direction (if by "conservative" we mean "radical and market-fundamentalist"), whether this is what Canadians want or what they were trying to achieve when they elected a Conservative majority in May is an entirely different matter.

Add up the numbers. The demise of the national Liberal Party combined with the well-known rejection by Canadian voters of so-called conservative values could be what it takes turn the Orange Wave into an Orange Crush and usher in a long and happy era of New Democrat government.

- Finally, it will certainly be interesting to see the Sask Party's spin as to how nobody in Saskatchewan particularly needed a kidney transplant until 2012. But it's hard to imagine an instance of glaring political failure with a more obvious human cost.

On top priorities

Of course, a national energy strategy could be a huge plus if it includes some recognition of environmental issues and other concerns beyond immediate profits. But let's just say there's not much reason for optimism in the reason why the Cons are just now coming around to the idea:

The Harper government has endorsed the need for a national energy strategy in the face of growing calls from provinces and industry groups that the sector’s vision of a new era of global growth is too critical to be governed by piecemeal planning.

The government’s backing of the idea of a national energy strategy marks a substantial shift from its previous public position. The Conservative government had long been cool to calls for a national strategy, fearing it would get dragged into areas of provincial jurisdiction with demands for financial support.

But with a majority government safely in hand, the Conservatives are now signalling their support for a national policy. The Alberta government has urged Ottawa to lead the effort for a national energy strategy, arguing the country must work together if it is going to achieve Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s vision of an “energy superpower.”

So in a minority Parliament, the Cons saw enough political danger to avoid being too explicit about making the oil and gas sector its top priority, particularly when that figured to result in still more federal money getting dumped into industries which were already raking in massive profits. But now, they're apparently changing their tune - with little apparent suggestion that the change will involve any more willingness to act on greenhouse gas emissions, water concerns, or any other issue that's actually lacking for action.

Suffice it to say then that there's every reason to be skeptical about the Cons' intentions. And barring some major shock as to how much sway non-industry interests will get in developing the actual strategy, it'll be up to the rest of Canada to make sure the Cons are right to have feared the political price of putting big oil first.

Still hard at work

In case there was any doubt whether the NDP's hard-earned reputation as the most productive caucus in Ottawa would change as the party moved into its new role as Official Opposition, LEGISInfo provides a handy comparison for the bills introduced in the spring session of Parliament:

Type
Senate Government Bill (1)
Senate Private Bill (1)
Senate Public Bill (4)
House Government Bill (9)
Private Member’s Bill (65)
...
Political Affiliation
Bloc Québécois (2)
Conservative (16)
Liberal (10)
NDP (51)
PC (1)

Now, it's not at all new for the NDP to be ahead of the pack in the number of bills introduced. But it's well worth noting that even with a caucus that's nearly tripled in size, and with only a three-plus-week session for its rookies to learn the ropes in Ottawa, the NDP is once again far ahead of all of the other official parties - and roughly even with the four-member Bloc - in the number of policy ideas per MP. And we can only expect the gap to widen as the NDP's new members join their colleagues in developing and introducing bills.

Sunday Morning Links

Assorted material for your weekend reading.

- He's a bit too shy in pointing out exactly how thoroughly the Cons' position on the Canadian Wheat Board has been rebuked in CWB elections for ages. But Bruce Johnstone nicely describes the PR blitz designed to pretend there's no dissent at all to the Cons' plans to destroy the Wheat Board:

In the space of an hour or two on Friday, my e-mail inbox was crammed with messages praising the Harper government for giving farmers "marketing freedom."

The steady parade of press releases from the governments of B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan, the Western Barley Growers Association, Western Canadian Wheat Growers, Grain Growers of Canada and Canadian Federation of Independent Business had all the spontaniety of a vote of the politburo of the Worker's Party of Korea.

Does anyone really believe that all these groups, acting independently, putting out press releases at the same time, all saying essentially the same thing, is just a coincidence?
...
(T)he Harper government has done nothing to justify its decision to remove the single desk - other than wrap itself in the flag of "marketing freedom.''

It has done no detailed studies (that we know of) on the impact the removal of single desk will have on the CWB, farmers, rural towns, the grain handling and transportation system, the economies of the three Prairie provinces, etc.

All the Harper government has done is bluster and brazen its way through this debate, without consulting directly with the people its decision will affect the most - Western Canadian farmers. Hardly consistent with a government that claims to believe in giving people freedom to choose.

- But then, Jamie Biggar notes that demolishing the building blocks of democracy is standard operating procedure for those seeking to remove power from mere citizens:

Like the shock doctrine, the creeping erosion strategy was first implemented by the right-wing governments that rose to power in the 1980s. It is a powerful approach because it creates the conditions for further rightward shifts. For example, these governments repeatedly created massive public deficits by cutting taxes while raising security spending, and then they used these manufactured deficits to justify cuts to social programs. The Harper government's agenda of tax cuts, spending on fighter jets and prisons, and subsequent "we have no choice" cuts to social spending is a standard example of this tactic.

This creeping erosion undermines our belief that we can and should work together through our democracy to achieve progress. Again, the strategy is powerful because it continually creates the conditions that reinforce its own arguments by making the problems it identifies even worse. When the Harper government is secretive, authoritarian or incompetent it is also re-enforcing its political agenda to persuade Canadians that government cannot be trusted and that it is not the answer to our shared challenges. Similarly, policies that expose Canadians to greater economic insecurity, from trade deals to deregulation and union busting, also make Canadians more afraid of change, and therefore more resistant to government interventions in the economy that are designed to reduce inequality or protect the environment.

The upshot is a decline in our trust in our institutions, and in our society. When people believe that government is dominated by self-interested elites, or that their neighbours will find a way to cheat the system, then they are far more likely to oppose collective approaches to problems that involve any short-term cost or uncertainty. This decline in public and social trust is not just a consequence of political strategy, it is highly connected to the longer term decline in "social capital," identified by the likes of Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone, but the creeping erosion strategy is designed to cynically leverage this decline for political power.

- Peter McKnight is the latest to lament the Harper Cons' disdain for science and evidence:

In a desperate attempt to discredit Insite, Clement presented an essay critical of the facility as the equivalent of the aforementioned peer-reviewed studies.

In so doing, he essentially suggested there is nothing special about scientific studies -that scientists are not in a privileged position to discover truth about the natural world. Rather, any individual's opinion on a scientific topic is just as good as a scientist's, whether it is informed by science or not.
...
According to this view, since science isn't in a privileged position to discover truth, we shouldn't privilege it in any way.

Such disdain for science is clearly evident in the Conservatives' elimination of the Office of Science Advisor and of their muzzling of Environment Canada scientists. But more than anything, their elimination of the mandatory long-form census, and their bizarre proclamations that they can still gain necessary knowledge about Canadian society without it, reveals their open hostility, not just to scientists, but to science itself.

Given that the Conservatives embrace this strange philosophy, their opposition to listing chrysotile, while still shocking, isn't surprising. But much like chrysotile, it is deadly. Also much like chrysotile, it ought to be buried deep in the ground, before it buries us all.

- Dr. Dawg reports that the parliamentary committee set up to formally convert criticism of government policy into anti-Semitism has issued its report - with predictable results.

- Finally, the official birth of South Sudan offers one good-news story for the weekend.

Sunday Morning 'Rider Blogging

No, a loss to the CFL's strongest team shouldn't be considered reason to panic. But yesterday's game did reveal some important gaps between the current 'Riders and the team they should be seeking to emulate.

Most obviously, the performance gap between the two offences could be traced to the difference between the Alouettes' well-coordinated group of receivers and the 'Riders' less experienced crew. Yes, Anthony Calvillo was allowed to complete a few more passes than would have been ideal (and we'll get to that shortly), but he also found receivers in stride and ready to rack up yards after the catch at every turn - making it far easier to march the ball down the field in a hurry in a game where plays with the wind were at a premium.

In contrast, the 'Riders' receivers made Darian Durant's job more difficult throughout the game, with a bit of help from some odd play design. Efrem Hill was the most obvious offender - wiping out one otherwise perfectly-executed play by inexplicably wandering out of bounds, and giving away plenty of yardage on another reception by taking one step out of bounds with plenty of open field in front of him. Terrence Nunn showed the downside of his "Flying Nunn" persona, lunging headlong at a couple of passes where a more controlled reception would have allowed him a chance to gain YAC yardage. And the 'Riders late-game lob pass strategy looks to have been doomed from the outset, as receivers like Wes Cates and Weston Dressler were thoroughly blanketed by tacklers by the time high-arcing passes reached them.

Which isn't to say that the 'Riders' offence played poorly on the whole. In fact, the 'Riders current scoring pace is just about a point per game below the team's 2010 total - signalling where the real problem has come in.

Once again, it was the 'Riders' defence that played far below expectations. But this time out, it wasn't the pass rush that bore the blame, as Calvillo faced fairly regular pressure throughout the game; instead, the normal strengths of a Richie Hall defence were sorely lacking.

Rather than making sure tackles, the 'Riders flailed around after far too many Montreal completions, with catch-and-run touchdowns by S.J. Green and Tim Maypray serving as only the most vivid examples. And the 'Riders' pass coverage was also a significant issue - particularly in the third quarter, when Calvillo picked the 'Riders apart with a series of line-drive throws on crossing routes which would seem to have been vulnerable to an effort to bat down passes at the line.

Fortunately, there's still lots of time left in the season for the receiving corps to gain experience (and health), and for the defence to sort out how best to handle a precision passing offence. But after two games where the 'Riders have yet to take a single lead, it's probably time to start ratcheting down our expectations.

What's good for the goose...

It's rather surprising to learn that donating money to a political party is considered a "questionable political tactic". But I look forward to seeing the same standard applied to a single one of the Saskatchewan Party's thousands of corporate donors.

Saturday Morning Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- Kai Nagata's post on why he quit his job as a reporter is well worth a read in full. But let's particularly note his observations which may apply just as much to many other jobs as to positions in the media (even if the restrictions on public speech likely aren't spelled out as clearly):

I have serious problems with the direction taken by Canadian policy and politics in the last five years. But as a reporter, I feel like I’ve been holding my breath. Every question I asked, every tweet I posted, and even what I said to other journalists and friends had to go through a filter, where my own opinions and values were carefully strained out. Even then I’m not sure I was always successful, but I always knew at the CBC and subsequently at CTV that there were serious consequences for editorial. Within the terms of my employment at CTV, there was a clause in which the corporation (now Bellmedia) literally took ownership of my intellectual property output. If I invented a better mouse trap, they owned the patent. If I wrote a novel, they got a cut. Rhymes on the back of a napkin? Bellmedia is hip to the jive, yo. And if I ever said anything out of line with my position as an “objective” TV reporter, they had grounds to fire me. I had a sinking feeling when I first read that clause, but I signed because I was 23 and I wanted the job. Now I want my opinions back.

- Erika Shaker points out how a lack of precision in defining the middle class has eased the way for policies which promote inequality at the expense of people who likely self-identify with the term:

The distribution of wealth has shifted, but the self-identification as middle class has not; if anything, identification of and with the middle class has expanded to include more people than ever. And rather than political leaders addressing the vast disparities across the economic spectrum, we hear how their policies will benefit the “middle class” when even a cursory analysis reveals the real beneficiaries of many of these policies are those with much higher incomes (the very upper crust of the middle, so to speak).

So, for example, we’re told the middle class will be the beneficiary of income splitting, when they really mean families (with kids) making over $125,000 a year—the richest 20%–who still self-identify as middle class.

In spite of the “middle class” framing, tax policies are being used to help enrich the already most affluent. Meanwhile, everyone else labouring under the false impression that they are part of the middle class that politicians are talking about is left wondering why at the end of the day the so-called middle class-friendly numbers don’t seem to add up for the people who need the most help.

- Michael Geist highlights the CRTC's continued ineffectiveness in enforcing the principle of net neutrality:

The Commission unveiled its Internet traffic management practices in October 2009, establishing enforceable guidelines touted as the world’s first net neutrality regulations. Where a consumer complains, Internet providers are required to describe their practices, demonstrate their necessity, and establish that they discriminate as little as possible. Targeting specific applications or protocols may warrant investigation and slowing down time-sensitive traffic likely violates current Canadian law.

While there was a lot to like about the CRTC approach, the immediate concern was absence of an enforcement mechanism. Much of the responsibility for gathering evidence and launching complaints was left to individual Canadians who typically lack the expertise to do so. Nearly two years later, my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) posts an investigation into the system that reveals those concerns were well-founded.

Although the CRTC has not publicly disclosed details on net neutrality complaints and the resulting investigations, I recently filed an Access to Information request to learn more about what has been taking place behind the scenes. A review of hundreds of pages of documents discloses that virtually all major Canadian ISPs have been the target of complaints, but there have been few, if any, consequences arising from the complaints process. In fact, the CRTC has frequently dismissed complaints as being outside of the scope of the policy, lacking in evidence, or sided with Internet provider practices.

- Finally, Cracked's article on the most disturbing examples of corporate capture is well worth a read.

Musical interlude

Haji & Emanuel - Take Me Away

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- I'll join the seemingly long list of commentators who wouldn't ever have expected to cite David Brooks, but can't avoid it based on his latest column:

Eldar Shafir of Princeton and Sendhil Mullainathan of Harvard have recently, with federal help, been exploring a third theory, that scarcity produces its own cognitive traits.

A quick question: What is the starting taxi fare in your city? If you are like most upper-middle-class people, you don’t know. If you are like many struggling people, you do know. Poorer people have to think hard about a million things that affluent people don’t. They have to make complicated trade-offs when buying a carton of milk: If I buy milk, I can’t afford orange juice. They have to decide which utility not to pay.

These questions impose enormous cognitive demands. The brain has limited capacities. If you increase demands on one sort of question, it performs less well on other sorts of questions.

Shafir and Mullainathan gave batteries of tests to Indian sugar farmers. After they sell their harvest, they live in relative prosperity. During this season, the farmers do well on the I.Q. and other tests. But before the harvest, they live amid scarcity and have to think hard about a thousand daily decisions. During these seasons, these same farmers do much worse on the tests. They appear to have lower I.Q.’s. They have more trouble controlling their attention. They are more shortsighted. Scarcity creates its own psychology.

- Meanwhile, Katie Hyslop points out that the Cons are ensuring that arbitrary scarcity remains the norm when it comes to educational funding for First Nations - and that efforts to make such a basic service as Internet access available are being cut off:

Earlier this year Aboriginal Affairs announced they would no longer be funding internet connectivity for First Nations schools.

This not only threatens to cut kids in remote areas off from connection with an increasingly globalized world, according to Williams, but also prevents students from taking distance education courses or conducting online research.

"We would lose access to online library services, and that's really important, as in the elementary and secondary schools kids are asked to do research. Most of our schools have very, very poor libraries, if they have a library, and so now that, I think, is a basic service that kids are entitled to," she says.
...
While schools will be forced to reexamine their budgets in order to afford Internet fees, they'll have to take into account a 15 per cent holdback on targeted programming funds for First Nations education as of April 1. The government announced the holdback earlier this year, citing an uncertainty in funds for First Nations education thanks to the federal election delaying the budget.

"That means that there would be 15 per cent less money available to First Nations schools this year to implement programs such as parent involvement, support for teacher retention and recruitment, for language programming, for some of the literacy programming that we've put into place," says Williams, adding government hasn't said when, if ever, the 15 per cent will be restored.

- But at least offices outside the Cons' control aren't similarly looking to restrict the availability of information. And in fact, the PBO's new website discussed by Bill Curry looks like an excellent step in allowing Canadians to see how their money is being spent.

- Finally, Jim Stanford eviscerates the coalition supporting B.C.'s HST (and the "no" side of the current referendum) as being dishonest, unethical, and flat-out wrong. And the Conseil de Presse du Quebec much the same labels to two of the province's most recognizable right-wing names.

A different story

Yessiree, the conventional wisdom goes, Canada's political parties are all the same. Especially the NDP, which having reached Official Opposition status is sure to abandon any pretense of principle when it comes to, say, electoral reform. (Especially now that it's actually benefitting from first-past-the-post.)

But wait, what's this?

Spokespersons from various parties participated in a political panel to give their point of view on how to move forward on electoral reform in the new political landscape. Tyler Crosby, Legislative Assistant to David Christopherson, the NDP critic for electoral reform, announced that the NDP would introduce a motion on proportional representation in the House in the next session.

Bruce Anderson is presumably unavailable for comment.

Friday Morning 'Rider Blogging

Yes, Saskatchewan is a tough place for a football team. Lose one lousy game to start the year, and look what happens...


But how worried should 'Riders fans be after a loss to Edmonton to start the 2011 season? I'd argue that the answer is less so than one might think.

While there were a number of causes of the loss, one stands out above all others: in the first half of the game, the 'Riders simply couldn't get any pressure on Ricky Ray. And so Ricky Ray did what he normally does when he has time to grab a snack before finding a receiver downfield, posting a lead that the 'Riders couldn't overcome the rest of the game.

And let's be clear that the problem looked to be almost entirely with the pass rush.

Yes, John Eubanks and others in the secondary were left clutching at air at times - but that's bound to happen when a big, talented receiving corps has all the time in the world to operate.

And yes, Darian Durant coughed up the ball far more than he should have. But that looks to be the result of two problems. Granted, he seems to have let his guard down somewhat in the third quarter after getting away with a soft toss or two. But more importantly, seeing a need to put up a pile of points to keep up with the Eskimos, he took some arguably necessary risks to try to force the issue. Which may not often be a successful strategy (see e.g. the difference between Kerry Joseph playing protect-the-ball for the 'Riders in 2007 compared to his attempts to carry the Argos to victory the next two seasons) - but at least makes for a rational response to the 'Riders' defensive difficulties.

Which were of course fairly disastrous, as the defensive struggled even against as weak an offensive line as it can expect to face all season. But the 'Riders found at least part of the answer in the second half, as a series of linebacker blitzes managed to limit Ray's time in the pocket. And the addition of Remond Willis should hopefully add some more pressure off the ends.

So now is far from the time to push the panic button, as the 'Riders difficulties can be traced back to one problem with some available solutions. And hopefully we'll see those on display in what figures to be a tough game against the Als.

Parliament In Review: June 20, 2011

Yes, it's tempting to Bruce Anderson's conjecture about the NDP with a direct rebuttal. But I hardly see the need when the next day in Parliament to be reviewed offers an ideal example of the NDP standing up for its principles rather than merely positioning itself as next in line for government. So without any further ado...

Issue of the Day

For its final opposition day of the session, the NDP had a world of policy choices at its disposal, and chose...

That, in the opinion of this House, ending seniors' poverty in Canada is fiscally feasible, and, therefore, the House calls on the government to take immediate steps to increase the Guaranteed Income Supplement sufficiently to achieve that goal.

Of course, the exact cost of ending seniors' poverty was a matter of some dispute during the course of the debate, with the NDP focusing on the CLC's estimate of $700 million per year, the Libs relying on the CCPA's number of $1.2 billion, and the Cons putting forward a $2 billion figure from the Numbers Pulled From Our [Censored] Institute.

Lest there be any doubt, the reference to the proposal being "fiscally feasible" only fed into an extensive clash over the Cons' priorities, with speakers from the NDP and other opposition parties repeatedly challenging the choice to pour money into fighter jets and corporate tax cuts instead.

Among the arguments of particular note: Glenn Thibault noted that the corporate tax cuts delivered to banks alone could have lifted every senior in Canada out of poverty; John Rafferty made the point that a more secure retirement for seniors through the GIS would also have broader economic benefits; and Marc-Andre Morin questioned how anybody making $160,000 per year can argue that a senior barely getting by on a small fraction of that just needs to budget better.

And a couple of MPs also fit the GIS debate into broader policy discussions, with Irene Mathyssen comparing the Cons' minimal GIS funding with their willingness to give away substantially more money through income splitting, while Elizabeth May raised a guaranteed annual income as an alternative.

Meanwhile, among the Cons' creative responses...

Alice Wong argued that seniors living in poverty should be happy just to have been spoken to. John Weston tried to pretend that the Cons had done enough through a caregiver tax credit - only to be met with a thorough thrashing by Robert Chisholm, who pointed out that the credit was designed to only help wealthier recipients. And Chris Warkentin argued that it's only because he's so committed to ending it that he couldn't support a motion calling for just that.

And in case that wasn't enough of a focus on poverty for the day, Jean Crowder also introduced her private member's bill to eliminate poverty in general.

Tuned Out

Tony Clement's silencing on the Cons' G8 graft and waste continued - this time to the point that Alexandre Boulerice's question about current Treasury Board cuts (which merely mentioned the Auditor General's report in a preamble) was fielded by John Baird.

In Brief

On behalf of the Cons, Deepak Obhrai took credit for setting Canada's rate of inflation. A stream of alarm and outrage from economists and business leaders alike did not ensue.

Ted Hsu was the latest to work with the theme that the Cons should provide stable funding for the eco-retrofit program - only to be met with a typical attempt to take credit for making it available temporarily. Carolyn Bennett asked whether the Cons' plan to extend human rights law to First Nations reserves would be backed by any funding, only to receive the thoroughly relevant answer that the Cons have extended human rights law to First Nations reserves. Joe Oliver responded to Romeo Saganash's question by joining the Chrysotile Talking Points Chorus. And facing questions about the perpetually changing deadlines and cost of procuring helicopters, Rona Ambrose managed to push matters back by a year in mere minutes.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Barbara Yaffe points out that the Council on Hemispheric Affairs seems to have a much better idea what Canada needs out of a fighter jet than the government that's trying to push ahead with a multi-billion dollar purchase:

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs’ paper — titled F-35, An Expensive Mistake for Canadian Forces — argues: “The F-35 is unsuitable for Canadian military operations and marks an unfortunate shift in Canadian foreign policy toward single-mindedly backing the U.S. military.”
...
But is it the right aircraft for Canada?

Council research associate Ivan Ho contends that, unless the Conservatives plan to shift to an interventionist foreign policy similar to the U.S., it is not.

Canada simply does not require stealth jets, generally deployed in the first stages of an air campaign to neutralize an enemy’s air-defence system.

“The F-35 was built to fulfil a niche role in the American military to conduct first strike capability.”

With a less sexy aircraft, Canada could still be fully capable of helping NATO with subsequent non-stealth bombing, the paper states.
...
The Council on Hemispheric Affairs argues that, with its limited defence budget, Canada would be better off choosing less militaristic missions, focusing on disaster and humanitarian relief, peacekeeping missions, search and rescue activity and patrols along Canada’s three coasts.

- In case anybody was under the misapprehension that the Cons' gutting of the long-form census couldn't get any worse: it has. And it'll continue to do so for a long time to come, as the Cons' shredded data from 2011 makes it more difficult to carry out accurate comparisons over time.

- But fortunately, the chances of getting back on track at the first opportunity are looking better if the PSAC indeed plans to target the Cons in 2015.

- Finally, Chantal Hebert's latest makes for an interesting take on the need for the media to build connections to the NDP which it never bothered to develop in the past. But I do think it's worth asking whether the media's previous neglect of the party was reasonable in the first place, particularly over the past few years when the electoral gap between other parties and the NDP has seldom been particularly large.

New column day

Here, on the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce's distraction tactics for this fall's provincial election.

For more reading...
- A couple of greatest hits from the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce in its complete neutrality and altruism, including its later-denied cheerleading for nuclear power, and its regular efforts to push the Regina Chamber's proposal to dedicate every single dime of interest savings to a business-friendly property tax cut.
- While I don't always agree with the Canada West Foundation, its review of the possibilities for Alberta's provincial resource fund would seem equally applicable to Saskatchewan.
- And finally, there's CUPE's Imagine What We Could Do blog, with plenty of ideas as to the possibilities open to Saskatchewan if it does look to the longer term.

On public values

Look everybody, it's yet more evidence that Stephen Harper has moved Canada in a conservative direction!

Environment Canada staff advised incoming cabinet minister Peter Kent that Canadians believe Ottawa is too soft on businesses and individuals that harm the world around them.
...
The analysis paints a picture of a Canadian public that cares deeply about the environment and wants Ottawa to hold environmental offenders accountable for their actions.

"Canadians generally feel that their governments do not go far enough in enforcing environmental laws and they tend to support sharply limiting industrial greenhouse gas emissions," the analysis says.

While there is support for using incentives to encourage pro-environmental practices, Canadians "express more support for the application of strict standards, controls, and penalties" when it comes to the transgressions of the corporate world.

No word yet as to who gets to inform the oil industry it's officially out of the Harper coalition. But I'm pretty sure acknowledging that the Cons' environmental delay tactics are now, and always have been, directly contrary to the views of the public is out of the question.

Update: A propos of nothing, this.

On competing classes

Yes, it's highly problematic that the Cons are slashing the availability of applications for skilled workers to immigrate to Canada:

A little-known clause in instructions Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has issued to slash immigration applications from skilled workers abroad appears to limit related immigration and refugee applications based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
...
Mr. Kenney's announcement that he was cutting the number of skilled worker immigration applications to 10,000 from 20,000 received attention abroad and in a few immigration specialty publications, but virtually no coverage in Canada's mainstream media.

Mr. Kenney said the severe reductions were being made despite the fact the government had already reduced the backlog of applications of skilled workers by half since 2008.

But it's especially worth comparing the numbers involved in that category to the number of temporary workers brought in annually:

Every year, over 150,000 foreign workers enter Canada to work temporarily in jobs that help Canadian employers address skill shortages, or to work as live-in caregivers.

In principle, temporary work permits are only supposed to be available to fill positions which can't be filled by Canadian citizens or permanent residents. But it's not hard to see how a deliberate choice to reduce the number of workers able to apply for permanent residence under the skilled worker class will serve to boost the perceived need for more temporary help - ensuring that less immigrants to Canada are able to hold any hope of long-term security in the country, while more work is reserved for the most vulnerable workers possible.

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- David Green nicely explains the basic choice to be made in determining what type of economy we want to pursue:

(T)he basic tenet of the new policy regime – that any increase in wage costs kills jobs and growth – means that the regime cannot deliver good jobs to workers by definition. When demand conditions in the oil patch start pushing wages up, the government responds by bringing in large inflows of temporary workers to keep them down. In the late 2000’s, the priority list for speedy processing of TFWs in BC and Alberta included food counter workers. There is no argument about economic growth that implies a need to staff fast food counters quickly. Clearly the government bought into an argument that all wage increases are bad.

More recently, we have learned that firms in the oil patch are training workers in Mexico in order to get ready to bring them in as TFWs. Is this the policy direction we want? Is investing in training for workers elsewhere rather than here in order to make it easier to keep wages in Canada low really the path to a healthy economy and society?

The response on the other side, of course, is that we have no choice. Any increases in wage costs will kill growth.

Is this really true? In recent work with Paul Beaudry from UBC and Ben Sand from York University, we found that a 10% increase in wage costs in an economy implies a 3% reduction in the employment rate. This is not zero – there are tradeoffs – but it’s a long way from what the Harper government seems to believe.

This highlights a need for a debate on a key question: do we really want Canada to be a low wage society? Do we really believe, as the American approach embodies, that the only legitimate goal of labour and social policy is employment? Policies that focus on generating good jobs with good wages and stability are possible without generating economic stagnation. We need to find the balance that is right for Canada. The low-wages-above-all approach of the Harper government needs to be challenged.

- Keith Horner weighs in on the need for pension reform - and the best model to use:

In a study I published with the Institute for Research on Public Policy, I compared three different options for a government-sponsored pension plan: a mandatory defined benefit plan, and two defined contribution plans, one mandatory and the other voluntary. The defined benefit plan I propose entails a modest expansion of the CPP/QPP that would raise the benefit rate from 25 per cent to 40 per cent of earnings up to $48,300 and from 0 per cent to 25 per cent earnings between $48,300 and $96,600.

Based on my analysis of the effects of the three plans, I concluded that a defined benefit plan would provide higher benefits per dollar of contribution than either of the defined contribution plans. By enabling risk-pooling among age cohorts, defined benefit plans can achieve higher returns through longer investment horizons and slightly greater exposure to risk.

A national, government-sponsored, mandatory defined benefit plan would also provide participants with more secure and predictable retirement income than defined contribution plans. And it would not suffer some of the drawbacks of existing single employer-registered pension plans, which tend to hamper labour mobility and encourage early retirement.

- And lest there be any doubt, plenty of workers recognize the problem - as David Doorey notes:

(Linda) McQuaig noted that a majority of workers in Canada would vote for a union if given the chance.

That was taken from a blog entry I did last year. In it, I noted a study that found that over 85% of union members in Canada would vote to remain in the union if given a choice, and that 33% of nonunion workers in Canada would vote to join a union if given the chance. Interestingly, for my university students, the study found that over 58% of Canadian nonunion workers between age 15-24 would vote for a union. These stats refute the commonly heard assertion in the business media that Canadians have no interest in unions, and that union members are trapped against their will by forced unionism that they cannot escape. Hogwash. As I’ve noted before, under our “majority rules” model in North America, 50 percent of workers might want to be unionized, yet they would be denied that right. In my earlier post, I asked whether it is a failure of the legal model if greater than 50% of workers want collective bargaining, yet only about 30% presently have it?

- Derek Abma surveys some of the scandals currently facing Canada's corporate sector. But perhaps the most interesting part of his article is the theory as to why Canadian firms are embroiled in so many issues:

Christopher Wilson, a lecturer and researcher at the University of Ottawa's school of management, says some scandals involving Canadian business interests are indicative of a corporate culture that puts its emphasis on the immediate appeasement of shareholders, often at the expense of other stakeholders, such as workers, customers and affected communities.

"The orientation is to see the profits in the next quarter as opposed to the long-term health of the organization and the long-term value addition to society," he says.

Wilson says English-speaking countries tend to have a business culture that emphasizes short-term needs of shareholders over other considerations.

Canada, he says, is perhaps even more so this way than the United States, because the relatively small pool of significant shareholders in Canadian companies limits the diversity of opinion that goes into shaping corporate policies.

"It makes it really, really difficult for Canadian companies to make a change because everybody sort of thinks the same way," Wilson says.

"Whereas in the more diverse, less closely held environment of the United States, there's so many other perspectives that come into play."

- And finally, Frances Russell is the latest to call out the Cons' politics of envy as a roundabout means of justifying handouts to the wealthy:

The Air Canada and Canada Post labour disputes triggered a wave of media commentaries and editorials trying to stir up class envy among the private sector's largely non-unionized taxpayers because they're being "forced" to pay the "bloated" salaries of public-sector union "fat cats" and "aristocrats."

This bait and switch steers everyone away from the real issue, the massive upward wealth shift occurring in Canada, the U.S., and, to a lesser extent, Europe.
...
This top 0.1 per cent have more than doubled their share of the national income pie, something not seen since the 1920s.

"By 2009, the worst year of the recession, the wealthiest 3.8 per cent of families had captured a stunning two-thirds of all financial wealth in Canada," says Bruce Campbell, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. "Since 2000, they have persuaded governments to cut taxes and shrink the federal treasury by a mind-boggling $420 billion."
...
The bulk of Conservative tax initiatives direct even more wealth to that same 0.1 per cent.

The media abound with stories on how to bundle up the value offered by the new tax-free savings accounts with RRSPs and RESPs. But you need at least $100,000 to get maximum value from doing so, says CCPA economist Armine Yalnizyan.

That excludes 80 per cent of Canadian households. Even before the last recession, 3.3 million Canadians already fell below Statistics Canada's low-income cutoff and 10 per cent of Canadian households lived on less than $16,000 annually.

Income splitting is another Harper bonanza for the rich. A 2006 Library of Parliament study showed fully half of all Canadian families, those with incomes of less than $60,000, would realize just eight per cent of the benefit. The rest goes to the wealthiest families. The poorest, single-parent families, get nothing at all.

Elderly benefits follow a similar pattern. Compare the Conservatives' pension-splitting scheme for rich seniors to its meagre increase in the guaranteed annual income supplement for the poorest. The former costs the treasury over $920 million, the latter just $300 million.

Given this cornucopia of rewards for the richest Canadians, trying to foment class envy against postal workers and other public servants should be seen for what it is -- an attack on democratic values and democracy itself.

Death to diplomacy!

I'll give Sun Media this much: they're being slightly less partisan than I'd have expected in their bombast, following up their demand to fire a diplomat for the crime of following the alphabet with Brian Lilley's equally vituperative screed against an acknowledgment of historical fact by the president of the Conservative Party.

But I'm rather curious how a media service expects to survive trying to fabricate a scandal out of every instance of civil behaviour toward somebody who's seen as unpopular. And indeed, I have to wonder whether anybody trying to meet that remarkable standard would want to steer clear of Sun itself.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Cats in storage.

Democracy in action

Shorter Bob Bjornerud:

Of course we couldn't possibly object to giving farmers a chance to vote on the future of the Canadian Wheat Board - just as long as it doesn't give them any actual say in the matter.

Just so we're clear...

New rules for Canadian political reporting:

If a federal government department is proposing to raise user fees, that has nothing to do with Tony Clement or any other Harper Con, particular when it comes to evaluating Clement's promises that user fees were off the table.

If a federal government department is proposing to do anything popular, however, that continues to be to the Cons' sole credit.

Consider yourselves warned.

On target groups

For all the opinion polling we're bound to see in the years to come, this may be one of the more important surveys in determining the future shape of Canadian politics.

Based on Statistics Canada's data, Canadian non-voters who classified themselves as "not interested" - including those who didn't think their votes could make a difference - would have been able to push the NDP ahead of the Cons in the popular vote, while those who saw themselves as "too busy" to vote would have nearly been able to do the same. And while we of course wouldn't expect all the potential votes to lean in just one direction, the NDP's ability to find messages to reach the first group and solutions to help the second could make a world of difference in determining who governs the country after 2015.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Ian Welsh serves up some tough commentary as to whether Canadian voters saddled with unrepresentative and downright destructive governments are merely getting what we deserve:

(W)e have selected, to rule our societies, sociopaths at best and psychopaths at worse. They have contempt for those they rule, do not see them as even truly human, and enjoy hurting them. They feel tough when they make the hard decisions, which are somehow always hard for others, but never for themselves. They encourage cruelty in society, from the ground up, and routinely subject the population to humiliating surveillance, force them to abase themselves to the least appearance of authority, whether legitimately used or not, and condone murder and torture and routine humiliation. They don’t do these things to themselves, of course, the rich, for example, don’t get groped in airports, but they routinely do it to those below them.

And in so doing they teach those below them, to do it to those below them, and below them, and below them, and so on. The sickness comes from the top, a rotten poison which has altered the character of nations. But it came from the bottom, first. It came from a population who became lazy and complacent and thought they had rights they didn’t have to guard like a dog with a bone; who thought they could just live their lives and leave politics to other people except for pulling a lever or marking a ballot every four years. It came from people who felt “I’ve got mine, who cares what happens to anyone I don’t know?” Unable to see themselves in others for longer than the gossamer blink of an eye, they were also unable to understand that what was done to others would also be done to them.

We have become contemptible. Our leaders, perhaps, are most contemptible of all, but we continue to consent. Oh perhaps polls might say we’re not happy, but who cares what polls say? We do nothing, we let our leaders do as they will, and we take on their mores, becoming cruel and debased and uncaring of what happens to our fellows, not even the care of enlightened self interest, the clear understanding that what is done unfairly, cruely, to someone else, could, probably will, one day be done to us. We pretend to care most about our children, making such a fetish of it that allowing children to roam unattended is virtually treated as a crime, yet we are creating a world in which they will suffer, unimaginably, a world in which hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of our grandchildren will die.

Lord save us from what we deserve, because what we deserve is what’s going to happen: war and revolution, famine and drought, climate change on a scale we truly don’t understand.

- But one of the most important ways of fighting back is to call out manipulative and dishonest spin for what it is. Which brings us to Linda McQuaig:

(T)he genius of the architects of today’s conservative revolution has been to obscure the class war they’ve been quietly waging, keeping us distracted with foreign military ventures, royals and other celebrity sightings.

Behind all these diversions, the class war has been relentlessly proceeding. While incomes at the top have steadily climbed, incomes of ordinary Canadians have steadily eroded. The real median Canadian family income hasn’t risen since the late 1970s — even though today’s typical family now has two earners, compared to just one earner 30 years ago. In other words, Canadian families are working about twice as hard to keep up to where they were a generation ago.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crunch, ordinary Canadians stand to lose even more ground. As the recent labour battles at Air Canada and Canada Post show, employers — now with firm backing from Ottawa — have new wind in their sails as they demand concessions and insist that new employees be hired at lower wage and benefit levels.

This means that employers are demanding the next generation of workers be paid less than today’s workers. If this isn’t evidence of an ongoing class war, it’s hard to think what would be.
...
(W)hile only about 30 per cent of Canadian workers are unionized, fully 52 per cent would like to be. (Ironically, this is roughly the same percentage of Canadians who support the monarchy, according to an Ipsos Reid poll taken after the royal wedding.)

Apparently Canadians want both unions and the monarchy. But they’re not allowed to have both.

- And Peter Prebble's response to Bronwyn Eyre's embarrassing claim that there's no evidence to support concerns about climate change also fits the bill.

- Call me old-fashioned if you will. But as far as I can tell, an agreement not to have national housing standards (but to negotiate single-province standards at some point in the future) isn't a deal on housing.

- Finally, Adam Radwanski suggests that home care could actually be an area of consensus in Ontario's fall election.

On monstrous effects

One of my personal favourite villains in political theory is the "utility monster".

In response to the utilitarian theory that we can simply sum up citizens' preferences to determine what policies should be pursued, one of the most obvious counterarguments is to ask what happens when a single person puts so much weight on his or her own happiness that it fundamentally distorts any policy calculations. Taken to extremes, the hypothetical creature forces any utilitarian calculus to produce a distribution of benefits that's quickly and easily rejected as fundamentally unfair - with all other interests being subordinate to the utility monster's whims.

Of course, the very idea is preposterous. Ludicrous. Utterly apart from reality.

With just one problem: can anybody say with confidence that our economic policy-making does anything but to encourage exactly that type of distortion?

A mere 29 finance and resource corporations are now capturing close to a majority of all of the net corporate profits in Canada. And our policies are based on shoveling ever more money into their coffers, relying on the theory that their already-massive profits make them more likely to be able to run up the score even further in the future.

And an increasing proportion of individual wealth is similarly becoming more and more concentrated - with that process again defended through the suggestion that we should want to pour money into the hands of people who have proven both their dedication and their aptitude in pursuing wealth for its own sake, since it results in a higher society-wide number (however unfairly distributed).

In other words, our policies are devoted toward the perpetual pursuit of an aggregate measure of economic outcomes - with no regard for either the harmful effects of inequality which are exacerbated by that narrow focus, or the dangers of incentivizing the creation of ever larger and greedier wealth monsters.

So if we can see why the utility monster serves as a compelling argument against pursuing pure aggregate utilitarianism as a matter of political theory, shouldn't it be obvious that it's an equally damning indictment of what's become far too widely accepted as conventional economic wisdom?

[Edit: fixed wording, added label.]

On unwanted assistance

Shorter Harper PCO response to anybody requesting information it would prefer to pre-emptively classify as unavailable:

Are you sure you want us to comply with the law on access to information? Really? Nah, you're just kidding. REALLY? How about now?

On privileged access

It's somewhat surprising to see one of the architects of a PMO noted for an obsessive aversion to transparency pushing for a lobbying registry in Saskatchewan.

But I have to wonder whether the pitch has something to do with the flaws in the Harper Cons' federal scheme that I've pointed out before. Could it be that the federal Cons have concluded that imposing compliance costs on anybody trying to bring outside perspectives to politicians while providing accountability-free access for friendly groups offers such a large political advantage that any associated provincial government would be crazy not to follow suit?