Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Yes, the individual examples are worrisome enough. But the real takeaway from Sarah Schmidt's report on the CFIA's testing of food products for sale in Canada is that more often than not, consumers can't trust what's on the label:

CFIA allows for a variance of up 20 percentage points on nutrition information found on food packages to account for natural variances in ingredients or deviations in testing equipment. Anything beyond that is considered unsatisfactory.
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CFIA's overall statistics from 2006 and 2010 involving key product categories (breads and baked goods, confectionary items, and snacks) certainly paint a picture of inconsistency. Of 621 products tested, 360 items (58 per cent) did not live up to all the nutrition information on their packaging.

So naturally, the Cons' response is...to stop the testing that's proven Canadians aren't getting what they pay for. And Statistics Canada is also on the receiving end of the Cons' gleeful axe-wielding, particularly when it comes to social data needed to serve the public interest.

- Meanwhile, Mia Rabson takes aim at the Cons for their refusal to allow Environment Canada scientists to discuss even such basic information as research on snow in winter. And Stephen Hume criticizes the Cons' plan to eliminate any meaningful review of the Gateway pipeline as an attack on British Columbia's provincial sovereignty.

- Jim Stanford schools Kevin O'Leary on how auto-sector trade actually works:



- Finally, Anne Jarvis points out that if Ontario ends up in an election campaign, it'll be because the PCs refused to make reasonable requests and the Libs refused to accept the ones already offered by Andrea Horwath and the NDP.

Parliament in Review: March 26, 2012

Having taken a bit of a hiatus during and after the NDP's leadership campaign, I'll resume looking back at what's happened in the House of Commons starting with the election of Thomas Mulcair. (I'll plan to return to the previous sitting later on.)

Monday, March 26 saw Mulcair's introduction as the new Leader of the Official Opposition. But there was plenty worth pointing out beyond the first few questions from Mulcair and associated headlines...

The Big Issue

The main topic of debate was the Cons' anti-refugee legislation - with the opposition parties particularly taking aim at the concept of mandatory detention for anybody arriving in Canada by a means designated as suspicious by the Minister of Immigration. Don Davies pointed out that similar forms of detention without review have already been found to be unconstitutional, then questioned why the Cons seem determined to break up refugee families; Olivia Chow noted that the Cons' focus on punishing refugees will not only divert resources from dealing with actual human smugglers, but actually remove the witnesses needed to testify against them; Rosane Dore Lefebvre pointed out the conditions in existing detention centres; and Elizabeth May commented on the cost of detention. Meanwhile, Harold Albrecht's response was...to deny that detention under the bill had anything to do with "prisons", while at the same time claiming we should operate under the assumption that refugees are criminals or terrorists until proven otherwise.

The opposition parties also slammed the Cons for backing away from agreements reached between all parties in the previous Parliament to make the bill as harsh as possible for refugees. Djoauida Sellah contrasted the claims of working "in good faith" before against the apparent bad faith from the Cons now; Anne Minh-Thu Quach and Kevin Lamoureux wondered what the Cons have against consensus-building; and Eve Peclet criticized the Cons' galling demand for all-party support after they've cut all other parties out of any input into the legislation. Andrew Cash questioned whether the Cons' slashing of Canada's social safety net is intended to make our country less inviting to immigrants. Jean-Francoin Fortin first theorized that there's a certain logic to the Cons' policy - but only based on an underlying philosophy of fomenting fear and mistrust. Fortin also highlighted the fact that the Cons want to divide refugees into "good" and "bad" classifications while ignoring the reality that international law doesn't allow for any such division, a point which was then echoed by Anne-Marie Day. Lamoureux questioned the politicization of a "safe country" list which would deprive claimants of a right of appeal in proving their refugee status. Jamie Nicholls lamented the possibility that the bill would prove just one more chapter in a sad history of discriminatory immigration policies, with Tarik Brahmi following up on the plight of Roma minorities in countries the Cons want to label as unfailingly "safe". And Davies corrected the Cons' spin on the contents of their own bill.

In Brief

The other main business discussed was Sean Casey's motion on Old Age Security. Irene Mathyssen noted that an increase in the federal retirement age would actually create a gap between provincial programs which end at age 67 and the federal retirement income which allows less wealthy seniors to survive, while highlighting the fact that poorer seniors will bear the brunt of an increased retirement age. And the Cons signalled that they were willing to go along with the motion - just as long as it was amended to suggest that taking income away from the seniors who need it somehow represented an improvement to the sustainability of income security.

Meanwhile, Robert Aubin wondered whatever became of the committee to study workplace language rights which the Cons promised the previous fall. The Cons unveiled a lengthy set of replies to members' questions - including such gems as answers 448 and 449, where they tried to claim credit for each and every child-care space created by any province since they came to power as the result of their own lack of funding and support. And in the first set of members' statements following the NDP's leadership campaign, Niki Ashton, Paul Dewar, Peggy Nash, Nathan Cullen and Olivia Chow all spoke about the future of the NDP under Mulcair's leadership.

Sunday Evening Links

Assorted content to end your weekend.

- Brian Mason makes the closing argument for Alberta's NDP in tomorrow's provincial election:



- Meanwhile in Ontario, Keith Leslie reports that the McGuinty Libs are still dragging their heels on Andrea Horwath's entirely reasonable set of budget requests. But while Martin Regg Cohn calls on them to match the NDP's willingness to reach a deal, Adam Radwanski theorizes that based on the relative public appeal of the provincial parties' leaders and platforms, it's the PCs that have the most to lose from a possible spring election in any event.

- Scott Feschuk comments on the ongoing F-35 fiasco with exactly the level of seriousness and respect the Cons deserve in light of the news that they've known just as well as the rest of us how inaccurate their spin has been.

- And Bruce Johnstone notes that the Harper Cons' transition from a minority to a majority hasn't changed the pattern of Saskatchewan getting nothing from its 13 Con MPs.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your Saturday reading.

- As much sympathy as I normally have for Linda McQuaig, I'll argue that her premise in discussing Andrea Horwath's call for the wealthy to pay a fair share of taxes is entirely off base. Even if it is easier to discuss such ideas when there's a Warren Buffett willing to take the side of the general public, the more important conclusion is that we should be able to determine as a citizenry how our tax system should be structured - and not give the wealthiest a veto over the outcome.

- Which is also why Thomas Walkom's column on the tax treatment of charities is worth a read: we shouldn't have to depend on philanthropy to provide for basic necessities, and the tax receipt system only serves to subsidize the preferences of those with extra money to give rather than the needs of those who would stand to benefit from a more focused set of priorities.

- Erin takes on the monetary hawks looking to stop Canada's already-unimpressive economic recovery.

- Susan Delacourt echoes my question as to whether we need to push our leaders to be willing to tackle major problems on a multigovernmental basis, rather than staying on what's perceived to be safe terrain.

- No, we shouldn't be surprised that shutting down B.C.'s oil spill cleanup centre at the same time they plan to ram the Gateway pipeline down the province's throat. If anything, I'd think it's a minor miracle they're at least keeping the Quebec version alive, rather than renaming spills as "unanticipated ethical oil surpluses" and declaring them part of an economic action plan.

- Finally, I'll highlight Canadian Progressive Voices as a new blogroll with plenty of lively discussion - while making it clear that I don't intend to cut ties with the Progressive Bloggers over the few blue apples in the bunch.

On short-sightedness

Others have already drawn parallels between the Cons' plan to require Employment Insurance recipients to accept whatever low-paying temporary work might be available as a condition of receiving the benefits they've paid into, and other attacks on individual workers such as workfare and forced relocation. But let's take a closer look at what the mooted move will mean for individuals who have lost a job and are seeking to plan for the future:

The reforms would require unemployed Canadians to accept local jobs that are currently being filled by temporary foreign workers.

“Nova Scotia province-wide has 10% unemployment, but the only way Christmas tree operators can function in the Annapolis Valley is to bring in Mexicans through this agricultural worker program,” he said, also pointing to the increased number of Russians working in Prince Edward Island fish processing plants and Romanians working at the Ganong chocolate factory in New Brunswick.

“Even on the north shore of New Brunswick, which has the highest unemployment in the province, the MPs keep telling me the employers definitely need more temporary workers. What’s going on here?”

Now, the obvious answer would figure to be that workers have a strong personal interest in not getting trapped in a cycle of temporary jobs, especially when those jobs are unrelated to any field the worker could possibly want to pursue. And anybody who saw value in Canadians being able to plan for the future and consider the best possible career outcome in the longer term - including preparing to pursue work that isn't merely seasonal - would recognize that forcing people into whatever low-paying, menial labour might be available at a given moment is a move in exactly the wrong direction. Indeed, it would ensure that human capital is put to its lowest use rather than being developed for eventual growth.
 
In addition to setting the worker's new entitlement to EI at a lower baseline (and perhaps none at all - remember the Cons' restrictions on eligibility based on minimum numbers of weeks worked?), then, Kenney's plan is to make sure that anybody who loses a job through no fault of his or her own is also deprived of any opportunity to plan for the future. Which makes for a short-term gain for the employers eager to pay the lowest possible wage for menial work - but ultimately figures to result in just as much productivity loss for the broader economy as for the worker affected.

So is it any better for temporary foreign workers to perform the jobs? At worst, it would seem to make sense that individuals who actually want to accept the work might be a better fit than those who might otherwise be able to pursue better long-term options if their social safety net hadn't just been shredded beneath them.

But the more obvious systemic issue is that we shouldn't be biasing our labour system in favour of insecure temporary work in the first place. That is, unless one's long-term goal is to set up the largest possible gap between a privileged few and a powerless mass of workers with no capacity to organize or plan.

The Cons have apparently made their choice on that front. But the rest of us shouldn't accept a system that stunts the career prospects of Canadian citizens solely to cater to employers who see worker desperation as a plus. And indeed, we should take the cue to argue for just the opposite: individuals need enough income security to be able to make meaningful decisions, rather than being deployed solely at the whims of the most exploitative employer willing to ask for some wood to be hewed or some water drawn.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Tim Harper gets somewhat closer to the mark than most pundits in recognizing that any talk an NDP/Lib merger is neither timely nor particularly well-placed. But the "one more time" message is a little bit off: again, we've still run precisely zero election campaigns in which the NDP was treated as anything but a novelty party at the outset, which means that we should see 2015 as the start of a new opportunity rather than a continuation of previous trends. And both Barbara Yaffe and Lawrence Martin point out some of the reasons for optimism about the NDP's chances.

- Meanwhile, Andrew Coyne and Dan Gardner have both commented on the Libs' dire straits. And it looks like Thomas Mulcair's election as NDP leader has effectively forced the Libs' hand in deciding which path to pursue in 2015 and beyond - as any hope of re-emerging as a default government based solely on habitual support and conventional wisdom looks to be fading by the day.

- There have been plenty of new Robocon developments, with the sworn evidence of one of the Cons' own callers serving as a rather compelling indication of deliberate efforts to mislead voters. Meanwhile, CBC conclusively refuted the Cons' claim that their deceptive calls were somehow related to changes in polling stations; Alison pointed out another series of obfuscations by the Cons and their service providers; and pogge rightly questioned the Cons' spin about their CIMS database.

- I'm pretty sure this just proves that the B.C. NDP made a huge mistake in electing a progressive leader like Adrian Dix - as with a Lib-lite, it would undoubtedly have won both by-election seats several times over.

- Finally, Charles Smith and David McGrane make the case for truly urban ridings in Regina and Saskatoon:

On top of identifying with different communities, residents of Saskatoon and Regina have different interests than fellow constituents in neighbouring towns and rural areas.

The residents of the two large cities are concerned with municipal infrastructure (such as bridges), settling new immigrants, urban sprawl, public transit, homelessness and accommodating a growing off-reserve urban aboriginal population. Rural residents are concerned with agricultural issues, access to information technology, the maintenance of highways, recruiting doctors and building relationships with on-reserve aboriginals.

It is unfair to ask a single MP to represent the interests and identities of such varied constituents. In fact, it is bad for democracy.
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The commission should create two ridings each exclusively within the city limits of Regina and of Saskatoon. Depending on how the rest of the map is redrawn, the size of remaining ridings neither would be unmanageable nor fall outside the established norm for rural ridings in Canada.

Instead of having MPs whose attention is split between their urban and rural constituents, rural residents would have more MPs exclusively devoted to their concerns than at present. In turn, urban residents would also have MPs who are more focused on their interests and concerns.

In short, a new electoral map will be a win for the city and the country, and improve democratic representation in Saskatchewan.

Musical interlude

Luigi Lusini - Who We Are

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Paul Buchhelt offers five reasons why the extremely wealthy should pay more in taxes. But if we can anticipate some conflict over that idea, there's stronger evidence than ever that the public is rather united behind one side.

- Bob Hepburn notes that there's plenty of work to be done to save Canadian democracy from the Cons' toxic and unaccountable politics. John Ivison slams the Cons' secrecy surrounding their choice to obliterate any pretense of independent review of resource projects. And Kevin Page rightly challenges the false spin that the Cons can't let Canadians know what services they've slashed until a year after the cuts are made.

- Joe Couture put together a couple of reports worth noting this week - first discussing the contrast between the Sask Party's willingness to boost MLA pay based on changes in the cost of living as a matter of course and its refusal to do the same for the minimum wage, then highlighting the concerns of Saskatchewan's Children's Advocate Bob Pringle about the Wall government's decision not to count children when it comes to assigning electoral weight.

- Finally, while I have some concerns about his insistence on a progressive narrative which seems to cede an awful lot of ground to exactly the interests we need to counter, Jared Milne's guest post at pogge on the need for a new progressive narrative is worth a read.

On shadow boxing

Aaron has already listed and commented on Thomas Mulcair's shadow cabinet assignments. But there are a few additional points worth adding into the mix.

First, while others have pointed out Nathan Cullen's promotion to House Leader, the exact choice of positions is very much worth emphasizing. As the leadership candidate whose message centred on how to approach other political parties, Cullen has been put in charge of...approaching other political parties, at least to the extent of managing business in Parliament. And if "cooperation to defeat Harper" continues to be Cullen's guiding principle, then it will be well worth watching whether that habit has some impact beyond Parliament Hill.

Second, the choice of Linda Duncan as critic for Public Works and Government Services may make for a neat bit of strategy. A strong Alberta figure charged with criticizing patronage, waste and mismanagement should serve to raise serious questions among the Cons' base- and that may not only help to shake loose populist votes on the prairies, but also put at least somewhat of a dent in the Cons' fund-raising and activist networks.

Third, while it's a bit surprising not to see Nycole Turmel assigned any particular policy area, her effectiveness in keeping the NDP's caucus united through trying times looks to fit nicely with her new role as whip.

Finally, it's worth noting which MPs have somewhat less responsibility in the shadow cabinet than one might expect based on their profile and experience - including Niki Ashton (assigned the Status of Women portfolio), Yvon Godin (who sees Labour removed from his responsibilities), Tyrone Benskin (moved from Heritage critic to deputy Official Languages critic) and Rathika Sitsabaiesan (going from Post-secondary Education critic to outside the shadow cabinet structure altogether). But there's plenty to be done in building toward government beyond criticizing the incumbents - and it wouldn't be surprising to see all given important organization-building responsibilities to accompany their work in Parliament.

New column day

Here, on how we should look to all levels of government to find ways to work through jurisdictional barriers - rather than accepting them as an excuse for regressive policies.

(And lest there be any doubt, I don't write the titles.)

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- In an excerpt from the Occupy Handbook, Paul Krugman and Robin Wells discuss how a right-wing obsession with exacerbating inequality led to the U.S.' disastrous response to the 2008 crash:

How did America become a nation that could not rise to the biggest economic challenge in three generations, a nation in which scorched-earth politics and politicized economics created policy paralysis?

We suggest it was the inequality that did it. Soaring inequality is at the root of our polarized politics, which made us unable to act together in the face of crisis. And because rising incomes at the top have also brought rising power to the wealthiest, our nation’s intellectual life has been warped, with too many economists co-opted into defending economic doctrines that were convenient for the wealthy despite being indefensible on logical and empirical grounds.
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(T)he role of rising inequality in creating the economic crisis of 2008 is debatable; it probably did play an important role, if nothing else than by encouraging the financial deregulation that set the stage for crisis. What seems very clear to us, however, is that rising inequality played a central role in causing an ineffective response once crisis hit. Inequality bred a polarized political system, in which the right went all out to block any and all efforts by a modestly liberal president to do something about job creation. And rising inequality also gave rise to what we have called a Dark Age of macroeconomics, in which hard-won insights about how depressions happen and what to do about them were driven out of the national discourse, even in academic circles.

This implies, we believe, that the issue of inequality and the problem of economic recovery are not as separate as a purely economic analysis might suggest. We’re not going to have a good macroeconomic policy again unless inequality, and its distorting effect on policy debate, can be curbed.

- Meanwhile, in a Progressive Economics Forum guest post, Robyn Allan points out the deception behind the supposed benefits of a resource-driven economy. And Mike de Souza reports on how the Cons' latest attacks on Environment Canada will weaken environmental protection, while Mike McCarthy and John Ibbitson discuss other ways in which the Cons plan to make environmental oversight less effective.

- The Vancouver Observer digs into the work done by Front Porch Strategies for the federal Cons. And the four examples of candidates who didn't report their expenses look to me to be one of the stories crying out for further exploration, particularly since some of the expenses at issue in Robocon were also laundered through other people or entities.

- Naturally, needing to build prisons to house has left the Cons short on money for actual rehabilitation. But on the bright side, that should at least make increased prison capacity into a genuinely long-term investment.

- Finally, the CCPA finds that not surprisingly, the Cons' OAS cuts will disproportionately harm poorer seniors.

Tuesday Night Tropical Fauna Blogging

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Alex Himelfarb laments the Cons' dismantling of a progressive state in Canada. But lest we lose all hope, Annie Lowrey reports on the Piketty/Saez economic work that's paving the way for fairer taxes in the U.S. And Kelly McParland has to admit that more progressive taxes are entirely supported by the public even as he registers his disapproval for having the wealthy pay a fair share.

- Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher report that Robocon has predictably been traced back to the Cons' central campaign. And Sixth Estate looks in more detail at the latest revelations.

- On the provincial scene, we're learning more and more about Alberta's apparent government-in-waiting. But that isn't to say we should be any more pleased with the current administration - and Jenn Prosser is optimistic that saner heads may prevail in Lethbridge. Meanwhile, Bill Tieleman notes that the B.C. Libs are getting abandoned even by their upper-class base.

- Finally, Tom Spears documents what may be the definitive example of the Cons' message control working precisely as it's supposed to - and utterly wasting public resources in the process.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- When even free-trade warrior Barrie McKenna can only respond incredulously to a message campaign on behalf of the wealthy, you know it's gone too far. So here's McKenna answering the contrived outrage over the NDP's proposal for a slight increase in income tax on the wealthiest Ontarians:

The vast majority of Canadians agree with Ms. Horwath. More that 80 per cent approve the idea of a tax on the wealthy and two-thirds are ready to take a personal tax hit, according to a new poll of 2,000 people by Environics for the Broadbent Institute, a left-leaning think tank. Seventy-seven per cent worry that the growing income gap is “a big problem” for society.

The unease felt by many Canadians is rooted in an uncomfortable reality. Recent work by economists Mike Veall of McMaster University and Emmanuel Saez of the University of California, Berkeley show “an explosion in the earnings of the top 1 per cent” in Canada from the early 1980s to 2007. The top 1 per cent of Canadians pocketed nearly 14 per cent of all income in 2007, compared with 8 per cent in 1982.
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Governments everywhere are in austerity mode. The middle class is being squeezed by stagnant incomes, pension clawbacks and the steady erosion of government entitlements, such as Old Age Security.

Basic fairness suggests all segments of society should share the burden.

- Meanwhile, Karen Foster notes that concerns about fairness across generational lines may reflect the need for more equitable wealth distribution in all age groups:

The middle class is shrinking. In the top income bracket and the class it represents, there are fewer people too, but they have more money. These changes are partly due to economic restructuring - toward service sector and knowledge jobs and away from manufacturing, for example - as well as to the expansion of finance (derivatives, etc.) as a wealth-generating but exclusive enterprise.

But the changing structure and impact of class is also tied to how we redistribute wealth in this country, and how we go about covering the costs of the social programs we believe we should all have access to. Setting aside market conditions for a moment, each of the so-called generations, when they stepped into the world of work, did so in the context of fundamentally different social welfare states.

Since the pivotal 1970s era, the governing ideology around social programs and wealth redistribution has shifted. It has moved away from collectivizing costs toward individualizing fiscal responsibility; from spreading prosperity around toward ensuring one's earnings only go to the causes one deems worthy. Once our government answered to citizens; now it caters to "taxpayers." Where economic policy once revolved around the question of how we might take better care of each other, today it is driven by the belief that no one should be made to take care of anyone else. The crumbling social welfare regime induced tectonic shifts in the moving intersection of class and generation.

Thus, it's not that generation doesn't matter in the context of the changes outlined here. It's that generation can't be considered apart from its context, nor can it be made meaningful without the other categories with which it intersects.

While the question of which generation is more selfish than the other is captivating, it might be time to ask when and why selfishness became the foundation for Canadian economic policy, and what can be done to change it.

- David Frum explores how Lyndon Johnson managed to push through many of the progressive policies which are now under attack by the Republicans' hard right wing.

- Mia Rabson is the latest to point out that the Cons' process in slashing federal jobs has seemingly designed to maximize the resulting pain and uncertainty for Canada's civil servants. But then, Mike de Souza reports that the Cons have never been interested in good advice - such as the utterly neglected suggestion that they not cheerlead for the tar sands.

- Finally, while the Charter has been in the news over the past few days as it reaches its 30th anniversary, it's particularly noteworthy that the Canadian public is still solidly behind its underlying values even as the Cons push for total surveillance and indiscriminate lock-'em-up policies on both crime and immigration.

Sunday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Danielle Martin discusses the importance of federal involvement in Canada's public health care system:

Whose job is it to co-ordinate health-care reform in Canada? Canadians expect our federal government to play that role. We want to know that wherever we live, we will have access to an equivalent basket of services. We want to know that our governments are buying in bulk whenever possible, maximizing savings. And we want assurances that some basic standards are being met from coast to coast to coast. Health care may be a provincial responsibility, but we know there’s a need for a family to co-ordinate its efforts.
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(T)he 2012 federal budget cut Health Canada, and said nothing about meaningful change. The only nod to improving the system was a three-year, $6.5-million study on cost-effectiveness in health care.

But that ignores the mountains of evidence we already have about how to improve our health-care system while making it more efficient. It’s becoming baffling to Canadians as to why our federal government wouldn’t co-ordinate a national pharmacare system that could save billions. Everyone knows you get a better deal if you buy in bulk.
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Canadians are still optimistic about our health-care system. Most of us believe it’s the best in the world. We’re happy with a publicly funded system. A lot of us think that it takes care of our most vulnerable, and that it will be there for us if we’re ill or injured.

It makes you wonder why the federal government wouldn’t want to fight for that system, and lead the transformation needed to keep Canada ahead of the pack on health care. Canadians take pride in their health-care system — so should their government.

- Doug Cuthand highlights some of the important and inexpensive programs the Cons are attacking in the name of austerity (but with the poorly-veiled goal of eliminating accurate information on inequality in Canada) - with First Nations in particular standing to suffer from the Cons' bias:

The budget speech is all about putting a good face on what's in the document, with the nasty details buried to be dug out later. We learned from the budget speech that the First Nations Statistical Institute is gone. Next came the announcement that the National Health organization will shut down in June because its funding was cut completely.

As well, the National Council of Welfare has been scrapped. It was the only federal agency that had an exclusive mandate to improve the lives of poor people.

So what's happening? The Harper government is using austerity as an excuse to clean house and get rid of programs that were either supported by the Liberals or could provide valuable information to advocacy groups. In the process, aboriginal people are becoming collateral damage.
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Unfortunately, we have a federal government that is more interested in spin and deception than in consultation and democratic institutions. The Aboriginal Healing Foundation is gone in addition to NAHO and the statistical institute. One can't help but wonder where this will lead us.

The prime minister's reaction to the housing crisis at Attawapiskat was a clear indication that he can't tolerate bad news. He blamed the community and its leadership. He sent in an auditor and put the onus on the community. Will this be the reaction to other First Nations that speak out about their sorry living conditions?

Now we have to wait for the next shoe to drop. The word in the colonial office is that the government will make an announcement next week about grants and contributions. This is the money that flows to the First Nations and political organizations. Can we expect cuts? You bet we can. Just how deep the cuts will go is the question.

- Meanwhile, Dave points out the Centre for Plant Health, another of the casualties of the Cons' war on science. And Tim Harper raises his own concerns, while noting that the NDP is well positioned to claim the title of party best placed to provide responsible government if the Cons' cuts lead to predictable health and safety consequences.

- Crawford Kilian optimistically thinks there's a conservative soul to be saved through a splinter party from the Cons.

- Susan Delacourt proposes that political marketing and advertising be subject to publicly-enforceable standards.

- Finally, Dr. Dawg recognizes that there's only so much we can accomplish through a political system which the Cons are entirely happy to trash. But I'd see that problem as part of the reason why unofficial gathering places and a consistent flow of information to counter the Cons' publicly-funded propaganda - whether online or otherwise - are absolutely needed to help muster a movement to change course.

On speculative advances

Somehow most of the discussion of Thomas Mulcair's Question Period appearance this morning seems to have missed what strikes me as the most important point. So let's take a closer look at how his message has evolved from the leadership campaign - and how it figures to position the NDP to form government in 2015.

At first glance, Mulcair's answer in response to a question focused on the possibility of a coalition government in 2015 might not seem like a particularly strong one:

Mulcair said the party will be running candidates in all 338 federal ridings (adjusted with new additions) in the next election, otherwise the party would be conceding territory to the Conservatives.

"Anything beyond that is pure speculation," he said. "My goal is to form an NDP majority government and with the types of polls we're seeing now Canadians are rallying to us."

But there's a rather significant difference between the new declaration that it's too early to say whether Mulcair would consider a coalition, and Mulcair's earlier statement that a "no" to any such possibility was "categorical, absolute, irrefutable and non-negotiable. It’s no. End of story. Full stop."

In effect, merely in recognizing that any talk of a post-election coalition will depend on the circumstances at the time, Mulcair is taking a more cooperative line than the leaders of the Official Opposition in the previous two elections. Which means that the NDP will preserve at least some of its hard-earned reputation as the party most willing to work pragmatically toward progressive goals.

Mind you, the statement that we'll need to see what happens doesn't serve as quite the strong defence of cooperation that I'd most like to see. But it does open the door for a neat contrast against Libs past and present - allowing Mulcair to say he'll consider working with the Libs and others toward common goals, while highlighting just what those goals are for the NDP. And if the Cons decide to follow up with another bizarre anti-cooperation crusade that pushes Mulcair to make stronger statements about the importance of working together rather than being as insular and narrowly-focused as Harper and company, then the result for the NDP figures to be all the better.

Saturday Afternoon Links

This and that for a sunny Saturday.

- Paul Wells discusses the clash shaping up between the Cons and the NDP:

Some 57 per cent of respondents said they’re dissatisfied with the Harper government, compared to 36 per cent who like it. Last month’s federal budget drew more unsatisfied reaction than satisfied, and respondents who associated themselves with “the left” outnumbered those sympathizing with “the right” everywhere except Ontario (where they tied) and the three Prairie provinces.

Those numbers don’t spell Conservative doom. They do suggest a non-Conservative alternative has a fighting chance. So too does another poll from Environics for the fledgling Broadbent Institute, which is dedicated to bankrolling polls that gladden the heart of one-time NDP leader Ed Broadbent. This one sure did the trick. It found majorities concerned about income inequality, willing to pay higher taxes to reduce inequality, and positively eager to watch the rich pay higher taxes to reduce income inequality.

So there’s potential traction for a larger-government alternative to the Conservatives. The more thoughtful people around Stephen Harper admit as much. They don’t think their man has shut down the political left, merely that he has managed to stay one step ahead of it while beginning to build a conservative alternative that can stay in the game for the long haul. More Canadians voted against the Conservatives last May 2 than for them. If those Canadians could unite behind one leader or party, Harper would be in trouble.
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Today Harper clearly thinks he has global environmentalists on the run. He has dismantled his government’s in-house climate analysis capacity, he’s shutting down arm’s-length advice from the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, and he plans to clamp down on foreign financing of environmentalist groups in Canada. His current environment minister, Peter Kent, can hardly believe how lucky he is to help Harper get all this done.

If the population still believes the environment is worth a fight, such callous disregard for the pieties to which he once paid careful lip service will hurt Harper big time. But that’s a big “if.” Harper’s full-tilt promotion of oil sands development and natural-resource exports has so far caused much less public controversy than, say, his decision to prorogue Parliament unnecessarily at the start of 2010. Harper is betting that in a shaky economy most people will be in no mood to ask fancy questions about sustainability.

- But then, Matt Price points out how the Harper Cons' extreme anti-environmental stance is thoroughly alienating plenty of the B.C. voters who have contributed to their existing western base:

It is an irony that Stephen Harper, a proponent of decentralizing power to the provinces, now wants to override B.C. objections by declaring this pipeline to be a matter of "national interest" and attacking anyone opposed to it. But, now that his Ottawa runs on oil, the industry must get its way, regardless of what the people want.

Has Harper miscalculated? Since going on the attack in January, his party has dropped 16 points in B.C. polls. To be sure, B.C. has pockets of deep blue sympathetic to the Conservative cause, but as with B.C. culture in general, these are populists who don't like to see far-away Ottawa throwing its weight around like a bully.
...
In sum, the battle over the proposed Enbridge pipeline represents the clash of the new oil-driven Conservative coalition versus an unwilling province packed with people who have never been known to roll over and play dead. This will rock the country.

The last time a political party in Ottawa used a "national interest" argument to impose its energy agenda on a province, it poisoned the well there for generations. And as the planet burns, this time around it is about more than political poisoning, but about the actual poisoning of our atmosphere that those generations need for security and prosperity.

- Andrew Leach offers up a primer on some of the decisions to be made surrounding natural resource royalty rates. But it surely can't escape notice that he leaves out one rather important alternative - as there's no reason (other than an ideological refrain from the corporatist right) why profitable resources can't be developed by public entities rather than private ones if the result is a better deal for the citizens who own them.

- Finally, Bruce Johnstone criticizes the Cons for resolutely refusing to learn from their own mistakes. And in that vein, Sheila Dabu Nonato reports that in pushing their online surveillance bill, the Cons are following a path that's just been found unconstitutional when it comes to existing wiretapping law.

Electoral Boundaries Commission Submission

For those interested, here's the text of my submission to the Saskatchewan Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission. I've added to and tweaked the analysis from my earlier column on the subject, but the themes should be familiar.

Dear Commissioners:

I write in response to your call for preliminary comments on Saskatchewan’s electoral boundaries. I am a Regina-based lawyer and writer commenting solely in my personal capacity.

While I will leave to others the task of proposing new boundaries, I will discuss briefly the disconnect between Saskatchewan voter preferences and representation under the current riding boundaries.

Over the course of the four federal elections conducted under the current boundaries, Saskatchewan has seen a more glaring gap between party preferences and the resulting representation in the House of Commons than any other Canadian province:

- In 2004, the Conservative Party won 93% of Saskatchewan’s seats with 42% of the province’s votes. This was the widest gap in Canada in any of the past four elections.

- In 2006, the Conservative Party won 86% of Saskatchewan’s seats with 49% of the province’s votes. This was the second-widest gap in the country behind only the Liberals’ sweep of Prince Edward Island’s four seats with 52.5% of that province’s votes.

- In 2008, the Conservative Party won 93% of Saskatchewan’s seats with 54% of the province’s vote. This was the widest gap in Canada.

- Finally in 2011, the Conservative Party won 93% of Saskatchewan’s seats with 56% of the vote. Once again, this was the largest gap in Canada.

Moreover, the distortions in every other province at least fluctuated over the course of four elections which saw a wide variety of outcomes, as only Prince Edward Island placed among the top two distorted outcomes more than once in the past four elections (and not since 2006). In contrast, Saskatchewan’s gap between seat distributions and vote distributions ranked as worst or second-worst of any Canadian province in all four elections.

As a result, there would be a compelling need to revisit the “rurban” riding structure as it stands even if there had been no other changes in the meantime. Over the past decade, the current boundaries have benefitted the Conservative Party. However, it is entirely plausible that a relatively small shift in voter preferences among relatively uniform groups of voters (urban or suburban) could create a similar distortion in the opposite direction.

Meanwhile, the preservation of a “rurban” riding structure is becoming less justifiable with time as Saskatchewan as a whole becomes more urbanized. Unlike in previous redistribution cycles, there is now an ample population base in each of Saskatoon alone and the Regina-Moose Jaw urban corridor to justify the allocation of three seats apiece to these areas, while ensuring focused representation for rural areas through constituencies centered on their differing needs and interests.

I thank you for your consideration and your participation in the boundary review process, and I look forward to your proposals.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- John Cassidy neatly contrasts growth in the postwar period against that in recent decades - with the former seeing a "picket fence" growth pattern where all segments of society benefited roughly equally, while the latter produces a "staircase" effect (aside from an utterly unreachable jump between the top 1% and those below).

- Meanwhile, the CP corrects Jim Flaherty's blatantly false spin about the effect of slashing corporate tax rates by pointing out that it'll be another 5 years before we return to past revenue levels. And Thomas Walkom weighs in on the developing recognition that many voters see a commitment to tax fairness as a plus:

Tax fairness is back as a mainstream topic of conversation. For years, it was consigned to the margins, championed by a few advocates such as author Linda McQuaig or economist Armine Yalnizyan, but pretty much ignored by everyone else — including the NDP.

Now it’s back in style.

The Occupy Movement, with its talk of the richest one per cent, has made tax fairness cool. Rumblings from the U.S., where even billionaire Warren Buffet argues that the rich pay too little, has given it a new air of respectability.

Here in Ontario, a campaign by a group called Doctors for Fair Taxation has gained a surprising amount of attention. A poll commissioned by the left-leaning Broadbent Institute argues that almost two-thirds of Canadians would pay “slightly higher taxes” to protect social programs.

I’d take that poll with a grain of salt since it never specified what was meant by “slightly higher.”

Still, there is something going on here. If even the ultra-cautious NDP is willing to talk about higher taxes, the public mood must be shifting. Perhaps more understand the simple truth of government finance — that we can’t have public services without paying for them.

- Terrence McCoy discusses the sophisticated data mining now happening in U.S. politics - with a particularly interesting set of charts comparing both turnout and voter preferences to consumer preferences.

- Finally, while there's ample room for doubt as to whether the Cons have made any case for taking an axe to public services in the first place, Susan Riley points out that they're going about it all wrong even if there was some reason to do so:

(W)hile it is theoretically possible to improve service while shedding jobs, this government's management style has been so arbitrary, contradictory and - especially with the F-35 project - dishonest, it doesn't inspire confidence.

Cabinet's stunning lack of curiosity about the costing of the F-35s and the government's readiness to downplay the true costs of the warplanes to blunt public reaction undermine its supposed commitment to fiscal prudence. So do Clement's Muskoka shenanigans, shifting money for border infrastructure to build gazebos in the minister's riding.

Yet the government is ready to deny free Internet service to the homeless, the disabled and the poor by cutting a small Industry Canada program that helped libraries and social agencies provide computer access. Industry Canada says the service isn't needed since 79 per cent of Canadians have home access, and it isn't, except by the poor.
...
Meanwhile, some federal services have already been "streamlined" into uselessness. Service Canada, which is supposed to help with everything from citizenship to pension to EI inquiries, is so under-staffed that it doesn't answer its phones. Passport offices are as crowded as emergency rooms. Government websites are useless for anything but general information.

Luckily for Conservatives, widespread indifference to the fate of public servants and general failure to connect today's spending cuts with deteriorating services, provide some cover. But, when the smoke clears, we could well be left with dial tones instead of answers, longer lines at the border, more incidents of food poisoning and some very expensive jets. That's when the chickens come home to roost.

[Edit: fixed link as per comments.]

Musical interlude

Dobenbeck feat. Joanna - Please Don't Go (Chris Reece Radio Edit)

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Murtaza Hussain nicely sums up why we should be pushing for businesses and wealthy individuals to contribute their fair share through a progressive tax system rather than through self-aggrandizing charity:

The private social safety net, provided by corporate donors as compensation for the public one which their tax avoidance helps shred, is a poor substitute for democratically accountable public spending. Besides being poorer, free of public oversight, and geared primarily towards public relations efforts, the private safety net is a rug that can and will be pulled out from under its beneficiaries at the slightest notice. Goldman Sachs, which generously gave $320M in charitable contributions in 2010 and $500M in 2009, drastically cut its charitable budget to $78M a year in 2011 in response to reduced profits while making minimal cuts to employee bonuses and other compensation. “Doing God’s work”, as Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein famously described the companies activities is apparently an elective commitment based on market conditions. Whereas...a strong public safety net is managed democratically by its beneficiaries, corporate charity can and will disappear the moment it is deemed necessary which exemplifies clearly why it is no substitute for government spending.

- Gregory Beatty points out the remarkable returns Canadians have achieved through the Canadian Pension Plan, and rightly asks who other the financial services industry than stands to benefit from pushing retirement savings toward more risky and costly programs like the ones preferred by the Harper Cons.

- Of course, if the Cons know that reality doesn't support their desire to demolish governments at every level, they're perfectly happy to pretend the facts don't exist. And evidence-based experimentation couldn't be further from the Cons' plans.

- But it can get awkward when the dogma runs into more thoughtful governments. And the comparison between the Cons and their Latin American counterparts on drug policy is reflecting rather poorly on Canada. Meanwhile, Paul Krugman points out that there's an important economic lesson to be learned from Brazil and other social-democratic countries in our hemisphere.

- Finally, Ryan Meili points out how investment in prescription drugs can result in positive results in terms of both health costs and outcomes.

First impressions and lasting involvement

Others have already commented on the NDP's first set of ads with Thomas Mulcair as party leader. But I'll take a few minutes to highlight both the job the ads seem perfectly suited to do - and the more important work only hinted at in Mulcair's first set of leadership messages.

Here are the ads:





As Bruce Anderson notes in the At Issue segment linked to above, one of the obvious purposes of the ads is to lock in the initial positive impression of Mulcair that naturally follows a leadership victory. And the ads are highly effective on that front - creating positive impressions about Mulcair while leaving plenty of different paths for future definition.

But there's a second factor the NDP needs to focus on now that members have elected a new leader.

Contrary to the impression might might be left by Anderson and Andrew Coyne, the missing piece of the NDP's puzzle isn't a broad constituency willing to consider the party as a potential government. Indeed, on the indicators which actually signal whether voters have an aversion to a particular party - such as a lack of second-choice support or perception of extremism - it's the Cons who stand out as turning off a substantial chunk of the Canadian electorate.

In order to win over soft supporters, though, a party needs enough resources from its stalwart supporters to move public opinion when it counts most. That's been the Cons' strong suit for ages, as multi-million dollar ad campaigns funded largely by o perpetually-outraged base have been crucial to their destruction of the Libs' recent leaders. And it's where the NDP still has a ways to go: indeed, at last notice the NDP still ranked behind the Libs in fund-raising even in the wake of the shift in party standings.

Now, part of the answer may be to professionalize the NDP's image to encourage donations from backers looking to get on the right bandwagon. But the other factor in getting the NDP onto at least a manageable long-term financial footing - and one that I've tried to highlight in the latter stages of the leadership race - is the need for a consistently strong activist constituency which can be motivated to donate and volunteer based on NDP issues and values even when the political winds aren't in the party's favour.

On the plus side, the new ads at least hint that there's more at play than merely encouraging passive impressions of Mulcair, as the closing exhortations of "now let's get the job done" and "ensemble batissons l'avenir" both recognize the need for viewers to get involved.

But while those warm and fuzzy messages may encourage Canadians to see involvement as something positive, they probably fall short of actually spurring people to action. And as important as it is to build positive impressions, Mulcair's honeymoon period should also be treated as a crucial opportunity to assemble the movement needed to support an NDP government in winning and exercising power.

Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Lawrence Martin comments on the growing resonance of inequality as an issue for Canadian voters. But the most telling sign may be less the Ontario NDP's steps to highlight the need for more progressive taxation (as Martin recognizes), but the McGuinty Libs' response - which in rebuffing the NDP's proposed social spending rather than the tax measures seems to signal that even one of the parties which has contributed so much to growing inequality doesn't want to be caught supporting it.

- David Macdonald contrasts two decades of perpetually-growing personal debt for individual Canadians against the pattern of corporate cash hoarding (even as the business sector has been handed billions upon billions of free dollars based on the assurance it'll invest in the economy).

- James Munson duly rebuts the Con's attempts to take credit for greenhouse gas emission reductions caused by provincial policies. Meanwhile, the David Suzuki Foundation calls out Saskatchewan as one of the worst provincial laggards, and the province's response only confirms the lack of interest in taking climate change seriously:

Saskatchewan, meanwhile, has the highest greenhouse-gas emissions per capita in the country, has no plan to close its coal-fired power plants and has eliminated its Climate Change Secretariat and its Office of Energy Consumption. “It is difficult to imagine any jurisdiction taking the threats of climate change less seriously than Saskatchewan currently does,” the Suzuki report says. Saskatchewan officials did not respond to a request for comment.

- Andrew Coyne sees the F-35 fiasco as a litmus test as to how Canadians will react to being deliberately and blatantly lied to by the Harper Cons.

- Finally, I'll offer a reminder that Sunday is the deadline for first-phase submissions to Saskatchewan's Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission. (For those interested, other deadlines apply elsewhere - see here for more information by province.)

New column day

Here, on the distinction between healthy optimism and dangerous boosterism - and how both the Harper and Wall governments are dragging Saskatchewan toward the latter.

Slightly Aged Column Day

Here, on how the latest round of cuts at multiple levels of government has been conspicuously designed to avoid having the wealthiest pitch in to improve public balance sheets. And while the column discusses earlier polling, the Broadbent Institute provides the best confirmation yet that the selective pain has nothing to do with public values.

Light blogging ahead

I'm off to destinations unknown until next week, with little to no blogging in the interim. Enjoy the long weekend in the meantime!

Guest Post: Mulcair vs. the Chickenhawks

Dan Tan weighs in on Thomas Mulcair's principled position on Iran - which may come as a pleasant surprise to anybody concerned that he'd be more interested in appealing to the Very Serious People than thinking carefully about whether military intervention is justified:

North American & European capitals are inundated with the squawks of chicken-hawks. Why not? The technological superiority of our militaries has reduced the amount of life lost on our side. The economic & voluntary nature of military involvement has reduced the perceived value of the lives pledged. Politicians have license to act as Greek gods, treating our sons & daughters as mere arrows meant to intervene in the petty quarrels of foreigners.

Thomas Mulcair was accused of being a chicken-hawk himself. There was the infamous quote about supporting Israel "in all circumstances". Then there was a boast of supporting an attack against Syria. While Mulcair provided more clarity on the Israel issue with a clear policy statement, he let his comments on Syria stand.

In a previous post, I argued that the NDP membership could temper any "adventurist" inclinations on Mulcair's part. But that left the impression that Mulcair's handling of foreign policy would indeed need tempering. I would like to correct that impression.

Recently, Mulcair was interviewed by Carol Off for CBC Radio. The final 6 minutes of that interview proved to be quite revealing, as Off presented Tom with every opportunity to bite into the deadly neo-conservative apple.

She quoted Stephen Harper and suggested that Iran was a nation of religious fanatics unable to handle nuclear technology. She then insisted that Iran was actively developing a nuclear bomb (seemingly unaware that the 2007 & 2011 American National Intelligence Estimates disagreed).

Mulcair could have nodded his head & thumped his chest (as the chicken-hawk is wont to do). Such bravery would surely be rewarded. The sheeple employed in the field of political journalism would approve of another politician parroting their simplistic narratives. The '24' fanatics who all too often dictate foreign policy would cheer as Tom stuck it to the "new Irish".

Instead, Mulcair took down Off's inflammatory claims with the purposeful precision of a sniper. He reminded Off that Iran was not a cartoon but an actual nation of complex human beings. He correctly dismissed the ominous caricature of Ahmadinejad, seemingly aware that the Iranian president is impotent in the face of the Ayatollah & IRGC. He also joined the noble General Martin Dempsey in challenging ill-advised calls to war. Mulcair reminded the audience that war was only justified if Canadians were attacked or the United Nations demanded action.

NDP members should take heart. Rather than a chicken-hawk...we may have unknowingly given birth to a dragon.

Wednesday Evening Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Frances Russell comments on the Canada which the Harper Cons are determined to destroy. But the more important point looks to me to be less any theory of constitutionalism than the desire to have governments be as ineffective as possible at all levels:

Harper, the man who co-authored the infamous 2000 Alberta firewall letter, abhors the 1982 Canadian Constitution and its Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He is a strict constitutional constructionist. He believes in the Canada of Confederation in 1867 when Ottawa managed defence, foreign affairs, fisheries, the currency and penitentiaries and the provinces looked after matters of a local nature.

Unfortunately for Canadians, what were local matters 145 years ago now constitute government's biggest, most expensive and important programs -- health, education and social assistance. The notion that 10 provinces and three territories of vastly different size and wealth can be left to finance them on their own assisted by an equalization program whose future is now in doubt as it comes under increasing attack from the right, is simply a prescription for growing disparity -- and disunity.

It was all predictable. During his years with the libertarian National Citizens' Coalition, the prime minister seldom hid his disdain for Canada and Canadians. "Canada appears content to become a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its economy and social services to mask its second-rate status," he told the National Post in December 2000. In 1997, he asked an American audience not to "feel particularly bad" for Canada's unemployed. "They don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance."

Most ominously in light of Thursday's budget, he told an NCC audience in 1994 that: "Whether Canada ends up with one national government or two governments or 10 governments, the Canadian people will require less government no matter what the constitutional status or arrangement of any future country might be."

- If there's anything the Cons can abide less than public broadcasting, it's Rights and Democracy. Which is why the former is merely being cut, while the latter is meeting with a wrecking ball.

- Meanwhile, Andrew Coyne, Bruce Anderson and John Ibbitson tear into the Cons for their combination of deception and incompetence in continuing to push F-35s long after they should have been well aware their talking points were utterly nonsensical.

- Paul Wells comments on the hidden release of another report on Afghanistan as a symptom of all that's wrong with a government more focused on propagandizing than discussing what it's actually doing - and a media far too willing to play into that choice.

- Finally, Murray Mandryk notes that while the Cons can never expect the facts to be on their side, they can usually expect the Wall government to come to their rescue in the PR department.

On areas of agreement

There's plenty of room for debate as to whether Peter Julian's budget filibuster should be seen to have its greatest impact in empowering Canadians who don't hold a seat in Parliament, or in limiting participation by other elected representatives.

But it does seem worth noting that while even a couple of NDP MPs raised questions about Julian's unlimited time, one rather significant group of parliamentarians hasn't much seemed to care one way or the other. And particularly given Julian's explanation that he didn't see any point in the Cons using budget debate time to spout their talking points, doesn't it seem noteworthy that their silence seems to signal agreement?

Leadership 2012 Lessons Learned - Party Edition

I'll close off my discussion of the NDP's leadership campaign with another lessons learned post - this one from the standpoint of the party in administering the campaign.

For the most part, the campaign seems to have thoroughly served its purpose in allowing candidates ample opportunity to showcase themselves without going into the debt that's dogged the Libs' recent leadership candidates for years. In particular, I doubt anybody would argue that the $500,000 spending cap substantially affected the candidates' ability to present themselves to actual and potential members.

There might be some room to quibble with the timing of the debates - both in not varying the debates between days of the week to reach different audiences, and in the fact that the membership cutoff hit before most of the debates took place. But the format otherwise looks to have been a success in fostering interesting discussion without becoming too combative.

And with one major exception, the convention couldn't have gone much better. The timing of the candidate showcases was called into question somewhat, but I'm not sure it was a bad idea to hold those in the afternoon to allow extra time if needed (while also leaving more time for interested viewers to record and view the showcases at their convenience). And within the showcases, the candidates found plenty of different ways to present themselves - with the immediate shift from Nathan Cullen's monologue and the entertainment-heavy presentation by Paul Dewar making for a particularly striking contrast in effective means of reaching the audience.

Of course, the one substantial concern was the delay caused by denial-of-service attacks during the leadership convention. And by all means any future votes will have to take the probability of outside interference into account - whether by providing for better triage of the type eventually carried out to separate convention voting from home voting, or by simply allowing for enough capacity to deal with attacks greater than those experienced anywhere else. But I don't see that concern as justifying a change from a model which allowed voters to participate either in advance or on the day of the convention, as the mix of votes helped to ensure members could participate however they saw fit rather than being stuck casting a preferential ballot while still wanting to be able to compare the candidates.

In sum, then, the main lesson the NDP will need to take away from its leadership campaign administration was to be more aware of outside parties seeking to throw a wrench in the works. But it speaks well to the organization behind the campaign that it took malicious outside intervention to cause a problem that will require fixing the next time the NDP elects a leader.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Yawning cats.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to end your day.

- Boris sums up the Cons' budget message to poor Canadians. David Macdonald assesses the Cons' impact on jobs - with -70,000 not exactly looking like a positive number. Trish Hennessy frames the Cons' plans as death by a thousand cuts, while Paul Wells fits the budget into a theme of incremental change. And Andrew Jackson points out the the Cons' latest attacks on Statistics Canada.

- Meanwhile, in news about the Cons' idea of spending priorities, Forum Research finds that 80% of Canadians want the Cons to scrap the $9 billion purchase of F-35s. Which of course means that they're determined to push ahead at that price even in the wake of a scathing report by the Auditor General.

- The Fair Taxation movement adds PhDs to its ranks.

- Finally, Manon Corneiller describes the election of Thomas Mulcair as part of a gradual cultural shift within the NDP.

Leadership 2012 - Candidate What-Ifs

Following up on this post, let's look at a few what-ifs from the NDP's leadership campaign in retrospect - this time wondering how the outcome might have changed from the perspective of the candidates based on choices made during the course of the race. And it's fairly easy to narrow down the list based on those whose campaigns ran about as smoothly as could be expected (Niki Ashton, plus Peggy Nash minus her convention presentation), those who figure to have achieved all they could realistically have hoped for (Martin Singh) and the actual winner (Thomas Mulcair).

Having pared down the list to that extent, here are a few open questions as to how the campaign might have turned out differently...

What if Brian Topp had released full polling data of his own in response to Paul Dewar's poll release?

Again, one of the hazards for those of us trying to interpret the race from the outside was a lack of reliable information about the candidates' actual support levels. And as a result, Dewar's choice to go public with his full polling results had a disproportionate impact in shaping the balance of the campaign.

But Topp could have met transparency with transparency. If indeed he had data showing himself all alone in second place, then he might have avoided the perception of a tightly-bunched pack of challengers to Mulcair by releasing the underlying data in full - which would figure to have set public impressions at worst near the midpoint between the publicly-released polls (including Mulcair's released in the wake of Dewar's). And that in turn would have allowed him to run as a stronger challenger to Mulcair, rather than one of a bunch of candidates whose positioning was uncertain.

Mind you, Topp may instead have decided that he didn't want to be wasting time comparing himself to Dewar in any event, and worried that responding to Dewar's numbers would only give them more attention. And I'm not sure Topp would have done better in the end if the race had polarized more between himself and Mulcair as the two main options - as he came remarkably close even without much perception of momentum near the end of the campaign. But if he had a chance to boost his fortunes just a bit, that could have made all the difference.

What if Robert Chisholm had stayed in the race?

The great question for Paul Dewar doesn't involve anything he could have influenced directly. But with Chisholm's exit, Dewar was left as the weakest French speaker among the candidates left in the race. And that made it all too easy to define Dewar in those terms - where a flailing Chisholm might have made language seem like much less of an issue for Dewar (or anybody else) in comparison.

As it turned out, though, it's also questionable whether Dewar had much of a path to victory in any event. So let's turn to the biggest what-if of all...

What if Nathan Cullen hadn't put joint nominations at the centre of his campaign?

It's fairly clear how Cullen may have seen a need to stand out in the race. And his joint nomination proposal worked wonders in some respects for his campaign - contributing thousands of members signing up solely for the purpose of supporting Cullen, providing a focal point for Cullen's campaign and ensuring that he'd be mentioned often throughout the race.

But of course, the flip side is that Cullen turned off a large number of NDP members from the beginning of the campaign. And while he likely succeeded in winning some of them over by the end, it's a wide open question whether Cullen's personality could have positioned him to emerge from the pack if not for a highly controversial central plank.

As with Topp's conundrum, there's a real possibility that the candidate involved reached the right answer for the purposes of the leadership campaign. And as party allegiances evolve in the years to come, Cullen's choice - winning him a higher profile across not only the NDP membership but the public at large - may have as profound an impact on some future NDP leadership campaign as it did on this year's.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Alison nicely debunks the Cons' latest Robocon talking points. Paula Boutis offers her own suggestions to strengthen Elections Canada in investigating vote suppression. And Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher report that the Cons have been working on funneling federal money through a charity to their choice of call centre operators.

- Adam Radwanski unloads on Jim Flaherty for his constant attacks on his home province. But the explanation presumably lies in the Ontario government's inconvenient recognition that Canadians would be far more secure with an improved Canada Pension Plan than with the Cons' newest retirement lotto scheme.

- Dennis Gruending laments the end of decades of work on a cooperative Saskatchewan Wheat Pool as Viterra is sold off for parts. And Paul Dechene wonders how in the world Regina's city council can justify allowing the demolition of affordable apartments in the middle of a dire housing crisis.

- Finally, Paul Krugman compares right-wing economic policies to the "pink slime" phenomenon - only to find that they're even less healthy than heavily-processed filler:

Mr. Gleckman calls (the Republican budget proposal) a “mystery meat budget,” but he’s being unfair to mystery meat. The truth is that the filler modern food manufacturers add to their products may be disgusting — think pink slime — but it nonetheless has nutritional value. Mr. Ryan’s empty promises don’t. You should think of those promises, instead, as a kind of throwback to the 19th century, when unregulated corporations bulked out their bread with plaster of paris and flavored their beer with sulfuric acid.

Come to think of it, that’s precisely the policy era Mr. Ryan and his colleagues are trying to bring back.

So the Ryan budget is a fraud; Mr. Ryan talks loudly about the evils of debt and deficits, but his plan would actually make the deficit bigger even as it inflicted huge pain in the name of deficit reduction. But is his budget really the most fraudulent in American history? Yes, it is.

To be sure, we’ve had irresponsible and/or deceptive budgets in the past. Ronald Reagan’s budgets relied on voodoo, on the claim that cutting taxes on the rich would somehow lead to an explosion of economic growth. George W. Bush’s budget officials liked to play bait and switch, low-balling the cost of tax cuts by pretending that they were only temporary, then demanding that they be made permanent. But has any major political figure ever premised his entire fiscal platform not just on totally implausible spending projections but on claims that he has a secret plan to raise trillions of dollars in revenue, a plan that he refuses to share with the public?