On definition

Others have weighed in on the NDP's latest set of ads in English...


...and in French:

But it's worth highlighting what most sets the latest ads apart from what we've seen from the opposition parties between elections since the Cons took power.

Contrary to some of the headlines, the ads don't play at all as a response to the Cons' own attacks on Tom Mulcair; instead, they're aimed squarely at opponent definition. And in doing so, they nicely tie together a few easily-digestible and repeated themes (deficits, cuts, economic uncertainty) as affecting viewers directly - serving to thoroughly undercut the "trust us in uncertain times" theme that won the Cons' majority in 2011, while also setting up a contrast with the NDP's track record as a party which balances budgets while valuing social benefits.

Of course, it won't be easy to counteract the Cons' financial advantage in getting the message heard. But at the very least, it's a plus to see a clear statement of distinction with obvious room for further development.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Sid Ryan rightly criticizes Tim Hudak's anti-labour plans as a push toward poverty rather than prosperity.

- Via Climate Progress, Steven Mufson reports on the causes of Enbridge's Michigan oil spill - with Enbridge's complete failure to repair known defects over a period of five years included among the reasons:

The cost of the spill has reached $800 million and is rising, the NTSB said, making the pipeline rupture the most expensive on-shore oil spill in U.S. history. The pipeline’s contents — heavy crude oil from Canada’s oil sands — have made the spill a closely watched case with implications for other pipelines carrying such crude.

The NTSB also blamed “weak federal regulations” by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration for the accident, which spilled at least 843,444 gallons of oil into a tributary of the Kalamazoo in Marshall, Mich. The oil spread into a 40-mile stretch of the Kalamazoo and a nearby wetlands area.

The NTSB said Enbridge had noticed cracks as early as 2005 but had failed to repair them.

“This accident is a wake-up call to the industry, the regulator, and the public,” NTSB Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman said in a statement. “Enbridge knew for years that this section of the pipeline was vulnerable yet they didn’t act on that information.” She added that “for the regulator to delegate too much authority to the regulated to assess their own system risks and correct them is tantamount to the fox guarding the hen house.” 

- Which means that B.C. citizens look to have every reason for their reaction to Enbridge's pipeline propaganda (as documented by Vaughn Palmer):

(S)uddenly, amid the usual flow of advertisements for automobiles, communication services and cold drinks, there was one of those Enbridge spots touting the Northern Gateway as “more than a pipeline, it’s a path to the future.”

Sparkling colours. Relentlessly cheery. Nice production values, as one would expect with a campaign priced in the millions of dollars.

But here’s the thing: The audience actually booed the pro-pipeline pitch and did so with considerable enthusiasm.

How often that has been happening in movie theatres, I have no idea. But I was struck by the thought of Enbridge launching a campaign to — in the words of a company representative — “help British Columbians understand what the project is all about” only to have its best efforts greeted by a chorus of boos.

- Finally, Heather Mallick offers up an appropriate level of thanks to Jason Kenney for his attacks on refugees.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Nuzzling cats.

Why now

Of all the possible answers to the suggestion of a guaranteed annual income, I for one didn't see "how can you speak of such a thing at a time like this?" as a particularly likely one. But since it seems to be the stock response, let's point out just how little sense it makes.

Sure, we may have come to see as an iron law of politics that policy proceeds in two phases. Step 1, business blowhards and their right-wing cronies inflate easily-foreseeable bubbles for nobody's benefit but their own; step 2, progressives clean up the mess in the public interest just in time to set up the next spell of irrational exuberance.

But just because that sad story has played out repeatedly doesn't mean it's inevitable. And now is exactly the time to ask whether we should respond to a boom by extracting as much as possible for the benefit of foreign owners, or whether we can put the resources we enjoy to better use.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Barbara Yaffe discusses Thomas Mulcair's strong start in winning over B.C. voters. And Martin Regg Cohn notes that Stephen Harper is starting to face some real (and needed) pressure from Darrell Dexter and other premiers to start actually talking to the provinces, rather than retreating from shared responsibilities.

- Sure, we should pay attention when public resources are used to make sales pitches for corporate interests. But what's most noteworthy about Jason Fekete's report on the Cons' CETA PR push is the point they didn't even both to answer:

Parliamentarians have been warned by some groups that signing the free-trade agreement could cost the country's health system an extra $2.8 billion annually in pharmaceutical bills and delay access to cheaper generic drugs, due to CETA provisions on intellectual property.

The talking points provided to MPs didn't refute arguments that drug costs would rise, but the politicians were encouraged to say the government "has always sought to strike a balance between promoting innovation and job creation and ensuring that Canadians continue to have access to the affordable drugs they need."

So alongside the "economy or environment" dichotomy the Cons have worked to build, they're also of the view that "economy or health care" is also an either-or choice. And they're entirely happy to throw health care under the bus as their idea of balance.

- Meanwhile, the private prison industry looks more and more to be another destination of handouts from the Cons to the corporate sector.

- Finally, Bob Weber reports that environmentalists and landowners are having to take up the cause of monitoring oil spills for lack of any constructive or honest involvement by any level of government.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Janet Bagnall neatly dissects the Cons' plan for dismantling public services:

The Harper government is nothing if not predictable in how it goes about dismantling a program or service. It starts by denigrating the program and the program’s beneficiaries, and telling Canadians that they’ve been played for fools by the beneficiaries. Once that message has been drilled home, and the government judges that the moment is right and Canadians’ attitudes changed, it proceeds to get rid of the offending program – no matter how impractical, immoral or ultimately costly the exercise might prove to be.

- Dan Leger discusses Gwyn Morgan's efforts to poison Canada's political discourse in service to the Harper Cons.

- Heather Mallick is the latest to weigh in on the Republican-style anti-labour attitude of the Canadian right. And the Globe and Mail does its best Conservadem impression by declaring that teachers' unions should accept massive cuts from a Lib party which is at best pretending to play nice as the price of avoiding Tim Hudak's overt hatred and contempt.

- Finally, Alice takes a look at party spending in the 2011 federal election. And perhaps the most interesting note is that both the Libs (at the national level) and the Bloc (at the riding level) managed to increase their spending over 2008 in a losing battle to hold their previous ground.

Monday Morning 'Rider Blogging

After the 'Riders' win yesterday, it's tempting to stick with the line that ugly wins count the same in the standings. But there was in fact some noteworthy strategy involved in the game.

The obvious key for Saskatchewan was a devastating defence on all fronts - and most of the attention has gone to a multi-threat pass rush which kept Edmonton's quarterbacks from using the read-and-react style that suits both of them best by eliminating any time to decide what to do with the ball. But even when a receiver managed to get open initially, the 'Riders' secondary did a superb job of breaking up passes and tackling receivers.

Of course, Edmonton was operating with much the same defence-and-ball control game plan - and executed it well enough to keep the game close until the last two minutes. And that's why the 'Riders' offence and coaching staff deserves more credit than would seem apparent from its yardage and scoring numbers.

Yes, it would have been a plus to see Darian Durant find some more receivers open downfield - especially since the timing that allowed for so many yards after catches in week 1 was lacking in last night's game. And I'm sure we would have seen the offence opened up a bit if the 'Riders hadn't managed to hold a lead even with their offence limited to small gains.

But in a contest where there looked to be much more risk of the Eskimos managing a big play on defence or special teams than on offence, Durant again avoided any turnovers. And he managed the feat despite a higher degree of difficulty than the previous week, as 'Riders' offensive line was largely overmatched.

With the 'Riders conceding absolutely nothing, the few big plays which swung the result consisted of Eskimo turnovers and Kory Sheets' late rushing touchdown which effectively put the game out of reach. And while I wouldn't want to count on that being enough in most games, the 'Riders deserve full credit for converting them into another win.

On parallel pursuits

Let's follow on the theme of both Thursday's column and the Mound of Sound's post with a closer look at the corporatist "there are no bad jobs" philosophy - which serves as the obvious foundation for constant attacks on wages, unions and workers even if it's been walked back as a direct statement of principle from Jim Flaherty. And for a frame of comparison, let's look at another concept that carries similar significance both in personal fulfillment and in public policy.

Most people will spend the vast majority of their time and effort building two aspects of their life: a career and a family. Both can take countless different forms, including some which may be problematic based on power dynamics which aren't easily addressed through public policy. And both are directly supported by public policy - partly out of political calculation, and partly out of a theory that society as a whole is better off if people are able to engage in them.

So what would we think if a government were to announce that it believes there's no such thing as a bad domestic partnership? And that in its moral judgment, the goal of anybody lacking a spouse through no fault of their own should be to settle for whoever will have them - with government policy then developed toward that end?

My guess is that we'd rightly see such a declaration as even more jaw-droppingly outrageous than the slip of the mask that got Flaherty in trouble. But I'm not sure we should differentiate all that much between the two.

Yes, by and large we should provide conduits for people to seek out careers which contribute to the world around them - just as we provide incentives for family structures. But there are plenty of circumstances which make it desirable for an individual to be able to pursue other options without feeling it's necessary to suffer in order to cling to one's livelihood, whether based on outright abusive employers or a simple lack of any match between the two parties. And we most certainly shouldn't tolerate the power of the state being used as a means to force anybody to accept what they don't want at the expense of their ability to chart a viable course for their future.

Instead, we should be looking to provide supports for the "precariat" who may be particularly vulnerable on both fronts. And anybody who's instead focused in forcing people into what can indeed be bad relationships - whether personal or employment-based - should be been as downright dangerous to meaningful individual choice.

Sunday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your weekend.

- In keeping with the theme of my column this week, the Mound of Sound highlights the distinction between a "plutonomy" which serves as the source of easy profits, and a "precariat" which businesses are looking to treat as irrelevant (except when they need a bailout).

- And Ken Georgetti discusses how that distinction fits with the regular attacks on organized labour from the Cons and their provincial cousins: 

The erosion of collective bargaining is linked directly to a growing income gap in our society. Corporate profits are at near or record highs while the wages of Canadians have stagnated for an entire generation. There is a direct relationship between attacks upon unions and a shrinking of the Canadian middle class.

Left to its own devices, free collective bargaining really does work for the common good. Unions have been able to ensure that workers share, at least to some extent, in the corporate profits that they helped create. Unions have been successful in reducing systemic wage gaps in workplaces. Being in a union means better wages for women, workers of colour, aboriginal people and people with disabilities.

The more equal wage structure in unionized workplaces sets wage and benefit standards that spill over into other workplaces. Employees tend to be paid better when they live in communities with unionized workers earning decent wages. Finally, countries with strong labour movements have a larger, more vibrant middle class and achieve greater societal fairness because unions advocate for government policies that benefit all working people, not just their own members.

Our government's heavy-handed interventions in the labour market weaken basic labour rights, and that hurts all middle class Canadians.

- Meanwhile, David Olive points out that austerians are simply exacerbating exactly the problems they claim to want to fix, while also creating longer-term investment deficits that will need to be addressed later.

- Grant Robertson reports on the Cons' willingness to let banks select and fund their own "external complaints bodies", rather than answering to any accountability mechanism anybody whose findings might not be entirely in keeping with the bank's desires.

- Finally, Michael Geist details how CETA is being used to imposed draconian copyright restrictions with little public attention.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Lori Wallach discusses the corporate coup underlying the Trans-Pacific Partnership which the Cons are so eager to force on Canada:

(T)rade is the least of it. Only two of TPP’s 26 chapters actually have to do with trade. The rest is about new enforceable corporate rights and privileges and constraints on government regulation. This includes new extensions of price-raising drug patent monopolies, corporate rights to attack government drug formulary pricing plans, safeguards to facilitate job offshoring and new corporate controls over natural resources.

Also included are severe limits on government regulation of financial services, zoning and land use, product and food safety, energy and other essential services, tobacco, and more. The copyright chapter poses many of the threats to Internet freedom of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which was stalled in Congress under intense public pressure.

The proposed pact is so invasive of domestic policy space that it would even limit how governments can spend tax dollars. Buy America and other Buy Local procurement preferences used to reinvest our tax dollars in the American economy would be banned and sweat-free, human rights or environmental conditions on government contracts would be subject to challenge in closed-door foreign tribunals.

- But as Jim Stanford notes, the TPP isn't the only means being used to push U.S. anti-labour principles in Canada. Meanwhile, Murray Mandryk muses about what the labour movement needs to do to win over the general public - though I have to wonder whether some of the resources now being spent on general warm-and-fuzzy messaging might be better put to use explaining why the few fights which make the news are so important.

- Peter O'Neil reports on Robyn Allan's observation that Canadians could get stuck with the bill for anything that goes wrong with new pipelines as the operators insulate themselves from any responsibility.

- Finally, Dr. Dawg points out three takes on the developing interest rate manipulation scandal.

Musical interlude

Big Wreck - Wolves

Friday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to end your week.

- Dan Gardner nicely sums up how any Con cabinet shuffles are utterly irrelevant since Stephen Harper prefers ciphers to functional ministers in any event:

In the past, parties in power always had factions, and ministers with their own political clout, and these provided at least a modest check on the power of the prime minister. “In the old Progressive Conservative (party), you had Flora MacDonald who ran for the leadership and had her own base of support. You had Joe Clark, who was a former prime minister,” Hicks says. When Mulroney said he was going to cut foreign aid, Clark threatened to resign. Mulroney backed down. That’s inconceivable today.

There’s nothing like this in the Conservative party because it is new and Stephen Harper built it from the ground up. “It’s a corporation in which one person controls all the mechanisms for fundraising, for distribution, for marketing, for organizing nomination contests in everybody’s riding. It’s all centralized. That’s unique to this party.”

Harper has never had to deal with ministers who wield their own political clout. “The closest one you had was Peter MacKay,” thanks to his leadership of the Progressive Conservative party. But when the PMO told MacKay he couldn’t hire the man he wanted to be his chief of staff, MacKay bit his lip and did as he was told. Ever since, he’s been a loyal soldier. Today, he has the political stature of a hobbit.

Next to the prime minister, all the cabinet ministers do. That’s not an accident. Napoleon suffers no rivals.

...
So what are reformers left with? We’ll have to wait — for the Emperor to meet his Waterloo in 2015, or to retire when it pleases him.

- And the Economist (which, let's not forget, managed to make the "Mr. Dithers" label stick to Paul Martin) is also rather less than impressed with Harper's anti-democratic actions - including a "tendency to play fast and loose with the rules".

- Aaron Wherry starts digging through the 2011 Canadian Election Survey data and finds yet more evidence that actual voters need less convincing to consider the NDP as an option than some seem to want to claim:

 During the campaign and in a post-election survey, the CES asked for respondents to identify their second-choice party and in both cases the NDP bested all other parties—28.4% during the campaign and 28.7% after. During the campaign, respondents were asked if there was a party they would never vote and only 10.4% identified the NDP (compared to 18.8% for the Liberals and 33.1% for the Conservatives).

- Which is to say that there isn't any reason to think for a second that trying to change the NDP's successful set of values would accomplish much of anything. But as Bruce Anderson notes, if there was ever a need for the NDP to try to look more moderate, the Cons' hard-right radicalism is largely doing the job already.

- Finally, Pat Atkinson points out that we can't take Medicare for granted. And that of course holds true for all of the social gains that are now under attack by corporate interests who look to the robber-baron era as a model.

Convenient

In case we needed any more confirmation that the Cons won't even pretend to be honest about what they've done until after they're done having to answer for it, this nicely fits the pattern. So who thinks we can afford to let any of the rest of the Cons keep hiding out any longer than can be avoided?

Thursday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your day.

- For those wondering what might become of Nathan Cullen's leadership campaign plan to work with progressives of all party stripes, we now have part of the answer: in advance of the Calgary Centre by-election, Cullen will be reaching out to discuss how to challenge the Cons.

- Jim Stanford highlights rankings of corporate size showing just how dependent Canada already is on the finance and resource sectors - a problem which the Cons are of course determined to exacerbate.

- Meanwhile, Sarah Jaffe points out what I'm sure is only a purely coincidental combination of record high profits and all-time low wages as a share of the U.S.' economy.

- Finally, Alex Himelfarb has some ideas on how to take back our democracy:

We are living in a state of what the late American sociologist Robert Merton called anomie, when a society’s goals and means no longer serve most people.  Our model seems to be busted. Today’s problems seem more complex, unfamiliar, and our institutions seem unable to cope.

We are past the point of tinkering.  The goals that gave us shared purpose seem now out of reach, less relevant, and we have lost or are losing trust in government as a means for collective progress.
...
(M)any have opted out of conventional politics, including voting, but they are also finding new ways to engage in public life, in their communities or internationally, and some have taken to the streets, standing outside all our conventional institutions and conventional wisdom to find something new. They are the digital generation that can make those of us stuck in the industrial age so uncomfortable. How the semi-leaderless Occupy Movement or the students in the streets of Montreal drove so many of us crazy.  Their leadership was emergent, fragile, shifting, in a word, democratic. Networks and communities replaced hierarchies.  And the generational divide is exposed.  This is not the hyper-individualism or entitlement thinking that detractors claimed.  It is about rebuilding civil society from the ground up, about a new kind of solidarity and a different kind of leadership.

Finding new ways to engage and contribute, rejecting government as parent or nanny, refusing to see the state as the answer to everything – that is all part of a better future.  But to the extent that the young ignore conventional political institutions, including voting, to the extent that they do not engage with the state and try to make it better, we risk an ever-wider gap between civil society and state and a continuing erosion of our democracy.

Holding on to stale notions of leadership is dangerous but so too is disengagement.  We risk a state that becomes more and more remote and authoritarian, less and less willing or able to pursue a better future, to constrain the powerful, to listen to or help those who need government most, to solve problems that cut across our communities and the generations.

We need Canadians across the estates and across the generations to get indignant, to get engaged, to enter the fray, to re-imagine Canada, and to take back our democracy,

New column day

Here, on how the most important labour reform Saskatchewan could pursue would be a guaranteed annual income that allows workers to plan for the long term rather than being stuck in low-income traps.

For more on the Mincome project discussed in the column, see here and here. And anybody interested in taking up the message with the Wall government can do so here.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Jim Stanford discusses how Canadian right-wing parties are picking up on the most extreme anti-labour stances of the U.S. Republicans. But I do have to wonder whether the comparison between union dues and taxes is one that they'd particularly shy away from: isn't much of the point to try to eliminate both as means of providing resources to achieve social ends?

- Meanwhile, Linda McQuaig explains why baby hippos and others have plenty of reason to be concerned about debt hysteria. And David Climenhaga points out that even from an economic standpoint, there's far more risk in the Cons' demands for austerity than in funding citizens' basic needs.

- Trish Hennessy serves up some numbers on food security:

900,000
Approximate number of Canadians who turn to food banks every month, up from almost 714,000 who reported using a food bank in 1998. (Source and source)
...
1.9 million
Number of Canadians, aged 12 or over, who lived in food insecure households in 2007-08. (Source)
10.8
Percentage of Canadian families with at least one child under six who were food insecure in 2007-08. That's one in 10 families. (Source)
17.8
Percentage of First Nations adults aged 25-39 who reported they were hungry but could not afford to buy food in 2007-8. (Source)

 - Finally, I'm not quite sure who's writing under Margaret Wente's byline. But more like this please:

Once upon a time, banks and drug companies enjoyed good reputations and a relatively high degree of trust. Most people regarded them as useful industries that created products and services that benefited society. Sometimes the people who ran these companies even lived down the street. Those times are long gone. Today these industries are movie villains – multibillion-dollar enterprises portrayed as so rapacious they’ll do anything to turn a buck. Judging by current events, this characterization is all too true. Some of the most powerful people in these lines of work will lie, cheat and steal until they get caught, all the while assuring us that they are adding incomparable value to society.

What happened? Both banking and pharmaceuticals went global, and the stakes (and rewards) shot up. Today they count their sales and profits in the billions. Today they’re led by corporate rock stars who make more money than most people can ever dream of. Their compensation is tied to stock prices, which means they have every incentive to do whatever it takes to goose short-term results. This is called “aligning management’s interests with the shareholders,” and for years was thought to be a good thing. Unfortunately, it’s not always such a good thing for the public.
...
Simple logic dictates that if the risk is small and the reward is great, the temptation to lie, cheat and steal will occasionally prove overwhelming. Those billion-dollar fines are just the cost of doing business.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Yard cats.

The Saskatchewan Way

It's certainly a plus to see a new site encouraging Saskatchewan citizens to speak out against the Saskatchewan Party's planned attacks on workers.

But while Brad Wall's party obviously has its own reasons for limiting any discussion to the issues it's chosen, there's no reason for anybody making an outside submission to consider themselves limited by the Sask Party's choices. And so I'll encourage readers to go beyond the default options and point out that in addition to wanting to avoid making matters worse, we also recognize that there's plenty more to be done in terms of living wages, job security and greater social support for workers.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Roy Romanow comments on Medicare as a major part of Canada's identity:

The achievement of universal health care took a long, acrimonious and protracted road. It is no surprise to me that Saskatchewan was at the forefront of this journey. The province’s citizens learned many hard lessons during the desperation of the Great Depression and the sacrifices of the Second World War. They learned about generosity, about hardship and fairness, about boom and bust. They learned about the imperative for co-operative action. They came to understand that the notion of shared destiny was key to our existence.

And so it is with other regions in Canada, where geography and demographics may vary, where many waves of immigration began with an initial sense of isolation, but where we all learned to see survival and progress as a test of our ongoing ability to come together and to remain united around shared values.
...
(T)he well-being of our citizenry goes beyond health care; it is dependent on preventing illness and tackling the more fundamental barriers to good health, including social, economic and environmental factors. How we treat the environment has a direct impact on our health and the longevity of a sustainable economy. The growing gap between the rich and poor directly affects our health and the fiscal demands on our health-care system.

Every day, Canada faces new challenges that prompt key questions about what kind of people we are and what kind of future we wish to shape.

As we celebrate the birth of our nation and of medicare, we must ask ourselves: What kind of Canada do we want? Because, as I see it, the choice Canadians make about health care is fundamentally intertwined with our values and future.

- Meanwhile, the Cons are backtracking on their much-criticized cuts to refugee health care by declaring that they only want to leave some refugees high and dry. But it's still highly dubious the Cons are even more explicitly taking the power to pick and choose among new arrivals to Canada to determine who they want to have access to health care.

- Speaking of the Cons' unaccountable and opaque political decision-making, Don Lenihan theorizes that the Harper reign will be seen as the culmination of centralizing pattern started under Trudeau while pointing out why that's a problem:

The lesson here is simple: too much centralization undermines legitimacy. The more scope a government thinks it has to act unilaterally in the name of effectiveness, the less legitimacy those actions will have.

- But while we should be on the lookout for ways of making governance more open and democratic, Barbara Yaffe's musings about a no-party system don't strike me as a particularly realistic or desirable response.

- Finally, Dr. Dawg runs down some of the important stories of public dissent that were largely whitewashed in favour of all-jingoism, all-the-time Canada Day coverage.

On risky bets

Others have already batted about some theories about the Cons' first set of attack ads against Tom Mulcair. But it's worth noting that there are a couple of important differences between the first salvo against Mulcair, and the previous saturation campaigns against Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff.

While it's been pointed out that the newer ads are more focused on policy, it hasn't much been noted how much more easily they can then be refuted if Mulcair does an effective job of holding the NDP's ground.

Casual political observers didn't have much frame of reference to determine whether Dion was "not a leader" or whether Ignatieff was "just visiting" precisely because those talking points were utterly meaningless. And that meant there wasn't much either could do to shed the initial label imprinted on them by the Cons.

But by putting the focus on Mulcair's economic theories, the Cons are opening the door for him to talk about why the NDP's plans make sense - which looks to be well within his comfort zone. And given that the public has been in broad agreement with the NDP in general as well as the very ideas the Cons are trying to paint as extreme, that may mean that even the best-case scenario includes plenty of downside for the Cons.

Yet even that understates the Cons' gamble in framing a contrast of "risky" against "safe". In effect, a party which has been drinking its own Kool-Aid for years has now staked its political future on a bet that nothing will happen over the next three-plus years to cause Canadians to see continued Con government as risky - even as its own tendency toward deregulation and crony capitalism (epitomized by the wholesale shredding of environmental legislation in C-38) radically increases the likelihood of something going wrong which would turn that dynamic on its head.

So if the ballot question in 2015 is really one about risk, the Cons may have already set themselves up to lose. And while we'd obviously prefer not to see Canada left to deal with the fallout, it's hard to imagine a more deserving end for Harper and his party.

On open channels

Fern Hill is frustrated at how political reporters have tried to make a non-story out of the #denounceharper hashtag which trended globally yesterday as Twitter users took the opportunity to discuss what Canadians actually want for Canada Day. And I can certainly understand the concern at normally well-connected reporters choosing to dismiss widespread public activism, particularly in contrast to such compelling issues of public importance as "what do you call the July 1st holiday?"

But I'd think there's a more positive side to the story: based on Kev's numbers, it's possible to reach upwards of 14 million people to talk about the gap between the Canada we want and the Con petro-state we're stuck with even without any particular help from most media outlets. And if we can make a habit of developing those types of channels while not worrying about what the media ignores, then we should be able to significantly reshape how a large number of people see Canada's political landscape - long before either governmental PR flacks or media gatekeepers bother to pay attention.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Mia Rabson writes that patronage and secrecy are thriving under the Harper Cons, even after they've lost any excuse about other parties' ability to stop their plans:

But when the federal appointments process has no transparency, any time someone with political ties as strong as Larkin's gets a pretty plum appointment (she could earn up to $17,000 a year in per diems for attending board meetings), it is always going to raise serious questions about the merits of the appointment.

It is interesting that with some other major promises Harper couldn't fulfil in a minority government -- such as eliminating the long-gun registry and the monopoly of the Canadian Wheat Board -- he simply held off until he got his majority and then pushed the changes through.

But when it came to an appointments commission to turn off the taps to the patronage gravy train, Harper earned his monopoly and then eliminated the whole idea entirely in a little more than a year.

If the prime minister still believes in openness and transparency in appointments and that people should be chosen based on merit, not party ties, there is no sign of it.

- Martin Regg Cohn discusses Tim Hudak's attack on Ontario workers:

Ontario’s PC party is coming to Caterpillar’s defence — by branding the victims as the villains. Yes, blame the union — because big labour can’t see the Caterpillars marching.

That’s the forward-looking vision you’ll be hearing from Opposition Leader Tim Hudak, who has unveiled a radical anti-union agenda to help rebrand his putatively Progressive Conservative party: the end of unionism, replaced by a more “flexible” future.

Hudak eschews the loaded phrase, “right-to-work,” which evokes an aggressive, Wisconsin-style anti-union movement. But make no mistake, this is a declaration of war against organized labour by a politician firing the starter’s pistol in a race to the bottom.

Under his new Tory roadmap, Ontario will become a province where Caterpillars crush unions. A place where workers who still benefit from collective bargaining need not pay union dues — so that membership atrophies, money dries up, and the labour movement is disemboweled.

- Meanwhile, David Climenhaga duly mocks the National Post's horror at discovering that unions aren't leaving youth outreach solely to the corporate sector.

- Finally, Bea Vongdouangchanh cites Michael Geist in reporting that the copyright bill forced through Parliament by the Cons has needlessly imposed a strict digital lock scheme which will punish Canadian consumers for the sole benefit of corporate content distributors.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that to occupy your Canada Day.

- Tim Harford discusses why randomized trials as part of a genuine evidence-gathering process are a must in developing public policy.

- Mike de Souza reports that the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans was already short on resources to do its job even before the Harper Cons decided to start hacking away at it. And Keith Ashfield is apparently nowhere to be found since he acknowledged that the Cons' plan is to facilitate pollution in Canadian water.

- Mark McCaw makes the case for peaceful protest against the Harper Cons. And it makes all the sense in the world to look at such a strategy against a government which thinks its only job in dealing with the public is to manage PR rather than to actually listen to citizens' concerns.

- Finally, both Gerald Caplan and Dr. Dawg see Canada Day as an opportunity to discuss the country we want - rather than settling for the deterioration the Cons are inflicting on us. Meanwhile, anybody in Regina looking for information on what's going on can stop by here.

The sales pitch

Following up on yesterday's Photoshop post, let's salute one of the most eminently parody-worthy moments of the Cons' spring: namely, Joe Oliver's pitch to get Canadians drinking water from oil sands tailings ponds.

Joe Oliver pitches Conservative Sludge

Sunday Morning 'Rider Blogging

Needless to say, the Saskatchewan Roughriders' season opener couldn't have gone much better. But let's note that the game was somewhat closer than it may have appeared on the scoreboard - even while highlighting what parts of the game may bode very well for the 'Riders' chances in 2012.

To start with, we shouldn't forget that the Ticats had plenty of chances to take the game in a different direction - with a long touchdown pass called off on a penalty, and two near-interceptions dropped by Geoff Tisdale. Those plays may not have made all the difference on the scoreboard, but the second half would likely have played out differently if the 'Riders hadn't held the advantage on the scoreboard.

That said, those types of plays which can create a gap between the scoreboard and the flow of the game are inevitable. And on the latter front, the 'Riders managed to outperform Hamilton through most of the game.

For the 'Riders' offense, even the solid scoring and yardage numbers didn't tell the whole story. Instead, there were two twists in how the team put up 43 points and 500 yards that look rather promising for the season to come.

First, there was a possible new step in Darian Durant's development as a quarterback. In the past, his success has largely been based on a combination of scrambling ability and a willingness to take risks. But on Friday he was able to control the play much more than in the past: most of his throws not only found their receivers but connected at just the right time and place, meaning that in addition to completing passes Durant gave his receivers every opportunity to make plays after the catch.

And that was the second revelation from the 'Riders' opener.  Yes, Weston Dressler has been elusive in the past - but I don't recall him ever leaving quite as many defenders grabbing at thin air as he did Friday night. And Kory Sheets was roughly on par with Dressler's shiftiness as both a rusher and a receiver, while at least a couple of other receivers also managed to manufacture big plays out of slipped tackles.

Of course, an improved offensive line went a long way toward allowing for the boosts in timing and playmaking we saw on Friday. But if Durant and his receivers can go beyond merely playing a possession game and turn small windows into massive gains, then the 'Riders offense may be better than we've seen in a long time.

On defence, the 'Riders were mostly effective but unspectacular. The most promising sign was the combination of sacks and Hamilton holding penalties (suggesting that the 'Riders' pass rush indeed managed to make a difference). But there were a couple of breakdowns in the 'Riders' own tackling, and there looks to be plenty of room for the secondary to make more plays than it did against the Ticats.

That said, there's much more reason for optimism than concern based on the 'Riders' season opener. And we'll find out soon whether the 'Riders can keep up the pace.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your long weekend reading.

- Jim Stanford highlights how anti-labour "right to work" policy is spreading from the U.S. into multiple Canadian provinces:

It’s clear we’re going to have to gear up our arguments on right-to-work laws, dues check-off, the Rand Formula, etc. In the last year three mainstream parties have introduced proposals for right-to-work style legal changes in Canada (Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party, the Wild Rose Alliance, and now yesterday Tim Hudak’s Ontario PCs).  This used to be terrain solely inhabited by the Fraser Institute and similar extremist camps, but no longer.  Clearly the postwar mainstream consensus that unionization was something to be at least tolerated (or, initially, actively supported) as a mechanism for managing income distribution and workplace relations is long defunct. 
...
Some of the obvious conceptual points to counter Hudak and Co. would include:
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* There’s a strong anology to taxes: citizens make democratic majority decisions in elections for their government, which then levies taxes to pay for agreed programs.  If taxes were “voluntary” then we’d have no schools, hospitals, or roads, and society would collapse.  The true goal of right-to-work advocates is precisely that: to cause unions to collapse.
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* The link between declining unionization and growing inequality is strong and well-documented.  If we are concerned with inequality, then we should be working to strengthen collective bargaining relationships (as Newfoundland is doing, for example, with last week’s modest labour law reforms), not to destroy them.

- And Andrew Jackson notes that the most inclusive and democratic unions are also the most socially active.

- But kirbycairo points out that the "let's make things worse to make them better!" line of reasoning is a regular staple of apologists for an insular upper class - especially at the moment where their overreach becomes most obvious:

What conservatives consistently fail to understand are the basic social and economic relations of capitalism. Corporations seek to maximize profit and they do so primarily by reducing the cost of labor. Therefore capitalist enterprise seeks to minimize the number of people they employ while at the same time maximizing the number of products they sell. One needn't be an expert in algebraic equations to understand that there is a problem here. They are simultaneously reducing the very consumers that they need to have. Now, in a non-globalized context this process of capitalism can work moderately effectively for quite a while. But in a globalized context it is increasingly problematic. Furthermore, in a context of high levels of technology in which entrance to production can be exceptionally expensive, this problem deepens considerably.

As I have said before, as the revolution in France neared, the aristocracy attempted to entrench their power, to extract more wealth from the peasants, and it became fashionable to build ever larger, more elaborate carriages to show off their wealth. The results were predictable to anyone who had any sense. Today the results are equally predictable. Take away people's hope in the future, make them work evermore unstable and miserable jobs, while in the meantime the elite have ever greater amounts of wealth - and you'd have to be stupid not to be able to see what is coming.

- Finally, Dean Del Mastro is facing both photographic evidence and a growing number of witnesses refuting his claim to have had no idea about illegal campaign contributions and expenses.

On truth in advertising

It's been quite some time since I did anything new with Photoshop - and lately, that's been more out of a lack of time than a lack of readily available material. But now that we're into a quiet political season, let's start working on some images to define the Cons' plans for Canada - starting with a slight revision to the party's logo based on their commitment to environmental devastation in the name of oil exports:

Musical interlude

Matt Darey feat. Marcia Juell - Beautiful Day

Juxtaposition

Ah, the memories of Stephen Harper and his bestest international buddy deciding what to do about the economic pain they've inflicted on the world:

Mr. Cameron, hailing Canada as a model of fiscal probity and pointing to his own deep spending cuts, argued that debt cutting is the only way to fix a disturbing pattern, with economic growth in Europe and the United States stalled. He said the problem is high debts of governments and individuals, and that the fear that they won’t be repaid will spark a loss of confidence and a rise in interest rates.
...
Mr. Harper said markets’ fears are at “dangerous” levels, and this situation is far worse than austerity measures would be. “This is the most immediate and pressing problem facing the globe, and it is at a perilous point, and it does have to be dealt with.”

So how's that joint commitment to making a bad situation worse through austerity measures working out?

The UK has fallen deeper into recession than previously thought, confirming that the country has officially entered a double-dip. Data from the Office for National Statistics showed that the economy shrank faster than previously estimated between October and December last year, with a decline of 0.4%.

The economy also contracted for a second quarter between January and March this year, with the unchanged -0.3% estimate confirming that we are in recession for the second time in four years.

 (h/t to Atrios.)

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Dan Gardner rightly notes that we should be encouraging more public advocacy from charities and other groups with useful input to offer into policy debates - not shutting it down as the Cons are doing:

“Many charities have acquired a wealth of knowledge about how government policies affect people’s lives. Charities are well-placed to study, assess, and comment on those government policies. ... It is therefore essential that charities continue to offer their direct knowledge of social issues to public policy debates.”

That’s the government talking. More specifically, that’s the government’s principle policy statement on the involvement of charities in political activities. It came into effect in 2003. It’s still in force.

And who could disagree? We’re not talking about partisan politics, which charities aren’t permitted to get involved in. Here, “political activity” means debates about whether some law or policy should be changed in some way (or retained, if change is being discussed). Charities develop specialized knowledge about the fields they work in and if they get involved they add an informed perspective. Whether I or anyone else agrees with their views, or whether the government ultimately acts on them, does not matter. They enrich the discussion. And that can make public policy better.
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(L)leading Conservatives are now using incredibly bellicose language to attack charities involved in what they consider to be inappropriate political activity. Senator Eaton has even suggested that churches — a big part of the charitable sector — have no business getting involved in political activity at all. “I don’t think churches should take political stands,” Senator Eaton said in a recent interview. “I think they should be more about helping people and giving people succour.” 

Of course Eaton’s statement is gibberish, since politics can be an effective way to help people. But this isn’t about logic. It’s about sending a message. And the Senator’s message to charities couldn’t be clearer: Shut up and stay away from politics.

You can bet charities are hearing that loud and clear.

- Erika Shaker exposes a few of the myths behind the reactionary response to Quebec's tuition and civil liberties protests.

- Paul Dechene points out that a list of Canada's most endangered heritage sites includes Regina's Connaught School.

- No, I don't expect that many respondents were actually hugely familiar with the Cons' move to close the Lake of the Woods Experimental Lakes Area until Forum polled about it. But it still seems noteworthy how many of those polled recognized the problem once they were informed about it.

- Finally, shorter Preston Manning, speaking strictly as a neutral and nonpartisan citizen with no interest whatsoever in shilling for the Cons or the tar sands:

WAAAAH! No fair pricing carbon to take into account the costs of pollution unless we also charge more for hydro! And the sun! And the wind! And energy conservation! And...

Pre-Season 'Rider Blogging

I haven't blogged the Saskatchewan Roughriders' offseason quite as closely as in past years. But in advance of tonight's season opener against Hamilton, let's take a quick look at what's changed since the team's 2011 flop - and what remains to be improved.

To start off with, the team should have bought itself at least some time simply based on the sheer amount of new personnel it's brought in since the previous season. The gap between a team that's mostly working on refining a well-established system with a group of holdovers and one which is starting from scratch in evaluating and training players was obvious in the 'Riders' first pre-season game against the Lions. And a more respectable second effort shouldn't be taken to suggest the 'Riders aren't starting from somewhat of a disadvantage against many teams.

But that gap is bound to close over time as the 'Riders' new players get more familiar with the CFL, with each other and with the team's system. And the payoff for bringing in new blood is the prospect of far greater upside for this season and beyond as younger, higher-upside players settle into the league. (The 'Riders aren't lacking for players fitting that description at least on offence, as the likes of Justin Harper, Kory Sheets and Drew Willy have hinted at in the pre-season.)

On the defensive side of the ball, I'm a bit less convinced that the long-term growth the 'Riders need will be found near the top of the current depth chart. That's due in part to the team's apparent inclination to rely on older defensive linemen rather than giving much of an opportunity to younger players, and in part to what strikes me as a surprising focus on importing linebackers rather than following the path of converting defensive backs which previously gave the 'Riders stellar performances from the likes of Jackie Mitchell, Reggie Hunt and Sean Lucas. But in both cases, there's at least some additional talent further down the roster which may be worth developing.

Of course, we'd ideally prefer to see the 'Riders' new additions dominate from day one. And there's at least some precedent for that happening: take for example the 2008 Stamps, who went from a distant third to first in the West and a Grey Cup win while adjusting to a brand-new coach and integrating three rookies into their offensive line.

But more likely, we'll need to be patient - both within the 2012 season, and in the Riders' efforts to build a talent base for the longer term. And we shouldn't let some growing pains - nor indeed a few early-season losses - cloud our judgment of where the team might end up if it invests in developing the players now on the roster.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Michael Harris slams the Cons for their attacks on science:

How far has the government been prepared to go to smother the facts surrounding the ELA? For starters, DFO declined all requests from the media to speak with scientists. Being an equal lack-of-opportunity employer, DFO also turned down all requests from its scientists to speak about their work to Canadians. Remember, these are the same people who sent “minders” with scientists to a recent scientific conference in Montreal, lest they stray from the government line in public. I am beginning to suspect that the government line is based on believing that 10,000 years ago Brontosaurs were cropping grass in the back forty.

You will be comforted to know that DFO extended the ban on ELA information to federal MPs. The department turned down NDP MP Bruce Hyer’s request to visit ELA with an ELA scientist. When an outraged university scientist conducting research there offered to take Hyer on a tour of the facility, DFO threatened to cancel his research privileges. Any wonder that acclaimed international scientist Ragnar Elmgren said that this was the kind of thing you would expect from the Taliban, not the government of a western democracy?
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If you are going to wipe out 44 years of work, spark a scientific diaspora from the federal government, and create a white elephant out in the wilderness that will cost untold millions to “remediate”, do the intelligent thing and conduct an audit this summer to see if the facts support that course of action.

The government won’t do that because it is all about putting independent voices out of business, voices that if heard might persuade the public that Harper doesn’t necessarily know best. The PM believes in strategic communication – the amassing of friendly facts and pseudo facts and big fat lies that advance a chosen agenda. His approach to governance is like a bad PhD thesis. Science is about applying empirical tests in controlled situations with predictive validity aimed at finding the facts. The two schools are natural enemies, as antithetical as William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow.

Stephen Harper does not believe in funding any organization that might become a critic, even inadvertently, in pursuit of the facts.

 - Meanwhile, Colin Kenny discusses how the Cons have eliminated exactly the disaster-response capability that's most important in the case of tragic disasters like the Elliot Lake mall collapse:

These cuts fit nicely into the Harper government’s belief that the provinces’ constitutional responsibilities should be funded by the provinces alone. Why that mantra applies to emergency relief when it doesn’t apply in areas like education and justice is a question Canadians should be asking. When a person who matters to you is lying under a heap of rubble, waiting for rescue, you need help from whomever can best provide it. In most cases, the best response is a well co-ordinated effort with every possible level of government involved.

Elliot Lake is not an isolated incident. Think about 1987 (Edmonton tornado), 1996 (Saguenay River floods), 1997 (Red River floods), 1998 (ice storms in Eastern Canada), 2003 (SARS epidemic in Toronto, power blackout in Ontario and Hurricane Juan in Nova Scotia). The list goes on.

The HUSAR squad’s arrival in Elliot Lake on Monday may well not end up saving a single life. But how reckless is Ottawa’s gamble that federal support won’t be crucial in all the disasters to come?

- And in case anybody thought shifting disaster response to the private sector was a viable alternative, think again: in fact, even Enbridge is in the dark as to how cuts to federal environmental staff will affect its own oil spill response plans.

- Which makes for all the more reason to be wary of the Cons' petro-state. And it shouldn't be much surprise - as noted by Andrew Jackson - that the Cons are blacking out the reality of overreliance on resource extraction as part of their attempt to tar-wash Canada's economy.

New column day

Here, on how CETA and especially the TPP are serving as ever more glaring examples of the Cons' willingness to give away everything Canadians value as part of ideologically-driven trade negotiations for no real economic gain.

For further reading...
- Scott Sinclair and Michael Geist have recently commented on the TPP as well, while OpenMedia has launched a campaign against it.
- For more about the Cons' sad negotiating history, see my previous posts here, here and here.
- And Jim Stanford highlights the gap between the Cons' model for trade agreements and anything which might actually encourage economic development.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Derrick O'Keefe calls for a mass movement to stop the Harper Cons in their tracks now, rather than waiting for 2015:

Thoughts of ousting Harper in 2015 are well and good, but not nearly sufficient at this perilous moment for democracy and social justice in Canada. Given Bill C-38 and the events of the past few months - think about the "robocalls" scandal and the F-35 cost fiasco, for starters - nothing less than an unprecedented mass movement in the streets will suffice to push back and change the correlation of forces in political life in this country.

The rapid spread of protest actions - both with the Occupy encampments last fall, and the Casseroles in solidarity in Quebec these past weeks - illustrates, I think, a yearning for unity and mobilization amongst everyone opposed to Harper and the corporate agenda. It's been incredibly inspiring to watch, for example, how quickly the idea of 'Casseroles Night in Canada' spread. These moments are signs that there is a hunger for real, substantive change. 

The experiences of Occupy and the Casseroles, however, have also revealed the limits of our capacities at present. Mobilizations spread quickly, but participation is fickle and large protests fleeting - this is inevitable without the backing and active support of big organizations, and without widespread politicization in general. 

The strength of Quebec's student and social movements has been built up over years of base-building, and exist in the context of a much more developed progressive political culture than the rest of Canada. To admit this is not to give up, but rather to take a longer-term perspective to the task at hand - it's a war of position, not an insurrection.

- Meanwhile, Jason Fekete confirms that the Cons' push for resource extraction at all costs bears no resemblance at all to what Canadians want to see. And John Geddes points out that the list of radical environmentalists who expect carbon pricing to play a part in the global economy includes the likes of the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell.

- In the "just behind the curve" department, Chris Selley speculates that a political party might be able to succeed in Quebec while challenging the sacred cow that is the asbestos industry. This surely comes as news to all concerned.

- Finally, Steve V rightly wonders how the influence of corporate advertising dollars may affect media coverage.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Cats with company.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Dr. Dawg highlights Peter Russell's take on the Cons' 2008 efforts to prevent a Parliamentary majority from actually exercising its right to vote down a government which had lost the confidence of the House of Commons. And Steven Chase follows up by noting the role that the Cons' smear machine may have played in subverting Canadian democracy.

- Meanwhile, Bruce Cox discusses how a longstanding democratic crisis has led us to the verge of environmental disaster. And as Scott points out, there's plenty of room for matters to get worse when our federal government is actively looking for ways to encourage and facilitate pollution - to which I'll add that the Cons' deliberate steps to avoid telling the truth about hazardous substances aren't hugely promising either.

- Nobel laureate Paul Krugman's blog and columns are among my must-reads - so I often presume that readers will be familiar with his take on economics. But for anybody looking for a handy starting point on Krugman's recent work, Heather Mallick provides it while reviewing End This Depression Now.

- Finally, Erin agrees with the take that we shouldn't let anybody siphon resource wealth out of Saskatchewan - but points out that it's the Saskatchewan Party's low-royalty, multi-loophole system that's actually draining money out of our province.

On importance

There's been plenty of debate about the protest which caused Joe Oliver to move a funding announcement. But I'd think there's a more fundamental question we should ask about the event, particularly when the indignant response of the event host was to the effect that "this is an important announcement!".

To wit: how exactly is it important for the Cons to be able to dictate that a public venue serve as a resistance-free backdrop for their PR efforts?

To be clear, there may be circumstances where the announcement of a policy may have a significant effect on its implementation. If the public needs to know about a service to make use of it, then by all means there's a need for unimpeded communication in some form to reach the target audience.

But in this case, the announcement itself was of zero importance to the effectiveness of the funding: money for medical isotopes research is presumably well-known within the hospital involved and among the research community without a need for anybody to play to the cameras. And so the main goal of Oliver's press conference involved a bare grab for media attention on the public dime, rather than serving any substantive purpose.

Of course, we've all too often come to accept that it's the divine right of Cons to assemble a compliant media and no dissenters wherever they please (and at our expense) to deliver talking points. And I'm sure the lesson they'll take from Oliver's press conference is that they should crack down even further on anybody who might disagree with any of their policies.

But there's a more basic question worth asking as to how publicly-funded political propaganda fits with the need for genuinely free speech. And the answer may be that we shouldn't be so ready to see our money and civil service co-opted to PR stunts in the first place.

Insider tradeoffs

Postmedia and CTV have both reported on how this weekend's #skndp12 convention may shape the Saskatchewan NDP's 2013 leadership race. But it's worth noting how the major split among prospective candidates may affect the party in the months to come.

Here's CTV's juxtaposition of a couple of the putative candidates' views as to whether the NDP's next leader needs to be an MLA:

Weir doesn't think the fact that he is not in caucus puts him at a disadvantage.

"There is a big challenge ahead of re-building the NDP and that's work that has to be done outside of the legislative building, so I think it's advantageous to have someone outside of caucus," says Weir.

But some potential candidates think otherwise. MLA Cam Broten is the NDP Health Critic. He says experience on the floor of the legislature is something the membership will look for in a leader. "It's up to the party membership, but I think it's important to pick someone who has experience and can plug into what people in the province care about." 

At the same time, one of the weekend's more noteworthy presentations discussed the challenges facing the nine current MLAs in trying to hold the government to account. And if a third or more of the caucus winds up entering the leadership race, that task may only become more difficult while the leadership race is in progress.

Under most circumstances, we'd expect to see leadership contenders leave their critic roles during a campaign. But when all of the current NDP MLAs are already juggling daunting sets of issue responsibilities, it may not be realistic to expect a half-dozen who don't run for the leadership to see their own workloads bumped up by another 50% during a six-month campaign period.

Mind you, I'd argue there's a ready answer to that problem if it arises. In fact, the party needs to be building a set of high-profile critics and potential cabinet members wider than the current caucus alone - and that might involve assigning responsibility to some individuals who don't currently hold seats in the legislature. But such a move by John Nilson on an interim basis would hardly fit the message that there's a radical difference between MLAs and non-MLAs in a person's ability to reach and consult with Saskatchewan's citizens.

Finally, there's always the possibility that the current MLAs might hold onto their critic responsibilities while running for the leadership - which would be the outcome that best fits the theory espoused by Broten. But that would significantly limit the ability of MLA leadership candidates to chart their own course during the portion of the leadership campaign when the legislature is sitting.

Of course, once the campaign begins in earnest we'll surely see far more important debates than the exact significance of time spent as an MLA. But it's well worth keeping in mind that the jockeying for position among leadership candidates isn't taking place in a vacuum - and members will have every reason to watch which contenders' plans and messages best fit the resources and realities of today's Saskatchewan NDP.

Sunday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for a sunny Sunday.

- Paul Wells offers some theories as to why the Cons haven't yet launched attack ads against Thomas Mulcair. But I'd think the more important aberration is the fact that they did do so against Bob Rae before he ever became the Libs' permanent leader: the purpose of the Cons' attacks has otherwise always been fairly focused on softening up Lib leaders in advance of potentially imminent elections, and I'd fully expect the Cons to test out as many possibilities as they can through less expensive means before launching their usual saturated-airwave attacks against Mulcair in advance of 2015.

- Meanwhile, I find it striking that Susan Riley seems surprised that Mulcair has been effective as the NDP's leader, particularly on the environment where his leadership campaign focused largely on exactly the experience and principles we've seen in practice:

(A)s a former Liberal environment minister in Quebec, Mulcair “gets” the issue, he means it, and he has the intellectual acuity and debating skills to fend off inevitable accusations that he is anti-jobs, anti-Alberta. 

Although he must avoid needlessly inflaming western sensitivities, the environment is one issue where an “uncompromising” approach from a federal leader — politicians are charged with safeguarding the public interest, after all, not running interference for the oil industry — is long overdue.

- Dr. Dawg spots the latest example of the Cons breaking both promises and the law - this time in withholding publicly-funded polling numbers.

- Finally, Michael Geist explores the real reason the Cons are so determined to push the TPP and other corporate trade agreements:

The price of admission was very steep – Canada appears to have agreed to conditions that grant it second-tier status – and the economic benefits from improved access to TPP economies are likely to be relatively minor since we already have free-trade agreements with four of the ten participants.

Given those conditions, why aggressively pursue entry into the negotiations? The reason stems less from gaining barrier-free access to a handful of relatively small economies and far more about using the TPP as a backdoor mechanism to promote regulatory changes in Canada.

Given Canada’s late entry into the TPP process, the U.S. was able to extract two onerous conditions that Prime Minister Stephen Harper downplayed as the “accession process.” First, Canada will not be able to reopen any chapters where agreement has already been reached among the current nine TPP partners. This means Canada has already agreed to be bound by TPP terms without having had any input. Since the TPP remains secret, the government can’t even tell us what has been agreed upon.
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With Canada already surrendering negotiation leverage and few important markets at stake, our participation is less about other TPP countries and much more about us. Business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce applauded Canada’s entry into the TPP, expressing the hope that it would force further changes to Canadian intellectual property laws less than 24 hours after Bill C-11 passed in the House of Commons.

For the Canadian government, the TPP offers cover for major reforms to supply management, the combination of tariffs, quotas and price supports that increase costs for dairy, eggs, chicken, turkey and broiler hatching eggs. The system has been politically untouchable for decades, but using a backdoor approach of mandating change through trade agreement might provide the mechanism to garner the necessary popular support.

While backers maintain that the TPP will open up new markets to Canadian companies, the reality is that the agreement’s biggest impact is likely to come from major domestic legislative reforms that would otherwise face considerable opposition and serious political risk.

 [Edit: added link.]

On timeless recipes

Alice offers a thorough discussion of the ingredients behind the NDP's Quebec gains in 2011. But the most important part of the story may be that one of the key factors had in fact been in place all along - and may only help the NDP all the more in election cycles to come:

Worth as much as the values and leadership questions combined, however, were Quebeckers' positions on three key policy issues that matched up well with the NDP. According to CES researchers, issue positions rarely turn out to be the explanations of vote choice – usually it's values, partisanship and leadership. But this time was different, and three key issues drove support to the NDP in Québec in 2011 (in order of influence)

• support for increased healthcare spending
• support for increased spending on the environment
• support for higher corporate taxes

Because these were all popular positions with Quebeckers, it was a big pond for the NDP to be able to fish in, and most of the gains again came at the expense of the Bloc Québécois, especially in the first two cases.

What's only hinted at in the above explanation is that the difference between 2011 and previous elections when it came to the NDP's policies was their place as a deciding factor in voting decisions - not any apparent change in underlying support for the policies themselves. In effect, 2011 served as compelling proof of the fit between the NDP's policy agenda  and Quebec's electorate that party supporters have mused about for decades - just as long as voters actually decide based on policy in the face of far too much coverage based on other factors.

And there looks to be plenty of potential for a virtuous cycle as the party looks to consolidate its gains. The more we discuss policies which are already popular and suggest that voting decisions should be based on those rather than personality or leadership, the better the chance of both building a party policy brand that can't be dislodged by opponents, and firmly entrenching Quebec support for the NDP for a long time to come.