Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Frances Russell comments on how the Harper Cons are ready to impose exactly the kind of centralized and unresponsive decision-making they've long loathed - but only when it comes to favouring Alberta's interests over B.C.'s real environmental concerns. But Michael Harris notes that Harper is entirely likely to see his job as nothing more than serving the interests of the oil patch.

- Meanwhile, Susan Riley confirms that the problem with the Gateway pipeline is indeed one of environmental risk, not Christy Clark's money grab:

(T)he Northern Gateway is not worth the risk, environmentally, or politically.

And, while pipeline boosters enthuse about the schools, hospitals and jobs enhanced oil exports to China will provide, they ignore the social and economic costs of responding to crop failures, water shortages, forest fires and the other baleful consequences of rising global temperatures.

Outside of an increasingly frayed consensus, there are dissenters — notably, federal NDP leader Thomas Mulcair, the Green party, and B.C.’s NDP opposition, all of whom oppose the Northern Gateway.

As Quebec Premier Jean Charest said at the premiers’ annual gabfest this week, “you cannot disassociate the issues of energy with issues that touch climate change.”

In fact, the environment has to be at the centre of future energy policy — not from virtue, but from necessity. It isn’t about changing their messaging; oil-addicted political leaders have to change course.

If they don’t figure that out soon, with luck, they’ll be gone.

- John Geddes thoroughly reviews the Cons' regressive drug policy, which features massive cuts to already-limited rehabilitation programs in order to pour millions more into criminalization. And David Hutton reports on the sheer lunacy of a Saskatoon methadone program which provides support only after a user is already pregnant or infected with HIV - with Ryan Meili contributing some commentary.

- Finally, Erik Loomis provides two vivid examples of workers fired merely for recognizing problems with their employers in an apparent effort to intimidate others into silence. But there shouldn't be much doubt what happens when workers lack a voice altogether.

On cooperative efforts

The reports on fiscal arrangements and health care developed in the lead up to this weekend's meeting of Canada's premiers have both received some coverage. But there are a couple of points worth noting which seem to have been largely neglected so far.

On the fiscal arrangement side, we now have agreement among the provinces as to the effect of the Cons' unilateral changes to health care. And while those paying attention may have known all along, Table A.10.B. neatly lays out how Alberta is receiving $8.3 billion in new health care funding over 10 years while every other province faces cuts ranging from moderate to massive.

So no, the Cons aren't merely cutting back on promised health-care funding. Instead, they're actively diverting health-care dollars away from areas of need toward the wealthiest province in the country.

Fortunately, the premiers do seem to recognize that there's a problem when dollars dictate who has access to care. And perhaps the most striking part of the health care report is that even while discussing "innovation": (which is so frequently a code word for selling off pieces of our health care system), the provinces seem to have formed a consensus on a need for cooperation rather than allowing beggar-thy-neighbour market forces to dictate the terms of access to health care providers (italics added):

It is recommended that Premiers endorse the following Guiding Principles for Health HUman Resource Management:

a) Share Evidence: Provinces and territories should share health human resource labour market information to support effective decision-making.

b) Seek Innovation: Provinces and territories should share leading practices and work closely together on innovative approaches to managing labour costs and reducing competition.

c) Respect Interdependence: Provinces and territories should recognize that health human resource management decisions made by individual jurisdictions may have an impact on other jurisdictions.

d) Make Informed Decisions: Provinces and territories should explore and act on areas of mutual interest and common approaches to health human resource management.

e) Integrate Planning: Provinces and territories should work together to strive for an appropriate supply of health human resources at the provincial and national levels.

Of course, all of those recommendations would be far more easily put into effect if we had a federal government interested in supporting a functioning health care system. But at the very least, they seem to reflect some acknowledgment that gratuitous competition is a problem rather than a solution when it comes to ensuring access to health care - and the same principle would seem to be no less applicable within smaller health-care jurisdictions.

Thursday Evening Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Robyn Allan notes that there's plenty of weakness in Christy Clark's position on the Gateway pipeline. But Barbara Yaffe writes that Clark has little choice but to stick to at least the requests she's made so far - and Vaughn Palmer points out that those alone may be enough to derail the project. And there figures to be little that shadowy committees of oil barons and Alberta and federal politicians can do to change that political reality in British Columbia.

- John Ibbitson and Janyce McGregor both discussed some fascinating Nanos polling on the gap between the issues Canadians consider most important, and those they think governments are actually able to address at the moment. But while the Cons may have cynically exploited the lowest-hanging fruit, there would seem to be a massive opportunity for anybody who can offer more credibility when it comes to health care, jobs and education.

- And a series of stories surrounding the anniversary of Jack Layton's death - along with a public discussion of the values of love, hope and optimism - would seem likely to help guide discussions toward what we can do.

- Finally, there's a noteworthy new source for information about Regina's municipal election candidates - including far more challengers for Council seats than I'd heard about so far.

New column day

Here, on how Regina City Council's attempt to use the same old spin to sell yet another stadium plan (which leaves most of the cost and all of the risk with the city) might be the breaking point for public trust in then current Councillors.

For further reading...

The provincial stadium concept review rejecting an open-air stadium is here, and referred to with approval both in a subsequent feasibility study, and in Pat Fiacco's own pitch to the federal government. And the proposed funding model in the Regina Revitalization Initiative can be compared to the terms the city eventually settled for.

Update: Meanwhile, Pat Atkinson has her own concerns about the debt associated with the funding model. And Maurice Tougas offers some lessons from Edmonton's arena experience.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Zach Carter shines a spotlight on the few types of interests who stand to gain from austerity:

But the austerity game also has winners. Cutting or eliminating government programs that benefit the less advantaged has long been an ideological goal of conservatives. Doing so also generates a tidy windfall for the corporate class, as government services are privatized and savings from austerity pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest citizens.
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"Austerity policies are literally a redistribution from the bottom of the income spectrum to the top," said Dorian Warren, a professor of political science at Columbia University and a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, an economic policy think tank. "In Wisconsin, both wealthy people and businesses got tax breaks, while middle-class and working-class employees of the state essentially got crushed."

Warren emphasized that there are political dimensions to the austerity push. Efforts to curb collective bargaining rights -- and thus pay and benefits -- for state employees cut to the heart of the American labor movement. With only 7 percent of the private-sector workforce unionized, public-sector unions are a critical component of labor's political influence and an important bloc in Democratic Party operations.

Governments in Europe, most notably the United Kingdom, have also pursued tax cuts for the rich while imposing austerity measures on the working classes. And the European financier class has benefited even more directly than their American counterparts from these budgets.

Every time the European Union has reached a crisis point on the debt carried by Greece or Spain, EU leaders, especially German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have come to the rescue with bailout funds. That money goes to the banks that own Greek and Spanish debt, whose holdings would take a hit if either country were unable to repay. But the bailout comes with harsh austerity requirements intended to encourage budgetary discipline, so it's ordinary citizens who end up taking the hit. The most vulnerable populations are harmed by the bailouts, while the well-paid financial professionals who made the deals to finance Greek and Spanish deficits in the first place continue profiting handsomely.

- Chris Hedges recognizes the need for thoughtful questioning of self-serving "conventional wisdom":

And here is the dilemma we face as a civilization. We march collectively toward self-annihilation. Corporate capitalism, if left unchecked, will kill us. Yet we refuse, because we cannot think and no longer listen to those who do think, to see what is about to happen to us. We have created entertaining mechanisms to obscure and silence the harsh truths, from climate change to the collapse of globalization to our enslavement to corporate power, that will mean our self-destruction. If we can do nothing else we must, even as individuals, nurture the private dialogue and the solitude that make thought possible.

- Erin Weir makes the point that massive potash profits only confirm that Saskatchewan is forfeiting massive amounts of public wealth to the Saskatchewan Party's corporate benefactors. And Tom Shelstad notes that a reasonable royalty regime would provide ample money to fund projects like a Regina stadium up front - rather than requiring the city to take on decades of debt.

- Meanwhile, the Star-Phoenix editorial board is duly skeptical about the Wall government's pretending to listen to cultural industries only after driving them out of the province.

- Finally, I've tended to view Regina's housing crisis as a significant issue demanding a policy response. But apparently I should have known it was nothing more than a charming human interest story all along. (I'm just surprised the featuredidn't end with a down-on-his luck new arrival marrying the campground manager's daughter.)

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Wingbacked cats.

Tuesday Night 'Rider Blogging

Most of the commentary on last week's loss to Calgary has focused on the converse of the factors that went the Saskatchewan Roughriders' way in their previous game - as about half a dozen key plays all turned the game in the Stamps' favour. But it's worth taking a closer look at how the contest got close enough for those late-game breaks to matter - as it's there, not in the randomness of dropped passes and broken protection schemes, that the 'Riders may have missed their most important opportunity to stay undefeated.

For about 50 minutes, the 'Riders did everything one coud dhave hoped for against a tough division rival. On offence, the 'Riders countered the Stamps' run-stopping by leaning very little on Kory Sheets (aside from one big play). Instead, they built a possession game around Darian Durant's passing on the run - succeeding in avoiding turnovers, and trading off high completion percentages for both points and reliability. Meanwhile on defence, the 'Riders nicely shut down Jon Cornish while keeping the Stamps' passing game in check.

But after they took a 17-point lead, the 'Riders turned down the pressure on Kevin Glenn, allowing the Stamps to move the ball with little resistance. Then, the offence stopped doing what had worked - first going into prevent mode by relying on Sheets to carry the ball every first down, and later (once it was glaringly obvious that the run wasn't going to work) shifting to what was presumably supposed to be a safer short passing game.

An interception later, the 'Riders presumably lost any illusion that they could afford to try to kill the clock. But their efforts to restart their offence fell just short due to drops by Weston Dressler and Chris Getzlaf on potential touchdown throws, as well as two key sacks on Durant.

Of course, we have no way of knowing whether the Stamps might have been able to attack Saskatchewan's defence regardless of what the 'Riders did. And Calgary's success with a fast-paced offence will make for an obvious area where the 'Riders need to improve generally.

But the main takeway from last week's loss looks to be not to abandon what's actually working within a game in favour of conventional wisdom as to how to hold a lead. And that may prove an important lesson as the season progresses and mistakes become more costly.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Stuart Trew comments on the Cons' utterly implausible claims to try to impose the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with the EU without the slightest bit of public scrutiny:

CETA will also most certainly give European firms the power to challenge and even overturn government measures, just as NAFTA gave this right to U.S. and Mexican firms.

Canada very recently lost a NAFTA investment case to Exxon Mobil and Murphy Oil. A three-person arbitration panel decided the province of Newfoundland and Labrador should either get rid of its profit-sharing requirements on offshore oil and gas projects or else compensate the firms for as much as $65 million for the inconvenience. Apparently the measures are an illegal “performance requirement” on the oil firms, one of which was the richest company in the world in 2011.

What chance does any Canadian province have to develop their resources sustainably and to the greatest public benefit when agreements like NAFTA and CETA take away all their policy options?

The most egregious Conservative claim is that CETA has been one of the most “transparent trade negotiations in Canadian history.” Meanwhile the text for the agreement is off limits to the public, and Canadians will have no say in what the deal looks like before it is signed. We know from past experience that Parliament also has little to no authority to make any changes to the text. Efforts at committee by the opposition to amend the Colombia, Peru and Jordan free trade agreements were shot down.

This is the antithesis of transparency. If CETA and agreements like it are supposed to be 21st century or “next-generation” free trade deals, they should be negotiated in 21st century ways — openly, transparently, and with broad public input. Failure to do so in the ACTA negotiations led to that agreement’s demise in the European Parliament. The same fate could easily await CETA on both sides of the Atlantic.

 - But then, it's becoming more and more clear which constituency the Cons are serving while in office - as Geoff Dembicki reports on their efforts to fully coordinate government messaging with the interests of the tar sands.

- Meanwhile, Heather Scoffield reports on how China's planned takeover of Nexen should combine with the handling of a Gateway pipeline which is now being opposed by the province most affected to test the Cons' determination to sell off all they can to oil interests.

- Finally, Kendra Milne makes a compelling case to exempt child support payments from social assistance benefits.

On rubber stamps

There's been plenty of coverage from last night's Regina City Council meeting, with more surely to come. But aside from the complete refusal of any current Council member to respond to the concerns of the delegations who suggested giving citizens some say in a stadium proposal, perhaps the most striking comment is this one:

Audience members groaned with Clipsham (when he) said the city isn't ready for a referendum because "we don't know what we're voting on."

Which raises a rather obvious question: what exactly is there for Council to ram through (and the Premier and Mayor to hold PR stunts about) if we don't know what the plan actually entails? And given that a Council vote is no less binding than a referendum result, wouldn't we expect our elected representatives to actually ferret out some answers before offering their approval?

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Joe Stiglitz discusses the link between increased inequality and the U.S.' economic frailty:

Any solution to today's problems requires addressing the economy's underlying weakness: a deficiency in aggregate demand. Firms won't invest if there is no demand for their products. And one of the key reasons for lack of demand is America's level of inequality — the highest in the advanced countries.

Because those at the top spend a much smaller portion of their income than those in the bottom and middle, when money moves from the bottom and middle to the top (as has been happening in America in the last dozen years), demand drops. The best way to promote employment today and sustained economic growth for the future, therefore, is to focus on the underlying problem of inequality. And this better economic performance in turn will generate more tax revenue, improving the country's fiscal position.
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Countries with high inequality tend to underinvest in their collective well-being, spending too little on such things as education, technology and infrastructure. The wealthy don't need public schools and parks. That's another reason economies with high inequality grow more slowly. Indeed, the United States has grown much more slowly since the 1980s, while inequality has been growing more rapidly than it did in the decades after World War II, when the country grew together.

Public investments are of particular importance today; they increase demand in the short run and productivity in the medium to long term. Increasing public investment would help make up for continued weakness in the private sector. Investments in training for new jobs could facilitate the economy's structural transformation, helping it move from sectors with declining employment (like manufacturing) to more dynamic sectors. Strengthening education would help restore the American dream and help make the country once again a land of opportunity where the talents of our young people are fully utilized.

The right says that we can achieve greater equality only by belt-tightening. But that vision would result in a slowdown of the economy from which all would suffer. Because so much of America's inequality arises from rent-seeking and other activities that distort the economy, curtailing inequality would actually strengthen the economy. Investing public money in the collective good rather than allowing it to be captured by rent-seekers would enhance growth at the same time it reduced inequality.

- Meanwhile, Dan Leger highlights the desperate need to properly regulate the financial system:

Carney has the option of using his bully pulpit to call for sweeping change in financial regulations. No doubt any attempt at major reform will present enormous political complications because of the global nature of banking. But it must be tackled.

If it isn’t, we’ll just have repeats of the crises now dragging down the world economy.

That’s why this has to go beyond the central bankers and academics and into the political realm. Governments have to put the financiers on account and they have to hit wrongdoers where it hurts, in their fortunes and their freedom.

Beyond that, states that benefit from the global commerce in money, including Canada, must fix what’s wrong. Carney and his peers have that challenge: to lead change that will actually make a difference in the tainted world of global money.

- Karen Howlett and Bill Curry report on a rare example of public outcry changing a politician's mind, as Christy Clark has been forced to stop pushing the Gateway pipeline on a province which is broadly opposed to the risks involved.

- That said, it remains to be seen whether a similar effort can come together in a short time frame in advance of today's Regina City Council meeting. But recent letters to the editor from Mark Cote and Marc Spooner are worth a read.

- Finally, there's a bit of good news on the accuracy-of-news front, as the CRTC has backed off plans to stop regulating the deliberate broadcasting of false news.

Sunday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your weekend.

- Yes, the usual caveats about trying to predict future commodity prices apply. But Stephen Maher's warning about the effect of rising fuel and food prices is still worth keeping in mind:

That shift doesn't mean that North Americans are about to take meaningful steps to reduce the amount of carbon we put in the atmosphere, because politicians know that anything they might do to reduce carbon emission will hit consumers in the pocketbook.

Over the long run, though, if the scientists are right, we will have more extreme weather, food prices will go up and, in a reaction to the changing public mood, politicians will act to cut carbon emissions, which will increase fuel prices that are already being driven up by growing demand in China and the rest of the developing world.
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According to Agriculture Canada, food prices have fallen steadily in recent decades - to nine per cent of income in 2005 from 19 per cent in 1961.

The era of inexpensive fuel and food — which drove a glorious, decades-long boom in North America — may be coming to a painful end. Our way of life may not be sustainable without radical changes, particularly to agricultural systems that have been sustaining high yields with ever-increasing inputs of oil, a big contributor to climate change.

There is no guarantee that things will continue as they have been, and every reason to pray for rain.

 - And if nothing else, it seems glaringly clear that our current resource distribution system isn't based on pricing in the costs of effective safety measures - with Enbridge's move to throw half a billion dollars at trying to push through its Gateway pipeline only serving as additional evidence.

- Meanwhile, Peter Whoriskey notes that thanks to the big pharma's efforts to push patent-protected drugs, we're also paying scads of money for prescription drugs which may be of little or no use.

- Finally, Ted Brader answers some myths about campaign advertising, with the following distinction looking particularly important as the NDP and Cons trade critical ads with the next election looming three years in the future:

An ad’s timing matters as much as its content. Spots criticizing an opponent tend to work differently early and late in campaigns. Before people have settled on a candidate, attack ads help them make up their minds. But these same ads depress turnout when seen later by voters who have already chosen which candidate to support.

On failed strategies

Let's follow up with one more point from Bruce Johnstone's attempt to justify ramming through a stadium deal without any serious public input - which speaks less to the stadium project than to the bona fides of the politicians who are pushing it:

Is it perfect? No, because unlike some places, like Texas or Indiana, we don't have rich sugar daddies, like Jerry Jones, who helped bankroll the $1-billion-plus Cowboys Stadium in Dallas or Forrest Lucas of Lucas Oil, who bought the naming rights for Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis for $121 million.

Roughriders football fans, Saskatchewan taxpayers, in general, and Regina property taxpayers, in particular, will have to foot the bill for the $278-million project.
...

Given that we have precious few rich patrons or private companies that want to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on sports stadiums, governments are generally on the hook when the time comes to build or renovate sports and recreation facilities.

Now, Johnstone is right in saying that none of the private-sector actors who have been constantly courted by both Pat Fiacco's city administration and Brad Wall's provincial government has shown an iota of interest in contributing the legacy project both have long demanded. But let's question why that's still the case.

By all indications, Saskatchewan's corporate sector has been handed anything it could have possibly asked for and more over the past few years. Wall has offered to pay effectively the entire cost of any resource-sector operator's head office in exchange for the privilege of having it located in Saskatchewan. And Regina (like most municipalities) has then doubled down with additional tax breaks for businesses who deign to operate within city limits.

So we've tied up hundreds of millions of public dollars in trying to offer a sweet enough deal to attract exactly the type of sugar daddy who might be expected to fund projects like the stadium plan. And both Wall and Fiacco appear to have concluded that their efforts are a failure - meaning that we'll be on the hook for hundreds of millions more to make up for the corporate community spirit that hasn't materialized as promised.

Of course, one could argue that the problem is simply one of time - that we'll need to wait for BHP Billiton, Mosaic and others to actually put down roots in Saskatchewan's cities before we can expect them to offer any support for community projects. But it would be downright absurd to push ahead with a new stadium on the public dime now if we can expect there to be genuine private-sector funding (in the sense of contributions, not mere laundering through a P3 structure) in just a few years.

Instead, it seems more likely that Wall and Fiacco have just now reached a conclusion that seemed obvious to some of us from the beginning: that banking on the community spirit of mercenaries is a losing proposition. And if we can't count on big-money benefactors to contribute to even the most jingoistic of social projects, then it's about time to take back the goodies which were supposed to lure them here in the first place.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- The Guardian reports on the Tax Justice Network's study on offshoring which finds tens of trillions of dollars to have been funneled to tax havens:

Using the BIS's measure of "offshore deposits" – cash held outside the depositor's home country – and scaling it up according to the proportion of their portfolio large investors usually hold in cash, he estimates that between $21tn (£13tn) and $32tn (£20tn) in financial assets has been hidden from the world's tax authorities.

"These estimates reveal a staggering failure," says John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network. "Inequality is much, much worse than official statistics show, but politicians are still relying on trickle-down to transfer wealth to poorer people.

"This new data shows the exact opposite has happened: for three decades extraordinary wealth has been cascading into the offshore accounts of a tiny number of super-rich."

In total, 10 million individuals around the world hold assets offshore, according to Henry's analysis; but almost half of the minimum estimate of $21tn – $9.8tn – is owned by just 92,000 people. And that does not include the non-financial assets – art, yachts, mansions in Kensington – that many of the world's movers and shakers like to use as homes for their immense riches.

- Meanwhile, Travis Waldron catches a major corporation which is currently enjoying a negative tax rate complaining that it pays too much in taxes. All of which suggests it's no accident that the U.S. has finally reached the point where its poverty rates are worse than they were just under 50 years ago.

- There's at least some good news on the local level however: workers at the Regina Public Library finally have a new contract which looks to have avoided the most offensive of the library board's demands.

- Finally, Marni Soupcoff highlights how the Harper Cons' continued Robocon spin is only encouraging Canadians to see them as completely lacking credibility:

(W)hat might have happened if the Conservatives had thrown sound litigation strategy out the window, and decided instead to take the high road? What if their court filings had granted the need for a review of the electoral results to restore the public’s confidence in the electoral process, and argued only that the outcome of the election would not have changed absent the Robocalls?

The optics of the whole thing would be so much better. The party would be saying: “Hey, we understand why voters want to be sure that their elected officials won their seats fairly, and we do too. We have nothing to hide. We will prove to you that the right people are sitting in Ottawa.”

Instead, the Conservatives have now come out on the losing end of a court decision that makes them sound like they think democracy is a bothersome trifle to be brushed aside when it gets in the way.

On known unknowns

Others have already weighed in on City Council's rush to lock in a stadium plan before anybody has a chance to ask serious questions about it. But let's take a closer look at what looks to be the most important additional question beyond the ones I already identified here.

Bruce Johnstone's defence of the agreement so far includes an assumption that the Saskatchewan Roughriders will cover $100 million in operating costs through a new lease - which looks to be based on his conflating the money raised from an unrelated facility fee with the terms of the team's lease.

But the City's actual summary of the project (see chart at bottom of this story) leaves any lease with the 'Riders "to be negotiated".  Which means we have no information whatsoever as to what the anchor tenant for a new stadium can or will pay in a lease to use a facility being built primarily for its benefit - leaving the City entirely on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in operating and maintenance expenses.

And that in turn figures to allow the team to reinforce assumptions like these put together by CBC that it won't have to contribute another dime. Indeed, if CBC's breakdown is correct, the 'Riders would siphon off all the benefits of a building designed to maximize the team's revenue, while contributing nothing but its small share of initial construction costs.

Now, I very much hope that won't be how any eventual lease is actually structured. But the fact that nothing on paper suggests otherwise signals that the City has done absolutely nothing to ensure the main beneficiary of a stadium makes a fair contribution to the costs of its administration and maintenance - even while negotiating the terms of construction with that same tenant.

So it's looking like there's more and more reason for residents to speak out against an attempt to lock Regina's citizens into who-knows-what at the behest of a lame-duck Council. If nothing else, it's impossible to make an informed choice without knowing what the 'Riders can and will contribute toward operating costs - and any Council vote based on wilful blindness on that point should be a firing offence.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Doug Saunders discusses how corporate cash hoarding is limiting any economic recovery - and what we can do about it:

(T)his should be a great time for companies to invest: low prices, low interest rates, cheaper labour costs. A sensible company would build up cash during boom times – when investments are more expensive – and spend it during recessions, when consumer demand is weak and capital is cheap.
Yet this is the precise opposite of what actually happens. Companies look at the low consumer demand and become terrified, failing to recognize their own role in creating it.

This has become a public issue. There are some very important reasons why we need investment and spending now – and why chopping down the cash mountains should come before filling in the debt pits.

Unemployment is threatening to cripple an entire generation in many countries. The worldwide food crisis has returned, for no good reason; with more investment, the world could produce more than enough food. There are serious housing shortages in most Western countries. The drive to reduce carbon emissions has stalled, due to a shortage of investment in nuclear and alternative-energy power sources.

If the economy doesn’t start moving, there is something else we could do: start taxing those cash reserves – especially those held overseas. If we make hoarding expensive, companies will find it more desirable to use earnings to increase market share, improve products through research or expand into new markets.

- Sarah Schmidt reports on the Cons' choice to prioritize an unregulated junk food industry over the advice of health experts on trans-fat monitoring.

- Don Morgan helpfully responds to criticism of his government's attacks on a hundred years of labour progress by saying that his own consultation paper means nothing whatsoever. Meanwhile, Erin Weir points out that Saskatchewan residents are facing real cost-of-living increases which the Sask Party has gone out of its way to avoid ameliorating.

- The Guardian highlights that the NDP is making inroads in Prince Edward Island, both in terms of general organization and a provincial leadership race.

- Finally, Gerald Caplan suggests that the Cons' environmental and military debacles are doing the NDP's work as an official opposition for it:

The first was the huge hole blown in their single most significant economic initiative – unwavering support for Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific. The second was the blow to their vaunted managerial efficiency that was to be demonstrated by a modernized Canadian military machine, central to the warrior culture the government wants to make a cherished Canadian value.

In each case, the week’s bad news happened to be the fourth in a series of bad stories that have begun to undermine these two major projects. Oil pipelines received the most coverage, all of it damning. Enbridge’s very public humiliation at the hands of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, for a serious pipeline rupture in Michigan in 2010, reminded Canadians that no fewer than three large oil spills had taken place in Alberta itself just the previous month. That in turn evoked unwelcome memories of last year’s massive spill near Peace River, Alta., which then led to reminders that besides the Michigan disaster, 2010 also saw an average of two pipeline failures every day in Alberta. No one, it seems, had remembered this distressing record – until now.

Suddenly, the existing political equation was turned on its head. Instead of the Harper-led attacks on opponents of the Northern Gateway pipeline project as radicals, Canadian politicians and oil interests were now falling all over themselves to insist they put safety first. The villains had become, in the words of one American regulator, Enbridge’s “Keystone Kops.” And instead of Mr. Mulcair being characterized as the mindless arch-enemy of an ever-expanding energy sector, he seemed increasingly credible as a voice of elementary commonsense, as polls indicate.
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So the competent Harper economic managers cannot properly supply the armed forces they’ve tried so hard to elevate as a symbol of conservative Canada. And their signature economic policy cannot advance without a guarantee that some time, somewhere, Canada will continue to pay massive environmental costs for it. It seems the Conservatives are graciously doing a good deal of Mr. Mulcair’s work for him.

But I will caution that the Cons have offered plenty of examples of their own incompetence before which weren't enough to cause voters to turf them from office. And the NDP's real work likely lies in making sure that these types of stories stay at the forefront of Canadian political discussion, rather than allowing the Cons to deflect attention elsewhere.

Musical interlude

Serge Devant feat. Hadley - Peace

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Sid Ryan takes on the Harper/Hudak double-team effort to prevent workers from having any voice in our political direction:

(T)here can be little doubt that what really offends Hudak is the fact that union members pool their resources to participate in municipal, provincial and federal elections. When voters pulled the rug out from under Hudak's 2011 electoral campaign, he blamed Harris-weary union members for campaigning against him and running television ads to expose his agenda.

It is no coincidence that Hudak released his 20 page attack on basic workers' rights immediately after an Ontario court struck down -- for the third time -- his legal challenge against the Working Families Coalition ads. A defiant Conservative MPP, Lisa MacLeod (Nepean -- Carleton), told reporters: "we will continue to fight this in the court of public opinion." And fight they did -- issuing their call for all workers to be stripped of their collective rights.

Stripped to its core, Hudak's vision is not about "modernizing" the labour market in the interests of prosperity for all. He seeks to usher in an era of permanent uncertainty for all working people to the overwhelming benefit of corporations. To accomplish this task, Hudak must neutralize his opponents in every possible arena, from the workplace to elections.

-  Meanwhile, Paul Krugman hurts some high-roller fee-fees:

“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” So wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald — and he didn’t just mean that they have more money. What he meant instead, at least in part, was that many of the very rich expect a level of deference that the rest of us never experience and are deeply distressed when they don’t get the special treatment they consider their birthright; their wealth “makes them soft where we are hard.”

And because money talks, this softness — call it the pathos of the plutocrats — has become a major factor in America’s political life. 
...
Not only do many of the superrich feel deeply aggrieved at the notion that anyone in their class might face criticism, they also insist that their perception that Mr. Obama doesn’t like them is at the root of our economic problems. Businesses aren’t investing, they say, because business leaders don’t feel valued. Mr. Romney repeated this line, too, arguing that because the president attacks success “we have less success.”

 This, too, is crazy (and it’s disturbing that Mr. Romney appears to share this delusional view about what ails our economy). There’s no mystery about the reasons the economic recovery has been so weak. Housing is still depressed in the aftermath of a huge bubble, and consumer demand is being held back by the high levels of household debt that are the legacy of that bubble. Business investment has actually held up fairly well given this weakness in demand. Why should businesses invest more when they don’t have enough customers to make full use of the capacity they already have?

But never mind. Because the rich are different from you and me, many of them are incredibly self-centered. They don’t even see how funny it is — how ridiculous they look — when they attribute the weakness of a $15 trillion economy to their own hurt feelings. After all, who’s going to tell them? They’re safely ensconced in a bubble of deference and flattery. 

-  pogge nicely sums up why we shouldn't be too quick to ascribe bad motives to Elections Canada - while at the same time making clear that we do need to keep a close eye on its actions in dealing with the Robocon electoral fraud and other key issues.

- John Geddes offers his take on the parts of Canada's system of government that have served us well in comparison to the U.S.:

John Palmer, the former top federal banking watchdog, told me for this story a couple of years ago that the key to Canada’s 1996 reforms was that the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions was given the authority to issue highly discretionary instructions to banks as dubious lending patterns or other vulnerabilities on their balance sheets took shape. So the subprime mortgage portfolios taken on by U.S. banks before the 2008 market meltdown would have set off OSFI’s alarms, at least in theory, before they grew so recklessly huge.

The willingness and ability of Ottawa to impose this more assertive banking regulation tells us something. So do the persistence of higher Canadian taxes and the resilience of federal transfers for provincial social programs. Only a few years ago, regulation, taxation and social spending were routinely cited as serious Canadian economic liabilities. Lately, you don’t hear that so much.

- Finally, yet another study has confirmed a link between wealth gaps and health outcomes - in this case finding an infant mortality rate twice as high in inner-city Saskatoon as elsewhere in the city. And on a related note, CUPE's Wants Vs. Needs site looks to be nicely framing the choice for Regina voters in this fall's municipal elections.

Thursday Morning 'Rider Blogging

The Saskatchewan Roughriders' third win of 2012 involved a rather different path than the previous two.

Instead of dominating the line on either side of the ball, the 'Riders' win over B.C. featured a Lions team that largely controlled both sides of the ball. Travis Lulay put together a fairly stellar passing performance, while Saskatchewan's offence once again settled for modest gains while having trouble generating any big plays.

But that doesn't necessarily guarantee victory against a team which takes advantage of its few opportunities. And once again, the 'Riders couldn't have done much better on that front.

Most obviously, Tristan Jackson put together exactly the performance 'Rider fans have been waiting for since he was first added to the team. But his 129-yard touchdown run was far from a solo effort: instead, the 'Riders' field-goal blocking team allowed Jackson to wait for the Lions' cover team members to be levelled before patiently picking up 15 or 20 yards at a time. And the combination of an explosive returner and well-prepared blocking unit may help the 'Riders down the road by forcing opponents to rethink long field goal tries.

Meanwhile, B.C. had plenty of opportunities to break the 'Riders' zero-turnover streak - only to have at least one would-be interception slip through a defender's hands, while an apparent Kory Sheets fumble was overturned on replay. And those scattered plays along with an uncharacteristically poor performance by Paul McCallum were enough to swing the game in Saskatchewan's favour and hand the Lions their first loss since last October.

Naturally, the Lions' control of the line of scrimmage meant the 'Riders figure to have plenty left to improve in order to be able to beat the CFL's best teams consistently. But for now, a win is enough to keep the 'Riders on the right track - and the victory over the defending CFL champions confirms there's nobody beyond the team's reach.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Vaughn Palmer discusses the unfortunate gap between the outrages that may lead to a government being pushed out of power, and a new government's ability to actually reverse what's been done. Which, a propos of nothing, makes it rather important to push lame-duck incumbents to respect the democratic will of citizens rather than pushing through controversial plans without even the bare pretense of public consultation.

- I don't have any problem with the idea of "hardheaded socialism" as a successful economic and political model, particularly as it fits the NDP's historical pairing of fiscal responsibility and social generosity. But I'm rather wary of any attempt to claim Canada has actually enjoyed a genuinely thick safety net under a series of federal governments who have consistently undermined it.

- Am Johal interviews Ryan Meili about A Healthy Society, including this on First Nations health:

AJ: Policies and programs directed towards the Aboriginal community too often are not culturally sensitive nor are they delivered by Aboriginal organizations. Do you see a shift in health care delivery related to Aboriginal communities. What changes would you like to see?

RM: The transfer of control of health services to First Nations communities has been a mixed blessing. The ability to make decisions about health services offered and to be directly involved in identifying community health needs is a necessary and important step. We can and should involve communities even more in determining the best means to address the health issues they face. Unfortunately, this policy has too often also served as a means for governments to wash their hands of responsibility, including the key responsibility of adequately funding health services. Many bands have seen their health funding frozen at 1990s levels, despite populations that have grown quickly and despite new health challenges that have emerged. This results in an underfunding of key services and worse health outcomes.

A responsible approach to health transfer needs to include transparency not only around decision-making in service provision and human resources, but also around the availability of sufficient funds to provide services.

- Embassy reports on what looks like the latest evidence that the Cons are going full-on Republican wingnut - as the Harper government is actually pushing to weaken an international arms treaty (including any tracking of ammunition or technology, as well as "high volume transfers") because of a laughable claim that they'll somehow affect individual hunters.

- Finally, Dan Gardner points out that the Cons' consistent mistreatment of Omar Khadr - with their breaking an agreement to process his readmission to Canada serving as just the latest outrage - actually speaks volumes about how little they value citizenship in general.

New column day

Here, on Mitt Romney's nine-figure individual retirement account - and the lessons we should learn for our own tax policy.

For further reading...
- D.M. Levine and William Cohan are among many who have speculated as to how Romney may have amassed his IRA.
- Eugene Robinson comments on how the U.S.' retirement savings scheme has served to benefit those who can afford to ruthlessly exploit it, while at least one financial services provider has some ideas to go beyond Romney's tax sheltering.
- And the single definition standing between Canada and comparable abuses is this one.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Michael Harris continues to highlight some of the fundamental problems with the Cons' view of politics, this time identifying Stephen Harper as being afflicted with "master of the universe syndrome":

When you control all the levers of power, when you have no scruples, when you are surrounded by nutters who will do anything you say without thinking, when you conceive of language as disconnected from objective reality, when you believe biz bull and Beatle songs are enough to bamboozle the Great Unwashed, it’s understandable in certain personality types that the conviction begins to take hold that you are a master of the universe.

Here are the main symptoms of MOUS. You stop caring about what others think about you. They are merely the Plankton People – Vladimir Putin’s ringing coinage for the human flotsam and jetsam who throng to those soon-to-be terminated protests against his dark dominion in Russia. The kind of people, I might add, who now find themselves under arrest when a Harper cabinet minister is heckled...

When you have MOUS, it never crosses your mind that people would like more from their government than a cattle prod in their junk. That’s because being Boss is in your blood. You, and you alone, know what’s good for everybody. And what’s good for everybody? Well, it just happens to be what’s good for your friends. The pipeline people, the military, and of course, the Harper Party.

- NUPGE identifies several pieces of the Sask Party's labour and employment plans which violate well-established and internationally-recognized labour rights:

Implementing any of the following legislative changes would be seen as a violation of Canada's (and Saskatchewan's) commitment to adhere to ILO fundamental principles of freedom of association:

• excluding some employees from the right to collective bargaining;
• restricting unions from democratically deciding how they spend dues revenues;
• allowing individual members to opt out of paying dues;
• allowing individual members to make decisions on what their dues are used for that are contrary to the financial decisions made democratically by the majority of union members;
• eliminating 'dues check off', the process where an employer deducts union dues from employees' pay on behalf of the union; and
• denying essential employees the right to strike without access to impartial third party arbitration.

- Vass Bednar and Mark Stabile comment on the Cons' continued attacks on evidence-based policy in general and Statistics Canada in particular:

We would argue that there is a strong case to be made for a publicly funded and administered statistical agency that collects the kind of robust information required for government, business and individuals to make the best decisions they can.

For without being able to accurately describe the characteristics and trends of what that "problem" is, society will simply have to make policy in the dark.

Evidence-based policy-making requires just that - evidence - standard, reliable metrics whose quantification and legitimacy is widely agreed upon. In their absence, policy-making at all levels and in every sector will be as expensive as it is hopeful, while policy actors are forced to gingerly "guess and check" over time.

In the absence of good data, our ability to fully comprehend complex policy issues will grow anecdotal and inconsistent. As admirable as the quest for efficiency in the public sector is, it can't be worth the confusion that it will promise in the future. Truly realizing the kind of savings that Statistics Canada claims to strive for in this budgetary cycle means continuing to invest in the foundational information that has wisely informed our nation for decades.

- Stephen Maher reports on the latest in Helena Guergis' defamation claim. But the most noteworthy part of the story may be the one tossed in as an afterthought: all investigation and discussion of the criminal case against a past Conservative MP - who was married to a then-current MP and cabinet minister - was shot down by yet another future MP and cabinet minister in Julian Fantino.

 - Finally, the Star-Phoenix editorial board has some pointed questions about the plan for a new Regina stadium.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Levelled cats.

Patient Zero

Paul Krugman highlights what seems to him the first example of the "repeat a lie until it's taken as conventional wisdom" messaging strategy of the North American right:

I originally got the term “zombie lies” from the healthcare field, specifically Canadian health care, where there are certain stories — like the one about hordes of Canadians crossing the border to seek treatment — that remain part of what everyone, or at least everyone on the right, knows to be true no matter how many times they have been shown to be false. Kill them, and they just keep shambling along.

The reason this happens so much in health economics is clear: the realities of health care — especially the complete absence of free-market success stories and the evident superiority of public systems at cost control — are just not supposed to happen in the conservative world view. Hence the temptation to make stuff up, to seize on stories that are what right-wingers think should be happening and pretend that they are what really happens.

Zombie right-wing lies: a proud part of our Canadian heritage. In fact, Jim Flaherty's announcement of a commemorative wooden nickel is being planned as we speak.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Dave Coles writes that the Harper Cons are using their power to protect the privacy of international arms dealers, while at the same time demanding stringent reporting requirements for labour unions and their members:

Labour unions are among the few institutions that can and do provide a counterbalance to the power of corporations. Yet the Conservatives are not requiring companies that bargain with trade unions to file detailed reports to the Canada Revenue Agency on their salary, political or lobbying spending. Additionally, they are not requiring other professional associations that collect fees or dues from their members, such as the Canadian Medical Association for example, to follow the terms of Bill C-377.

They are only requiring the institutions created to represent the interests of millions of workers across the country to file these detailed records. There is no other way to interpret this than as an attempt to disarm a political opponent.

Much like what Habib Massoud was hinting at when talking about those involved in the arms trade, the detailed reporting required by Bill C-377 will be burdensome, costly and threaten the privacy rights of many individuals, companies and organizations that work with unions. Incredibly, under the proposed legislation, labour-associated pension and benefit plans will be required to publicly disclose “the name and address” and a “description” of benefits paid to individuals greater than $5,000. This could include personal medical information.

- Barrie McKenna notes that Jim Flaherty is once again using the power of the federal government to let banks do whatever they want without consequences. And unfortunately Canada's government is far from the only one which is utterly failing in its obligation to defend the public interest in dealing with banks.

- And indeed, the U.K. is standing out in its emphasis on corporate "property", going so far as to make the names of seasons off limits for anybody other than Olympic sponsors:

Wearing purple caps and tops, the experts in trading and advertising working for the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) are heading the biggest brand protection operation staged in the UK. Under legislation specially introduced for the London Games, they have the right to enter shops and offices and bring court action with fines of up to £20,000.

Olympics organisers have warned businesses that during London 2012 their advertising should not include a list of banned words, including "gold", "silver" and "bronze", "summer", "sponsors" and "London".

- Finally, Erin Weir contrasts the Wall government's willingness to put public money into a new stadium in Regina against its missed opportunity to invest in renewable power. And the Globe and Mail points out the coincidence that the federal Cons are funding attacks on wind power while refusing to acknowledge massive health, safety and environmental risks associated with non-renewable resource extraction.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Lana Payne sees reason for hope in the sheer breadth of citizens who are protesting against the Harper Cons:

Scientists. Doctors. Nuclear engineers. Academics. Researchers. Stephen Harper has a big problem.

He has ticked them all off. And they are not suffering their grievances or concerns for informed, fact-based public policy and decision-making, the environment, the health of Canada’s most vulnerable citizens and the safety of all of us in silence.

No. Instead they are protesting, marching, disrupting government news conferences. They are mobilizing.
...
(T)his is a prime minister and a government who have mobilized Canadians to take action, to protest, march and speak out. Canadians who would not normally do so. Canadians who care about the country, who care about how we treat the most vulnerable among us: the poor, the elderly. Who care about facts.
...
(T)he provinces have power. The premiers just need to figure out how they want to use it and whether they can agree among themselves how best to do so. This won’t be easy, but it is not impossible.

It will require courage and leadership and an understanding that Canada is truly great when we are more than the sum of our parts.

It’s time for the premiers to start fighting back. And when they do, Canadians, the vast majority of us, will be with them.

- But then, we can't assume that all provinces are particularly interested in hearing about the needs of Canada's most vulnerable citizens either - as sadly demonstrated by the Sask Party's decision to de-fund Equal Justice For All.

- Fortunately, at least some others are picking up the slack in documenting how people are affected by uncaring decision-makers. For example, Rob Rainer and Linda Silas discuss how inequality is making Canada sick.

- And the CAW looks into the job market facing laid-off manufacturing-sector workers, and finds that there's plenty of reason for concern:

A groundbreaking study tracking a group of laid off workers in Ontario shows that they continue to struggle to find decent jobs amidst the turmoil of the current labour market.

The final phase of the CAW's Worker Adjustment Tracking Study released earlier today shows that many laid off workers are forced into lower quality and more precarious jobs (including temp agency work), with a significant reduction in pay following the loss of good full-time employment.
...
Other study highlights include:
- Over 1 in 5 reported being without income for longer than one year;
- 31% reported their general health has deteriorated as a result of layoff;
- 48% reported they had done without something they needed in order to pay the rent or mortgage;
- Employment and job characteristics for most workers are poorer than in their previous jobs;
- Nearly 60% of those who completed job retraining programs found related employment.

 - Finally, Craig McInnes is the latest to weigh in on how Enbridge's utter irresponsibility in causing its Michigan spill should make us wary of its intentions in ramming through a Gateway pipeline.

On ballpark figures

John Klein and Marian Donnelly have already raised some important questions about this weekend's stadium funding announcement. But while the biggest problem with the announcement may well be just how obvious it is that some key issues haven't yet been worked out in the slightest, I'll toss a couple more into the mix.

First, particularly in light of the fact that Regina's City Council will be asked to vote on the deal within the next month, the announcement reeks of being cynically timed to allow a current council to lock the city into an agreement which voters may want to reject. And so it will be worth keeping an eye on exactly what steps are intended to be taken before the election - and holding the current Councillors who are running again strictly accountable for any choice to deprive voters of any say.

Second, there's the cost involved in the project. While Bruce Johnstone for one takes at face value the claim that the province's "roof ready" requirement won't add to the price tag, I'm curious as to how the cost of an open-air stadium has jumped just under $90 million (for a stadium with 5,000 less seats) since the province carried out its 2009 stadium concept review.

Otherwise, the announcement at least looks to reflect a more sensible funding model than most that have been floated to pay for a new stadium - with the Roughriders and attendees picking up at least a substantial part of the initial tab (though the city looks to be on the hook for overruns). And so the question will indeed be one of priorities rather than whether there's much more to be done to improve what a stadium project looks like.

Sunday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your weekend.

- Will Hutton discusses how the increasing gaps in economic equality are leading to radical differences in opportunity - with the U.S./U.K. push toward private schooling serving as a particular source of exclusion:

(T)he middle class of whatever ethnic background is spending more on what Putnam calls its children's "enrichment activities" so important for psychological wellbeing and character building; in fact they are spending 11 times more than those at the bottom. In 1972, working-class children from the bottom quartile of earners were just as likely to participate in a wide range of sporting and cultural events as children from the top quartile. No more. A chasm has opened, claims Putnam. Whether it is captaining a school sports team, winning an internship or being read to at night the middle-class child's chances are at least two times better.

As a result, the arteries in American society are hardening. Social mobility is in decline, but, worse, the general drop in trust observable in all social classes is most marked among the poorest third of Americans. Nor should it be any surprise that they are "cynical and even paranoid", writes Putnam: it is a rational response to their situation. Every institution that might be expected to alleviate their plight – family, school, voluntary organisations and church – has become dysfunctional.
...
Private schools are much more important in Britain and America than in Canada and Australia; unsurprisingly it follows, as the Carnegie Corporation/Sutton Trust recent social mobility summit found, that social mobility is much lower in Britain and America. The privately educated, the quintessential expression of enrichment activity, not only dominate the upper echelons of British society, so do their children. Private schools play a pivotal role in repressing mobility; however good state schools become, private schools' well-understood job is to stay a step ahead and deliver economic and social advantage.

 - There's been plenty of talk of how Enbridge's disastrous failure to deal with its failing Michigan pipeline will affect its plans for a Gateway pipeline, with Barbara Yaffe and the Globe and Mail recognizing that the project (at least as it stands) is likely to fail utterly in B.C. while groups in Alberta also call for some serious scrutiny. And Peter O'Neil notes that Enbridge's own complete lack of responsibility only makes it less likely that anybody can take their reassurances seriously.

- But naturally, the Cons are trying to change the subject from real environmental disasters caused by their oil-sector cronies by launching a witch hunt against wind power. And all this as they refuse to even consider the possible environmental damage which might soon be caused by fracking.

- Keith Reynolds documents how the B.C. Libs rewrote their own P3 rules to ensure that development was privatized even when there was no rational basis for pushing in that direction.

- Finally, Tabatha Southey previews some of Jason Kenney's website petitions to come.

Saturday Afternoon Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- Dave Coles comments on Brad Wall's attempts to erase a century's worth of gains when it comes to labour rights, but recognizes that we instead have an opportunity to again lead the way toward social progress:

During this moment of relative prosperity in the province, Saskatchewan is perfectly placed to once again lead the way towards greater equality for families, youth, seniors and all members of our communities. Rather than moving backwards, this overhauling of labour legislation should be a moment to advance workers' rights.

How about making Saskatchewan the first province to bring its minimum wage up to the poverty line and to tie it to a cost of living allowance? Or why not make Saskatchewan the first jurisdiction in North America to reduce the work week to 35 hours? Even better, the new labour code should entrench the idea that all workers deserve collective bargaining rights and a say over workplace decisions?

Short-sighted people will say "this can't be done, business won't survive". But, those same people argued that universal health coverage wasn't feasible. On the fiftieth anniversary of Medicare, Canadians across the country are thanking Saskatchewan for proving otherwise.

- Meanwhile, Bruce Johnstone points out the utility sector as another area where Saskatchewan's commitment to functional public services rather than blind faith in markets has paid off handsomely compared to chaos faced by Alberta:

Saskatchewan energy prices are competitive with, or lower than, those in Alberta. What about security of supply?

You may have heard about the rolling blackouts that hit Alberta last week. Four coal-burning power plants went down without warning last Monday, and backup natural gas-fired generation wasn't sufficient to make up the difference. With a fifth coal plant already out of commission, the province was caught 1,200 megawatts short, causing power outages in Calgary and Edmonton.

This is the second major supply shortfall to hit the province in last 10 years, which is two too many for most Albertans. Meanwhile, Saskatchewan has been coping with its usual spate of local power outages due to storm damage, but nothing like the rolling blackouts that Alberta had to implement to prevent the entire power grid from crashing.
...

This is not to say that our more regulated energy system is perfect, But when you look like the track record of our energy Crowns, SaskPower and SaskEnergy , they've been able to provide more reliable service at relatively low cost compared with our bigger, wealthier, deregulated sister province to the west.

- The Canadian Press and Dr. Dawg both discuss Carleton University's willingness to trade off any semblance of academic freedom to an oil magnate in exchange for a multi-million donation.

- Finally, I generally see Elections Canada as deserving the benefit of the doubt when it comes to its choices in how to enforce the law. But as Saskboy notes, the sheer absurdity of its refusing to enforce rules against foreign electoral interference because the perpetrators aren't in Canada to be investigated looks like a rather worrisome sign.

On default positions

Dan Ariely comments on how the normalization of cheating can produce a cascading effect:

The consequences of this sort of cheating are even more severe when the network of contagion is larger. We see this when we look at Greece, where masses of people have been cheating a little bit everywhere, and it’s all added up. What this shows is just how contagious dishonesty can be. When we see somebody else cheat, especially if they’re part of our own, internal group, all of a sudden we figure out that it’s more acceptable to act this way. It’s not that the probability of our getting caught has changed – it’s that we’ve changed our mindset, convincing ourselves that the act itself is actually OK. At some point, you just think, “This is the way things are done,” and you go with the flow.

One woman from Greece recently told me that she was selling her apartment and she was considering whether to sell it legally (and pay taxes) or illegally (without paying taxes). She quickly realized that she had bought it illegally, and that she would lose money if she turned around and sold it legally – not to mention that, in her mind, she would be the only person in Greece paying taxes on real-estate property.

When everyone around you is cheating the system, what’s your motivation to be the one not playing along? 

And on what's surely an entirely unrelated note, Andrew Hepburn reports on how prize fixing may be par for the course in the financial sector:

Barclays attempted to manipulate LIBOR both to give a false impression of the bank’s health and also to benefit its trading positions. It did not do so alone: traders coordinated their activities with other banks to ensure successful manipulations. For example, let’s say Barclays had accumulated bets that interest rates would rise. Submitting artificially high estimates of how much it cost the bank to borrow funds would tend to push the published LIBOR rate higher, thus benefitting its trading positions. To do so, however, it would need to collude with other banks, because the highest and lowest submissions are automatically excluded in the calculation of LIBOR.
...
The truth is, though, that price-fixers are less likely to be caught or punished severely in the financial industry.

Admittedly, authorities across the developed world have become quite adept at spotting and cracking down on manipulation and cartel behaviour in a number of other areas. In the U.S., for example, anti-trust laws provide significant civil and criminal penalties for those found guilty of cartel behaviour—and there have been some notable enforcement actions. The same goes for the European Union. As recently as 2010, the European Commission fined 11 airlines almost $1 billion for fixing the price of air cargo.

Yet with the exception of stocks, regulators have made comparatively little headway in combating market manipulation in the world of finance. The U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission, for example, has only successfully prosecuted one case of market manipulation in its entire history (though there have been some cases of–mostly modest–settlements along the way). This, in turn, has contributed to various shenanigans mushrooming across the industry.

And to make matters worse, there's Corporate Knights' analysis as to how Canada's corporate sector treats its legal obligation to pay taxes:

All wasn’t good news. The average percentage of defined benefit pension plans that are funded is down again this year, as is the average percentage of statutory taxes that was paid.

“It’s not surprising,” said Michael Yow, lead analyst with CK Capital, this magazine's sister research division. “Companies are looking for ways to keep cash during more trying economic times, so they’re looking for any possibility to take advantage of any and all tax loopholes.”

All of which would seem to make for about the most unlikely scenario for yet another anti-regulation push telling the public to just trust whatever the corporate sector deems acceptable. And yet, here we are.

Musical interlude

Adam Nickey - Never Gone

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer theorize that we should discuss the economy as a garden rather than a machine:

A well-designed tax system — in which everyone contributes and benefits — ensures that nutrients are circulated widely to fertilize and foster growth. Reducing taxes on the very wealthiest on the idea that they are “job creators” is folly. Jobs are the consequence of an organic feedback loop between consumers and businesses, and it’s the demand from a thriving middle class that truly creates jobs. The problem with today’s severe concentration of wealth, then, isn’t that it’s unfair, though it might be; it’s that it kills middle-class demand. Lasting growth doesn’t trickle down; it emerges from the middle out.

Lastly, consider spending. The word spending means literally “to use up or extinguish value,” and most Americans believe that’s exactly what government does with their tax dollars. But government spending is not a single-step transaction that burns money as an engine burns fuel; it’s part of a continuous feedback loop that circulates money. Government no more spends our money than a garden spends water or a body spends blood. To spend tax dollars on education and health is to circulate nutrients through the garden.

- Meanwhile, Jim Stanford thoroughly debunks the austerian claim that we can't afford to invest in needed public programs:

(D)ebt service has continued to decline despite the (modest) rebound in debt resulting from the recession.  Debt service costs for all levels of government fell below 4% of GDP since the recession.  How could debt service costs decline, even while the debt burden (modestly) grew?  Because average interest costs have declined.  Like home-owners, governments have been able to refinance their debt to take advantage of today’s ultra-low rates.  (Remember, even fiscally pressed provinces like Ontario can still borrow money today for 10 years at real interest rates not much above zero.)  As older bonds come due and are refinanced, governments reduce their interest costs dramatically.  Those savings have more than offset the incremental debt service costs associated wtih additional debt.  So the claim that rising debt service costs are squeezing out more useful forms of public expenditure (not that conservatives support those programs, either) is empirically false.

Running up public debt for the sake of running up debt makes no sense.   There are costs associated with debt, and limits to how much debt can rise.  But there are benefits associated with debt-financed spending, too.  That includes the productivity of long-lived public capital assets that can be financed with debt (just like companies or households prudently finance long-lived assets, from factory equipment to homes, with debt).  In a demand-constrained macroeconomic context, another benefit of debt-financed spending is the positive spillover effect on overall employment and income that results from that spending (even when it’s on current services rather than public capital).  Based on the preceding graphs, Canadian governments are far from any meaningful constraint on their ability to borrow.  Hence, we should make a rational decision as a country regarding how much new debt is optimal, rather than being dominated by an initial quasi-religious assumption that “all debt is bad.”

- I'll agree with Dan Gardner that at least a few of the recent criticisms of Stephen Harper - such as that based on his Calgary boosterism - take several steps across the line between reasonable concern and excessive contrarianism. And it's a shame that's the type of story receiving attention, since there are still plenty of entirely valid reasons to be genuinely outraged at Harper that remain to be fleshed out.

- Finally, for those with a bit more time on their hands, Steven Shrybman's legal opinion on the effects of CETA (PDF) makes for a rather worrisome read.

New column day

Here, expanding on a previous blog post as to how the Etobicoke Centre appeal heard by the Supreme Court this week may affect future Canadian elections.

For more, see the coverage from Macleans, Postmedia, the Hill Times and CBC, as well as columns from Susan Delacourt and Adam Goldenberg (who takes opposite view that technicalities should win out).

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Ed Broadbent discusses the connection between unions, democracy and equality:

In democratic societies, there are two principal arenas of non-violent conflict over power: the state and the workplace. Just as political democracy entails the right to select or reject one’s representatives and enables us to pursue, share and exercise power in the real world of free citizens, democracy in the workplace also requires that workers have their own representatives and some real power.
...
Canada’s stronger unions have helped ensure we have less extremes than in the U.S. (falling wages tend to be limited to the middle-class) and have certainly not undermined our economic performance, comparatively. Even hard-hit Ontario (which has the second lowest unionization rate in Canada after Alberta) has an unemployment rate significantly below the U.S. average.

Don’t believe those politicians and pundits who say unions threaten prosperity. The effort to emasculate unions is about silencing the voice of Canadian workers, and at risk are our hard-won rights – both inside and outside the workplace.

- And David Olive points out some important reasons not to take Canada's economic future for granted.

 - I'm somewhat more skeptical than Michael Harris about the impact of yesterday's pro-evidence protests. But it's certainly worth doing what we can to prove him right in thinking a sea change is afoot.

- After much hemming and hawing, Christy Clark has succumbed to NDP pressure by questioning the impact of a Gateway pipeline on British Columbia. Meanwhile, Andrew Nikiforuk reveals what Enbridge's top executives took away from their Michigan oil spill - with "take the money and run" apparently leading the way.

 - Finally, SOS Crowns wonders whether this week's SaskPower rate hike announcement represents some of the fallout from privatized production.