On responsibility

Leftdog has already weighed in on one key connection to be drawn based on the latest news about the siphoning of money from a supposed attempt to toward insiders with a sole-sourced deal to provide computers at inflated prices. But let's look at a couple more points arising out of the story.

All of this seems to contradict what Donna Harpauer, the government minister responsible, told the NDP Opposition last June.

"The contract cost was within the acceptable range for similar goods and services and the goods and services were necessary," Harpauer said at the time.

Now, Harpauer says she made that claim based on what she had been told by government members on the IPAC board.

Asked recently if it sounded like taxpayers got value for their money, she said no.

Now, the combination of public funding and government board representation would seem to make it obvious that Brad Wall can't escape direct responsibility for the misuse of public money. But the Sask Party is now pointing fingers at its own representatives for providing false information, while trying to pretend it doesn't bear responsibility for having appointed them in the first place. (Which should put to rest any pretense that the Sask Party's communications philosophy differs at all from the finger-pointing and distraction so favoured by the Harper Cons.)

That said, if the Wall regime had been particularly concerned about any long-term results from IPAC, it presumably would have put more thought into who it appointed and how it tracked IPAC's activities. Instead, the fact that IPAC was billed for millions of dollars for little of value without anybody noticing at the time suggests that this was simply another example of Wall wanting to be able to make an announcement tangentially connected to climate change, while being at best ambivalent as to whether or not it succeeded.

As a result, the IPAC/CVI debacle serves as a case in point as to the dangers of that model based on publicity rather than results. But it's hardly the only example of the Wall government's efforts to draw confusing lines between funding and responsibility. And the combination of incompetent administration and a lack of idea what funding is intended to accomplish offers an all-too-clear invitation for abuse - leaving us to wonder just how many of the Sask Party's "innovative" announcements are really only creating opportunities for growth in the fields of rent-seeking and scam artistry.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Friday reading.

- Michael Moss writes about the amount of time and money spent by corporate conglomerates to push consumers toward eating unhealthy food:

The public and the food companies have known for decades now — or at the very least since this meeting — that sugary, salty, fatty foods are not good for us in the quantities that we consume them. So why are the diabetes and obesity and hypertension numbers still spiraling out of control? It’s not just a matter of poor willpower on the part of the consumer and a give-the-people-what-they-want attitude on the part of the food manufacturers. What I found, over four years of research and reporting, was a conscious effort — taking place in labs and marketing meetings and grocery-store aisles — to get people hooked on foods that are convenient and inexpensive. I talked to more than 300 people in or formerly employed by the processed-food industry, from scientists to marketers to C.E.O.’s. Some were willing whistle-blowers, while others spoke reluctantly when presented with some of the thousands of pages of secret memos that I obtained from inside the food industry’s operations. What follows is a series of small case studies of a handful of characters whose work then, and perspective now, sheds light on how the foods are created and sold to people who, while not powerless, are extremely vulnerable to the intensity of these companies’ industrial formulations and selling campaigns.

- Thomas Walkom comments on a new CCPA study theorizing that the tar sands are just the latest example of Canada's history of "staple traps":

Vast quantities of money would be spent (usually by government) on infrastructure needed to extract whatever resource was in demand. And then, suddenly, things would change.

Maybe the commodity would fall out of fashion — as did felt hats made from Canadian beaver pelts. Or maybe technology would make the staple irrelevant, as the steamship did to masts made from Canadian white pine.

In all instances, Canadians would be left paying the costs.

The Bitumen Cliff applies this analysis to the tarsands. Again, vast quantities of money are required, not just to extract the heavy oil but to transport it by rail, pipeline or ship.
Again, other economic activities are given short shrift. In this case, the high dollar created by Canada’s soaring oil exports has eaten into the ability of manufacturers to compete abroad.

And again, the political system wraps itself around the staple, with Ottawa’s Conservative government gutting environmental laws for fear that they might interfere with pipelines and resource extraction.

Can this last? Unless tarsands oil is a very unusual staple it cannot. Prices rise; prices fall. Tastes change; things happen. We are beginning to see some of that now.

- Meanwhile, Michael den Tandt wonders whether the Cons' over-the-top anti-environment spin is one of the main reasons why Canada's shameful climate change record is attracting attention abroad:

Why then, Conservatives ask plaintively, would U.S. VIPs such as Ambassador David Jacobson, or Secretary of State John Kerry, doubt Canada’s climate bona fides?

Hint to Harper brain trust: It may have something to do with the daily, mind-numbing effluvium emanating from your backbenches, vis-a-vis a “$21.5-billion, job-killing carbon tax,” ostensibly planned by Mulcair’s New Democrats. The “carbon tax” was in fact a cap-and-trade plan, proposed by the NDP in the 2011 campaign, not materially different from one offered by the Conservatives themselves in 2008. Implicit in both plans, as well as Dion’s Green Shift, was that a price be set on carbon, something every economist acknowledges is necessary to change consumer behaviour.

In beating this drum so vehemently, therefore, the Conservatives have cast themselves as do-nothing, care-nothing laggards. Environmental provisions in their 2012 budget, which gutted protections for lakes and rivers, haven’t helped.

- Bruce Johnstone writes about Jim Farney's theory that the tendency toward top-down government has made outside lobbying ineffective and restricted policy influence to political staffers.

- And finally, speaking of ill-advised policies imposed without consultation or apparent thought, Paul Orlowski points out why the Sask Party's focus on standardized testing figures to do nothing but damage to Saskatchewan's education system.

#skndpldr Roundup

Alongside yesterday's news of Erin Weir's withdrawal to support Ryan Meili in the Saskatchewan NDP leadership race (also discussed by Scott and Brian) came a few other noteworthy developments - not the least of which was the reaction of the other two leadership candidates (discussed here by Jason).

Meanwhile, Meili released a seniors policy incorporating Weir's proposal to backfill against federal cuts to Old Age Security.

Finally, John Warnock offered up his latest thoughts - though I don't see his overwhelming negativity about either Meili's chances in the leadership race or the future of the NDP under Broten or Wotherspoon as bearing much resemblance to reality.

New column day

Here, on Brad Wall's off-key lobbying against action on climate change - and why we should see the bright side of having the Obama administration push us toward more sound environmental policy when far too many Canadian leaders have failed in their responsibilities.

For further reading...
- Wall's simultaneous lobbying for automatic pipeline approval and against any further Canadian action on climate change can be found here (see in particular the video clip to the right) and here.
- Jeffrey Simpson and Tzeporah Berman have made similar points about the value of the U.S.' message linking Canadian climate change policy to approvals for new pipelines.
- And on the subject of inaction at home, here's the Ministry of the Environment's climate change page - proudly left without updates since February 16, 2011. Here's the Ministry's list of press releases - with this announcement of an "equivalency agreement" presented as the only mention of climate change since the 2011 election.

On effective departures

Obviously Erin Weir's decision to withdraw from the Saskatchewan NDP's leadership race and endorse Ryan Meili looks to be one of the most important developments of the campaign. While there's still a wide range of possible outcomes among the remaining candidates, the movement of any substantial portion of Weir's support should nearly ensure that Meili appears on the final ballot - and also figures to boost Meili's odds of reaching 50% support on an earlier ballot.

But beyond the effect of Weir's endorsement, I'll also point out the shared policy statement which accompanies his support - which both highlights the importance of Weir's being involved in the campaign all along, and finds middle ground in some areas where Weir and Meili have sparred over the course of the leadership debates.

Throughout the campaign to date, all three other candidates have declined to commit to Weir's platform on resource royalies (even while often speaking of them as valuable contributions to a broader review). But Meili has agreed not only to close the loopholes identified by Weir, but also to support an overall review to shape the NDP's platform for 2015 - effectively avoiding the "blank slate" issue that Weir has highlighted throughout the leadership campaign.

Weir's other areas of obvious influence haven't been discussed in as much detail by the other candidates. But the concept of incorporating a universal child care program into existing school facilities and the idea of creating a provincial benefit to offset any federal cuts to Old Age Security have both been regular themes for Weir - and they've now been endorsed by Meili as well.

All of which means that beyond his impressive contributions to the debates, Weir's influence on the leadership campaign now also includes a significant shift in its anticipated voting outcomes along with a direct role in shaping another round of policy choices. And we'll find out before long what effect those contributions have on the final results.

#skndpldr - Prince Albert Debate Notes

One of the dangers of trying to catch up to past leadership events is the possibility that any analysis might be overtaken by more recent developments. But before we find out what's involved in today's joint announcement from Ryan Meili and Erin Weir, let's take a look at one more of the leadership debates.


At the outset, the Prince Albert forum featured journeys into a bit more uncharted territory than most of the recent debates, including specific policy questions about forestry, mental health and reproductive rights. And on each point, the candidates more than held their own in addressing relatively new issues.

Perhaps most interestingly, a question about the importance and meaning of full employment allowed each candidate to discuss some of the problems with our current measures for economic development, and their plans for alternate benchmarks. And Trent Wotherspoon particularly took advantage of the topic by noting that the quality of employment matters at least as much as raw job numbers. 

Once again, though, most of the distinction between the candidates was found in their questions to each other. And as at the Yorkton debate, Cam Broten's stance on corporate tax rates came under heavy scrutiny: Weir noted in his follow-up that Broten's deference to some future study serves as a carbon copy of the path taken by the Romanow and Calvert governments as they cut revenue before it could be used for social benefits, while Wotherspoon again highlighted the futility of facilitating the flow of profits out of Saskatchewan.

Meanwhile, Meili also faced a new round of questions about one of his policy planks, as Weir challenged him on jurisdictional questions and logistics surrounding his Bank of Saskatchewan proposal. But Meili was able to stand his ground in pointing to Alberta Treasury Branch as a similar institution that's succeeded under Canada's division of powers, while noting that there's room to ensure a Saskatchewan equivalent cooperates with credit unions rather than pushing them aside.

Meili also contributed a couple of noteworthy exchanges to the debate: his first query about Broten's "big idea" was met with a standard response about NDP membership structures, while his second round of questions to Wotherspoon gave rise to a substantive two-way discussion about providing opportunities for disadvantaged children.

In sum, the Prince Albert debate looked to offer enough new issues and different angles to give us a better understanding of the leadership contenders - even if the end result wasn't a campaign-changing performance from any candidate. And with that, we'll have to wait and see just how much the candidates' latest plans end up reshaping the race.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Heat-seeking cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Jim Stanford points out that any "bitumen bubble" will only get worse if the Cons and their provincial cousins get their way in shifting the Canadian economy even further toward immediate tar sands extraction:

(I)f the problem exists because we’re pumping out raw bitumen faster than markets can absorb it, will it really help to pump it out even faster? Few analysts believe the Keystone pipeline to the United States would solve the problem, even if it does get built; at best, it would displace downward price pressure from Oklahoma southward to Louisiana. Pipelines through British Columbia are unlikely to be built, for environmental reasons. And even if Canadian oil could reach Asia, remember that there are similar price risks there – including alternative supplies, conservation and environmental constraints. In sum, the inherent limitations of an economic strategy rooted in the extraction and export of raw resources cannot be overcome by simply finding another foreigner to sell to.

The sheer waste and irrationality of the Canadian discount should be addressed with alternative measures. Instead of extracting and exporting raw commodities, we should strive to add more value to our resources right here in Canada. Upstream, we could use far more Canadian-made equipment in resource projects. Downstream, we could upgrade and refine the resource instead of saturating export markets with raw output. Even better would be to use Canadian petroleum refined at home to displace the expensive crude currently imported from Britain and Algeria.

Yes, this would mean slowing the pace of bitumen expansion, since there’s not enough demand in Canada, to absorb all the new bitumen the industry wants to pump. But we would extract much more value from each barrel. And we’d stop cheapening the value of our own non-renewable resources with this mad rush to export.

- Meanwhile, Stephen Leahy takes note of the Cons' effort to brand environmentalists as terrorists in order to silence dissent from the oil-at-all-costs extraction policy. Saskboy reacts with due outrage here at home.

- And Heather Scoffield reports that the Cons' supposed commitment to monitoring the environmental impacts of the tar sands has led to precisely zero public reporting so far - while any future reporting will be based less on the neutral and accurate presentation of actual results than a concerted effort to fit any result into the party line:

The hope is to start releasing data through a publicly accessible portal soon — perhaps by the end of the month, although no date has been made final.

Some types of data would be streamed continuously as scientists produce it. Other data would be released at periodic intervals of three or six months. And other categories would be released more holistically, presented in a way that would prevent analysts from coming to spurious conclusions based on a partial picture, Dodds said.

- Finally, speaking of complete failures, Amy Minsky and Mike Le Couteur took the time to check on the Cons' spin about reviewing ministerial expenses - and found that eight out of nine departments who responded (including Bev Oda's) featured absolutely no effort to determine whether expenses claimed were actually legitimate.

#skndpldr Candidate Rankings - February 19

While there's been plenty of news in Saskatchewan's NDP leadership campaign over the past week, there's hasn't been much evidence to suggest the campaign's shape has changed to any great degree. So rather than explaining why this week's rankings stay the same, I'll include a comment on pluses for each candidate which haven't received much attention so far.

1. Ryan Meili (1)

While Meili has understandably focused on his apparent lead within the leadership race, he may also enjoy an advantage over his opponents when it comes to shifting gears once all the votes are in.

In particular, the "healthy society" theme used throughout the leadership campaign looks to be no less valuable as a matter of contrast against the Saskatchewan Party within the province's general political conversation. And so Meili will be able to build on his leadership campaign message from day one.

In contrast, each of the other candidates would have more work to do in transitioning from leadership campaign messages to themes intended to resonate with the general public. Neither Cam Broten's emphasis on experience and party-building nor Erin Weir's focus on presenting a plan figures to serve as a particularly useful point of distinction from the Saskatchewan Party in the eyes of the general public. And while Trent Wotherspoon's focus on well-being might offer the best alternative framework within the leadership campaign, he has some distance left to go in developing that message.

2. Cam Broten (2)

The extended set of Saskatchewan NDP leadership debates has not only allowed many different people to see the candidates in action, but has also enabled us to take a look at some skills and strategies which might not be obvious absent that regular interaction. And Broten has shown plenty of comfort with one of the key public roles of an opposition leader, using a "variations on a theme" questioning style to expand on preferred topics during the course of the debate schedule.

That's important due to the reality that stories often don't filter into the consciousness of the general public without first being subject to weeks of media discussion - even as the media is hesitant to discuss the same story for more than a news cycle or two (and normally has loads of distractions thanks to a constant flow of glossy government press releases).

As a result, an opposition party looking to get its message out needs to be able to find new angles on a basic story in order to turn it into a lasting issue. And while I haven't always agreed with Broten's choice of issues, he's been highly successful at building themes while asking questions even as he pushes respondents in unexpected directions.

3. Trent Wotherspoon (3)

I've talked somewhat before about Wotherspoon's ability to rise above the fray within the leadership campaign, but it deserves another mention here.

One of the iron laws of Canadian politics is that whoever auditions for the role of leader of the opposition in a general election tends to get it. And based on that theory, the relative combativeness of Broten or Weir in particular might limit the NDP's growth potential - at least until after another election cycle leads to a change in style and strategy.

Meanwhile, Wotherspoon has stood out from the pack in staying positive and friendly even while challenging his competitors in areas of disagreement. Which means that if there's any way of avoiding the trap set up by Wells' Rule #4, Wotherspoon may be the best positioned to find it.

4. Erin Weir (4)

Finally, while I've criticized Weir's campaign at times for being a bit too quick to promote his every media appearance, I'll acknowledge the flip side to that point.

While the other candidates have worked mostly to build within their own networks of supporters rather than focusing on media outreach, Weir has spent plenty of time (and applied plenty of media savvy) in making sure that NDP values get heard by a broader range of readers and viewers. And that figures to be a valuable contribution to the party's effort to reach the general public at a time when the Sask Party/corporate line all too often goes unopposed on key issues.

Monday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your Family Day.

- Gerald Caplan comments that it's long past time to put the Senate out of its misery:

Who knew that when well-known Canadians in 2011 begged old acquaintances now turned Conservative Senators to back a bill for cheap generic AIDS drugs for Africa, the senators would follow party orders instead? The bill had passed the House in the face of opposition by Stephen Harper's minority government. Even many Conservative MPs supported it. Yet the Conservative majority in the Senate made sure it failed.
...
(T)here they were deliberately thwarting the wishes of the democratically elected representatives of a majority of Canadians on a crucial humanitarian issue. Some wondered how they could look themselves in the mirror ever again. But those who accept appointment to the Chamber of Taskless Thanks are not easily given to shame.

After all, hadn't the same dependable gang already played the same unethical, anti-democratic card only a year before when they buried, without debate, a climate change bill that had similarly been passed by the House? Before that moment, the Senate had not killed a bill without a debate in 70 years. Maybe the poor dears were just too pooped to participate. Travel is so exhausting, doncha know.

But then, this has always been the Senate's role, as the late Christina McCall taught us in her brilliant book Grits. For decades the major responsibility of Hon. Senators was to be bagmen for the party that appointed them (hello Senators Zimmer and Gerstein) or its campaign director (take a bow, Senators Smith and Finley), and to defend corporate interests against mob rule, a.k.a. the House of Commons.

Little has changed. It's true there've always been a few of the Chosen who slipped in some good work while no one was looking. But when it comes to protecting Big Pharma from the depredations of generic drug companies, the PM knows perfectly well whom he can count on.

- Trish Hennessy nicely contrasts the ugly reality of tar sands exploitation against the Cons' publicly-funded oil industry propaganda.

- A group of political scientists from the University of Saskatchewan has responded to the Cons' attacks on Saskatchewan's federal electoral boundaries commission (PDF) by calling for them to respect the commission's findings. And while I have yet to see much reason for hope that the Harper Cons have any interest in correcting their regular diet of deceit, Larry Sanders is petitioning Stephen Harper to set the record straight on the views of Saskatchewan citizens and allow for more representative boundaries.

- Natalie Brender writes that there are obvious reasons why the Cons have having trouble finding anybody to take responsibility for their poorly-thought-out Office of Religious Freedom.

- Finally, Hamida Ghafour reports that the OECD is recognizing the effects of profit shifting as a form of multinational tax evasion and avoidance.

Compare and contrast

Alice's comparison between the federal Lib leadership race and that of Saskatchewan's NDP is well worth a look. But let's draw a somewhat more clear contrast between the depth of discussion within the two campaigns - even if based on somewhat incomplete data in both cases.

Again, here's Erin Weir's comparison chart of the policies proposed during the Saskatchewan NDP campaign.

And here's Justin Ling's effort to piece together what the federal Libs' candidates stand for - with more leadership contenders taking a public position on horse-sized ducks vs. duck-sized horses than such minor issues as, say, health care.

#skndpldr - Yorkton Debate Notes

While I've tried to stay as current as possible in discussing the Saskatchewan NDP leadership debates, there have been some limitations in my ability to do so based on both the party's capacity to upload past debates, and my own time in reviewing them. As a result, I'm still working on getting caught up on previous debates - and a few of the choices made by Saskatchewan's NDP leadership candidates later on make a lot more sense in light of the Yorkton debate:


Again, in discussing the Regina debate I was surprised to think anybody might have expected Cam Broten to stumble on issues he'd already heard before. But the above answers the question as to how that might have seemed possible.

Broten faced questions and follow-ups from both Erin Weir and Trent Wotherspoon about his position on the Sask Party's corporate tax slashing - answering both by refusing to say what he'd do with corporate taxes other than include them within a larger review. And this despite both competitors taking the opportunity to explain the problems in principle with indiscriminate rate slashing: Weir by contrasting across-the-board cuts against targeted incentives, and Wotherspoon by mentioning how the cuts serve to transfer wealth out of Saskatchewan.

Now, it's true that others read that sequence of questions and answers rather differently. But the fact that Broten changed his tune for the Regina debate seems to signal that he recognized some vulnerability in choosing this as a rare issue where he'd give the Sask Party's policy choices the benefit of any doubt.

Meanwhile, Broten's efforts to go on the offensive in Yorkton didn't go much better. In particular, his follow-up question to Wotherspoon about the importance of experience in the legislature served as an obvious fork in the road within the campaign: any agreement from Wotherspoon with the position that experience as an elected official should be considered a must might have created a clear split between the MLA and non-MLA candidates.

But Wotherspoon didn't take the bait: instead, he discussed the value of his own experience while making absolutely clear that voters shouldn't exclude candidates outside the legislature merely because they aren't elected officials. And the effect was to weaken one of Broten's key messages, as even the other candidate who could have been assisted by his line of argument declined to resort to it.

That said, Broten achieved at least a draw in the most important exchange of questions. Broten first questioned Ryan Meili about his plans in working with caucus - leading to the expected answer that Meili would look forward to treating the leadership candidates as a team. And that left Broten in an ideal position to answer Meili's subsequent query about fund-raising by noting that he'd be happy to incorporate Meili's successful strategies from the leadership campaign.

Otherwise, the main theme within the Yorkton debate was a massive amount of strategic agreement. Weir started the trend by answering a question about bullying with an approving reference to Wotherspoon's platform, and plenty more issues saw similar efforts to point to other candidates' platforms and messages (including Weir and Broten raising the social determinants of health, Wotherspoon volunteering a reference to SaskPharm in response to a Meili question which didn't actually mention it, and Wotherspoon noting how he adopted Weir's plan for the Bessie Ellis fund).

That may be explained by the fact the Yorkton debate came immediately after the membership cutoff, reminding candidates of the need to cultivate down-ballot support. Or it may have reflected an effort to beat fellow candidates to the punch, taking some of the power out of familiar messages by making sure the audience wouldn't see them as anything new. But either way, it made for an interesting (if short-lived) change from the usual focus on drawing contrasts and sticking to one's own message and platform.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellanous material for your Monday reading.

- Will Hutton recognizes that an unregulated market can lead to disastrous results for everybody concerned - and that conversely, effective regulation can help to ensure the success of businesses which best meet the long-term needs of their workers and customers:

What the Paterson worldview has never understood is that effective regulation is a source of competitive advantage. If Britain had a tough Food Standards Agency, it would become a gold standard for food quality, labelling and hygiene. British supermarkets and food companies could become known for their quality at home and abroad, rather as "over-regulated" German car companies are, rather than first suspects when something dodgy is going on. Capitalism does not organise itself to deliver best outcomes, whatever rightwing American thinktanks might claim. There has to be careful thought, law and regulation about the obligations that accompany incorporation and ownership, how supply chains are organised and how companies are managed and financed. Otherwise disaster awaits.

- Frances Russell notes that as a result of limited direct federal powers, equalization is the most important means to ensure that entire provinces aren't left behind - making it all the more insidious that the Canadian right is attacking equalization at every opportunity.

- Caroline Fairchild points out a Centre for Economic and Policy Research study on the minimum wage - showing that if it had kept pace with productivity, U.S. workers would make a minimum of $21.72 per hour. But perhaps more jarring is the fact that by at least some accounts, the average U.S. wage level is now lower than that productivity-adjusted minimum wage.

- Mike de Souza reports that Joe Oliver has been well aware for some time of dangerous contaminants spreading from the tar sands to Alberta groundwater. No word yet on Oliver's eagerness to take a tasty drink of the samples involved - but the fact he hasn't been interested enough to withdraw his claims that he'd happily encourage people to consume tar-sands byproducts speaks volumes about his government's lack of interest in healthy water.

- Finally, from the department of people I'd like to hear from more often...

The early surveys show as many as a quarter of those who remembered seeing the (Con's "Action Plan") ads in 2009 took some action, such as registering for a home renovation credit.

But that number steadily declined in 2010 and 2011, and by April 2012 only about seven per cent of people who said they saw the ads did something as a result.

One of the actions described by respondents in last year's survey included "expressed my disbelief."

#skndpldr - Saskatoon Debate II Notes

The final official debate of Saskatchewan's NDP leadership campaign took place yesterday in Saskatoon - and since it was livestreamed, I'll offer some commentary on it for now, then link to the video when it's available.

In contrast to all of the debates since the Regina kick-off (the other debate which was live-streamed), yesterday's forum didn't feature any questions between the candidates. Instead, moderator Charles Smith was left to follow up each candidate's answer to audience questions - and while Smith took those in some interesting directions, he generally didn't challenge the candidates' initial answers or push for substantially deeper analysis of the issues involved.

That meant the candidates were able to stick to their chosen message tracks a bit more than usual. But the result wasn't a great change in their overall performances.

So what did manage to stand out during the course of the debate?

Cam Broten's most interesting contribution came in response to a follow-up question about the application of labour standards to small business. I've criticized Broten for equivocating in his answers to other questions earlier in the campaign, but his response to this particular challenge stood out as avoiding a similar danger: he noted that any employer will generally be more successful if it treats employees well, and thus made a case to ensure workers' rights are respected regardless of whether a small or large business is involved.

Another of Smith's more significant follow-up questions was to Ryan Meili as to how non-economic issues may affect the NDP in rural Saskatchewan. But Meili neatly answered by comparing the federal Cons' politics of division (particularly in trying to deny health care to refugees) to the opportunity available in recognizing common interests and looking to improve conditions for everybody, rather than seeking out minority groups for specific mistreatment.

Similarly, Erin Weir's response to the debate's first question about disabled residents and seniors living in poverty cut to the core of the right's political strategy. Weir noted that the Sask Party looks to divide the poor into "deserving" and "undeserving" categories while placing a higher priority on denying benefits to the latter rather than improving standards of living generally, and argued that the NDP's place should be to work on improving conditions for everybody before giving a couple of examples as to how to carry out that task. Unfortunately it may be a bit late in the leadership campaign to bring that distinction to the forefront as part of Weir's personal message - but I'll hope to hear plenty more from the party and the progressive community on point once the leadership campaign is over.

Finally, Trent Wotherspoon's response to a follow-up question on relationships with First Nations recognized the need to interact with grassroots members and leaders alike, and rejected Smith's effort to characterize First Nations relations as a rural issue rather than one which applies across the province.

Otherwise the debate followed fairly familiar lines - both in the areas of conflict (with Weir once again sparring with both Broten and Wotherspoon over the tax treatment of small business), and the many areas of broad agreement. And the final question asking candidates to identify points of distinction effectively offered an additional opportunity to reframe the contenders' scripted lines - but predictably didn't offer a lot of new material.

Of course, it's possible that the increasing crowd size meant there were enough new faces to make it worth the candidates' while to stick to what they perceive to be their strongest messages. But I wouldn't expect yesterday's debate to change a lot of minds among people who have followed the campaign throughout - and there may not be many more chances to do so among the pool of early voters which looks likely to determine at least the composition of the final ballot.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Joseph Stiglitz discusses how the combination of increasingly concentrated wealth and deteriorating has eliminated any pretense of equal opportunity within the U.S.:

It’s not that social mobility is impossible, but that the upwardly mobile American is becoming a statistical oddity. According to research from the Brookings Institution, only 58 percent of Americans born into the bottom fifth of income earners move out of that category, and just 6 percent born into the bottom fifth move into the top. Economic mobility in the United States is lower than in most of
Europe and lower than in all of Scandinavia.

Another way of looking at equality of opportunity is to ask to what extent the life chances of a child are dependent on the education and income of his parents. Is it just as likely that a child of poor or poorly educated parents gets a good education and rises to the middle class as someone born to middle-class parents with college degrees? Even in a more egalitarian society, the answer would be no. But the life prospects of an American are more dependent on the income and education of his parents than in almost any other advanced country for which there is data.
...
Young people from families of modest means face a Catch-22: without a college education, they are condemned to a life of poor prospects; with a college education, they may be condemned to a lifetime of living at the brink. And increasingly even a college degree isn’t enough; one needs either a graduate degree or a series of (often unpaid) internships. Those at the top have the connections and social capital to get those opportunities. Those in the middle and bottom don’t. The point is that no one makes it on his or her own. And those at the top get more help from their families than do those lower down on the ladder. Government should help to level the playing field.

Americans are coming to realize that their cherished narrative of social and economic mobility is a myth. Grand deceptions of this magnitude are hard to maintain for long — and the country has already been through a couple of decades of self-deception.

- Meanwhile, Andrew Jackson points to John Schmitt's paper (PDF) explaining the well-established reality that a higher minimum wage can help lower-earning workers without doing anything to damage the availability of jobs.

- 900ft Jesus highlights unmuzzledscience, a new blog detailing exactly how the Cons' crackdown on research is affecting federal scientists.

- David McLaren notes that Ontario is included among the list of provinces giving away natural resources for fire-sale prices - and in the process offers a reminder that mining giveaways don't do anything to ensure a province's prosperity.

- Finally, Stephen Elliott-Buckley reminds us to keep an eye out for people who may be able to contribute to public office if offered the chance - even if they haven't thought of the possibility yet.

Deep thought

Brad Wall's contrived outrage over foreign interference in domestic policy might be a bit less laughable if he didn't make so much of a show of trying to dictate the U.S.' own decisions.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

#skndpldr Roundup

The second-last Saskatchewan NDP leadership debate took place in Moose Jaw this past week, with the most thorough coverage coming from the Times-Herald (and Justin Crann). As usual I'll hold off on commenting until the video is available - though I have a couple of earlier debates to address over the long weekend, as well as the final one being live-streamed at 2 PM today.

Friday also saw the release of the latest financial reports. There, Ryan Meili continues to have the lead both in total money raised and cash on hand, but January saw a noteworthy switch of strategies among two other camps: Cam Broten had by far his best fund-raising month but spent more than he had the entire campaign to date in the process, while Trent Wotherspoon balanced off modest revenues with lowest-spending month so far to bring his campaign as a whole into the black.

On the commentary side, Mark Lemstra evaluated the candidates' health care policies. But it is unfortunate that he limited his review to the candidates' websites: in particular while it's somewhat of a surprise that Erin Weir hasn't released a policy in the area, he's had plenty to contribute when asked about the issue throughout the debates.

And regular commenter Dan Tan put together a noteworthy series of posts on the campaign from an outside perspective, featuring in particular this take on what the CCF and NDP have accomplished in the past:

The foundations & institutions of Saskatchewan - so resented by Wall & the Sask. Party - were built over decades by (small "c") conservative NDP administrations who wisely rejected the proselytization of deluded foreign economists. They rejected the Soviet Union's insistence on utopia through oppressive & invasive totalitarianism. They rejected the United States' insistence on utopia through wild & selective applications of Darwinian savagery. Instead, they fostered the creation of a capitalist system that insured stability (crown ownership), the safety of risk-takers (public insurance), and a tolerable standard of living (social programs).

Saskatchewan needs a professional & focused NDP more than ever. You stand in-defense of what your forefathers so wisely built. You stand in-between carpet-bagging charlatans and the local population they would hustle. You stand against the juvenile anarchists who traded hoodies & explosives for sharp suits & destructive legislation.

But I don't entirely agree with his conclusions - as even if one sees "bullet-proofing" a leader as one's end goal, I view the ability to inspire new people to get involved in actively defending against the inevitable attacks as essential to that end. In contrast, the ability to present as a well-polished "alpha" in the public eye isn't either a necessary or sufficient condition. (See Romney, Mitt.)

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Michael Harris concludes that we're currently stuck in a golden age for political falsehood and deceit:

(T)here are problems with blotting out inconvenient truths with self-serving Newspeak. It’s catchier than a flu-bug in a pup tent. Quite a few pairs of pants are on fire in Ottawa these days because cabinet ministers and senators have learned from the PM that the truth is what you need it to be. It can mutate, transform, even shed its skin. The trick is to say what you need to be true at a given moment.
...
Perhaps the wider truth here is that we live in an age of deception.

In the banking industry, the global price of money affecting $300 trillion worth of contracts was rigged for years by the collusion of traders and brokers. Crappy mortgages were sold as blue-ribbon investments. Giant hedge funds traded on insider information and even the drug cartels found banks eager to do their monetary laundry.

In big business, accounting firms lied for important customers, companies like SNC Lavalin paid huge bribes to unsavoury but influential characters to win contracts, suppliers sent fake parts to their military customers to boost profits — and mining companies abused workers’ rights in foreign countries in a way they would never try back home.
...
Parties of all political stripes have had their share of liars and cheaters, just as they have had a goodly number of visionaries and public benefactors. But when lying and cheating morph into a model of governance where citizens not only don’t know, but can’t know what’s going on, democracy becomes what H.L. Mencken called a fancy abstraction for the collective fear and prejudice of an ignorant mob.

It is an old chestnut, this matter of the limits of raw power. Can you really say two and two is five, that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia, that war is peace?

- But of course, a deliberate effort to suppress inconvenient truth makes for an essential part of allowing lies to stand unchallenged. Which brings us to the Cons' orders that Arctic research is to be permitted by DFO scientists only if the government has the ability to hide the results.

- Meanwhile, Hannah McKinnon thoroughly critiques the Cons' dishonesty when it comes to climate change.

- Finally, Karl Nerenberg reminds us that Stephen Harper had a wide range of choices in dealing with the Senate, and consciously chose to set a new standard for corruption and patronage. The CP reports on the likelihood that Pamela Wallin and other Con Senators used public money to serve as campaign shills for their prime ministerial puppet-master. And Tyler Sommers is the latest to suggest that abolishing the current upper-chamber monstrosity is a necessary first step to any more democratic system.

Musical interlude

Age of Electric - Remote Control

Juxtaposition

Unintentional setup...

Ultimately, any evaluation of a government's fiscal responsibility should include its willingness to make effective investments that carry a short-term cost and its prudence in avoiding unnecessary long-term liabilities - not merely any single-year balance sheet. And we'll be left to pay the eventual price if we fail to demand that broader view.

...meet unfortunate punchline:

On Friday, the government released its third-quarter financial report, projecting the province will finish the 2012-13 fiscal year with a pre-transfer surplus of $8.8 million in its general revenue fund. However, that’s a decrease of $86.2 million from what was forecast in the budget.

Finance Minister Ken Krawetz called it a balanced budget — despite dipping into coffers other than the general revenue fund. The government will draw an additional $120 million dividend from the Crown Investments Corporation (CIC).

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Friday reading.

- Zoe Williams questions when being poor became grounds for deliberate discrimination and ritual public humiliation (h/t to Mound of Sound):

What I cannot help noticing is a failure of normal human respect for the people at the bottom of the heap – Tuesday's ruling in favour of Cait Reilly and Jamieson Wilson has had its bones picked over for what it does or doesn't say about slavery, and yet the judges were clear: these people were treated dishonestly. They were treated as though, being unemployed, they could be parcelled about at the whim of the secretary of state.

A similar belief pervades the suggestion that those on benefits need to be ritually humiliated every time they go into a shop; or those on low wages, by dint of their low status, need to be monitored like criminals. Across the piece, having a low financial status is now elided, by politicians and by corporations, with being untrustworthy. 

- Meanwhile, Claire Davenport writes that gratuitous austerity is pushing an entire generation of European citizens toward economic ruin. And Yves Smith discusses how inequality has continued to grow since the 2008-2009 crash - with the top 1% taking massive income gains while the bottom 99% have actually lost ground.

- David Climenhaga points out that Alberta's latest budget only confirms what Stephen Harper, Brad Wall and other spokesflacks for the tar sands have tried to deny: both overdependence on resource royalties and a petrodollar have negative impacts for the province's finances. But Climenhaga is even more in point in recognizing how Alison Redford's "bitumen bubble" complaint seems calculated to distract Albertans from the massive social problems being blithely ignored - including the wealthiest city in Canada slashing school service for lack of funding, and refugee-camp conditions in the province's capital.

- Which isn't to say Alberta is alone in its utterly warped priorities: Simon Enoch writes about the City of Regina's obsession with costly P3 projects, while Brian Banks and Paul Gingrich observe that a Sask Party promise to address poverty has produced no substantive plan.

- Finally, Sid Ryan explains why the Cons are so determined to attack union finances:

In his decision, Rand explained that unions also need adequate resources in order to "redress the balance of what is called social justice." This is because, then as now, corporations have all the power in a workplace -- they can hire, fire, discipline and discharge any individual employee. Workers only have leverage if they work together and they should always have the right to do so.

This bargaining table principle applies equally to the halls of government. Concerned about Canada's growing inequality, individual workers recognize the need to work together to counteract well-heeled corporate lobbyists and convince politicians of every stripe to promote the livelihoods of working people and their families. For that reason, workers have increasingly given their unions a mandate to launch campaigns to defend public services, good jobs, the environment, and many other public priorities.

However, when it comes to influencing public policy, workers are again at a great disadvantage. In stark contrast to the paltry five per cent of election financing that came from unions between 2004 and 2011, corporate Canada contributed a whopping 40 percent of all election funds, including $26 million to the Conservative Party.

And what did Canada's corporate elite get in exchange for their generous support for the Harper government? Well, among other things, the passage of a new law allowing employers to pay migrant workers 15 per cent less than the going rate and another forcing employment insurance claimants to compete for lower wages.

It is no wonder that working people across the country are working together to stop Canada's race to the bottom. For every worker in Canada, the Rand Formula is the basis of their democratic rights and promotes fairness in their workplaces. As much as Tories may try to dress up their anti-worker policies as "freedom of choice," they are only offering Canadian workers one choice: lower wages.

On poll dances

Shortly after I posted yesterday's roundup featuring some discussing of Praxis Analytics' Saskatchewan NDP leadership polling, Jordon Cooper chimed in with the results of an internal poll distributed by Cam Broten - which has been treated as somewhere between worthless and gospel depending on the leadership camp commenting on it. So let's take a quick look at the actual significance of internal polls in past NDP leadership races in determining what weight any new ones should carry.

The most recent examples to be considered would come from the 2012 federal race - where virtually all polling confirmed Thomas Mulcair to be the front-runner, but a string of polls (both candidate-based and independent) placed Brian Topp a distant fourth or fifth. Topp's camp declined to make his full numbers public, but said its polling suggested a radically different shape to the race - and it was the candidate who played his cards close to the vest who proved to be correct, as Topp finished a strong second.

But an even better previous example can be found in the 2009 provincial leadership campaign. At that time, this was my attempt to make sense of a poll showing Yens Pedersen running a strong second among a sample of 20% of the NDP's membership at a point when virtually no other data placed him in that position. And I tend to see the theory as largely holding up: an internal poll is likely to be highly inaccurate in telling us about vote shares (as Pedersen's was), but it may also help to set a floor for the polling candidate's raw vote level - and in retrospect I should have placed greater emphasis on that point in ranking the candidates through the balance of the 2009 campaign.

In Broten's case, I don't think there was much doubt that he would hold at least as much first-ballot support as we can plausibly infer from the poll released so far - though more information as to how many votes were actually included would offer a bit more perspective on that point. But for other factors including the relative positioning of the candidates, the safest starting point is to view the noise included in candidate-based polling as far outweighing any signal - particularly in light of the requirement that campaigns identify themselves (thus planting a seed for respondents) before carrying out the poll.

That said, I'll shift gears to a somewhat broader point. The major difficulty in trying to evaluate the state of any leadership race is the fact that all polling faces at least one of two inherent flaws: truly independent pollsters don't have access to the membership list necessary to take a viable sample of voters, while campaigns have an obvious bias in conducting and releasing polls based on an accurate voter list.

But there's another party involved in any leadership campaign with both the necessary information to reach all members (or a fair sample thereof), and at least an arguable incentive to ensure members have better information about the state of the leadership race. So with that in mind, I'll close this post with questions for discussion: should the NDP and other political parties consider commissioning leadership polls for themselves under agreed rules and timelines? Or does the risk of being perceived to interfere in a leadership campaign outweigh the value of what would surely be seen as the authoritative source of polling data?

New column day

Here, on how a narrow focus on balancing budgets misses the more important story as to how our elected officials manage public money.

For further reading...
- Paul Krugman makes a similar point with reference to happiness economics, while highlighting the particular value of stimulus within a depressed U.S. economy.
- Ian Lovett reports on California's proliferation of "capital appreciation bonds" as a prime example of the dangerous buy now, pay later approach, while Douglas Hainks points out that Miami's new baseball stadium will escalate in cost from $91 million to $1.2 billion under a similar scheme.
- And sadly, the City of Regina's wastewater treatment plant looks like it may be added to the list of needless long-term liabilities added to our books in order to avoid an accurate accounting today.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Marc Lee and Iglika Ivanova offer up a framework for a more progressive and fairer tax system.

- Andrew Hanon looks behind the Fraser Institute's labour-bashing and finds that what it's really criticizing is fair pay for women in the public sector.

- Fern Brady notes that conservatives have succeeded in pitting exactly the people with the greatest need for social assistance against each other - with the result being that far too few people are questioning whether cuts serve any useful purpose in the first place:

Logically, I'd expect those on the sharp end of things to be pro-welfare. But if anything, many interviewees had internalised a Thatcherite every-man-for-himself mentality, wanting benefits for themselves but resenting anyone else getting a handout.

There are almost too many examples to list but the kind of attitudes I heard daily went along these lines: the disabled man thinks it's wrong the drug user down the road gets methadone. The drug user is outraged that the large family next door gets a spare room and hopes they are hit by bedroom tax. The large family is sick of elderly people getting big houses they don't need. The elderly woman hopes these large families are forced to stop having kids once the money dries up. On and on it went in a circle, anger constantly directed at other victims of the coalition government's Welfare Reform Act instead of the politicians and policymakers responsible.
...
The value of influencing attitudes towards social inequality is deeply underestimated. If you manage to persuade everyone that poverty is a moral condition and claiming benefits is the symptom, it's a guaranteed way to ensure those handing out the money treat recipients as guilty until proven innocent. Shame is being employed as an ingenious tool to ensure people feel constantly stigmatised. And if you feel undeserving you're hardly going to be forthcoming about what you're entitled to.

This isn't just about votes. The less people believe they're entitled to this money – and they are entitled – the less likely they are to maximise their income through benefits. It's ideal for the government because it fosters an environment in which people are less likely to appeal when their claim is rejected and less likely to support those around them who may be suffering as a result of the welfare changes.

In a way you have to marvel at it. How do you get people to accept a policy that's inexcusably prejudiced against the most vulnerable in society? Make sure they take on the same mean-spirited, self-serving attitude that influenced that policy in the first place. Genius.

- pogge wonders rhetorically whether the Cons will ever act on a unanimous resolution to strengthen the Canada Elections Act to address robocalls and enforcement issues.

- Finally, Aaron Wherry nicely responds to Justin Trudeau by noting that better patronage isn't a path toward a useful or legitimate Senate. And Andrew Coyne muses that abolishing the current abomination might leave more options open for a less dubious upper chamber in the future.

#skndpldr Roundup

In the most noteworthy leadership development of the past few days, Praxis Analytics has released the first set of public poll results since last fall - with a couple of interesting findings.

First, there's the fact that nearly two-thirds of respondents (in a poll of the general public) couldn't name any of the candidates. That means that whoever wins the race will be starting nearly from scratch in building a public profile - which isn't without its upside, as it looks to signal that the money the Saskatchewan Party spent attacking the candidates was an utter waste.

Second, there's the suggestion that Ryan Meili, Trent Wotherspoon and Cam Broten are in a tight three-candidate race at the moment. That makes for a somewhat different take than my current impression - but likely offers a useful indicator as to the difference in the polls between the most active members whose preferences are more obvious, and people who haven't publicly identified their support for one candidate or another.

In other news, Ryan Meili released his policy statements on democratic renewal (featuring a goal of doubling the NDP's membership over the next two years) and health care. In addition to the endorsements I've discussed before, other late-campaign declarations of support have included Glenn Hagel's endorsement of Wotherspoon, Sean Shaw's for Broten, and (if I'm reading it correctly) leftdog's approval of Erin Weir.

Finally, the lengthy debate schedule is winding down, with the last two taking place tonight in Moose Jaw and Saturday in Saskatoon (with the debate to be live-streamed for those who can't attend).

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Carol Goar discusses Canada's broken fiscal stabilizers - as unemployment insurance and social programs intended to assure citizens of at least a reasonable standard of living have been cut to well below that level:

Canada’s economic shock absorbers are badly worn.

Employment insurance, which once softened the blow of losing a job, has dwindled to the point that only a minority of the unemployed are eligible for benefits.

Welfare, which once prevented people from hitting rock bottom, now leaves recipients 60 per cent below the poverty line.

The income tax system has become flatter and more rigid. There were 13 income brackets in 1981. Today there are four. This means people’s tax bills don’t go down as quickly when their earnings fall.
...
While the finance minister holds down the brakes, his colleagues seem bent on yanking the tubes out of Canada’s diminished shock absorbers.

Finley is making it harder to get employment insurance. Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is making it harder for new Canadians to rebuild their family support networks in this country. Revenue Minister Gail Shea is making it harder for Canadians without Internet access — typically the poor and the elderly — to claim tax refunds and credits. Infrastructure Minister Denis Lebel is making it harder for the provinces and municipalities to plan public works projects and hire workers. And Labour Minister Lisa Raitt is weakening the collective bargaining system.
...

The problem is not just austerity. It is austerity imposed with no regard for the hardship caused by a stop-and-start, up-and-down, lurch-prone economy.

- Meanwhile, Kev uses the example of Bell's one-day commitment to mental health funding as a reminder that we should be skeptical of corporate charity as a substitute for fair taxes and other public revenue generators.

- Michael Harris pushes back against what looks to be a transparently false claim from the Cons that new restrictions on government-employed scientists are merely a continuation of the status quo, then explains what the new policy means:

The big worry among scientists is that the new policies could be used to make it impossible for government scientists to do any “unmanaged” research in the future. That’s because whatever they do now will be tightly controlled from the onset — from funding applications through to the final step of communicating research findings to the scientific community and the general public.

With the rapid development of the Alberta oilsands a key priority of the Harper government, the need for independent science has never been greater. Under the new DFO policies, government could stop publication of studies like the one recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science in the United States. That federally-funded study linked oilsands activity to the deposit of toxic hydrocarbons in Alberta wilderness lakes, closing the door on the claim by industry and government that the pollution could be coming from natural sources.

Question: if scientists wanted to pursue the unfinished business of the oilsands research just published by the National Academy of Science, going beyond hydrocarbons to look at the levels of other contaminants such as heavy metals, mercury or soot, would they get the green light from DFO under the new funding policy?

- Finally, Duncan Cameron suggests that a pre-election cooperation agreement among Canada's opposition parties could include a broad range of issues rather than focusing on electoral reform alone. But the CP points out one of the areas where agreement may be difficult to achieve, as the Libs are joining forces with the Cons to preserve a patronage-based Senate.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Bright-eyed cats.

#skndpldr Candidate Rankings - February 12

As I mentioned in my follow-up notes from Saturday's Saskatchewan NDP leadership debate, the candidates' performance hasn't done much to change my impression as to their relative position. (Which, as a reminder, is different from my personal endorsement.)

But there have been a couple of additional indicators over the past week: the audience response to the candidates at Regina's forum, and the information provided by the few voters who have provided hints as to their down-ballot support. So will any of that affect this week's rankings?

1. Ryan Meili (1)

Well, there's no change at the top, as Meili has continued to keep at least somewhat of an edge over his competition on all visible fronts (including crowd support at the all-candidates debates, public support on social media, and perhaps most important his continued ability to draw crowds for campaign events).

2. Cam Broten (2)

In contrast, Broten seems to be facing some conflicting signals: while he's probably slightly more entrenched ahead of the candidates below than he was some time ago, he's also facing significant obstacles in trying to overtake Meili.

On the upside, Broten has seen a fairly regular stream of declarations of first-ballot support among voters. But he's always figured to need a strong down-ballot showing in order to win - which makes it highly problematic that not a single multi-candidate ballot or announcement that I've seen from a supporter of another candidate has placed Broten above any of his competitors. (Of course, most of those public ballots have been from Meili supporters whose second and third choices may not impact the race anyway - but it does seem to suggest Broten has some distance left to go in reaching out beyond his own camp.)

3. Trent Wotherspoon (3)

Meanwhile, Wotherspoon faces the converse problem. At the outset of the campaign I wouldn't have seen much prospect that any significant number of Meili supporters would list him second, as at least a couple have done already. But those down-ballot successes will only matter if Wotherspoon remains on the final ballot - and a modest showing at the start of the voting period would make it unlikely they'll ever come to light.

4. Erin Weir (4)

And likewise, there isn't much to suggest Weir's position has changed over the last week. While his endorsement from Fred Clipsham offers a helpful late-campaign boost, the more important question for now is at the membership level rather than the endorser level.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Yves Engler discusses the importance of a "social wage" - and how the minimum standard of living we're prepared to tolerate affects the well-being of all kinds of workers:

These attacks against the poor and unemployed should be opposed by anyone who cares about their fellow human beings. But in addition to compassion, working people have another important reason to oppose these cuts to social benefits: a self-interest in maintaining the social wage.

Right-wing pundits often claim that welfare payments or unemployment benefits cost us all. And at one level it is true that welfare benefits cost everyone, though rarely are these costs a significant chunk of public expenditure.

Examined from another perspective, however, social entitlements such as welfare and EI are an important means to protect the wages and conditions of working people. Decent welfare and unemployment benefits provide a security guarantor for wage workers who may fear losing their jobs. When decent social entitlements exist, invariably workers’ bargaining power is improved. In short, the strength of welfare and unemployment benefits helps determine a country’s social wage — its generally accepted minimum pay and benefits.
...
Lobbyists for wealth-holders certainly understand the relationship between social entitlements and the social wage. Business organizations have ferociously attacked social entitlements over the past 20 years. In doing so, they’ve driven down the social wage and increased the proportion of income going to the relatively small number of wealth-holders.

- And Linda McQuaig notes that the corporatist war against unions fits into the same overall strategy of consolidating wealth to the exclusion of most Canadians:

The real question is: as the country has grown richer, who should benefit? Under the more egalitarian system that prevailed during the early postwar decades, the economic benefits would have been more widely shared and could have been used to actually lower the retirement age (or extend holiday time, such as in Scandinavia, where the norm is six weeks paid vacation).

A few decades ago, North Americans often whimsically posed the question: in the future, what will we do with all our leisure time?

As it turned out, our leisure time shrunk (with two years of it now snatched away by the Harper government).

Indeed, instead of being widely shared, almost all the benefits of economic growth in recent decades have been siphoned off by a small corporate elite.

It’s that same corporate elite, and its political and media supporters, who now assure us that unions are no longer relevant.

 - Canadian for Tax Fairness points out that the OECD has finally noticed the issue of double non-taxation - where corporate tax-avoidance strategies result in multinational businesses paying tax nowhere.

- Finally, Dan Lett comments on the sad connection between Bell's attempt to spark some talk about mental health issues, and the Cons' choice to single out the mentally ill as their latest target for "tough on crime" posturing.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Shawn McCarthy discusses the Cons' latest plan to sell Keystone XL to the U.S. - which involves hoping that the best-resourced government on the planet will be suckered into accepting a transparently false pretense that the Cons have the slightest interest in addressing climate change. And Harper cabinet appointee Monte Solberg offers a window into the Cons' environmental mindset, trying to make a case against "thinking globally" on the basis that there are easier votes to be won by focusing on small vacation areas while shredding the rest of the planet.

- The Cons' latest Senate abuses have provoked plenty of discussion as to how in the world we can justify spending hundreds of millions of dollars on an unaccountable set of patronage appointees. Among those calling for (or at least musing about) abolition are Diane Francis, Paul Sullivan and Geoffrey Stevens. Kai Nagata recognizes that we should see Patrick Brazeau as entirely emblematic of the Cons - rather than accepting their spin that it's just bad luck that he's following in so many disgraced footsteps. Murray Dobbin compares Brazeau's abuse of privilege to the genuine movement for change behind Idle No More. Stephen Kimber contrasts Mike Duffy's one-time journalist persona against his current diminished state, while Dan Leger wonders whether Duffy has officially joined Brazeau in being cut loose by the Cons.

But the definitive word goes to Sixth Estate in discussing Duffy:

(W)e’re no longer talking about an issue of merely failing to uphold a few technical rules. We’re talking about fraud here.

The only question is: fraud against whom? Against Ontario taxpayers, for using an Ontario health card when he is really a primary resident of PEI, or against federal taxpayers, for collecting expense fees for his PEI cottage when he is really a primary resident of Ontario?

Either way, I guess we now know why right-wingers are so paranoid that lazy, self-interested gits are ripping off the welfare system. That’s what they think is going on, because it’s exactly what they do when given the opportunity.

- Digby compares the "donor class" of Americans who fund political parties to the wider citizenry - and finds that the U.S. government (like its UK equivalent) is paying far more attention to the frivolous deficit obsession of the former than the job and income security concerns of the latter.

- pogge rightly highlights the Cons' strict party control over private members' bills. But I'll add that the vetting of what's supposed to be the prerogative of individual MPs is far from new, as Garth Turner raised exactly the same concern after he was booted out of the Cons' caucus.

- Finally, CBC reports on the Cons' willingness to fund an anti-gay organization to work in Uganda (home of some of the most obvious homophobic policies on the planet). And Dennis Gruending compares the treatment of Crossroads Christian Communications to that of other groups such as KAIROS and Development and Peace who were de-funded for failing to share the Cons' values.

Sunday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your Sunday reading.

- Ian Lovett reports on the use of "capital appreciation bonds" in California to ensure that future generations pay an inflated price to private-sector developers for infrastructure today.

- Justin Ling's review of Joyce Murray's message about electoral non-competition pacts is well worth a read - but I'll particularly highlight this part:

Do you want Stephen Harper to be defeated in the next federal election?

Alright, we’re already off to a rocky start.

Politics of negation is dangerous, ugly, and unfortunately rears its ugly head very often in leadership campaigns.

“Elect me and I’ll stop [gay marriage/abortion/separatists/Toronto elitists]” has long between a rhetorical sledgehammer that’s good at getting gut reaction from ignorant people. Nothing more.

So when Joyce Murray asks me if I want Stephen Harper to be defeated, my immediate answer is ‘no’ — I want a government that, if possible, is more competent than our current one. Everyone should want that. Murray, like Trudeau or Garneau, should be making a case that she can do that. Not offering an Ocean’s Eleven caper on how to dupe the prime minister.

- But of course, there's loads of room for improvement on the government we're currently stuck with. And on that front, Steven Shrybman points out just the latest example in commenting on Harper's dubious assertion that his party's misleading robocalls weren't in breach of CRTC regulations, while Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault laments the fact that the Cons are trampling on access to information more and more as their stay in office drags on.

- Herbert Gans discusses how the U.S. media can contribute to genuine democratic debate far better than it currently does. And Rick Salutin laments the state of the CBC in having fallen into the same infotainment format as other broadcasters:

The gold standard for anchors was the U.S.’s Walter Cronkite. He was ready to stand up against the state and the flow and was solid as the bronze statue of the American revolutionary minuteman who stood “by the rude bridge that spanned the flood/ His flag to April’s breeze unfurled.” He had rhetoric and a voice to accompany it: “All things are as they were then except — You Are There.” When president Lyndon Johnson heard Cronkite turn against the Vietnam War, he said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost the country.” Compared to Cronkite, Mansbridge isn’t an icon, he’s a barometer.

He’s happily gone with the flow — and the pressure. CBC has become numero uno for crime stories, weather coverage (today’s snow), product launches, celebrities and awards gossip. None of this is new, or news, and CBC itself doesn’t contest the point. The penny story was another example but the one that probably propelled me into this anchor obit was their infinite overkill on the new BlackBerry. (To give CBC radio its due, Carol Off did an item about that on As It Happens.) Also, to be clear, the Z10 drowned in pseudo-journalism everywhere. That’s my point: why have a public broadcaster if it duplicates everybody else’s obsessions? Nor do I want to romanticize the old CBC news. It was pompous and often misleading. But at least it distorted stories I cared about.

- Finally, Murray Mandryk rightly recognizes the significance of Jack Mintz' report on Saskatchewan's incoherent potash royalty structure.

#skndpldr - Regina Debate II Notes

Since I was one of many who attended yesterday's leadership debate in person, I won't wait for the video to be posted before discussing it. (For some of the play-by-play, see live-tweeting from SKYoungNewDemocrats in particular, as well as a bevy of others using the #skndpldr hashtag.)

All four candidates' presentations were around the upper end of the range established in previous debates. That makes for a rather impressive result given that the candidates had already participated in a forum in Saskatoon yesterday morning, but it also means the debate wasn't likely to change minds among voters who have been watching the campaign so far.

For Cam Broten, yesterday's showdown was one of his best in quite some time (at least out of the ones I've seen). But he had some help on that front thanks to two of his fellow candidates.

Both Ryan Meili and Trent Wotherspoon used their first round of questioning to challenge Broten about issues which had caused him trouble in previous debates (Meili discussing his previous involvement in social movements, Wotherspoon his position on the Sask Party's corporate tax cuts). But in both cases, Broten was more than ready to answer a question he'd heard before - which seems to have been a fairly regular pattern throughout the leadership debates. And Wotherspoon in particular was left to merely thank Broten for the clarification as his follow-up question.

That said, if Broten showed that he won't be stumped by the same question twice, Meili's strongest moment involved a thorough response to a question which came out of the blue. I don't recall much (if any) discussion in the previous debates along the lines of Weir's question as to whether to pursue large-scale hydroelectric power in order to phase out coal generation - but Meili was able to neatly weigh the conflicting considerations involved in hydro, and then conclude that our options aren't limited to the either-or choice suggested by Weir.

As for Weir, he offered his typical mix of well-timed jokes and incisive challenges to his competitors - with his questions to Wotherspoon about small business taxes serving to particularly highlight his own strengths. But Weir did take some time to circle around to a response to a fairly simple personal question from Broten (as to what advice he'd give potential candidates based on his own experience in 2004), signalling that he's still not as comfortable taking an opportunity to build personal connections to the audience as he is discussing policy.

Finally, Wotherspoon moved well past his first set of talking points on most of the issues discussed, regularly identifying the elements of a question which hadn't yet been answered and adding substantive discussion to the mix. And he offered strong responses both to Broten's familiar question about party structures, and to Meili in ruling out uranium refining in the province (while explaining his continued support for mining). But his closing remarks did leave some room for improvement: Broten's preceding speech covered a substantial number of virtually identical messages, and Wotherspoon didn't change gears or at least comment on the similar themes to distinguish himself.

Again, the main takeaway looks to be that all of the Saskatchewan NDP leadership contenders have developed into stronger candidates as the campaign has progressed. And we'll know before long who came away convinced by what they saw - as well as who's left to be persuaded.

[Edit: fixed wording.]