Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Sunny Freeman reports on the Canadian Foundation for Labour Rights' study into the effects of anti-labour legislation:

The CFLR argues that [right-to-free-ride] laws would contribute to greater income disparity by undermining union strength and rights to collective bargaining, which they say leads to improved wages and benefits for employees.

The authors cited statistics suggesting that the wage premium for Canadian unionized workers over non-unionized employees in comparable jobs is between seven and 14 per cent. Workers in U.S. states that have adopted the laws earn an average of $1,500 less annually and have lower rates of employer-sponsored health and pension plans than workers in regions that have no such laws, they added.

The CFLR suggests that any such legislation would be the culmination of a trend in the past three decades that has brought an increase in anti-union labour laws.

“The attack on labour rights is being ramped up by the federal government and various provincial governments,” it said, adding that government interference in labour relations has become more prevalent.

- Mary Ormsby's expose on drug-tainted horse meat making its way into Canada's food chain all too aptly highlights how honour-system "regulation" tends to operate:

Priest signed the federal government’s mandatory Equine Information Document — a type of horse passport that must accompany all horses destined for slaughter — and stated that as owner, he had “uninterrupted possession, care and control” of Backstreet Bully for the past six months.

In fact, he had owned him for about 24 hours.

In signing the passport, Priest also attested that Backstreet Bully had been drug free for the past six months and had not been given any “not permitted” substances listed on the government’s website.

Critics of the passport system say the form is confusing and open to misinterpretation or outright fraud.

Priest, who has been in the horse business for more than 40 years, said he rescues and sells horses to good homes. He told the Star he falsely claimed he’d owned Backstreet Bully for six months because “everybody does” this on the horse documents.
...
The federal government relies heavily on the accuracy of the passports, which have been in existence since 2010 and are the first line of defence in keeping tainted horse meat from the human food chain. The government does not require owners selling a horse for meat to provide additional medical history such as veterinary records.

Dr. Martin Appelt, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s national veterinary program manager, acknowledged the government relies on an honour system and hopes that the documents are “a reflection of the truth.”

In other words, the entire regulatory system is based on hoping for vendors to accurately describe the products they're selling - even as "everybody" within the system considers false answers to be just fine. Which sounds like an ideal recipe for exactly the kind of misinformation which seems to be the norm under the Cons' anti-regulatory schemes.

- Meanwhile, the oil industry is leaking various toxic fluids all over North America. Pipeline proponents are bullying landowners while leaving communities to clean up their messes. And the Cons' latest corporatist giveaways may include the establishment of a right to frack. But it's your patriotic duty not to notice.
- Finally, Kate Webb reports on the lone charity deregistered as a result of the Cons' McCarthyite attack on progressive issue advocacy: the nuclear disarmament group Physicians for Global Survival. And we surely shouldn't miss the opportunity to criticize the Cons' war on global survival as a core governing principle.

Someday, this could all be ours

Yesiree, frequent standardized testing sure does help teachers focus on what's most important...

Ms. Parks admitted to Mr. Hyde that she was one of seven teachers — nicknamed “the chosen” — who sat in a locked windowless room every afternoon during the week of state testing, raising students’ scores by erasing wrong answers and making them right. She then agreed to wear a hidden electronic wire to school, and for weeks she secretly recorded the conversations of her fellow teachers for Mr. Hyde.

In the two and a half years since, the state’s investigation reached from Ms. Parks’s third-grade classroom all the way to the district superintendent at the time, Beverly L. Hall, who was one of 35 Atlanta educators indicted Friday by a Fulton County grand jury.

Dr. Hall, who retired in 2011, was charged with racketeering, theft, influencing witnesses, conspiracy and making false statements. Prosecutors recommended a $7.5 million bond for her; she could face up to 45 years in prison. 

During the decade she led the district of 52,000 children, many of them poor and African-American, Atlanta students often outperformed wealthier suburban districts on state tests.

Those test scores brought her fame — in 2009, the American Association of School Administrators named her superintendent of the year and Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, hosted her at the White House.

And fortune — she earned more than $500,000 in performance bonuses while superintendent.

On Friday, prosecutors essentially said it really was too good to be true. Dr. Hall and the 34 teachers, principals and administrators “conspired to either cheat, conceal cheating or retaliate against whistle-blowers in an effort to bolster C.R.C.T. scores for the benefit of financial rewards associated with high test scores,” the indictment said, referring to the state’s Criterion-Referenced Competency Test.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Paul Krugman discusses how a myopic focus on slashing taxes and services figures to cheat future generations out of desperately-needed social structure:

You don’t have to be a civil engineer to realize that America needs more and better infrastructure, but the latest “report card” from the American Society of Civil Engineers — with its tally of deficient dams, bridges, and more, and its overall grade of D+ — still makes startling and depressing reading. And right now — with vast numbers of unemployed construction workers and vast amounts of cash sitting idle — would be a great time to rebuild our infrastructure. Yet public investment has actually plunged since the slump began.

Or what about investing in our young? We’re cutting back there, too, having laid off hundreds of thousands of schoolteachers and slashed the aid that used to make college affordable for children of less-affluent families.

Last but not least, think of the waste of human potential caused by high unemployment among younger Americans — for example, among recent college graduates who can’t start their careers and will probably never make up the lost ground.

And why are we shortchanging the future so dramatically and inexcusably? Blame the deficit scolds, who weep crocodile tears over the supposed burden of debt on the next generation, but whose constant inveighing against the risks of government borrowing, by undercutting political support for public investment and job creation, has done far more to cheat our children than deficits ever did.

Fiscal policy is, indeed, a moral issue, and we should be ashamed of what we’re doing to the next generation’s economic prospects. But our sin involves investing too little, not borrowing too much — and the deficit scolds, for all their claims to have our children’s interests at heart, are actually the bad guys in this story.

- Murray Mandryk and Bruce Johnstone both point out similar factors at play in the Sask Party's latest budget - with long-term needs being ignored in favour of short-term corporatist posturing. And the Huffington Post points out how similar mistakes have resulted in four decades of wage stagnation.

- Meanwhile, Stephen Maher is the latest to write that the Cons' blatant environmental neglect may be hurting even the short-term interests of Stephen Harper's corporate masters:

(T)he government goes all out to promote the [oil] industry, to the detriment of other, legitimate interests, to the point that it is reasonable to assume that it is influencing policies that it should not.

Given the stealth style of the Harper government, the refusal to give honest explanations of its decisions, we must seek a pattern in its actions:

* In 2011, Canada withdrew from the Kyoto accord that required us to cut our emissions of greenhouse gases.

The Conservatives have failed to introduce any measures to meaningfully reduce emissions, save copycat legislation mimicking American auto standards and rules full of loopholes for coal-burning plants.

* In two omnibus bills that followed the budget of 2012, the government made hundreds of changes to legislation affecting environmental protections, making it remarkably easier to get federal approval for potentially damaging resource projects and dramatically cutting the number of environmental reviews.

* The government has acted to muzzle federal scientists who study anything remotely connected to climate change, requiring that they receive approval from political masters before discussing their research with the public, leading to complaints from foreign science journals and jeopardizing international scientific co-operation.

...

(I)t is not clear whether it is in the long-term best interest of the industry to risk Canada appearing to be an environmental pariah, since Ottawa can’t push through the pipelines the industry wants without the co-operation of other governments.

It’s not the industry’s job to balance those competing interests, and there is reason to doubt that they are pushing Ottawa to kill research on fresh water, or muzzle scientists, or avoid meetings about desertification.

In fact, if the public comes to believe the industry is exerting unwarranted influence on public policy, there will eventually be a backlash, which isn’t good for shareholders.

The Conservatives’ hyper-aggressive approach may actually be counterproductive to the industry, the kind of power-drunk overreaching that led to the National Energy Program all those years ago.

- Les Leopold notes that some alternative models have worked far better than a business-first approach - with the Bank of North Dakota standing out as an example of a public institution which has both provided value to citizens, and helped to avoid dangerous financial risks. And Next Year Country reproduces Clifford Singer's review of Reclaiming Public Ownership as an example of how new public institutions may yet prove an important part of our future.

- Finally, Andrew Coyne, Dr. Dawg and Nathan Cullen all have plenty of worthwhile points to make in response to the question of Con MPs' right to make (however distasteful) statements in the House of Commons. And Cullen in particular looks to have nicely identified the problem with the Cons' assertion that Stephen Harper's central command should be able to override any interest in parliamentary representation:

Recently, the Chief Government Whip used a hockey analogy, however poorly applied in this case, and equated his role as Whip of the Conservative Party to that of a hockey coach deciding which player goes on the ice.  He suggested that the Speaker was basically the referee and that it is not your place, Mr. Speaker, to interfere with his choices.  I would simply offer this, Mr. Speaker, that if a coach insists on only sending so-called goons onto the ice simply to pick fights, there is no question that the referee will intervene to give some hope that an actual game might be played. 

I think the analogy should stop here Mr. Speaker, because what is happening in this House is not a game. This is the House of Commons, where we, as parliamentarians, must deal every day with complex matters which have a direct impact on the lives of the Canadians who have elected us, who trust us to manage the affairs of this country.

And, Mr. Speaker, I believe that by changing the nature of statements and using them to mindlessly attack the Official Opposition instead of using that time to raise the issues that matter to the people who have elected them, the Conservatives are clearly abusing the Standing Orders.

Musical interlude

The Tea Party - Waiting On A Sign

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- While there's room to question whether we should accept spending as self-definition in the first place, Zoe Williams is right to make the point that arbitrary restrictions on benefits serve to put yet more barriers to full social participation in front of the people who can least afford them:

Replacing cash with vouchers has a number of damaging effects. First, it's infantilising. Crisis loans delivered this way take on the shape of pocket money or charity. Second, it's stigmatising, as asylum seekers on the Azure card often point out – people don't want strangers to be able to make judgments about what they're buying, and whether they should be buying it. People want privacy in their financial transactions. Call them crazy. Third, it erodes the idea that the public purse is something we all created together and, in a crisis, are entitled to draw on it. Yes, I'm talking about a culture of entitlement – culture is a culture of entitlement. Modern civilisation is built upon pooling resources and being entitled to a share in them.

Fourth, and to my mind most important – though all of these effects are vitally important – something very significant happens when you expel people from the sphere of money. In the moment of exchange, everyone is equal; you don't have to prove that you're worthy of that purchase, your status is bestowed by the fact that you can pay for it, and you are worth as much in that moment as anybody else who can pay for it. There's a fillip of power in the process; it's why people who like shopping like shopping, and it is especially important when – for some reason that is probably financial – you spend a lot of the time feeling powerless. Give people a voucher instead, and they are not equal. Asda may be getting the same amount of money for the same amount of food, but charity and condescension have crept into the transaction – or maybe pity. But nobody wants their groceries served with pity.
...
I see those pragmatic arguments now as a Maginot line, and food stamps marched in over the undefended territory of human dignity. When you relegate people to a world outside money, you create a true underclass: a group of people whose privacy and autonomy are worth less than everyone else's, who are stateless in a world made of shops.

- But then, the corporate sector seems to have decided that self-worth gets in the way of its profit motive. And so the future of the labour movement - discussed by Richard Littlemore - figures to be an important factor in determining whether human dignity has any place in public policy discussions.

- Meanwhile, Paul Wells writes that Stephen Harper has led Canada to a world outside meaningful budgets, as heavily-advertised (but ill-defined) "plans" have replaced any semblance of accountability for public spending.

- Finally, Tim Harper expands on the Cons' decision to be the lone pariah state which can't be bothered to cooperate in documenting and combating desertification:

At a time when a parade of federal ministers (including Baird) and provincial premiers, including Alberta Premier Alison Redford, have been invading Washington to tout this country’s supposed “green credentials” in a bid to win presidential approval for the final phase of the Keystone XL pipeline, a decision like this simply blows up all that work.

Walking away from a convention that is dealing with a problem that has been at least accelerated by climate change reinforces the world’s view, including a widely-held view in Washington, that the Harper government is all about resource development and exports, barely paying lip service to climate change.

...

The Canadian move comes on the eve of an April 9 UN meeting bringing scientists, governments and civil society organizations together in Bonn. It is billed as the first ever cost-benefit analysis of desertification, land degradation and drought.

We’re not coming.

Three days ago, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced an additional $51 million in humanitarian assistance to the people of the Sahel, citing a “complex crisis of drought, flooding, failed harvests, and disrupted livelihoods.’’

Baird pulled us out of the UN program trying to prevent it.

Wonder how green we look to Kerry now?

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Edward Greenspon discusses the importance of a public service whose focus extends beyond the narrow interests of the government of the day:

The hundreds of thousands of Canadians who work for governments, particularly those employed - in the evolving argot of recent decades - as knowledge workers or symbolic analysts or members of the creative class, are, in a sense, servants. They owe a duty of loyalty to carry out the programs and policies of the elected government of the day.

But they also have a broader public duty to the pursuit of truth and the open exchange of information integral to democracy. Thus we have Freedom of Information laws and whistleblower legislation. We also have public servants regularly appearing before Parliamentary committees, which tells us they are not meant merely to be seen and not heard. Rather, they are fair witnesses to facts and trends that shape the progress of the nation, laying down a base of understanding from which political discourse can flower.

The tension between their public and servant roles does not render their jobs impossible, merely challenging. In the normal run of things, governments protect them from the worst effects of this tension by listening to their advice, not disclosing it and not blaming them for decisions taken by the political class. All three, of course are periodically breached. The extraordinary resignation of the country's Chief Statistician a couple of years ago flowed not from the government's refusal to heed his advice on the census, but rather his minister's mischaracterization of that advice.

- Meanwhile, Andrew Coyne slams the Cons for their typical budget dishonesty. Glen McGregor reports on the public money being used to defend Jason Kenney and Alykhan Velshi's attacks on George Galloway - featuring the Harper Cons' mission statement of "Defamation and misfeasance in public office. Ongoing." And Murray Mandryk discusses the Sask Party's implausible evasiveness when it comes to the misuse of IPAC funding.

- The CP reports on the Cons' decision to isolate Canada as the lone country withdrawing from a global treaty on desertification. But I suspect the answer as to why they're doing it is fairly straightforward, as a government seeking to edit out of existence all references to scientific research, poverty and environmental issues surely had little interest in this:

The UN body has a research committee dedicated to finding ways to stop the spread of droughts that lay waste to farmland across the planet, particularly Africa.

Scientists, governments and civil society organizations are headed to Bonn next month "to carry out the first ever comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of desertification, land degradation and drought," says a notice from the United Nations Environment Program.

"Also, for the very first time, governments will provide concrete data on the status of poverty and of land cover in the areas affected by desertification in their countries."

- Finally, it shouldn't come as any surprise that on-reserve schools receive up to 50% less funding than off-reserve equivalents. But there's little indication that our current provincial and federal governments see that gap as a problem - meaning that improvement seems highly unlikely until at least the next election cycle.

New column day

Here, applying the recently-approved Somerset development as an example of why we should expect elected representatives to do more than just remind us that we're on our own in dealing with health and environmental issues.

For further reading, see:
- reports from CBC and Vanessa Brown; and
- commentary from Edward Dodd and Paul Dechene.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Brendan Haley explains why the Cons' let-them-build-pipelines economic approach is doomed to fail from the standpoint of prosperity as well as that of sustainability:

There is a certain spirit of defensiveness and vulnerability behind the Conservatives’ economic choices. Ideologically incapable of admitting that the private sector can run into real problems, Flaherty pleads for corporations to start spending money again but has no policies aimed at making that happen. Unwilling to recognize the benefit of pro-active government policy the Conservatives see the bitumen sands as their sole salvation. Yet, such an economic trajectory could be disrupted if the world decides to take action against climate change.

Far from promoting economic security, the Conservatives appear incapable of dealing with the economy’s most vexing problems (dead money, personal debt, productivity, pollution) and their reaction in the face of their confusion is to pigeon-hole the country into a rather vulnerable long-term economic position, placing all of our bets on a global economic trajectory dependent on climate catastrophe.

In contrast to the conservative confusion, a social democratic agenda is especially suited to today’s challenges. More proactive government strategies are needed to deal with the private sector’s stagnation and loss of direction. Smart government strategy can coordinate economic activity towards building a green, diverse, and innovative economy.

- Paul Hanley nicely points out the Cons' Orwellian doublespeak on the environment. And Julia Dima reports that the Sask Party is continuing to hack away at a barely-existent set of environmental budget items.

- Brian Singh offers up a mixed bag of strategic suggestions for Canada's opposition parties. But I remain highly skeptical that "out-Con the Cons" is a winning strategy in either electoral or policy terms - as the same simplistic messaging and top-down policy-making which have helped the Cons make teh argument that government is merely a brand rather than a source of collective power figure to cause major problems for anybody whose road to success involves drawing more people in.

- Finally, I'll highlight a few post-campaign posts from the Saskatchewan NDP's leadership race - including Aaron Genest's discussion of simulated outcomes, Jason Hammond's comments on the effect of social media, and Liz James on the importance of the "long win".

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Curved cats.

Book Review: The Blaikie Report

Among other highlights of the Saskatchewan NDP's leadership convention this month, I was able to meet and chat with longtime NDP MP (and later MLA) Bill Blaikie, who attended in large part to introduce party members to The Blaikie Report. And I appreciate the opportunity to review the book - particularly given that others have already had their say since its release.

Blaikie's book reads in part as autobiography, in part as polemic. And on both fronts, he nicely highlights how little Canadian politics have changed over the past several decades, with the appropriation of religious messaging by the far right serving as one of the few genuinely radical developments.

Blaikie starts by tracing his own social gospel views back to the CCF-NDP's early leaders and beyond, describing the social gospel as reflecting a religious critique of capitalism (which itself gets treated by far too many political actors as an infallible matter of faith).

Blaikie then applies the social gospel lens to his dizzying range of political experience - from culture wars to constitutional wrangling to the passage of the Canada Health Act. And whatever the source of one's concern about corporatist government, the themes found in Blaikie's book will be highly familiar to anybody involved in social democratic circles - from countering astroturfed "taxpayer" outrage by pointing out the preferential treatment granted to corporations, to the meaning and importance of sustainable development.

That said, a few chapters particularly stand out not merely as reflections on Blaikie's experience, but as arguments worth expanding on when it comes to issues which are still central to Canadian political debate. Chapter 8 makes a strong case as to the longstanding difference in political cultures between the NDP and the Libs - and how issue advocates can't expect to succeed in changing the terms of policy discussion without clearly articulating which party best reflects their underlying goals. And Chapters 15-16 offer both blistering criticism of the "chosen powerlessness" associated with free trade agreements, and a reminder that citizens' movements have been able to effectively counter the supposedly inexorable movement toward ever more corporate power.

But of course, any public movement depends on rallying together as many citizens as possible. And the NDP at all levels will do well to keep in mind Blaikie's core argument that a social democratic movement and party can only succeed by reaching out to voters and communities who share our values - whether or not those values are rooted in faith.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Ruy Teixeira discusses Branko Milanovic's finding that on a global scale, income inequality is almost entirely locked in based on an individual's place of birth and parents' income:

Milanovic asks “How much of your income is determined at birth?”  The answer: 80 percent of your income can be accounted for by the country of your birth and the income level of your parents.  That leaves just 20 percent for age, sex, race, luck and, of course, hard work.  Wow.

In the final section of his book, Milanovic looks at global inequality in the broadest possible context—the level of inequality among all individuals in the world, irrespective of nation.  These levels are very high.  The world gini is around 70, higher than even such profoundly unequal societies as Brazil and South Africa which are “only” around 60.  Given such a high level, it is perhaps not a surprise that, according to Milanovic, the bottom 77 percent of the world’s population receives only 20 percent of the world’s income.  At the other end, the richest 1.75 percent of the world’s population also receives 20 percent of the world’s income, as does the next richest 3.6 percent.  So a little more than 5 percent of the world’s population receives 40 percent of total world income.  Now that’s inequality!

- Of course, one of the most sure ways of smoothing out global imbalances is to allow people to change location. And Natalie Brender writes about the Cons' moves to instead stigmatize immigrants at every turn - including by turning raids into reality TV.

- Meanwhile, Unmuzzled Science documents the Cons' whipped Parliamentary vote against the very idea of science.

- Barbara Yaffe overlooks the obvious problems in political non-competition pacts by pitching yet another version - with the sole "analysis" consisting of adding together raw 2011 vote totals in the absence of any recognition that all non-Con votes are not necessarily interchangeable. But Chantal Hebert recognizes that Labrador is yet another example where the elimination of voter choices figures to do more harm than good.

- Finally, Erin Weir makes the point that both Saskatchewan's overall fiscal picture and the economic case for Keystone XL would look a lot better if the Wall government cared about getting a fair return for publicly-owned resources.

Deep thought

If a non-Con federal government even hinted at this kind of policy in dealing with provinces, the western Village would collapse under the weight of its own hysterical shrieking. But because it only involves Stephen Harper trying to extort resources from First Nations, I don't expect to hear of it again.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Tanya Gold discusses how the UK Cons - like other right-wing parties around the globe - are seeking to minimize the effectiveness of government by declaring that anybody who can benefit from social support is inherently undeserving:

How many benefits have been unfairly removed or reduced? But there is meaning behind this farce; it was no mistake. This is a rehearsal for the future of the welfare state, as seen through Tory spectacles – they are resentful at paying for anything. Need is now irrelevant.

The PR for the project, enthusiastically pursued by the Tory press, is ongoing, if unsophisticated. Its purpose is to incite so much contempt for benefit claimants in the wider population, and so much denial about who, and who is not, a benefit claimant, that we will dumbly watch children live in revolting conditions without complaint. Any kind of state intervention is now a blissful boon deserving of a kiss on the ministerial boot. Last week Alan Milburn, the government's luckless adviser on social mobility, said it was "vanishingly unlikely" that the government will meet its child poverty targets. No it won't; of course it won't. Far better to change the way child poverty is measured or, in common speak, stop counting the bodies.

"Benefit queen" stories are dripped on the media, courtesy of DWP moles, as if they were representative; and Ukip, that wonky opportunist, jumps on the bandwagon, seeking to make benefit claimants pay for necessities by electronic card, so they cannot squander their bags of taxpayer gold on Sky TV, cider, ciggies, condoms and, presumably, membership of the Communist party of Great Britain. The project chugs on, fuelled by distortion and lies, denouncing the weak, praising the strong – the changes to childcare funding announced last week will largely benefit the wealthy. Who is surprised?

- Meanwhile, if we didn't already have enough examples of the Harper Cons doing exactly the same thing, Jane Kittmer's story epitomizes anti-socialism in action - as in keeping with the Cons' orders to slash EI payments, a new mother diagnosed with breast cancer is being denied benefits.

- Alice nicely details why voters are headed to the polls in Labrador for a by-election. And the NDP looks to be well prepared in choosing Harry Borlase as its nominee.

- Glen McGregor finds that the Stepher Harper-based branding of all federal government activity which was controversial a few years ago is now standard operating procedure. And Alison highlights a particular egregious example.

- Finally, Joseph Schwartz notes that while the corporate press is offering grudging recognition that egalitarian Scandinavian economies have outperformed the rest of the developed world, it's also going out of its way to keep omitting crucial points about why they work so well:

[The Economist] praises Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway for accomplishments often touted by social democrats—low poverty rates, egalitarian distribution, and efficient public services. But the magazine argues that these are now “centrist” societies because they balance their budgets, allow for consumer “choice” within their public services, and nurture risk-taking entrepreneurs. The Economist sheepishly admits that these countries funnel over 50 percent of their GDP through the public sector (versus a meager 30 percent in the United States and 36 percent in Great Britain). But Adrian Woolridge’s “special report” places inordinate emphasis on how the Nordic nations’ have trimmed their (still) generous paid leave, sick day, and disability benefits, while touting Sweden’s switch from a defined-benefit to defined-contribution public pension plan.

The Economist never once mentions that the Nordic economic model of growth-with-equity derives from the continued existence of a powerful labor movement (union density is above 70 percent in each country, versus 11.3 percent in the United States and 17 percent in Great Britain). Nor does it tell us that the historical dominance of social democracy means that Nordic conservative parties resemble Obama-style Democrats. Even as social democratic parties move in and out of government, the “Nordic model” draws heavily upon the egalitarian values of its labor movement and social democratic parties.

The publics in these countries trust government because the social democrats built their welfare state upon a vision of comprehensive and universal social rights. All members of society receive publicly financed health care, child care, and education. The central government ensures that these goods are financed equitably and are of high quality—so the upper-middle class remains loyal to these services and gladly pays the high taxes to support them. The Nordic nations long ago recognized that means-tested programs end up being poorly funded and unsustainable because they are often opposed by those just above the poverty line. (The vicious politics of “welfare reform” in Britain and the United States depended upon only the poor being eligible for child-care support from the state.)
...
The feature also fails to mention the crucial role that trade union power and policy played in the creation of the Nordic model. From the 1950s onward, Nordic unions adhered to a “solidaristic wage policy” bargaining strategy, fighting for higher-percentage wage gains for the lowest-paid workers. The aim was both to decrease wage differentials between skilled and unskilled workers and to force corporations to transition out of inefficient industries. Unions opposed a “race to the bottom” model of capitalist development in favor of a high-wage, high-productivity model grounded upon union power.

On unbalanced trade

When it comes to trying to justify perpetually-increasing restrictions on democratic governance in the guise of "free trade" agreements, advocates present two polar opposite views as to what such agreements are intended to accomplish.

The first - and more plausible - view of the actual and intended effect of trade agreements is that they primarily serve the purposes of the parties who push and negotiate them. When corporate interests and their pet Randians meet behind closed doors to draft agreements which will be subject to zero public accountability, it's a safe bet that it's the general public which stands to lose out as a result. And there's certainly a constituency for the view that democracy should be subordinate to the profit motive - making trade agreements into a rational if cynical strategy to tie the hands of elected officials while ensuring that business ultimately rules everywhere.

But that constituency is rather smaller than the number of people who might be persuaded that there's a problem with encouraging plutocrats write the rules of international trade in a way which lets them override the democratic will of the public. And so we also tend to hear another excuse for free trade agreements: that such agreements aren't intended to protect wealthy investors or corporate interests at all, but instead to ensure the availability of the greatest range of goods and services at the lowest possible cost to consumers.

In principle, this second argument is entirely vulnerable to a fairly obvious criticism. If the need for free trade agreements is based solely on a desire to reduce and ultimately eliminate our own tariffs, then there's a far more direct path to that goal: reduce and eliminate our own tariffs, rather than signing agreements which carry a myriad of other consequences including asymmetrical rights for businesses to extort their desired policy from states. But most of the time, we don't get to test whether advocates of the consumer-focused position will be as interested in tariffs when they aren't linked to government suicide pacts.

Well, the Harper Conservatives have created just such an opportunity. In the midst of a campaign to lock Canada into ever more dubious free trade agreements - granting preferential trade and investment status to Colombia despite (if not because of) its recent history of anti-labour goon squads, granting China a multi-decade stranglehold over Canadian public policy, and apparently increasing the cost of prescription drugs to appease big pharma as represented by European negotiators - the Cons have declared that they're implementing an increase in tariffs on imports from developing countries. Which in principle represents both a beggar-the-poor philosophy from the perspective of those who see tariffs as primarily affecting producers, and a direct cost to Canadian consumers for those who see trade policy primarily in terms of purchasing power.

Now, it could be that there's a long game being played by the Cons: the affected countries might well get pushed into negotiating free-trade agreements if their exporters demand some means of reversing the tariffs. But once again, that explanation wouldn't hold water as a matter of consumer interests: the end result would simply be the elimination of the Cons' new tariffs, accompanied by a superfluous set of giveaways to the investor class.

In other words, the Cons have made clear that their gleeful pursuit of any free trade agreement which another country can find time to sign is rooted solely on the first argument: as a means of exacerbating inequality in wealth and power, with consumer interests serving at best as an excuse to implement that agenda. And I'll be curious to see whether we see adherents to the second theory show anywhere near the level of concern about the Cons' direct and deliberate increase in consumer prices that they tend to offer whenever progressive voices point out the real effects of free trade agreements.

Update: Following up on the conclusion above, Stephen Gordon and Mike Moffatt step up to the plate.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

Slightly Aged Column Day

Here, on how Brad Wall's willingness to see the long form census scrapped suggests that his government's push toward mandatory annual standardized tests for all students can't be explained by any real interest in evidence-based policy - and how the move looks to damage students' education in substance rather than providing any useful information.

For further reading...
- Wall's position on the census is discussed here, as he helped to block any agreement among Canada's premiers on trying to reverse the shredding of the long form census.
- Emma Graney's initial report on the Sask Party's mandatory testing scheme is here, while Janet French followed up as to the government's lack of any clear explanation what it was doing and why. And Jennifer Graham reported on the Wall government's refusal to consider classroom cap sizes or other steps which would actually encourage individualized attention to students' educational needs.
- Michael Zwaagstra makes the (easily rebutted) case for standardized testing here.
- Finally, No SK Tests has offered a steady stream of reading material on how an obsession with standardized testing may hurt Saskatchewan students.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Alan Feuer writes about New York City's brilliant use of "big data" to connect the dots in making public policy. And the examples look like a rather compelling reason why we should be looking to expand public-sector data collection and analysis as part of any remotely viable regulatory structure - rather than following the right-wing model of reducing the public sector to checking whether private-sector actors have filed paperwork claiming to have complied with the law.

- Chantal Hebert theorizes that the Harper Cons may be facing their seven-year itch. Alison's updated list of Perps with Perks offers an obvious reason why Canadians are indeed getting sick of Harper's stay in power.

- But then, Lana Payne notes that having been caught in so many electoral violations (and egregious cover-ups), it's long past time for the Cons to face some legal consequences to go with public-opinion concerns.

- Joan Bryden's coverage of the Libs' leadership race highlights the failure of the Libs' "supporter" model: even having eliminated any membership requirement for leadership voters, the Libs will still have less eligible voters than the NDP did in the vote which elected Tom Mulcair. And that failure to achieve significant follow-through on widely-trumpeted sign-up number - even with Justin Trudeau receiving fawning media coverage throughout the campaign - suggests the change in relative positioning signalled by the 2011 election continues to apply.

- And finally, Sixth Estate offers some compelling reasons to give up on the Globe and Mail as a general source of editorial content.

Light blogging ahead

Off to warmer climes until next weekend, with little or no posting in the meantime. Enjoy the week!

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Jason Fekete reports on the growing recognition that tax evasion and avoidance are serious global problems - and the Cons' attempt to be seen nodding at the issues. Needless to say, that posturing would be far more plausible if the same Cons weren't simultaneously announcing their intention to slash the Canada Revenue Agency's enforcement capability even further (in keeping with their past moves to attack the CRA).

- Meanwhile, the fallout from Peter Penashue's acceptance of illegal corporate campaign donations continues. And it's well worth highlighting the fact that the financial agent now being labeled as an "inexperienced volunteer" in an effort to deflect blame was in fact appointed by Stephen Harper to a patronage position as his reward for that service to his party.

- In a similar vein, Craig McInnes expands on the revelations surrounding the B.C. Libs - featuring a cabinet minister who denied any knowledge of a scheme to use public resources for partisan ethnic voter targeting saying "great job" in response to an e-mail advising of the need to cover the government's tracks.

- Bruce Johnstone rightly criticizes Brad Wall's hot air over Keystone XL.

- And finally, Bob Turner grades John Gormley's paean to standardized testing. Much hilarity ensues.

Musical interlude

Fretblanket - Into the Ocean

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Friday reading.

- Jennifer Ditchburn reports that the Harper Cons are making ample progress in their goal of removing Canada from any list of socially-developed welfare states, as Canada has dropped from being the world's leader in the UN's Human Development Index to a position outside the top 10 countries by that measure.

- Peter Penashue's resignation in the wake of a campaign financing scandal will open up plenty of lines of discussion - as well as an opportunity to flip a seat into opposition hands. But let's ask another question arising out of his stepping down from Cabinet: will anybody notice he's gone?

- Carol Goar expands on the futility of trying to apply business principles to government management (with help from Donald Savoie):

To Savoie, this anecdote encapsulated what has happened to Canada’s public service over the past 30 years: front-line workers have been sacrificed to make way for offices full of paper-pushers, managers, supervisors and evaluators. “It is ill-conceived, costly and misguided.”

The bottom-line doctrine took hold under prime minister Brian Mulroney, who decided the public sector should operate with the same market discipline as private enterprise. His four successors have adhered to it slavishly.

It has never worked and it never will, Savoie says.

The first problem is that the public sector is not in the business of making money. In the absence of profit-loss statement, it has no way of measuring how well it is doing. So it fabricates yardsticks and backs them up with reams of reports showing how efficient, effective and indispensable it is.

The second problem is that government is incapable of “creative destruction,” the process by which industry gets rid of outmoded products and develops new ones. Bureaucrats don’t have the power to pull the plug and politicians seldom do it for fear of offending vested interests. “The problem is not that government is spending more on new things, but that it spends massively on old things.”

...

The remedy is obvious, Savoie says with the same clear-sightedness that once scandalized his boss. Figure out what a government department is supposed to do, then fit the employment level to the workload.

- David Climenhaga proposes that the Alberta NDP make a concerted effort to become the province's "city party".

- Finally, Scott Feschuk nicely summarizes the effect of the unaccountable Senate - and the futility of trying to defend it:

Having existed for more than a century, the Senate has produced a number of memorable achievements, such as having existed for more than a century. Also, there was one day that a plucky young upstart openly defied the two-nap minimum. He was subjected to a thorough harrumphing.

Being a senator sounds like a pretty sweet gig. You get an office, a staff and an annual salary of $132,000. You are also entitled to collect up to $22,000 a year in living expenses if a) your primary residence is more than 100 km from Parliament Hill, or b) you feel like it.


Are there any downsides? Not a ton. Sure, you become: a drain on the federal treasury; an object of national mockery, stereotype and derision; and a feckless member of a legislative chamber that Liberal and Conservative prime ministers alike have sullied and undermined over decades by treating it as a repository for cronies, bagmen and talentless, self-promoting partisans.

But on the other hand: Taco Tuesdays!

Alas, now that Canadians have been made aware of the existence of the Senate, a lot of them want to abolish it—simply because it’s a wasteful appendage that costs hundreds of millions of dollars a year and provides no tangible or intangible benefits to any human.
...
The bottom line is that even though our senators are beleaguered, they have the opportunity to be viewed by Canadians with a more sympathetic eye—if only they can draw attention away from every aspect of their job, everything they do and all that their institution has come to represent.

On sick strategies

Shorter Harper Cons:

The public-service beatings will continue until employee wellness improves.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Yves Engler highlights the two-tiered justice system exacerbated by the Harper Cons, as anybody with a sufficient level of privilege avoids any punishment for wrongdoing:

One law for the rulers and another for the rest of us -- wasn't that supposed to have ended with feudalism?

If a poor person is caught taking a computer or some other piece of property from a federal building you can bet police will be called and the thief will go before a judge to decide if she/he goes to jail. Yet when a Senator who is paid at least $132,000 per year in salary illegally claims many times the value of a stolen computer as a "living expense" they simply have to return the money.

Of course so-called white-collar crime is generally treated less severely than other forms of illegal activity, which is another way of saying there are different rules for 'important people' than the rest of us. If you have high enough status you can usually buy your way out of crime.

For example when Griffiths Energy recently pled guilty to bribing officials in Chad to gain access to lucrative energy properties, the Calgary-based corporation agreed to pay $10.35 million under the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act. But no individual at the privately held company will be pursued criminally. Apparently, you can pay a multi-million dollar bribe to gain access to a poor country's natural resources and then simply pay some more money when you are caught.

- But Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher report on what may turn into be a rare exception, as Elections Commissioner Yves Cote has recommended that charges be laid against the Conservatives perpetrators of the Robocon election fraud.

- David Climenhaga nominates the Canadian Taxpayers Federation for a "Turfy" award in falsely claiming to be a grassroots organization:

(U)ntil recently I had no idea just how pure and refined an example of Astroturfing is the clever-boots organization that gave Canadian political discourse the “Teddy Award” – allegedly to highlight government waste.

But the fact is – and we have CTF Operations Vice-President Shannon Morrison to thank for this revelation – the organization has only five members. [Ed. note: later updated to six without explanation in another sign of true transparency.]

Let me say that again, just to make sure there is no misunderstanding: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has only five members!

Now, you may have had the impression that the CTF – which is almost invariably referred to by the mainstream media as a “taxpayer watchdog” – has something like 70,000 members, every one a concerned Canadian frowning grimly at the idea of governments wasting their hard-earned tax dollars on things like pensions for public employees, the long-gun registry and the long-form census.

Mind you, if these taxpayers also happen to be concerned about wasteful plans to spend bazillions on easy-to-shoot-down F-35 stealth bombers or mere billions for unneeded and counterproductive prison cells, of course, they’ll need to look elsewhere for support. Notwithstanding its claim to be “non-partisan,” the CTF is reliably pro-Conservative and has nothing bad to say about those particular Tory boondoggles.
...
MORRISON: “Tony, I apologize for my delay in answering. In law, the CTF is a federal not for profit corporation. Technically the only ‘members’ are the board directors themselves. … The bylaws you quote are extremely out of date but even with that we have never had a membership other than the board directors. We have worked very hard to use consistent language to reflect this over the last several years. The financial summary found on our website is what we have for our donors and supporters.” (Emphasis added.)

So there you have it. The entire membership of the CTF is made up of five people. As it was, it is now and ever shall be. And the finances of their organization are none of your business – even if you thought you were a member.

- Alice Funke and Andrew Coyne both see the Libs' leadership campaign going off the rails.

- Finally, Dan Tan discusses the opportunities available for the NDP in building cross-border connections - as well as Tom Mulcair's strong start on that front.

New column day

Here, on how Brad Wall's first set of utterly implausible attacks on Cam Broten seems to reflect a failure to learn from the mistakes of the Saskatchewan Party's Republican cousins.

For further reading (and a quick response to the spin), Broten's policy development proposal is here.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Tim Harper reminds us why Brad Wall is thoroughly off base in claiming that it's the duty of every Canadian politician to demonstrate constant fealty to his resource-sector puppet-masters:

The Conservatives, of course, would like the entire country to come together behind their view of resource extraction, but the nice thing about democracy is it accommodates dissonant voices.

Keystone faces credible and determined opposition in both countries.

There is a longstanding protocol in the U.S. that politicians do not criticize the government while abroad, but if that ever was the convention in Canada, it flew out the window after Harper took aim at successive Liberal leaders while representing this country abroad during his minority years.

Mulcair owes Canadians consistency. Without that, he cannot ask them to make him prime minister.
...
If U.S. President Barack Obama eventually kills the Keystone extension in a decision expected this summer, expect the Conservatives to blame Mulcair for “talking down” Canada while abroad, just as they tried to blame then-opposition leader Michael Ignatieff’s comments for costing them a seat on the United Nations Security Council in 2010.

The UN blame-game generally drew laughter. Blaming an opposition leader who carried a consistent message south of the border for a Keystone failure should similarly be met with guffaws.

- Meanwhile, Clare Demerse tries to fact-check the Cons' attempt at greenwashing their atrocious track record - only to conclude that there are few facts to be found in their spin.

- Don Lenihan writes about the problem with a pay-wall model for online media - as many people seeking to read news online have rightly come to value the ability to respond and comment without others being excluded.

- Emma Burnell highlights the importance of "critical loyalty" in ensuring that political parties can build close connections while still evolving and growing. I'm pretty sure this isn't what she has in mind, but from my own set of loyalties I'll happily ask someone to pass the popcorn.

- Finally, Pat Atkinson and Scott Stelmaschuk both offer their end-of-campaign analysis at the end of the Saskatchewan NDP's leadership race.

Juxtaposition

Bert Brown today, trying to justify the public footing a nine-figure annual bill for a cesspool of patronage and corruption:

“It’s one of the five major institutions of the Canadian government and if you were to take that away, you’d just be creating a dictatorship,” Brown said in an interview in his office overlooking Parliament Hill. “Anytime you get a prime minister that won’t listen to anything but his own advice, you get some of the crazy things that we’ve seen.”

Bert Brown less than two years ago, explaining his own belief that Senators should avoid questioning any of the Prime Minister's actions lest they be seen as disloyal:

"Every senator in this caucus needs to decide where their loyalty should be and must be. The answer is simple; our loyalty is to the man who brought us here, the man who has wanted Senate reform since he entered politics, the Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper," Brown wrote.

So Brown's idea of a bulwark against executive-branch dictatorship is...a branch of government whose responsibility is to maintain perpetual loyalty no matter how unreasonable the executive branch becomes. As if we needed another reason to abolish the institution designed to allow Brown and his ilk to interfere with the operations of Canadian democracy.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Contained cats.

#skndpldr - Super Happy Mega Fun Pundit Navel-Gazing Post

I'll have plenty more to add in later posts about the opportunities the Saskatchewan NDP holds under Cam Broten's leadership. But before this weekend's convention is too far in the rear-view mirror, I'll take a few minutes to assess my own analysis of the leadership campaign.

And I'd like to think I had my share of successes.

My first-ballot best guess numbers were closer to pegging the candidates' positioning than any other poll or source, getting within 3% of each of the candidates' support levels. And my first-ballot analysis was on target in identifying exactly what Cam Broten needed to accomplish to have a chance on the second ballot - even if I underestimated his likelihood of managing to leapfrog Ryan Meili. 

But therein lies the rub: I failed to account appropriately for what proved to be the deciding factor, even after identifying Broten's potential down-ballot appeal as his biggest strength from day one. So where did I go wrong in expecting Meili to hold enough down-ballot support to win based on the first-ballot results?

My working assumption is that I failed to account for an "I like him, but..." factor.

For all the post-campaign spin about a divided party, all indications I've seen are to the effect that each of the leadership candidates was broadly liked by a range of NDP members extending well beyond his immediate supporters. And Meili in particular stood out on that front, with at least one internal poll placing his net favourability rating at +67%.

It then didn't seem plausible to me that an electorate where a strong majority of members even outside of Meili's supporters had a positive view of him would line up strongly against him on a second ballot. (And that went doubly when his second-ballot opponent had been tagged with a marginally higher "will not support" number, and when an army of volunteers was at the ready to chase down the vote of anybody with a marginally positive impression of Meili.)

But ultimately, there is a difference between liking a candidate personally, and actually casting a ballot for him. And Broten looks to have convinced a substantial number of voters who have a favourable view of Meili generally to throw their support elsewhere in choosing their party's leader.

In retrospect, there were some signs which I could have taken into account in seeing that as a possibility - including some actual second-choice data and Broten's slight improvement on my expectations for the first ballot. And indeed, both campaigns look to have been far closer to the mark than I was in assessing the meaning of the first-ballot outcome.

So my takeaway from the just-concluded campaign is this: as much as the HOAG factor matters, a modest lead in favourability may not matter much at all when party members face a one-time vote. 

On first steps

I'm skeptical about Paul Adams' argument that some type of electoral non-compete agreement between the NDP and the Libs is inevitable an election cycle or two down the road. But he does hint at something close to the type of cooperation that I could see as useful in the meantime:

(T)here is a very slight possibility that there will be yet another opening to the idea [of a non-compete deal] before the 2015 election. If the Conservatives were to start polling quite a bit stronger — say nearer the 40 per cent mark — and the Liberal and the NDP were deadlocked in the mid-20 per cent range for long enough, there might be internal and external pressures for Trudeau and Mulcair to temper their intransigence about cooperation.

That’s not the likeliest scenario. Much more probable is that the Liberals and the NDP will insist on at least one more election running on their own.

If it comes to that, progressives should at least demand that their party leaders swear off demonizing each other as they compete for support in the common pool of voters from which they draw.

In effect, the first step toward progressive cooperation could be to at least avoid doing Stephen Harper's work for him by echoing and validating the most damaging parts of the Cons' spin. And I'd argue that the messages worth avoiding include not only gratuitous attacks on each other, but also right-wing tropes which feed into the argument that we shouldn't expect our government to be a force for positive social change.

Of course, even that level of non-competition may not be achieved as easily as it sounds at first blush: the Libs' traditional means of differentiation from the NDP involves parroting Con "tax and spend" soundbites which reinforce a reactionary worldview, while the NDP's ethical and trust arguments against the Libs similarly figure to have a spillover effect in generating cynicism about politics in general. And it's far from clear that either party will give up on those familiar arguments without a fight.

But if our existing parties can't even manage the minimal level of agreement involved in shaping messages which don't undermine long-term values for short-term gain, then it's all the more futile to think they'll do better in assembling a complex and time-consuming non-competition scheme. And if it is in fact possible to agree the priority for the next couple of years is to focus on challenging the Cons' plans for Canada rather than other opposition parties, that might go a long way in ensuring that there's an opportunity to cooperate in governing in 2015 and beyond.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has unveiled its alternative federal budget - which highlights the choice between the Cons' needless austerity, and the 200,000-300,000 extra jobs which could be created alongside important social improvements which could be brought about through well-placed public action.

- Meanwhile, Murray Dobbin worries that the use of interest rates alone as an economic growth strategy is feeding an unsustainable housing bubble - offering anpther indication as to why we should work on expanding socially productive activities rather than hoping that unfettered (and indeed exacerbated) market forces will somehow serve the greater good.

- Vincent Gogolek points out that the Cons are going out of their way to make it more difficult for Canadians to find accurate information about their government online.

- Craig McInnes expands on the B.C. Libs' attempt to erase any remaining line between governing and campaigning:

Citizens have a right to expect that governments separate activities that are rightfully supported by political parties and govern in the name of all the people. The Liberals acknowledge that line was crossed in the ethnic outreach memo.

But they don’t see any problem with using tax dollars to promote the interests of the government at a time when they are insisting that the Opposition has a duty to behave as though we are in an election.
...
As a journalist who often feeds off dysfunction, I’m happy to see a government that already has its full attention on election day. As a citizen and taxpayer, I think if the government wants to hear from the Opposition, it should shut down the legislature, stop using tax dollars to pay for ads and get on with a real campaign, funded by Liberals.

- Finally, Rob Bluey comments on the importance of effective data collection and analysis in Barack Obama's successful re-election campaign - and the lesson is one which Canadian progressives would do well to keep in mind.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Bea Vongdouangchanh reports on Kevin Page's concerns that the Cons are set to effectively destroy the PBO. And the Star's editorial board slams Stephen Harper's war against transparency and accountability in general:

Stonewalling, foot-dragging and contempt for Parliament pay. At least that’s what the federal government appears to have concluded in the wake of the 2011 election. Toppled two years ago after being found in contempt of Parliament for failing to disclose fiscal information, the Conservatives were nonetheless rewarded in the polls with a majority government — a victory that has served as positive reinforcement for their modus operandi of obfuscation.

Things have only gotten worse. As Kevin Page, Canada’s first parliamentary budget officer, prepares to leave his post later this month, he remains locked in a legal battle with the government — the culmination of a year-long struggle to access details on the specific nature of the deep cuts contained in the last federal budget.

Evidently, the Conservatives are tired of fighting with the PBO. The job description for Page’s replacement, released last Thursday, seems to be a direct rebuke to the outgoing watchdog. The suitable candidate will be “tactful and discreet,” it says, and capable of “achieving consensus.” (Though why an economic analyst whose job is to crunch numbers would ever need to “achieve consensus” is a mystery to us.)
...
Until the government starts to show some respect for Parliament and the transparency necessary for good government, we can only wonder what it has to hide.

- Alison rightly notes that if the B.C. Libs' deliberate use of public resources for partisan political purposes is an outrageous scandal, then the Harper Cons should face at least as much public backlash for their constant transfer of personal information from Canada's public service apparatus into party databases.

 

- Penny Collennette raises the possibility that Canada could follow in Switzerland's footsteps by implementing limits on CEO pay - noting in particular that there's little evidence that outsized pay for the corporate elite benefits anybody but executives themselves:

The compensation issue, which had previously more or less been confined to boardrooms and corporate insiders, was no longer about income clarity and disclosure of packages, perks and products. Instead, the debate shifted to themes of inequity and lack of fairness, spilling into public space, both physical and virtual. In Canada, the disgraceful behaviour of Nortel corporate executives who ran off with inflated bonuses while Nortel pensioners were left to salvage scraps, served as a stark reminder that we too must be mindful.

It’s ironic that Jim Collins’ well-regarded 2001 business book Good to Great concluded: “We found no systematic pattern linking executive compensation to the process of going from good to great... the purpose of a compensation system should not be to get the right behaviours from the wrong people, but to get the right people on the bus in the first place, and to keep them there.”

In other words, are we really sure there’s a link between excessive compensation and higher performance?

- Finally, Thomas Walkom highlights how the Cons' obsession with oil exports over all other forms of economic development has made all of Canada vulnerable to the bust cycles inherent in resource economies.

#skndpldr - The Dramatic Conclusion

After the first ballot results were announced yesterday, I pointed out the 20% net margin of support that Cam Broten needed to turn a close first-ballot result into a narrow win. And that turned out to be exactly what materialized: of the 2,393 votes cast initially for either Trent Wotherspoon or Erin Weir, the final result showed 18% attrition, with 51% to Broten and 31% to Ryan Meili - leading to Broten's election as the Saskatchewan NDP's new leader.

But in retrospect, there was another, even closer vote comparison which may have hinted at the same end result.

Notwithstanding an entirely different type of leadership campaign and plenty of new participants within his own camp, Meili's final vote total of 4,120 was a jump of exactly 18 votes from his second-ballot total in 2009. And while I'm not sure if Broten's campaign focused on that number to any great extent, it turns out that past performance almost exactly paralleled Meili's results this time - as Broten's winning vote count was based on his accumulating just enough down-ballot support to eke past the total Meili had earned before.

So what comes next for the NDP? Well, I've been one of many commentators pointing out the diverse and complementary set of skills among the leadership candidates. And Broten's experience and support should make for a seamless transition within the current NDP caucus.

At the same time, there will be plenty of work to be done in keeping the new supporters of all of the candidates engaged - particularly Meili's grassroots base which produced so many of the creative ideas which emerged during the leadership campaign. And while Broten took some important steps yesterday in echoing Meili's vision and reaching out to the other camps, I'll hope to see plenty of people from all leadership camps looking for ways to stay connected and involved - both within the NDP and in the broader social democratic movement.

#skndpldr - First Ballot Analysis

The Saskatchewan NDP leadership's first-ballot results and ensuing developments are in. And while the balloting may be somewhat shorter than it could have been due to Trent Wotherspoon's withdrawal, there's still plenty of intrigue surrounding the second and final ballot.

The safest assumption may be to assume that down-ballot voting will mirror first-ballot results - in which case Ryan Meili will of course emerge ahead. And the absence of any endorsements in Cam Broten's favour will leave him without an obvious source of additional momentum to try to sway the few voters participating today (with only about 700 additional votes beyond those collected in advance).

But there's still a possibility that enough down-ballot advantages could push Broten ahead of Meili in the end: while a win by a net margin of about 20% over Meili among all voters who cast a ballot for Wotherspoon or Erin Weir doesn't seem particularly likely, it's within the realm of possibility.

My guess is that we'll see the two theories converge - that Broten will do better as compared to Meili, but not necessarily by enough to meaningfully close the gap (let alone overtake him). But there's plenty of intrigue either way as we proceed to the final ballot.

#skndpldr - Convention Decision Points

With upwards of 70% of eligible voters having already cast a ballot (and plenty of question as to how many more will do so), it's anybody's guess as to whether new votes today will substantially influence the results of Saskatchewan's NDP leadership race.

But for those still looking for a point of reference in deciding, I'll offer a reminder that it's possible to learn important lessons about a candidate by seeing how well he manages a public showcase whose planning is entirely under his campaign's control. And so while I don't expect to see any of the candidates radically change their campaign message, I'll be keeping a close eye on their ability to assemble a cohesive presentation within a 15-minute window - and whether anyone lets videos and supporter speeches get out of hand at the expense of any opportunity to connect directly with remaining voters.

Barring any major surprises out of the the showcases, I'll limit my posting today to a bit of Twitter commentary, plus blog posts analyzing the results from each ballot. For further coverage of the convention as it happens, see media blogs from John Cairns and the Star-Phoenix along with the always-active Twitter feed.

Musical interlude

Underworld - Mo Move

On poison pills

I've already pointed out the absurdity of Gordon Campbell anti-NDP acolyte Joyce Murray pretending to run as a pan-progressive candidate in the Libs' leadership race. But if we needed any more indication that she can't be taken seriously, Tim Harper provides it by looking at the fine print of her "cooperation" plan:

Under the Murray plan, seats held by the Conservatives in which the governing party received less than 50 per cent of the vote would be targeted for co-operation.

She would blend the 2008 and 2011 results, to eliminate any onetime anomalies. One such anomaly, she said, was the Jack Layton-led 2011 NDP conquest of Quebec.

Now, one of the main criticisms of strategic voting schemes has been their inevitable reliance on re-fighting the last war - with results ranging from ineffective to downright counterproductive.

But Murray apparently isn't satisfied with even that well-established level of failure. Instead, she's going a step further into the past, seeking to incorporate yet another layer of past (and outdated) data from the 2008 election in order to try to make her proposal palatable among supporters who apparently want to live in denial that the most recent federal election actually happened.

Moreover, she's explicitly declaring that a plan nominally aimed at expanding the number of progressive seats in Parliament will operate on the assumption that the largest actual grouping of such seats is an irrelevant "anomaly". (Not that the NDP's success in winning Quebec ridings from the Cons and Bloc would be subject to her cooperation plan in the first place - as in another familiar failing of strategic voting schemes, Murray doesn't seem to recognize that a viable coalition needs to hold and build on the seats it actually holds rather than simply assuming the rest of the election will proceed exactly like the previous one.)

Again, I normally wouldn't wade into another party's leadership campaign. But a candidate trying to run on cross-party cooperation can't expect to avoid questions as to whether her plan represents a slap in the face rather than an outstretched hand. And Murray's desire to dismiss the 2011 election and the enduring growth of the NDP falls squarely into the former category - meaning that anybody seeking a standard-bearer for a progressive coalition needs to look elsewhere.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Public Interest Alberta takes a closer look at that province's rhetoric about taxes, and finds that in fact most Albertans pay more income tax than they would under the more fair and progressive systems applied in other province:

“Albertans who believe the myth that we pay the lowest taxes in Canada will be surprised to see that they are paying more income tax than if they lived in BC or Ontario. At the same time, people in Alberta with very high incomes are paying tens of thousands less in income tax than in other parts of Canada,” said Bill Moore-Kilgannon, Executive Director of Public Interest Alberta.

An Albertan with a taxable income of $1 million will pay $41,095 less than if they lived in BC and $75,157 less than if they lived in Ontario. However, an Albertan with a taxable income of $70,000 will pay $1434 more than if they lived in BC and $919 more than if they lived in Ontario.

- Andrew Jackson rebuts a few of the zombie arguments against higher minimum wages. And Scott Clark and Peter DeVries highlight not only why there's ample reason for concern about the federal budget, but also why Jim Flaherty's obsession with austerity and naive faith in the confidence fairy may cause yet more economic problems in the years to come.

- Meanwhile, Chantal Hebert wonders whether the Cons' move to claw back billions of dollars for EI training will lead to a backlash from the provinces involved. And that's doubly so given the question of whether the Cons' purpose has anything at all to do with achieving results, or whether it's simply a matter of wanting to be able to engage in another round of gratuitous self-promotion.

- Geoffrey Stevens and the Macleans editorial board both make the case that it's time to take a serious look at abolishing the Senate.

- Finally, Frances Russell contrasts Preston Manning's one-time concern with building a party and a movement which would be broadly acceptable to the Canadian public against his current embrace of Ron Paul and other dubious figures.

Selling the lie

Shorter Brad Wall:

Of course neither Stephen Harper nor any of his provincial mini-petro-states has any interest in actually dealing with climate change. But as long as we rev up our PR machine to claim otherwise, surely Barack Obama will be none the wiser.