Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Andrew Simms and Stephen Reid note that the corporatist dogma that everything is done more efficiently in the private sector has no apparent basis in reality:

The myth of private sector superiority says that the private sector is efficient and dynamic, the public sector wasteful and slow; that the more we can get the private sector to run things the better. That the head of a massive public enterprise like the Olympics can so blithely discount what underpins it demonstrates its reach. In fact, while billboard adverts said we had commercial sponsors to thank for every minute of pulsating Olympic action, as little as 6% of costs were met from sponsorship.

The myth is effectively government policy. In 2010 David Cameron spelled out his priorities for government which were to use, "all available policy levers," to make it easier for the private sector to "create a new economic dynamism". The following year Cameron announced that he was "taking on the enemies of enterprise", which included the "bureaucrats in government departments" and the "town hall officials". The chancellor, George Osborne, claimed it wasn't just that the one sphere was generally better than the other. He argued that the public sector was "crowding out" the private sector and needed cutting back.

But, what of the evidence of private sector efficiency? Public subsidy to Britain's railways rose dramatically following privatisation. Famously, the failure of Metronet Rail's contract to work on the infrastructure of London Underground was estimated to have cost the public purse more than £400m. Meanwhile, it was recently revealed that the single remaining state-run mainline rail service requires less public subsidy than any of the 15 privately run rail franchises in Britain.

Healthcare is typically much more expensive in countries with heavily privatised systems. As the figure below demonstrates, in 2008, the United States, with predominantly private healthcare, spent around $7,000 per person on health. The NHS spent around half that sum per person, yet, judging by outcomes such as life expectancy at birth, the NHS did just as well.
...
Private sector dynamism versus public sector inefficiency has been the dominant political narrative of the last few decades. It has supplied the excuse for repeated, one-directional upheaval in many of the services that we rely on, and which are essential to our quality of life. At best, evidence of private sector superiority is missing. At worst, such lazy assumptions can cost lives as well as money. The public sphere in its broadest sense can be more efficient, more effective and better for human dignity. That is not to argue against innovation. On the contrary, innovation is desperately needed to reintroduce the human element to how things are run.

And lest there be any doubt, the anti-public-sector dogma is also the official public policy of both the Harper Cons and many provincial governments.

- Haroon Siddiqui continues his call for a moratorium on temporary foreign workers lest we end up with a two-tier society. Mark Carney issues his own warning about importing temporary workers for the purpose of driving down Canadian wages. And Karl Fiecker goes into detail about the Cons’ TFW pipeline:

The latest estimates suggest close to 500,000 people are in Canada with temporary work permits, the vast majority of whom have little prospect of becoming permanent residents. This is equivalent to the entire paid labour force of Nova Scotia.

Much attention has focused on the government’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), which under the Harper government has doubled in size since 2006. This program alone accounts for the nearly 340,000 temporary workers present in the country at the end of 2012.

Most surprising has been the tremendous growth in the pipeline called the Intra-Company Transfer (ICT) visa option, which is likely what RBC/iGate used in trying to displace Dave Moreau and his colleagues.

The ICT visa option allows employers to avoid the oversight of the Labour Market Opinion (LMO) process, which requires employers to meet just six rules. Two of the rules are to assess if the employer attempted to hire or train available workers within Canada and to require assurances any imported worker will receive substantially the same wages and benefits.

Since coming to power, the Harper government has boosted the use of these LMO-exempt visas from 70,000 in 2006 to 120,000 in 2011.

How did this happen and why did we know so little about it?

For one thing, the temporary worker pipeline is not mentioned in the government’s ubiquitous "Canada's Economic Action Plan" ads, even though it is clearly one of the cornerstones of a policy to drive down wages and working conditions and make the country an even "friendlier" place for business. In fact, 30 per cent of all net new jobs created in Canada between 2007 and 2011 were filled with temporary workers from outside the country.

Curiously, the day after CBC told Moreau's story to the country, detailed information on the number of approved passes granted to employers to import temporary workers was pulled off a government website. At a moment when the national media was paying attention to the issue, it was difficult to document the trends in the use of the program.

But make no mistake: the rise in the use of this program has relied on systematic changes to increase the pipeline of temporary workers into all areas of the economy, starting with the inclusion, in Budget 2007, of these few words: "Employers may recruit workers for any legally recognized occupation from any country."

- Dave Coles documents the regressive policy included in the Saskatchewan Party’s Bill 85.

- Finally, Kathleen Monk catches the Fraser Institute trying to set Canadian progress back 50 years, and reminds us just what that would entail:

(I)f you and I were to jump into the DeLorean piloted by Dr. Emmett Brown and travel back to 1961 Canada, here’s what we would find:

• No Medicare
• No Canada Pension Plan
• Meagre Old Age Security benefits that gave us high levels of poverty for seniors
• A post-secondary education system that was open only to the rich and the very, very, talented
• And, significantly for my gender, the pay gap between men and women was wider than the James Bay.

On top of that, back in the Fraser Institute’s version of the good old days, the essentials of food, clothing, and shelter consumed 56.5% of the family budget compared to 36.9% today with most of the difference going to taxes.

Somehow the Fraser Institute have turned falling food and clothing prices (over time) into a bad thing.

New column day

Here, on how the one point of agreement about the environmental impact of the tar sands is that we still don't have enough information to so much as evaluate the effects of the industry at the core of the Harper Cons' economic strategy.

For further reading...
- The Canada-Alberta Oil Sands Environmental Monitoring Information Portal is here, with the disclaimer mentioned in the column here.
- CBC reports on the EPA response (PDF) to the State Department's current environmental assessment of Keystone XL.
- And Joe Oliver is doing what Joe Oliver does by publicly bashing climate science in the apparent belief that it will smooth a path for Keystone XL. (Though it is a bit unfair to describe him as Canada's ”oil minister” when the bulk of the federal cabinet - including the Prime Minister - is no less preoccupied with doing the bidding of the sector.)
- Finally, the latest on the Giant Mine cleanup bill is here. And as a reminder of the scale of cleanup we're going to be looking at with the tar sands...

On selective equity

Boy, it's reassuring to see the Sask Party lamenting the unfairness of a 15-fold difference in treatment between groups of landowners.

I'm sure they'll be getting to Saskatchewan's contribution to the 235-fold difference in salary between CEOs and the rest of us any day now.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- George Monbiot discusses the fallout from decades of corporate-controlled governments abdicating their responsibility to consider the public interest:

In other ages, states sought to seize as much power as they could. Today, the self-hating state renounces its powers. Governments anathematise governance. They declare their role redundant and illegitimate. They launch furious assaults on their own branches, seeking wherever possible to lop them off.

This self-mutilation is a response to the fact that power has shifted. States now operate at the behest of others. Deregulation, privatisation, the shrinking of the scope, scale and spending of the state: these are now seen as the only legitimate policies. The corporations and billionaires to whom governments defer will have it no other way.

Just as taxation tends to redistribute wealth, regulation tends to redistribute power. A democratic state controls and contains powerful interests on behalf of the powerless.
...
This is an example of what happens in a market-based system: any clash between generating profit and protecting the natural world is resolved in favour of business, often with the help of junk science. Only those components of the ecosystem that can be commodified and sold are defended. Nature is worthy of protection when it is profitable to business. The moment it ceases to be so, it loses its social value and can be trashed. As prices fluctuate or crash, so do the fortunes of the ecosystems they are supposed to protect. As financial markets move in, with the help of the environmental bonds and securitisations the taskforce champions, the defence of nature becomes ever more volatile and uncertain. The living planet is reduced to a subsidiary of the human economy.

When governments pretend they no longer need to govern, when they pretend that a world regulated by bankers, corporations and the profit motive is a better world than one regulated by voters and their representatives, nothing is safe. All systems of government are flawed. But few are as flawed as those controlled by private money.

- And Jonathan Bernstein rightly describes Republicans in particular as having left the very idea of public policy in the rear-view mirror.

- Mike de Souza reports on the attempts of the Harper Cons and the Redford PCs to claim that air and water pollution from the tar sands doesn't count because they'd rather people not think about it. And Frances Russell writes that Canadians are once again being left out of any say and any consideration in decisions about our publicly-owned resources.

- Pat Atkinson reviews the dangers of unduly relying on temporary foreign workers:

The temporary foreign worker program is supposed to allow employers to hire foreign workers only when Canadians or permanent residents aren't available to fill the job. In most cases employers can access the program only after they have obtained a Labour Market Opinion confirming the unavailability of Canadians to fill the vacant positions.

Currently the use of temporary foreign workers in some parts of Canada has nothing to do with a shortage of skilled workers, and everything to do with maximizing profits. Stephen Harper's Conservative government changed the rules a year ago, allowing employers to bring in overseas workers at wages that can be as much as 15 per cent below the average regional rate for a particular occupation.

(W)hat about those who are looking for work, such as unemployed Canadian miners who are being replaced by temporary workers from China? What about those information technology employees at RBC who are being replaced by temporary foreign workers?
Why did Finley's ministry give approval in the first place to HD Mining bringing in 200 workers from China, and to the outsourcer retained by RBC to bring in workers to replace 45 bank employees?

Outsourcing is about replacing middle-income domestic employees with lower wage workers abroad. Importing temporary workers to many sectors of the economy with a 15 per cent wage differential is about lowering wages and not having to pay benefits to Canadians.

We as Canadians need to think about how this will affect our young people and their future. If we are all a bunch of low wage earners, who will pay for important public services such as health care or education? As for the banks, who will be able to qualify for one of their mortgages?

- Finally, Laurie Monsebraaten reports on the CCPA's appalling finding that we're 228 years away from achieving gender equality in Canada.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Confined cats.

On distinctions

I've already pointed out the NDP's opportunity to differentiate itself from the Libs as a truly progressive party. And the Libs' corporatist votes against democratic decision-making and basic civil liberties will certainly help that cause.

But if it's possible to draw a clear distinction between Mulcair and Trudeau on basic knowledge of current events, then so much the better:

Mulcair told reporters after question period that the ruling did affirm that Page “had the right to demand those documents” (ie. the information from departments) in the first place.

He was referring to paragraph five of the ruling, which stated that, “neither on the basis of parliamentary privilege nor on the principles of statutory interpretation has Parliament reserved the right for itself to answer Mr. Page’s questions. That task falls upon this court.”

Mulcair told reporters that this effectively destroyed the Senate’s attempt to argue that the PBO’s mandate clarification had breached parliamentary privilege.

“The so-called privilege that existed of Parliament that the government was trying to set up as a barricade for him getting that information was false. That whole argument fell flat and the judge didn’t accept it,” he said.

Mulcair then looked to the future.

“I think that this decision is so solid and so categorical that the Conservatives can’t play their game of continuing to try to shut down the Parliamentary Budget Officer, that any future (PBO) will be able to use that judgment to demand the documents and everything will be fine with that,” he said. “I don’t think that any further litigation is required. I think that the judgment is crystal clear in that regard.”
...
A few minutes after Mulcair left the microphone in the Foyer of the House of Commons, almost two hours after the Court delivered its ruling, Trudeau stepped forward. Asked for a comment on matter, Trudeau simply said, “I’m not aware of the court’s decision yet.”

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- The Broadbent Institute's "Union Communities, Healthy Communities" report discusses the significance of the labour movement in achieving positive social outcomes. And Rick Smith concurrently writes that the right's attacks on unions represent a solution in search of a problem:

(W)hen unions are strong, the gains that they make for their members in terms of decent wages and benefits spill over into non-union workplaces. In the face of Canadian conservatives trying to portray unions as some kind of impediment to economic growth and productivity, actually examining this empirical evidence is instructive.

Economists agree that the rapidly rising share of all income going to the top 1% in the US and Canada since the early 1980s is explained in significant part by declining unionization. US-style de-unionization would clearly make Canada a much more unequal society than is already the case.

And calculations by respected international organizations such as the OECD and the World Bank also show that countries with strong labour movements are more equal and inclusive, and often have very successful economies. Unions recognize that high productivity is the key to decent wages and good jobs, and many successful companies recognize that good labour relations benefit both parties to the agreement.

- But then, it's probably true that the most fervent union-bashers are among those who see democracy itself as a problem. In that vein, Doug Vaessen and Tamara Elliott report on one developer's explicit plan to take over Calgary's city council with pawns who won't "(forget) to vote the right way". And there looks to be an obvious connection between the corporate takeover of a city council, and the tens of millions of corporate dollars funnelled to the likes of the B.C. Libs.

- Meanwhile, the Star reveals another example of the illusion of participatory democracy - finding that the Cons' goals in dealing with First Nations consist primarily of ensuring that the corporate sector gets what it wants, while responsibility for any social issues gets downloaded onto the same chiefs who are supposed to forfeit any control over resources.

- Finally, Scott Stelmaschuk nicely analyzes the Saskatchewan Party's inability to accept LGBT2Q students:

We need to break down this idea that there is anything wrong or 'sinful' about homosexual behaviour; and more importantly, we need to let LGBT2Q youth know that there are people out there who care for them and support them exactly as they are. These kids need to know that they are 'normal', and that there is nothing wrong with them, and GSAs provide the best venue to create such a system.

We have a Premier who seems to be unable to even say the word 'gay', and was evasive on the question of whether he believed homosexuality was a choice. (He did hem and haw, though he did eventually concede that from what he 'knew' of it from people that it wasn't....though it still left quite a bit of doubt over whether or not he actually sees it as a choice as he never actually gave his opinion...)

We don't need to let another generation grow up where 'gay' is muttered as an insult; or worse, where people can't even mutter the word at all. 

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Paul Adams rightly points out that there's no inherent value in centrism merely for the sake of centrism - especially when the spectrum of choices is itself shaped by decades of distorted assumptions:

(T)he reality of modern politics is that the muddled middle is no answer at all to the issues facing us. On economic and social policy, what divides Canadians is their attitude towards three decades of market-liberating policies that have weakened our middle class, increased inequality, corroded social programs, undermined the ability of working people to negotiate a living wage, and left us all more vulnerable and insecure.

There is certainly a discussion to be had about how quickly and by what means these policies should be moderated, revised or reversed — and issues of priority, pace and technique may divide the Liberals and the NDP.

But first, both parties need to decide whether they really stand for a change in direction or not.

This is even more starkly true on the issue of climate change. The last time they were in office, the Liberals talked a great deal about it but did absolutely nothing. This is one issue on which finding a middle ground between action and inaction probably means not doing enough and condemning our children to an uncertain future.

- And contrary to some poorly-defined complaints, there's a clear choice between the NDP and the Libs when it comes to the FIPA - with the NDP actually challenging the deal absent some explanation as to how it's supposed to improve matters for Canadians, while the Libs hew to the line that any criticism of a free trade agreement is heresy.

- Meanwhile, Matt McClure reports on Alberta's willingness to let $120 million in corporate taxes get funnelled offshore. And Ramsey Hart and John Jacobs highlight the fact that Ontario is giving away its resources at fire-sale prices - even as the Lib government there slashes corporate taxes and services in the face of an eleven-figure deficit.

- Finally, Paul Krugman discusses how a similar focus on prioritizing corporate interests and financial markets over workers has turned out for the unemployed in the U.S.:

Mr. Ghayad then did an experiment, sending out résumés describing the qualifications and employment history of 4,800 fictitious workers. Who got called back? The answer was that workers who reported having been unemployed for six months or more got very few callbacks, even when all their other qualifications were better than those of workers who did attract employer interest.

So we are indeed creating a permanent class of jobless Americans.

And let’s be clear: this is a policy decision. The main reason our economic recovery has been so weak is that, spooked by fear-mongering over debt, we’ve been doing exactly what basic macroeconomics says you shouldn’t do — cutting government spending in the face of a depressed economy.

It’s hard to overstate how self-destructive this policy is. Indeed, the shadow of long-term unemployment means that austerity policies are counterproductive even in purely fiscal terms. Workers, after all, are taxpayers too; if our debt obsession exiles millions of Americans from productive employment, it will cut into future revenues and raise future deficits.

Sunday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Sunday reading.

- I wouldn't go as far as Haroon Siddiqui in suggesting that all temporary foreign worker programs be shut down entirely (at least absent some concurrent change to encourage a flow of new workers who are able to set down roots in Canada). But he's dead on in his scathing assessment of the Cons' current version:

Now Canada is flooded with temporary workers — 338,189 as of December 2012. In fact, there may be more. Ottawa has no way of knowing how many stayed behind at the end of their temporary visas. Canada has no exit controls.

They were all brought in ostensibly because of extensive skilled labour shortages.
But with 1.33 million jobless, there’s no shortage of labour for the 250,000 job vacancies. That’s nearly six jobless Canadians for every available job.

As for skills shortages, there are certainly some. But look at where the temporary workers landed, as the Globe and Mail has done.

Its sector-by-sector breakdown shows that only 9,300 of the 338,000 workers ended up in scientific and technical services. Less than 17,000 are in the manufacturing sector, and only 19,000 in construction. The highest number, 44,745, are in accommodation and food services.

That’s your foreign worker pouring coffee at Tim Hortons, baking pizzas at Boston Pizza, making beds at some motel and tending to a senior citizen somewhere.

...The real issue is that Canadians don’t want those jobs, certainly not at the wages on offer. So the skills shortages mantra is a bit of a scam.

- Meanwhile, Marc Zwelling notes that RBC's version of offshoring may have hit closer to home for some citizens since it reflected a loss of white-collar work - while hinting at the fact that we should be equally concerned about deliberate attempts to attack wages throughout Canada's economy. And Frank Graves looks at Canadians' attitudes toward immigration - predictably finding far more anti-immigrant animus among the Cons than among other parties' supporters (which might explain the Cons' preference for shuffling new imports out of the country again once employers are done with them).

- Allan Gregg writes about the effects of attack ads on public perceptions of government. But he glosses over one rather important point: the Cons and other right-wing parties may well see it as a plus to discredit both their political opponents, and the idea of accomplishing anything worthwhile through democratic action.

- Finally, for those who haven't yet seen PSAC's ad on the Cons' environmental destruction, it's well worth a look:

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Daniel Cohn theorizes that the only real problem with RBC's outsourcing of Canadian jobs is that they called attention to the government policies which facilitated that outcome. But for those of us who think there's actually a problem with an economy designed around minimizing wages and employment, Susan McIsaac and Matthew Mendelsohn offer some suggestions to turn the tide. And Tavia Grant points out that the Cons' preference for cheap, disposable foreign labour might help employers, but certainly doesn't produce positive results for Canada as a whole.

- In the same vein, Andrew Jackson discusses how the last great set of attacks on workers in the name of economic efficiency proved an utter failure in producing any policy outcome other than increased inequality:

Thatcherism did not provide an enduring solution to the problem of how to attain stable growth. Business profitability was indeed restored, but this did not flow though into much higher levels of productive investment. In both Britain and the United States (especially the former), finance expanded as a share of the economy at the expense of industry, which has collapsed.

London has become the most important global financial centre and home base to much of the global oligarchy, leading to great wealth for a few and many low-paid jobs catering to their needs. Meanwhile, much of the rest of the country, the cradle of the Industrial Revolution, has never fully recovered from massive de-industrialization.

In Britain, as in the United States, “flexible” labour markets and the erosion of unionization led to the decoupling of wages from productivity growth, making growth dangerously dependent upon an unsustainable inflation of house prices and the growth of household debt.

A hands-off approach to regulation of business also set the stage for the growth of a speculative and destructive financial system, which would have collapsed in 2008 if the government had not come to the rescue.

Thatcherism did nothing to raise the living standards of the great majority. In the Britain, as in the U.S. and Canada, the incomes of the great majority have stagnated in real terms since the early 1980s, as most of the fruits of economic growth have gone to the top 1 per cent. Economic security was undermined by deep cuts to unemployment insurance and public pensions, and by the erosion of public services.

Margaret Thatcher was indeed a pivotal historical figure. But her legacy is one of heightened inequality, economic stagnation and instability.

- Chantal Hebert points out the limitations on the Cons' attack strategy:

If the Conservative black ops against Trudeau succeed, a significant chunk of those voters could be as likely if not more to turn to a centrist-led NDP as to want to help Harper secure a fourth mandate.

That trend is not based strictly on a cyclical tide for change. At this juncture an overwhelming majority of Canadians — around 70 per cent — agree as to the prime minister that they do not want, even if it means replacing Harper with an untested Liberal leader or an untried federal NDP.

Harper’s predicament is more akin to a multiplication of slow leaks than a major puncture. That could make it harder to fix. To reduce the current battle to a personality contest that can be won with attack ads is to miss the central point that it is also unfolding on the field of values.

Polls suggest that despite sustained Conservative efforts, Canadians are more likely to identify with Liberal- or NPD-inspired policies such as the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and medicare than with the favoured icons of the Canadian right. 

- And Bruce Johnstone notes that the Cons' attacks on Justin Trudeau are far from the first inaccurate ads of their majority tenure:

In the Machiavellian world of politics as practised in Ottawa these days, the end justifies the means. If defeating Justin Trudeau or NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair can be achieved by attack ads, so be it.

Case in point, Mulcair was vilified in Tory attack ads for his comments that Canada was showing symptoms of Dutch disease, in which the manufacturing sector suffers declining output and competitiveness as a result of high exchange rates caused by high energy prices.

Yet a recent study by Statistics Canada indicates that Central Canada saw the largest decline in economic output and labour productivity between 2000 and 2010. And the Ontario and Quebec manufacturing sectors bore the brunt of that decline. At the same time, there was a shift in capital investment from east to west due to increased investment in the natural resources sector. And what were the reasons for this shift in capital investment, economic output and labour productivity? Changes in exchange rates, commodity prices and global competition, the study said.

Sounds a lot like Dutch disease to me.

- Finally, Mike de Souza continues his run of important reports on the Cons' environmental policy - first by highlighting the Cons' willingness to give Exxon a veto over the terms of a new national park (featuring approval to drill horizontally under Sable Island), then by pointing out that tens of millions of dollars of public money are being used for research intended to do nothing but benefit tar sands operators.

Musical interlude

Tritonal - Piercing Quiet (Air Up There Remix)

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Friday reading.

- Julian Beltrame writes about the reality that Canada has multiple workers available to fill every job - with an assist from Erin Weir:

The case for job shortages in Canada became thinner Tuesday with the most recent data showing vacancies actually fell to 200,000 at the start of the year, meaning there were 6.5 unemployed workers chasing each opening.
...
“This is a striking low job vacancy number and it really casts doubt on this idea that we have a labour shortage,” said Erin Weir, a labour economist with the United Steelworkers union.

“I think most of this idea of labour shortages is based on anecdotes from the business community. They might have a different definition of a labour shortage. Employers might believe that if they can’t get the employees they want at the wages they are prepared to offer — that’s a labour shortage.”

...

“There’s always the possibility of a specific shortage of specific skills in a particular location, but of course the long-term solution is for more local residents to acquire the needed skills, or for workers with those skills to relocate to that area,” he said.

“The temporary foreign workers program actually works against that by often allowing employers to fill vacancies without offering training or increasing wages.”

- Meanwhile, Alison points out the connection between CBC's Amanda Lang and a group which has relentlessly been promoting the offshoring of Canadian jobs.

- Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher report that the Cons' preferred contractors don't look to be any more competent or socially responsible than the governing party itself - as the main telemarketer for the Cons is facing bankruptcy while owing nearly $1 million in unpaid taxes and wage assessments.

- Finally, Sean Shaw makes the case for Saskatoon to invest in sorely-needed roads and other infrastructure, rather than buying into the constant Chamber of Commerce demand for perpetually-lower taxes.

On giveaways

CBC reports some of the numbers surrounding the Wall government's planned giveaway of the majority of Saskatchewan's Information Service Corporation. But let's take a closer look at exactly what Wall intends to do - and what the province is losing in the process.

Let's make the generous assumption that a share sale will result in the higher valuation mooted by Don McMorris. Conveniently, that would mean that a 60% share of ISC would cost $120 million - establishing a nice, round $200 million valuation for ISC as a whole.

At the moment, the roughly $20 million in annual profits would mean that Saskatchewan's citizens are getting a 10% return on our ownership of ISC. Which, needless to say, represents an absolutely stellar return on capital compared to any evaluation of borrowing costs or normal rates of profit - something to be preserved, not to be discarded at the first opportunity.

Now, McMorris is trying to claim that corporate taxes (yes, the very same ones slashed by the Sask Party) will make up the difference. So let's do the math on that claim - assuming no tax avoidance at all by the new purchaser, and even giving the Sask Party the benefit of current corporate tax rates which they plan to lower.

If the province sells 60% of the shares in ISC, then its returns will be $8 million in direct profits (40% of the current $20 million), plus $1.44 million in corporate taxes (12% corporate tax rate * $12 million in corporate profits), for a total of $9.44 million per year.

So the baseline scenario after a sale will involve losing $10.56 million every year in exchange for a one-time injection of $120 million. Or in other words, a deliberate choice to borrow the $120 million at an effective interest rate of 8.8% - rather than through, say, the sale of Saskatchewan Savings Bonds at rates as low as 1%.

But what about the promise that ISC might grow outside the province and boost the corporate tax returns? Well, it's only the Saskatchewan Party's own ill-advised direction that's preventing a publicly-owned ISC from exploring that strategy in the first place - meaning that a simple and reasonable change in policy would allow for exactly the same process with all returns being enjoyed by the public.

In any event, though, ISC would have to increase in profitability by a factor of 8 to make up the gap between direct public profits, and trying to recoup the same money through corporate taxes after a share sale. And that certainly doesn't seem like a realistic prospect anytime in the near future - particularly if it's looking at having to spend money developing services outside Saskatchewan.

And all of the above assumes the best-case scenario - that ISC remains in the hands of shareholders who seek to build on its operations rather than extracting its current value. But there's another possibility as well: a takeover by vulture capitalists who dilute the value of the province's shares by borrowing against the anticipated value of the company.

Under that scenario, the $120 million in share sales could be matched by an equal $120 million in debt taken on by ISC, reducing the effective value of the corporation to $80 million and the province's holding to $32 million. And if the takeover managed to put the corporation into a tough financial position, then the province would be on the hook to figure out a way to keep ISC's systems functional - as its work involves important public services which can't simply be abandoned in the event of corporate failure.

Meanwhile, the $120 million in value currently held by the province would be skimmed off the top for the benefit of the few operators who manage to wriggle their way into the middle of the deal (then escape before any of the fallout becomes apparent).

Sadly, that result would be far too consistent with Brad Wall's idea as to how an economy should operate. But there's no realistic scenario where an outside takeover could possibly create better returns than the stable, 10% return on capital we currently enjoy as a province. And we should be nothing but skeptical of the Sask Party's glibertarian claims that we'll all be better off if we find ways to siphon that return into the hands of the corporate sector.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Ellie Mae O'Hagan and Nicholas Shaxson annihilate the claim that perpetually lowering corporate and upper-income tax rates offers any competitive advantage:

Tax "competition", it turns out, is always harmful. First, while people rarely move in response to tax changes – flighty financial capital does move. Governments "compete" for it by cutting tax rates on mobile capital (which means, in effect, cutting taxes on the rich.) And if you're not taxing the rich, you've got to make that up elsewhere. How do you do that? You tax people who can't afford to move, and can't afford to complain. The poor end up paying more.

Second, tax "competition" gives big business an unfair, unproductive advantage. Every "competitive" tax system has tax avoidance built into it – whether through low taxes, or by allowing the use of tax loopholes, and so on. Usually it's only larger multinationals that can afford the expensive tax lawyers and accountants necessary to harvest these tax subsidies. So they can use the offshore system to drive smaller, more locally based competitors to the wall – on a factor that has nothing to do with genuine business productivity or true innovation.

Tax "competition" is economic warfare, where countries fight over businesses by lowering taxes. In the United States, for example, an in-depth New York Times report provides an example of how bad the problem has become:

"A recent bidding war [between US states] for United Airlines … drew more than 90 cities. The airline had set up negotiations in a hotel, and its representatives ran floor to floor comparing bids. Jim Edgar, then the governor of Illinois, called for a truce, but many states would not sign on, he said."

...
Above all, investors want good roads, a healthy and educated workforce, and the rule of law. All of which mean tax. And let's not forget what else taxes are used for: to care for the sick, to educate our children, and to look after the vulnerable. Whenever you hear a politician utter the words "competitive tax system", it's probably an indication they have no idea what they're talking about. Tax "competition" is economic warfare: a beggar-my-neighbour race to the bottom, worse than a zero-sum game. It is always harmful.

- Meanwhile, Martin Regg Cohn notes that Canadians are starting to become duly skeptical of big banks who have been among the foremost advocates and beneficiaries of corporate tax giveaways. And Clayton Ruby makes the case for being equally skeptical when oil barons claim that their short-term profits should be the sole focus of public policy.

- Marc Jaccard argues that the U.S. should reject Keystone XL - while recognizing that the effect won't be to end the use of fossil fuels in the short term, but merely to encourage a longer-term transition toward sustainable energy.

- Pat Atkinson reasonably suggests that Saskatchewan might be better off using public money to improve its education system rather than following through on the Wall government's mandatory testing scheme:

Let's take that $6 million and begin to put together an early learning and care system that includes day care, pre-kindergarten and full-day kindergarten, all with a play-based learning curriculum led by qualified early learning and care professionals. Play-based learning is not about children sitting in desks.

This approach will lead to a more successful high school completion rate in our province and ultimately get us what we all want - better results. Let's not waste our tax dollars on an approach that simply doesn't work.

- Finally, Michael Harris wonders whether there will be anybody left to make policy suggestions to a Con government whose modus operandi is to refuse to listen anyway:

(T)here are two things the Harper government hates: criticism, and sources of information other than those ministerial manure machines that go by the name of government communications. Who would have thought that spinning gold into straw could ever be so big?

So far, the Harper government has managed to rid itself of a great many obstacles to its practice of decision-based evidence to support an agenda that is rarely declared. So many evidence-based riders — experts, knowledge-lovers, rationalists — have been shot off their horses.

The long form census died, (even though its replacement cost $30 million more) because it professionally gathered nuanced information that got in the way of governing by ideology.

The Experimental Lakes Area was erased because its scientists might have come up with irrefutable reasons to reconsider the breakneck development of the tar sands at all costs.

The Law Reform Commission was put out of business because some of the brightest legal minds in the country thought too much about constitutional and legal considerations that might create inescapable restraints for political bullies.

And now the Health Council of Canada.

New column day

Here, building off of my previous analysis on the current positioning of Canada's federal parties.

For further reading, see:
- Bob Hepburn and Carol Goar on the purpose and effect of attack ads in general; and
- Andrew Coyne on the Cons' particular brand of personal attack, featuring some suggestions to reduce the amount of negative advertising.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Thomas Walkom points out that banks are far from the only corporations who are conspicuously moving jobs offshore to the detriment of Canadian workers and citizens:

Unions are being ground down; wages are being ground down. Jobs are being ground out of existence. With the economy so weak and foreign competition so fierce, domestic firms find it harder to expand.

For many, the only solution is to squeeze their workers.

Before the Great Recession, goods moved easily across borders. So did capital.
But what’s new about this slump is that labour has become an equally fluid component of the production process.

Sometimes labour moves physically. The federal temporary foreign worker program is designed to shift individual labourers swiftly and painlessly into Canada in order to accelerate the downward pressure on wages here.

Sometimes, as the Royal Bank has demonstrated, jobs move at the flick of a switch. The physical workers remain in Canada. But their work moves abroad.

 - The Cons are trying to justify cutting the public out of any review of future pipeline development by shrieking about people "gaming the system" - in contrast to, say, the oil industry which simply owns it. And they're also apparently equally concerned about the inherent unfairness involved in allowing the Chief Electoral Officer to offer unwanted knowledge and perspective about Canada's election rules.

- Meanwhile, Matt O'Brien highlights the fact that the main case for austerity can be traced back not just to questionable theories, but to obviously-flawed arithmetic. Which isn't to say that anybody on the right is above declaring that 2+2=panda if it means an excuse to attack public services.

- And in that vein, it shouldn't be a surprise that the Health Council of Canada is the latest institution to face demolition at the hands of the Cons.

- Finally, Joe Fiorito writes about Marc Hamel's observations on the costs of poverty in Ontario:

He noted something that you, I hope, already know: if you live in poverty as a child, there’s a 20 per cent chance you will live in poverty as an adult.

His best guess, based on reading and research? “If we could help this 20 per cent with skill training and higher education, the income gain for Ontario would be $3.2 billion a year.”

He puts the total cost of child poverty in Ontario at anywhere between $4.6 billion and $5.9 billion a year. And then he talked about lost opportunity.

“If we were able to increase the income and participation of the lowest quintile of income earners, and raise their incomes to the second quintile, the benefit to the Ontario economy would be over $16 billion a year.”

He also noted that, if we did so, there would be an increase in tax revenues of $4 billion.
But here’s the real money quote: “In total, poverty costs the residents of Ontario a staggering $32 billion to $38 billion a year — the equivalent of over 5 per cent of provincial GDP.”

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Chin-resting cats.

The first move

Following up on this morning's post on the federal political scene, I'll offer a few observations on the Cons' immediate attack ad against Justin Trudeau:



Now, I've pointed out before that the Cons' previous attack ads against Lib leaders succeeded precisely because they made claims which were so vague as to be unfalsifiable. And by that standard, there would indeed be substantial risk in an attempt to define Trudeau as comic relief (which would seemingly allow him to defeat the Cons' definition simply by avoiding the most massive of gaffes) or as inexperienced (which falls under the category of self-defeating criticisms as a leader spends more time in the public eye).

But I have to wonder whether the first salvo against Trudeau is less an indication of the Cons' ultimate plan to define him, and more a form of inoculation against future scenes like this.

The Libs will naturally want to build up a unique persona for the man who holds their party's future in his hands. But the Cons will now have a ready-made counter to any step outside the political straight and narrow - with any originality on Trudeau's part framed as evidence of a dilettante "in over his head" rather than a distinctive personality. And the flat-out falsehoods within the Cons' ad will seem far less significant in the long run if Trudeau's actions make the underlying theme seem plausible - forcing the Libs into some much more complicated calculations as to how to set Trudeau apart without risking the Cons' message sticking to him.

Meanwhile, the Cons also look to have signaled that at least for now, they're more intent on dealing with Trudeau than managing risks posed by both the NDP and the Libs - as both points of criticism within the ad involve areas of strength for Tom Mulcair. (Hence my suspicion that Stephen Harper may be placing a greater emphasis on destroying the Libs for good than on his own likelihood of holding onto power in 2015.)

Stephen's Choice

Karl Nerenberg offers one comparative look at how the NDP and the Libs are positioned for the next few years after this weekend's conventions which saw Tom Mulcair resoundingly confirmed as the NDP's leader and Justin Trudeau anointed as the Libs'. But I'll take a bit of time to discuss the wider political scene - and how the most important choice over the next few years may still lie in the hands of Stephen Harper and his party.

While media coverage of polls inevitably tends toward proclaiming a horse race, the trend since Trudeau has instead pointed toward another possibility: for the foreseeable future, we figure to be in a true three-party system, where relatively small shifts can create plausible scenarios in which each of the NDP, Libs and Cons has a path to power. And the range of possible outcomes is only heightened by the respective positions of the NDP and the Libs - who can be seen as exemplifying the fable of the tortoise and the hare.

For the NDP, the next steps look mostly to involve continued progress along the party's existing trajectory. While the 2011 Quebec breakthrough may have provided a bit more public attention and a stronger base in Parliament than expected, the path ahead still means implementing the strategy first developed when Jack Layton won the leadership over a decade ago - including consolidating the NDP's hold over progressive policy positions (as Frank Graves points out), further outreach to groups who haven't been sufficiently included before, and slowly but surely building Mulcair's reputation as a strong and steady leader defined by a commitment to social democratic causes ignored by the other two official parties.

For the Libs, on the other hand, the only goal for the moment is to catch lightning in a bottle. As Andrew Coyne notes, the entire party is now focused entirely on Justin Trudeau alone, which creates both obvious opportunities and significant dangers. It's possible that the Libs may be able to harness an immediate outpouring of attention to jump-start the fund-raising, volunteer and activist bases needed to support a government-in-waiting. But the Libs are effectively starting from scratch yet again in trying to assemble those pieces - and if Trudeau loses his political celebrity status before they're in place, then that may well be the end of the party as a viable political force.

Which leads us to the most interesting factor to watch over the next few years.

Stephen Harper's time as the Cons' leader has been defined primarily by two goals: to incrementally spread small-c conservative values around the political scene to the extent possible, and to kill off the Liberals as a viable political force. And until 2011, there wasn't any need to choose between those two goals, as any action which supported one tended to contribute to the other.

But with Trudeau conspicuously trying to position himself as a centre-right leader while the NDP has emerged as a serious contender for government in its own right, the two goals may now be mutually incompatible.

The "spread conservative values" goal might well be best achieved (at least in the sense of trying to secure another majority in 2015) through a strategy of opposition whack-a-mole: launching concerted attacks on whichever opposition party manages to reach relative parity with the Cons at any given time, and easing off to allow either party to rebuild strength if it's in danger of falling out of the picture entirely.

Of course, that line of attack isn't without its risks either: in particular, if the two opposition parties are both allowed to push their support into the high twenties or beyond, a minority scenario could easily materialize which Harper wouldn't likely survive. And moreover, a three-party system featuring the Libs as a significant option obviously falls short of the goal of performing a victory dance on the Libs' corpse.

That leaves the other possibility. It's often been mooted that Harper's long-term goal is a system akin to that which has existed in B.C. for the past few decades - with a right-wing coalition which can be assembled (under various party banners) to win a majority of elections in the long run, and a left-wing counterweight strong enough to contend in most elections but facing a small, persistent structural disadvantage.

And Harper will have some significant influence in determining whether that dynamic materializes. If he simply decides to attack Trudeau early, often and with even less regard than usual for the Cons' immediate popularity, he may well be able to push the Libs over the edge. But in so doing, he'd almost certainly improve the NDP's chances of emerging on top in 2015. (And it might well have other unintended side effects - such as reinforcing so many negative perceptions as to push his own party into third place if Trudeau's popularity holds up.)

So these may be the choices facing Harper: between an Ontario-style three-party system which often requires triangulation and compromise or a B.C.-style winner-take-all ideological slugfest; between Justin Trudeau having a better chance to come to power pushing centre-right policies or Tom Mulcair receiving a greater opportunity to implement centre-left ones; between short-term power in 2015 and a long-term party alignment which he may see as more consistent with his agenda.

I have my own suspicions as to what will prove the be the overriding force in the Cons' decision-making. And I see the first wave of attacks on Trudeau supporting the theory - though I'll have more to say about those later on.

[Update: Corrected fable. Fun update to be able to offer.]

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- George Monbiot comments on the outsized influence of advertisers on children:

How many people believe this makes the world a better place? A company called TenNine has hung hoardings in the corridors and common rooms of 750 British schools. Among its clients are Nike, Adidas, Orange, Tesco and Unilever. It boasts that its "high impact platform delivers right to the heart of the 11-18 year old market".

Other firms are closing in. Boomerang Media, which represents Sega, Atari, Virgin, Umbro and others, has persuaded schools to distribute Revlon perfume samples to their pupils. This campaign, it says, "was effectively linked into their PSHE and PE classes". PSHE means personal, social, health and economic education, or "learning to live life well". How the disbursement of perfume by teachers helps children to keep fit and live well is a mystery I will leave you to ponder.

Advertising in schools offers corporations a genuine captive market. Trade associations which defend the dark arts of persuasion argue that if you don't like advertisements, then you don't have to look at them. But in this case you do. While surveys suggest that roadside hoardings raise awareness of a company's products among 28% of the people who pass them, posters in schools, according to TenNine, reach over 80%.

Every year, advertisers press a little further into our lives, shrinking the uncontaminated space in which we may live. In ways of which we are often scarcely aware, they change our perceptions of the world, alter our values, infiltrate the language.
...
In his book Childhood Under Siege, Joel Bakan shows how computer games and social networking are being merged to create new advertising platforms. The aim, according to an executive he quotes, is to "get users in the door to play for free and then monetise the hell out of them once they're hooked". One way is to issue points or virtual coinage to kids who click on advertisements.

All this is promoted as fun and freedom. Parents who try to restrict children's access look like prudes and killjoys. "As our kids become immersed," Bakan notes, "in a [corporate] culture that works to pry them loose from us, we become less able to find the connection, respect, authority and credibility we need to keep them safe, healthy and in the long term happy."
...
So it didn't take me long to decide to sign the open letter by a new campaign called Leave Our Kids Alone, asking for a ban on all advertising aimed at children under 11. It is long overdue: it's a marvel that we have for so long tolerated this capture of children's minds by companies exploiting their innocence and wonder. This is a campaign about more than advertising. It's about who we are: free-thinking citizens, raised on the best information and judgment that parents and teachers can provide; or captive consumers, suckled at home and at school on subtle corporate lies. I urge you to join it.

- But Erika Shaker notes that corporate interests haven't been able to completely override critical thought - with the Cons' temporary foreign worker system looking like a prime example of an issue where the general public is rightly questioning why actual people have no place in Conservative and corporate decision-making.  And Ken Georgetti calls on the Cons to fix the system they've broken.

- Martin Regg Cohn points out that the Ontario Libs' gas plant scandal also serves as a case in point as to the dangers of ill-advised privatization:

It was the Liberal embrace of privatization in 2004 that drove the government to contract out any new power generation — from gas-fired plants, solar and wind — to the private sector, explicitly sidelining government-owned Ontario Power Generation.
Think about that: OPG happens to have decades of experience in siting power plants — including nuclear reactors — across Ontario while engaging with local communities (ever notice our nukes aren’t plagued by active NIMBYism?). It also has enormous fiscal capacity to borrow money for power plant construction without resorting to parasitical U.S. private equity funds charging nearly criminal rates of interest and penalties.
Instead, the Liberals bought into the fantasy that privatization equals efficiency. And the shibboleth that the private sector always delivers on time and on budget.
Not in Mississauga, where the private sector ran out of time — and money. Eastern Power won the contract by bidding low for the project, but turned out to be a high-cost operator: Not only did it borrow money at 14 per cent (compounded quarterly), as the auditor noted incredulously, it demanded to be compensated for supposedly paying an administrative assistant at the rate of $110,000 a year.
So much for efficiency.

- Which offers a useful reminder to work on avoiding the same types of problems with a new Regina wastewater treatment plant.

- And finally, CBC reports that while Peter Penashue gets ever more shrill in shouting that he abused his ministerial authority in order to secure pork for his riding, his party refuses to even acknowledge that anything of the sort ever happened.

Someday, this could all be ours

Sure, we know that an undue obsession with standardized testing leads to incentives for administrators and teachers to cheat in order to give the impression of improvement. But that's nothing compared to the impact on other parts of a child's eduction which get shoved aside in the name of test scores:

At Public School 10 on the edge of Park Slope, Brooklyn, parents begged the principal to postpone the lower school science fair, insisting it was going to add too much pressure while they were preparing their children for the coming state tests.

On Staten Island, a community meeting devolved into a series of student stress stories, with one parent recounting how his son had woken up from a bad dream, mumbling that he had forgotten to fill in a bubble answer.

And at Public School 24 in the Riverdale neighborhood in the Bronx, a fifth-grade teacher, Walter Rendon, has found himself soothing tense 10- and 11-year-olds as they pore over test prep exercises. “Sometimes, I say: ‘Just breathe.’ ”

But in fairness, I'm sure gratuitous stress at the school level will only help to prepare students prepare for a workforce similarly built on random burdens imposed from on high with no consideration for the interests of the rabble. So we at least can't say the Saskatchewan Party's plans are anything less than internally consistent.

(H/t to Kay at Balloon Juice.)

#mtlqc13 - Day 3 Review

Once again, Aaron has a list of the resolutions passed at the NDP's federal convention - and I won't comment much on what passed other than to note that once again, some key resolutions (on social housing, health care funding and temporary foreign workers) were passed by the plenary session after being pushed to the front of the line by members at convention.

However, I'll take some time to discuss the session on the party's constitution and internal governance.

While far too much talk about the convention focused on the constitutional preamble (which I discussed here), two other highly-ranked resolutions also raised the prospect of constitutional change. And indeed, the first resolution on the topic led to my first direct intervention in a federal NDP convention.

Resolution 7-01-13, explained as being intended to ensure that nomination rules are set at the federal level rather than devolved to the NDP's provincial wings, read as follows:

7-01-13
Resolution to Amend the Constitution Submitted by Federal Council
WHEREAS the NDP has different rules governing nominations in each province; and
WHEREAS using different rules in each province creates inconsistency and confusion;
BE IT RESOLVED that Article XV of the constitution be struck and replaced by:
Article XV: Rules governing the nomination of candidates
1. The Federal Council shall create rules and procedures for the nomination of the federal candidates.
2. The Federal Council shall review these rules after each general election. 

Unfortunately, having spent most of my time analyzing the convention resolutions looking at policy points which I hoped to see promoted, I hadn't looked a in a lot of detail at the issues seen as non-controversial enough to already be at the front of the line. And while I'm happy to see standards set at the national level, it struck me as questionable to leave total discretion in the hands of federal council rather than ensuring that the NDP's nomination rules and procedures are based on meaningful constitutional guidelines - particularly given my frequent criticism of other parties for practices like shielding incumbents from nominations or appointing candidates from the top.

As a result, I moved as follows:

MOVED that Resolution 7-01-13 be referred to Federal Council to develop a new Article XV providing for federal nomination standards which respect the principles of open nominations and electoral district association-level nomination elections.

Fortunately, Nathan Rotman's response indicated that those values would be taken into account in the current Council's work. But ultimately, I'd still see it as important to ensure that the core values underlying the NDP's nomination process can't be fundamentally altered by Federal Council without membership approval - and I'll want to see some discussion on that point (with a lot more advance preparation on my part) at the party's Edmonton convention in 2015.

Naturally, the constitutional preamble - featuring a couple of amendments from the pre-convention version - was the subject of a heated debate. But the most effective interventions came from the pro side - including the likes of Bill Blaikie who could say that he had concerns about the party's previous proposed amendment, but saw the new version (which he of course participated in drafting) as having resolved those issues. (And that stood in stark contrast to the "con" side, which seemed aimed mostly at expressing the greatest possible outrage rather than convincing anybody who might have been on the fence).

If there was any key lesson to be learned from the standpoint of planning the convention, it may have been that there's a need to address more policy than it's possible to debate over the course of a weekend. In particular, I wonder whether a mechanism to designate some resolutions as "non-controversial" would allow for a show of party support without spending a lot of time debating resolutions which don't face any opposition - but there's obviously room to discuss how best to get to more policy priorities.

But this weekend nonetheless highlighted how an engaged membership and an effective leader can reinforce each other rather than being seen as mutually inconsistent - and the NDP looks to be on solid ground on both fronts as it builds up to the 2015 election and beyond.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Peter Gillespie discusses the problems with tax cheats (and the overseas tax havens which encourage them):

Multinational corporations and banking and financial institutions routinely use tax havens to lower or eliminate their tax obligations, avoid regulation, and shield themselves from liability. Tax havens host more than two million “international business corporations,” often little more than shell companies with a postal address. The British Virgin Islands, with a population of 30,000, hosts an estimated 460,000 business corporations. One modest building in the Cayman Islands is home to more that 18,000 of these entities.

Last December, media reports in the United Kingdom revealed that Google, Amazon and Starbucks were paying little or no taxes to the national treasury despite earning billions in profits in the British market. During a parliamentary investigation, officials from the three companies admitted they were shifting profits out of Britain into lower tax jurisdictions. Amazon collects its U.K. sales in Luxembourg. Google collects its sales in Ireland and through a complicated scheme sends its earnings to the tax haven of Bermuda via the Netherlands.
... 

(T)hese opaque and secretive jurisdictions are causing serious harm, especially in the era of austerity and the attendant erosion of social support programs worldwide. The reports from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists are shining a light into the murkiest spaces within the global economy. We should all be grateful.

- Doug Saunders writes that Canada has developed largely thanks to the full integration of immigrant workers - and argues that the same opportunity, not only temporary worker status, should be available for new arrivals today. And Heather Mallick discusses the hollowing-out of Canada's work force:

Stephen Harper’s long-term plan for Canada includes not just the Thatcherite destruction of unions but a clear-out of government workers and a lowering of all wages. The man keeps winning elections because he trusts that voters won’t make the connection and take it personally.

Indeed wages drop slowly, not instantly, and they’re hard to track. But CBC.ca welcomes news tips from the public. Here’s my story, one man wrote, and journalists recognized that the story of one man was in fact the story of many. And that’s when Canada got angry.

Eventually, outsourcing will ravage Canadian office workers. Their loss will become our loss, and that’s what we still don’t grasp. We know about specific bank IT complaints, and teachers’ strikes, but we don’t see the big picture.
...
Government workers inspect our food, issue our passports and clean our hospital rooms. As they are laid off, replaced with outsourced low-paid foreign workers or not replaced at all, our quality of life sinks like a stone. What is true for government workers is also true for the private sector. We need Canadian bank workers to be paid fairly, too.

- But fortunately, the corporatist effort to take more and more away from mere workers isn't without some organized opposition - as John Bonnar reports on the work of the Canadian Foundation for Labour Rights.

- Carol Goar discusses a few examples of single statistics being used as talking points even when they're carefully selected to obscure the real picture.

- And finally, Michael Harris muses that the Harper Cons may have run out of gas:

(W)ith a rejuvenated opposition capturing the public’s eye — one party through a policy-driven convention taking dead aim at this government, and the other by selecting a new leader who might just bring the kids back into politics — Stephen Harper suddenly looks old.

He looks old flying to the funeral of a woman who defended apartheid and whose death sent thousands of her own countrymen into the street partying. He looks old fronting for a corporate elite who can’t buy enough advertising to portray their greed as swashbuckling philanthropy, putting us all to work. He looks old welcoming Chinese panda bears to Canada while cold-shouldering native kids who walked through an eternity of winter to be heard on the lawns of Parliament.

Old is bad enough. Then there is ancient. That’s the place where Stephen Harper has arrived on the environment. This is a file you just can’t lie your way through, no matter how many spinners do your bidding. The polar ice caps are disappearing and Canada opts out of Kyoto. There is a reason that anyone in this PM’s environment portfolio ends up with more wrinkles than an Agatha Christie plot.

#mtlqc13 - Day 2 Review

Aaron Wherry has been documenting the resolutions passed at the NDP's convention in Montreal - and so I haven't seen much need to comment on them in detail. But the most noteworthy development in today's policy debates came from a resolution which wasn't passed - but which nonetheless signalled the NDP's willingness to tackle difficult but important social issues based on members' input.

The following resolution was pushed up the priority list in the resolution panel, and came to the floor for debate this afternoon:

6-31-13
Resolution on Upholding Sex Workers’ Rights to Life, Liberty, Security, and Equality Submitted by Vancouver East
WHEREAS Canadian values include respect for human and labour rights of all persons, including the right to life, liberty, security, equality and freedom of expression and association as set out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms;
WHEREAS Canadian courts, the Parliamentary Subcommittee on Solicitation Laws and the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry concluded that criminalization of sex workers increases the violence perpetrated against them and decreases their access to police and other legal and social protections.
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT we, the NDP, support the repeal of sections 210, 211, 212(1), 212(3), and 213 of the Criminal Code of Canada in order to improve the health, safety, equality and social citizenship of sex workers.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT we, the NDP, do not support the enactment of legislation that prohibits the purchase or sale of sexual services or sex workers’ ability to work with others.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT while the prostitution laws remain in force, we, the NDP, call on all Canadian police departments to immediately halt enforcement of ss. 211, 212(1), 212(3), and 213 and, instead, ensure sex workers have equal access to police protection and the justice system when they are the victims of crime.

Now, the resolution didn't pass. But that wasn't a matter of it lacking support on the convention floor: instead, after one strong speech favouring the resolution, Libby Davies moved that it be referred to federal council with instructions that it return a formal policy later this year. And that motion, combined with the obvious support of the convention for the cause of ensuring that sex workers are recognized as citizens rather than stigmatized, looks to ensure that the NDP will present an unprecedentedly inclusive policy in the years to come.

The other major development today was Tom Mulcair's speech to members following a successful leadership evaluation. And while I raised some questions about his past speech-making in yesterday's review (based in large part on an address to Saskatchewan's leadership convention which was generally strong on content, but rushed and wordy), he hit the mark today - combining his characteristic intelligence with a far better connection to the audience than I've seen from him in the past. And both that and the review vote bode extremely well for his prospects in holding and building on the NDP's current coalition in the face of a new Liberal leader.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Thomas Walkom offers an insider's look at outsourcing:

Arlene says any outsourcing scheme begins with the institution’s senior management. Usually, she says, the aim is to transfer about 60 per cent of the affected jobs — often in back-shop areas like information technology — to India where wages are a fraction of those paid in Canada.

The remaining 40 per cent, which generally require more local support, are outsourced to third-party firms in Canada. They in turn, subcontract the jobs to individual Canadians.

The aim here, Arlene says, is to not only to save the bank money but ensure that it is legally insulated from those who work for it.

Technically, those Canadians doing outsourced work are viewed as self-employed. That means that the bank no longer has to pay statutory benefits such as Canada Pension Plan premiums.

In most cases, subcontracts with Canadian workers are renewed for up to two years. Then, in order to maintain the fiction that they are not real bank employees, they are let go. After a few weeks, they are rehired on another set of short-term contracts.

“It’s sad,” says Arlene. “Really and truly sad. If you’re on contract you have no security. You do exactly what you’re told or you’re gone. You look the wrong way at someone and you’re gone. If you even question someone, you’re gone.”

...

The former outsourcer says she now thinks outsourcing is monstrous. She says she left the field because she couldn’t bear it any more. She says she has seen too much damage up close.

She says outsourcing, either domestically or abroad, is destroying the dreams of young Canadians. She has a child of her own. She wants government to crack down on companies that, just to make a buck, deliberately kill good jobs.

- Meanwhile, Joanna Smith and Bea Vongdouangchanh both report on Joseph Stiglitz' speech yesterday - focusing on the need to combat inequality through investment in people and real regulation of rent-seekers and plutocrats - as providing an economic focal point for the NDP.

- Joe Oliver became the first cabinet minister to say publicly what seems to be the Cons' obvious operating principle of denying that climate change exists (or calls for any policy whatsoever).

- Finally, Alex Himelfarb comments on the importance of public service. And in a fine example of the antithesis of that principle, Sixth Estate explores the traditional dirty politics at work in Peter Penashue's remarkable boast that he used his cabinet position to deliberately refuse to approve a needed project in order to push funding into his own riding.

Musical interlude

Arcade Fire - Ready To Start

#mtlqc13 - Day 1 Review

Based on my posts leading up to the NDP's federal convention, it shouldn't come as much surprise that my main focus is on the substantive policy debates. And the first day saw some positive developments on that front.

Rather than sticking to the party's chosen list of topics for discussion, members intervened in the resolution panel on the economy to push resolutions on employment insurance (1-53-13) and pay equity (1-17-13) into the mix for approval in this afternoon's plenary session. And while those might not have come first among my own priorities on the economy, they certainly reflect both an injection of strong progressive values, and a demonstration that membership participation still has a substantive effect on the NDP's policy discussions.

The other noteworthy development on the day was Tom Mulcair's evening town hall. For all the talk of an attempt to bolster Mulcair's image by telling more of his personal story, that effort would have fallen flat if he hadn't lived up to the introduction in the subsequent question-and-answer session. But Mulcair reminded us that he's at his best offering well-thought-out responses to a wide range of questions - and it particularly helped for an NDP crowd that the questions themselves led to a more focused articulation of progressive values than Mulcair seems to default toward on his own.

Tomorrow will see plenty more plenary sessions along with a speech by Mulcair. But the first convention test for Mulcair and his party looks to be off to a good start.

#mtlqc13 - Preamble Ramble

Over the past few days, I've highlighted a few policy resolutions I'd like to see promoted and discussed at the NDP's federal convention this weekend in Montreal. But I'll take a few minutes to discuss the topic that's receiving the most media attention in advance of the convention - even if I see its significance as largely overstated.

Aaron Wherry compares the text of the NDP's proposed constitutional preamble to the existing wording here. And the trend to be seen in the existing language, the 2011 proposal and the new draft looks primarily to involve the use of lengthier and weaker wording to describe much the same set of concepts.

That means I'm not hugely excited to see the amendment pushed forward. If nothing else, I'd hope there's room for some editing - in part to cut down on the preamble's length, and in part to reinstate a few concepts (such as social ownership) which don't appear the current version, but remain consistent with the overarching vision of government as a force for the common good. 

That said, I also don't consider it a major problem if the new wording passes as is. Again, the general principles included in the new version leave plenty of room for all the progressive policy one could possibly hope to see - that is, so long as the role of government in pursuing the common good is defined through more detailed policy.

Which brings me back to my broader view of this weekend's convention. I don't see the constitutional issue as carrying too much weight one way or the other, but the treatment of policy resolutions which haven't been treated as party priorities (both in the ability of delegates to change the agenda to suit members' concerns, and in the party's response to resolutions that pass as a result) will be the most important test for the NDP. And if party loyalists manage to block any change to the preamble while being unable to substantially shape current party policy, that doesn't strike me as a positive outcome for anybody.