Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- John Hood discusses how the privilege of the political class makes it difficult for elected representatives to understand, let alone address, the problems of the precariat. And Lawrence Mishel and Will Kimball document the continued connection between the erosion of unions and income inequality.

- Lizzie Dearden reports on one proposal to rein in corporate abuses, as Ed Miliband intends to crack down on tax cheats and the jurisdictions which harbor them. And Carol Linnitt suggests that Canada's public corporations should be required to disclose their political expenditures.

- But unfortunately, the Harper Cons remain stubborn in their insistence on instead using the power of the state solely to attack social justice advocates.

- Lana Payne calls out the Harper Cons for trying to change the subject from real economic failures to imagined security threats. Jeffrey Simpson worries about the treatment of terror as a partisan issue, while Susan Delacourt is particularly concerned about the risks of gross intrusions into civil rights by a government which long since eradicated any trace of independent thought or oversight from its ranks. And after trying to wrongfully lump the opposition parties together before, Thomas Walkom tears into the Libs for their cowardice when it comes to human rights:

Justin Trudeau’s decision to back controversial new anti-terror laws says much about him and his Liberal party.

It says first that the Liberals don’t want to be on the wrong side of what they believe to be public opinion, that they are determined not to be caught flatfooted if Prime Minister Stephen Harper makes national security an election issue.

That is the crassly political element of Trudeau’s acquiescence.

But the party’s decision to vote for Harper’s Bill C-51 shows something else as well.

It shows that the Liberals agree with the Conservatives that civil rights aren’t that important.

- Finally, Doug Saunders connects vaccinations and the census as examples of areas where we should expect to accept minor inconveniences due to the broad social results at stake. Tavia Grant reports that businesses are no less frustrated than policymakers at the self-inflicted lack of accurate data resulting from the shredding of the long-form census. And Adam Radwanski points out how political parties are collecting and crunching more data than ever in trying to reach voters.

Musical interlude

Iris - Saving Time

How to destroy the climate in three easy steps

1. Abandon all previous targets and commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
2. Set a new target which one intends to ignore.
3. Make clear to the world that developing policies to actually meet the new target is somebody else's problem, no matter how obvious it is that the result will be failure.

Of course, we recognize how asinine and ineffectual that combination is when it originates with Stephen Harper. Who's willing to do the same when it's the Anointed One?

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Gregory Beatty reports on Saskatchewan's options now that it can't count on high oil prices to prop up the provincial budget. And Dennis Howlett writes about the need for a far more progressive tax system both as a matter of fairness, and as a matter of resource management:

Just a few years ago, the question of tax fairness was relegated to the world of activists and progressive economists. But you know something has shifted when a U.S. president goes on national television and talks about the urgent need to eliminate tax loopholes that benefit only the very rich. That shift is further amplified when he portrays taxes not as a burden but a responsibility — as a way to pay for investments such as education and health.
...

Even a passing knowledge of history will tell you that profound gaps between rich and poor don't end well. But although that gap deepens every year here in Canada, our leaders haven't been paying attention.

We've been led to believe that tax reform is the stuff of nerds, wonks and high-priced lawyers. In fact, tax reform belongs to us all. Combined with some good old-fashioned political will, it can build bridges (literally and figuratively), invest in students, heal the health-care system and relieve a lot of stress on ordinary Canadians. 

...

Canada is a wealthy country. But wealth guarantees neither brains nor prosperity. The squandered opportunity of Canada's resources and a delayed federal budget because of a dip in oil prices is a sad reminder of that. 

- Andrew Lodge discusses how the TPP is designed to take needed medicine out of the hands of the world's poor in the name of higher profits for big pharma. And David Sirota observes that the secrecy surrounding the deal can be explained by the fact that the public would be outraged to know what's being traded away.

- Nick Falvo offers some important observations about both the need for secure social housing, and the apparent disinclination of all levels of government to make it available.

- Finally, Boris, Aaron Wherry and the Globe and Mail editorial board all slam both the fearmongering behind the Cons' terror bill, and the Libs' cowardice in letting the Cons gut Canadians' rights in the name of political convenience. And Tim Harper highlights the NDP's role as the lone party in Parliament standing on principle and doing its job.

New column day

Here, on why we can't expect our federal political parties to answer some of our most important questions without some significant public pressure - and how we can build that pressure for ourselves.

For further reading, I'll point back to my earlier posts on what I'd hope to see happen before the writ period, including
- an effort to define the Harper Cons beyond what we'll see from the opposition parties; and
- a strong push to make the opposition leaders and candidates talk about working together toward change.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Joe Gunn reminds us that ignoring the issue of poverty won't make it go away. And Sara Mojtehedzadeh reports on a national campaign demanding a plan to deal with poverty at the federal level.

- Roderick Benns discusses the prospect of a guaranteed annual income with Wayne Simpson. And Whitney Mallett is the latest to look in depth at how the successful Mincome basic income plan might spread much further:

Critics of basic income guarantees have insisted that giving the poor money would disincentivize them to work, and point to studies that show ​a drop in peoples' willingness to work under pilot programs. But in Dauphin—thought to be the largest such experiment conducted in North America—the experimenters found that the primary breadwinner in the families who received stipends were in fact not less motivated to work than before. Though there was some reduction in work effort from mothers of young children and teenagers still in high school—mothers wanted to stay at home longer with their newborns and teenagers weren’t under as much pressure to support their families—the reduction was not anywhere close to disastrous, as skeptics had predicted.
...
The recovered data from “Mincome,” as the Dauphin experiment was known, has given more impetus to a growing call for some sort of guaranteed income. This year, the Swis​s Parliament will vote on whether to extend a monthly stipend to all residents, and the Indian government has already begun replacing aid programs with direct cash transfers. Former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich has called a BIG “alm​ost inevitable.” In the US, Canada, and much of Western Europe, where the conversation around radically adapting social security remains mostly hypothetical, the lessons of Dauphin might be especially relevant in helping these ideas materialize sooner rather than later.

There are other compelling arguments for a guaranteed income now. Despite record corporate earnings, most people are not benefitting. Wages are stagnant, unemployment is high, ​student debt and health care costs are soaring, and the job market is not rewarding those who are already employed with enough money for a decent way of life. The so-called ​Uberization of the workforce, in which workers are paid by the task rather than on a salary or under an established hourly rate—is increasing the precariousness of work. (And that's not to mention ​robots and artificial intelligence taking away jobs.) As the concept of universal healthcare spreads and minimum wage is debated, conversations around reconsidering or expanding social security are growing.

- Ryan Meili interviews Harsha Walia about the importance of building healthy connections between immigrants, refugees and our wider communities.

- Michael Adams and Maryantonett Flumian muse about some of the causes of low voter participation rates. But as Craig Scott points out, the Cons' message to (selected) voters that their democratic involvement isn't welcome can't be helping matters.

- Finally, Thomas Walkom rightly argues that even if the Cons would accept some parliamentary oversight over new CSIS powers, that wouldn't represent an acceptable tradeoff for the public. Karl Nerenberg offers four reasons to be alarmed by C-51. And the Winnipeg Free Press concludes that the Cons' terror bill risks far too much for no apparent benefit.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- 24 Hours offers a debate as to whether or not we should pursue a basic income - though it's striking that the "con" case is based almost entirely on a message that a secure income for everybody can't be achieved, rather than any argument that it shouldn't.

- Gabriel Bristow writes about the next battle against austerity, this time arising out of general strikes in Belgium. And Tara Ehrcke muses about what a Canadian equivalent to Syriza could pursue by way of people-friendly policies, while Trish Hennessy looks at the middle-class economics which will likely define our next election campaign.

- Carol Goar examines Mariana Mazzucato's argument that we should value entrepreneurial government:

It takes government-led goal-setting backed up with public funds — Mazzucato calls this mission-based investment — to generate transformative knowledge, spawn technical breakthroughs and improve the economic outlook for everyone, including those at the bottom of the income pyramid. She identified a few such missions.

“I think the green challenge is so overwhelming that it could be a game-changer,” she said. But there are other strong candidates. “Who is thinking about adapting to an aging population? Who is reimaging the labour-intensive personal-care sector?”

The first imperative, Mazzucato acknowledged, is changing public opinion. She is making an all-out effort to debunk the myths underlying the private-sector-good/public-sector-bad mindset...

It is not the specific that interests Mazzucato; it is the idea that governments can pull together multi-talented teams of problem-solvers, spur innovation, marry science and industry and trigger waves of economic growth.

“We have a cartoonish image of the state as a dinosaur,” she says. “In fact, in countries that owe their growth to innovation, it is a key partner of the private sector — and often a more daring one.”

- And Kaylie Tiessen notes that constant corporate tax cuts - whether aimed at big or small businesses - haven't produced any of the promised gains.

- Eve-Lynn Couturier proposes some ways to make municipal revenue more secure. But unfortunately, Brad Wall is headed in the opposite direction, forcing Saskatchewan municipalities to budget based on revenues which he's threatening to withdraw in order to deflect from his government's mismanagement at the provincial level.

- Finally, Derrick O'Keefe describes how the Harper Cons plan to rely on terrorist hysteria as their core message in the lead up to the federal election campaign.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Cat renovation nightmares.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Elizabeth Stoker Bruening discusses the effect of poverty at the family level, particularly when coupled with policies designed to force workers to chase jobs far away from home and family:

If you want to see the right-wing denuded of its usual bluster about family values and welfare, visit this Economist post, published in response to Nick Kristof’s remembrance of a friend who fell on hard times and passed away. The piece argues that the problem isn’t a paucity of empathy for poor people who rely on welfare, but perhaps an excess of it; furthermore, the piece goes on to suggest that poor people who rely on disability benefits should, in order to get off of welfare, pack up and move away from family and friends in search of jobs.

“We ought to feel for those stuck in this sort of terrible quandary,” the article’s author writes. “Yet empathy can't change the fact that when people need jobs, they have to go to where the jobs are.” The quandary the author refers to is the problem of preferring to rely on disability income and to stay among family and friends rather than moving to an entirely new place alone in order to relinquish benefits.
...
(W)elfare of a certain stripe appears to resist the massive social dislocation brought on by free-market capitalism, wherein people must move at the whim of their employers. Contrary to the undermining-effect imagined by right-wing commentators who oppose welfare, therefore, something like a universal basic income could be extremely helpful in terms of stabilizing families and rooting communities in place.

In other words, the demands of capital and the obligations of family are often at cross-purposes rather than functioning in tandem. Contrary to the opinions of the wealthy, the poor do not “have it easy” on welfare, though public assistance might help some people remain with their support networks of family and friends rather than disappearing into the national ether in search of a job, whether or not such a job ever actually becomes available. Rather than making the case for harsher regulations on welfare, The Economist makes a good conservative case for a more expansive welfare regime: one that would really shore up family life.

- And in case there was any doubt as to the human cost of policies which demand that workers endure whatever stress the market may see fit to inflict, Tanya Talaga reports on research showing that Greece's devastating austerity has cost hundreds of lives in addition to livelihoods.

- Meanwhile, Dave McGrane proposes four steps toward a far more effective and family-friendly child care policy.

- Michael Madowitz comments on the continuing U.S. pattern of modest GDP growth based on a combination of soaring profits and stagnant wages. And Katherine Trebeck writes that we should be focusing on a sustainable economy and society, rather than pushing a mindset of disposable consumerism.

- Finally, Dave describes the Cons' fearmongering and media restraint surrounding their terror bill as North Korean, while thwap hears echoes of public manipulation far closer to home. And Tim Harper discusses just a few of the more glaring omissions from the bill.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Paul Mason discusses the effect a guaranteed annual income could have on individuals' choices about labour and employment:

A true, subsistence level basic income would close to double [existing social spending in the UK]. But it is imaginable, in the short to medium term, if you factor in the benefits.

The first would be to eradicate low-paid menial work. Why slave 10 hours a day with mop and bucket for £12k when you get £6k for free? Corporations would rebalance their business models towards a high pay, stable consumption, low-ish profit world, and the tax take would rise as a result. All tax relief for the poor would end.

The second benefit, though less tangible, would come to the spiralling healthcare budgets of western societies. Drugs are dear, collaborative networks of peer educators and self-help groups come for free, at least in theory, once everyone is being paid simply to exist, and has the time and freedom to contribute. This is the view taken by the prophets of peer-to-peer economics, who envisage a new, collaborative production sector...

The rest of the fiscal gap would be closed through raising tax – so this is not a cheap or easy solution. It would be a pathway to a different kind of economy. But for both left and right it would challenge the last vestiges of what Gorz called “the utopia based on work” which has sustained us for two centuries, but may no longer.

- Ben Cohen and John Bonifaz discuss the Sunlight Foundation's research showing that each $1 worth of corporate money in U.S. politics produces a return of $760. (Which is particularly jarring considering the billions of dollars now being spent each election cycles.) And Jacques Peretti highlights how extreme concentration of wealth affects the people who accumulate it.

- Lindsay Abrams interviews Ed Struzik about the damage the Harper Cons are doing to Canada's Arctic region:

I’m interested in your perspective on this as a Canadian citizen. The Harper administration’s treatment of the Arctic has been highly criticized — and I personally have never been able to speak with a Canadian government scientist.

It’s almost surreal what’s happened since the Harper government has come into power. Like you said, it’s extremely difficult to get a government Canadian scientist to talk to you. I live in Edmonton, Canada where two of the government’s polar bear scientists live, and I know them. But they cannot talk to me on the record about anything about polar bears. I’ve been in the field with them in the past and participated in the capture of polar bears, and yet in the last six or seven years, I have not been able to get an interview with any of them.

And I think this reflects the attitude of this government. With the decision by President Obama this week to expand the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and to put vast areas of the Arctic Ocean off limits to oil and gas development — in Canada, what we’re seeing is an attempt to accelerate oil and gas development, to do nothing about polar bears or beluga whales, to essentially ignore all that we’ve learned in the past 10 and 20 years in the Arctic. It’s bizarre. Twelve years ago, the Canadian government literally bribed a foreign company to ship coal through the Northwest passage to prove that this is a viable shortcut. As our environment commissioner has pointed out, the Northwest passage hasn’t even been charted properly. The navigational aids there are antiquated and we don’t have the ice-breaking capabilities to really prove that ships can go through there safely, so what the hell are they doing? I mean, it’s crazy and it’s inexplicable.

- And while the Cons march onward in the wrong direction, Brendan Haley explains why we can't expect the provinces and territories to correct our course on climate change or energy policy without federal leadership. And Bob Weber reports that the Cons have been well aware for years that there's no reliable data on the environmental effects of bitumen spills (even as they've resisted any effort to protect the environment while that information is lacking).

- Finally, Justin Ling looks in depth at the Cons' intrusive terror bill, while the Globe and Mail calls for it to be voted down. And Michael Harris points out that Stephen Harper's fearmongering arises primarily out of his own weakness.

On simple questions

Gerald Caplan goes far beyond what's necessary in proposing that the NDP and Libs develop a pre-election cooperation pact intended to lead to a party merger. But as highlighted by the conversation started by Fern Hill's Tweet, we can take his suggestion as a starting point in discussing what we expect from Canada's opposition parties.

Each opposition party has ample reason to include the glaring need for change from a corrupt and ineffective Con government as part of their core message. So far, only the NDP is willing to even discuss post-election cooperation to ensure a change in government, while the Libs have stuck to the line that they're only interested in power for themselves. (Of course, that was way back when Justin Trudeau was still talking about acting on climate change, so who knows how the position has changed?)

We do know from both 2008 and 2011 that the Libs' public facade doesn't necessarily match their willingness to pursue a coalition. But if we want to reinforce the message that removing Stephen Harper from power is the top priority, we can't afford to have any leaders leaving open the possibility that he'll be left in power when our elected representatives have enough strength in numbers to ensure a change in government.

So I'll suggest that anybody with the opportunity to ask questions or otherwise interact with opposition candidates and leaders focus attention on this issue: are you willing to work with other parties if necessary to remove the Cons from power? And if not, under what conditions would you leave Harper in power in a minority Parliament?

My guess is that if members raise enough hue and cry, every party will eventually acknowledge that opposition cooperation is a valid and reasonable means of bringing about change - and that it's a lot easier to justify cooperating to change governments than to explain what conditions would make it worth leaving the Cons in power. But unless supporters make clear that there's a price to be paid for pretending otherwise, we'll go through another campaign with opposition parties and candidates undermining the theme that Harper has to go.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Doug Saunders observes that Syriza's strong election victory may signal a sea change as to whether austerity is inevitable, while Adnan Al-Daini notes that the financial sector can no longer take for granted that its profits will be placed above the interests of actual people. Which means that Joe Oliver may get even more lonely lecturing Canada's provinces that the economic beatings will continue until morale improves.

- Speaking of whom, Canadians for Tax Fairness highlights how Oliver has long known that the Cons' income splitting plans represent nothing more than a giveaway to the high-income families who need it the least. And Barret Weber writes that it's long past time for Alberta to fund its public services through a progressive tax system, rather than regressive taxes and unstable resource royalties.

- David Cay Johnston highlights how the U.S. is still seeing growing profits and declining personal incomes. And Cole Moreton likewise notes that the UK's elections should see plenty of discussion about a growing wealth gap and continuing poverty. 

- David Suzuki writes that free trade agreements are increasingly resulting in Canada trading away any ability to protect its environment. And Glenn Kessley destroys the myth that free trade agreements bear any relationship to jobs even under the faith-based theory intended to promote them.

- Finally, Nancy MacDonald writes about the festering prejudice against First Nations in Winnipeg in particular. But Max FineDay is right to point out that Canada's shameful legacy of racism continues to affect systemic relationships far beyond the boundaries of any one city:

Being so deeply immersed in both Native and non-Native communities I knew from a young age that these two worlds did not fit together. I remember some of my friends telling me that their parents didn’t want me over at their home for fear I might come back and rob it later. This prejudice was normal growing up nêhiyaw in Saskatoon. I don’t bring these issues up because they defined my childhood – they didn’t – and they certainly don’t define me today. But these are the types of stories that you will hear from Native people, if you take the time to listen.

If you asked a Native person, whether in Vancouver, Saskatoon, Caledonia, or Halifax, if there is a tension between Native and Canadian communities, few would hesitate to say yes. Our story, the story of Canada, is one of both mistreatment and indifference. That mistreatment and indifference have lead to Native peoples being on the negative side of almost every statistical category. No one relishes the fact that there’s still racism in our communities, but ignoring it as we like to do isn’t making anything better.
...

Maclean’s is right that Winnipeg has a race problem, but wrong to deflect the focus from the underlying, systemic issues that are almost always the cause of bad outcomes for Native peoples everywhere in Canada. The article reports that much of the violence we hear about is perpetrated by Native people against other Natives without further analysis into the systemic inequalities that affect Native peoples in every part of society. That’s what Canadians need to hear.

More than individual acts of prejudice or of violence, they need to hear about the systemic inequalities that they themselves never see. Individual acts of racism, violence, and intolerance are powerful, yes, but systemic racism is what maintains Canada’s ongoing settler colonialism (which depends on dispossessing Native people of their land and sovereignty).

In an article dealing almost exclusively with racism directed toward Native people, the only mention of colonialism was a quote from the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations that put colonialism in the past tense. There was only one sentence about treaties. Maclean’s understands that racism is taking place, and that it is destructive, but it has very little understanding of why.

On destructive preconditions

Shorter Elizabeth Nickson:

I'll consider accepting the need for policies to preserve the environment just as soon as we've seen exactly how much gets destroyed in their absence.

(h/t to PressProgress.)

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- James Baxter discusses why there's no reason to buy into the Harper Cons' fearmongering in the first place:

Let’s accept a basic truth: There’s only so much money we’re willing to ‘invest’ in having the government to protect us from bad things and, when you get out of bed in the morning, terrorism is very, very far from the top of the list of dangers you’re likely to face.

The budget for the Department of Public Security and Emergency Preparedness is more than $6 billion and growing by leaps and bounds. Add to that the Department of National Defence, which handles our ‘Five Eyes’ clandestine eavesdropping, and the Department of Justice’s secret courts and prosecuting services and you realize the bill for countering terrorism is at least in the realm of $8 to $10 billion per year. And that doesn’t take into account the less obvious costs that come from missed opportunities and the reduced creativity that inevitably comes with constant surveillance.
...
(B)efore we allow ourselves to be intimidated by our own politicians into believing we have to be terrified — that we have to give up more of our rights and money to protect us from this new “threat” — why don’t we ask the government to do something more about those old, less politically-sexy scary things … like pollution, medical malpractice, drunk drivers, legal semi-automatics in the hands of idiots, and, yes, bed sores (imagine the lives that would be saved by just a few more nurses and orderlies) … you know the stupid preventable stuff that really kills people all too frequently.

FDR famously said that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Let’s not lose ourselves, and our country, to politically-motivated hysteria.

- But for those who think there's still some room to give the Cons the benefit of any doubt as to whether there's a meaningful threat to be addressed, Anna Mehler Paperny points out that entirely common actions can be classified as "terrorist" activity under the Cons' alarmist definitions, while Steven Chase and Daniel Leblanc point out that Stephen Harper himself is criticizing opposition parties for caring in the slightest about civil liberties. Jeremy Nuttall describes how the Cons went out of their way to punish the media for trying to ask important questions about their new bill. Stephen Maher discusses the complete lack of oversight for bodies who would be granted the authority to lock citizens up without so much as charging them. And Heather Mallick places the blather about terrorism in the context of Harper's violent insecurity.

- CBC reports on the mass surveillance which is already happening even in the absence of expanded powers for secretive spy agencies.

- Meanwhile, in case there's any question just how careful the Cons are when throwing accusations around, Victor Malarek reports on a $10 million payout to a businessman wrongfully smeared as having exported controlled goods to China. Though to be fair, that means the "lock-'em-up" approach under C-51 might save money in the short term by making sure the innocent are bound and gagged indefinitely rather than being able to plead their case.

 - Finally, Bob Hepburn discusses how the Harper Cons have undermined democracy at nearly every turn since forming government.

Musical interlude

Fuel - Bittersweet

Last chance to weigh in

While there's always reason to be skeptical of the Wall government's consultation processes, there's also plenty of risk in not participating - as a lack of expressed opposition will all too likely be taken as agreement with the Saskatchewan Party's plans.

Which is to say that I'll strongly encourage Saskatchewan readers to participate in the province's consultation on liquor retailing before today's deadline passes.

If you're looking for a strong general message to send as to the importance of preserving our current system, you'll find one at Keep Liquor Public. I've chosen instead to focus on the opportunity to build on what we already have in the public sector; you can draft your own message either through the province's survey form or by e-mail.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- PressProgress notes that the Cons' economic track record is one of eliminating well-paying jobs in favour of lower-wage, more-precarious work. And Jim Stanford follows up on why we shouldn't believe the Cons' spin about deficits:

I think that a more fruitful and principled line of attack on the government’s approach would focus on these obvious fiscal and economic errors by the government:

• The October tax cuts were premature; it is tax cuts, not oil prices, which have jeopardized the attainment of a balanced budget.  The Conservatives broke their own promise in implementing tax cuts before the budget was even balanced.  (Breaking their promise, not running a small deficit per se, is their key point of vulnerability.)  In fact, as I show in the Globe and Mail column, the federal budget would be balanced right now, even with lower oil prices, were it not for the accelerated first-year tax cuts which the government was so anxious to rush out the door before the election.
• The October tax cuts are socially and economically damaging.  The CCPA’s fabulous analysis of the perverse distributional effects of income splitting (here and here) is already making this case in spades.
• The government’s response to falling oil prices has revealed confusion and internal division.  Joe Oliver delayed his budget to some unspecified future date (April or even later); perhaps he will actually “table”the budget on the hustings .  Oliver has said that there will be no further spending cuts to offset the loss in revenue, and that the government can use its (phony) $3 billion contingency fund to protect the balanced budget.  Employment Minister Jason Kenney, in contrast, said the exact opposite in public: suggesting that incremental spending cuts might be required, and that the $3 billion cushion would not be drawn down (since it is intended, he argued, for true “emergencies”).  Treasury Board President Tony Clement, meanwhile, also hinted at surprise reductions in spending — channeling Pierre Trudeau in saying “Just watch us” reduce spending.  Clement’s record in consistently underspending authorized operational budgets (part of the government’s “austerity by stealth” strategy).  These mixed messages indicate a breakdown of discipline within Conservative ranks, and send confusing signals to consumers and investors alike.
• Most fundamentally, the government’s macroeconomic and industrial emphasis on making Canada an “energy superpower,” investing so much fiscal and political capital to facilitate energy megaprojects (including fruitless pipeline proposals), vilifying critical voices, and inadequately responding to the negative side-effects of the oil boom on other sectors, has left Canada’s economy unduly vulnerable to an oil price decline that was always inevitable.

My response, therefore, to the question “Will low oil prices push Ottawa into a deficit,” is therefore: “Who cares? The real issue is the government’s failure to use its fiscal and other tools to strengthen the recovery and create jobs. That’s the real mismanagement.

- Jordan Press exposes the Cons' waste of tens of millions of dollars to suppress information from the Canadian public. And Paul Withers reports that while the National Energy Board has stopped allowing citizens to participate in actual assessment hearings in the name of efficiency, it has no qualms about using public money to cheerlead for the pipelines it's supposed to be regulating.

- Meanwhile, Charlie Samuda discusses the need to crack down on tax evasion to ensure the privileged few pay their fair share. And Matt Taibbi writes that the financial sector is back to its old habit of exploiting the public, while fighting the suggestion that advisers face an obligation to put clients' interests first.

- Jeffrey Simpson rightly wonders why our political debates involve little discussion about people living in poverty who have the most to gain or lose from government policy choices. And Natasha Pel comments on how Canada's wealthiest province is doing little to deal with poverty.

- Finally, Rick Salutin points to Syriza's victory in Greece as an example of how the public can overcome the supposedly-inevitable prioritization of profits over people:

Why Syriza won. The short answer is: they put people first. I know all parties say that but (a) they only say it and (b) they only say it at elections. Syriza said and did it. Because they're not just a party but a coalition of parties, groups and movements, they naturally extended into communities and helped people with real needs. This in turn proved they weren't like other parties, just in it for power. That near cliché translated into real policies.

The EU/Germany clearly put numbers (of euros owed) first, as Greece's new finance minister says. So the debate was over priorities. If people prevail, austerity fails. It turns out austerity wasn't inevitable, like a law of nature; it was a question of values.

New column day

Here, on how Saskatchewan residents should be able to count on secure housing, rather than being shunted into stopgap social housing by the Wall government.

For further reading...
- The provincial government's announcement that affordable housing in Saskatchewan is no more can be found here. And the NDP's response is here.
- For information on the temporary nature of the social housing program that's left, see here (PDF):

For families, social housing is intended to be short-term until a family is able to afford to buy or rent a home in the private housing market.

- The background to the Saskatchewan Party's sell-off of provincial housing unit is found here - which also refers in glowing terms to the Deveraux Homes development which was then handed over to the developer for use as for-profit housing.
- Finally, the study referenced in the column as to the relationship between financial security and reduced individual stress is discussed here. 

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Jim Stanford reminds us that any drama as to whether Canada's budget will be balanced this year is entirely of the Cons' own making through pointless tax slashing:

Running spending cuts since 2011 now total more than $14-billion a year. Canadians experience real consequences from those cuts every day: shuttered veterans’ offices, deteriorating statistical data, questionable railway and food safety, ridiculous waits for statutory benefits and more. Federal government employment has plunged by 47,000 jobs since 2011 – explaining much of Canada’s lousy job-market performance. These sacrifices were not necessary. Worse yet, the government is throwing away the savings with its tax-cut agenda.

Indeed, if the government truly believed that balancing the books was the most important priority, we could be back in the black right now, never mind next year. Before opening the cookie jar in October for income-splitting and other giveaways, Ottawa was headed for a $3.3-billion surplus for the fiscal year ending March 31. Falling oil prices knocked $1.2 billion off that balance, according to the PBO, leaving a $2.1-billion surplus. But the government spent $3.2-billion on the immediate first-year cost of the tax cuts – pushing itself back, incredibly, into deficit. Without the tax cuts, the budget would already be balanced, even with low oil prices.

It’s not prudent to count your chickens before they hatch. The Conservatives were so anxious to lock in tax cuts and corner the opposition that they consciously pushed the budget back into the red. Now, with plunging oil, that deficit looks bigger. No wonder Finance Minister Joe Oliver is delaying his budget.

- Tavia Grant reports on how the shredding of the long-form census has created serious data quality issues for. But the Cons may not have noticed in light of their propensity for ignoring any evidence which doesn't fit their political plans.

- Jennifer Ditchburn reports that Canada's independent offices of Parliament want nothing to do with the Cons' plans to disqualify anybody with an interest in government from seeking to improve it. And Doug Howat notes how the bill fits into the Cons' wider pattern of trying to attack messengers rather than defending policy choices.

- Charles Blow calls for the U.S. to take much-needed action to reduce child poverty. But Bryce Covert notes once again that any economic growth is being funnelled into the pockets of the 1% rather than benefiting the general public.

- Finally, Helena Smith reports on Syriza's first days in office and Greece, and notes that we now have confirmation that a government can deliver on transformative promises.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Kate McInturff and David Macdonald address the need for an adult discussion about how federal policies affect Canadian families. And Kevin Campbell writes about the importance of child care as a social investment. 

- Vincenzo Bove and Georgios Efthyvoulou study how public policy is shaped by political budget cycles - with more popular social spending getting emphasized around election time, only to face a threat as soon as the vote is held. And Scott Clark and Peter DeVries identify a distinct increase in the smoke and mirrors being used by the Cons to hide Canada's true budget picture in an election year:

Since the fall — when the prime minister promised tax cuts he hadn’t paid for — everything on the fiscal front has changed, except this: The budget remains the key document in the run-up to the election. Except now, the budget won’t be saying what Harper wanted it to. He wanted it to tell the story of his steady management of the economy since the 2008 recession. Instead, it’ll be about convincing Canadians the government had a plan B all along. Since the furor over Kenney’s comments strongly suggests a government at war with itself, that could turn out to be a tall order.

The PM has never liked budgets. He never saw them as a means to articulate a vision of the economy and the country. To Harper, a budget is a PR document — and a Trojan horse for pushing through legislative changes that have nothing at all to do with the budget.
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It’s this kind of economic outlook that makes Canadians nervous — and they’re right to be. They need facts, not slogans. They need a budget that provides an honest, realistic assessment of our economic and fiscal prospects. They need to know that the government is taking a serious look at its fiscal policy and asking how it can be adjusted now to strengthen growth and job creation, while maintaining a sustainable fiscal structure over the medium term.

That’s what they need. Here’s what they’re likely to get: More slogans, more shallow optics and the spectacle of a Department of Finance tying itself in knots to at least show a balanced budget in 2015-16.

- Desmond Cole examines the Cons' dismal treatment of immigrant detainees. And the CP reports on their disregard for court rulings finding refugee health funding cuts to be unconstitutional.

- At the same time, Barrie McKenna writes that the Cons are once again going out of their way to support corporate corruption - this time by relaxing rules for businesses which have committed crimes abroad. 

- Finally, Ralph Surette discusses why it's time to end the Cons' reign - while suggesting #ThrowTheRascalsOut as an appropriate campaign hashtag.

On blissful ignorance

Shorter Lawrence Herman:

Just because Newfoundland and Labrador learned the hard way that Stephen Harper can't be trusted doesn't mean it has any right to warn anybody else that Stephen Harper can't be trusted.

(For a more reasonable take on how we should expect countries to react to the Cons' duplicitous negotiations and undue preference for corporate power, see the Telegram's editorial.)

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Cradled cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Will Hutton writes about the connection between inequality and the loss of any moral or social purpose in public life:

Britain is beset by a crisis of purpose. We don’t know who we are any longer, where we are going or even if there is a “we”. The country is so passionately attached to past glories because there are so few to celebrate in the present. The crisis is compounded since we have been told for 30 years that the route to universal wellbeing is to abandon the expense of justice and equity and so allow the judgments of the market to go unobstructed. Private decisions in markets supposedly are morally and economically better than any public or collective action. As a result the sense of the “we” that binds a society together and gives us reason to belong is being lost. We take refuge in looking after number one, because there is no sense in, nor reason for, doing anything else.

The inevitable consequence is a decline in public integrity and a new carelessness about others. This amoral deficit of integrity takes many guises. It is sky-high executive pay, out of proportion to effort or contribution. It is the phone-hacking scandal. It is the too frequent lack of duty of care to workforces and customers alike. It is the careless, indiscriminate sale of so many of our public and private assets. It is the unwillingness to find ways of investing in ourselves, while we look so regularly to foreigners to revive our industries or build our infrastructure. It is the crisis of trust in our politicians. It is the uncontested acceptance that our children confront a worse world than we faced ourselves – from the size of mortgage they will need to buy a house to lower pensions.
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The principal obstacle to the recreation of a sense of we – and along with it the shared vision, ambition and purpose for the country which is the necessary precondition for the extensive reforms that are needed – is inequality. Inequality is like a slow-growing but untreated cancer; it can grow with little apparent effect for a long time while the sufferer lives in happy ignorance. Occasionally there may be unexplained physical weaknesses and complaints that suggest something is awry, but other, less alarming explanations than cancer seem both more likely and comforting. Then suddenly the cancer begins to metastasise with catastrophic effects, but it is too late to stop its now obvious spread, and the implications are often fatal.

Societies, unlike individuals, do not die. But the cancer of inequality produces results that are equally catastrophic.

- From that starting point, it makes sense that the very people who have secured their positions by exploiting amorality might have trouble seeing how to address it. But Paul Mason sees Greece's election as an example of how citizens can peacefully and democratically revolt against the mindset that people must be sacrificed to economic gods.

- David Macdonald studies how Canada's economic picture would look if First Nations weren't deliberately cut out of it. And Jason Warick reports on Ken Coates' call to share resource revenue with First Nations.

- Edward Keenan highlights the CRA's selective crackdown against charities whose causes don't fit the Cons' politics.

- And finally, Michael Harris discusses how the Harper Cons' distaste for any accurate portrayal of their government is all too consistent with how truth-tellers are being treated around the globe:

The next prime minister of Canada has either got to let Canadians in on what is really happening in this country and this world, or see the profession of politics fall into permanent disgrace. It won’t be lousy voter turn-out we’ll be talking about then — it will voter turn-off and the extinction of democracy, Alberta-style.
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What is happening in Stephen Harper’s Canada — the hoarding and choking-off of information, the outright lying — is going on in many of the aging, decrepit democracies in the West. The establishments of several countries have effectively decided that they are above the law — and often cite national security threats to justify anti-democratic and, in some cases, thoroughly illegal behaviours.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Larry Elliott writes that at least some business leaders are paying lip service to the idea that inequality needs to be reined in. But Alec Hogg points out that at least some of the privileged few are using their obscene wealth to remove themselves from the rest of humanity, rather than lifting a finger to help anybody else.

- Meanwhile, Joseph Stiglitz observes that sheer stubborn stupidity on the part of austerians is doing untold damage to the global economy. But Jon Henley notes that in advance of Syriza's election victory, a new social movement in Greece had already been showing how much good collective action can do - suggesting that citizens are rightly resisting the claim that there's nothing to be done to improve their plight.

- Scott Gilmore reminds us of Canada's shameful history of mistreating First Nations.

- Mitchell Anderson comments that contrary to its oft-repeated promise, Alberta has indeed blown another oil boom.

- Finally, Andrew Coyne laments the Libs' choice to join the Cons in refusing to do anything about climate change. And Joseph Heath points out that the environmental damage we're leaving for future generations to address far outweighs the financial deficits which are so often used as an excuse for inaction:

Oliver knows that deficits are neither here nor there from the standpoint of intergenerational equity. What he actually has is a standing preference for smaller government. So when government revenue falls, this gives him an opportunity to reduce the size of government, by cutting expenditures. The idea that “deficits are immoral” is just a convenient way of selling the public on this reduction in the size of government, without having to make the case for smaller government (which is a tough sell).

This is all pretty standard. I guess what makes it extra-cynical is that we are, as a matter of fact, confronting a serious problem of intergenerational justice right now, in the form of climate change. And not only are we failing to do what’s right for our children on this file, we are doing the exact opposite of what’s right. So it is obvious that a moral concern about the welfare of future generations carries absolutely no weight with the Harper government. If it did, we would be debating what to do with all the revenue being generated by new federal carbon taxes. This is what takes Oliver’s remark out of the realm of run-of-the-mill-cynical and into the realm of deeply-cynical.

Finally, just an exercise for fun. There are lots of arguments out there, suggesting that we should not be particularly worried about climate change — that things will somehow take care of themselves. Try to find one single argument for inaction on climate change that is not also an argument for ignoring government deficits.

#DefineHarper

A couple of earlier posts have started a bit of a discussion about the messages which will be most effective in convincing voters - and particularly swing voters - to shift their votes away from the Harper Cons. But I'll take the opportunity to turn the discussion over to a wider audience through Twitter.

In addition to ideas for overall themes, I'd also think it's worth showing how they can be to use. Here's an example as to how one suggested by Sub-Boreal might be applied in practice:

[Message based on the work done by End Immigration Detention.]

Obviously, Sub-Boreal's suggestion is one which can be applied to multiple issues with appropriate modifications. And while single-issue messages are worth discussing as well, it's worth focusing particularly on themes which can serve as an overarching message in nearly any area of political discussion

Again, though, I'll offer a reminder that the goal isn't only to present a message which a particular party could choose to echo. Instead, it's to develop themes which will resonate across party lines to nudge voters away from the Cons, with a particular emphasis on those who may have supported the Cons in the past but be open to voting differently.

The hope is to generate both new ideas, and suggestions as to improve and apply the ones put forward already. And the ultimate goal is to develop some memes which can at least be passed along through social media - and maybe progress to a pre-writ ad campaign - to define Stephen Harper for the Canadian public as the next election approaches.

Sunday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Sunday reading.

- Nicholas Kristof writes about the empathy gap which causes far too many wealthier citizens to devalue those who don't have as much. Jesse Singal observes that the primary effect of wealth on well-being is to reduce downside rather than improve happiness - signalling that we might be best served pursuing policies aimed at improving financial security across the income scale. And Lucy Mangan discusses what's missing from the people who refuse to understand the effect of poverty - particularly when they're best positioned to do something to alleviate it:

Politicians, for example, are apparently completely baffled by Poor People’s propensity to do harmful things, often expensively, to themselves. (That’s politicians of all stripes – it’s just that the left wing wrings its hands and feels helplessly sorry for Them, while Tories are pretty sure They are just animals in need of better training.) The underclass eats fast food, drinks and smokes, and some of its more unruly members even take drugs. Why? Why?

Listen, I always want to say, if you’re genuinely mystified, answer me this: have you never had a really bad day and really wanted – nay, needed – an extra glass of Montrachet on the roof terrace in the evening? Or such a chaotic, miserable week that you’ve ended up with a takeaway five nights out of seven instead of delving into Nigella’s latest?

You have? Why, splendid. Now imagine if your whole life were not just like that one bad day, but even worse. All the time. No let-up. No end in sight. No, you can’t go on holiday. No, you can’t cash anything in and retire. No. How would you react? No, you’ve not got a marketable skills set. You don’t know anyone who can give you a job. No. No.
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I don’t understand how the people in charge of us all don’t understand. If you are genuinely unable to apply your imagination and extend your empathy far enough – and you don’t have to do it all at once; little by little will suffice, but you must get there – then you are a sociopath, and we should all be protected from your actions. If you are in fact able and choose not to, then you’re something quite a lot worse.

- But if the privileged can't be convinced to care about fellow human beings in their own right, Larry Elliot notes that they're at least taking notice of the economic costs of inequality. And Tony Berman theorizes that we've reached the point where there's no avoiding some action to level the playing field when it comes to standards of living.

- Unfortunately, neither empathy nor common sense is forthcoming from the Fraser Institute, which is determined to undermine incomes and increase workplace discrimination by undermining the public-sector employers which have made some progress on both fronts.

- And the Saskatchewan Party too seems determined to spend its political capital making life worse for the people who have least - with a new attack on affordable housing serving as just the latest example. Which only matches the track record of other right-wing governments who promise to sell off social housing in order to increase the available stock - only to deliver only on the part which privatizes incomes without benefiting renters.

- Finally, Chantal Hebert discusses how historical two-party systems have eroded in both Canada and the UK, while highlighting the stark difference in reaction by most Canadian parties (though not all) to the possibility of minority government:

A poll published earlier this month reported that one-third of U.K. voters feel they were better served by the coalition than they would have been by a majority government.

The experience has undeniably provided supporters of smaller parties with an added incentive to stick to their original choice, in the hope that they could secure a position of influence in a hung Parliament.

Meanwhile in Canada, Harper and Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are about to spend the next campaign on the same anti-coalition page.

Harper will again plead that the only way to ensure that the Conservatives are not robbed of an election victory by a scheming opposition is to give his party an unassailable majority.

The Liberals will continue to rule out — as Trudeau did in a year-end interview — the option of joining the NDP in a coalition government, the better to convince New Democrats seeking regime change to move over to them.

The losers will be the voters who will once again be held hostage to a winner-take-all approach to parliamentary democracy.

On changing reputations

Following up on this post as to the value of a common message in countering the Cons' campaign spin, let's test out Stephen Maher's theory as to what the opposition parties need to offer:

For years, Harper has missed no opportunity to portray himself as the only leader who can keep us from ruin, characterizing his rivals as unhinged crackpots with crazy schemes.

Harper has spent more than $100 million in tax dollars on advertisements promoting the Economic Action Plan, a transparently partisan expenditure aimed at inducing a pavlovian response from voters. Add all the cheque presentations, ribbon cuttings, speeches, interviews and party advertising and you have an almost decade-long communication effort that has succeeded in associating economic competence with Harper.
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(T)o get rid of Harper, the opposition has to convince voters not that he is nasty or dishonest, but that he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

That looks like a hard job, but if they don’t do that they won’t win.

Now, there's certainly some appeal to the idea of running an election based on Harper's economic record, and indeed some polling data to suggest he doesn't have any particular advantage in the area.
 
But as Maher notes, any attempt to present mere facts on that front is running into a headwind generated by hundreds of millions of dollars of past advertising - not to mention the corporate media which has so determinedly ignored Harper's actual record in promoting him as an economic manager in the first place. Which is to say that a successful message focused on the economy today would have to go a long way to account for people who may have found Harper acceptable on the same issue in the past. Maybe "Harper: He's Had His Chance"? Or "Harper: Tried and Failed"?

At the same time, though, Harper is likely far more vulnerable on other issues such as ethics or social policy than he is on the economy in any event. So while it's worth having some economic counterpoints available to highlight how Harper hasn't lived up to his billing, I'd think a core message should probably focus elsewhere.

On common messaging

It shouldn't come as much surprise that the new election year is bringing out the usual, tiresome round of calls for strategic voting and candidate withdrawals.

In the past, I've responded by suggesting that if Canada's opposition parties have enough common ground to cooperate, they should consider working with joint messages rather than trying to carve up the electoral map. And I'd still be curious to see how that type of arrangement would work if there was any interest in pursuing it.

But I wonder now whether the best course of action may have nothing to do with party arrangements - particularly in light of how the Canadian political system has evolved since 2011.

Until the NDP's rise to Official Opposition status in 2011, it was tempting for far too many people to pretend that all parties other than the Cons could be safely ignored. And the Libs' "blue door, red door" rhetoric in that election took that narrow mindset to a new extreme - before it proved as inaccurate as it was laden with hubris.

Now, though, there shouldn't be any escaping the fact that we're now in a true three-party system. And due to that change, both major opposition parties are inherently focused not only on making the case for change, but on doing so with messages which are designed to differentiate themselves from each other.

But that doesn't mean the public is similarly limited. And I'll suggest that it's worth putting the full weight of public fatigue with the Harper Cons to good use.

With that in mind, I'll suggest a crowdsourced effort to answer these questions (with a hat tip to the #fivewordsharperfears hashtag which offered plenty of ideas).

What brief, easily-remembered message will best convince voters to turn against Stephen Harper and the Cons when they go to the polls in 2015? And how can be make sure that message is the one Canadians consider as they vote?

I'll suggest a few starting points for such a message:
- It should be friendly to swing voters, rather than insulting anybody who's voted Con in the past but might consider switching votes this time out. 60% of voters have ruled out the Cons, and the goal of this message isn't merely to speak to them; instead, it needs to target the next 10-15% who might swing an election.
- But it should also be consistent enough with progressive values to avoid driving away the people who are most motivated to spread it in order to end Harper's reign.
- In addition, it should fit with well-known political messaging structures: favouring "change" over "the same", progressive/nurturant themes over conservative/authoritarian ones, etc.
- It should be consistent enough with how people already see Harper to fit easily into existing perceptions, but be distinct enough from past campaign messages to avoid any concerns about having failed already.
- And finally, it should counter the "better off with Harper" theme the Cons have already set up as their primary message.

A simple version would be "Canada can do better" or "we can do better" - leaving open the question of who would serve as the best alternative, while focusing attention squarely on whether Harper deserves to maintain power and answering with a clear "no".

But that first thought serves only as a starting point for discussion. And hopefully, progressives of multiple partisan stripes can agree enough on a common theme to make it stick to Harper.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Lana Payne writes that by finally recognizing the unfairness and ineffectiveness of Alberta's regressive tax system, Jim Prentice may be starting a needed national debate:

Alberta Premier Jim Prentice talks up taxes for individuals including a sales tax (Alberta is the only province not to have one) and adjusting income taxes. But what about those oil companies? This might also be an ideal time to consider how the province can receive a bigger piece of the oil revenue when prices do bounce back. The prep work should start now.

When oil prices boom, provincial economies dependent on those boom times have to be able to take advantage of skyrocketing prices. This is one way to build a rainy-day fund that can help through the tough times.

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Paul Davis has hinted that everything needs to be considered - both revenues and expenditures - in confronting this province's ballooning deficit. The key here is not to panic. Panic results in poor decisions.

Canadians should demand a tax conversation at the federal level, including a hard look at how tax cuts to the wealthiest in Canada are now being paid for through deficit-financing.
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Taxes are all about values. They are how we build a better society. Let's have a conversation about that.

- David Sirota comments on the disastrous effect of the U.S.' regressive tax system. And Szu Ping Chan reports on Mark Carney's observation that the tech companies who are rendering substantial classes of workers obsolete should be paying a larger share.

- Andrew Jackson compares the respective merits of meaningful industrial policy as opposed to indiscriminate corporate tax slashing:

The Harper government has proudly put corporate tax cuts at the very heart of its so-called growth and jobs agenda. Since taking power in 2006, they have cut the general federal corporate tax rate from 22.1% to 15%. According to the Parliamentary Budget Office, each one point reduction costs $1.85 Billion in lost annual revenues, so the total annual cost is some $12 billion.

Corporate tax cuts certainly boost after tax corporate profits, but have had a negligible impact to date on actual business investment in machinery and equipment and in intellectual property which are the key building blocks of our future prosperity. The latest national accounts data show that real business spending in these vital areas has been flat for the past three years, and remains below the pre-recession level, both in dollar terms and as a share of the economy.
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(G)overnment funds are (shock) being invested as equity in specific areas of the economy such as high tech, IT and health care where start-up capital is much more scarce than in the United States.

Progressive economists see these interventions as broadly justified and cost effective given market failures which limit the willingness of the private sector to undertake or finance risky but potentially highly productive investments. The federal government's own advisory panel on the funding of innovation led by Tom Jenkins recommended more targeted and strategic interventions.

This begs the question of how much money should be funnelled to the private sector through costly across the board tax cuts as opposed to more targeted programs. The fact that even the Harper government has retained and even expanded some strategic interventions strongly suggests that they are needed.

- Meanwhile, David Parkinson, Richard Blackwell and Iain Marlow write that no matter how low interest rates are pushed, we can't expect the global economy to begin any sustained recovery until governments get out of austerity mode. And Nadia Alexan discusses some of the more productive options we could be pursuing to turn concentrated wealth into social and economic development.

- Finally, Bruce Anderson observes that the Cons' choice to fund self-promotion rather than anything which could actually benefit Canada's people serves as a compelling indicator of a government that's completely lost its way.

Musical interlude

I Mother Earth - Used to be Alright

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Crawford Kilian writes that growing inequality has been largely the product of deliberate engineering rather than any natural process, while Paul Krugman focuses on the preferential treatment of capital income in particular. And Simon Barrow discusses the sources and beneficiaries of the increasing wealth gap:

(T)he anti-change interests arrayed against any attempt to substantially reform global finance, block the privileging of huge corporate interests (TTIP being a prime example), ensure labour rights, address income and wealth gaps, stop tax evasion and tax dodging by the wealthiest on an industrial scale, legally enshrine transparency for governments and companies, guarantee public services become and remain public, end carbon subsidies, invest in a green future, abolish wasteful and immoral spending on WMDs, adopt redistributive fiscal and monetary policies, bail out debt slaves rather than debt enforcers, achieve a universal financial transaction tax – and many other policies that genuinely reverse inequality – are enormous, deep, entrenched and persistent.

For example, UK governments say, "we're all in this together", but pursue policies that have allowed income and wealth gaps to widen and foodbanks to proliferate. When criticism is issued and well-documented evidence proffered, they are swift to denounce it as "out of touch" and "factually incorrect". Beneath accommodating rhetoric about "hard working families" and "fairness" lies a continuing denial of the harsh realities of poverty and inequality by many of those in power.
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It is also fashionable right now to say that inequality harms the wealthy as well as the poor, degrades social bonds, "inhibits growth" (of what kind?) and so on. This is true to a significant extent. But it hurts its victims much more: let's not forget this in an "it's still all about us" rush to avoid the conflict underling [sic] the gulf in wealth. For the simple reality is that inequality would not persist if it did not benefit those at the top of the economic ladder extravagantly. Which it does, as Oxfam's research (albeit nuanced by a closer look at the statistics from Channel 4) shows. Sure, the real damage caused by the gap between the haves and the have nots or have-much-lesses comes back to visit us all. But at that point the elites devise and popularise scapegoating mechanisms to evade far-reaching responsibility themselves.

- Meanwhile, Kaja Whitehouse takes a first look at how Uber - one of the leading examples of the "on-demand" economy - is exacerbating the pattern by driving down the income of its drivers.

- All of which leads to Guy Standing's proposal for a Precariat Charter to recognize the needs of a class which is otherwise excluded (in practice if not in theory) from political decision-making.

- Finally, Doug Cuthand reminds us of Canada's sad history of racism against First Nations. And Joe Friesen reports on just one example of continued systematic exclusion, as Canada's economic data is skewed by a deliberate choice to ignore people on First Nations reserves.

I see what you did there

Let's face it: a broken Red Book promise, an ignored Kyoto Protocol commitment and zero policy action later, nobody would have had reason to believe any Lib policy promises on greenhouse gas emissions anyway. So why wouldn't Justin Trudeau try to spin continued neglect at the federal level as a feature rather than a bug?

Of course, anybody who actually wants to rein in climate change might recognize that an opt-in approach to a collective action problem is set up to fail. But apparently, "anybody who actually wants to rein in climate change" isn't in the Libs' pool of target voters.

New column day

Here, on how the now-infamous story of Eric and Ilsa bears a disturbing resemblance to how Brad Wall has handled Saskatchewan's finances.

For further reading...
- Again, the original Eric and Ilsa story is here, with Rob Carrick following up here. And the story was picked up (with appropriate criticism) here, here and here among other places.
- I've also commented in this post, and I'll note that the point applies equally when it comes to Saskatchewan: in fact, Saskatchewan's GDP has more than tripled since 1990 without generating much more than the insistence that we keep prioritizing GDP growth over doing anything useful with it.
- Other GDP and income references within the article are here on a global basis, and here for Canadian provincial numbers. 
- Finally, CBC reported on then-Provincial Auditor Bonnie Lysyk's findings as to how the Wall government has managed to run deficits even in boom times here.