Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that to end your weekend.

- Daniel Goleman writes about the role of wealth in undermining empathy:

(I)n general, we focus the most on those we value most. While the wealthy can hire help, those with few material assets are more likely to value their social assets: like the neighbor who will keep an eye on your child from the time she gets home from school until the time you get home from work. The financial difference ends up creating a behavioral difference. Poor people are better attuned to interpersonal relations — with those of the same strata, and the more powerful — than the rich are, because they have to be.

While Mr. Keltner’s research finds that the poor, compared with the wealthy, have keenly attuned interpersonal attention in all directions, in general, those with the most power in society seem to pay particularly little attention to those with the least power. To be sure, high-status people do attend to those of equal rank — but not as well as those low of status do.

This has profound implications for societal behavior and government policy. Tuning in to the needs and feelings of another person is a prerequisite to empathy, which in turn can lead to understanding, concern and, if the circumstances are right, compassionate action.
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Since the 1970s, the gap between the rich and everyone else has skyrocketed. Income inequality is at its highest level in a century. This widening gulf between the haves and have-less troubles me, but not for the obvious reasons. Apart from the financial inequities, I fear the expansion of an entirely different gap, caused by the inability to see oneself in a less advantaged person’s shoes. Reducing the economic gap may be impossible without also addressing the gap in empathy.

- Stephen Maher writes about the Cons' continuing problems with Stephen Harper's first set of patronage Senate appointments - which look to have arisen largely about of the perception that anybody sufficiently well-connected to be appointed would be above answering to the mere general public. And there's an echo of that theme in Kate Heartfield's discussion of the Cons' battles with Elections Canada as well.

- But when it comes to kicking the powerless while they're down, it's hard to top the Cons' thumb in the eye of war rape victims and child brides who need access to abortion as a means of remedying the human rights violations they've suffered - or the denial of health care to refugee claimants.

- Finally, the CP reports that Alberta isn't done trying to shut non-oil baron voices out of any environmental assessment of the tar sands.

Fool me twice

Andrew Coyne has a suggestion as to how the Cons might extort some increased adherence to free-market fundamentalism from the provinces:

It’s the balance between spending and revenues, not just the totals, that matters. The federal government, as the PBO numbers show, will have substantial fiscal “room,” revenues in excess of what it needs to pay its bills, while the provinces will be in substantial structural deficit. Ottawa has the money, in other words, and the provinces need it — desperately.

This puts the feds in a very strong bargaining position. Rather than simply hand over the loot, as the provinces will inevitably demand, they can use it as leverage: a transfer of x number of GST points, say, in exchange for dismantling provincial trade barriers.

Ottawa will have the fiscal clout to bring some order at last to this chaotic economic union. It should begin thinking how to use it.

Of course, the first problem with Coyne's pretense to compromise is the fact that both proposed actions in fact represent hard-right steps: tax cuts and the elimination of regulations don't reflect a tradeoff, but a complete capitulation to the corporate agenda on the part of provincial governments who may not entirely agree with it.

And the "tax room" theory serves only to exacerbate inequality among the provinces - replacing fiscal federalism which provides stability for all provinces with a go-it-alone philosophy.

But let's put those general problems aside in favour of a more specific reality about the Cons' posturing around tax points. Because the Cons have made exactly the same promise of offering provinces tax room before - and then used any effort to follow up as an opportunity to bash the provincial governments in question.

Again, here's how Jim Flaherty first presented the Cons' GST cuts:

Our government firmly believes that unanticipated surpluses, the last area I wanted to mention, should be used primarily to reduce the debt and reduce federal taxes rather than to launch new policies in areas where the federal government is not best placed to design or deliver programs.

This, in turn, creates tax room that provinces and territories can consider filling for their specific needs and purposes.

So what happened when Ontario tried to take Flaherty up on the offer in order to fund public transit?

“We did not lower the GST to have it taken away from Ontarians by the Wynne government with a new sales tax hike,” said Flaherty, who cut the federal levy from 7 per cent to 5 per cent prior to harmonization.

In sum, any provincial leader would have to be painfully gullible to think that the Cons will let further federal tax slashing open the door to provincial revenue gathering. And so if the provinces have any desire to be able to deliver programs for the public benefit, their ask needs to be for direct funding - lest their bargaining position get all the worse with time.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

Sunday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Sunday reading.

- Alex Himelfarb and Jordan Himelfarb comment on Canada's dangerously distorted conversation about public revenue and the purposes it can serve:

As we argue in our new book, Tax Is Not a Four-Letter Word, the Canadian tax conversation has become dangerously distorted. Any reasonable discussion of taxes must take into account the highly valued public services they buy. But in Canada, and throughout much of the Anglosphere, these inextricably linked concepts — taxes and public services — have somehow become divorced. We now live in an environment in which the first question we ask of any policy idea is “How much will it cost?” whereas we never ask of tax cuts “What will we lose?” Canada’s slow-motion austerity may blind us to the consequences, but they are no less real: a less resilient and generous country and a stunted political imagination.

It’s not surprising then that even as federal taxes as a share of GDP keep hitting new lows, even after billions in cuts over the last couple of decades by all levels of government whatever their political stripe, more reductions are in store. Income splitting, for instance, would put money in the hands of middle-class families, many of whom feel stretched by decades of income stagnation. But a strong case has been made by experts that this tax cut would treat families inequitably, would create disincentives to work for some and would deprive federal and provincial governments of billions that could be used to better serve families and children — say, infrastructure or child care.
..
The current conversation is a consequence of the neo-liberal economic policy that began to dominate American and British politics in the early 1980s, and emerged more slowly and subtly in Canada at around the same time. In this view, economic growth and individual freedom are best served by reducing government and its influence and letting the market do its work. Politically, tax cuts were treated as a free good — with little discussion of what public services would be lost and at what cost. We still get promises of tax cuts as though they will magically pay for themselves or will simply require greater efficiencies and less waste. Yet the numbers on waste never add up and the cuts inevitably lead to eroding public services, rising inequality, environmental deterioration and lost opportunity. There is no gravy train and no free lunch.

- But then, the Cons are going out of their way to set up government funding structures which avoid doing any good at all - including "social finance" intended to make sure that poverty is seen as a source of profit rather than a problem to be fixed, and a job grant system which may sound familiar to those of us who remember employer-focused child care tax credits which produced zero results.

- Meanwhile, Aaron Wherry documents the Cons' flat-out lies when it comes to the evidence of the effectiveness of physician-prescribed heroin as part of a rehabilitation program. Which fits all too well with the Cons' continued evidence-averse handling of the census. 

- Murray Mandryk joins the ranks of observers wondering why Brad Wall and the Saskatchewan Party have decided to pick a gratuitous fight with the province's First Nations over revenue sharing.

- Finally, Catherine Rampell reminds us how boom and bust cycles exacerbate inequality - as less-wealthy people are all too likely to end up buying in just at the end of the boom, while only the cash-rich can profit from the subsequent crash.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- The National Post offers an excerpt from Susan Delacourt's Shopping for Votes discussing the role branding played in the election of John Diefenbaker. And Jeffrey Simpson discusses the continued drift toward consumer politics.
- But in commenting on the Nova Scotia provincial election, Ralph Surette reminds us what's lost when voting decisions are made based solely on snap impressions rather than any effort to determine who's capable of managing a government:

There have been several televised debates. To anyone watching them from the point of view of substance rather than mere performance, Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil has lost them all and Premier Darrell Dexter has won them all — but the Liberal numbers kept rising.

Dexter’s desperate narrative is, alas, the only coherent one in this whole thing. He’s pointing to progress in some domains and admitting to mistakes (itself a novelty in politics) in others that he’s promising to address in a second mandate, especially now that the budget is tentatively balanced.

The Liberals were surprised a little over a year ago by a poll putting them in the game and have been madly stitching up policy since. They’ve hit onto some superficial hot buttons — health, power rates, corporate incentives — but when questioned about the implications, McNeil reverts to his set rhetoric, avoids the question, and in fact sounds like a tired old incumbent back on his heels.
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Under the circumstances, a Liberal government is unlikely to cheer anyone, including Liberal voters themselves. Nothing has been properly thought out, and unless McNeil backs off from some of his simplicities, Nova Scotia politics is heading back into the old stewpot from whence it came. But backing off — or breaking promises — in the face of the most cynical voters in the country (in my estimation) would hardly keep the peace.

I desperately hope I’m wrong about this, but after watching Nova Scotia politics for close to 45 years, some of the old queasy feeling is back.

- Meanwhile, Charles Pierce writes that the Republicans have taken politics based on pure branding to its logical conclusion by completely detaching themselves from any sense that the political system should be used to help actual people. And Lana Payne wonders what happened to the common good in political discussions.

- Finally, Kapil Khatter points out how medical decisions can be influenced and manipulated by big pharma - both in fabricating "needs" to be met by whatever drug a particularly company wants to peddle, and in using academic structures to sell a particular drug as the answer.

Musical interlude

Delerium - Wisdom

Friday Morning 'Rider Blogging

Early in the season, the Saskatchewan Roughriders frequently dug themselves into a hole at the beginning of a game, only to pile up just enough points at the end to emerge victorious.

But that kind of luck can only last for so long. And Sunday's loss in Montreal provided an all-too-vivid example of the dangers of failing to take control of a game when the opportunity arises.

Once again, the 'Riders played well enough on defence to win with even a modest point total. And a resurgent return game gave the offence reasonably good field position throughout the game...which it just barely managed to squander at every turn.

Most obviously, Saskatchewan turned two possessions deep in Montreal territory into a grand total of two points at the end of the first quarter and the beginning of the second. And it's especially a mystery how a team which seemed unstoppable on two-point conversions not long ago managed to fail on first and goal from the Montreal 3-yard-line.

But even the punt singles which represented far too much of the 'Riders' offence for most of the game signalled an inability to produce when it counted most. In a game where a couple of field goals could have made all the defence, Saskatchewan's offence stalled multiple times around midfield - while the Als were just slightly better at converting opportunities into points (accounting for one deep turnover from each team).

Of course, the 'Riders combination of field position and passing yardage hid a couple of major problems with the team's offense. It's possible to get by with a low-percentage passing attack as long as a team can reliably generate some yards on the ground - but Saskatchewan's pitiful 15 yards rushing meant that the burden to move the ball was entirely on Darian Durant's right arm. And while Durant generated a few big plays, his 24-for-46 showing was far short of the efficiency needed to keep the offence on the field (and the defence out of difficult situations).

Hopefully the return of Kory Sheets will help somewhat this week against B.C. - both in generating yards in the trenches, and in forcing defences to scheme against some meaningful running threat. But there's reason to worry that the 'Riders ran through their luck early in the season.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Glen Hodgson and Brenda Lafleur explain how Canada's lower and middle classes alike have been left out of any economic growth as a result of increased inequality:

We believe the more accurate interpretation is that after worsening in the 1980s and 1990s, income inequality and poverty in Canada remained stuck at a relatively high level during the 2000s. This interpretation should prompt the question, “Can anything be done about it?”

The 1990s were a difficult decade for Canadians. By the late 1990s, real median after-tax income fell to its lowest level in more than three decades, and income inequality reached its peak. Yet even though higher commodity demand and prices helped Canada’s economy grow faster from 2000 to 2010 than most of its peers, including the United States, income inequality did not decline.
...
Furthermore, the gap between the top and bottom income quintiles increased the most in the 1980s and 1990s. The top 20 per cent got relatively richer, and the bottom 20 per cent got relatively poorer. The gap between richest and poorest quintiles grew more slowly in the 2000s, but it clearly did not shrink. The top income quintile increased its share of total after-tax income from 43.4 per cent in 1998 to 44.3 per cent in 2010. The share going to the bottom income quintile remained the same (4.8 per cent), while the share going to the three quintile groups in between (which could be broadly defined as the middle class) fell.

In short, it is statistically accurate to say that the middle class – at least as defined by having a mid-range income – is being squeezed in Canada.

And what about low-income Canadians, including those in poverty? Using Statistics Canada’s Low Income Measure (LIM), the share of Canada’s population in low income is somewhat smaller than during the mid-1990s, but it remains higher than it was in the 1970s and 1980s. Even if the income share of lower-income Canadians was stable in the 2000s and their incomes are rising modestly, Canada’s performance is far from stellar. When put in the context of a relatively healthy Canadian economy from 2000 to the onset of the financial crisis in 2008, lower-income Canadians did not get that much further ahead.

- Meanwhile, Rick Smith duly mocks the promise of a "consumer first" Throne Speech from a government which has gutted the federal regulatory system and trashed any meaningful consumer protections introduced by other parties throughout its stay in power.

- And on the subject of public accountability, Thomas Walkom recognizes that the real story behind the planning of Toronto's Pan Am Games is the danger involved in handing matters of public interest over to unaccountable private actors.

- Vaughn Palmer discusses British Columbia's reasonable concerns about the threat of bitumen spills on land and water alike. And CBC reports on Justice Marceau's finding that Alberta's exclusion of environmental groups from the review of tar sands projects resulted in an unfair and invalid process - which may be particularly important given that the Cons have imposed exactly the same standard at the federal level in order to remove critical voices from pipeline assessments.

- I'll have more to say about the flurry of discussion set off by Michael Ignatieff's book launch over the weekend. But for now, the essential recent reading on Ignatieff's tenure and departure includes: Paul Wells on Ignatieff's lack of substance; Bob Hepburn on his apparent state of denial; Frances Russell on his complete misapprehension of a parliamentary system; and Chris Selley's brilliant assessment of Ignatieff's combined sense of entitlement and appetite for self-aggrandizement.

- Finally, Paul Krugman offers his theory as to how the Republicans ended up where they are - and it's a lesson that we should watch for within our own party structures as well:

Coming back to the class warfare issue: my working theory is that wealthy individuals bought themselves a radical right party, believing — correctly — that it would cut their taxes and remove regulations, but failed to realize that eventually the craziness would take on a life of its own, and that the monster they created would turn on its creators as well as the little people.

And nobody knows how it ends.

New column day

Here, discussing what elements of Saskatchewan's referendum law look to have worked properly in Regina's wastewater treatment plant referendum process - and where there's some obvious room for improvement where future issues call for a vote among citizens.

For further reading...
- While I note in the column that the 10% signature threshold seems to serve its intended purpose nicely, that of course requires that a municipality apply it fairly. And I'll point back to Paul Dechene's timeline of questionable City steps which attempted to avoid a referendum even though the standard was met by any fair measurement.
- CBC reported on the City's approved funding for the referendum here, and on the money spent by all campaigns here.
- Finally, Shawn Fraser reflects on the referendum - pointing out what's wrong with the City's current decision-making processes (while leaving open the question of whether he'll stake some political capital on changing the culture if the establishment pushes back):

(T)his whole thing could have likely been avoided if there was better public engagement around this decision before council voted on it. I take as much responsibility for this as anyone. It also speaks to a culture at city hall of decisions being made, council voting on them, and then it being council’s job to tell people about a decision that is already going forward. There will no doubt be many other important and divisive issue to come before council in the coming years, and we need to work at changing this.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Andrew Jackson discusses why attacks on Old Age Security - including the Fraser Institute's calls for increased clawbacks - serve no useful purpose:

The principled argument for not clawing back OAS benefits is that all seniors should be entitled to a bare-bones public pension as a basic building block of the overall retirement income system. The OAS benefit is very low and is added to a meagre Canada Pension Plan benefit that replaces just 25 per cent of average earnings up to a maximum of $12,144 a year.
...

Receiving the full OAS benefit – taxed at an already significant marginal rate – is a modest recompense for paying progressive income taxes over a working lifetime. And universality does not stand in the way of providing much more significant benefits to those who are most in need, as we do through the income-tested Guaranteed Income Supplement to OAS.

Experience shows that mean-testing previously universal benefits has undermined support for social security programs among the affluent. Certainly, the more narrowly targeted an income support program becomes, the more the political support for that program tends to evaporate.

Seen from this perspective, universality has benefits over and above the modest fiscal cost.

- Meanwhile, Erin Weir and Lana Payne highlight the effect of the Cons' destruction of EI for seasonal workers who need it most.

- Trish Hennessy takes a look at the numbers behind the Cons' pseudo-census.

- And Kevin Press provides an example of the type of evidence which the Cons are so eager to suppress - showing that the relative size of government actually grows more under nominally right-wing parties.Which nicely complements Bruce Stewart's rebuttal to right-wingers who ignore the NDP's track record of responsible government.

- Finally, Russ Ford sees the values behind Upstream as an example of how politics should work:

An increase in GDP historically meant that most members of society prospered.

We know that is no longer true. A strong GDP now means nothing to the lives of most Canadians.

Many have argued that our future health care system will find itself in crisis largely because people are living longer.  We have moved from a system that previously addressed episodic illnesses to one that is now focussed on chronic disease management.  But to suggest that this will be the iceberg that derails our health system is simply nonsense.

The money is there or at least it was there until governments started cutting our taxes literally taking billions out of the public treasury. The lost tax cut money can easily finance those costs and there will be even money left over to buy the military all the toys it wants.

No chronic disease will not be our undoing. Our undoing will be a failure to acknowledge and address the fact that our new economic order is causing more and more Canadians to be sick by creating more inequality.

The easy solution would be to enter our political parties into a rehab program to end their addiction to public opinion polls. Can you imagine how politics would be different if our parties stood for something, acted on principle rather than focussed on what the polls tell them we want to hear.

Doing politics differently means starting to say what needs to be said.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Cats hanging on.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Jordon Cooper writes about the need to understand poverty in order to discuss and address it as a matter of public policy.

- John Greenwood reports on Cameco's tax evasion which is being rightly challenged by the CRA - though it's worth emphasizing that the corporate income tax at stake would figure to include hundreds of millions of dollars at the provincial level. And CBC does an undercover investigation of the types of tax evasion schemes available for a price.

- Speaking of shady practices, a witness before the Charbonneau commission has identified Harper Senate appointees Leo Housakos and Claude Carignan as recipients of largesse from corrupt construction companies. And Carolyn Stewart Olsen has been caught wrongfully claiming Senate expenses for days when the chamber wasn't sitting.

- Which, given the Cons' track record, means that we can probably expect them to launch a fund-raising appeal asking for money to ensure that their own appointees don't continue doing what their appointees do.

- Scott Stelmaschuk chimes in about the Sask Party's attack ad against on Cam Broten. And Doug Cuthand expands on the significance of Brad Wall's potshots at First Nations:

What surprised me was that the Sask. Party went after the NDP for its support for sharing resource revenue with First Nations. Is the governing party planning to use First Nations as a wedge issue in the next election campaign? Has it written off support from the province's aboriginal community, which constitutes about 20 per cent of the population? I know that aboriginal issues often are the subject of coffee row and doorstep conversations during campaigns, but this is the first time I can recall the party in power singling out support for First Nations as a liability for the province.

Resource revenue sharing is an issue that's gaining traction across Indian country. Our people have seen resources developed in their traditional territory with very little or no benefit to them. While provincial and federal coffers are getting rich from these developments, our communities remain mired in poverty.
...
To see the Saskatchewan Party throw out resource revenue sharing as a negative policy is a short-term, knee-jerk reaction to a long-standing debt, and is a slight on the province's First Nations.

- And finally, Murray Dobbin asks who will save Canadian democracy from Stephen Harper - though it's well worth noting that the pattern of tying public hands through trade agreements is as much a core philosophy for the Libs as for the Cons.

On decisive choices

Nanos' latest poll on the parties under consideration by voters has received plenty of attention. But the discussion so far seems to miss the most plausible explanation for the poll results.

Compared to previous polling, the latest survey shows:
- little change in the actual support levels of Canada's federal parties; and
- a dramatic drop in the number of voters listing each of the national opposition parties as "under consideration".

Now, the first point means that - contrary to the initial analysis by Nik Nanos - we shouldn't interpret the poll as affecting the "shine" or first-choice popularity for the parties involved. Instead, the question is whether that perception is shared by a group of people beyond a party's core supporters.

And the second point does signal that public preferences are hardening. Voters who may have taken time to lock in a preference among the NDP, Libs and Greens are reaching some more firm conclusions, and thus dropping second and third choices from the list of parties "under consideration".

We'll of course find out whether that trend holds. But if it does, then a reduction in voter volatility may reduce both the risk and the upside for each opposition party over the next couple of years. And if we're going to see three parties with reasonably firm support levels in the 25%-36% range for the foreseeable future, then it's about time to start thinking about how two of them can work together after the 2014 election.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Benjamin Radcliff discusses the proven connection between progressive policies and a higher quality of life across all levels of income:

Happier people live in countries with a generous social safety net, or, more generally, countries whose governments "tax and spend" at higher rates, reflecting the greater range of services and protections offered by the state. (These findings come from analysis of data from the World Values Surveys for the 21 Western industrial democracies from 1981 to 2007 for my book "The Political Economy of Human Happiness." Similar findings have been reported in peer-reviewed journals like "Social Research" and the "Social Indicators Research.")

The relationship could not be stronger or clearer: However much it may pain conservatives to hear it, the "nanny state," as they disparagingly call it, works. Across the Western world, the quality of human life increases as the size of the state increases. It turns out that having a "nanny" makes life better for people. This is borne out by the U.N. 2013 "World Happiness Report," which found Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Sweden the top five happiest nations.

 

The answer is simple and unequivocal: Happier people live in countries with a generous social safety net. Conservatives may be equally troubled to learn that labor unions have a similar effect. Not only are workers who belong to unions happier, but the overall rate of happiness for everyone -- members and nonmembers -- increases dramatically as the percentage of workers who belong to unions grows, reflecting the louder political voice that organization gives to ordinary citizens.

All this remains true when controlling for the many other things that might also affect quality of life, such as income, age, gender, marital status, or their country's culture, history, or level of economic development. Critically, "big government" and labor unions also promote happiness not merely for those toward the bottom or middle of the income distribution, but for everyone, rich and poor, men and women, conservatives and liberals.

...
The reasons the progressive agenda promotes happiness are complex, but stated simply, the more we supplement the cold efficiency of the market with interventions that reduce poverty, insecurity, and inequality, the more we improve quality of life for everyone.

- And in a similar vein, Carol Goar discusses the damaging effects of deprivation and scarcity, while offering a few public policy suggestions:

[Eldar Shafir] outlined to an auditorium full of academics, policy-makers and non-profit leaders how scarcity — of food, income, time, sleep, security, friendship — impairs people's judgment and locks them into patterns of behaviour that compound their misery. And he showed how simple changes in the way they organize their lives can set them on a healthier path.
...

With just 12 minutes onstage, Shafir couldn't elaborate on the policy implications of his research, but some are obvious:

•Blaming people for their poverty is wrong-headed. Chronic deprivation hijacks individuals' brains, reducing their ability to make good choices, cope with their constraints and extricate themselves from their condition.

•Inundating people who need help with forms to fill out, documents to gather, calculations to make and signatures to get overwhelms them and reduces their ability to manage their lives.

•Exhorting people to say no — to purchases they cannot afford, loans they cannot repay, deadlines they cannot meet or commitments they cannot keep — doesn't work. They need structures in their lives to prevent them from falling into to temptation and buffers to limit the harm when they do.

- Guy Giorno surprisingly adds his name to the list of people calling for a far more effective federal access-to-information system than the one he and the Harper government have abused over the past few years.

- Sheila Pratt reports on a push by oil barons to disband the lone tar sands monitoring agency which actually gives a voice to First Nations and environmental groups - preferring an industry-dominated structure instead.

- Which signals that there's plenty of work to be done in reversing the corporatist trend encouraged by Libs and Cons alike - and called out by Tom Mulcair in discussing the Cons' impending throne speech:

For decades, health, safety and environmental protections have been chipped away at in the name of economic progress. Both Liberal and Conservative governments have dismantled rules meant to protect the public and imposed industry self-regulation instead.
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This attack on basic health, safety and environmental protections was sold to the voting public on the promise that it would pave our path to prosperity. In the greatest irony of all, it was exactly this sort of unfettered deregulation that led to the greatest global economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Here in Canada, the failure of both Liberal and Conservative governments to address the impact of climate change now threatens our economic relationship with the United States — so much so that the Obama administration is now under intense pressure to block projects like Keystone XL that would boost production from the Canadian oilsands. Rather than heed the warnings of scientists, economists and First Nations, Conservatives have instead pushed ahead with legislation to gut environmental assessments and eliminate protections for fish habitat and navigable waters.

Where governments once took a leadership role in protecting the public interest, now they protect only private interests. In doing so, they have sacrificed our long-term prosperity for their short-sighted political gain. This has to end.

- Finally, Doug Elliott comments on what the Cons' shredding of the census will do to anybody trying to analyze data in the public interest:

Elliott says that the only solution is to restore the mandatory long-term census before any future damage is done. If it isn’t restored, he says he plans to retire.

“There won’t be anything to analyze,” he says.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Matt Taibbi discusses how public pension funds are being looted for the benefit of a few well-connected banksters:

Hedge funds have good reason to want to keep their fees hidden: They're insanely expensive. The typical fee structure for private hedge-fund management is a formula called "two and twenty," meaning the hedge fund collects a two percent fee just for showing up, then gets 20 percent of any profits it earns with your money. Some hedge funds also charge a mysterious third fee, called "fund expenses," that can run as high as half a percent – Loeb's Third Point, for instance, charged Rhode Island just more than half a percent for "fund expenses" last year, or about $350,000. Hedge funds will also pass on their trading costs to their clients, a huge additional line item that can come to an extra percent or more and is seldom disclosed. There are even fees states pay for withdrawing from certain hedge funds.

In public finance, hedge funds will sometimes give slight discounts, but the numbers are still enormous. In Rhode Island, over the course of 20 years, Siedle projects that the state will pay $2.1 billion in fees to hedge funds, private-equity funds and venture-capital funds. Why is that number interesting? Because it very nearly matches the savings the state will be taking from workers by freezing their Cost of Living Adjustments – $2.3 billion over 20 years.

"That's some 'reform,'" says Siedle.

"They pretty much took the COLA and gave it to a bunch of billionaires," hisses Day, Providence's retired firefighter union chief.

- The Star's editorial board weighs in on the lack of job opportunities for young workers.

- CBC reports on Alberta's order that a lake be drained in an attempt to contain an ongoing bitumen spill. But of course, it would make more sense to identify and mitigate the risk of that kind of disaster before it materializes - even as the Cons have taken steps to make sure that their oil-industry benefactors don't have to bother carrying out any environmental assessment before putting our land and water at risk.

- Which is to say that the tar sands represent possibly the most important example of a lack of upstream thinking in our current governments. But the new Upstream think tank is working on questioning the short-sighted thinking that leads to harmful (and avoidable) consequences in the long run.

- Finally, Peter Loewen discusses why nomination elections are so valuable within our democratic process:

Hard data on contested versus uncontested nominations are hard to come by, but some do exist. In a recent academic article, Royce Koop and Amanda Bittner document the trend of appointments. In each election from 1993 to 2008, approximately five per cent of Liberal candidates were appointed. This may seem a modest number, but the cumulative effect is a cause for concern. By 2008, a fifth of Liberal MPs were originally appointed candidates. Most have never contested a nomination.

Appointed candidates and those who win nomination battles have different careers. Those who enter politics via a secure candidacy are more likely to find themselves taking up cabinet positions and other high-profile sinecures. They eschew the lower-profile tasks of representation and constituency work.
...Insisting on open local nominations requires candidates to do two things. First, to establish that they are willing to solicit the support of local party members, just as they will have to soon request the support of all local voters. Second, to demonstrate that they can.

Sunday Morning 'Rider Blogging

Earlier in the 2013 season, the Saskatchewan Roughriders looked like they could control games with a ruthlessly efficient offence.

Two thirds of the way through the season, that theory seems to have broken down - with last week's loss to B.C. serving as just the latest evidence. But the Lions did leave some opportunities open which the 'Riders plainly weren't inclined to take - and as the season reaches its home stretch, it may be time to take a second look at the 'Riders' goals on offence.

In particular, the last few games have seen some worrisome trends developing: more of Darian Durant's passes are being batted down at the line, fewer receivers are managing to create space anywhere on the field as long as Durant stays in the pocket.

But those problems look to have a common solution. If the 'Riders' offence is easily controlled when Durant stays in place, then surely there's a ready response available by ensuring that he moves with the ball more often.

And Durant has made clear that he still has the athleticism to break tackles and find open space. The problem is that in recent games, he's used that skill mostly to earn another steamboat or two behind centre rather than to expand the field or gain yardage on his own - culminating in a final-drive illegal forward pass penalty on a play where Durant could comfortably have picked up a first down on the ground.

Of course, there are risks involved in forcing a quarterback to take more hits than he can avoid, and Durant's propensity for fumbling is also a concern. But he hasn't exactly avoided those issues in recent weeks behind an increasingly shaky offensive line.

Which means the 'Riders may need to ask Durant to spend more time using defensive aggressiveness to his own advantage, rather than hoping to control the game from the pocket. And if he can succeed changing the angles opponents have to control in coverage and moving the chains himself as a backup plan, then a quick, high-precision offence is far more likely to work when it counts most.

On consistent rules

Bill Curry reports that many Canadian municipalities are wondering why Rob Ford has access to funding streams not available to anybody else:

Ottawa’s $660-million gift to Toronto for a subway extension will come from a program that does not yet exist, leaving Canada’s other cities confused as to how they can get in on the action.

Mayors and municipal officials scrambled this week to understand the broader implications of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s surprise announcement on Monday that Ottawa would help finance a subway extension in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough.

Now, the broader implications seem to me to be both obvious and familiar. But for those not previously paying attention: if you are a crony of Stephen Harper's, then Stephen Harper's government will treat you as being above the rules which apply to everybody else.

Of course, in suggesting that municipal leaders govern themselves accordingly, it's also worth pointing out that merit and consistency might well deserve more consideration than they'll ever get under Harper. And so the smartest plan is to ensure that Harper isn't in a position to favour his pals longer than we can avoid.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- The CP reports on Suzanne Legault's much-needed warning about the Cons' secrecy in government:

In a closed-door session with dozens of bureaucrats Thursday, Suzanne Legault cited a series of novel measures she says are damaging an already tottering system.

"I am seeing signs of a system in crisis, where departments are unable to fulfil even their most basic obligations under the act," Legault told the group.

As an example, she cited a directive in April this year from the Treasury Board warning bureaucrats to steer clear of ministers' offices when looking for documents to respond to an access-to-information request.
...
The directive imposes strict conditions under which documents can even be requested from a minister's office, and allows political staff members to make a final decision about whether the information is relevant to a request.

Legault drew on other examples of departments that do not bother to retrieve and examine documents before claiming they are exempt or excluded from the Access to Information Act.

- Meanwhile, Elizabeth Thompson points out the lack of any clear privacy rules at all governing most political parties and actors.

- Hugh Wagner highlights the need for the provincial government to get labour legislation right, rather than pushing through attacks on workers with little thought about the consequences for people:

Saskatchewan's workplaces should be moving forward with a view to benefiting the whole of society, not just empowering employers at the expense of employees.

Nationally recognized and respected labour relations scholar and lawyer Prof. David Doorey of York University observes in his review of the legislation that "Bill 85 in its final version remains a onesided package of reforms.

The bill's labour relations provisions in particular are designed to impose new obligations, new restrictions, new costs and new challenges on unions."

If this is not the intent of the legislation, I ask again that the government consult fully and openly with all stakeholders, to ensure the act is further amended or to ensure the impending regulations address the following issues: Obstacles to workers' ability to organize and secure collective bargaining rights should be removed. Concerns that families may no longer be able to spend weekends together and employees may be denied lunch breaks if the employer decides it's necessary should be explicitly dealt with. These seemingly small changes reflect a legislative thrust that expands employer control over working conditions. The regulations must address the lack of checks and balances over how employers exercise this discretion.

- Ryan Meili introduces a national audience to his philosophy of upstream thinking. And for those interested, the Regina launch of the Upstream think tank will take place this afternoon.

- Finally, Ed Broadbent's Jack Layton Lecture is well worth a view:

Musical interlude

Bran Van 3000 - Astounded

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Jordan Brennan and Jim Stanford put to rest any attempt to minimize the growth of inequality in Canada:

(I)ncome inequality has reached a historic extreme. Inequality was high during the 1920s and 1930s (the “gilded age”), but fell sharply during the Second World War (as Canadians got back to work and taxes were raised to pay for the war effort). The three decades after the Second World War — a “golden age” of controlled capitalism — saw further decline in inequality. The economy was booming and powerful institutions (like progressive taxation and surging unionization) ensured the wealth was broadly shared.

Since 1980, however, we’ve entered another “gilded age.” Business-friendly economic and social policies replaced the former Keynesian welfare regime. In recent years, inequality has reached levels higher than at any time since the 1930s. And it is clearly staying that way, regardless of small year-to-year fluctuations.

Does income inequality matter? There’s a growing consensus among scientists from many disciplines that it does: in complex, surprising and economically important ways. Numerous studies document a powerful relationship between income inequality and varied dimensions of social pathology.

Indicators as diverse as happiness, mental illness, infant mortality, children’s educational performance, teenage pregnancy, homicide, imprisonment, social trust and social mobility all get worse as the income gaps within society deepen.

- But David Spencer writes that corporate efforts to demonize the poor and suppress wages to minimize their freedom of choice date back centuries. And Paul Krugman comments on the selective rage of the privileged - who are happy to accept multi-billion-dollar bailouts for themselves while demanding that workers lift themselves up by their own bootstraps.

- Meanwhile, Trish Hennessy (via Diablogue) discusses Ontario's self-defeating austerity policies. And Sean Geobey studies how young workers in particular are bearing the brunt the province's failures.

- Finally, Paul Adams highlights what we lose when politics turns into a matter of mere consumer culture rather than citizen activism:

Political parties run attack ads because they don’t really care if some of us are turned off politics — so long as they turn off more of the other parties’ supporters than they do their own. It really doesn’t matter if they’re damaging the system. Election after election, fewer and fewer people trudge to the polls — but someone always wins.

The most depressing aspect of all this may be that as the parties market themselves to a largely disengaged audience, they inevitably latch on to our wispiest impulses. Those impulses, Delacourt argues, are increasingly about what can we buy and for how much, whether that’s hockey equipment for the kids or a new smartphone for ourselves — often with a credit card, of course.

As a result there’s precious little space left on the shelf for, say, climate change or the disgraceful circumstances of our native peoples. Things like that might concern citizens — but they just don’t interest shoppers.

New column day

Here, on Brad Wall's choice to bring the Southern Strategy north with a dog-whistle appeal to prejudice against First Nations.

For further reading...
- Rick Perlstein puts the Southern Strategy (and Lee Atwater's description of it) in context here. 
- The Saskatchewan Party ad in question is here.
- The NDP's 2011 platform costing is here (PDF), featuring significant investments in housing, health care, child care, full-day kindergarten, tuition relief and other social causes. For those keeping score: total mentions of the beneficiaries of those proposed policies in the Sask Party's 30-second attack ad, zero; total mentions of First Nations, three.
- Meanwhile, the Saskatchewan Party has proudly highlighted its willingness to funnel royalty revenue to Mosaic and PCS. And it's also readily taken credit for general funding streams to municipalities and school boards. Which raises all the more reason to question why First Nations alone are singled out not to receive any share of royalties or other provincial revenues.
- Finally, I'll point back to my earlier post as to why a resource-sharing agreement with First Nations would help to ensure that all levels of government receive a fair return on resources rather than having their royalty rates ground down by extractors threatening to operate in a different jurisdictional structure within Saskatchewan. (Which again figures to be part of Wall's reason for attacking the idea.)