Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Des Cohen discusses how economic inequality has developed - and how it's now rewarding people for doing nothing more than worsening its effects. And Chase Burghgrave interviews Elizabeth Anderson about the employer-based power which is used to keep American workers in line:

You describe the authority of employers as like that of dictators, capable of micromanaging employees’ actions at the workplace as well as reprimanding them for their off-hour activities. Many conservatives and libertarians would probably take issue with workplaces being described in this way, citing the employee’s agreement to the employment contract as evidence of no wrongdoing on the part of the employer. Why should we see authority in the workplace as a form of governance and not as a contractual agreement between equals?

The case of the employer-employee relation is similar [to historical marriage contracts]. The state has determined the default terms of the employment relation through employment law. These establish a regime of “employment at will“: the employer can fire the employee for any or no reason, with very few exceptions, mostly having to do with discrimination. This grants bosses almost complete authority over workers, not only on the job but off duty as well.

Since the state has already put its thumbs very heavily on the scales in favor of employers, it is absurd to suppose that the employment contract is a product of negotiation between equals. Very few employees get a chance to negotiate at all.

While it is technically possible for the worker to negotiate better terms, in practice employers reject negotiation over the scope of employer authority out of hand, except for employees at the very top of the worker hierarchy and those represented by labor unions. Since they, like nineteenth-century husbands, have been dealt all the authority cards by default, why would they negotiate to give any of them to their employees?

- Joe Mihevc rightly argues that anger is an entirely justified response to the continued acceptance of poverty by political leaders. And Geoff Tily writes about the Bank of England's recognition that perpetually rising consumer debt can't be the foundation of a sustainable economy.

- Jacquie Maund and Hazel Stewart point out how a lack of public dental coverage leads to health and social harms.

- Shiri Pasternak writes that the Trudeau Libs are looking to impose a cultural of permanent austerity on First Nations (while dressing it up in rhetoric about self-governance). And Nancy Macdonald tells the story of Barb Kentner, who faces imminent death after a racist attack in Thunder Bay.

- Finally, Andrew Nikiforuk discusses the dangerous abandoned wells left behind by decades of Alberta PC fealty to the oil industry. And Sharon Kelly notes that  Saskatchewan isn't the only jurisdiction which has sunk billions into the false promise of "clean coal", as a Mississippi power plant initially designed as another attempt to whitewash coal power is instead converting entirely to natural gas (at a $3.4 billion loss).

New column day

Here, on how the historical competition between the NDP and the Greens hasn't precluded cooperation where it counts in British Columbia - and how the governing accord there might offer an example of cross-party collaboration for all levels of government.

For further reading...
- Martyn Brown wrote about the danger the Greens might have posed to a change in government early in the election campaign.
- Nancy MacDonald documented the post-election negotiations on all sides, including the common ground between John Horgan and Andrew Weaver once they got to talking. And Andrew MacLeod reported on what Horgan's NDP and Weaver's Greens were able to agree to.
- Finally, Andrew Coyne discusses Justin Trudeau's contempt for the public which has helped smooth over any differences between the NDP and Greens at the federal level. And the Greens' adoption of a preference for a mixed-member proportional electoral system offers an area where it may be possible to translate agreement between the two parties into policy change.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Colin Gordon discusses how contempt for democracy is one of the uniting principles of the right around the globe while reviewing Nancy MacLean's Democracy in Chains:

At the intersection of Buchanan’s market fundamentalism and his embrace of Jim Crow lies a fundamental reservation — nakedly evident on today’s radical right — about equal political citizenship and majority rule. This stemmed in part, from Calhoun onward, from a conviction that the polity could be cleft between “makers and takers,” and that it was the “takers” who, by employing state power to tax wealth and income, were doing the exploiting.

Buchanan’s “public choice” economics dressed this up as an iron law of both human nature and democratic rule (“a cynicism so toxic,” MacLean suggests, “that, if widely believed, it would eat like acid at the foundations of civic life”). Politically, Buchanan and his allies looked to gird the advantage enjoyed by the makers (by removing the last constraints on campaign finance, for example) while muffling the votes and the voices of the rest of us.

The combination, of course, is the hallmark of neoliberalism, whose interest is not in rolling back the state but in employing state power toward particular ends, including the protection of wealth and property and the suppression and surveillance of the poor. For all its thin distaste of “big government,” Buchanan’s radical right betrays a healthy appetite for repression.
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Over time, Buchanan and his allies tacitly admitted that they had no popular constituency; that the voting public — even those who had supported Reagan and cheered the congressional “Contract with America” — hesitated “when they learned that freed markets would leave them with sole responsibility for their fates.” The solution, first floated in the early debates over Social Security privatization and starkly evident in tortuous repeal of the Affordable Care Act, is to “crab-walk” around the issues, to claim that frontal assaults on popular social insurance programs are efforts to “shore them up” rather than destroy them.

The second, and more chilling, solution is to junk the rules entirely; to tilt an already unlevel playing field decisively and irrevocably against the popular will.

- Marius Busemeyer and Erik Neimanns explore how beneficiaries of social programs tend to reject government involvement in areas other than the ones which support them personally - making benefits vulnerable to politicians who are able to play one group against another (even while intending to leave them all worse off).

- Owen Jones takes note of the fact that the same UK Conservative government which has proclaimed a lack of money to help people has been able to find plenty to buy off the DUP in order to stay in power. And Rob Shaw points out the similar turnaround from Christy Clark's B.C. Libs as they try to cling to power.

- Patrica Thille discusses how obesity is primarily the result of political choices.

- Finally, Claire Provost examines how the Trudeau Libs are choosing to do little to end Canada's persistent gender inequality.

Tuesday Evening Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Katie Allen reports on Kathleen O'Grady's look at precarious work - and how a generation of young workers is being taught to expect nothing more. Gareth Hutchens discusses Sally McManus' call for the labour movement to seek opportunities to disrupt an economic system set up to exploit workers. Andrew Jackson points out Canada's woeful job quality and severe poverty compared to international peers. And JaNay Queen offers a model for the social determinants of income security.

- Meanwhile, Martin Wolf discusses how inequality and insecurity serve to fuel populism of all kinds. Frank Graves analyzes how one definition of populism is viewed in Canada - finding that a majority of supporters of all parties are open to a message which incorporates populist themes from across the political spectrum. And John Herrman examines how the U.S.' most reactionary elements are trying to brand themselves as "alternative" in order to tap into anti-establishment sentiment.

- Lisa Windsteiger writes about the connection between shrinking social circles and growing inequality. And Jay Pitter points out how the Grenfell Tower tragedy could have been prevented if anybody near power had any interest in listening to people living in social housing.

- Finally, Clothilde Goujard highlights Naomi Klein's warning that Canada shouldn't mistake Justin Trudeau for a progressive leader - whether due to his own PR machine, or due to the contrast against Donald Trump. And Althia Raj reports on Trudeau's laughable claim that the MPs who did the work of studying potential electoral systems to blame for listening to Canadians in making recommendations rather than reading his mind as to the lone self-serving change he'd accept.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Collapsed cats.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Greg Leiseron discusses why the abject failure of Kansas' anti-social experiment with trickle-down economics shouldn't have come as a surprise to anybody:

Claims of supply-side growth from labor income tax cuts rely on the idea that people will be more willing to work when their after-tax wages are higher. This theory posits that labor income tax cuts result in growth because people who could increase their earnings choose not to because tax rates are too high, but it does not take much to see why cutting tax rates for middle- and higher-income families does not create jobs through this mechanism. Middle- and higher-income families already have jobs, even if they are not the jobs they necessarily want.

Claims of supply-side growth from tax cuts on business profits rely on the idea that those cuts will increase the level of investment and that, in turn, will increase productivity. Under this theory, a tax cut on business profits could increase employment by spurring investment, increasing wages, and attracting people into the labor force who are not willing to take a job at current wage rates. For this theory to work, however, it would need to be the case that cutting statutory business tax rates would meaningfully reduce the effective tax rate on an incremental investment such that the tax cut causes businesses to increase investment. Second, it would need to be the case that the reduced tax rate causes businesses to increase investment in a way that increases the wages they would be willing to pay to people who currently choose not to work because wages are too low. Third, it would need to be the case that this increase in wages would be large enough to spur people who currently choose not to work to enter the labor force and seek jobs. And finally, the deficits resulting from the tax cuts would need to be small enough that they increase businesses’ cost of capital by less than the reduction resulting from the lower tax rate, as a higher cost of capital would cause businesses to reduce investment rather than increase it.

These conditions are highly unlikely to hold in practice. Businesses already pay relatively little tax on the incremental return from investments in tangible capital due to tax benefits such as accelerated depreciation and interest deductibility, and they often pay no tax—or even receive a tax subsidy—on marginal investments in intangible capital. Moreover, reducing the statutory tax rate on business income actually increases the effective tax rate on debt-financed investment, which is a common source of financing for investments in tangible capital because businesses deduct interest payments from taxable income.

- Jonathan Rauch makes the case for conservatives to support collective bargaining to ensure that social stability is possible - rather than seeking to undermine labour at every turn as right-wing parties are currently wont to do. And Stephen Tweedale comments on the value of card check certification to give effect to workers' rights to organize and bargain collectively.

- CTV reports on the limits of capital's interest in a market with full information, as Montreal landlords are complaining about tenants sharing information about the rent they're paying. And Jonathan Garber examines how markets have been consistently - and systematically - off the mark in their estimates of something as basic as bond rates.

- Rob Ferguson reports on Ontario's long-overdue limitation on employer sick note requirements - which is actually meeting little objection even from employers themselves.

- Andrew Jackson examines the relationship between increasing rents and inequality in making cities unaffordable for all but the most privileged workers.

- Finally, Morna Ballantyne writes that Ontario's latest child care announcement represents a significant step forward compared to what the federal government has on offer.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Lana Payne writes that austerity bears much of the blame for the Grenfell Tower inferno - as well as for the increased dangers facing all but the wealthiest of people:

Grenfell Tower was not an accident. It is what happens when austerity becomes entrenched government ideology.

Grenfell Tower is the tragic consequence of an economic system that no longer works for most people, but instead fuels inequality and greed.

Grenfell Tower is the tragic consequence of government indifference and arrogance and, yes, even contempt for those struggling to make ends meet every single day, working multiple jobs and still unable to move up the so-called mobility ladder.

It has nothing to do with how hard they work, because for the most part they work too much and too hard, and yet the system is stacked against them. And then governments, acting on behalf of the few rather than the many, make those circumstances worse. They push a university or college education out of reach. They slash and burn and cut back on all the programs that allow people to have a chance at a better life. And they do it while slashing taxes for the rich and global corporations.

And then they cave to the lobbies that complain that health and safety regulations are red tape.

- And Oolong argues that austerity is best viewed as today's form of human sacrifice in the name of a false religion.

- Erika Shaker examines the spread of precarious work in Ontario's education sector (as well as in the broader economy).

- Nora Loreto points out how Canada's big banks are raking in billions in profits while slashing jobs - and wonders why reporting on one of those facts seldom mentions the other. And Tom Murphy discusses how multinational corporations are lobbying to sneak implicit approval for tax evasion into the UN's sustainable development goals.

- Meanwhile, Noah Smith observes that decades of corporate giveaways have been rewarded with a decline in business investment in the U.S.

- Finally, Thomas Walkom highlights how Justin Trudeau is following in Stephen Harper's footsteps by expanding an unaccountable security state at the expense of Canadians' privacy. Jeremy Nuttall points out how the Libs have broken their promises on access to information. And Kelly McParland writes that broken promises and sudden reversals represent the main theme of Trudeau's stay in power.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Ryan Meili writes about the fundamental importance of trust in both politics and medicine - and the corrosive effects of corporate donations in both:

When we talk about the problems with political donations, we're not really talking about campaign financing. We're talking about something much more fundamental. We're talking about trust.
...
We're talking about the way that the public views political leaders. Do they trust us to do the right thing? Do they trust us in our interactions with companies, in our interactions in handing out contracts, to be objective? To make the best decisions for this province and its people, rather than for companies seeking favourable laws and contracts?

Our primary goal is not to help any particular business or any particular company. Our primary goal is to achieve the best for the people of this province. One way to measure this is to look at the health outcomes of our policy choices. In fact, the health field offers us some important insights on this question of trust.
...
Physicians realize that trust is our greatest asset, with the public and with our patients. If we want our patients to take our advice and change their behaviour, we need to have their solid trust. Those of us in elected life should also want to be trusted as a profession. For the good of the public, we want people to be able to trust that we are not being influenced, and corporate donations impede that trust.

- Ian Gill and Robert Jensen each review Naomi Klein's forthcoming No Is Not Enough, particularly in its recognition that Donald Trump's election represents a logical progression in the growth of politics based on dominance and distraction rather than the public interest. And Dawn Foster emphasizes that the lesson to be drawn from Grenfell Tower fire is to end the culture of deregulation and austerity which creates greater risks for everybody - not to tear down towers which can provide desperately-needed housing when properly maintained.

- CBC reports on Monika Dutt's work educating physicians about the social determinants of health. And Doug Saunders and Tom Cardoso explore the connection between childhood geographical backgrounds and income later in life, while Miles Corak examines the distribution of poverty in Canada. 

- Erica Alini reports on the Northern Policy Institute's latest research on the role a basic income could play in ensuring food security for people with low incomes. And Tanvi Misra discusses the growing recognition of the importance of unions in reducing inequality.

- Finally, Jorge Barrera reports on the Trudeau Libs' decision to go to court to escape the federal government's obligation to stop discriminating against Indigenous children.

Musical interlude

Odds - Truth Untold

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Patrick Gossage discusses the desperate need for Canadian governments at all levels to take meaningful action to eliminate poverty:

The reality is that low-income Canadians are invisible and lack political clout. In Toronto, they are concentrated in downtown areas close to the gleaming bank towers, in huge clusters of dilapidated rental towers not far from the crosstown expressways, or in pockets of subsidized low-rise units near major intersections. Tens of thousands drive by these areas daily, ignorant of the lives led there. In the nation’s capital, where politicians cook up policies to relieve their plight, Canadians living under the poverty line are totally unseen.
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At the very sharp end of the poverty issue are youth at risk: those who grew up in poor living conditions, often in single-parent families, who have dropped out of school and have little hope of employment. Governments are notably absent from programs to help them. The myriad of government training programs and assistance for students mean nothing to this cohort, because few graduate from secondary school. They are forgotten.

With no way to make money, many are lured into drug dealing at an early age and join gangs. They are the stuff of sad headlines. A young man who was in one of Dixon Hall’s youth programs went to jail for a minor offence. When he got out, he went home, where he was confronted by a gang member and shot through the screen door. These crimes are seldom solved.

Programs for youth in poor communities are woefully understaffed. Believe me, it’s hard to raise money for them. Society largely gives up on youth at risk, and they are dramatically detached from the much-vaunted programs to solve poverty that politicians brag about.

The volunteer and social service sector is often their only avenue of support and training. It was long ago, under Prime Minister Paul Martin, that Ottawa killed federal support for women’s and youth training programs run by these agencies. It is long past time for governments to take up this role again, and to get serious about relieving the crisis in affordable housing.

As citizens, we must leave our comfortable suburbs or downtown enclaves and find out about the reality of poverty through the agencies that work in poorer neighbourhoods. We must be outspoken advocates for disadvantaged Canadians and insist that our politicians learn first-hand how poor people struggle. Only then will governments stop planning, studying and promising and start acting.

- Solomon Israel reports on the Parliamentary Budget Office's new report showing how Canadian consumer debt is skyrocketing. And David MacDonald's study of the issue finds that in an unfortunately first, Canadian individuals and corporations are racking up debt faster than their peers anywhere else in the developed world. 

- Meanwhile, Geoff Dembicki highlights a few realities about the real estate sector which go a long way toward explaining the combination of soaring housing costs, rising debt and increasing paper wealth for a lucky few. And Conor Darcy discusses how increased nominal wealth in the UK is doing nothing at all for most citizens - while pointing out how a wealth tax could help to ensure a more fair distribution of gains.

- Don Pittis writes that Canadian wages aren't keeping up with what would be expected in light of a low unemployment rate - while also noting how economic policy aimed at favouring capital over labour has contributed to the gap.

- Finally, CUPE points out the many problems with the Libs' plan to turn large public infrastructure into a private profit centre. And Andrew Coyne writes that subjecting the infrastructure bank to sorely-needed scrutiny would have represented a useful role for the Senate - so naturally, it chose to amend the Libs' budget only on the far less significant issue of liquor tax inflation.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Alex Collinson discusses how insecure work makes it impossible to reliably structure an individual's life:

Many respondents told us about how difficult it is to budget without knowing how much you’ll be earning from one week to the next.

The number of hours we are given every week changes, which sometimes makes it difficult to make ends meet.

Concerns about bills and budgets causes sleepless nights. These concerns also force those in insecure work to take any shift they’re offered, regardless of the personal impact.

It isn’t steady and I hardly get work but always have to be available to work just in case they phone. When they do phone I have to drop everything and say yes otherwise I can’t pay bills.

The precarious financial situation created by insecure work puts all of the power in the employers’ hands. It provides employers with the freedom and financial benefits of a flexible workforce, while burdening workers with financial risks and worries.
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It’s not just the worker that loses out from insecure working.

The rise of low-paid self-employment and zero hours contracts is costing the economy billions every year in lost tax revenues.

That means we all lose out as a result of employers using zero hours contracts and shady “self-employment”.

- McKinsey examines the economic gains which would result from fairness for women in the workplace. And Michael Reich, Sylvia Allegretto and Anna Godoey are the latest to find that Seattle's minimum wage hike produced substantial wage gains while doing nothing to limit the availability of jobs, while Doruk Cengiz, Arindrajit Dube, Attila Lindner and Ben Zipperer find (PDF) similar results over a large number of U.S. minimum wage increases.

- Ben Doherty reports on a new study showing that Australia (like many other countries) is failing to adequately plan for the security and humanitarian consequences of climate change. The Economist discusses how our oceans are being used as dumping grounds rather than being treated with any respect or foresight. And Lynda Collins, Dayna Scott and David Boyd argue that we should ensure potentially dangerous chemicals are restricted until proven safe, rather than encouraging their deployment until their harms are indisputable.

- Marc Lee notes that British Columbia has plenty of fiscal room to fund the social policies which form the basis for the NDP/Green governing agreement. But Nick Falvo points out the challenges facing Saskatchewan and other oil-reliant provinces which have failed to account for the volatility of resource prices - but which still have a long way to go in meeting basic social requirements.

- Finally, Tammy Robert highlights the gap between Brad Wall's long-cultivated image, and the arrogance and gloom that surround his government. And Geoff Leo connects the dots between the Global Transportation Hub, Brightenview and the continued abuse of pay-for-play immigration schemes.

New column day

Here, on how a misguided war against "red tape" contributed to the deaths of dozens in the Grenfell Tower fire - and how we're at risk of becoming casualties as well.

For further reading...
- Details about the UK's obsession with red tape can be found in archives including the home page and housing and construction page.
- The Telegraph offers a summary of the Grenfell Tower fire. Robert Booth and Calla Wahlquist report on the safety concerns which had been brushed off for five years, while Samuel Osborne highlighted how two women who attempted to call attention to fire safety were threatened with legal action before becoming victims of the blaze. Sarah Knapton and Hayley Dixon set out some of the failures which led to the Grenfell tragedy, while Knapton also reports on the cheaper, fireproof cladding which contributed to the deaths of dozens. The Huffington Post offers eyewitness accounts of the fire, including the desperate attempts of residents to save their children while being unable to escape themselves. And Ann Pettifor discusses the role of deficit hysteria (another hallmark of regressive government) in causing the tragedy.
- Ontario's Red Tape Challenge site is here, while its express reference to the UK's precedent is here (h/t to Joshua Mandryk). And Nora Loreto discussed the dangers of the Wynne government's anti-regulatory stunt here.
- Finally, a list of the Saskatchewan Party's attacks on regulation (in the guise of both red tape and "modernizing") is here, while "Red Tape Awareness Week" continues to be a regular feature of the Saskatchewan Party's governing PR apparatus. And the statute requiring ongoing reporting on the latter front is here.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Richard Seymour follows up on Jeremy Corbyn's electoral success by highlighting the importance of a grassroots progressive movement which stays active and vibrant between election cycles:

Labour needs only a small swing to win a majority if there were to be another election, and current polling suggests they would get it. On top of this, the government’s appalling handling of the Grenfell fire, in contrast to Corbyn’s widely welcomed intervention, has blown apart May’s already shaken personal authority. It has also exposed a wider crisis of legitimacy for the growth model that has dominated British society since the 1980s – neoliberalism, wherein markets and competition are sacrosanct. There is a moment of radicalisation taking place, such as we have not seen in years, and it could propel to office the most radical, reforming government since 1945. So, the ‘eyes on the prize’ mentality makes sense. 

But proximity to government raises urgent strategic problems, unique in Labour’s history. The current Labour leadership is, for the first time, systematically trying to drive British politics to the Left. Its method of doing so has been to lever into political activity and electoral engagement large groups of people long abandoned by the political system, by making them a political offer they haven’t heard in years. It relies on people being excited enough by the alternative to fight for it. And it is how Labour turned Tory seats red, marginals into safe seats, and safe seats into towering majorities, with thousands of activists ignoring the defensive campaign run by Labour HQ and campaigning through Momentum.

...

Labour’s manifesto is a compromise between a traditional Labour agenda, and that of the radical left. It is rather that the compromises Corbyn would be forced to make would be determined, largely, by the political momentum within the country. 

 

A Corbyn-led Labour government would, quite unusually, need an activist, critical base to hold its feet to the fire. Activists, of course, are always free to go further than their leaders, to build support for ideas going further than ministers are able to go. But in the event of a Labour government, paradoxically, as Corbyn and his allies negotiate with far more powerful institutions, activists may need to build public pressure and even protest in support of government policy.

Corbyn is right to call for permanent campaign mode. But if he is to lead the most reforming government since 1945, the campaigning must not end after election day.

- In one area where there's room for public protest to make a significant difference in government policy, Kathleen Harris offers a look at the Libs' security state legislation - which among other things goes beyond even the spread of state authority under C-51 by extending disruption powers to the Communications Security Establishment. And Ryan Maloney reports on the Libs' broken promises on access to information - as well as Thomas Mulcair's pointed critique in response.

- Karl Nerenberg writes that disrespect for Parliament is just one more area where it's impossible to tell the Trudeau Libs apart from their predecessors.

- Finally, Bill Tieleman writes that the Clark Libs are standing in the way of desperately-needed governance by clinging to power as temporary placeholders. And Mike Harcourt argues that B.C. needs to put an end to the Site C debacle for once and for all.

Leadership 2017 Links

The latest from the NDP's federal leadership campaign.

- Kristy Kirkup reports on the release of Jagmeet Singh's climate change policy statement.And Charlie Angus has offered his road map toward a transition to renewable energy, while the CP reports on his plan for a more fair relationship with Indigenous peoples.

- Meanwhile, Len Gillis reports on Angus' focus on winning support beyond party lines based on his role as a voice for Northern Ontario.

- Guy Caron has unveiled his first major endorsements of the campaign, including ones from Jean Crowder, Chris Charlton and Ruth-Ellen Brosseau. 

- Tom Parkin discusses how the race has featured meaningful policy discussions which are sorely lacking elsewhere in Canada's political scene.

- Finally, Robin Sears argues that the candidates should be careful to make sure that their positioning within the leadership race don't cause undue harm to the broader party. But while I somewhat agree with what I take to be his underlying sentiment, I strongly disagree with his examples.

Surely it's fair to ask candidates to answer questions about their position on major campaign issues - as Singh has done since the debates where he previously demurred on questions about pipelines. But Sears not only seems to expect candidates to avoid asking questions about fellow contenders' positions, but also to shelve their own proposals merely because they might not be convenient for all groups within a party. (That's surely a recipe for politics utterly devoid of values and content - exactly what Parkin laments outside the NDP.)

And it's off base to suggest that any candidate - and particularly a female leadership candidate - should shy away from raising legitimate policy questions merely because they don't serve the interests of a female premier.

Where Sears' point does have some validity, though, is in more personal questions which seem aimed at treating candidates as out-group members.

On that front, I'd particularly point to Angus' line of questioning pushing Singh to commit to running federally regardless of what happens in the leadership race or elsewhere.

That might create an exploitable soundbite in the leadership contest. But it's not at all fair to push that expectation on a candidate who has demonstrated his federal bona fides by running - and nearly succeeding - in a seat which was seen as a long shot for the NDP before he started working for it. And indeed, Angus' demand would seem to be counterproductive: Singh's current position and profile within the Ontario NDP might well do more to help the party at both the provincial and federal levels than a non-leadership role federally.

In sum, we should expect and encourage leadership candidates to identify and debate genuine differences of policy and principle. But we should take care not to let the leadership campaign sink to the level of unfair personal criticism - both because we should expect more out of our politicians generally, and because of the importance of all candidates and their teams being able to work together once the campaign is done.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Feline face-offs.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Aditya Chakrabortty describes the Grenfell Tower fire as nothing less than social murder of the UK's poor:

Austerity is at the heart of the Grenfell story. Think of the firefighters, who have seen stations closed and colleagues laid off by May, when she was home secretary. Consider the nurses treating the dying and the maimed, who will be on lower pay now than they were in 2009.

Most of all, remember this: the cuts made since 2010 were the poor picking up the tab for the venality of rich bankers. The two are jammed up next to each other in Kensington and Chelsea, one of the richest and most unequal patches of land in the world. Just minutes away from Grenfell, you can find a house for sale at £30m (albeit “in need of full modernisation”). The residents of the investment-starved Tower died last week did so partly because of the greed of their neighbours.

To judge by the nods and winks since the election, May’s government is preparing for the beginning of the end of austerity. I’ll believe it when I see teaching assistants getting a pay rise or benefits for the working-age poor going up. In any case, it will be too late to undo the damage already done. In their book, The Violence of Austerity, the academics Vickie Cooper and David Whyte collect the evidence. Together with their co-authors, they record how the disability assessment process in England is “associated” with an extra 590 suicides. How cuts to local government funding mean that Liverpool council no longer has a single dedicated health and safety officer. How austerity has meant more people dying sooner.

Spending cuts, deregulation, outsourcing: between them they have turned a state supposedly there to protect and support citizens into a machine to make money for the rich while punishing the poor. It’s never described like that, of course. Class warfare is passed off as book-keeping. Accountability is tossed aside for “commercial confidentiality”, while profiteering is dressed up as economic dynamism. One courtesy we should pay the victims of Grenfell is to drop the glossy-brochure euphemisms. Let’s get clear what happened to them: an act of social murder, straight out of Victorian times.

- Larry Elliott reports on the Resolution Foundation's research showing that higher property values are severely exacerbating inequality in the UK. And Kate Wilson examines the realities facing Vancouver's renter class - with even full-time professionals facing the threat of imminent homelessness as housing becomes less and less affordable.

- Which goes a long way toward explaining why large numbers of B.C. voters are now eager to see Christy Clark accept her expected defeat.

- Meanwhile, Alex Hemingway offers advance warning of the anti-social hysteria which is sure to accompany a new NDP government. And Simon Wren-Lewis discusses how austerity can't be justified in honest terms.

- Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood studies the fossil fuel dependency of Canada compared to its international peers, noting in particular that there's plenty of room for developed countries to reduce their dependency while maintaining a high standard of living.

- Finally, Duncan Cameron discusses how the Trudeau Libs' foreign policy is virtually indistinguishable from the Harper Cons'.

On shows of confidence

As British Columbia's MLAs decide how to respond to the Clark Libs' latest attempt to avoid the results of an election which plainly showed that voters wanted change, let's offer this reminder.

In 2008, Stephen Harper's Cons established that they held the confidence of Parliament through a vote on a throne speech which made no mention of austerity, nor of kneecapping the Cons' competition.

After introducing a fiscal update which ran contrary to that basis for claiming confidence, Harper then used the earlier vote as his excuse to shut down Parliament and escape a vote of non-confidence which would otherwise have brought down his government.

In other words, the throne speech vote has to be based not merely on agreement with some words (including in this case ones which the Libs deliberately refused to utter when they had a chance to try to earn support), but confidence that approving them is worth being stuck with Christy Clark evading any democratic accountability. And on that standard, there's no reasonable choice for any non-Lib MLA to do anything but vote for change.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Phillip Inman discusses how austerity has proven to be an all-pain, no-gain proposition for the general public which is facing stagnant wages and higher consumer debt.

- Pedro Nicolaci da Costa is duly skeptical of employer complaints about "skills gaps" which in fact arise out of their refusal to offer reasonable wages. And Daniel Tencer reports on a new BMO study suggesting that stagnant wages (particularly at the lower end of the income scale) are largely a production of automation.

- Mariana Mazzucato comments on the dangers of treating the concept of infrastructure as an economic cure-all, especially when it's designed to promote corporate profits rather than public interests. And Peter S. Goodman notes that there are plenty of cautionary tales about the dangers of turning public goods over to big business.

- Meanwhile, Katherine Tyler examines the possibility that corporations could be held accountable for facilitating human rights abuses under a proposal from the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

- Finally, Evan Wood discusses what a new British Columbia government can do to address that province's opioid crisis. And Alicia Bridges highlights how a lack of education and awareness is resulting in both the spread of HIV/AIDS in Saskatchewan, and far worse outcomes for the people who become infected.

On interim measures

I haven't yet posted on Trent Wotherspoon's announcement that he's stepping down as the Saskatchewan NDP's interim leader to consider joining the permanent leadership race. But I'll take a moment to note why I hope he'll decide not to follow through on the possibility.

At the outset, it's true that while some parties have set explicit rules against interim leaders pursuing the permanent job, the NDP chose not to do so. And indeed, I didn't want to see that type of restriction imposed when Wotherspoon was elected to the interim position.

At that time, my primary concern was uncertainty as to whether there would otherwise be a leadership vacuum. And Wotherspoon's own assurances that he didn't intend to seek the permanent leadership seemed consistent with the expectation that any change in direction would be the result of external factors, including a meaningful concern about what other alternatives might be available.

Now, the leadership campaign is beginning to come together. One strong candidate is already in the race, while a substantial movement is working to draft another well-respected MLA.

Moreover, the NDP's improved position in the polls figures to open the door to other potential leadership candidates who might be more interested in what now looks to be a far less daunting political situation than what the party faced a year ago.

That is, as long as the result of the leadership campaign itself doesn't seem to be a foregone conclusion.

If Wotherspoon were to enter the leadership race, however, the likely result would be a two-person contest between himself and Ryan Meili - with very little room for anybody else to gain much traction. And so a Wotherspoon candidacy now would risk limiting the benefits of a leadership campaign in attracting new potential leaders and supporters.

It's for the best that Wotherspoon has avoided jumping directly from the interim leadership into the race. And indeed, I'd take that as a signal that the timing of his announcement reflects a genuine effort not to hold the interim position while there's any thought of running for the permanent job.

But to the extent he's still weighing his options, it would be best if he ultimately takes a pass on the leadership campaign - ensuring that the important work he's done as interim leader serves as a benefit to his party and province, rather than casting a question mark over the NDP's leadership campaign.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Nina Shapiro comments on the price of privatizing public goods. And George Monbiot weighs in on how the Grenfell Tower fire confirms that what corporatist politicians deride as "red tape" is in fact vital protection for people:

For years successive governments have built what they call a bonfire of regulations. They have argued that “red tape” impedes our freedom and damages productivity. Britain, they have assured us, would be a better place with fewer forms to fill in, fewer inspections and less enforcement.

But what they call red tape often consists of essential public protections that defend our lives, our futures and the rest of the living world. The freedom they celebrate is highly selective: in many cases it means the freedom of the rich to exploit the poor, of corporations to exploit their workers, landlords to exploit their tenants and industry of all kinds to use the planet as its dustbin. As RH Tawney remarked, “Freedom for the pike is death for the minnows.”
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Crucial public protections have long been derided in the billionaire press as “elf ’n’ safety gone mad”. It’s not hard to see how ruthless businesses can cut costs by cutting corners, and how this gives them an advantage over their more scrupulous competitors.

The “pollution paradox” (those corporations whose practices are most offensive to voters have to spend the most money on politics, with the result that their demands come to dominate political life) ensures that our protections are progressively dismantled by governments courting big donors.

Conservative MPs see Brexit as an excellent opportunity to strip back regulations. The speed with which the “great repeal bill” will have to pass through parliament (assuming that any of Theresa May’s programme can now be implemented) provides unprecedented scope to destroy the protections guaranteed by European regulations. The bill will rely heavily on statutory instruments, which permit far less parliamentary scrutiny than primary legislation. Unnoticed and undebated, crucial elements of public health and safety, workers’ rights and environmental protection could be made to disappear.

Too many times we have seen what the bonfire of regulations, which might sound like common sense when issuing from the mouths of ministers, looks like in the real world. The public protections that governments describe as red tape are what make the difference between a good society and barbarism. It is time to bring the disastrous deregulatory agenda to an end, and put public safety and other basic decencies ahead of corner-cutting and greed.

- Jane Philpott rightly points out how double-billing is contrary to the spirit of the Canada Health Act and the goal of an effective universal health care system - though it's worrisome that her response to the growth of the practice is merely to express concern, rather than taking real steps as the minister with authority to actually implement a policy response. And The Sunday Edition discusses how overtreatment and overdiagnosis create both dangers for patients, and added costs for our health care system.

- Gary Younge writes that Jeremy Corbyn has fundamentally changed the rules of UK politics by mobilizing voters who had previously been ignored. Naomi Klein discusses the importance of offering the public a substantial vision worth voting for. Rick Salutin looks at the parallels between Corbyn and Bernie Sanders in winning over younger voters with unabashed left-wing policy, while Matt Taibbi hopes that corporate-focused centrists will no longer be taken seriously when they claim they're the best progressive voters can hope for. And Sam Kriss takes Corbyn's success as an opportunity to recognize that socialist policies are in fact broadly popular.

- Finally, Brett Murphy explores how the trucking industry is set up to exploit drivers. And Graeme Wood reports on a push to ensure that contracting-out arrangements don't serve as a means to evade paying fair wages at Vancouver's airport.