Musical interlude

Pale Waves - Noises

New column day

Here, on the Saskatchewan Party's dangerous focus on privatization and photo-ops rather than the public infrastructure the province needs.

For further reading...
- Alex MacPherson reported on both the Moe government's advance notice of the flaws in the roof of the new North Battleford hospital, and the continued use of panels from a provider whose products had already failed in the building's walls. And Scott Larson's report includes more details about the litany of problems with the building.
- Zak Vescera reported on the belated declaration that the Saskatchewan Health Authority is looking at addressing a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure deficit - a mere six months after the provincial auditor updated the state of disrepair in Saskatoon's facilities, which in turn came a year after the SHA itself started acknowledging the size of the backlog it's only now starting to address.
- CBC News reported on the limited use of the grossly-overpriced Regina bypass. And again, Sara Birrell highlighted how Saskatchewan has been harmed by the Sask Party's P3s.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Joseph Stiglitz, Todd Tucker and Gabriel Zucman write about the need for governments to bring in sufficient revenue to act in the public interest. And Sophie Alexander points out some of the millionaires who want their class to contribute their fair share.

- Robinson Meyer offers some historical perspective on both the climate breakdown we're already facing, and the continued carbon pollution which only figures to make matters worse. Mitchell Anderson comments on the futility of the Australian government's helicoptering of temporary food supplies to wallabies while it remains determined to destroy their habitat. And Emma McIntosh writes that both global economic forces and public opinion are on the side of a transition away from fossil fuels.

- Meanwhile, John Vidal writes that the solution to our excess of plastic waste involves planning to avoid creating it in the first place, not relying on recycling after the fact.

- Josh Rubin reports on the wage stagnation facing men living in Toronto over the past two decades. And the Economist weighs in on the connection between minimum wage levels and suicide rates.

- Finally, David Climenhaga takes note of the general strikes in France to save pensions under attack by Emmanuel Macron - as well as the media blackout against that type of collective action in Canada.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Comfy cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Michael Enright interviews Linda McQuaig about the loss of public resources to privatization - even in the face of popular opinion:

People don't like big corporations. They don't like the big five or six banks because of the banking fees, etc. So the idea of privatization and private enterprise is a pretty easy target for you, isn't it?

You're absolutely right. Polls show privatization is generally very unpopular. That's why they renamed it public-private partnerships, to make it sound more friendly. And the big banks are anything but popular.

The interesting thing, though, is the gap between the public's attitudes — which is very skeptical about big business, wanting to rein it in, wanting to tax at higher — and our governments. Even though they [the government] don't go around openly siding with business and they're sensitive to the public mood, in their policies they're actively privatizing in ways that are very costly to Canadians. I think it's pretty clear that they're doing it because they're getting that demand from the private sector.

- Robert Booth reports on how private rental housing is harming health outcomes in the UK, while the Economist points out the problems flowing from an obsession with homeownership. Daniel Tencer highlights Canada's lack of transparency in real estate holdings. And the Star's editorial board makes the case for a vacancy tax in Toronto.

- Amelia Hill discusses the glaring gap in life expectancy based on wealth and other social factors.  And Olga Khazan writes about the many interrelated causes of the opioid crisis.

- Monika Dutt and Edward Xie offer a reminder that employers who require sick notes from employees make everyone worse off.

- Finally, Scott Schmidt rightly argues that the purpose of government should be to serve the interests of people, not to facilitate the concentration of capital in the name of economic growth.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Joseph Stiglitz points out that a few gross numbers based on top-end wealth can't change the reality that Donald Trump's economy has only squeezed the working class. Jim Stanford highlights Australia's "retail apocalypse" resulting in massive job losses and disruption, while Josh Robin notes that male workers in Toronto have seen their wages stagnate since 2000. And Phillip Inman reports on the IMF's recognition that we're at risk of another crash at any time due to inequality and a precarious financial sector.

- Kelly Cryderman points out that Jason Kenney's supposed plans for jobs in Alberta are doomed as long as he insists on skimping on child care. And PressProgress is duly scathing in response to Doug Ford's desire to pattern Ontario's education system after Alabama's.

- Lee Fang exposes the lobbying and disinformation campaigns by pesticide producers to avoid accounting for the dangers of poisons which have been found to devastate bee populations. And Rebecca Cohen writes about a foiled corporate attempt to empty a basin beneath the Mojave Desert to be sold into Los Angeles' suburbs.

- Meanwhile, Sarah Boseley reports on the public health dangers arising out of Big Pharma's complete failure to adequately research new antibiotics (and the concurrent reluctance of governments to fund research designed to produce public benefits rather than private profits).

- Finally, Jennifer Pagliaro writes about the underfunding of libraries which keeps them from serving vital purposes - including as a place to go for people who otherwise lack one.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Dion Rabouin offers a reminder that corporate tax giveaways don't do anything to help the economy beyond the interests of wealthy shareholders. And Nicole Aschoff discusses the importance of building a model for progressive globalism to counter the reach of international capital.

- Meanwhile, PressProgress notes that the Libs' Infrastructure Bank is siding squarely with the latter by looking to turn municipal water supplies into fodder for corporate operators.

- Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryn WuDunn write about the deaths of despair which are lowering American life expectancies.

- Andrew Nikiforuk observes that B.C. fracking is causing the earthquakes which have long been anticipated, creating massive and avoidable risks to the province's dam infrastructure.

- Finally, Greg Jericho calls out the attempt of Scott Morrison's government to claim credit for climate negligence and "reductions" which involve the continued accumulation of carbon pollution - a position which is of course all too familiar in the Canadian context.

Musical interlude

Matthew Good - There For the First Time

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Cats on the level.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- James Bradley writes about the range of responses to an increasingly threatening climate. And Emma Morris offers some suggestions as to how to become part of the solution to the climate crisis.

- Adrienne Buller discusses why the popular and necessary prospect of a Green New Deal didn't get anything approaching a fair hearing in the UK's general election. And Malcolm Turnbull writes that Australia's catastrophic bushfires should have provided the impetus for a transition - though part of the lesson to be taken from Scott Morrison's response is that we can't afford to have fossil fuel lackeys in power to obstruct vital progress.

- PressProgress rounds up a few of the Jason Kenney UCP's holiday disasters, while Scott Schmidt rightly criticizes the UCP's pattern of trying to point fingers at newly-declared enemies rather than answering even simple questions about its actions in government.

- Sara Birrell highlights just a few of the examples of how Saskatchewan has suffered as a result of P3 schemes.

- Finally, Birrell also discusses the clash of values underlying the Co-op refinery lockout. And Jim Keohane and David Colletto note that Canadians generally would prefer a far more secure pension system than is currently available to most.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Gary Younge writes about the need to respond to a bleak reality with the dedication to imagine and create something better. And Vickie Cammack and Donna Thomson highlight how the response to a climate breakdown includes mobilizing our capacity to care for others.

- CBC News talks to John Pomeroy about the effects of a changing climate on Saskatchewan agriculture - and particularly the dangers to the province's water supply.

- But Nick Cohen weighs in on the reality denial of the right-wing government and media in Australia (which of course matches that of their counterparts in Canada).

- In the wake of last week's sabre-rattling over Iran, Toula Drimonis reminds us that we have far more in common with the civilians trapped by the poor judgment of their governing class than with the elites pushing for war on both sites. And Shree Paradkar calls out the CBC for demonizing minorities by amplifying the Cons' spin about "anchor babies".

- Finally, Royson James highlights the opportunities Toronto - like so many communities - has lost by obsessing over property tax levels rather than investing in social development.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Ben Jenkins rightly calls out Australia's right-wing government and media for caring not a whit for the people seeing their country go up in flames:

If you were holding out hope that the cynical and partisan way we currently talk about climate change can’t possibly hold in the face of actual climate disasters — when it’s undeniably manifested itself in unbreathable air and burning homes and smoldering coastline — let go of that hope now. These fires have shown the status quo to be a stubborn thing, possibly an immovable one. It’s rooted fast in place by money and politics and ideology.
...
Even from a cynical standpoint, there seems to be very little to gain in playing down a national crisis of this sort. A strong response rallies the nation. It shows you’re a leader who acts. Best of all, there’s no partisan division to navigate. It is a political truism that everyone, regardless of how they vote, does not want the country to be on fire.

But this isn’t about people, it’s about ideology, and to accept the unprecedented scale of the fires and act accordingly is to accept that the climate is changing and something needs to be done. That’s it. To me, this is the most striking aspect of the crisis — the debate about how best to douse a burning country has been seamlessly press-ganged into service in the ongoing culture war, all of which is amplified and buttressed by an increasingly demented right-wing media and an absurdly powerful fossil fuels lobby.
...
In this crisis, the conservative media have defended Morrison against the most benign attacks even as the death toll climbed and the fury mounted; they have dismissed experts with decades of in-field experience as “activists”; they’ve spread thoroughly debunked theories about these fires being caused by environmentalists’ opposition to preventative land clearing; even bushfire victims themselves were branded as “feral” when they had the temerity to heckle the PM during a photo opportunity in their fire-ravaged town of Cobargo. Possibly most telling of all, Craig Kelly, a member of Morrison’s government, went on UK television to deny any link between the fires and climate change, where even a wet gollum like Piers Morgan couldn’t let it pass. Back home, pundits on Sky News defended him, saying that they “didn’t know anymore more across the science than [Kelly].”

And so warnings weren’t heeded, rescue efforts weren’t funded, Hawaiian jaunts weren’t called off, not through incompetence, but through sheer bloodymindedness. If you take one thing away from all of this, know that there are people in both the government and the media who would sooner see the country burn than confront the enormity of this problem.

All of this should terrify you, because the appalling response to this crisis in Australia isn’t an aberration. Like the fires themselves, it’s the product of years of adverse conditions — a dominant conservative press, a powerful fossil fuel lobby, a class of politicians in the thrall of both — that would look very familiar the world over.

- Damien Cave likewise calls out Rupert Murdoch's role in spreading disinformation and anti-climate propaganda in the face of a public emergency. Emily Holden discusses the oil industry's investment in controlling any conversation about the climate crisis. And Vikram Dodd and Jamie Grierson report that the UK is choosing to label people fighting for our survival as extremists to be subject to extra surveillance and control.

- Spencer Jakab writes about the readily-avoidable damage being inflicted by natural gas flaring. And Chris Varcoe's reporting on the UCP's closed-door development of policy for orphan wells only looks to highlight another area in which the public will be expected to bear the cost of environmental destruction wrought by the oil sector.

- A new Pew Research poll shows that fully 70% of Americans view their economic system as unfairly favoring those who already have the most. And Reuters/Ipsos finds majority support for a wealth tax as one means of addressing the unfairness.

- Finally, James Hurley reports on a wave of foreclosure forgery in the UK comparable to what took hold in the U.S. after the 2008 economic crisis.

Musical interlude

Esthero feat. Miguel - Many Times

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Simon Holmes a Court challenges the argument that any country or industry can opt out of being part of the response to our climate crisis. And Emily Holden comments on the oil industry's control over public discussions about climate change, while Christopher Knaus examines the disinformation campaign intended to deflect responsibility for Australia's record temperatures and catastrophic bushfires.

- Nichole Dusyk points out that the Canada Energy Regulation's assumptions about future oil production represent an all-in bet on humanity's failure to stop the climate breakdown. And Robyn Allan exposes how the Trudeau government's Trans Mountain pipeline purchase was designed to leak public money to fossil fuel tycoons from day one - and is succeeding in that task.

- Matt Elliott offers a reminder that the costs of infrastructure don't stop merely because a project's initial photo ops have come to an end. 

- Matthew Stanley writes about the long and ongoing struggle to address structural inequalities in the U.S.

- Robert Raymond discusses the well-funded campaign to portray extractive capitalism as a solution rather than a source of inequality. And the British Medical Journal takes note of new research showing that a modest minimum wage increase can substantially reduce suicide rates (among other social benefits).

- Finally, Andrew Coyne writes about the advantages of minority governments compared to the zero-accountability model which is the norm in majority Parliaments.

[Edit: fixed typo.]

New column day

Here, on the new year's early reminders of the generous treatment of corporations and their CEOs compared to workers.

For further reading...
- David MacDonald's look at CEO pay is here (PDF).
- And Toby Sanger's study of corporate tax freedom day is here (PDF). From that, I'll particularly highlight this figure as to the accumulation of corporate cash in comparison to the total amount held in machinery, equipment and intellectual property:

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Kate Aronoff offers a reminder that the right's constant bleating about limiting government spending never applies to the cost of wars of choice.

- Laura Glowacki reports on how Doug Ford's choice to allow rent increases will only make matters worse for Ontario's poorest residents. And Andrea Horwath and Sol Mamakwa discuss the urgent need for a mental health strategy for Indigenous people facing high suicide rates.

- PressProgress highlights how Canadians have to make do with far fewer paid vacation days than people throughout most of the developed world. Robert MacDonald discusses how the gig economy fits into the broader deterioration of working conditions. And Paul Willcocks rightly argues that it's past time for Canadian jurisdictions to follow the lead of California and other governments which are legislating protections for gig workers.

- Finally, Lee Drutman makes the case for a proportional electoral system from the U.S.' perspective - with lessons which we'd do well to learn in Canada as well.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Occupied cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Martin Lukacs writes that the Trudeau Libs' attempts to put a glossier face on politics as usual may be running into a less than compliant public:

Not just in Canada, but around the world we have seen the emergence of an airbrushed, focus-grouped avatar liberalism—“yuppie simulacrum of populist breakthrough,” in Perry Anderson’s words—to face the challenge from a democratic-socialist left and an ugly resurgent right. This model of politics was ground-tested by the Obama administration and is today exemplified in the “extreme centrism” of Trudeau, French President Emanuel Macron, and U.S. Democratic politicians like Pete Buttegieg and Beto O’Rourke. What these men all share in common is an effort to forge a new consensus that can salvage the failed yet still pervasive neoliberal governing logic that counts extreme inequality and climate breakdown as its most obvious consequences.

Alongside a continued support for privatization, deregulation, corporate tax cuts, and a slow withdrawal of the welfare state, these political figures have tinkered around the edges to give their conservative economic policies a patina of emancipatory progressivism. Trudeau offered reforms, like a means-tested Canada Child Benefit, more representation of women and racialized people in cabinet and the civil service, and incremental measures on climate change. But none of Trudeau’s actions have so far threatened the authority of corporate interests to set the political agenda.

In rare moments, Trudeau has been candid about his role as a diligent manager of the status quo. Describing his government’s early achievements in a late-2016 interview with the Guardian (U.K.), the prime minister said: “We’re actually able to approve pipelines at a time when everyone wants protection of the environment. We’re being able to show that we get people’s fears and there are constructive ways of allaying them—and not just ways to lash out and give a big kick to the system.”

While the brand of the messenger of this formula has evidently been damaged since then, the formula itself lives on.
...
If “radical centrism” of the kind offered by Trudeau is not helping this situation, the question is whether it will be the right-wing who seizes on popular insecurity and directs it toward scapegoats, or whether a resurgent left can channel it in a movement against vested interests.

There are some hopeful signs. Class politics have made a return to western countries, however haltingly in Canada. Polls show enormous popularity for wealth taxation and programs like a Green New Deal. While the NDP under Jagmeet Singh has stopped its slow slide to the centre, its ability to advocate in opposition for the vastly ambitious policies that Canadians are evidently hungry for has yet to be seen.

The moral clarity and passion shown by a new crop of young left-wing parliamentarians suggests one way forward. But ultimately what we need is a voice for a radically different vision for the country—a vision rooted in redistribution, solidarity, and equality. Nothing less will test the Liberal government’s continued success in capturing voters by saying progressive things they may not ever mean.

- And Canadians for Tax Fairness points out that we've already reached Corporate Tax Freedom Day, with Canadian businesses having made enough money in the first work week of the year to pay all they'll be asked to contribute to a functioning country.

- Geoff Davies writes about the failure of neoliberal economics in Australia. And Royson James highlights how the Eglinton Crosstown LRT serves as a prime example of the dangers of public-private partnerships.

- Nicola Davis reports on the connection between severe childhood deprivation and permanent harm to brain development.

- Finally, John Vidal laments the loss of a decade in taking meaningful action against a global climate breakdown. And while Amanda Cahill raises the possibility that the fossil fuel sector should foot the bill for this year's calamitous bushfires, Reuters reports that Australia's Liberal government is instead responding with continued denialism.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Rick Smith offers some reasons for hope in 2020 even in the face of a grim start to a new year. And Cory Doctorow writes about the need to start dreaming up, and giving effect to, alternatives to a corporate-driven economy and society which are endangering the future of humanity.

- Chris Maisano interviews Jonathan Rodden about the structural disadvantages facing progressive parties under distorted, winner-take-all electoral systems. And Ryan Grim examines how Bernie Sanders' campaign is empowering and supporting volunteers to reach a greater range of voters than traditional political methods.

- Scott Schmidt rightly argues that there's no value in the media reproducing false political talking points as facts in the name of balance - particularly when the UCP's communications strategy depends on it doing exactly that. And Jeremy Klaszus highlights how the UCP's constant attacks are designed to prevent people from seeing how they're being harmed by Jason Kenney and company. And Bob Barnetson writes about Kenney's ongoing war on workers.

- Meanwhile, with the Trump administration desperate to lie its way into a war with Iran, Nathan Robinson offers a handy guide to avoid being duped by pro-war propaganda.

- Finally, Kelsey Piper writes that Bill Gates has joined the ranks of the uber-wealthy who recognize the need to pay a more fair share toward the price of civilization.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Scott Gilmore writes about the glaring need for Canada's politicians to show more capacity for shame - through it's worth noting both a global pattern to the same effect, and the dangers of trying to draw "both-sides" equivalency (as Gilmore does) in circumstances where the problem is asymmetrical.

- Carrie Tait reports on Jason Kenney's foisting of additional policing costs on municipalities which are already suffering from the UCP's cutbacks elsewhere. And Jennifer Hamilton writes about the UCP's gross neglect of Alberta's social and infrastructure needs as it tries to wring out every possible cent for its corporate benefactors.

- Samantha Beattie points out how little progress Canada has made on the climate change front over the past decade. Cynthia Banham rightly argues that we can't accept politics as usual in response to environmental threats to our ability even to sleep or breathe. Joelle Gergis writes that we're seeing the most dire scientific predictions come true as our climate breaks down, while Linden Ashcroft notes that the panic in Mallacoota is merely what we can expect in the future. And Mike Foley discusses how Australia's wildfires are only amplifying the damage by releasing far more carbon pollution.

- Meanwhile, Jay Greene reports on Amazon's threats against employees who dare to question its contribution to the climate crisis.

- Finally, the Globe and Mail's editorial board highlights the reality that Canada can't expect added population in its already-congested urban centres to rely on car culture for transportation. And Mario Canseco discusses new polling showing strong support in B.C. for the province's speculation tax which turns secondary and/or investment properties into funding for improved housing.