On journamalism

While I criticized a number of CanWest's obviously-biased op-eds on health care privatization yesterday, let's give them this much: flawed though they are, at the very least they roughly fit the definition of the type of material that's supposed to appear in their format. And that's more than one can say for what's passing for news on the same topic.

So what's wrong with the Leader-Post's excuse for a news article about private health services? Let's start with the basic premise before going into the details.

My impression would be that most news stories are intended to actually reflect news of some sort. So let's ask: what news value is there in the fact that a service provider has provided services? Or put another way, how often has the Leader-Post printed news stories about, say, happy welfare recipients as an argument for improved social services? Or people who received excellent care in the public sector and don't much want to see a privatized system?

The main answer is that they wouldn't bother, because things functioning as they're supposed to aren't generally considered to have any particular news value. But apparently CanWest makes an exception where it suits its editorial slant. And that brings us into the jaw-dropping degree of bias in what's supposed to be a matter of news rather than opinion.

Want any context comparing public and private services? Counterarguments in anything but the flimsiest of straw-man form? You'll find none whatsoever, just an article-long homily to privatization. Indeed, while I don't have a hard copy of the Leader-Post in front of me, I'd be shocked if there weren't some ads in the paper that are more balanced in their treatment of their subject matter.

And all this over services which themselves could just as easily have been delivered in the public sector as the private sector. But again, any actual context would be entirely unhelpful in serving the corporate purpose.

But wait, there's more! Scroll down to the end of the article, and you'll find out just who it is that's been called on to pass off their opinion as news:

Hopkins is speaking out, not as the CEO of the Regina & District Chamber of Commerce, but as a grateful parent.

Now, most of us would have the sense to treat an article along the lines of "President of Domestic Auto Dealers of Canada: Ford Offered Me A Great Car At A Great Price!" with the level of skepticism it deserves. And I'd like to think most journalists would do the same in deciding how to frame an article.

But the Leader-Post's choice to offer a corporate spokesperson free rein to spout uncontradicted pro-privatization blather amounts to effectively the same thing. And it's combined with just enough subterfuge to lull the reader into thinking there's something more to the article, before mentioning the interviewee's pecuniary interest as an afterthought.

Now, it's sad that this is what passes for media in our province - and it's never a plus to be up against such widely-distributed propaganda. But let's close with a look on the bright side: we can safely say that the privatization movement is completely devoid of any intelligent thought if this is what's passing for a sales job.

Off target

With all the talk over the last couple of days about the impending vote in the House of Commons on C-391, it's worth a bit of a reminder as to how we ended up in a position where the only options are to do nothing or to scrap the gun registry entirely.

When C-391 was first discussed, it actually didn't take long for the NDP and the Liberals to reach a public consensus that the best outcome would be to improve the gun registry rather than eliminating it. And supposedly that agreement within the Lib caucus made for part of the reason why Lib MPs wouldn't challenge a whipped vote on the bill.

From that starting point, one would have expected the Libs to try to actually work toward amending C-391 based on the principles that all opposition parties could agree on. But they've done nothing of the sort: not only have they apparently declined to present or discuss any amendments to the bill, they were the ones to move the motion that prevented the committee from doing so. And that's why we're now facing an all-or-nothing vote on the bill as presented by Candace Hoeppner, not an amended bill that preserves the registry while eliminating some of the irritants associated with it.

With the Libs having ensured that there's no possibility of a productive compromise, I'd think the NDP has less reason than ever to deviate from its longtime policy of allowing MPs to vote their conscience - even if the Libs have joined the Cons in making a mockery of the concept. And having chosen not to work with willing partners to preserve the registry in a form that could win support in the House of Commons, the Libs will be as culpable as anybody if C-391 passes as a result.

Simple answers to simple questions

Referring to the Sask Party's elimination of Saskatchewan Savings Bonds, Trent Wotherspoon asks:

Why would the Wall government at this point in time prevent Saskatchewan people from investing in their own province and providing, subsequently, Saskatchewan people with a safe, secure investment?

Because the sooner the Saskatchewan public forgets the very idea of "safe, secure investments", the more likely it'll be to put up with the Sask Party's brand of casino capitalism.

The reviews are in

Bruce Johnstone points out that while the Wall government's handling of Saskatchewan's Crown corporations may be utterly indefensible, it's far from unprecedented - and in fact looks to be torn from the playbook of the Devine government:

(T)he Sask Party government has interfered with the Crowns perhaps more than any government since the Devine era (when political cronies were regularly installed as heads of Crowns and Crowns were forced to borrow to pay dividends to their cash-strapped shareholder).

To be fair, the Sask Party has been more subtle than the Devine-era Tories and have couched their interference under the guise of high-sounding initiatives, like the Saskatchewan First policy.

But make no mistake, the Sask Party government has imposed its political will on the Crowns just as surely as Grant Devine did in his day.
...
Under the former NDP government, Crowns paid dividends only after a portion of their profits was set aside for reinvestment and debt repayment. And dividends were based on the corporation's debt-to-equity ratio or similar financial measure.

That dividend policy is apparently gone out the window. Also out of the window is the rule (part of the now-repealed Balanced Budget Act), that proceeds from the sale of assets not be used to pay for government operating expenses.

Many of the checks and balances that prevented political abuse of Crown corporations have been systematically removed. In their place are heavy-handed policy initiatives, like the Saskatchewan First policy, that require all Crowns (except for SGI Canada) to divest themselves of their out-of-province investments, good, bad or indifferent.
...
When you combine the tight leash of the Saskatchewan First policy with confiscatory dividend practices, the Crowns are looking less like state-owned businesses than cash cows to be milked dry.

Edit: fixed label.

Musical interlude

Iris - Whatever

On coalition building

Rob Silver suggests that the Libs have three options in talking about the possibilities for a post-election coalition: ruling it out, saying nothing about it, or offering "clarity" defined as a relatively detailed statement of principles. But I'd argue that there's another option which is more likely to produce positive results than any of those.

Off the top, I'll agree with Silver that ruling out a coalition would be entirely counterproductive, and that the Libs won't be able to avoid talking about it. But why would the Libs want to offer the juicy target of a "five-point statement of principles", knowing that any detailed principles are bound to be both attacked directly, and ignored by the Cons when there's a stronger attack to be launched by pretending they've never been mentioned?

Simply put, the Cons' attack is going to be based on the idea that all possible coalitions are evil. That may be a tougher sell than the Cons might think, but it means that it doesn't matter how well a single possible form of coalition is framed: the Harper narrative will involve slamming the worst aspects of any possible coalition imaginable, and refusing to listen to any pleas that a set of principles will actually limit what the Libs will agree to.

So the only sensible countermeasure looks to me to be to take the opposite position on the broad principles of coalition politics. Rather than implicitly accepting any of the Cons' arbitrary factors which supposedly make a coalition illegitimate (and allowing that type of language to dominate the discussion), any party interested in participating in or supporting a coalition to take down the Cons should be talking up the value of cooperative politics: pointing to the many examples of coalitions which the Cons themselves seem perfectly happy to accept, highlighting areas where the Cons are isolated both in Canadian politics and around the world, and creating an underlying narrative that everybody in Ottawa agrees that it's possible for parties to work together to produce better results for Canadians - except for Stephen Harper and his insular, secretive Con government.

With that type of message, there's actually some positive content for all potential coalition parties to rally behind, while Harper will be forced on the defensive as the lone defender of the partisan buffoonery pushed by his government. And that looks like the best hope for a result that satisfies both the Libs' internal concerns, and the desire of many Canadians of multiple partisan stripes to remove the Cons from office.

You can't do that in Parliament

Ah, the wacky ideas coming out of the NDP these days. Voluntarily implementing non-binding ethics recommendations? Encouraging public participation in the drafting of legislation? Consultations with citizens to support future policy development? If this kind of thing doesn't stop soon, people might start getting the idea that politics can and should be taken seriously.

On private interests

A few weeks back, I noted how odd it was that Brad Wall looked to be raring for a fight to privatize health care even when the issue wouldn't seem to be a winner for the Sask Party. But in retrospect, the move was likely aimed far less at the public than at a corporate media audience. And sure enough, the province's major newspapers have served up a giant steaming pile of Canwest love for Wall's effort to push public services into the private sector.

So let's take a few minutes to deal with the most ridiculous of the Sask Party claims which are being repeated unquestioned by the province's two main print media outlets.

First, nobody is arguing against providing better health services or dealing with waitlists. This has been the favourite strawman of the press in mischaracterizing the NDP's position - but the next argument that the province shouldn't address the need for improved surgical capacity or CT scan availability will be the first.

But that leads into the second point: there's a choice to be made as to how to deal with health care improvements. And it's on this point that the media has bought the Sask Party's spin hook, line and sinker - bashing the NDP for having a preference which it actually defends with some reasoning, even as it's the Wall government which has stated without justification that it's looking for any "opportunity" to push private-sector delivery.

In fact, there's absolutely no reason why improvements can't be made within the publicly-operated system - and the Sask Party's defenders haven't even tried to provide one. At most, there's been some tangential observation that some of the usual efficiencies associated with single-location health care delivery (e.g. CT scans on hospital sites) won't apply. But even if it's taken as a given that a CT scanner can't fit into one of Regina's current hospitals, that doesn't answer the question of whether we should prefer public or private operation of a new scanner to be set up on another site.

But what about the cost of setting up a publicly-run scanner? Welcome to point three, which has been negligently omitted by the media at every turn: privatization is not a free lunch. Even on the Sask Party's own account, privatized service delivery may well cost as much as the current public model. And that's ignoring both the real possibility that a privatized system will in fact make the public system less efficient, and the reality that once a private interest is relied on to provide vital public services, it'll have plenty of leverage to raise the price later on.

And that in turn leads to point four: privatization has real structural consequences, as more decisions about public health are put in the hands of actors whose primary interest is to increase their own market share and profit margin rather than to achieve the best possible health outcomes. Murray Mandryk's column manages to unwittingly make this point in using past examples of privatized services to suggest that we shouldn't worry about just one more (or two more, or however many more the Wall government can jam into the next year and a half). But if past governments didn't sufficiently take into account the reality that corporate actors may create warped incentives within the health care system (and yes, the NDP can take some blame here), that's hardly an argument to continue to ignore the dangers now.

In sum, the Sask Party's case has been based entirely on lowballed costs, dishonest assessments of our options and straw men. But while that deception has unfortunately been parroted by observers who should know better, it's still an open question whether Saskatchewan's voters will be so easily fooled.

(Edit: fixed wording.)

The reviews are in

It shouldn't be news that the Harper Cons have no interest whatsoever in being anything but an obstacle to any action on climate change. But it's not such a bad thing that Jeffrey Simpson has noticed:

According to the government’s own numbers, actual emissions will grow in absolute terms in every year from 2009 to 2012. All the government’s many and expensive policies will have done is to slow the increase, and then only slightly – by 10 million tonnes in 2012, against countrywide emissions of more than 700 million tonnes. At this rate, Canada will not achieve even the Harper government’s modest reduction target: a 17-per-cent drop in absolute reductions by 2020 based on 2005 emissions, a softer target than the 20-per-cent drop the government had previously promised.

The numbers show how useless and expensive are some of the government’s policies. For example, Ottawa is going to throw $1.5-billion into biofuels, largely ethanol, over the next nine years without a significant decline in emissions, because, as is obvious, the biofuels program is an agricultural subsidy program rather than a serious measure against emissions.

Or how about the absurdity of the transit tax credit, announced in an election campaign as a climate-change-fighting program? That all-politics-all-the-time program is estimated to reduce emissions by just over a risible 3,000 tonnes. And then comes the big Clean Energy Fund and Clean Air and Climate Change Trust Fund, together worth $2.5-billion, which the government admits “are not expected to result in quantifiable reductions by 2012.”

Maybe these funds will produce some reductions later, but then that would be entirely in keeping with the Harper government’s leisurely approach to climate change, an approach best summed up in the document’s statement that the government focuses on “long-term results.” As students of governments know, when they say everything is focused on “long-term results,” it usually means the government in question is not serious.

On personal service

Apparently Dimitri Soudas is hiding from a bailiff trying to serve him with a Parliamentary summons. But I can't see this ending well for somebody who tends to have to make predictable public appearances: wouldn't the smart response be to serve him in person next time he's on live TV?

(Edit: fixed typo.)

Deep thought

Sure, the $50,000 price tag for Sask Party candidate Kevin Doherty's moving expenses might seem outrageous on its face. But in fairness to Doherty, it's a delicate operation to move a moat.

On commercial significance

As expected, Michael Geist's first response to the Cons' new DMCA is worth a read (and some followup action). And Geist is right to draw primarily a distinction between a needlessly complex series of exemptions, and a single, strict rule about digital locks which trumps any consumer-based considerations. But let's note another aspect of the bill - and in fact the digital lock provision - which truly gives away the Cons' priorities:

41.1 (1) No person shall
...
(b) offer services to the public or provide services if
...
(ii) the uses or purposes of those services are not commercially significant other than when they are offered or provided for the purposes of circumventing a technological protection measure...

A similar standard applies to the provision of any "technology, device or component" under the proposed section 41.1(c)(ii).

So what makes that wording important? In order to escape prosecution for making available any product or service which has any potential to circumvent a "technological protection measure", an individual has to demonstrate that the product or service has some "commercially significant" uses or purposes. And that means in effect that any defence based on the fact that a product or service has valid, legal purposes other than infringement is available only to business interests - as a product or service which is made available freely rather than for profit wouldn't seem to fit the definition of "commercially significant".

In other words, the Cons' bill turns the development of freeware or open-source software into a source of potential legal liability, even if it's developed and distributed for a generally valid purpose which only has incidental potential for infringement. But the development and distribution of the exact same software for profit is considered to be above reproach.

So C-32 reflects a stark division between commercial interests which are given top priority, and all other interests which are seen as insufficient to justify any relaxation of the media industry's demand for total control over content. And the fact that the same theme is pervasive throughout the bill should offer reason for this latest attack on consumer interests to be met with just as much outcry as the previous ones that have been stopped in their tracks.

On open seats

As Kent has already noted, Sask Party MLA Joceline Schriemer has decided not to run again in 2011.

While the move is far from unexpected based on Schriemer's lack of interest in the job, it confirms that the Wall government will have to start from scratch in a seat where the NDP boasts one of its strongest challengers in Ryan Meili (along with three other nomination contestants). And it'll be worth watching who gets saddled with the responsibility of carrying the banner for the Sask Party in a race where the NDP has such a significant head start.

John Baird: Enemy Combatant

A handy hint: anybody who goes out of his way to invent new categories to avoid the application of rules that govern all possible subjects doesn't deserve to be taken seriously.

On competitive destruction

Leftdog has already discussed the Wall government's inexplicable determination to privatize the delivery of CT services in Regina - and my previous posts on other privatization efforts also cover some of the problems with the latest move, particularly given Don McMorris' eagerness to jump at every possible "opportunity" to push delivery into private hands. But let's note an extra issue with the CT scan plan in particular.

Here's the supposed rationale for putting public resources into private CT scan delivery:

The region currently has two CT scanners at Regina General Hospital and one at Pasqua Hospital that are running at maximum capacity doing 75,000 scans a year.

If one new CT scanner is added to the region, it will be able to provide 10,000 more scans, officials with the Regina-Qu'Appelle Health Region said.

But those estimates come with an important "all else being equal". And there's reason to think that for a privatized form of service delivery in particular, that assumption won't hold up.

After all, in order to operate a new scanner, a private firm will naturally need to recruit staff with the technical expertise required for the job. And the most obvious source of trained local staff will be...the Regina-Qu'Appelle Health Region. Which will presumably lose the ability to operate its scanners at full capacity if enough of its staff decide to leave - and will have no control over who gets poached by a private operator.

As a result, the resources used by a private firm to operate a scanner will all too likely be cannibalized from RQHR, resulting in little actual increase in capacity. And the private firm will have no incentive whatsoever to avoid damaging RQHR's ability to deliver services; in fact, its long-term interests will be best served by forcing the region to rely on it more and more.

In contrast, another scanner operated by RQHR in a new location would allow for the region to determine where its staff are best used, moving over only those health care professionals needed to get a new scanner up and running - with the end result that the capacity from the new machine would actually be added to the region's existing capacity. But in the Sask Party's haste to sell off everything it can, it apparently isn't even looking at that option.

In sum, the Sask Party's excuse about wanting to build capacity only highlights the futility of privatization as a strategy to deal with the areas of Saskatchewan's health care system that can stand to be improved. And if the Wall government is indeed in a rush to privatize as much as it can over the next year and a half, that should make for all the more reason to ensure it isn't in a position to keep up the damage at the end of 2011.

(Edit: fixed wording.)

Con transparency at work

I for one did not know that the contents of the Hill Times are considered extremely sensitive information. Somebody should really crack down on the national secrets being leaked through its website.

Wednesday Morning Links

- I'm not sure that Alex Himelfarb doesn't contradict himself in saying there's no room for left-wing parties to promise more effective government while pointing out the layers of rules and control that makes it difficult to accomplish much in the civil service as it stands. But Alex Himelfarb's defence of public service is definitely worth a read:

An unrelenting and escalating assault on government is changing public attitudes. We rarely hear people talk anymore about politics and public service as a noble calling. We are more likely to hear derision. Even many of those in the private sector who now take such comfort and pride in the performance of our financial sector were not so long ago deriding politicians and bureaucrats for “not getting it” when they opposed bank mergers or the conglomerations of banks and insurance companies. We quickly lose sight of the fact that our regulatory system and the “bureaucrats” who uphold it were key to our performance. In this climate, politicians and private sector leaders instead too often compete in government bashing. When is the last time we heard a speech here in Canada on the importance of government and the value of our public service?

- Not shocking: the millions of litres of spills in Canada's Arctic which had previously gone unreported. Shocking: the fact that the news was actually allowed to see the light of day.

- After using the existence of developing states as an excuse to avoid action to slow down climate change, the Harper government is now being shown up even by its closest neighbour in that group. But needless to say, nobody among the Cons seems the least bit interesting in changing course as a result.

- Electoral reform still seems to be receiving short shrift even as it's become one of the centrepieces of the UK's coalition government. But at least Chantal Hebert has noticed that it's something the Libs should be looking to get in on.

- Finally, David Climenhaga duly slams Alberta's media for excluding left-wing voices.

On public safety

One more follow-up on this post, as there's another comparison worth drawing between the Cons' billion-dollar G8/G20 boondoggle and their actions in 2008. Do we know what, if anything, the federal government did to ensure the safety of opposition MPs in the wake of behaviour that it considers to be terrorism? How much money was put into that effort - which actually would have required a rush deployment of resources - compared to the cost of providing security for foreign leaders which could have been prevented through better planning?

And needless to say, if the answer is that the Harper government did nothing to keep opposition members safe from what it considers to be terrorism perpetrated by Con supporters, then its ability to claim with a straight face that it doesn't see any human-rights problems in countries like Colombia makes a lot more sense.

(Edit: fixed typo.)

Well said

Linda McQuaig rightly notes that while even the Cons' claims to want to prevent political violence with their ridiculous G8/G20 expenses ring hollow, the actual summit security measures will restrict far more activity than anybody could reasonable justify:

There's been much well-deserved anger over the Harper government's absurd plan to spend almost a billion dollars on security at the summit (and the G8 summit in Huntsville). For the same price, we could have all ridden the TTC free for an entire year.

But there's been little anger that a good part of this money will be used to intimidate and terrify those who challenge the status quo.

The University of Toronto, falling in line with this new security-state mentality, plans to lock down its main campus during the summit, forcing the cancellation of G20 related events, including one featuring Maude Barlow, Amy Goodman and Naomi Klein.

It's hard to imagine a more inappropriate response. Universities should be centres of critical thought, where students are encouraged to scrutinize the current orthodoxy and challenge the Establishment. That's hard to do when they shutter their doors at the first whiff of controversy.

One man's terrorist

So far, the closest the Cons have come to an explanation for their billion-dollar G8/G20 boondoggle is to point to a single incident last week:

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews cited the example of a fire bombing at an Ottawa bank last week as a reason for tight security, after the anti-establishment group that claimed responsibility warned it will attend the summits.

"This is a prime example of the reason we need to prepare, to face thugs and terrorists who threaten our safety," said Toews.

But it's worth noting that the Cons' main area of concern seems to be the "at (a) bank" part. After all, last anybody checked, they saw no problem at all when their own friendly "thugs and terrorists" carried out the same type of vandalism against an opposition MP who they believed had it coming. So a billion dollars of public money are being spent to prevent exactly the same actions the Cons have implicitly encouraged - at least, as long as they're directed toward their political opponents.