Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Sam Gindin discusses the future of labour organizing in the course of reviewing Jane McAlevey’s No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Guilded Age:

(W)e have been struggling with how to combine building the union with raising larger, more political questions. One modest element of this, especially but not only in the public sector, is to confront the apparent constraint of fiscal budgets on what is possible and run educationals for workers on how to read budgets technically and how to understand them politically.

But the larger point is that even the best and most community-rooted unions cannot change the world by themselves and so are confined to the limits of operating under capitalism. Unions can educate about elite and local power but focusing their education on capitalism as a system rarely occurs. They can create organic leaders but not necessarily lead them to the next step of becoming organic socialist leaders. They can support political parties but do not ask what role workers and unions might have in transforming capital states to socialist states. Such things — all vital to dealing with working-class power — can only be tackled within or alongside an institution with a broader and longer-term perspective: a coherent socialist tendency or party.

- Andrew Mitrovica laments the spread of right-wing populism over the past year. And Keman Dervis warns about the dangers of corporate short-term thinking, while Frank Clemente points out the futility of relying on corporate handouts as a basis for economic development.

- But on the brighter side, Harry Leslie Smith offers a hopeful perspective that collective decency will win out over anti-social impulses in the end.

- Peter Goffin reports on the urgent need to make mental health supports available to Canadians without a price tag. And Trevor Young sets out a few suggestions from doctors to improve our current health care system.

- Finally, Idealistic Pragmatist makes a welcome (if brief) return to highlight the need to take people's public contributions seriously regardless of whether they need to use a pseudonym in offering them.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Don Pittis makes the case for a guaranteed annual income on economic and social grounds:

The young would be some of the biggest beneficiaries. Students could use the money to pay for their education, thus eliminating student loan programs. Students from poor families could afford to take courses to improve their skills.

The old age security system could disappear. So would the baby bonus itself. The demogrant would supplement government programs such as minimum wage, EI, CPP/QPP, disability allowance – all resulting in bureaucratic savings.

But going back to my original question: if you got free money, would you continue to work?

Experimental programs, including one in Dauphin, Man. in the 1970s, show that the answer is yes.

As Pereira points out, scratching out a living on the demogrant alone (which some suggest would vary with local living costs) would mean you could never have a house or a car, or any of the minor luxuries we all expect.

But there is another reason to introduce the demogrant. And that is the changing nature of work in the automated age.

Martin Ford, author of The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future, worries that we are on the way to a world where robots do most of the work, driving up unemployment to levels never seen before.

"How do we get an income into people's hands so that they can survive, so that they are not on the street?" Ford asks.

- And Olivia Carville points out that due to the shredding of the social safety net, disabled Ontarians are actually more likely to live in poverty and rely on food banks than was the case two decades ago.

- In the wake of the news about the passing of two giants of Canada's progressive political blogosphere, let's offer up this week's examples of the Cons' Mostly Competent Government: an appalling objection to indigenous peoples' rights buried far out of sight, and a much-trumpeted set of grain shipping regulations which has been rendered one-seventh as effective as promised because the Cons couldn't be bothered to check for typos.

- Meanwhile, Carol Linnitt highlights the Cons' Orwellian messaging on climate change. And Matthew Paterson expands on how Canada is being left behind as the rest of the world starts to deal meaningfully with the most important challenge facing humanity.

- Finally, Katrina Orlowski discusses the role millenials can and should play in changing Canadian politics.

Monday Morning Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- Frances Russell discusses the dangers of Stephen Harper's authoritarian democracy. And Michael Harris takes note of Harper's decision to mete out career executions to his own Senate appointees based on exactly the same evidence he once declared to be fully exculpatory.

- Dan Moutal points out Mike Tobis' spectrum of positions on climate change as compared to how the issue is covered. And in a related story that doesn't tend to receive anywhere near an appropriate amount of attention, CBC documents over a thousand Canadian pipeline safety incidents over the past 10 years, while looking to crowdsource the details.

- Chris Aylward comments on the Cons' decision to make federal workplaces less safe.

- Ian Welsh laments the relative failure of the progressive blog movement to achieve its potential to influence the broader political scene. But I'll note that a couple of additional factors seem to deserve mention: a tendency for progressives to be less oriented than conservatives toward taking the word of elite gatekeepers rather than preferring peer-to-peer communication in the first place, combined with the availability of more opportunities to bypass gatekeepers through social media at the same time that the Democrats were ideally positioned to build popular support.

- Finally, the Broadbent Institute's newly-launched PressProgress looks to be a must-read source for both original coverage of Canadian politics, and a thorough roundup of progressive content.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Michael Harris offers a theory for the Cons' handling of the Clusterduff - from their willingness to pay him off to their subsequent decision to cut him loose:

Why were the CPC and the PM’s chief of staff willing to risk what would be an explosive scandal if the facts leaked out, as they did on May 14, 2013? The answer that seems most likely is this: To stop an audit into Senator Duffy trailing back into the 2011 election.

In the early innings of this story, Conservative strategists took the view that if the Duffy expenses were paid back, then there would be no further reason to “review” Duffy’s expenses.
...
If the audit could be stopped, it would cut off further embarrassment for a government that was beginning to smell of corruption. Scandals involving a handful of key Harper appointments — Bruce Carson, Arthur Porter, Dean del Mastro, Peter Penashue, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau — were beginning to take a toll.

The government also was labouring under the shadow of dirty tricks in the last election, from robocalls that had Elections Canada investigating 56 ridings where voter suppression had been alleged, to the use by the CPC in 14 Conservative campaigns of the U.S. firm Front Porch Strategies, an campaign organizing group with close ties to the Republican Party. The law is murky on whether it is legal for foreigners to campaign on the ground in a Canadian election, as Front Porch did in the campaigns of Julian Fantino and Rick Dykstra.

As the custodian of the party, Nigel Wright didn’t need to have the PM’s most important fundraiser adding to Tory problems — particularly since Duffy played such a key role in the 2011 election, campaigning for 17 Conservative candidates during the writ period and helping the Tories to their majority.

Could the party’s use of Duffy’s services during that election stand up to scrutiny? Was that the part of the story Nigel Wright’s payment was designed to bury? Is that why it was so important to change the channel? 

- Gloria Galloway reports on the Cons' choice to let polluters write a new set of laws to expose Canada's fisheries to destruction.

- David Olive makes the case for a substantially higher minimum wage to make low-wage employment less precarious. And Thandiwe Vela writes that younger workers are turning toward unions as a means of winning some say over their workplace.

- Finally, you'll find WinkProgress as a new addition to the U.S. blogroll to the right - but I'll highlight it here as well as being worth a look.

On open channels

Fern Hill is frustrated at how political reporters have tried to make a non-story out of the #denounceharper hashtag which trended globally yesterday as Twitter users took the opportunity to discuss what Canadians actually want for Canada Day. And I can certainly understand the concern at normally well-connected reporters choosing to dismiss widespread public activism, particularly in contrast to such compelling issues of public importance as "what do you call the July 1st holiday?"

But I'd think there's a more positive side to the story: based on Kev's numbers, it's possible to reach upwards of 14 million people to talk about the gap between the Canada we want and the Con petro-state we're stuck with even without any particular help from most media outlets. And if we can make a habit of developing those types of channels while not worrying about what the media ignores, then we should be able to significantly reshape how a large number of people see Canada's political landscape - long before either governmental PR flacks or media gatekeepers bother to pay attention.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your Saturday reading.

- As much sympathy as I normally have for Linda McQuaig, I'll argue that her premise in discussing Andrea Horwath's call for the wealthy to pay a fair share of taxes is entirely off base. Even if it is easier to discuss such ideas when there's a Warren Buffett willing to take the side of the general public, the more important conclusion is that we should be able to determine as a citizenry how our tax system should be structured - and not give the wealthiest a veto over the outcome.

- Which is also why Thomas Walkom's column on the tax treatment of charities is worth a read: we shouldn't have to depend on philanthropy to provide for basic necessities, and the tax receipt system only serves to subsidize the preferences of those with extra money to give rather than the needs of those who would stand to benefit from a more focused set of priorities.

- Erin takes on the monetary hawks looking to stop Canada's already-unimpressive economic recovery.

- Susan Delacourt echoes my question as to whether we need to push our leaders to be willing to tackle major problems on a multigovernmental basis, rather than staying on what's perceived to be safe terrain.

- No, we shouldn't be surprised that shutting down B.C.'s oil spill cleanup centre at the same time they plan to ram the Gateway pipeline down the province's throat. If anything, I'd think it's a minor miracle they're at least keeping the Quebec version alive, rather than renaming spills as "unanticipated ethical oil surpluses" and declaring them part of an economic action plan.

- Finally, I'll highlight Canadian Progressive Voices as a new blogroll with plenty of lively discussion - while making it clear that I don't intend to cut ties with the Progressive Bloggers over the few blue apples in the bunch.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Alison draws the links between Robocon and an American firm proud of its efforts in some of the Republicans' most odious causes, while Sixth Estate provides a timeline of shady election dealings by the Harper Cons. Dr. Dawg asks the media to stay focused on the "fraud" part of the Cons' Robocon scam; Glen McGregor and Stephen Maher seem set to oblige by hinting that the infamous Pierre Poutine may soon be coming forward, while John Geddes speculates about just how far up the rot within the Cons actually goes. Allan Woods notes that the scam seems to have been largely aimed at older voters, while Andrew Potter points out the importance of context in determining how individuals act. The NDP is working on making sure Elections Canada has the necessary authority to deal both with Robocon and future abuses, while plenty of citizens rallied yesterday to demand a full inquiry.

- But perhaps the most interesting comment on Robocon is Don Martin's - which makes it clear that the Cons offered weeks of categorical denials of any national-level election fraud before making even a cursory attempt to determine whether it held any truth. (And does anybody think that being shut in a room with a raging Harper was going to encourage anybody to step forward?)

- Meanwhile, Karl Nerenberg points out Jason Kenney's refusal to provide refugees with any escape from international human rights abuses if they don't fit the Cons' political plans.

- Michael Geist notes that unfortunately, some of the loudest lobbying on the Cons' copyright bill wants to make bad legislation even worse by making consumers' privacy and ISPs' business both subject to the whims of media conglomerates.

- Thomas Friedman draws a contrast between countries which rely on natural resources and those which develop based on education - making it particular problematic that the Cons are so determined to emphasize the former at the expense of the latter.

- Finally, David Cay Johnston discusses how Sweden's social-democratic orientation has resulted in a radically higher standard of living for much of its population:

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Jeffrey Simpson compliments the NDP's leadership contenders for dealing with the issue of inequality, but rightly notes there's a long way left to go:

Good for the NDP leadership candidates for talking about income inequality in Canada.

At their first leadership debate last weekend, and on their websites, some of the candidates have made proposals about reducing it. The ideas are broad brush, of course, although Brian Topp has a detailed list of big tax increases proposed for the wealthiest people and corporations. But at least the candidates are willing to underscore what has been a frequently ignored challenge.
...
Inequality has been growing in Canada for many years; correcting for it will not be easy or fast. The factors making Canada a less equal society are deep and complex. Some are beyond the reach of government.
...
In Canada, as elsewhere, taxes and social benefits directed at the least well off helped mitigate inequality. They still do, but not as effectively as before, and less effectively than in most OECD countries.

Inequality has been increasing in Canada, especially since the mid-1990s. Before then, the ratio between the wealthiest and poorest Canadians was 8 to 1. It’s now 10 to 1. Top marginal tax rates have fallen here, as they have in many OECD countries. Benefits that used to be targeted at the poorest have either been reduced or spread across many income bands.

Other factors have played a role. More part-time work has meant lower earned income compared with full-time work. Within the work force, even among those with full-time jobs, wage inequality has spread. The higher-paying jobs are paying more; others are not.

We’ll see more disparities as companies shed defined-benefit pension plans for defined-contribution plans. They’re insisting on the change for their own bottom lines today, but their employees are likely to suffer later.
...
We’ve talked a lot in Canada about inequalities among regions, gender and ethnicities, and made progress on these fronts. Income inequality, however, has slipped beneath the radar.

- One might have thought the massive amounts of money spent marketing the tar sands would include at least some effort to back up the oft-repeated (if never justified) assertion that constant development is environmentally sustainable. But we shouldn't be surprised that the Cons don't care if no such evidence exists.

- Adam Radwanski offers some reasons for Ontario to follow Alberta's lead in moving its fixed election dates to the spring. But I'm surprised that in raising the topic, he doesn't note the glut of campaigns set for the fall of 2015 (and the likelihood of overlapping provincial and federal elections) as making for another independent reason as to why provinces should look at modifying their schedules.

- Finally, Jesse points to NDPstar as a grassroots expression of the NDP's principles. We'll have to see how much traction this particular effort can develop, but it's undoubtedly a plus to know that members aren't looking solely to the leadership race as a means of discussing the NDP's future.

RIP Joe Kuchta

Leftdog and David Hutton have already posted about the passing of blogger and activist Joe Kuchta. But I'll take a moment to pay my respects as well: nobody offered more thorough surveys of provincial and local issues than Joe, and his contribution to Saskatchewan's political debate will be dearly and sorely missed.

Sunday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your Sunday reading.

- Thomas Walkom rightly points out that the voters most affected by the Cons' push for privatized pensions are the ones paying the least attention to the issue:

For workers over 50, the pension reforms introduced by Canada’s Conservative government on Thursday mean virtually nothing.

Such workers have relatively little time to save before they retire even if, as Ottawa’s proposed legislation contemplates, their voluntary savings are pooled into group RRSPs.

Similarly, the counterproposal suggested by the New Democratic Party opposition — an expansion of the existing, public Canada Pension Plan — would offer little benefit to today’s older workers.

The CPP, too, is based on an employee’s contribution history. For baby boomers, the youngest of whom were born in 1964, there’s not that much working time left.

Yet those whom pension reform would help — the young — appear to have no interest in the topic.
...
This may help explain why serious workplace pension reform has been so easily derailed: those who pay attention don’t benefit; those who would benefit don’t pay attention.
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Real pension plans (unlike bogus schemes known as defined contribution plans) offer a relative amount of certainty: People know what they’ll get at retirement.

And the best real pension plan going is the CPP. It is solvent, big enough to remain that way and relatively cheap to operate.

It is also compulsory, which prevents free riders — either employees or their bosses — from gaming the system.

Certainly, an expansion of the CPP is the best way to deal with the 60 per cent of workers — particularly younger workers in non-union shops — who have no other pension plan.

It doesn’t rely on the good intentions of employers (which appeals to labour unions). And by taking the strain from programs like Old Age Security, it saves taxpayers money — which appeals to fiscal conservatives.

- Jeffrey Simpson slams the Harper Cons for being missing in action when it comes to international climate change talks.

- Steve takes up the cause of authenticity in politics.

- And finally, Mark Sumner serves up a graphic representation as to how the voice of the 99% is dwarfed by the uber-rich when it comes to being able to influence policy with wealth.

[Edit: fixed links.]

Saturday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your afternoon reading.

- Stephen Maher exhorts the Cons to stop stifling democratic debate, featuring a strong point by NDP MP Jack Harris:

When Harris was first elected to Parliament in 1987, he said, and Brian Mulroney had a majority, the government regularly adopted opposition amendments.

"We don't expect you to adopt every one of our amendments," he said. "We'd like you to, but we don't expect you to. We expect you to listen to them with respect. We expect you to consider them seriously and we would hope that you would adopt some of them that are either improvements to the bill, because you haven't thought of those things or you're willing to consider new ideas. That's not a bad thing."
...
It is easy for politicians to take advice from obsequious underlings and pass their time bragging, cutting ribbons, handing out cheques and receiving respectful applause. But it is dangerous to believe your own press releases, and wise to listen carefully to your critics.

The Conservatives have a majority. They should get over themselves and let the opposition MPs do their (expletive) jobs.

- Meanwhile, Chris Cobb highlights another perverse effect of the Cons' dumb-on-crime legislation. And Boris rightly slams another draconian bit of legislation that's far too likely to pass as a Con private member's bill absent some strong public outcry.

- JJ points to Chris Hayes' scoop about the effort of Republican-connected lobbyists to attack the Occupy movement on behalf of banksters.

- Dave Johnson highlights a few of the services that should be kept public - but have all too often been privatized based on the right's desire to hand over free profits to the corporate sector.

- Finally, a couple of new sources to watch in Saskatchewan: Slim Evans, featuring a review of some of the points the Saskatchewan NDP can stand to improve in the years to come; and an effort to Stop John Gormley.

Saskatchewan Election Links

General links for those looking for last-minute information on their Saskatchewan election options.

General Information
Elections Saskatchewan - Voter Information

Parties and Platforms
New Democratic Party - Website - Platform
Saskatchewan Party - Website - Platform
Green Party - Website - Platform
Liberal Party - Website - Platform
Progressive Conservative Party - Website - Platform
Western Independence Party - Website

Media and Commentary
CBC
Newstalk
Regina Leader-Post
Saskatoon Star-Phoenix
Leftdog
SaskPolitics
Accidental Deliberations posts by tag

Twitter
#skvotes
#sk2011

[Update: Filled in for election day.]

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous content to start your week.

- Ian Welsh reminds us of the golden rule that should govern politics and everyday interactions alike:

To paraphrase many of the greatest religious and moral leaders, there is only one law: imagine you are in someone else’s shoes, then treat them as you would wish to be treated.

Or, put another way, act towards everyone as if you loved them.

The vast majority of political and economic commentary on this blog is commentary derived from those postulates. Note that they are postulates, they are judgments about how you should live. I can make a very strong argument that the more a society acts like this, the more everyone is happy, including the rich and powerful, but that’s not why you should act that way, as powerful arguments can be made for selfish and destructive self-interest. You should act that way because it’s the right thing to do, and you know it is, deep in your gut.
...
In this we come back to the maxim “if you aren’t good, just act good”. Character and personality are built up in part by habit. Kindness, generosity, love, are habits as much as anything else. Your mind is great at justifying whatever you do. Do evil and it will justify it, do good and it will justify that, and over time you will become a better person inside your head, inside your soul.

- Meanwhile, Bruce Livesey recognizes that well-placed outrage can serve a positive purpose as well:

There is nothing wrong about being optimistic and hopeful, of course. Yet I contend we are in a time when we need to see people on the left express more anger and less willingness to compromise. For 30 years, unions, social democrats, liberals and other progressives have caved into the right and the corporate sector in the hopes that by giving them something they will leave social programs, labour laws and other progressive institutions alone. And it never works. There is no such thing as enough for the right-wing. They see this willingness to compromise as a sign of weakness and they take advantage of it and demand more takeaways. And bit by bit we have seen our social safety net fray and the power of capital grow to the point it is now pretty much free to do whatever it pleases.
...
The reality is, we are living in angry times. And we need leaders on the left who reflect and act on that anger. We have to recognize who are enemy is and articulate not the politics of appeasement, but the politics of class struggle and combat. Workers and the middle class and small businesses owners have been at the receiving end of a class war launched by the corporate sector more than 30 years ago – and have been losing that war. It’s time to get angry and demand that the next NDP leader lose his or her shit over all the terrible things capital is doing to wreck our economy, our planet and standard of living.

Messages of hope and optimism are great, but at some point people need to get really pissed off.

- Jeff calls for leaders and members of all parties to recognize and encourage the potential Jack Laytons in their midst:

Given the low esteem we hold politicians in the country, the public outpouring of emotion we've seen this week has been impressive. Much of it has to do with Jack's positive and dynamic force of personality, but I think it's larger than that. I think it's the people embracing the idea that Jack has come to represent, in spirit if not always perfectly in practice: a different, more positive, cooperative type of politics. It's the citizenry sending a message that there is a better way.

I think the way forward is multifold. Politicians of all stripes should heed this message, and reconsider their ways. But I think the bigger challenge is for our citizens, and it's two-fold. First, recognize that there are more Jacks out there, and in every party. Seek them out and support them as they try to work in a system designed to stifle them; too many good people give up on public life, but we need them too much. Help them persevere. Second, be the change you want to see. Get involved, up to and including running yourself, in promoting the ideal of public service you would like to see.

It's easy to lament the state of modern political discourse, but it's also a cop-out. We get the kind of politics we demand; if we don't demand change ... if we don't make it change, we'll never get it.

- Finally, I'm curious as to how much of increase in inmate voting is a direct result of more (and less marginalized) people getting incarcerated due to the Cons' dumb-on-crime policies. But it's well worth hoping that the habit spreads as a counterweight to the Cons' efforts to cut offenders off from society.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Geoffrey Stevens notes that much of the Cons' justification for utterly senseless choices is to point to an imaginary majority:

We don’t have a “silent majority” in Canada. It appears we have instead an “invisible majority.” This mass of unseen Canadians is like Harvey, the invisible rabbit from the 1950 film starring James Stewart. It can only be seen by those who truly believe in its existence — that is to say, by Stephen Harper and his apostles.

This invisible majority persuades the government to embrace policies that make absolutely no sense, decisions that cannot be justified in a rational way, initiatives that can be understood only by those who are able to commune with Harper’s Harvey.

Who knew the long-form census was as an intolerable intrusion resented by millions of Canadians? Who knew a falling crime rate would make a massive prison-building binge essential? Who knew that resurrecting the trappings of our colonial past would be smart politics in the Canada of the 21st century?

The invisible majority knew. The pollsters didn’t hear them, but Harper did, and he acted.
...
What secret intelligence prompted Defence Minister Peter MacKay to talk last week about how Canadian servicemen will be able to stand taller and prouder when the royal designations are restored?

“This is, of course, claptrap, utter nonsense,” commented military historian Jack Granatstein. “The British connection and the monarchy are even grander abstractions with little or no meaning for today’s servicemen and women. … The reality is that Canadians in and outside the Canadian Forces have turned their backs on the monarchy.”

Granatstein is right. He’s a smart man — smarter, I venture, than those members of Harper’s inner circle who follow the dictates of an invisible (if imaginary) majority.

- Alison catches the Globe and Mail editing the NDP out of Canada's political scene.

- Laura Ryckewaert points out how last week's Federal Court ruling on records documenting the RCMP's surveillance of Tommy Douglas fits into the general attitude of the federal government toward access to information:

The Federal Court's decision that the government should release the information it has on former NDP leader Tommy Douglas is an important ruling that shows federal institutions have a lack of respect for access laws, say experts.

"If we treated many of the laws the way we treat access we'd have some significant problems, and in this case it's not ordinary citizens that are not respecting the letter of the law of access, it's government institutions," said Michel Drapeau, a lawyer who specializes in access to information.
...
Mr. Bronskill said he thinks one thing that could be built into the act is with regard to the lack of penalties for the handling of ATI requests.

"Departments miss deadlines all the time, they don't give you records by the deadline that they set for themselves, even when it's a lengthy extension sometimes," he said. "When you don't pay your bank on time, or your cable bill on time it gets cut off. Well when a federal agency misses an access to information deadline what's the penalty? Absolutely nothing."

However, not everyone thinks changes need to be made to the act.

"The only thing that is wrong with the act is the inability or unwillingness of many government institutions to basically apply it as it is," Mr. Drapeau said.

- Finally, for more on Jack Layton, see the latest from Brian Topp on how Layton made decisions, while Peter Kelly has a suggestion as to what comes next.

Sunday Morning Links

Assorted material for your weekend reading.

- He's a bit too shy in pointing out exactly how thoroughly the Cons' position on the Canadian Wheat Board has been rebuked in CWB elections for ages. But Bruce Johnstone nicely describes the PR blitz designed to pretend there's no dissent at all to the Cons' plans to destroy the Wheat Board:

In the space of an hour or two on Friday, my e-mail inbox was crammed with messages praising the Harper government for giving farmers "marketing freedom."

The steady parade of press releases from the governments of B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan, the Western Barley Growers Association, Western Canadian Wheat Growers, Grain Growers of Canada and Canadian Federation of Independent Business had all the spontaniety of a vote of the politburo of the Worker's Party of Korea.

Does anyone really believe that all these groups, acting independently, putting out press releases at the same time, all saying essentially the same thing, is just a coincidence?
...
(T)he Harper government has done nothing to justify its decision to remove the single desk - other than wrap itself in the flag of "marketing freedom.''

It has done no detailed studies (that we know of) on the impact the removal of single desk will have on the CWB, farmers, rural towns, the grain handling and transportation system, the economies of the three Prairie provinces, etc.

All the Harper government has done is bluster and brazen its way through this debate, without consulting directly with the people its decision will affect the most - Western Canadian farmers. Hardly consistent with a government that claims to believe in giving people freedom to choose.

- But then, Jamie Biggar notes that demolishing the building blocks of democracy is standard operating procedure for those seeking to remove power from mere citizens:

Like the shock doctrine, the creeping erosion strategy was first implemented by the right-wing governments that rose to power in the 1980s. It is a powerful approach because it creates the conditions for further rightward shifts. For example, these governments repeatedly created massive public deficits by cutting taxes while raising security spending, and then they used these manufactured deficits to justify cuts to social programs. The Harper government's agenda of tax cuts, spending on fighter jets and prisons, and subsequent "we have no choice" cuts to social spending is a standard example of this tactic.

This creeping erosion undermines our belief that we can and should work together through our democracy to achieve progress. Again, the strategy is powerful because it continually creates the conditions that reinforce its own arguments by making the problems it identifies even worse. When the Harper government is secretive, authoritarian or incompetent it is also re-enforcing its political agenda to persuade Canadians that government cannot be trusted and that it is not the answer to our shared challenges. Similarly, policies that expose Canadians to greater economic insecurity, from trade deals to deregulation and union busting, also make Canadians more afraid of change, and therefore more resistant to government interventions in the economy that are designed to reduce inequality or protect the environment.

The upshot is a decline in our trust in our institutions, and in our society. When people believe that government is dominated by self-interested elites, or that their neighbours will find a way to cheat the system, then they are far more likely to oppose collective approaches to problems that involve any short-term cost or uncertainty. This decline in public and social trust is not just a consequence of political strategy, it is highly connected to the longer term decline in "social capital," identified by the likes of Robert Putnam in Bowling Alone, but the creeping erosion strategy is designed to cynically leverage this decline for political power.

- Peter McKnight is the latest to lament the Harper Cons' disdain for science and evidence:

In a desperate attempt to discredit Insite, Clement presented an essay critical of the facility as the equivalent of the aforementioned peer-reviewed studies.

In so doing, he essentially suggested there is nothing special about scientific studies -that scientists are not in a privileged position to discover truth about the natural world. Rather, any individual's opinion on a scientific topic is just as good as a scientist's, whether it is informed by science or not.
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According to this view, since science isn't in a privileged position to discover truth, we shouldn't privilege it in any way.

Such disdain for science is clearly evident in the Conservatives' elimination of the Office of Science Advisor and of their muzzling of Environment Canada scientists. But more than anything, their elimination of the mandatory long-form census, and their bizarre proclamations that they can still gain necessary knowledge about Canadian society without it, reveals their open hostility, not just to scientists, but to science itself.

Given that the Conservatives embrace this strange philosophy, their opposition to listing chrysotile, while still shocking, isn't surprising. But much like chrysotile, it is deadly. Also much like chrysotile, it ought to be buried deep in the ground, before it buries us all.

- Dr. Dawg reports that the parliamentary committee set up to formally convert criticism of government policy into anti-Semitism has issued its report - with predictable results.

- Finally, the official birth of South Sudan offers one good-news story for the weekend.

Kept on track

Impolitical rightly points out that the Harper Cons are well on their way to implementing every single odious policy that was rightly labeled as unacceptable overreach when included in Deficit Jim Flaherty's 2008 fiscal update. Now if only somebody hadn't proudly missed the opportunity to stop Harper in his tracks...

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- It's truly a shame that this makes for such a stark contrast against the Cons' governing philosophy:

Thomas Mulcair does not hesitate when asked to share the most important lesson he was taught by Claude Ryan, the illustrious Quebec politician who mentored him throughout his early career in public service.

“When you come into a room to discuss a file, it’s always good to know more about it than anybody else in the room,” says Mulcair.

But can we all agree that we're best off making sure that our elected officials work on knowing as much as they can about public policy in order to be able to discuss it, rather figuring their job is merely to memorize and repeat three or four party talking points?

- And it isn't only the NDP's top brass who recognize the value in actually learning and growing, as Ruth Ellen Brosseau for one is getting to work in a hurry:

Caught up in the “orange wave” that surged through Quebec and elected 59 NDP MPs, Ms. Brosseau, whose win was one of the biggest upsets, is now spending most of her time in Parliament, getting to know its corridors and corners and exactly how it all works.
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At first, (Brosseau's son) Logan was nervous about her new role as MP, as he’s quite protective of her. But they plan to get an apartment in the riding and will spend the summer there; she’ll also be taking intensive French courses over the break.

Against this background, Ms. Brosseau has had to grow up quickly, and that maturity shows in the poise she displays in the interview.

- Meanwhile, for those looking for some extra-credit reading, Alison offers up a lesson as to what's really behind the push for constant tar sands expansion.

- Finally, Sixth Estate provides a reminder that for all their posturing about "ending political party subsidies" Cons fully intend to keep the ones which benefit them more disproportionately than per-vote funding.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- Will Falk points out how the right's calls for health-care privatization are both aimed at largely fictitious problems, and likely to make any genuine concerns far worse:

What the authors of (Fraser Institute and C.D. Howe Institute studies) don’t say is that the decade before last had a much lower rate of spending and from 1991-96 averaged just 0.9 per cent growth. We actually had real spending declines on a percentage-of-GDP basis for most of the 1990s.

Yes, we have had spending growth over the past 10 years, but what did we expect when we guaranteed the provinces 6 per cent more a year? Privatizing health financing would just add more fuel to the fire. The Fraser Institute does Canadians a disservice when it produces a political conclusion based on such nonsensical projections. C.D. Howe’s authors did a better job over a longer time frame. Their projections were age-adjusted with a variety of important variable factors around technology, relative price and GDP growth. However, their projection is at heart another neo-Malthusian straight line.

The political elites are engaged in a game of self-fulfilling prophecy. Straight-line cost projections and guaranteed federal revenue increases will ensure the cost increases they project.
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(O)ur challenge this decade is different. Then it was about fixing hospital care; now, we must harvest productivity gains from new technologies and virtualization of care. From a human point of view, this time will be easier. We have very low nursing unemployment — a third of new nurses come from abroad. It is a difficult task but not so challenging we shouldn’t try.

Let’s stop talking about how we finance 6 per-cent-plus increases or privatize health care and instead tackle improving the system to preserve it for the next generation.

- While the Wall government is no longer quite so eager to portray itself as following in the footsteps of the collapsed Irish economy, there isn't much doubt that it's still sticking to the same direction regardless of what lessons we should be learning from Ireland's financial meltdown. Which means that we too can all too likely look forward to being next in line to have our pensions raided in an effort to spare the corporate sector any of the cost of rebuilding from its destruction.

- Which leads nicely into the Mound of Sound's observations as to how it is we're considered powerless to shape our own destiny:

The question becomes how did major corporations gain the power to threaten our governments, our societies - the power to write our legislation? The answer is simple. We gave it to them.
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Yes, corporations threaten us when we want to do something they don't like but that's only because we've loaned them the knife. Why don't we take that knife back? Why aren't we the ones able to threaten corporations? Why don't we reclaim our sovereignty so foolishly surrendered by people of the ilk of Reagan and Mulroney? All we have to do is call their bluff. There will be "repercussions" initially but, then again, haven't we been living with the horrible repercussions of Free Trade for decades?

- And the likelihood that we'll end up bearing the cost of blindly following corporate wishes is all the more reason to want to make sure our policy choices are based on real evidence and logical assessments as to how to develop our economy, rather than faith-based appeals to the market gods.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your midweek reading.

- There's one more addition to the list of growing influences on the political scene which seem to have responded positively to the NDP:

“That’s just the sheer reality of minority politics – people may not do these other activities that are worthwhile,” (Con MP Rod) Bruinooge said. “Perhaps we’ve found peace in our time and maybe it will make a difference in getting in touch with more aboriginal youth.”

They need to do more than that, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo said. He called the rival NDP’s aboriginal policies “pretty progressive,” and urged MPs to come to the aid of 75,000 aboriginal Canadians with unsafe drinking water, commit to a gathering of first nations and Crown leaders, and back a summit on aboriginal energy and mining development.

- deBeauxOs points out the development in the recent election which should be seen as truly outrageous:

the critical story is the increasing use of US-style political dirty tricks exploited before and during election campaigns...

(I)t puzzles me that nobody in the purported *liberal* media has produced a thorough investigation of the MASSIVE amount of robo-calls deployed in specific ridings to deliberately irritate electors and to present false information.

It's been determined by tracing some of them to their source that most if not all originated with one US-based company. It is critical to establish who produced this carefully-crafted harassment campaign and how it was paid for.

Did #Contempt Party political operatives encourage supporters to fund this initiative and did they tell them to direct their financial contributions to a US-based company in order to evade the purview of Elections Canada?

- And Aaron Wherry rightly questions the tedious whining about on the NDP's new Quebec MPs compared to far broader issues in our political system:

Ms. Brousseau willingly put her name forward as the NDP candidate in a riding the NDP has never won. Her predecessor in Berthier-Maskinonge finished fourth—19,000 votes behind the winner—and spent just $1,358 on his campaign. Ms. Brosseau had, at the outset, almost no reasonable prospect of winning and, as noted, did nothing to improve her chances. One imagines that if the NDP had seen some reasonable expectation of victory in the riding, it would have found a more obviously qualified and committed candidate. And there seems to be some agreement that all parties allocate their candidates and resources depending on their chances of victory in particular ridings—ie. the major parties do not mount full (or at least equal) campaigns in all 308 ridings, but focus instead on the ridings they think they have the best chances of winning. Whether or not there are any candidates who failed even to visit their respective ridings, there are surely more than a few who mounted half-hearted or inadequate campaigns. The only difference is that Ms. Brosseau, quite inadvertently, won.

Is that better or worse than the various candidates who, counting on a riding’s traditional support for a particular party, avoided public forums and the like, comfortable in the knowledge that they would likely win anyway? Which is preferable: not bothering because you expect to lose or not bothering because you expect to win? Which more offensively mocks our democratic process?
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(C)onsider Ms. Brosseau’s story from one more angle: What is the difference between a placeholder candidate who inadvertently wins office and a conscious candidate who campaigns to become a placeholder MP? Is Ms. Brosseau really that much different from the other names that appear on the ballot or is she just the most glaring manifestation of a system that has rendered the actual individuals running for office almost entirely irrelevant?

- Finally, the terms "reasonable", "Saskatchewan Party" and "labour relations" haven't often appeared anywhere near each other. But the Star Phoenix rightly notes how the Wall government has taken on a responsibility to ensure fair bargaining (which it's menifestly failing to meet):

After passing a far-reaching essential services law that requires, in some cases, for 100 per cent of employees to refrain from taking job action, the government is in essence asking that union members take a cut in their real wages.

And to drive its position home, the government has denied requests for binding arbitration, and provided out-of-scope employees with pay increases as high as 37 per cent along with additional benefits.
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It makes eminent sense to enact legislation that prohibits the withdrawal of services by workers whose absence endangers the lives of Saskatchewan citizens. But in putting in place such a law the government then has a moral responsibility to act reasonably.
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The government has the responsibility to strive for a fair contract, not leave the impression that it's at war with public servants. Ultimately, it will be the patients and taxpayers who are caught in the middle - and that is the most unSaskatchewan-like outcome imaginable.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Mother's Day reading...

- Orwell's Bastard issues a call to action for the next four years:

Liberal friends, it's time for some tough love. Those of you who want to stay all Bay Street friendly and do what you did for most of the the last four years and not alienate the corporate media, there's a party for you. It's called the Conservative Party. Those of you who want to embrace progressive principles, preserve what's left of the social safety net, and keep people who think like Charles McVety from criminalizing abortion and gay sex might want to work with Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. Like it or not, for the next four years that's the NDP.

And once again, lest anyone think this little corner's gone all orange, that goes for New Democrats too. I'm willing to cut the rookies in your parliamentary caucus as much slack as reasonably practicable, as long as you remember an overarching strategic principle: effective opposition to the Harper government will have to have extra-parliamentary roots and focus. It's not pleasant, but it's a fact of life. Steve doesn't need your help or your consent. He's got a majority now.
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We've got a lot of work ahead of us. It's going to be a long four years of engaging our fellow citizens and working to build bridges. We're going to have to reach out to our neighbours, including those who voted Conservative and those who stayed home, and we're going to have to talk to them without being condescending or retreating into truisms or lecturing them about civic duty.

- And it isn't just Canadian bloggers looking for that outcome, as the Guardian describes the role of the NDP in similar terms:

(H)aving conquered Quebec, the NPD is a true national party and Layton's rise is being compared to the journey of Aesop's tortoise. "I'll never forget in 2008 when Mr Layton started talking about applying for the job of prime minister," said his campaign architect, Brad Lavigne. "People said that is not credible, and we didn't care if the media thought it was credible. What we wanted to do was establish among the electorate that you have a leader here that you preferred. And you could vote for him locally to get him to that job."

Layton has an immediate agenda to start making trouble: a deal between the provincial government of Ontario and its public sector workers for a 3% pay rise – to the astonishment of the rest of the country, across which other groups will now demand parity, and probably back their claim with industrial action. As recession bites, Layton can flex his constituency's muscles.

- Meanwhile, Jim Stanford points out that the Cons' reassurances about a majority government somehow resulting in an instant economic boost have proven entirely false so far.

- Finally, Don Braid fleshes out the story of the largest Canadian oil spill in decades which was covered up until after Stephen Harper's PetroParty had been elected as a majority government:

(W)e certainly didn't hear the whole story Friday. The initial release said the leak involved "an undetermined volume of crude oil." It added that the oil was 300 metres from any flowing water or runoff, and that pipeline leaks are very rare in Alberta.

All very reassuring, you'll agree. We didn't learn the rest until 3: 07 p.m. Tuesday, when the ERCB issued another release saying, rather causally, that 28,000 barrels of oil had leaked.

That's the biggest oil spill in Alberta in 35 years. It's larger by nearly 10,000 barrels than the Enbridge pipeline spill in Michigan last July. That spill, you'll recall, was damaging enough to turn hostile American eyes on Alberta just after the mammoth BP Gulf blowout was capped.
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New Democrat MLA Rachel Notley, who grew up in the area when her late dad, Grant Notley, was a local MLA, says she quickly started getting text messages from natives who were deeply concerned.

"I'm quite suspicious about the timing of all this," she says. "This was something significant enough to have a whole school shuttered Friday. It's really hard to imagine it took them four days to take somebody up there to assess what's going on.

"Either there's an unforgivable level of incompetence among the people responsible for regulation and health, or there were some political considerations about the timing, about when they would come clean about the extent of the breach."