Monday Morning Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- John Vaillant discusses how California's wildfires are just the most prominent recent example of how we're getting burned by relying on fossil fuels, while Francine Prose writes that what's happening in Los Angeles now is what people everywhere can expect as our climate breaks down. Elad Nehorai writes that oil companies and their leaders bear direct responsibility for people dying or losing their homes, while Tzeporah Berman calls out fossil fuel promoters as arsonists. And David Sirota discusses what we can do to change a bleak-looking outcome to our ongoing disaster movie. But it should go without saying that minimizing the danger and telling people nothing should change isn't the way to improve the situation - making this just one more area where Keir Starmer's Labour government is making matters worse. 

- The Guardian points out how Donald Trump's denial and division have also been used to avoid halting the damage. Jonathan Katz identifies the attack on climate action as one of the most devastating elements of the alt-right's war on social trust. Anne Applebaum discusses how authoritarians and anti-science cranks have made common cause against evidence-based policy. And Emily Bell writes about the urgency of fighting back on the side of facts and truth, while Rex Huppke calls for a war on stupidity and shamelessness to frame the actions of Trump's new regime in particular.

 - Joan Donovan writes that Meta's decision to institutionalize bigotry merely reflects its general preference for unaccountable oligarchy, while David Adam weighs in on the effectiveness of fact-checking where selfish tycoons aren't determined to squelch it. And Nick Robins-Early calls out Elon Musk's interference in Canadian politics. 

- Amy Maxmen discusses how the U.S. has lost control of the avian flu which is now becoming another source of imminent risk, while Katherine Wu notes that it should be an embarrassment that it wasn't contained nearly a year ago. And Hiroko Tabuchi reports on new research showing that forever chemicals are ending up in tap water through treated sewage.

- Roge Karma writes about two new studies documenting the Walmart effect in which the construction of a store systematically results in lower wages and higher unemployment in a community. 

- Finally, Dan Gardner takes a look at the history of the U.S.' attempts to take over Canada. And Jim Stanford examines (PDF) the actual flows of wealth between the two - showing that the U.S. is already being subsidized by favourable access to resources, markets and capital. 

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Dan Gardner writes that the COVID-19 pandemic is exactly the type of rare but severe event which should be the subject of thorough public preparation. And Eric Neudorf explains why so many governments failed to appreciate and act on the severity of the coronavirus even after its dangers were publicly known.

- Adam Almeida notes that Canada's universal public health care has allowed us to fare far better than other countries who rely on private providers. But Kara Grace Hounsell, Marcella Jones, Melanie Spence, Nisha Kansal and Thrmiga Sathiyamoorthy write that COVID-19 also the need to fight to fill in the gaps in Canada's system.

- Robert Green writes about privatization as a pre-existing condition which has created intolerable dangers for people in long-term care. Bruce Arthur points out how COVID-19 was positioned to exploit our current nursing home structure, while Jonathon Gatehouse reminds us that there have been plenty of warnings which have gone unaddressed (or indeed been met with deregulation and declining standards). Andre Picard calls out the ageism involved in the appalling willingness of operators - and a growing number of right-wing politicians - to sacrifice the lives of older residents. And David Climenhaga discusses the need for improved pay and working conditions for long-term care workers both during and after the pandemic, while Scott Gilmore makes a similar case for all of the essential workers risking their own health to keep us supplied with necessities. 

- Jim Stanford discusses how the Bank of Canada could offer far more effective quantitative easing by investing directly in government bonds, rather than relying on bank-shot secondary funding through private financiers to produce desirable public outcomes. And Frances Bula highlights the difficulties faced by municipalities confronted simultaneously with reduced tax revenue and provincially-imposed obligations to balance their budgets.

- Finally, David Dayen points out that the U.S. is allowing banks to seize relief funding to individuals, meaning that the already-meager assistance on offer might never make it to recipients. And Ricardo Tranjan studies how payday lenders are positioned to exploit the dire straits facing Canadian workers to pad their profits. 

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Gerard Di Trolio discusses the need for an active labour movement to respond to the contempt for collective action shared by the Libs and the Cons. And Nicole Goodkind reports on the Trump administration's plan to deprive workers of billions in wages by opening up new loopholes for joint employers.

- Andrew Jackson debunks the efforts of right-wing propaganda mills to try to provoke tax revolts at a time when the more serious issue is a lack of revenue to address obvious social needs.

- Michele Biss points out that the Libs' new measure of poverty falls short of recognizing the importance of needs such as child care and prescription drugs in defining an acceptable standard of living. And Jordan Press reports that the Libs disregarded their own expert report on poverty by refusing to recognize freedom from poverty as a fundamental right.

- Meanwhile, Claire Kelloway writes about the U.S.' growing reliance on dollar stores as source of (unhealthy) food as a source of ill health and inequality.

- Finally, Dan Gardner highlights how the need for universal action against a slow climate breakdown runs into our instincts to perceive threats only in the shorter term. But James Temple writes that the experience of climate-related natural disasters is beginning to bring the reality home to people who may not have fully appreciated the danger.

On settled issues

As Dan Gardner points out, Stephen Harper is continuing to misrepresent the nature of Canada's system of government. But he's nonetheless made a noteworthy concession in doing so:

PM: HERE'S THE QUESTION THOUGH. UM IS IT A CORRECT ASSUMPTION TO MAKE THAT WHICHEVER PARTY ENDS UP, IF WE'RE IN A MINORITY SITUATION, WHICHEVER PARTY ENDS UP WITH THE MOST SEATS SHOULD FORM THE GOVERNMENT?

SH: Yeah that's my – that's I think how conventionally our system works and for good reason and that's – that's my position. Obviously our view is we're going to win and we're going to win strong. Ah but ah my position has always been if we win the most seats I will expect to form the government and if we don't, I won't.

PM: SO EVEN AS THE CURRENT GOVERNMENT, IS YOU'RE JUST A COUPLE OF SEATS BEHIND, YOU WOULDN'T TRY TO FIGURE OUT A WAY TO –

SH: No. No.

PM: YOU WOULD RESIGN.

SH: Yeah. Well I would not serve as prime minister. No I think you – you have to have the most seats in Parliament to go to the governor general and that's – you know, in this country in our system, we have what's called a Westminster style system, um and we don't – we don't, you know, elect a bunch of parties who then as in some countries, get together and decide who will – who will govern. We ask people to make a choice of a government. And so I think that the party that wins the most seats should form the government.

Now, the Cons have a history of turning their campaign promises into something far short of enforceable commitments once it counts. And so I'd still be concerned about the prospect of Harper trying to move the goalposts if it suits his interests.

But Harper seems to have conceded publicly that the range of interpretations as to what happens if no party holds a majority involves only a contest as to the relative importance of the ability to win a majority in the House of Commons as compared to a party's claim to a plurality of seats - suggesting that he at least isn't willing to defend the other mechanisms he could use to cling to power no matter how resounding an election defeat his party faces. And while it hopefully won't be necessary to point back to that acknowledgement, Harper's public position now should make it clear to the Governor General and the public that Harper would have no legitimacy whatsoever if he tries to reverse course later.

New column day

Here, on the Cons' attempt to spin an election narrative out of a fictional bogeyman rather than protecting or helping Canadians.

For further reading...
- The National Academy of Sciences offers a comparison of death rates from multiple causes in Canada and elsewhere, while Statistics Canada has more detailed data. And it's also worth a reminder as to the large number of deaths caused by inequality.
- In contrast to the real risks we face and accept every day, even the Cons' attempt to fabricate a paper trail around terrorism resorts to labeling arrests as failures or dangers (rather than examples of threats being detected and eliminated) in order to pretend there's a problem.
- Global Research makes the case for greater perspective in comparing risks from a U.S. perspective, while Paul Adams highlights the massive distance (in geography and other connections) between Canada and any serious threat. And of course Dan Gardner is always worth a read for a longer-form analysis.
- Finally, the most obvious discussion of threats (real or imagined) has surrounded the Cons' terror legislation. On that front, the NDP is taking the lead role in challenging pointless intrusions into our civil rights, and earning praise from even the likes of John Ivison in the process. Matthew Behrens notes that the Cons' message is a combination of warmed-over George W. Bush war rhetoric and ignored warnings from the RCMP (yes, that RCMP) about conflating terrorism with legitimate activity. And having already offered an important summary of C-51, Craig Forcese now examines how it's designed to attack purely peaceful and democratic activism.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Tavia Grant reports on the most recent world happiness report from the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. And David Doorey points out a rather striking similarity among the countries at the top of the list, while Dan Gardner highlights Stephen Harper's longstanding goal of removing Canada from the group.

- CBC reveals that thousands of Saskatchewan employers - including hundreds of restaurants - have received permission to use temporary foreign workers rather than paying a fair wage to attract local workers.

- David Climenhaga reveals which public servants are next on the hit list of the Manning Centre and its corporate backers:

Getting back to the original point of all this, right there on the list for consideration were "the problem with municipal public consultations" and "confronting overbearing urban planners."

Given the well-known habit of right-wing think tanks and their ilk to respond compliantly to the wishes of their funders, plus the Calgary development industry's extremely generous contributions revealed by Wenzel, what do you want to bet that we can count on the next MNC to devote considerable attention to these matters?

And what, do you think, will they find to be the problem with municipal public consultations? That they're too democratic? A cynic might wonder, but it's important to remember that the people who finance and staff the Manning Centre, and indeed Preston Manning himself, don't necessarily define democracy the same way you and I do.

They are big on "economic democracy" -- which might cynically be described as the right to get rich as stink any way you please and not pay taxes while you’re about it. They are not so enthusiastic about your right to decide your fate through the ballot box without interference or deception, especially if your preferred representatives are not of a mind to "swing their way."

- And sadly, the attack on public involvement in policy decisions sounds all too familiar to those who read Bruce Johnstone's weekend tirade against Regina's wastewater referendum. Meanwhile, Paul Dechene interviews Michael Fougere (or possibly a random corporate buzzword generator) in an effort to get some explanation for Fougere's position - with predictable results.

- Finally, Aaron Wherry recognizes that the disclosure of relatively small office expenses on the part of elected officials makes for just a tiny (if perhaps necessary) part of a transparent picture of our political scene:

It is, for sure, for our MPs to explain and justify how they spend the public’s money. But we should always be careful to avoid lazy outrage. Or at least we should be mindful to focus on the real enemy—flagrant abuses of the public trust that lack justification. Perspective is also important. Parliament’s ability to scrutinize the billions in spending that it approves each year should, I will earnestly suggest, generally be of greater concern than however much parliamentarians spend on coffee-makers.

Of course, the possibility that we might be distracted by coffee-maker purchases is no excuse to avoid detailing the exact cost, shape and usefulness of every coffee-maker purchased with public funds. I suspect that after some fussing over coffee-makers, we’d all adjust to a world in which we understood our MPs to sometimes both consume coffee themselves and provide it for their staff and guests. Or so I dare to dream.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Michelle Ervin discusses Ed Broadbent's ideas to start closing Canada's yawning income gap:

Broadbent outlined four broad prescriptions for bridging this gap, and ultimately, for creating a fairer society: investing in good jobs, strengthening income supports, increasing access to public services and reforming the tax regime to make it more progressive.

He wasn’t short on specifics either. Concrete actions toward these goals might include funding skills development in such sectors as early childhood education; introducing a minimum guaranteed income modeled on the system we have for seniors; expanding affordable housing and creating a national child care program; and cracking down on tax evasion and closing “boutique” tax loopholes.

- CBC reports on the Cons' announcement that only Christian chaplains will be employed in Canadian prisons (and in the name of not picking and choosing between religions no less). Malcolm offers up the due response.

- Meanwhile, the NDP is making a concerned effort to call out the Cons' backbenchers for being nothing more than mindless talking-point dispensers. And while I'd normally be skeptical of the likelihood of shaming the Cons into changing course, their partial EI reversal offers a bit more reason for hope than we've seen in quite some time.

- Dan Gardner rightly notes that a commitment to evidence-based policy necessarily implies a willingness to invest in new ideas to actually generate evidence. But I'd think it's worth challenging Gardner's commitment to his own standards: would he support, say, "government-as-player" rather than "government-as-referee" not only for the purpose of research, but also in areas where direct intervention works in practice?

- Finally, the Young Turks discuss Mitt Romney's distaste for PBS. And the desire to attack culture and alternative sources of information is no less obvious among the Sask Party, the Harper Cons and the Republicans' other Canadian cousins:

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Friday reading.

- The Cons' latest line of talking-point addiction isn't passing without some substantial comment from Canada's political press. Today, Jeffrey Simpson lambastes Stephen Harper and his party for trying to wipe out their own history and promises, while Dan Gardner considers the Cons to be a Monty Python skit in progress (minus the humour of course). And Aaron Wherry continues to document the farce. 

- Meanwhile, Susan Delacourt suggests that we should expect any government to leave out democracy in no worse condition than when it took power - and I'll readily agree with that as a general principle. But it's also worth noting that the surest way to continue in the wrong direction is to focus solely on the problems with any given government, rather than holding all parties to the standard.

- Likewise, I appreciate the purposes behind Steve's proposal for a political code of ethics (including a requirement that public statements have some basis in fact). But I'm rather wary of any policy which may give top-down parties just one more way to force MPs to stay on a predetermined script - as MPs will surely see it as safer to take their party's word for the facts than to strike out on their own.

- Christopher Majka thoroughly reviews the effect of voter suppression in the 2011 federal election.

- Finally, Peter Prebble rightly criticizes the combination of Con neglect and Sask Party coal boosterism that's locking Saskatchewan into a needless dependency on coal power.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Tim Harper weighs in on the Cons' latest campaign of coordinated lies, and notes that the NDP looks to have learned one important lesson in how to respond:

The NDP may be here at the federal level for the first time, but they appear to have learned the first lesson when dodging such volleys — respond.

No charge is too ridiculous or over-the-top to be ignored.

The term Swiftboating entered the North American political lexicon because John Kerry took a holiday in 2004 rather than respond to Vietnam Swiftboat vets who questioned his war record.

So far, New Democrats have been up to the task, but when facing a government that never stops campaigning, the opposition will have to use a lot of its time in the spotlight parrying rather than proposing. 

- Meanwhile, Elections Canada is considering regulating at least some of the most obvious potential sources for abuse of citizens' information by political parties.

- Dan Gardner longs for the day when evidence-based policy will be a basic expectation for government of all stripes. But that vision seems rather far off when the Cons can't discard anything which might produce evidence fast enough - especially if that means that useful data will be solely in the hands of their oil-sector benefactors.

- Finally, pogge compares the McGuinty Libs' consistent pattern of cuts and attacks on public services in the name of deficit reduction to their mealy-mouthed waffling when it comes to earning value for the province's own resources. And John Jacobs notes how the Harper Cons' CETA fetish figures to make matters worse.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Kady points out that despite the Cons' best efforts to stonewall, the Robocon investigation in Guelph looks to have locked in on the source of their fraudulent robocalls. And while it's indeed somewhat concerning that Elections Canada hasn't reached anywhere near the same depth of investigation when it comes to the other 234 ridings where voters have reported questionable calls, a solid case aimed at an individual who took steps to cover his tracks may be just the opening needed to get at the party's wider scheme.

- pogge duly slams Jim Flaherty's economic inaction plan:

You can be sure that the fragility of the recovery will continue to be invoked to justify all manner of government actions. For public consumption, the Harper Government™ will still be focusing like a laser on the economy. But as Flaherty acknowledges here, the main thrust of the government's economic policy will continue to be to give our corporate overlords what they ask for. If things take a turn for the worse, don't look for much help from the Conservatives. If you're a corporation the government is here to help you. If you're a citizen, you're on your own.

- Meanwhile, Jim Stanford follows up on Mark Carney's address to the CAW by pointing out some common ground as to how to improve Canada industrial productivity. And Dan Gardner discusses how the give-business-everything-it-asks-for strategy has proven a miserable failure for the past decade:

If we don’t close that gap, our prosperity will slip away when the commodity boom goes. And the commodity boom will go. They all do.

So how do we improve productivity? “Twenty years ago we created a laundry list of the things we needed to change in the policy front and productivity would blossom,” says Don Drummond, one of the country’s leading economists. “And you know, we changed most of them but productivity didn’t blossom.”

Canadian corporations got lower taxes and all sorts of incentives to invest. But they didn’t, and they aren’t, at least not at anything like the rate that’s needed.  According to the C.D. Howe Institute, investment per worker has risen from $10,100 in 2009 to $11,600 in 2011. But in 2011, American companies invested $13,200 per worker.

“We are heavily underinvested in machinery and equipment, particularly high technology stuff, relative to the U.S.,” notes Don Drummond. “We have roughly half the stock of machinery and equipment per hour worked in Canada that the U.S. does.” The figures for research and development are even worse: Canadian business spends about one per cent of GDP on it, compared to two per cent in the U.S. and 2.5 per cent in Japan, the Scandinavian countries, and others in the OECD.

- Finally, as Thomas Walkom notes, there isn't any real distinction between the Harper Cons and the McGuinty Libs when it comes to squeezing the middle class for corporate gain:

(T)his government wants public-sector workers to get less than nothing. Even the unions’ offer for a zero increase isn’t enough. The Liberal bill would arbitrarily strip away benefits that were previously bargained and keep all but the newest teachers at journeyman wage rates.

And if teachers don’t like it, there is little they can do. The bill would not let them withdraw their labour in protest.

If teachers were deemed essential workers, such a strike ban might make sense. Police officers, for instance, can’t go on strike.

But if teachers were defined as essential workers, the government would have to treat them fairly. It wouldn’t be able to impose a settlement. It would have to let an impartial arbitrator decide.

And my guess is that no impartial arbitrator would give teachers less than nothing.

Tim Hudak’s Conservatives are at least up front on this issue. Hudak seems to believe that unions are evil. He is an honest troglodyte.

The Liberals are more duplicitous. They work to cripple trade unionism while protesting that they are friends to the middle class that such unions protect.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Vaughn Palmer discusses the unfortunate gap between the outrages that may lead to a government being pushed out of power, and a new government's ability to actually reverse what's been done. Which, a propos of nothing, makes it rather important to push lame-duck incumbents to respect the democratic will of citizens rather than pushing through controversial plans without even the bare pretense of public consultation.

- I don't have any problem with the idea of "hardheaded socialism" as a successful economic and political model, particularly as it fits the NDP's historical pairing of fiscal responsibility and social generosity. But I'm rather wary of any attempt to claim Canada has actually enjoyed a genuinely thick safety net under a series of federal governments who have consistently undermined it.

- Am Johal interviews Ryan Meili about A Healthy Society, including this on First Nations health:

AJ: Policies and programs directed towards the Aboriginal community too often are not culturally sensitive nor are they delivered by Aboriginal organizations. Do you see a shift in health care delivery related to Aboriginal communities. What changes would you like to see?

RM: The transfer of control of health services to First Nations communities has been a mixed blessing. The ability to make decisions about health services offered and to be directly involved in identifying community health needs is a necessary and important step. We can and should involve communities even more in determining the best means to address the health issues they face. Unfortunately, this policy has too often also served as a means for governments to wash their hands of responsibility, including the key responsibility of adequately funding health services. Many bands have seen their health funding frozen at 1990s levels, despite populations that have grown quickly and despite new health challenges that have emerged. This results in an underfunding of key services and worse health outcomes.

A responsible approach to health transfer needs to include transparency not only around decision-making in service provision and human resources, but also around the availability of sufficient funds to provide services.

- Embassy reports on what looks like the latest evidence that the Cons are going full-on Republican wingnut - as the Harper government is actually pushing to weaken an international arms treaty (including any tracking of ammunition or technology, as well as "high volume transfers") because of a laughable claim that they'll somehow affect individual hunters.

- Finally, Dan Gardner points out that the Cons' consistent mistreatment of Omar Khadr - with their breaking an agreement to process his readmission to Canada serving as just the latest outrage - actually speaks volumes about how little they value citizenship in general.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer theorize that we should discuss the economy as a garden rather than a machine:

A well-designed tax system — in which everyone contributes and benefits — ensures that nutrients are circulated widely to fertilize and foster growth. Reducing taxes on the very wealthiest on the idea that they are “job creators” is folly. Jobs are the consequence of an organic feedback loop between consumers and businesses, and it’s the demand from a thriving middle class that truly creates jobs. The problem with today’s severe concentration of wealth, then, isn’t that it’s unfair, though it might be; it’s that it kills middle-class demand. Lasting growth doesn’t trickle down; it emerges from the middle out.

Lastly, consider spending. The word spending means literally “to use up or extinguish value,” and most Americans believe that’s exactly what government does with their tax dollars. But government spending is not a single-step transaction that burns money as an engine burns fuel; it’s part of a continuous feedback loop that circulates money. Government no more spends our money than a garden spends water or a body spends blood. To spend tax dollars on education and health is to circulate nutrients through the garden.

- Meanwhile, Jim Stanford thoroughly debunks the austerian claim that we can't afford to invest in needed public programs:

(D)ebt service has continued to decline despite the (modest) rebound in debt resulting from the recession.  Debt service costs for all levels of government fell below 4% of GDP since the recession.  How could debt service costs decline, even while the debt burden (modestly) grew?  Because average interest costs have declined.  Like home-owners, governments have been able to refinance their debt to take advantage of today’s ultra-low rates.  (Remember, even fiscally pressed provinces like Ontario can still borrow money today for 10 years at real interest rates not much above zero.)  As older bonds come due and are refinanced, governments reduce their interest costs dramatically.  Those savings have more than offset the incremental debt service costs associated wtih additional debt.  So the claim that rising debt service costs are squeezing out more useful forms of public expenditure (not that conservatives support those programs, either) is empirically false.

Running up public debt for the sake of running up debt makes no sense.   There are costs associated with debt, and limits to how much debt can rise.  But there are benefits associated with debt-financed spending, too.  That includes the productivity of long-lived public capital assets that can be financed with debt (just like companies or households prudently finance long-lived assets, from factory equipment to homes, with debt).  In a demand-constrained macroeconomic context, another benefit of debt-financed spending is the positive spillover effect on overall employment and income that results from that spending (even when it’s on current services rather than public capital).  Based on the preceding graphs, Canadian governments are far from any meaningful constraint on their ability to borrow.  Hence, we should make a rational decision as a country regarding how much new debt is optimal, rather than being dominated by an initial quasi-religious assumption that “all debt is bad.”

- I'll agree with Dan Gardner that at least a few of the recent criticisms of Stephen Harper - such as that based on his Calgary boosterism - take several steps across the line between reasonable concern and excessive contrarianism. And it's a shame that's the type of story receiving attention, since there are still plenty of entirely valid reasons to be genuinely outraged at Harper that remain to be fleshed out.

- Finally, for those with a bit more time on their hands, Steven Shrybman's legal opinion on the effects of CETA (PDF) makes for a rather worrisome read.

Friday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to end your week.

- Dan Gardner nicely sums up how any Con cabinet shuffles are utterly irrelevant since Stephen Harper prefers ciphers to functional ministers in any event:

In the past, parties in power always had factions, and ministers with their own political clout, and these provided at least a modest check on the power of the prime minister. “In the old Progressive Conservative (party), you had Flora MacDonald who ran for the leadership and had her own base of support. You had Joe Clark, who was a former prime minister,” Hicks says. When Mulroney said he was going to cut foreign aid, Clark threatened to resign. Mulroney backed down. That’s inconceivable today.

There’s nothing like this in the Conservative party because it is new and Stephen Harper built it from the ground up. “It’s a corporation in which one person controls all the mechanisms for fundraising, for distribution, for marketing, for organizing nomination contests in everybody’s riding. It’s all centralized. That’s unique to this party.”

Harper has never had to deal with ministers who wield their own political clout. “The closest one you had was Peter MacKay,” thanks to his leadership of the Progressive Conservative party. But when the PMO told MacKay he couldn’t hire the man he wanted to be his chief of staff, MacKay bit his lip and did as he was told. Ever since, he’s been a loyal soldier. Today, he has the political stature of a hobbit.

Next to the prime minister, all the cabinet ministers do. That’s not an accident. Napoleon suffers no rivals.

...
So what are reformers left with? We’ll have to wait — for the Emperor to meet his Waterloo in 2015, or to retire when it pleases him.

- And the Economist (which, let's not forget, managed to make the "Mr. Dithers" label stick to Paul Martin) is also rather less than impressed with Harper's anti-democratic actions - including a "tendency to play fast and loose with the rules".

- Aaron Wherry starts digging through the 2011 Canadian Election Survey data and finds yet more evidence that actual voters need less convincing to consider the NDP as an option than some seem to want to claim:

 During the campaign and in a post-election survey, the CES asked for respondents to identify their second-choice party and in both cases the NDP bested all other parties—28.4% during the campaign and 28.7% after. During the campaign, respondents were asked if there was a party they would never vote and only 10.4% identified the NDP (compared to 18.8% for the Liberals and 33.1% for the Conservatives).

- Which is to say that there isn't any reason to think for a second that trying to change the NDP's successful set of values would accomplish much of anything. But as Bruce Anderson notes, if there was ever a need for the NDP to try to look more moderate, the Cons' hard-right radicalism is largely doing the job already.

- Finally, Pat Atkinson points out that we can't take Medicare for granted. And that of course holds true for all of the social gains that are now under attack by corporate interests who look to the robber-baron era as a model.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Dan Gardner rightly notes that we should be encouraging more public advocacy from charities and other groups with useful input to offer into policy debates - not shutting it down as the Cons are doing:

“Many charities have acquired a wealth of knowledge about how government policies affect people’s lives. Charities are well-placed to study, assess, and comment on those government policies. ... It is therefore essential that charities continue to offer their direct knowledge of social issues to public policy debates.”

That’s the government talking. More specifically, that’s the government’s principle policy statement on the involvement of charities in political activities. It came into effect in 2003. It’s still in force.

And who could disagree? We’re not talking about partisan politics, which charities aren’t permitted to get involved in. Here, “political activity” means debates about whether some law or policy should be changed in some way (or retained, if change is being discussed). Charities develop specialized knowledge about the fields they work in and if they get involved they add an informed perspective. Whether I or anyone else agrees with their views, or whether the government ultimately acts on them, does not matter. They enrich the discussion. And that can make public policy better.
...

(L)leading Conservatives are now using incredibly bellicose language to attack charities involved in what they consider to be inappropriate political activity. Senator Eaton has even suggested that churches — a big part of the charitable sector — have no business getting involved in political activity at all. “I don’t think churches should take political stands,” Senator Eaton said in a recent interview. “I think they should be more about helping people and giving people succour.” 

Of course Eaton’s statement is gibberish, since politics can be an effective way to help people. But this isn’t about logic. It’s about sending a message. And the Senator’s message to charities couldn’t be clearer: Shut up and stay away from politics.

You can bet charities are hearing that loud and clear.

- Erika Shaker exposes a few of the myths behind the reactionary response to Quebec's tuition and civil liberties protests.

- Paul Dechene points out that a list of Canada's most endangered heritage sites includes Regina's Connaught School.

- No, I don't expect that many respondents were actually hugely familiar with the Cons' move to close the Lake of the Woods Experimental Lakes Area until Forum polled about it. But it still seems noteworthy how many of those polled recognized the problem once they were informed about it.

- Finally, shorter Preston Manning, speaking strictly as a neutral and nonpartisan citizen with no interest whatsoever in shilling for the Cons or the tar sands:

WAAAAH! No fair pricing carbon to take into account the costs of pollution unless we also charge more for hydro! And the sun! And the wind! And energy conservation! And...

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- I wouldn't want to take Dan Gardner's conclusion as to the effects of power as an immutable truth - as he himself notes in pointing out means of minimizing its risks. But it's certainly an apt description of what's happened since the Harper Cons took power:

The government could have responded by making a show of listening to the opposition and Conservative backbenchers, picking a few innocuous amendments, and passing them. Doing that would have cost the government essentially nothing. But it may have softened the complaints a little. And, at a minimum, it would have taken away the inevitable opposition attack line of “They wouldn’t change so much as a comma! They’re treating Parliament like a rubber stamp!”

But they didn’t do that. Instead, they methodically and relentlessly voted down every single one of hundreds of proposed amendments, no matter how modest or reasonable they may be — making themselves look immodest and unreasonable and seeming to confirm that they do, indeed, expect Parliament to rubber stamp legislation.

Strictly from the perspective of the government’s self-interest, this was astonishingly dumb.

And there’s been a lot of that lately.
...

(If a) powerful person lives in a bubble, insulated from criticism, surrounded by bobbleheads and bootlickers, his judgment will only get worse. And worse. Until he is making decisions like, hey, let’s announce a plan to make ordinary people work longer to receive Old Age Security in a speech to an audience of billionaires at a Swiss resort! Or, let’s announce changes to Employment Insurance without making so much as a single phone call to the premiers whose provinces will be most affected! Or, let’s automatically reject any amendment suggested by the opposition and ram the bill through even though it would seem to confirm the nasty accusations being levelled at us! 

Power corrupts. And it makes the powerful stupid.

Smart leaders know that, of course. It’s why they disperse and decentralize power, and create checks and balances. It’s why they seek out contrary views and dissonant information, why they consult, negotiate, and compromise.

- And Errol Mendes also comments on the Harper Cons' aversion to checks, balances and accountability.

- Meanwhile, it's certainly worth noting that Dean Del Mastro's denials of any knowledge of Elections Canada's investigation aren't any more plausible than most Con spin. But the part I find most interesting is the Harper-esque relationship between the financial agent who's actually responsible for campaign finances, and the candidate who denied any knowledge whatsoever of what was happening:

Ritchie’s affidavit describes how he and another Elections Canada investigator, Al Mathews, went to Peterborough to interview Daniel Rosborough, the financial agent of Del Mastro’s electoral district association.

According to Ritchie’s sworn statement, Rosborough told them “He had contacted Dean Del Mastro after I had called him and that he was advised by Dean Del Mastro that he (Dean Del Mastro) would handle the matter with Elections Canada.”

And, Ritchie said, Rosborough told them, “He (Daniel Rosborough) would not provide access to the EDA’s records or be interviewed unless authorized to do so by Dean Del Mastro.”

The two men had arranged to interview Rosborough about the association’s finances two weeks in advance of their Dec. 15 meeting, but when they got to his Peterborough office, he refused to be interviewed and told them to talk to Del Mastro directly.

- Robert Skidelsky points out that the long-promised link between corporate-owned technology capable of replacing difficult work and greater leisure time has never materialized.

- Finally, Jonathan Douglas discusses the link between library services and poverty alleviation in the UK - a particularly important connection at a time when appointees who don't seem to have any interest in the latter are showing their lack of interest in the former:

Libraries have always had a bias to the poor. It sat at the heart of their founding vision. In the past fifteen years this has been rediscovered in the context of social inclusion policy. The challenge is to put this into practice at a time when libraries’ resources themselves are being savagely cut in many places.

However the prize is great: If libraries can effectively work with individuals and the communities most at risk of poverty, they can turn lives round, boost relative social mobility and even stop the newly enlarged poverty footprint in the UK becoming intergenerational. They will also demonstrate their indispensible role in UK policy. They will demonstrate that their statutory role is no whim, but recognition of how libraries make society fairer and richer, in every sense.

The evidence  for libraries’ impact on poverty is compelling,  particularly in combating the inequalities associated with child poverty.  The Effective Provision of Preschool Education research and more recently the Avon Longitudinal  Study of Parents and Children have demonstrated the power of libraries in closing the one year gap in school readiness that exists between rich and poor children and which lays the foundations for many later inequalities.

However the effectiveness of libraries against the poverty agenda is dependent on the extent to which they commit to this audience as a priority, and the extent to which they provide services which  tackle poverty. Learning and literacy need to be at the heart of this approach.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Dan Gardner draws some parallels between the Cons' attacks on Europe and the well-worn (and entirely false) Reagan-era "welfare queen" line of spin. But I wonder whether the Cons are making matters somewhat more difficult for themselves by trying to negotiate a free trade agreement with exactly the enemy they're otherwise trying to vilify.

- Mia Rabson and Tim Harper both wonder how efforts to unite against the Harper Cons might play into the Libs' leadership race. But I wonder whether the question of how a "natural governing party" reacts to falling to third place may in fact demand more than a single candidate seeking to cooperate.

Instead, I'd figure that the Libs' contenders will need to supplement the usual leadership questions of "who are you?" and "what is your vision for Canada?" with another core form of definition: "why do you think a Liberal party is needed to achieve your vision?". And if nobody offers a sufficiently compelling answer to the third question, then it won't much matter who runs for or against cooperation.

- Adam Radwanski expands on my theory that Tim Hudak has been let off far too easy for his complete lack of principle.

- Finally, Nathan Vanderklippe and Carrie Tait report on the latest pipeline spill - this one from Enbridge as it seeks carte blanche to decide what protections are needed for a Gateway pipeline. But as David Suzuki notes, the news of a spill really just means it's a day ending in "y".

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Friday reading.

- Michael Harris neatly sums up the Harper Cons' legacy:

In many ways, the Harper legacy will come down to this: how much can he get away with? Incumbency furnishes a speedy getaway car. From a legislative perspective, Harper might as well be King Tut. He can do whatever he wants for the next three years or so. Bill C-38, which makes the War Measures Act look like a piece of legislation declaring a public holiday, demonstrates just how aware this PM is of the total power vested in him. And how oblivious he is to Canada’s institutional integrity. One-third of C-38′s monstrous abuse of process is dedicated to dismantling environmental legislation that was never mentioned in the 2011 Tory master plan.

Harper gets it. It’s now or never, baby.
...
Stephen Harper’s gamble comes down to this — do Canadians give a hoot about the fact that their democracy is now a mere formality. Do they accept the Nixonian proposition that when your leader does something wrong, it’s actually right because he’s your leader? In other words, do we, like the wall-eyed People of the Corn in the Republican Party south of the border, believe that the office sanctifies the man?

Harper has concluded that with the proper balance of fear, marketing, and suppression of dissent, he can successfully argue that a small pox scar is really a dimple. Look what climate change deniers have done with a handful of zealots and scads of money from people like the Koch brothers.

But there is only so much fear you can put into people, just so much, and no more. And when people stop fearing you, that dimple starts looking like a small pox scar after all.

- But Brian Topp offers some rather important perspective: while the Cons are looking to make politics as small and substance-free as possible, a real debate in values is developing thanks to the NDP's strength as a progressive opposition. And Bruce Campbell notes that there's plenty of room for discussion as to how we want to develop our economy for the decades to come.

- For the most part, we know not to take any of the Cons' constant and fact-free boasting too seriously. But every now and then it's worth testing some of their claims - and John Geddes' post comparing the environmental progress under several previous governments to the total lack of action  under the current one nicely highlights the gap between spin and reality.

- Finally, Dan Gardner comments on how logic is Canada's most regular victim of crime thanks to the Cons:

(T)here’s plenty of fear in Toronto now. Stephen Harper failed. He betrayed the city.

Or at least that’s what I would write if I were as ruthless as the boys in the PMO.

But I try to set the bar at least a little higher. So I’ll write this, instead: The efficacy of a policy cannot be proven or disproven by a single incident. Or even a series of incidents. We should not let the passions of the moment, or lazy assumptions, or tired dogma, cloud our judgment. We should base our conclusions about the efficacy of tougher sentences on properly designed and carefully conducted research.

And that research says it doesn’t work.
...

Just as it doesn’t matter that Fantino’s claim about the Eaton Centre shooting and tough sentences — Our approach failed, which proves it’s critical! — is so bizarre it’s hard not to suspect the man was tripping on LSD.

Evidence and logic are irrelevant to Conservative crime policy. As Justice Minister Rob Nicholson famously observed, “we’ve made it very clear that we don’t govern on the basis of statistics.”

No, for Stephen Harper and company, crime policy is about nothing but dogma and politics.

 [Edit: fixed formatting.]

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Robert Cross and Glen McGregor point out how "Pierre Poutine" covered his tracks in the course of sending out fraudulent robocalls to direct voters away from the correct polls. And it's particularly worth noting how blatantly the entire scheme was planned to conceal the Cons' misdeeds even before the robocalls themselves were recorded.

- Dan Gardner rightly recognizes that the output of a political system often has much more to do with broad agreement among multiple parties rather than the choices of any "great man" at the centre of it. But I'm surprised he doesn't point out today's Canada as a rather glaring counterexample (even if "great" isn't the word many would use to describe Stephen Harper): would anybody outside the Cons' propaganda department claim that the current government's policy direction has anything in particular to do with following a national consensus, rather than trying to wrench the country as far from it as they can get away with?

- Heather Mallick takes aim at Jim Flaherty's belief that Canadian workers should have no choice but to accept any job they can get.

- Alexis Stoymenoff reports on what may be one of the more interesting consequences of the Cons' obsession with pipelines: namely, will the seizure and destruction of citizens' property prove as controversial on the federal level as it did (say) in propelling the Wildrose Party to its gains in Alberta?

- Finally, Alice comments on the political calculations which figure to go into any by-election in Etobicoke Centre. But perhaps more interesting than a close race for a single seat is this choice facing the Cons:

A risk for the (Cons) in pursuing the appeal is that it will further commit them to the position taken by Mr. Opitz's legal counsel before the Ontario Superior Court that it is not necessary for every procedural detail of the Elections Act to be followed in order to have a vote counted. This is the exact opposite of the strategy being pursued by the Republican Party south of the border, where very strict voting rules are being promulgated in Republican-controlled states apparently in order to curtail voting by certain groups and in areas less favourably disposed to their party.

Saturday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading.

- Lana Payne tears into the Cons for being interested solely in developing a junk labour market where both work safety and income security are sorely lacking. And Chris Selley offers his own rebuttal to the "no such thing as a bad job" mentality:

Mr. Flaherty’s sound byte might live longer than that, though. It certainly begs for inclusion in an NDP attack ad. If an Old Princetonian with a $235,000 public salary and a lavish pension is going to stand up and tell Canadians that “there is no bad job,” then at the very least he should probably have something a little grubbier on his CV to offer reporters than taxi-driving and hockey refereeing. I’ve led a fantastically comfortable and privileged life, and even I can trump taxi driver. There is most certainly such a thing as a bad job.

A bad job doesn’t have to be smelly, hot or noisy. Most people would define the term to include a job for which one is ludicrously overqualified, either on paper or in one’s heart: a plumber working security in the middle of the night, a carpenter slinging crullers, a cardiologist driving a taxi. It’s demoralizing and inherently wasteful, and this government says exactly that when it comes to immigrants. It quite rightly wants to ensure professionals don’t pack up and move to Canada only to toil miles below their station, and it quite rightly talks up the value of skilled trades. And yet here was Mr. Flaherty, whose big mouth seems to be enjoying majority governance, suggesting Canadians should be happy with any pay cheque they get.

- Dan Gardner neatly sums up the possible interpretations of the Cons' utter failure to match rhetoric with action on climate change:

(W)hat can we make of all this? There are two possibilities.

First, Stephen Harper and Company may be sincere about tackling climate change. In that case, they are grossly incompetent. Their policy is a mess. They have accomplished little or nothing. And there’s no reason to think they will do any better in the future.

The other possibility is that Stephen Harper and Company are lying. They do not have any intention of tackling climate change. They never did. Their only real goal is to manage the file so it doesn’t become a political liability, which they have done with considerable success.

And it surely isn't a positive sign that the Cons are yet again trotting out their all-too-familiar "next year" timeline for greenhouse gas emission regulations with a straight face.

- But of course, the Cons have been plenty busy with such important tasks as siccing the RCMP on anybody who reveals inconvenient truths, and trying to shut down any further discussion or investigation of their own electoral fraud.

 - And Carol Goar points out that the latest budget includes plenty more nasty surprises for Canadians. Which means there's plenty of reason why even previously loyal Con supporters have ample reason not to trust them.

[Edit: fixed formatting.]

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Michael Harris sums up the first year of a Harper majority by pointing out the overwhelming need for change from the government we're stuck with now:

The curtain has been well and truly whipped away from the PM’s self-promoting deceptions and he is revealed for what he is: a power-tripper on a mission to give Canada an extreme makeover that only the super-rich and the semi-comatose could endorse. And he is doing it with virtually no debate, creating something of a new phenomenon in Canadian politics; sole-source public policy.
...
This is not “strong, stable government” a la Harper’s PR mantra. It is oppressive, dictatorial regime-building that would do any petro-state proud.

- And the Star isn't much more pleased:

By now Harper’s signature impulse — to scale back Ottawa’s role in the federation — is beginning to be felt, and so is the cost. The Tory budget, skilfully marketed as a “modest” paring-back that will affect few jobs, will have major impact. Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page predicts it will shrink Ottawa’s contribution to the national economy to an “historical low” of 5.5 per cent, from a 50-year average of 8.2 per cent. Page says this will result in sharply slower growth and sharply higher joblessness over the next few years.

To many Canadians that won’t feel like the “smarter, more caring nation” that Harper promised in last year’s throne speech. It will feel more like a federal shrug of indifference. Workers at the CBC are feeling the pain, along with those who run our national parks, compile statistics, patrol the borders and ensure food safety.

- Trish Hennessy runs some numbers to keep in mind at tax time - with a particular emphasis on the massive majority of Canadians willing to pay more to ensure a reasonable base of public services.

- Stephen Maher describes Robocon as a natural extension of familiar Republican dirty tricks - and gets an admitted vote-suppressor to agree with that link.

- Finally, Dan Gardner makes a curious case as to how some unspecified "loony left" (with only a single example) is giving Stephen Harper cover with his party's hard-right base. But I'm surprised Gardner misses one obvious implication of his own argument: if Harper might otherwise be pursuing regressive social policy in order to appease his base but has avoided it because he can accomplish the same goal by merely pointing to what Heather Mallick writes, then her commentary alone has had a far more direct effect on Canadian public policy under the Harper Cons than all the Very Serious People in the country combined.