New column day

Here, on how little Brad Wall and the Saskatchewan Party ultimately seem to have learned from the fall of Grant Devine and the PCs.

For further reading...
- Geoff Leo continues to report on the GTH scandal, including the recent revelation that the Saskatchewan Party went out of its way to look for excuses to pay high prices for land. Alex Soloducha reports that Wall has been interviewed by the RCMP as part of its investigation. And Micki Cowan revealed that Wall's office had issued a warning to Bill Boyd about trading off of governmental titles before praising him effusively.
- Finally, Jason Warick reported on Devine's finger-pointing and denial in lieu of recognition of his own government's failings.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Mariana Valverde examines how P3 schemes are putting financiers in charge of deciding what public infrastructure to build, while leaving future generations of citizens with massive bills to pay. And the Star Phoenix' editorial board rightly warns Brad Wall against selling off Saskatchewan's public assets - no matter proud his mentor and political appointee Grant Devine is of having done the same.

- Meanwhile, in light of Wall's sudden admission that Devine's judgment is exactly what he wants to put in charge of Saskatchewan institutions, Tammy Robert offers a thorough reminder of Devine's legacy of scandal and destruction - along with the sordid background to his new appointment.

- The Star's editorial board reviews and endorses the case for a $15 minimum wage due to its economic and social benefits. Damin Starr offers an employer perspective on why fair wages make for better business. And Carolyn Egan discusses the work organized labour is doing - and needs to continue - to ensure a reasonable living for all workers.

- Sam Morgan points out a new report showing the health costs of fossil fuel use - and the subsidies which serve only to force the public to pay even more to address the effects of dirty energy.

- Finally, Steven Chase and Robert Fife report that to the surprise only of a government whose export review process was based on wilful blindness and laughable assurances, military vehicles sold to an abusive Saudi regime are being used to abuse human rights.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Stephany Griffith-Jones points out the lack of any coherent argument against a Robin Hood tax on financial transactions - and the public support when political parties actually raise it for debate:

Major financial sectors such as the United States, Hong Kong and South Korea already have FTTs which together raise tens of billions in revenue annually without causing economic damage. In the UK we have the very successful stamp duty, an FTT on share transactions that raises more than £3bn a year, of which 40% is paid by foreign-based investors and banks. It too rightly taxes all those trading UK shares, wherever they are based. This is the same principle on which the European FTT will be based.

Fortunately, the European commission is clearly supportive of the proposal, as is the European parliament. Eleven European countries, representing 66% of European GDP, remain committed to implementing the tax.

It is encouraging that in coalition talks between the German SPD and CDU, they achieved clear consensus on the FTT. This is not surprising, as in Germany 82% of citizens, according to Euro-barometer, support a European FTT. In France this figure reaches 72%, and the EU average is 64%. Let's hope politicians elsewhere will listen to their voters and fully implement the tax soon.

- Brian Topp draws a connection (as I've done before) between the caucus fraud scandal of the Grant Devine PCs and the Harper Cons' Senate abuses. And Haroon Siddiqui finds a disturbing number of similarities between Harper and Rob Ford in their common demonization of anybody who would question their laughable claims to infallibility.

- Meanwhile, Chantal Hebert sees the Cons' convention as a missed opportunity to propose and push a national Senate referendum.

- Finally, Bruce Livesey writes that the NSA's surveillance has little to do with security, and almost everything to do with the pursuit of economic advantage:

During the Cold War, signals intelligence agencies focused mostly on the Soviet Union and its satellites and allies. But with the collapse of the Soviet bloc, these agencies needed a new raison d’etre. In my 1998 Financial Post piece, I detailed how these agencies were now focusing on economic targets, such as spying on countries to glean information that would give them an advantage in trade talks, or allow multinationals to garner business deals to the detriment of their foreign competitors. “We were all looking at other ways of earning our living other than military and political intelligence,” Mike Frost, a former CSE operative who spent 18 years with the agency, told me when I was researching the Post story. “It was just a given we would be looking at economic things. We thought there was nothing wrong with this.”

For example, the CSE spied on South Korea while Canada was attempting to sell $6 billion worth of CANDU nuclear reactors to that country (presumably to ensure the deal went through). And it spied on Mexico during the 1992-93 NAFTA talks, again to garner advantages in those discussions.

In the current scandal over the NSA, it’s clear that the real intention of the agency’s spying on America’s so-called allies like Germany, Brazil, France and Spain, is solely for economic purposes. After all, these are not countries that are hotbeds of Islamic or al Qaeda terrorism that would justify this level of espionage.
...
Today, intelligence agencies can pretend that all of their spying is to hunt down “terrorists” in our midst. In reality, their entire function is to further the interests of capital, even if it means trampling our privacy and civil rights in the process.

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Brian Topp's initial observations on the new sitting of Parliament include this note on the Libs' interim leader:

(A)s a footnote, Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae was also interesting in these exchanges. He too noted the small sum being invested in alleviating seniors’ poverty, and asked: “Why would there not be more, as has been proposed by the opposition parties?” As his first words of substance in the new House, this was not without interest. It spoke to some of the common themes on the broader opposition bench that led the parties there, only a few short years ago, to think seriously about building and supporting a progressive government together.

Of course, we shouldn't presume that Rae's every signal of agreement with the NDP means that he wants to pursue a merger. But it's well worth keeping an eye on whether the Libs want to be part of a united front to push policies that the Cons would sooner ignore - and it's surely for the best if they keep moving in that direction.

- Can there possibly be a more sure sign that the Cons' bloated cabinet is purely a matter of patronage rather than need or merit than the fact that the group is too unwieldy to actually make decisions?

- It's well and good that Pat Davidson recognizes the problems with the Cons' continued funding off (and shilling for) the asbestos industry. But wouldn't her efforts figure to be far better directed at working with MPs from other parties who agree, rather than shouting into internal channels where they're easily ignored?

- Finally, Peter Chernoff spots the trend in Saskatchewan politics which voters will need to break this fall:

Years ago, we elected as premier Ross "The Boss" Thatcher. The media raved about his first term, so we elected him to a second. The result, you recall, was utter disaster! He was thrown out in the next election; things were fixed up and turned around eventually.

Then we elected Grant Devine. Again, the media raved about how well things were going during his first term. We forgot our history and elected him to a second.

Total and complete disaster - we are still paying off that one. In fact, we had to jail some MLAs!

Now, we are being told that our economy will be fantastic forever if we just vote right-wing again. Forget history!

But your betters just have to show up.

I'm generally in agreement with Audrey's take on Murray Mandryk's attempt to defend Grant Devine's appointment to the Saskatchewan Order of Merit. In effect there doesn't seem to be much disagreement that Devine is the test case as to whether merely occupying the premier's office is enough to justify the honour in the absence of any particular accomplishments - and the answer ought to be "no", particularly since there are trappings specific to the office which Devine has already received.

That said, it's worth noting that the "participation award" standard only apparently applies to premiers. Which seems to me to raise a separate issue of elitism in how Mandryk's standard views the relative value of different careers: what possible reason can there be to require Order of Merit recipients from any other profession to demonstrate something which sets them apart from their peers, while a politician merely has to take up space?

On news dumps

I'm sure it's entirely coincidental that these two stories both managed to surface in exactly the same Friday news cycle, leaving no time for any particular research or response before the weekend:

- Brad Wall's old boss Grant Devine was awarded the Saskatchewan Order of Merit, presumably for his breathtaking achievements in the fields of deficit-accumulating and economic mismanagement. The majority of the advisory body responsible for the choice would have been selected personally by Wall in 2008 (given the previous pattern of appointments in 1996 and 2002 and the three-year term which applies to the position) - but as best I can tell, he didn't bother publicizing even the fact that he'd actually made the appointments, much less the names of those who are now responsible for choosing Devine.

- Brad Wall's old boss Grant Devine has stepped down from the board of the still-disputed Saskatchewan PC trust fund. And in the process, the man who was just honoured by a Wall-appointed committee took the opportunity to endorse Wall's government and suggest that the money which would otherwise be used to revive his old party should be diverted toward a new wingnut welfare program.

Nope, nothing smells the least bit off about this arrangement. And it's still entirely unfair to point out that there might be some problematic links between the Devine government which decimated the province in the '80s and the Wall government which is following in its footsteps.