Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Shawn McCarthy discusses the Cons' latest plan to sell Keystone XL to the U.S. - which involves hoping that the best-resourced government on the planet will be suckered into accepting a transparently false pretense that the Cons have the slightest interest in addressing climate change. And Harper cabinet appointee Monte Solberg offers a window into the Cons' environmental mindset, trying to make a case against "thinking globally" on the basis that there are easier votes to be won by focusing on small vacation areas while shredding the rest of the planet.

- The Cons' latest Senate abuses have provoked plenty of discussion as to how in the world we can justify spending hundreds of millions of dollars on an unaccountable set of patronage appointees. Among those calling for (or at least musing about) abolition are Diane Francis, Paul Sullivan and Geoffrey Stevens. Kai Nagata recognizes that we should see Patrick Brazeau as entirely emblematic of the Cons - rather than accepting their spin that it's just bad luck that he's following in so many disgraced footsteps. Murray Dobbin compares Brazeau's abuse of privilege to the genuine movement for change behind Idle No More. Stephen Kimber contrasts Mike Duffy's one-time journalist persona against his current diminished state, while Dan Leger wonders whether Duffy has officially joined Brazeau in being cut loose by the Cons.

But the definitive word goes to Sixth Estate in discussing Duffy:

(W)e’re no longer talking about an issue of merely failing to uphold a few technical rules. We’re talking about fraud here.

The only question is: fraud against whom? Against Ontario taxpayers, for using an Ontario health card when he is really a primary resident of PEI, or against federal taxpayers, for collecting expense fees for his PEI cottage when he is really a primary resident of Ontario?

Either way, I guess we now know why right-wingers are so paranoid that lazy, self-interested gits are ripping off the welfare system. That’s what they think is going on, because it’s exactly what they do when given the opportunity.

- Digby compares the "donor class" of Americans who fund political parties to the wider citizenry - and finds that the U.S. government (like its UK equivalent) is paying far more attention to the frivolous deficit obsession of the former than the job and income security concerns of the latter.

- pogge rightly highlights the Cons' strict party control over private members' bills. But I'll add that the vetting of what's supposed to be the prerogative of individual MPs is far from new, as Garth Turner raised exactly the same concern after he was booted out of the Cons' caucus.

- Finally, CBC reports on the Cons' willingness to fund an anti-gay organization to work in Uganda (home of some of the most obvious homophobic policies on the planet). And Dennis Gruending compares the treatment of Crossroads Christian Communications to that of other groups such as KAIROS and Development and Peace who were de-funded for failing to share the Cons' values.

Well said

Last week I noted that the answer to the Cons' politically-motivated de-funding of civil society groups was to clash with the idea that a government should use the public purse to attack groups for their opinions. And Gerald Caplan does just that:

Every time I hear Michael Ignatieff shrieking at the Prime Minister to fire Ms. Oda I want to scream back: THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BEV ODA. Of course she baldly lied, just as Jason Kenney lied about Kairos policy on Israel and Tony Clement lied when he claimed Statscan approved his crusade against the long-form census. This government lies as routinely as it maligns, and it never apologizes. But Ms. Oda, like Messrs. Kenney and Clement, is just the organ grinder’s monkey. Any CIDA minister would have been in the same boat. She just follows orders. And it’s those orders in the Kairos case that remind us of the real Harper agenda.

The issue here is the reversal, by Stephen Harper, of a 60-year consensus shared by all previous governments about the central role of civil society in Canada. Every previous government has funded civil society groups and NGOs even when they espoused policies that contradicted the government’s own. Governments might have done so grudgingly and not as generously as some of us hoped. But it has been one of the quiet glories of Canadian democracy that our governments have often backed groups that criticized them or had competing priorities.

No more. With Stephen Harper, you either buy the party line or you get slapped down.
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Look at Stephen Harper's record.

He silences whistle-blowers and punishes dissenters.

He treats Parliament with open contempt and brazenly lies when found out.

He suspends Parliament at the first sign of political risk.

He makes a mockery of the accountability and transparency he loudly demands of everyone else.

He makes lying to parliament just another tactical device.

He fakes his budgets by refusing to cost new initiatives.

He transforms vital watchdogs of democracy into mushy lapdogs.

He unleashes ministers to attack judges who make unwelcome decisions. He personalizes attacks on his “enemies”.

He blithely smears other parties, groups and individuals as anti-Semitic.

He is impervious to the democratic spirit that has galvanized hundreds of millions of people to stand up for freedom.

He makes major economic decisions on the basis of their impact on his electoral fortunes.

Makes you wonder why Canadians aren’t yet out on the streets in the millions. Instead, Michael Ignatieff demands that Bev Oda be fired.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday...

- Yes, the story behind the Cons' KAIROS funding forgery is far from over. And while the media and opposition will undoubtedly want to get to the bottom of the matter, Paul Dewar rightly notes that somebody else should be very interested to figure out who doctored an official document to mean the opposite of its original text:

NDP MP Paul Dewar wants Oda to appear again before the foreign affairs committee to face questions. He raised the prospect of a police probe if opposition MPs can't find out who “doctored” the document.

- Meanwhile, Murray Dobbin notes how the KAIROS forgery fits into the Cons' general style of governance:

Shocked hardly describes it. This is political thuggery worthy of a dictatorship. It clearly originated in the PMO, but Bev Oda, the hapless minister of International Cooperation, was assigned the role of Official Stonewaller. Oda's answers to questions put to her by a parliamentary committee reveal an arrogance of power that is identical in its mentality to the dozens of autocracies around the world. Oda stated she didn't know who doctored the documents she signed, but said: "I know that the decision ultimately reflects the decision I would support."

That is almost impossible to believe. Almost surely, the only reason the not was inserted into the document was that it had already been signed by Oda -- indicating she accepted the recommendation by CIDA officials. Had Oda not signed, authorizing payment of the grant, there would have been no need to doctor the document to reverse its intent. She could simply have declined to sign it and announced that KAIROS would not be getting a grant. The vulgar method used to circumvent the law demonstrates just how little this government cares about the rule of law. They couldn't even be bothered to make it credible.

- But if there's any good news to be found in the Cons' constant cover-ups, it's that they may be setting up their own government's demise. Here's John Ibbitson:

(N)ot only do the Conservatives give tax cuts to fat cats and waste billions on toys for the military and prisons that turn scared kids into hardened criminals, but they also erode democratic freedoms by keeping Parliament and the rest of us in the dark about their plans.

Only you don’t have to camp out at Liberation Square to bring this government down. You only need to cast a ballot.

None of this may matter. The Conservatives think they can win the next election on the ballot question of competence and leadership, and the polls suggest they’re right.

But don’t be surprised if you see a Liberal attack ad that shows Parliament with the doors chained shut. And the Conservatives will have only themselves to blame.

- Finally, the Star points out the dishonesty in the Cons' attempt to play to prejudice by attacking veiled voters:

No fewer than 253,069 voters cast mail-in ballots in 2008. Elections officials had no way of checking their faces. Other voters turned up at the polls with two pieces of acceptable non-photo ID, such as a hydro bill, a government cheque or an insurance policy. Still others with no valid ID at all just swore an oath and had a neighbour or roommate (with valid ID) vouch for them.

In a crunch, a veiled Muslim woman can either show her face in private to an official, or swear an oath that she is qualified to vote, and present two pieces of ID.

Given all these factors, it is absurd, as the Star has argued before, to think of veiled Muslim women as posing a threat to the integrity of our electoral system. Laws that in effect single out Muslim women send an ugly message that if minorities want to exercise their rights as Canadian citizens, they should behave and look more like the “mainstream,” whatever that might be.

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous midweek material...

- Thomas Walkom rightly notes that at least some of the progressive disappointment with Barack Obama's administration can be traced to the gap between his words even while campaigning and his supporters' expectations.

But the broader lesson (which Walkom hints at) looks to be a need to put greater emphasis on the fact that winning power is a means rather than an end: rather than tying our hopes and goals to a single individual, we should evaluate political leaders based on what they can actually accomplish for the greater good. And no progressive on either side of the border should be satisfied with "winning" an election if it doesn't result in meaningful positive change.

- Which includes you, Duncan Cameron. That isn't to say we shouldn't be looking at ways to bring about a coalition government - but a panicked electoral scheme which gives the Libs more credit than they deserve as an alternative (and thus disempoers the parties fighting for real change) could easily be expected to lead to our own set of disappointments in short order.

- The Globe and Mail's editorial on skyrocketing consumer spending that the real problem is that not enough money is being borrowed in the corporate sector:

One of the weirdnesses of the recent recession was that Canadian consumer credit kept expanding from the low point, rising by 7 per cent. In this period, home equity has had a strange inverse relationship to personal net worth in Canada, the former being quite high during the slump while investment portfolios crashed. This pattern continues: Statistics Canada figures on Monday showed household net worth up 2.7 per cent in the third quarter, while home resales lessened, and residential mortgages decelerated.

The dependence of the major banks on consumers is shown in a chart in the central bank’s report. For half a dozen years, household credit’s share of their loan portfolios have ranged from 55 to 60 per cent – a departure from most of their history.

The world has moved far away from words that Shakespeare attributed to the sententious Polonius: “Neither a borrower nor a lender be.” But Canadian householders should work on borrowing less, and banks should seriously consider shifting more of their lending from households back to business.

But it's worth asking the question: is that necessarily because the banks have preferred to target consumers, or might it have something to do with businesses just not having a reason to borrow?

- Finally, it's well and good to Bev Oda's latest spin on KAIROS as an affront to ministerial responsibility. But I'd prefer to see it as a golden opportunity: doesn't it mean we can reverse all of the Cons' flawed decisions simply by planting somebody to add "not" to the relevant documentation after it's been rubber-stamped?

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday...

- While I certainly won't agree with the more pointed attacks on the Greens' proposal to ban political TV ads, I'll raise the same point I did when it came to ten-per-centers. With the Cons firmly in control of so many advertising and communication resources, does it really make sense to cut into any of the few media where the opposition parties have any hope of getting their message out?

- Meanwhile, for those looking for useful communications tools, NUPGE's All Together Now site has some handy message suggestions. (Though hopefully it'll evolve to include a full set of value-based words and phrases for use other contexts in addition to the current one-liners.)

- Paul Krugman is all too right in highlighting a comment as to exactly what it is that the markets want. But while the idea might well make for a low-cost way of appeasing the financial sector as it stands, shouldn't it also serve as reason to question whether the market actually is always right?

- I suppose it's for the best that Brian Lilley is willing to report the obvious from Kevin Page. But does it really take the Parliamentary Budget Officer's intervention to get a QMI reporter to acknowledge that tax cuts mean less government revenue?

- Finally, get your popcorn ready: KAIROS isn't taking its funding cuts lying down, and the Cons' response should make for some quality entertainment.

The reviews are in

Chris Selley, with a minor correction:

Ready for the punch line? Mr. Kenney pops up in the Toronto Star (a) to deny having called KAIROS anti-Semitic; (b) to deny having cut off funding to KAIROS because it's anti-Israel (let alone anti-Semitic); and (c) to deny having had anything whatsoever to do with cutting off KAIROS's funding in the first place.
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Heaven only knows what went on here. Maybe it's just general hamhandedness. Maybe they hoped the benefits reaped whilst people assumed they'd taken a stand against anti-Semitism and/or for Israel would outweigh the damage reaped by disavowing the idea on a day when everyone's shopping instead of reading the Star. Maybe Ms. Oda really did make the decision on her own, and Mr. Kenney decided he'd try to score some disingenuous points with it in Israel. Whatever happened, it's a complete insult to Canadians' intelligence — and Israelis', come to think of it. And it's proof positive, as if any was needed, that nobody should put any stock in what any Canadian Conservative politician says. Ever. About anything.

Today in shoddy journalism

With the federal government doing everything in its power to prevent any global agreement on climate change and Alberta's provincial government trying to claim even that course of action doesn't do enough to favour the tar sands, it takes a remarkable amount of confusion and spin to pretend that one or both is somehow failing to be enough of a cheerleader for the oil industry. Which naturally leads us to the National Post:

Now, the findings of an Angus Reid Public Opinion survey of 810 Albertans show 50% of respondents are dissatisfied with the way the provincial government acted to deal with recent criticism of the oilsands. Only 35% of those polled were satisfied and 15% were not sure.

Albertans were similarly unimpressed with the federal government, with 49% dissatisfied with how Ottawa dealt with the same criticism. Thirty-four per cent of respondents were satisfied with Ottawa's actions, while 17% were not sure.

"It's clear that there's a fury in the land in the sense that people are using the oilsands as a whipping boy for climate change -- and people in Alberta don't like it," said Mario Canseco with pollster Angus Reid. "This definitely shows that this is something the two levels [of government] need to take into account."

Of course, anybody looking at the poll seeking anything other than an excuse to declare that an Alberta separation movement is imminent would note that there's more than one way to be dissatisfied with the response of a particular government.

Indeed, nearly all of the criticism leveled at both Harper and Stelmach on a national scale has been based on their insistence on favouring the tar sands at the expense of the economy of the rest of Canada. (After all, it's Ontario and Quebec which simply want all emissions to be treated equally, and the oil industry backed by the Alberta and federal governments who want tar-sands emissions to be treated more generously.)

Which likely explains why the poll was worded the way it was. If any option had been included to distinguish between dissatisfaction based on a government's being insufficiently loud in spouting pro-oil talking points and frustration based on a government unduly favouring the tar sands over other industries, then there would be no way to conflate the two in reporting on the poll's outcome.

But as it is, the pollster and the National Post lump both together and count them as being on the side of the oil industry. Which may produce the spin they're looking for out of the story - but signals that they don't recognize any prospect of winning even Alberta's public opinion in a fair fight.

Meanwhile, Brian Lilley's take on the Cons' attack on KAIROS manages to include a remarkable set of ever-shifting goalposts. Here's Lilley on why nobody should think the Cons' decision to publicly brag about "de-funding" the organization actually relates to Jason Kenney's public explanation:

(KAIROS), which has received funding for years from CIDA, was turned down on a request for government funding of a four-year project. They did not lose core funding that has put them on the brink of bankruptcy or closing up shop as the NDP claimed, they simply were turned down on a project proposal, this is something many groups, businesses, consultants face everyday. The difference here is that Kairos is able to mount a public relations campaign using all three opposition parties and a willing media to try and get back funding they never lost.
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So why was Kairos turned down for funding?

Despite the attempts to turn this into another proxy war over the Middle East and Canada’s policy there, it is most likely that Kairos lost its funding because they didn’t fit the goals the government laid out. There is no entitlement to funding. Kairos made a pitch and they were turned down.

Now, this would make for a relatively reasonable and coherent defence if left on its own. But Lilley immediately shifts to contradicting his own point, making clear that as far as he's concerned, the Cons are fully entitled to shun KAIROS or any other group for failing to agree with their ideology:

Consider also that this is an old-fashioned left wing group, supportive of Marxist ideas like Liberation Theology, asking a Conservative government to fund it.

When the Harper government sought out a free-trade agreement with Columbia (sic), Kairos was there, with government money, to oppose it. Kairos sees plenty to be concerned about when it comes to human rights in Columbia (sic) and wants the Harper government to shun that country. Venezuela on the other hand is seen in a positive light. The message from Kairos, engagement is appropriate when a shady country is run by socialists, anything to the right deserves to be shunned.

Remember that just a few paragraphs earlier, Lilley went out of his way to point out that KAIROS received public funding only for specific projects, not for general operations. Which makes it downright stunning that he then chooses to assume without a shred of apparent evidence that it used "government money" in its efforts to protect human rights in Colombia.

Moreover, even if previous funding had been used for means which the Cons didn't like, any future funding agreement could easily be directed toward the parts of KAIROS' mandate which even the Cons couldn't find objectionable. And one would fully expect that to have happened if the federal government was interested in ensuring that a well-established aid organization was able to continue doing good work - rather than looking for an enemy to attack for political purposes.

So what is it that links the two above stories? In effect, they seem to me to signal that far too much of the Canadian media is going down the same path as the Harper government: focused solely on talking points which serve conservative causes even at the expense of accuracy or internal logic. And the less that type of mindset gets challenged either in the media or in politics, the easier it'll be for the likes of Harper to keep pushing it on a country which deserves better.

On wedge issues

The Cons may have picked up a reputation for building their political base by adding key groups into their core support. But it's worth wondering whether their decision to slash funding for ecumenical social justice group Kairos might manage to accomplish just the opposite. After all, Kairos' list of partners doesn't exactly look like a list of organizations that the Cons would want to be facing as adversaries:

Kairos represents, among other organizations the United, Anglican, Presbyterian and Lutheran churches, the Mennonites and the Quakers.

And there's an even wider group of organizations involved in the climate change work which seems to have drawn the Cons' ire:

Last May, a Kairos delegation of church leaders toured Alberta's oilsands region to see how the projects are affecting aboriginal people and to help determine if they are environmentally sustainable.

The delegation included leaders from the Anglican, Christian Reformed, Evangelical Lutheran, Presbyterian and United churches, as well as representatives from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

So might the Cons' effort to silence anybody seeking real action on climate change serve only to drive plenty of voters of faith out of their own camp?