Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Linda McQuaig responds to the CCCE's tax spin by pointing out what's likely motivating the false attempt to be seen to contribute to society at large:

Seemingly out of the blue this week, the head honchos of Canada's biggest companies, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, put out a media release insisting that their taxes are not too low.

This defensive posture -- who mentioned murder? -- reveals they fear others may be slowly catching on to the massive transfer of wealth to the richest Canadians that's been going on for the past 14 years due to the systematic cutting of corporate tax rates.

If Canada's corporate tax rate was the same today as it was in 2000, we'd be collecting roughly an extra $20 billion a year in taxes -- enough to fund national child care, free university tuition, children's dental care or other programs that have long existed in other advanced countries but that no one here, in these lean and mean times, dares to be caught dreaming about anymore, let alone advocating out loud.
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(T)he CBC's interview with Howlett sparked gasps of rage from the bowels of the business press, notably Terence Corcoran in the National Post -- even though a detailed description of the Cameco case and other tax avoidance schemes had just appeared in a special issue of Canadian Business under the cover headline: How to pay no taxes -- Many of Canada's largest companies pay almost no tax: What's their secret?

Of course, that report, directed towards a business audience, is seen as harmless. It's quite another matter when that information is used by the likes of Howlett to wake up the Canadian public to this wealth grab by some of our biggest corporations -- companies which pushed governments to slash taxes and then largely avoided even those lower rates by shifting their profits offshore.

- David McKie reports on the PBO's latest study - which shows that the federal government has once again been underestimating the cost of cleaning up contaminated sites by billions of dollars (which will have to be funded out of the public purse).

- Dr. Dawg discusses the Fort Chipewyan cancer cluster - and the even more cancerous attitude on the part of the Alberta government which is looking to silence the victims rather than acknowledge any health problems which might be caused by the tar sands. And David Climenhaga wonders what comes next now that we know about both the cluster and the province's disdain for those affected.

- Jason Markusoff reports on Calgary's work in figuring out the costs and benefits of new construction - which lead to the conclusion that newly-developed suburban neighbourhoods tend to be a cost sink for at least 11 years, with the cost of repaying the resulting debt eating up any tax revenues for another ensuing decade.

- Finally, Andrew Coyne weighs in again on the Cons' combined refusal to try to justify anything within the Unfair Elections Act, along with their choice to instead declare war on Elections Canada as a diversion from the bill. Anita Vandenbeld describes the bill and its ramming through Parliament as global disgraces. Lawrence Martin notes that the Cons' attacks on Marc Mayrand are mostly a matter of fear that the truth about 2011 electoral fraud is about to be revealed. And Adam Bunch nicely summarizes what's at stake as the Unfair Elections Act is considered by Parliament.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Jim Stanford writes that union-bashing has proven to be political poison for many of the parties who have tried to distract from increasing inequality with attacks on workers:

(T)he biggest problem for Mr. Hudak’s crusade was a deeper sentiment in Canadian public opinion regarding unions and the role they play in society. No matter their warts, unions ultimately reflect their members: typical Canadians just trying to earn a decent income, support their families, and (hopefully) retire with some security, in an economy which rewards the rich and powerful more than ever before. Unions (like wage-earners in general) have been on the defensive for years. Wage gains have been small, strikes are historically rare, and even much-maligned public sector contracts have been rolled back substantially. In such a lopsided context, it’s simply impossible to convince most voters that unions are really Public Enemy Number One. And many Canadians innately understand that if the only institutional voice speaking for working class priorities is silenced, then the whole social contract will become even more tattered in the years ahead. Unions, to their credit, effectively emphasized their broader social impacts in their responses to Mr. Hudak.

And therein lies the danger for other Conservatives (including federally) who have been sowing similar political ground. Attempts to delegitimize unions (as with the failed federal Bill C-377, which treated unions almost on par with organized crime), tilt the bargaining field further in employers’ favour, and snatch away negotiated benefits (like the health benefits Ottawa is now clawing back from retirees) all appear increasingly mean-spirited. They offend moderate Conservatives (who understand the important institutional role of collective bargaining), anger unions and their members, and reinforce the impression that Conservatives do not speak for average working people.

In short, the effort to blame trade unions as the scapegoat for all economic and fiscal ailments is running out of steam. Mr. Hudak’s platform will continue to emphasize other anti-union initiatives, but they will resonate awkwardly in the wake of his Rand Formula flip-flop. And other Conservatives should beware the political rock – a deep, innate sympathy for institutions which help to share the wealth – that their Ontario counterparts just drove into.

- But Michael-Allan Marion notes that the failure of one distraction tactic hasn't changed the basic corporatist direction of many governments, pointing out the perpetual growth of income inequality.

- Meanwhile, the Prairie Dog looks in detail at the state of women's equality in Canada - and finds that there's still a great deal of room for improvement even as right-wing governments look to roll back past gains.

- Marc Mayrand's detailed presentation on the Cons' Unfair Elections Act can be found here, while Andrew Coyne argues that the bill looks worse and worse with each review. (Which may explain the Cons' determination to shut down discussion to the greatest extent possible while feigning ignorance of its glaring flaws.)

- Finally, Peter O'Neil discusses the factors that led to the NDP's 2011 Quebec breakthrough, featuring two which seem particularly noteworthy in shaping party preferences in the longer term: greater recognition by Quebec voters that the NDP shares their social values, and a new set of voters claiming a "close identification" with the NDP which exceeds the vote share the party had won in the province in the previous generation.

Saturday Afternoon Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- Toby Sanger asks who really bears the risk when governments agree to hand over billions to the private sector through P3 arrangements:

While Canada may be one of the leaders in the market for P3s, we’re far from a leader when it comes to transparency, assessment and accounting for P3s.   P3s are already a murky business when it comes to financial transparency—and we’re close to the bottom of that pool.  The value for money assessments used to justify P3s in Canada are simply not credible for a number of reasons...

All the Canadian P3s I’ve seen in the past decade or so have been justified on the basis that they transfer large amounts of risk to the private sector.   This is also what U of T professor Matti Siemiatycki and Naeem Farooqi found when they analyzed all the P3s conducted by Infrastructure Ontario for an article published in the prestigious Journal of the American Planning Association last year.  Every single P3 project was justified on the basis of Value for Money assessments that claimed P3s transferred large amounts of risk from the public to the private sector.

The average amount of risk calculated for these projects was almost half (49%) the base project costs.   For some projects, the value of the “risk” calculated amounted to over 80% of the base project cost, averaged over $100 million for each of the 28 projects and over $3 billion in total.  That’s a lot of money, no matter how you count it.   Just to be clear: not one of these P3s would be justified on the basis of the central Value for Money assessments without this assumption that large amounts of risk were transferred to the private sector.  And Ontario isn’t unique: P3s in other provinces are also justified on the basis they transfer large amounts of risk to the private sector. (see note #2 below).

But how is this risk calculated?   They don’t say.   The value for money risk assessment templates Infrastructure Ontario provides are frankly embarrassing from a public policy perspective, especially for decisions that have involved billions of dollars of the public’s money.  There’s no evidence provided for any of the numbers proposed in their risk matrix—and other provinces are no better.  The value for money assessments release for each P3 project are superficial window dressing that provide none of the details necessary for an independent assessment.    And in the instances where auditors have reviewed the actual finances of P3s, they’ve generally always found that the project would have cost less if it were publicly financed and not run as a P3.

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But no matter how complicated—and secret—these key calculations of risk transfer for P3s are, none I’ve seen acknowledge a crucial fact: the real risk the private sector assumes through a P3 is limited by the net amount of unsecured money they have put into the project.  This amount is represented by the equity they provide and any net cash they have committed, less funds received. The initial equity share of the cost of P3s is usually no more than 10-15% and sometimes as low as 8% or less.   Since P3s are invariably set up as “special purpose vehicles” (SPVs), the big companies behind them can simply walk away if they aren’t making enough profit or if things go wrong, thanks to limited liability laws for corporations.  The maximum they lose is any equity and any net cash they’ve put in, less what they’ve been paid.   And a number of P3 companies have abandoned their projects, or used the threat of doing so to get more money out of the government.

 - Scott Stelmaschuk highlights how inequality undercuts the foundation of any meaningful concept of self-determination - while being readily reduced if we make a collective determination to do something about it. And Rick Smith notes that we have no reason to be satisfied with the structural disparities as matters stand now.

- Josh Wingrove reports on the latest abuses of the temporary foreign worker program - featuring the Harper Cons arguing that they're helpless to so much as inform provinces of TFWs working in their jurisdiction based on the belief that workers should be free to be exploited by their employers in total secrecy:

However, provinces say the federal government isn’t sharing detailed information about the workers. It means that provincial workplace safety inspectors can’t proactively enforce labour laws, because they don’t know who the workers are or where they’re working.

“It’s for us to know where these workers are, so that we can make sure their rights are being protected,” Ontario Labour Minister Yasir Naqvi said, adding the province had been pushing for more information for four years.
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It was a request echoed by several ministers, and Dr. Leitch said she would push to improve information sharing, saying privacy issues are among the barriers.

 - Finally, Marc Mayrand shares his take on how to get younger citizens more involved in our political system.

Sunday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your weekend.

- Karl Nerenberg reported on Marc Mayrand's Robocon testimony, featuring some much-needed discussion of what can be done to improve the Canada Elections Act to ensure fair elections rather than creating an incentive for electoral fraud:

Mayrand fretted to the Committee that there are too many grey areas in the current legislation, and he promised to propose changes to the electoral law before the next election.
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Committee members repeatedly asked Mayrand about the threshold for nullifying the results of an election, and he had to repeat more than once that Elections Canada does not do that.

It may be one of the lacunae in the law that Mayrand will try to have fixed, but for now citizens who believe they were cheated out of their vote, and that the election in their riding should be rendered null and void, have to go to court.

Meanwhile, the Guelph Mercury reported that the infamous Michael Sona was merely following orders in tampering with a ballot box at the University of Guelph - raising plenty of questions as to who actually gave those orders.

- In further commentary on the federal budget, Carol Goar nicely summarized the budget as an attack on the "economically diversified, socially progressive Canada" that Stephen Harper has loathed for so long, while Thomas Walkom looked in more detail at how it earned the title. Iglika Ivanova pointed out that Canadians fully support higher taxes, including reversing most of the Cons' moves to slash federal fiscal capacity. Murray Dobbin wondered why Jim Flaherty seems eager to bring on another recession. The Globe and Mail slammed the Cons' gratuitous attacks on the environmental movement, while Gloria Galloway wrote about how the budget will further restrict the flow about accurate information about what the Harper Cons are up to. Peter Thurley concluded that the first fully-formed majority budget should serve as the ultimate disproof the Cons have any clue what they're doing managing public finances. Tim Harper tried to minimize the damage. Paul Wells pointed out the final elimination of the Public Appointments Commission which was once hyped as the Cons' big idea to take patronage out of civil-service hiring, while Sixth Estate charted just how much political hiring is going on. Steve compared the Cons' cuts to the CBC to the hundreds of millions allocated for further propaganda. And Jim Stanford crunched the numbers as to how much Canadians will lose from the Cons' cuts to OAS.

- And in a point which deserves at least a separate bullet, APTN noted that part of the attack on environmental reviews includes trying to fold constitutional obligations to consult with First Nations into the same time-limited processes being set up to wave through development without any serious review - which looks like a rather promising ground for challenge.

- Finally, Tabatha Southey set a high bar for due mockery of Mitt Romney. But David Javerbaum easily cleared it.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Yes, there was huge news in Robocon yesterday, with Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand rightly declaring the Cons' fraudulent vote suppression to be "absolutely outrageous" while sharing the news that reports of wrongdoing have now come in from two-thirds of all of Canada's federal ridings. And Mayrand also noted how the reported numbers relate to the abuses known to have taken place:

Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski suggested to Mayrand that the 800 complaints worked out to only a few in each of Canada's 308 ridings.

But Mayrand said only a small percentage of people complain about receiving calls, noting that the Pierre Poutine calls sent with a disposable cellphone with a Quebec area code, resulted in only 70 complaints on or after election day.

"We know 6,700 calls were placed from the famous 450 number," he said. "We know that many people don't complain, obviously."

Meanwhile, Kady live-blogged the proceedings. And Gregory Beatty pointed out the Harper government's highly suspicious decision to start de-funding Elections Canada just as it's trying to investigate the Cons' own election fraud.

- But it's also well worth discussing the federal budget released yesterday - with a few pieces that haven't received much attention including the declaration that anybody concerned about being lied to by big business can take it up alone against their friendly neighbourhood corporate conglomerate, and the new money being poured into attacking charities in what's otherwise supposed to be an austerity budget (with absolutely no expectation of any return on the investment other than to silence environmental groups). Meanwhile, John Ibbitson discussed the Cons' goal of getting Canadians to expect less public service from government. Pogge aptly described the Cons and their short-sighted resource-sector cronies as "looters in suits and ties". And Dr. Dawg, Erin Weir, Boris, Susan Riley, Andrew Jackson, Paul Wells, Marc Lee, Leftdog, David Macdonald and Mike McNair weighed in as well.

- And a couple of commentators also focused on Thomas Mulcair's role responding to the budget, with Wells nicely framing Mulcair's substantive line of criticism of the Cons while David Climenhaga pointing to Mulcair's fighting spirit.

- Finally, Sharon Kirkey reports on how prescription drug shortages are hurting patients across Canada. And no, handing more free money to the same drug companies both causing and profiting from the shortages doesn't figure to improve matters any.

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your afternoon reading.

- pogge rightly questions the Cons' continued efforts to have decisions made by ministerial fiat rather than through public debate.

- Glen McGregor eviscerates Brian Lilley's thoroughly inaccurate attack on Canada's Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand.

- Murray Mandryk suggests that Saskatchewan's New Democratic Party needs to remove the "democratic" part of its identity in choosing a new leader. But I'm not sure how the concept of a top-down "leadership vetting process" is supposed to be seen as an improvement from a vote among members, especially as a response to a leadership campaign where the establishment favourite was able to clear the field in large part thanks to the impression of impenetrable institutional support.

- Finally, in the good news department, CBC reports that at least one person who arrived at Occupy Saskatoon mostly out of a need for temporary housing found along the way that it's worth working for the group's cause of greater equality.