Mostly competent government

To nobody's surprise, Stephen Harper's brand of economic management means election slush funds throwing tens of millions of dollars away for no public benefit.

And it also means public servants going unpaid due to the failure of the Cons' supposed attempts to make government more efficient.

Do we dare take the risk of having another, more responsible party in charge of our public purse?

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Mark Bittman discusses the connection between economic and social ills in the U.S., and offers a message which applies equally to Canada:

I have spent a great deal of time talking about the food movement and its potential, because to truly change the food system you really have to change just about everything: good nutrition stems from access to good food; access to good food isn’t going to happen without economic justice; that isn’t going to happen without taxing the superrich; and so on. The same is true of other issues: You can’t fix climate change or the environment without stopping the unlimited exploitation of natural and human resources (see Naomi Klein’s “This Changes Everything”). Same with social well-being.

Everything affects everything. It’s all tied together, and the starting place hardly matters: A just and righteous system will have a positive impact on everything we care about, just as an unjust, exploitative system makes everything worse.

Increasingly, it seems, there’s an appetite and even unity to take on the billionaire class. Let’s recognize that if we are seeing positive change now, it’s in part because elected officials respond to pressure, and let’s remember that that pressure must be maintained no matter who is in office.

- Louis-Philippe Rochon writes about the harm inequality is doing to Canada's economy, and proposes an eminently reasonable set of policies to reduce it:

1.  Governments must make job creation their mission.  In fact, nothing short of a full employment policy will do.  Since when is unemployment an acceptable social and economic end?

2. We must raise the minimum wage and make sure that it is sufficient for Canadians to live on.  The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives estimates that for two working parents with two children, the living wage in Toronto should be $16.60 an hour and $14.07 in Winnipeg, a far cry of where it stands now. Many studies show raising the minimum wage does not hurt employment nor does it cause slower growth.  In fact, the contrary is true.
3. We should adopt a guaranteed annual income for all working Canadians. There are many variations of this policy, and more work needs to be done to determine the best program for Canada, but the central idea is a sound one.
4. We must implement an inheritance tax, in order to avoid the transfer of tax-free wealth from one generation to another. Canada remains to this day one of the only industrialized countries without an inheritance tax.
5. We must cap corporate annual bonuses. It has become common for corporate CEOs to make six and sometimes seven-figure bonuses. Bonuses are certainly valid in many instances, but the practice has become extreme.
6. We must raise the number of tax brackets and marginal tax rates on higher income. We now have evidence that high or higher taxes on income do not hinder growth. So what’s stopping governments from raising the marginal tax rate on higher income to 60 per cent or even 70 per cent? Canada’s tax system has become considerably less progressive in recent years. 7. We must encourage increased unionization. This will allow workers to be better protected and in general have higher wages and better benefits.
8. We must reconsider taxes on capital gains. We must consider all capital gains as taxable income.

- Zi-Ann Lum reminds us of Dauphin's experience actually eliminating poverty through a guaranteed annual income. And Michael Bryant suggests that eliminating anti-panhandling laws would be a valuable step in ending the criminalization of poverty.

- David Pugliese reports that as another prime example of their Mostly Competent Government, the Cons are committing Canada to paying more than twice as much as other countries for the same C-17 transport planes.

- Jordan Press writes about Suzanne Legault's investigation into the Cons' refusal to release public data in usable formats. And Jason Kirby duly mocks the Cons' excuses so far.

- Finally, Thomas Walkom discusses the catch-22 facing anybody who's wrongfully and unilaterally proclaimed to be terrorists by the Cons - as it's impossible to raise money to even challenge the designation without putting donors at risk of receiving the same label themselves.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On contradictions

Aaron Wherry nicely points out some of the jaw-dropping contradictions in the Cons' climate change messaging. But let's not forget a few more worth adding into the mix.

Having refused to implement any meaningful regulations or carbon pricing at the federal level, the Cons have tried to take credit for provincial attempts to fill the vacuum - even ones they've fought against with every fiber of their being. And they've not only scrapped the public organization which dared to highlight that difference, but they've since gone out of their way to hide its work.

Which is to say that in climate change as in other policy areas, the Cons' consistent pattern is one of offering misleading statements of fact, and perpetually chasing credit and refusing to accept any blame - regardless of whose orders resulted in either result.

But thanks in no small part to the Village, they've managed to cling to power. Mostly competent government indeed.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Steven Hoffman highlights the Cons' utter refusal to recognize that foreign aid - as defined by global treaties - doesn't mean the same thing as corporate giveaways:

Reports and commentary on Canada’s new foreign aid policy reveal the extent to which international development means different things to different people. Some see it as public charity, others as the way a country projects its values to the world. Still others, including International Co-operation Minister Julian Fantino, argue that it’s “a part of Canadian foreign policy” and the fulfilment of “a duty and a responsibility to ensure that Canadian interests are promoted.”

These are all valid perspectives – international development can be any one or all of these things combined. But, unfortunately, official development assistance, to which we have made international commitments, can’t. This system, in effect since 1969, defines aid as official financial flows that are concessional in character and intended to promote the development and well-being of developing countries. Excluded are grants intended to advance donor countries’ interests, including admirable objectives such as economic growth or security from terrorism. Grants to private for-profit companies are also excluded because, by law, they primarily serve commercial objectives.

Donor countries such as Canada can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, despite skill or best intentions. Our government’s new foreign aid focus on private-sector partnerships and self-interest – which, in Mr. Fantino’s words, is for “Canadian values, Canadian business, the Canadian economy, benefits for Canada” – deserves reconsideration. It unwittingly represents a dramatic departure from the established global development system and brings Canada out of sync with the rest of the world.

- Which means Tim Harper may only be understating matters in arguing that the Cons are gutting Canadian foreign policy alone, rather than trying to attack basic international principles.

- pogge highlights a few more sad examples of the Cons' government by ill-fated improvisation, while Michael den Tandt reports on the most glaring example as the F-35 debacle is apparently wound down. And the Cons are still trying to cover up everything they do - with the latest example being their stonewalling against Kevin Page's request to see shipbuilding contracts in order to be able to assess them.

- But while Bob Hepburn may be right in his assessment of MPs when it comes to most of the Cons as being enemies of democracy, we should be careful not to tar all of our elected representatives with the same brush. After all, an unduly sweeping, "they all do it" message (in contrast to recognition where MPs represent their constituents properly) will only make it easier for the worst offenders to avoid answering for their wrongs.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- No, it isn't much surprise that poll respondents may think we've moved to the right as a country: after all, Con propaganda (largely echoed by the media) has been declaring that for years. But as Warren Kinsella notes, that perception bears no resemblance whatsoever to Canadians' opinions about actual issues.

- Thomas Walkom points out the glaring gap between what Don Drummond rightly suggested should be done in allocating, and what his recommendations would actually do:

Don Drummond, Ontario’s adviser on everything, says the harsh government spending cuts he wants must be seen as fair to succeed — they must hit everyone.

In fact, they almost certainly won’t. The well-off will fare better than the poor and middle class. Public sector employees will be hit harder than those in the private sector.

Groups with political clout — such as the multinational pharmaceutical firms that charge prices Drummond deems too high — are sure to successfully resist proposals that they share the pain. They’ve done so before.
...
That the rich will fare best under Drummond is true by definition.

The well-to-do depend less on government programs than the poor and middle class. That is a fact. Drummond’s call for government to roll back the Ontario Child Benefit will hurt poor families who receive the subsidy. It will not affect the rich who do not.

Nor are the wealthy being asked to chip in through higher progressive taxes. Drummond did advocate that some taxes, including those on property and gasoline, be hiked. He even wants a special tax (he calls it a user fee) levied on rural parents who bus their children to school.

But these kinds of regressive taxes hit the poor and middle class proportionally harder than the rich. A surtax on high-income earners could correct that bias. But Premier Dalton McGuinty specifically told Drummond to stay away from such remedies.

- pogge wonders how ministers with no clue what's in the bills they're demagoguing about fit into the Mostly Competent Government promised of the Cons. And Dr. Dawg anticipates what's coming next on the legislative front.

- Finally, Stephen Maher and Don Martin are among the latest commentators to criticize the Cons' obsession with online surveillance. And the Ottawa Citizen notes that at least some parts of the Cons' bill - though not the most galling ones - can be traced directly to legislation introduced by the Martin Libs.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- The New Democrat comments on the need to develop the NDP as a movement as well as a party. And a national movement to protect pensions looks like a great place to start.

- I'm generally in agreement with Trish Hennessy on the substance of what we can take from the utter failure of constant tax-slashing to do anything to help the economy. But while it's worth looking out for anti-union animus, I don't see how (a couple of isolated online comments aside) there's been any particularly effective effort on that front in the wake of Caterpillar's abandonment of its London plant. And indeed, the fact that even plenty of corporate actors are running from any association with Caterpillar looks like a compelling signal that nobody seems particularly prepared to defend the employer's callous disregard for its workers - leaving only the question of what ending to write for the stronger narrative on the workers' side.

- Meanwhile, Bruce Livesey wonders whether the business model is at the root of many of organized labour's current challenges.

- Sure, one might be tempted to file the Cons' embarrassing gaffe in getting their own by-election date announcement wrong under "mostly competent government". But in fairness, isn't it normally taken as a given by Harper and company that what really matters is the press release rather than the substance of any action?

- Finally, Lawrence Martin debunks the myth that the Cons have been anything but weak in managing either the economy or Canada's public finances.

Mostly competent government

Since the examples are piling up and pogge is nowhere to be found, let's quickly list off the latest examples of the kind of management Canada's corporate press so strongly endorsed.

Promises made with no funding or follow-through solely for the purpose of eliminating consumer rights as an election issue? Check.

And needless and wasteful duplication of polling which either reflects a complete lack of coordination between departments, or a deliberate attempt to split up the costs? Check.

But in fairness, let's note that the Cons have shown at least some capacity for learning: for example, taking from the Brian Mulroney experience that...they should listen less to the public. Which surely figures to end well.