New column day

Here, on Brad Wall's preference for unethical oil over sustainable development.

For further reading...
- Again, Shawn McCarthy reported here on Wall's new declaration that he won't accept carbon pricing or regulation of any kind. And CBC reported here on his desire for federal stimulus dollars to go toward shuttering and cleaning up oil wells (and thereby taking their former operators off the hook).
- Tracy Johnson reports on the recent declaration by Saudi Arabia's oil minister Ali al-Naimi that the world's cheapest producers will be keeping the taps open rather than cutting down production to boost prices. And Yadullah Hussein follows up by pointing out the resulting plunge in oil prices.
- Finally, Paul Hanley rightly raises the point that we should be lessening our reliance on the oil sector in general.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Joseph Stiglitz comments on how the Trans-Pacific Partnership looks to make democracy subordinate to corporate interests:

The US concluded secret negotiations on what may turn out to be the worst trade agreement in decades, the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and now faces an uphill battle for ratification, as all the leading Democratic presidential candidates and many of the Republicans have weighed in against it. The problem is not so much with the agreement’s trade provisions, but with the “investment” chapter, which severely constrains environmental, health, and safety regulation, and even financial regulations with significant macroeconomic impacts. 

In particular, the chapter gives foreign investors the right to sue governments in private international tribunals when they believe government regulations contravene the TPP’s terms (inscribed on more than 6,000 pages). In the past, such tribunals have interpreted the requirement that foreign investors receive “fair and equitable treatment” as grounds for striking down new government regulations – even if they are non-discriminatory and are adopted simply to protect citizens from newly discovered egregious harms. 

While the language is complex – inviting costly lawsuits pitting powerful corporations against poorly financed governments – even regulations protecting the planet from greenhouse-gas emissions are vulnerable. The only regulations that appear safe are those involving cigarettes (lawsuits filed against Uruguay and Australia for requiring modest labeling about health hazards had drawn too much negative attention). But there remain a host of questions about the possibility of lawsuits in myriad other areas. 

Furthermore, a “most favored nation” provision ensures that corporations can claim the best treatment offered in any of a host country’s treaties. That sets up a race to the bottom – exactly the opposite of what US President Barack Obama promised.

...

Those seeking closer economic integration have a special responsibility to be strong advocates of global governance reforms: If authority over domestic policies is ceded to supranational bodies, then the drafting, implementation, and enforcement of the rules and regulations has to be particularly sensitive to democratic concerns. Unfortunately, that was not always the case in 2015. 

In 2016, we should hope for the TPP’s defeat and the beginning of a new era of trade agreements that don’t reward the powerful and punish the weak. The Paris climate agreement may be a harbinger of the spirit and mindset needed to sustain genuine global cooperation.

- Ben Norton writes about the potential effects of TransCanada's NAFTA litigation over the Keystone XL pipeline, while Ethan Cox and Erin Seatter summarize the Chapter 11 process which allows big business to attack decisions made in the public interest. PressProgress reminds us that Canada too has faced corporate attacks on its environmental policies. And for those wondering who Brad Wall really serves, Saskatchewan's premier is cheerleading for the claim even though its primary outcome would be a transfer of U.S. public money to a single corporation.

- Charles Mandel points out in the wake of a massive California methane leak that the same could easily happen in Canada as well. And Paul Hanley calls for Saskatchewan to join the rest of the world in phasing out coal power, rather than insisting on being a dirty-energy outlier. 

- Finally, Hugh MacKenzie offers some suggestions to rein in excessive executive pay. And Michael Massing provides a primer to the media on covering self-interested "philanthropy".

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Roderick Benns interviews Michael Clague about his work on a basic income dating back nearly fifty years. And Glen Pearson's series of posts about a basic income is well worth a read.

- Meanwhile, Julia Belluz interviews Sir Michael Marmot about the connection between inequality and poor social health. And Gillian White writes about a lack of access to credit (and the resulting reliance on payday lenders) as just one of the many extra stresses facing people with lower incomes.

- Jamie Livingstone is optimistic that Scotland has hit a tipping point in reversing inequality. And Carol Goar looks for reason to hope in the fact that the Libs' new cabinet at least includes some responsibility for social justice issues - though Daniel James Wright points out that the pursestrings are being controlled by a rookie MP with strong corporate connections and little inclination toward progressive policy.

- Erin Obourn offers a survey of a few of the major problems with the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And others are highlighting issues ranging from the entrenchment of temporary foreign workers, attacks on digital freedom including access to source code, limitations on personal privacy, damage to Canada's auto sector and the draconian enforcement of more harsh intellectual property provisions. 

- Finally, Paul Hanley weighs in on the Saskatchewan Party's appalling mismanagement surrounding the Boundary Dam coal plant.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Kevin Carson discusses David Graeber's insight into how privatization and deregulation in their present form represent the ultimate use of state power to serve special interests at the expense of the public:

What mainstream American political discourse calls “deregulation” is nothing of the sort. There is no major constituency for deregulation in the American political system — just competing (and in fact considerably overlapping) agendas on what regulatory mix to put in place. There is not, and could not, be such a thing as an “unregulated” bank, Graeber argues, because banks “are institutions to which the government has granted the power to create money.” By the nature of that power, they are creatures of the state, and any power they exercise is thus defined by a web of state regulations. So “deregulation” really just means “changing the regulatory structure in a way that I like.” A “deregulatory” regime, in reality, is the choice of a regulatory regime that produces results to one’s liking.
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So-called “privatization,” for example, ranges from mere outsourcing of government functions (which continue to be taxpayer-funded) to private contractors, to the sale of government services to private corporations (after which they continue to exist in a dense web of government monopolies, protections and subsidies).

And where it takes place, such “deregulation” and “privatization,” far from involving a reduction of government power, typically involves the unlimited exercise of government power over a population which has been rendered prostrate by war or bankruptcy (Naomi Klein’s “disaster capitalism,” or — in Rahm Emanuel’s words — never letting a good crisis go to waste). 

- And Paul Hanley writes that Saskatchewan's pursuit of fossil fuels rather than renewable energy likewise represents a deliberate choice to favour only a few privileged industries at the expense of our economy and environment alike.

- Christopher Wanjek reports on new research showing a connection between family income and children's brain development. But while poverty and inequality may create both physical and metaphorical barriers to education, we shouldn't pretend that school alone will solve broader social problems - as Matthew Yglesias notes that people living with poverty today do so with far more education than a few decades ago.

- Stephen Hume writes that Stephen Harper's exclusionism has given bigots a free pass to start attacking minorities without any risk of consequences. And Charlie Smith points out Gwynne Dyer's observation that a policy and practice of declaring war against large groups of people is exactly what actual extremists want to see.

- Finally, Craig Forcese and Kent Roach's site on C-51 now includes an annotated version of the Cons' terror bill with witness comments. Peter O'Neil reports on Hasan Cavusoglu's research showing that even minor errors in an expanded and unaccountable surveillance apparatus could pose a serious threat to innocent Canadians. Tonda MacCharles reminds us that CSIS - which stands to be granted massive and practically unreviewable power - has been highly unreliable in answering for its past activities, while Alex Boutilier exposes the range of peaceful protests which are already facing surveillance and disruption. And Tim Naumetz reports that the Cons themselves have decided that C-51 is not intended to provide any oversight whatsoever (for the purpose of ruling any amendments which might help matters out of order).

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Seth Klein somewhat jokingly offers up 10 reasons for upper-class tax increases. But particularly paired with the Cons' fixation with tax-free savings accounts to further hand free money to the rich, this part looks like it's worth some further focus:

#4: The maximum RRSP deduction for 2011 is a whopping $22,450.

That’s the ceiling for an annual contribution (for which people receive an extremely generous tax deduction — comes right off one’s taxable income) and does not include any unused room from previous years. Who the hell has $22K in extra income to tuck into this highly publicly-subsidized savings plan? A minimum-wage earner working full-time all year would have an entire annual income of only $19,798. The RRSP is one of the most expensive and inequitable social programs in Canada. The program costs the public treasury about $10 billion a year in foregone revenues. Yet, according to the CCPA’s Alternative Federal Budget, while more than two-thirds of those making over $100,000 a year contribute to RRSPs, less than a quarter of those making less than $50,000 find themselves able to contribute.

- Donald Gutstein points out the inevitable consequences of the Cons' corporations-first economic policy:

Is Stephen Harper's goal for Canada the United States of today?

That would mean a nation in which somewhere between a half and a third of its citizens have fallen into poverty or are hovering just above, in low income. This according to latest data released by the U.S. Census Bureau. Meanwhile, 400 Americans are worth more than $1 billion.

And the divide will likely worsen, as Congress and Republican-controlled state legislatures continue slashing programs and benefits, firing workers, and further weakening health, safety and environmental protections to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, if that is even possible.
...
(At a Fraser Institute lunch, Peter Van Loan) reminded his audience of the "fierce debates about North American free trade and the voices from the fringe telling us that it would somehow erode our sovereignty." Van Loan declared that "we need to continue building a broad base of support for the importance of a competitive, globally engaged Canadian economy of the future." He ended with an invitation: "So let's work together to continue convincing Canadians... of the importance of economic freedom."

And as Canada's standing on the economic freedom index rises, so do the number of billionaires and the ranks of the poor and struggling.

- Dan Gardner discusses the Libs' identity crisis:

The Liberals had a core identity once: “The party that governs.”

There was no fixed ideological content. There didn’t need to be. Political beliefs came and went but the Liberals were always in the centre, espousing the conventional wisdom of the day, and governing the country. “The Liberal party should be understood not as a centre-left party,” Tom Flanagan and a certain Stephen Harper wrote in 1996. “Rather, it is a true centre party. ... It avoids definite ideological commitments and brings together people simply interested in exercising power and dispensing patronage.” That last bit is too harsh. But generally, Flanagan and Harper were right.

So what happens when “the party that governs” no longer governs? It no longer has an identity.

Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae frankly acknowledges that he hears this all the time. But he insists there is a Liberal identity.

“We are who we are,” he declared in a speech to the Liberal caucus last week. Rae was passionate. The speech was masterful. But “we are who we are” comes uncomfortably close to Popeye’s “I yam what I yam,” and is about as meaningful.

- And TC Norris notes that Libs pointing to past periods when they held Official Opposition status are missing the real significance of their current position - since the "default alternative" status that's normally worked to the party's advantage no longer applies.

- Finally, Paul Hanley suggests that an obsession with developing the tar sands at maximum speed reflects "uneconomic growth".