Tuesday Morning Links

A few items that have come to my attention...

- this magazine points out seven private members' bills that deserve to be enacted - and the list is well worth a read. But let's not forget what may be the most significant private members' bill currently in the pipeline: the Climate Change Accountability Act, which has already managed to pass among Canada's elected representatives but at last notice was being held up by Cons in the Senate.

- Unfortunately, Murray Dobbin's proposed Police State Watch looks like it's sorely needed based on his stark examples of how peaceful dissent is being treated as a matter of criminality or even pathology.

- If anybody thought B.C.'s anti-HST movement would slow down now that Gordon Campbell has offered a vote somewhere down the road on the Libs' preferred terms, that notion has been put to rest. Instead, the recall campaign looks to be moving at full speed ahead - and even having some fun in deciding which MLAs will bear the brunt of citizens' frustration with the Campbell government.

- Brian Topp points out how the PC Trust Fund controversy fits into Brad Wall's wider problems:

(T)he increasingly successful New Democratic opposition, led by former deputy premier Dwain Lingenfelter, have been handed a useful prop to demonstrate the direct link between Mr. Wall's government and Mr. Devine's former administration and record.

Mr. Wall seems to have a problem with money. His government made a $2-billion mistake estimating the province's revenues this year, patched over through a set of desperate expedients. He must be tempted to take the $3-million in that fund and burn it in the parking lot in front of the Legislature -- not unlike what he has done to the provincial finances. Instead, the fund is doing a slow burn inside the "Saskatchewan Party's" carefully-reconstructed brand.

- Finally, the Cons offer yet another example of what they believe deserves funding ahead of democratic diversity - spending a record $130 million to advertise themselves at public expense in 2009. (Which, for those keeping track at home, is four times the amount they want to axe in per-vote funding to political parties as being unnecessary for political promotion.)

Two can play at that game

Apparently the Saskatchewan Party is trying to avoid responsibility for making off with the PC Trust Fund by arguing that it doesn't have standing to sue or be sued. Just what you'd expect from a terrorist-loving criminal organization.

Decisions, decisions

In case there was any doubt, the litigation process over the Saskatchewan PC Trust Fund is still a few steps away from any great public revelations: even if Rick Swenson is able to force Brad Wall to testify as part of the discovery process, that evidence wouldn't generally go public until a trial a ways down the road. But the news that the Sask Party hasn't been able to weasel its way out of the claim does leave the Wall government with an interesting choice over the next year-plus.

After all, it can almost certainly get itself out of the litigation if the Sask Party and its supporters back away from the trust fund - but that would mean having to put up with a well-funded challenge from the right for the election. Or on the other hand, the Sask Party can keep both the PCs and the trust fund tied up through another election - but only if it doesn't mind devoting plenty of its own resources to defending the claim.

Of course, it's probably a telling sign that the Sask Party's preference so far has been to keep a straitjacket on the PCs. But we'll see if the calculation changes as both election day and a possible trial draw near, particularly if the PCs succeed in attaching Brad Wall's name to the Sask Party's evidence.