Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Purple Library Guy nicely sums up how the financial industry has become completely detached from anything that could be considered useful in generating real economic growth:

When you abstract something, it tends to make it possible to do it on a larger scale, with more complexity. And originally, that's what finance was for. With the abstraction of money as a fungible claim on wealth, there were a lot of games you could play to arrange for the stuff you wanted done to claim the wealth needed to do it, at the right time, on the right scale, in theoretically arbitrary places.

But if you can do that, you can play games for other purposes. Increasingly nowadays the financial sector does not operate to enhance investment in genuine production. Rather, it acts first as a rentier and second to create money and paper profits, out of nothing, that are re-invested in nothing but more paper profits.
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(F)inance capital makes nothing. Rather, it steals. It makes up new money in the finance capitalists' hands, reducing the value of that held by traditional capitalists through a form of inflation in financial assets. In a way it's like a kind of really large scale counterfeiting. That's one reason why all the bubbles. One thing that almost makes it worse is that the tricks are mostly not very stable, as we've noticed; the apparent value is apt to disappear as soon as enough people lose confidence that it really exists.

Capitalism is a system I don't much like, but it is a system for doing real things that can generate real productivity gains, technological advance and so on. Its claims to be the only possible such system are specious. But finance capitalism isn't even a system. It's a method for cannibalizing an existing system, rendering it for its value until nothing but the bones are left. When finance capital becomes dominant, capitalism has serious crises. And finance capital has probably never been as dominant as it is today.

- Thomas Walkom offers up a few lessons for Stephen Harper based on his utter failure to sell the Keystone XL pipeline south of the border:

The first is that, politically, the environment still matters. Prime Minister Stephen Harper may have successfully ignored environmental critics at home. But, as the U.S. president’s abrupt reversal on the Keystone XL pipeline demonstrates, such critics still wield considerable clout in countries that Canada is desperate to do business with.

The second is that continental energy integration — a long-standing dream of both the Conservative Party and its allies in the oil industry — is neither as simple nor advisable as it might seem.

- Peter Thurley points out who stands to suffer most from the Cons' crackdown on refugees.

- Finally, John Warnock notes that Saskatchewan's voter turnout - already unimpressive based on the numbers released by Elections Saskatchewan - looks much worse when taking into account unenumerated citizens of voting age.

On mixed contributions

Having pointed out in today's column that the Saskatchewan NDP's poor election results were far more readily traced to public perceptions of Dwain Lingenfelter (along with broader party issues) rather than the party's platform, let's briefly put Lingenfelter's leadership in context.

The obvious problem for Lingenfelter was a level of negative perception which started out fairly high from day one, and only increased with each attack ad launched by the Sask Party. Lingenfelter's apparent plan to get on even terms with Brad Wall fell flat, as his early efforts to bring down Wall's popularity level through one-on-one confrontation ultimately offered more fodder for the attacks without laying a glove on Wall's approval ratings. And by the time Lingenfelter pivoted toward a much more positive message as the NDP's platform came together, too many voters had already tuned him out.

But there were also some positives to Lingenfelter's leadership which any successor would do well to emulate.

After a hotly-contested leadership race which produced a narrow win for a controversial frontrunner, one might have expected some public challenges to Lingenfelter's leadership. But that never proved to be a problem - at least in part because of a fairly successful effort to listen to all wings of the NDP and keep them working toward the same ends.

Moreover, while the election didn't produce the results anybody was hoping for, all indications are that the NDP's campaign was better managed and organized than any we've seen in quite some time. Again, the platform was a major plus, featuring plenty of creative ideas which were both nicely targeted toward key voter groups and generally connected by a coherent campaign theme. And a push toward early nominations and accountability at the candidate and EDA level meant that loads of work got done across the province which would have proved invaluable if the base levels of party support had been closer - and may still pay off in the years to come as younger candidates and activists build on what they've learned.

Unfortunately, Lingenfelter's strengths as a manager and strategist were overshadowed by his weaknesses as the public face of the NDP. But as he departs from the political scene, it's well worth recognizing not only what the next leader can learn from Lingenfelter's mistakes, but also the positives the party can draw from his time as leader.

New column day

Plenty of people who should know better - including Bruce Johnstone and David McGrane - seem eager to paint the results of Saskatchewan's election as an indication that the NDP should simply run on the Sask Party's platform rather than advocating for its own values and policies. Today's column looks to nip that narrative in the bud.

Meanwhile, those looking for some more worthwhile content on where the NDP needs to go from here should give Malcolm's latest a read.

The new baseline

In this year's federal election, the NDP took 32% of the vote in Saskatchewan - but didn't win a single seat as other parties dropped off the map and the Cons consolidated public support in all but one riding.

And in last night's provincial election, the NDP again took 32% of the vote - only to lose more than half its seats as other parties dropped off the map and the Sask Party consolidated public support across the province.

Needless to say, that leaves plenty to be done over the next four years to get the NDP back on track to win seats federally and government provincially. But building from 32% is far from the worst challenge a political party can face - as long as that base is willing to do the tough work involved in winning over the next 20-30% of voters needed to succeed in what can only be seen as a de facto two-party system.

Setting the tone

We'll find out soon whether the latest Sask Party vote suppression has any impact one way or another on tonight's election results. But even if not, it may nonetheless be rather significant in setting the province's narrative for the next four years.

After all, anybody with the least bit of commitment to the idea of democracy would see vote suppression as a disqualifying factor for a person working to govern on behalf of the population at large. But Brad Wall figures to once again match the right-wing pattern of claiming his party's insiders as being above mere rules and laws - meaning that he'll have a serious ethical cloud to contend with from the moment the polls close. And if the Sask Party's work to keep mere ordinary Saskatchewan citizens from voting gets paired with continued efforts to ignore their interests in government, then today could well be a turning point in ending any talk of a dynasty even if it doesn't bring Wall's government to an immediate end.

Decision time

It's election day in Saskatchewan, and time for voters to decide based on a rather stark choice of two sets of priorities:



So please vote, and to encourage others to do so. Because by tonight, we won't be able to have a say at the ballot box until long after it's too late to make the best of our boom.

Saskatchewan Election Update

I won't reproduce the post here. But see my updated Saskatchewan Election Links for all the information you'll need for tomorrow's provincial election.

Unethical standards

Yes, Geoff Leo's debunking of Bill Hutchinson's supposed "mainstreeting" is well worth a view. But I'd think the story deserves to be taken somewhat more seriously than it has been so far.

After all, it's hard to see Hutchinson's setup as anything but a deliberate attempt to mislead the media and the general public in the waning days of an election campaign. And that complete contempt for even the slightest bit of honesty in politics is paired with a remarkable degree of arrogance in thinking both that Leo wouldn't see through the strange interactions, and that nobody would recognize obvious Sask Party plants on camera.

What's more, it's not as if Hutchinson can be written off as a single rogue candidate. In fact, he's only the second Regina Sask Party MLA and cabinet minister found in the past few days to have been misleading rather important actors in Saskatchewan's political system in areas where the deception is both utterly gratuitous and certain to be caught.

And all this at a time when the Sask Party is spending massive amounts of money on ads accusing Dwain Lingenfelter of being "unethical" for far less. Which may signal part of the gap which the NDP needs to make up against its right-wing competitors - both in pushing back when challenged, and building outrage about Sask Party misdeeds.

Of course, the problem with Hutchinson and Tell isn't so much that they in fact got caught, but that Brad Wall and his party seem to operate on the assumption that their standard for honesty is entirely acceptable. And if the Sask Party sees grounds for promotion in members deceiving the public in areas so trivial and easily debunked, then there's plenty of reason to worry about what else is being lied about where it really matters.

Update: On a not-entirely-unrelated note, Paul Krugman notes the difference between how left-wing and right-wing parties treat hypocrisy.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- If there's any good news in the Cons' constant attacks on labour, it's the growing recognition that workers need to fight back with no less a concerted effort than they're facing from a hostile government. And the possibility that the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada might tie itself into the wider labour movement looks like a huge step on that front.

- Craig McInnes follows up on Canada's drop in global Human Development Index rankings and points out the link to increasing inequality:

With echoes of Occupy Vancouver, Canada's ranking in this year's United Nations Human Development Index was knocked down by a statistical portrait of an unjust society.

For a country that prides itself as a land of equal opportunity, that's a bit hard to take.
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For most of the 1990s, we held bragging rights to the top spot in the annual rankings based on access to education, long and healthy lives and livable incomes.

For the past decade we've slipped a bit, with oil-rich Norway dominating first place and Canada floating around the top 10. That slippage doesn't mean much since the top countries are tightly bunched together, especially compared with those farther down the list.

Canada is ranked sixth this year, up two spots from last year. But we tumble seven notches when our base rating is adjusted for inequality - that is, how well-off Canadians are doing compared with those at the bottom of the pile. We drop even farther - to 20th, when our ranking is adjusted for gender inequality.

- Erik Loomis highlights an all-too-typical example as to the real effects of free trade agreements:

With free trade agreements, we recreate Gilded Age labor and environmental conditions in the developing world. We have simply exported all the negatives of the Industrial Revolution. We were promised cheap goods and information economy. They were promised jobs. Instead, we are mired in an economic slump without a foreseeable end and a failed information economy while they live in endemic poverty and suffer environmental poisoning.

- Finally, the NDP's closing argument in the Saskatchewan election campaign nicely sums up what's at stake:

Misled

Angela Hall makes the fatal mistake of presuming that right-wing spin has anything at all to do with reality:

Returning to the city where he made a recent campaign promise to crack down on violent offenders, Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall expressed support for Ottawa’s tough on crime bill despite the potential for added costs at the provincial level.
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“But we’re not going to oppose what we think is good legislation on the basis of this particular issue. We like the changes to two-for-one remand, we like what’s happening in the omnibus bill. We want to build on that with our own plan in this election but we’ll be advancing the case that if there’s an additional cost from a corrections standpoint there’s a role for the federal government.”

The federal bill includes changes such as the cancellation of double credit for time served in remand and mandatory minimum sentences for certain crimes.

So let's set the record straight: the bill to end two-for-one credit for time in remand passed in 2009. And it has nothing at all to do with the current omnibus bill with its ludicrous mandatory minimums.

Of course, Wall didn't explicitly say otherwise - but merely turned to the Cons' "tough on crime" talking points which had nothing at all to do with the subject at hand, only to be taken by Hall as deserving far more credit than was actually appropriate.

So a couple of handy reminders for the press covering the tail end of the election campaign:

It's never a good idea to take spin coming from a Harper Conservative surrogate at face value. And Brad Wall is a Harper Conservative surrogate.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Stephen Maher nicely summarizes Tony Clement's sad committee appearance yesterday:

The evidence shows that Clement chose the projects himself, in some kind of mysterious process in his riding office. He has steadfastly denied that, and even helpfully pointed out to reporters in September why that would have been wrong.

“If I was the decision-maker, if I had set up a parallel process — and created a situation where the auditor general did not know, that’s their accusation — I’d be resigning right now and turning myself into the local police office.”

Clement’s logic is plain: since choosing the projects himself would have been wrong, he obviously did not do so. He must deny it, forever and with great sincerity, which is what he spent Wednesday doing.
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New Democrat MP Charlie Angus, the fiery former punk singer from Timmins, Ont., made a strong argument on Wednesday that Clement should get a new assignment.

“This is about your fundamental competence,” he said. “It gets to the question of how you do business, when the auditor general says you broke the rules.”

Clement — who is now president of the Treasury Board, the minister in charge of interpreting and administering the spending rules for the federal government — admitted he made mistakes.

“The auditor general said she was concerned about the lack of documentation,” he said. “I take that to heart. The paperwork for this was not perfect.”

“Not perfect?” Angus interrupted, incredulous. “It doesn’t exist.”

“I take my share of responsibility for that and certainly I have learned that there are different ways and better ways to provide these kinds of intake processes, and I commit myself to using them,” said Clement.

Angus was not mollified.

“When people started asking questions, you said, ‘I’m sorry, the dog ate my homework. I’ll do better the next time.’ What are you doing at Treasury Board?”

It’s a good question.

- Meanwhile, Vic Toews helped Clement out by offering his own jaw-droppingly ignorant spin, criticizing the NDP's Joe Comartin for having acted as a defence lawyer.

- Yes, it's true enough that a series of provincial elections likely cut into the federal NDP's fund-raising efforts. But I'd still think the third-quarter numbers present a clear indication that the party has a long way to go in making sure that its fund-raising and other member involvement catch up to its vote and seat totals - and we'll have to keep a close eye on how the numbers change over the next two quarters when the base should be fully involved.

- Finally, Paul Gingrich examines the state of post-secondary education costs in Saskatchewan, and finds that the Sask Party's tuition hikes have undone much of the good accomplished by the NDP' previous freeze.

New column day

Here, on Saskatchewan's unique opportunity to translate the widespread public concerns about inequality and corporate control highlighted by the Occupy movement into electoral change.

For further reading, here's the Abacus poll referred to in the column.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- I'd think it's long past the time where any informed observer could cling to hope that the Harper Cons see good government as a goal worth pursuing. But Dan Gardner points out the role that Parliament should play if they actually did have some interest in that result:

Of course one may complain about the hypocrisy of Stephen Harper and other senior Conservatives who furiously denounced the Chrétien government when it did precisely what they are doing now. (Well, not "precisely." Harper has imposed time limits at a much higher rate than Chrétien did, even at his most imperious, and he is on track to set an all-time record. But let's not get distracted by trivia, as the PMO flack would say.)

Or one may complain that it's undemocratic. And contemptuous. One may note that almost one-third of MPs have never debated these issues in the House of Commons and, if Parliament is to be something more than a fig leaf covering the prime minister's naughty bits, parliamentarians must have the right to stand up and debate as long as they damned well want.

But these arguments are based on principle and respect for parliamentary tradition. Think that's going to wash with the Harperites? You might as well make your case by quoting the Koran.

There is, however, another reason for thinking this is a terrible mistake. It's one that even Conservatives may care about.
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(I)t is not reassuring that the minister intends to change something whose existence he and his staff were unaware of until critics forced them to see it given that the government is determined to push heaps of complex legislation through Parliament with little opportunity for other critics to find other concerns that other ministers need to know about.

And, no, this isn't just about catching drafting errors. It's about different perspectives, new ideas, reconsiderations, modifications, additions. It's about all the reasons why we have a Parliament, and why the name of that institution comes from the Old French "Parlement," meaning a place to talk.

It's about good government. Conservatives are in favour of that, right?

- Greg Weston has some important questions for Tony Clement on his G8 scandal. But given the Cons' anti-CBC paranoia, I'm sure the fact that Weston has raised them will result in a new set of talking points as to how they're utterly illegitimate.

- No, it's not surprising that the Saskatchewan Party has more attacks in store for the province's workers. Instead, the only surprise is that Brad Wall allowed part of that reality to slip out before the election - in contrast to 2007, when he claimed no interest in imposing an essential services law before making it one of the first acts of his new government.

- Finally, Andrew Jackson points out that after decades of calculated wage suppression by business and government alike, higher wages may be a necessity as part of an economic recovery.

On renegotiations

One of the main arguments against a potash royalty review has been the claim that the 8 years since a 2003 overhaul - in which potash prices have tripled and profits soared - is too short a time frame to consider changes to the royalty system. So let's consider how long it was that Saskatchewan potash producers considered themselves bound by the previous incarnation before requesting a change.

All editorializing in the source aside, the answer is: three years - and with no suggestion from the Sask Party that we should have held producers to a deal for longer than that if it wasn't producing fair outcomes. (Which of course fits with the Sask Party's willingness to change royalty systems as long as the result is less revenue for the province rather than more.)

But then, those possible changes resulted from requests by industry rather than the province. Which looks to make for the real point of contention in royalty rate debate: is the province ever able to suggest that royalties be reviewed in its own interest? Or is the province's job - as so dutifully performed by Wall and his party - to make sure that our royalty rates give away as much money as possible to corporations which will make massive profits from the province's resources either way?

On complexities

Bruce Johnstone makes about the best case one possibly can for the Sask Party's refusal to review potash royalties. But it necessarily misses a rather important point.

After all, there's absolutely no basis to consider the current royalty structure as an essential element to mine development to the extent any given mine would be profitable even under a royalty structure that results in a better return for the province. Which means that there's a desperate need for actual evidence for Johnstone's assertion that we should give it all of the credit, rather than paying attention to how changes in potash prices over the past decade have influenced investment decisions.

And if we want to figure out exactly how much effect the royalty rates have (and ought to have) on investment...well, the best way to do that is through a royalty review.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Abacus' Canadian polling on the Occupy protests suggests that there's loads of public sympathy for the view that there's a need for change in how wealth and power is distributed - with the main concern being whether there's any viable means available to get that done:

Large majorities of Canadians agree with the arguments being made by Occupy Canada protestors.

* 81% agree that corporations and the rich have too much influence over public policy and politics in Canada.
* 81% agree that the gap between the rich and poor has grown too large in Canada
* 64% agree that Canadian financial institutions have been reckless and greedy.
* 51% agree that most Canadian corporations are unethical.

- Which offers yet more reason to think that the Cons' war on labour will do more to isolate themselves from a wide swath of Canadians than to establish the foundation for a long-term stay in power.

- Meanwhile, John Ibbitson manages to write a column on the Cons' push toward private charity while entirely missing one of the largest impacts of such a move: the more we rely on such a system, the more people with money to throw around get to dictate which causes are pursued (and which are ignored).

- Don MacPherson focuses on the apparent weakness of Pauline Marois and the PQ. But the news that several MNAs are participating in Quebec Solidaire events would seem to be equally relevant to the extent it signals the growth potential of an unabashedly left-wing provincial party in Quebec.

- Finally, Erin points out how the Saskatchewan Party is acting more as a shill for the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan than a voice for the province in the provincial election campaign.

On decision points

Leftdog rightly points out that the Saskatchewan Party's sudden, zero-consultation announcement about changing Saskatchewan's school year looks to be nothing more than a distraction tactic.

But let's note why they would have felt the need to inject any such thing into the campaign: with at least some polling showing the NDP's call for a potash royalty review to be nearly twice as popular as the Sask Party's refusal to countenance the idea, Wall and company obviously had reason to fear where the campaign was going if that stood as the main issue for voters. And the big question for the rest of the campaign may well be whether the Saskatchewan Party can keep changing the channel from the biggest decision facing the province in this fall's election.

New column day

Here, on the costliest promise in Saskatchewan's provincial election.

For further reading, see Erin's platform comparison and comment on potash royalties.

Update: Leftdog highlights just how little PCS needs handouts from the province.

And I'll add the usual proviso left out of the column: yes, of course the potash corporations will whine about any royalty review, since they prefer receiving hundreds of millions of free dollars to not receiving them. But it's the job of the provincial government to have the province's best interests in mind - and the Sask Party has done nothing at all to suggest they've even considered whether a different balance of royalties might lead to better outcomes for Saskatchewan's citizens.

Style vs. substance

The first obvious takeaway from tonight's Saskatchewan leaders' debate was the need for both more debate and more debaters. And for all the criticism of the exclusion of other parties' leaders, the bigger issue may have been a painfully shortened format that allowed for only minimal discussion of any topic (especially when substantial portions of most of the 2-minute open sessions were taken up with transitions between the two leaders' statements).

That said, it was nonetheless possible to learn something from the debate. And while it isn't entirely off base to suggest that the debate fit into the broad contours of the rest of the campaign so far, I'm not sure that's a bad thing for the NDP's chances.

Simply put, tonight's debate was a pure test of style versus substance. Yes, Brad Wall was more polished than Dwain Lingenfelter, and hewed far more strictly to pre-fabricated talking points - which in far too much coverage seems to be treated as the lone goal of any political party or leader. But there's only so much an advantage on that point could do for Wall given the already-unbalanced views of the two leaders.

Meanwhile, the debate also featured some sharp substantive clashes which worked to the benefit of Lingenfelter and the NDP. Between Wall's describing new home construction as his party's plan to help the homeless and citing exactly the types of problems with housing and child care that are best addressed in the NDP's platform as the types of costs that are putting a post-secondary education out of reach, the Sask Party's leader gave voters ample reason to take a closer look at why they might need a government who's willing to do more to share the benefits of Saskatchewan's resource wealth. And voters looking for that should be pleased with what they saw out of Lingenfelter, whose strongest responses were on exactly the questions of basic fairness that serve as the core of the NDP's campaign.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether the debate will be seen that way by the time voters reach the polls - particularly if most of the province's media decides to write another chapter in its hagiography of Wall in the weeks to come. But I wouldn't be surprised if voters who may not yet have been paying attention saw enough positive ideas out of Lingenfelter tonight to make the race closer than most seem to expect. And the more people start to question the differences between what they saw in the debate and the deified Wall and relentlessly-attacked Lingenfelter they've been shown in the past, the better the chances of a surprise in the NDP's favour as the campaign progresses.

Tuesday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your afternoon reading.

- Lawrence Martin argues that with an NDP Official Opposition at the same time as the effects of inequality and greed continue to send shockwaves across the globe, there's no time like the present for Canada to debate higher taxes as the price of needed public services:

As the official Opposition party, the NDP for the first time has a megaphone. When the party speaks of social justice, it no longer speaks from the margins. Interim leader Nycole Turmel is not a strong performer, but in Mr. Topp, in Thomas Mulcair, in Peggy Nash and others they have an impressive set of leadership candidates who are unflinching. Throughout the recent downturn, the Conservatives have had the great cover-all rationale working for them, it being that Canada isn’t doing as badly as other countries. They trumpet the splendid economic fundamentals, many of which – an example being the regulation of the financial sector – were put in place by previous governments.

While the country is doing better than others, the New Democrats have no shortage of ammunition. A society in which the gap between the wealthy and the rest is continually widening is a retrogressive, not a progressive, society.

In contrast to their southern neighbours, Canadians have a history, until recently at least, of accepting higher taxation levels as the price for a more just and egalitarian society. Mr. Topp and his fellow travellers must remind them of that.

- And Linda McQuaig has some suggestions as to how to make inequality obsolete:

Adding a new marginal tax rate of 60 per cent to those earning over $500,000 a year, and a 70 per cent rate to those earning over $2.5 million a year — rates that would simply restore the progressivity that existed during Canada’s booming postwar decades — would raise almost $8 billion a year, according to Osgoode Hall tax professor Neil Brooks.

Yet this $8 billion interests Flaherty so little that he can’t be bothered to collect it.

Compare this to Flaherty’s relentless pursuit of spending cuts, no matter how tiny the saving. He’s refused to back down for instance on closing the St. John’s maritime rescue centre — which answers hundreds of distress calls annually — even though its closure will save less than $56 million, a pittance compared to $8 billion.

Flaherty has assured us that, while Americans have legitimate concerns about inequality, Canada has a “very progressive tax system.”

But it’s Flaherty who’s got the dreamy ideas here. Our tax system as a whole — including sales, excise and property taxes as well as income taxes — isn’t actually progressive. A study by Marc Lee of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives showed that when all taxes are included, the poorest 10 per cent of Canadians — those earning less than $13,500 a year — paid fully 30.7 per cent of their tiny incomes in tax, while the top 1 per cent — with incomes above $300,000 — had a slightly lighter burden, paying 30.5 per cent of their incomes in tax.

- Jesse Lafleur documents some of the pieces of Saskatchewan's proud CCF/NDP legacy which have already been destroyed by the Wall government.

- Finally, if Tony Clement is right in suggesting that Vern Freedlander is completely off base in the advice he gave to the town of Huntsville, doesn't that only serve as all the more evidence of Clement's own bad judgment in pushing for his hiring?