Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Christopher Ingraham reports on the reality that extremely wealthy Americans are now paying lower systemic tax rates than workers. And Andrea Germanos writes that Michael Sayman is among the plutocrats calling for his own class to pay its fair share.

- Heather Mallick comments that the UCP is setting Alberta up for failure, while Max Fawcett discusses how Jason Kenney's budget is based on little more than a stubborn refusal to acknowledge a future which includes a transition away from fossil fuels. And Noah Smith notes that the oil age is coming to a rapidly-approaching end around the globe, while Jillian Ambrose reports on the ability of offshore wind turbines to fully power the world.

- Meanwhile, Rachel Level and Zach Goldstein point out how lower-income people are paying the price for the Trump administration's choice to side with the coal industry against climate science.

- Judith Sayers takes a look at what it will mean for British Columbia to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. And the Yellowhead Institute examines (PDF) the reality of land dispossession in Canada, along with some of the options to remedy it.

- Finally, Laurie Monsebraaten reports on Ontario 360's call to treat people receiving social assistance with respect, rather than confronting them with the language and strategies of the prison system. But then, Jodi Viljoen and Gina Vincent write that an effective criminal justice strategy would also include less incarceration and more work on risk mitigation.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Vrishti Beniwal writes about Abhijit Banerjee's call to put concentrated wealth to better social use by taxing it.

- Yutaka Dirks interviews Linda McQuaig about the corporate takeover of far more public wealth than is normally recognized. And Matt Coughlin discusses how Australia's wealthiest employers are fighting to exacerbate inequality by extracting thousands of dollars each year from every worker through an even more unbalanced bargaining system.

- Crawford Kilian highlights the true meaning of Jason Kenney's budget buzzwords and euphemisms. PressProgress sets out the massive cuts to health, education and all kinds of other public goods in order to partially fund Kenney's gigantic corporate tax giveaway. And Alicia Bridges reports on the efforts of community groups to point out the harm the Saskatchewan Party has done to housing supports before winter arrives.

- Finally, Tanya Talaga writes about British Columbia's progress in becoming the first Canadian jurisdiction to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Jeff Stein reports on Bernie Sanders' plans to transfer power from capital to people. And PressProgress highlights the Saskatchewan Party's continued reliance on corporate funding from outside the province.

- Ron Walter recognizes that Scott Moe's carbon tax posturing is purely a matter of politics rather than any rational policy. Luke O'Neil reports on the Trump administration's push to take carbon cultism to new depths. And Kim Phillips-Fein points out how discussion of the Green New Deal in the U.S. has been met with reactionary Republican rhetoric at its worst.

- Meanwhile, both S. Clay Steell and Emma Jackson and Paige Gorsak make the case for a Green New Deal as a necessary alternative to continued petro-politics in Alberta.

- Brendan Frank writes that any talk about "innovation" in reducing greenhouse gas emissions is utterly meaningless in the absence of meaningful targets to pursue. And Richard Perez and Karl Rabago suggest that the path toward a full transition to renewable energy involves overbuilding renewable generation rather than relying more than necessary on storage.

- Finally, Gloria Galloway reports on the obstruction by Conservative senators against the effective implementation of Indigenous rights in Canada - which of course says far more about the Cons' real attitude toward minority groups than Andrew Scheer's empty words.

New column day

Here, on the Frontier Centre for Public Policy's unapologetic role in trying to minimize the harms of residential schools - to to mention otherwise undermining any attempt at truth and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.

For further reading...
- Tammy Robert's post exposing the recent radio ad is here, with CBC following up here and here. And the Frontier Centre's only apparent response is the statement reproduced here absolving Roger Currie of any editorial role - but acknowledging no concerns about its own content. 
- Beyond the latest ad and related report, the Frontier Centre's own content on Indigenous issues includes such gems as other posts minimizing the effects of residential schools and the Sixties Scoop; a call to relocate First Nations to unwanted settlements; a push to take away socially-funded housing on reserves; a statement of opposition to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; and an apparent endorsement without comment of the White Paper calling for an end to any official status.
- For some other background on the Frontier Centre and its funders, DeSmogBlog has a handy summary here. And Barrick Gold's contempt for Indigenous rights has been well documented.
- By way of contrast to the Frontier Centre's response to its cavalier attitude toward residential schools and the racism behind them, see Alberta's response to the inclusion of a similarly-ahistorical question on a distance learning assignment. And Robyn Pitawanakwat and Garret Smith contrast the Saskatchewan government's forcible removal of the Justice for our Stolen Children camp against Calgary's welcoming of a similar initiative.
- Finally, Greg MacDougall discusses how colonialism continues to be a cause of alarming Indigenous suicide rates, while Kathleen Martens reports on the RCMP's stunning treatment of Brittany Martel's death as non-suspicious as an example of how Indigenous lives continue to be treated as disposable. And anybody looking for a reminder as to how residential schools actually fit into Canada's treatment of Indigenous peoples would be well-served to give another read to the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Update: See also Murray Mandryk's column today. 

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Scott Sinclair writes that there's no reason for any party to NAFTA to see itself as being stuck with the existing agreement (or worse), while also mentioning a few ways to substantially improve the rules governing North American trade:

Canada should call Trump’s bluff by championing a fairer distribution of the benefits of trade — presumably the idea behind the Trudeau government’s ambitions to usher in a new generation of “progressive trade” agreements.

Anxiety about trade and globalization runs deep and goes beyond Trump’s core supporters.

Canada’s negotiating agenda will need to reflect that reality. It just so happens there are ways to redo or replace NAFTA to make it a better deal for workers in all three countries.

An obvious first step is to include strong, fully enforceable labour standards. Mexican workers, whose real wages have stagnated under NAFTA, and who are rarely free to join independent unions, would be the primary beneficiaries. But rising wages and improved working conditions in Mexico and many Southern U.S. states would provide support for the same in the rest of North America.
...
The Trump administration intends to bolster Buy American purchasing policies, which could side-swipe Canadian suppliers. But the government’s standard response — to seek an exemption for Canadian goods — has fallen short before and will fare much worse today.

Canada could instead propose reciprocal “Buy North American” policies for new public infrastructure spending. If this is rejected, Canada should maximize national economic spinoffs on its own planned public investments through Buy Canadian policies.

-  Swati Pandey and Jane Wardell report that while Canadian governments try to hand over everything in sight to the financial sector, Australia's right-wing government is instead raising taxes on banks to fund infrastructure spending.

- Gregory Beatty points out the desperate need for checks on corporate fund-raising in Saskatchewan politics.

- Jorge Barrera reports on the Trudeau Libs' dishonest approach to First Nations, as they're publicly stating a commitment to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples while going out of its way to give effect to its terms.

- But in some good local news, Craig Baird reports on a new protocol between the City of Regina and First Nations groups. And having questioned City Council's past delay in signing on to the Blue Dot movement, I'll note that it has now approved the declaration.

- Finally, Fair Vote Vancouver highlights how a first-past-the-post electoral system accentuates the urban-rural divide in British Columbia (as in other jurisdictions).