Monday Morning Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- Jim Stanford points out the real gravy train that's been ignored thanks to the faux populism of the right:

American economist Emmanuel Saez has painstakingly assembled a century-long statistical series on U.S. income distribution. On two occasions, the share of income captured by the richest 1 per cent reached about a quarter of the national total. The first time was in 1928, the second in 2007. As we all know, both peaks in wealth concentration were followed by financial catastrophe and depression. Indeed, maldistribution clearly contributed to both meltdowns.

But there’s a startling difference in the political reverberations that followed the two conflagrations. In the 1930s, outrage at the pre-Depression extravagance of the rich, contrasting with the dislocation experienced by masses of Americans, sparked a decade of left-leaning foment. Government expanded income security, directly hired millions of unemployed, and actively supported a new generation of unions to fight for the common folk. Meantime, it reined in business excess through tough financial rules, anti-trust policies, and high taxes on the rich.

This time around, there’s been plenty of populist anger – but (so far) it’s been steered in exactly the opposite direction.
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(I)n Canada, too, the political bandwagon lurches to the right. There’s been infinitely more hot air expended since the financial meltdown over the salaries of unionized garbage collectors than those of high-flying financiers. Our home-grown plutocracy, meanwhile, keeps raking it in. Bonuses at the Big Six banks alone reached $8.9-billion in 2010, the highest ever. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives recently documented that the typical Canadian CEO made as much by 2:30 p.m. on Jan. 3 as the average worker makes all year long.

Imagine a city the size of Saskatoon hogging a third of all the new income generated by the entire country. Imagine folks who earn as much in a few hours as the rest of us do in a year – yet still lecture us on the need to tighten our belts. Imagine 25,000 families earning as much as the bottom seven million tax filers put together. How long will these excesses fly under the public’s radar, while we bicker over wage gaps between unionized garbage collectors and non-union fast-food workers? Not long, I hope.

- Meanwhile, David Akin points out how a U.S.-style system - including the Senate model the Cons are seeking to copy - only serves to make matters worse.

- The North Shore News nicely summarizes why the Harper Cons are so eager to cut off per-vote funding for political parties - and why citizens should be worried about the results:

(T)aking $1.75 out of each voter's tax bill to ensure the balance is spent for our benefit is, on the whole, a pretty good deal.

Harper wants to undo this, and it's obvious why. Reverting to a reliance on private donors is clearly most helpful to parties who serve the interests of wealthy individuals and organizations. The Tories certainly fit that description.

Harper's plan has nothing to do with fairness to taxpayers and everything to do with giving his party an edge. It should be rejected.

- Finally, Jim Travers notes why we look to be headed toward a federal election:

Conservatives are effectively locking into a self-fulfilling prophecy. While solemnly swearing they don’t want an election, the ruling party is prescribing poison pills it knows the opposition will find hard to swallow.

If Harper is rolling the dice, Ignatieff is playing Russian roulette. A restless party’s resistance to approving another budget is forcing Ignatieff to bang the drum for an election Liberals aren’t prepared to fight and that could cost core Toronto seats, perhaps even his own in always hotly contested Etobicoke-Lakeshore.
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It’s entirely possible that Layton or even Duceppe could still save Harper and Ignatieff from themselves. Both the NDP and Bloc leaders have publicly priced their budget support and Layton’s is notably low. All that’s required for Conservatives to extend their stay in power is to let the NDP claim victories for helping homeowners with heating and renovation costs.

Little things help prevent accidents, but someone still has to slam on the brakes.

And as expected, Jim Flaherty is hitting the gas instead of the brakes.

Feel the altruism

Having apparently reached the bottom of its list of nitpicks about the CBC, QMI is helpfully making another effort to shape Canada's future media in its favour by decrying loud advertising compared to the audio of normal TV shows. And what better way to stoke demand for shrieking, incoherent programming than to suggest that it's needed to balance out the volume of commercials?

The Hyde agenda

Brian Topp's latest assessment of the relative position of Canada's national parties is well worth a read in general. But it's particularly worth noting his take on the opposition parties' secret weapon:

(T)hen there is that nasty Mr. Hyde Harper. He is a very different proposition. Mr. Hyde Harper is back on his dime of wanting to bankrupt the opposition parties by bringing big money back into politics on terms that will only work for his party. Mr. Hyde Harper believes that middle-class families wake up in the morning worried that Canada needs to proceed with the purchase of billions of dollars worth of new military fighter jets. And Mr. Hyde Harper demands support in the election or, he threatens, the opposition parties will... will.... WORK TOGETHER. Yes they will, and that must be stopped.

Mr. Hyde Harper is no sale to the majority of the people of Canada. So, hopefully, we'll be hearing lots more from him about bankrupting other parties, buying military jets, and why parliamentarians must not be permitted to work together. The last thing Canada needs is a majority Conservative government. Mr. Hyde Harper is the politician in the best position to make sure that doesn't happen.

A rich history

The Globe and Mail helpfully reminds us of the history of the Canadian Senate:

The Senate has always been a House under a cloud.

The Fathers of Confederation cobbled it together in part to protect people like themselves against the rabble, which is why senators still have to meet a property qualification: “We must protect the rights of minorities, and the rich are always fewer in number than the poor,” as Sir John A. Macdonald put it.

And on this point at least, Stephen Harper can proudly claim to be the heir to MacDonald's legacy of using the Senate as a means for the better-off to override the will of the masses. Just ask Larry Smith:

Recently appointed Conservative Senator Larry Smith on Wednesday denied he’s using the Senate to boost his chances of becoming an MP, saying he has taken a “dramatic, catastrophic” pay cut to serve the public.
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“In simple terms, he added, “the money I was earning in my last profession to where I would be in this profession is what I would call a dramatic, catastrophic pay cut. And I have a family — I have obligations.”

Senators are paid an annual salary of $132,300.

Remedial Math for Liberals

Lib supporters seem to be drawing some rather interesting conclusions from polling showing that a Lib-only government and a coalition both hold roughly equal support to a Con counterpart. But for the benefit of those who want to see the Harper Cons gone, let's remind ourselves exactly what needs to be done to replace them under the two obvious scenarios available to Michael Ignatieff.

On the one hand, he can keep on trying to run a two-party race based on the message that he'll only take power if the Libs alone exceed the Cons' seat total. In that case, the Libs start from a 12-point deficit based on the 2008 election results, and roughly a 6-point deficit based on current polling. Or put another way, the Libs would need to knock the Cons' level of support down to roughly 32 per cent for there to be any hope of a change in government. Which is no easy task given the Cons' well-documented base of 30% who are firmly in their camp, not to mention the preferences for a Con government in the mid to high 30s.

On the other hand, Ignatieff can send the message that he's willing to work with other parties to replace Harper based on a majority of votes in the House of Commons. In that case, Ignatieff effectively starts from ahead in the race, since both the current Parliament and all available polling leave the Cons with short of a majority on their own. And Harper would then face the need to boost his support level to the 39-40% range to have a chance of holding onto power - which of course reflects the absolute top end of the Cons' recent support levels.

So unlike the choice among parties, this does resolve to a simple either-or choice: the Libs can pursue a message that makes it a near certainty that Harper will be replaced following the next election based on the Cons holding their usual mid-30s vote share, or they can voluntarily set themselves up to lose based on exactly the same voting results. And the fact that they've chosen the latter should cause nothing but reason for suspicion among Canadians who want to see Harper gone.

On arbitrary lines

Apparently Jim Flaherty is looking to keep pressure on the other parties in Parliament (and keep the Cons' excuses for an election open) by announcing that he won't be setting aside the HST transition funding demanded by the Bloc in the Cons' next budget.

Now, I'll leave aside the issue of harmonization in general, particularly since Quebec has had a different arrangement in place than the other provinces in the pre-negotiation stage. But let's remind ourselves that the last time they went on a harmonization kick, the Cons happily set aside $5 billion at a time when not a single province was expressing any interest in taking it. So there shouldn't be any doubt that their latest excuse is a matter of sheer politics rather reflecting than any principled reluctance to set aside money if there are a few Ts to be crossed and Is to be dotted.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Erin thoroughly debunks Jayson Myers' attempt to fabricate a nonexistent link between tax cuts and job creation:

Myers actually does not find a very close correlation between after-tax profits and employment (page 16), so he instead focuses on the unemployment rate (page 17). His summary mistakenly states, “Close positive relationships exist between: Canada’s unemployment rate and after-tax business profits” (page 3), implying that higher unemployment corresponds to higher profits. As noted later, “it is a negative relationship” (page 17).

This negative correlation is hardly surprising. In boom years, profits go up and unemployment goes down. In recessions, profits fall and unemployment rises. Indeed, Myers’ graph of profits and unemployment looks like a graph of Canadian business cycles (top of page 17).

However, correlation is not the same as a causal relationship. It is always possible that a third factor – such as the business cycle – is driving both variables.

Even if there is a causal relationship, it is unclear which way the causation runs. Myers’ story is that higher business profits cause more hiring, which causes lower unemployment. But an equally plausible story is that lower unemployment causes more consumer spending, which causes higher business profits.
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Myers’ report is not about corporate tax rates or their possible incentive effects. In his model, corporate tax cuts matter only insofar as they increase after-tax profits. Rather than implementing planned corporate tax cuts at an annual cost of $6.2 billion, Ottawa might as well just write corporate Canada a series of postdated cheques for $6.2 billion each.

But of course, the Globe and Mail reproduces Myers' take without question. So the facts don't seem likely to matter when it comes to what actually gets published in the corporate press.

- Which means it falls to the rest of us to point out the obvious: demand creates jobs.

- Were you worried that Canada might have the necessary equipment to track down pollution in case of an oil spill? Don't worry: the Cons are shutting it down - so that anybody responsible for a spill won't be faced with inconvenient realities about what's actually been released.

- But of course, who has time to deal with environmental emergencies when there are volunteer efforts to be co-opted? Up next in the Cons' plan to attach themselves to anything popular regardless of their utter lack of contribution to it: new Senate appointee Larry Smith uses his influence with the CFL to make sure that next season's championship game is played for the Harper Cup.

- Finally, Linda Deibel documents the Cons' appalling efforts to stifle dissent in the public and private sectors alike. But perhaps the most telling part of her article is the Libs' typically timid response - which Deibel can't allow to pass without comment:

Asked about Liberal tactics, caucus member Lee responds: “We generally go into things being nice and we're not used to being elbowed in the corners. There's a reluctance to get down in the mud.”

It's frustrating, he adds. “I think the hope is that it will all go away . . . Maybe we are being naïve.”

Ya think?

On lessons learned

Jack Layton's take on Afghanistan has proven prescient in the past. Now, it might be worth taking note of his latest observations before we make matters worse:

The changing nature of Canada’s military mission from combat to training will only mean that Canada will train and equip many who will later join the insurgency, or at best, create a military machine for a corrupt and distrusted Afghan President, Mr. Layton said in a speech at the University of Ottawa.

“Every year, one in five soldiers walks out of the Afghan National Army for good. How many of these become Taliban fighters, taking their training and weapons with them?” he said. “You think you’re training government officers, but then you’re really training insurgents as well.”

Even if the military is loyal, it will serve a President, Hamid Karzai, “that’s very closely tied to rigged elections and rampant” corruption, and discredited with his own people, Mr. Layton said. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, he added, is reluctant to send another dime of aid money directly to Mr. Karzai’s government, “but he’ll give him an army.”

No better off

It's undoubtedly fair to ask whether Canadians are in a better position now than they were five years ago, and point out that the answer is probably no. And it's not hard to see how the focus might be both more relevant to listeners and more likely to sway votes than the Cons' international comparisons.

But isn't it even more striking that the same question applied to the past 30 years would produce the same answer? And is there any reason to think the party which presided over the previous decade-plus of stagnation for working Canadians can expect to benefit from outrage over five more years of the same?

Musical interlude

Delerium - Flowers Become Screens

On prejudgment

Apparently we don't need to actually hold federal elections. Instead, Stephen Harper's hand-picked lobbying commissioner has helpfully decided to eliminate all but two parties from the ballot for her purposes:

Several (lobbyists) say they were told by Ms. Shepherd’s office that there would be no obvious conflict of interest if they were to work for the New Democrats because the NDP has no chance of forming government, but any work for the Liberals or the Conservatives could, potentially, create problems.

Of course, it's all the worse that Shepherd's advice looks to be as inaccurate as it is ill-advised - since even the man who appointed her can talk about little else but the prospect that the NDP may form part of a federal government in the near future.

But more importantly, it's utterly inexcusable for a supposedly neutral regulator to be presuming to know better than Canadian voters what the result of the next federal election might be. And Shepherd's eagerness to make partisan judgments looks all too likely to reflect what Harper seeks in his appointments.

(h/t to pogge.)

This is why news reports need laugh tracks

The most relentlessly partisan PM in recent memory, whose closest advisers have readily described his strategy as developing a war machine focused on little more then relentlessly attacking his opponents, is taking offense at the suggestion that he might be campaigning. And the limits of Bruce Campion Smith's written report just don't allow for enough skepticism to properly cover the moment.

Well said

Jeffrey Simpson doesn't go quite so far as to answer the question of why right-wing governments tend to run up massive deficits in office after campaigning on their commitment to do nothing of the sort. (Hint: they're perfectly happy to burn as much money as they can for their own political benefit if it means that their successors in office have no room to maneuver.) But it's still well worth pointing out his acknowledgment of the chasm between brand and reality:

Canadian Conservatives and U.S. Republicans have spent at least three decades pledging three things: lower taxes, smaller government and a balanced budget. Their record has been so dismal, and the gap between promise and fulfilment so large, that citizens have to wonder what’s been going on. Conservatives, who are very good at attacking other ways of thinking, might reflect themselves on why their ideology has so frequently produced this performance gap.
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To this point, the Harperites have been much like conservatives everywhere. They’ve cut taxes but let spending rise in real terms and balanced the books only because of what they’d inherited. There’s every chance Mr. Harper won’t be in office the next time Ottawa shows a surplus.

Provincially, it’s been much the same story. In Ontario, the Harris-Eves Conservatives cut taxes and left a big deficit. In Saskatchewan, the Grant Devine Conservatives left a fiscal hole for the subsequent NDP government. In Alberta, the Conservatives cut taxes, but spending kept rising, so Alberta has one of the largest per capita governments in Canada. Only resource revenues let the government show surpluses. Once the recession came, the government dipped into the sustainability fund to help with shortfalls.
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The conservative record across the continent for the past 30 years has been rather clear. Despite all the rhetoric, conservatives tend to deliver lower taxes, bigger spending and large deficits. The gap between promise and delivery has been, and remains, huge.

Just wondering

No, it isn't necessarily inconsistent for an anti-government dogmatist like Stephen Harper to posture about "red tape" in the private sector while shackling public employees.

But Susan Delacourt's post of the Cons' form "message event proposal" does raise a couple of questions that I don't recall being asked the first time they were in the news. Namely, when does the government of Canada - as distinct from the Conservative Party or its MPs - ever engage in tactics such as direct mailouts and op-eds? And if the answer is "rarely if ever", then is there reason to wonder whether the resources used in developing MEPs are finding their way into partisan systems?

Burning question

So has Stephen Harper just admitted that a coalition will have the right to form government if it votes his party down following the next election?

Somehow I have my doubts. But if we can get Harper on record saying that now (and it seems like a necessary premise for his current spin), the admission would seem to make for a rather valuable precedent if that exact scenario comes to pass.

Ask and answer

In a more sane political environment, the NDP's list of conditions for supporting the 2011 federal budget would be seen as a modest, reasonable set of demands which any government would eagerly meet. But in this one, even though they likely make for the least the NDP can possibly justify asking for as the price of support, the odds of the Harper Cons actually going along with the proposals look to be slim to none.

Yes, the Cons were fairly slow to rule out increased pension benefits over the last year or so, waiting for Alberta to shoot down any proposal before doing so themselves. But they've since taken a firm public line that we have to avoid improving the CPP in order to save it. And the GIS has never apparently been on their radar, since it would involve what would likely turn into a permanent improvement in the type of social benefit that the Cons most loathe.

On eliminating the HST from home heating costs, the Cons have conspicuously avoided any substantive response to a proposal that the NDP has worked hard to sell over the course of the fall.

And on a home retrofitting tax credit, the Cons have already rejected the NDP's entreaties in last year's budget - even though the proposal makes for nothing but a slightly more environmentally friendly recasting of part of the Cons' much-ballyhooed economic action plan.

So while the NDP's laundry list may serve as a starting point if the Cons are particularly desperate to avoid an election, I wouldn't see much prospect of it serving as the basis for a budget otherwise - particularly when Harper can buy off the Bloc for a one-time payment to Quebec without doing anything to increase the scope of any social program in the long term.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday...

- You wouldn't know it from the focus on the Libs' tour launch over the course of the week. But yes, there is another Canadian leader currently making the rounds - and unlike Michael Ignatieff, he'll actually have something new to say:

NDP Leader Jack Layton is embarking on a pre-election tour taking direct aim at the Prime Minister in primarily Tory ridings across the country.

He kicked off the tour Tuesday in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., where he called on Mr. Harper to “stop gouging” consumers and remove the harmonized sales tax on home heating fuel.

He'll hit another 17 communities from British Columbia to Newfoundland and Labrador by Jan. 26, when the NDP caucus is slated to meet to plot strategy for the Jan. 31 resumption of Parliament.

Along the way, Mr. Layton intends to introduce a handful of new candidates and unveil a couple of platform planks – on Senate reform and Canada's future role in Afghanistan.

- Erin points out a particularly sketchy tactic use by the CME in unveiling its latest request for massive corporate tax slashing, as the study was apparently withheld from anybody who might disagree to make criticism more difficult.

- Meanwhile, Corporate Knights points to the fair tax idea as a means of reducing the use of loopholes. But in drawing the comparison to the fair trade movement, I'd think it's well worth noting the minimal effect that voluntary measures have had compared to what would be possible if all businesses were made subject to an equal set of rules.

- Finally, Jim Creskey slams Jason Kenney for attacking the people who deal with refugee issues every day in response to their attempt to improve his legislative choices:

Rightfully, and perhaps in part because Christianity is a religion founded on a refugee family—Jesus, Mary and Joseph—the bishops publicly objected to the government bill. The bishops sent an open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, who also happens to be a Catholic.

""References by representatives of your government to 'bogus' refugee claimants undermine Canada's obligations to refugee protection and question the credibility of refugees fleeing persecution and seeking to have their rights recognized," the letter read. "They also foster hostility towards refugees and fuel xenophobia in general."
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Kenney might have responded to the bishops' criticism the way Catholics the world over have done on matters of conscience for centuries: argued heatedly and in passionate detail.

But Kenney would have none of it. Instead, he just shot down the bishops for being too dumb to know what they were talking about, and that they were being manipulated by their non-clerical staff.

The letter reflects a "long tradition of ideological bureaucrats who work for the bishops' conference producing political letters signed by pastors who may not have specialized knowledge in certain areas of policy," Mr. Kenney told Deborah Gyapong of the Canadian Catholic News service.

Instead of taking a hard public look at a bill widely seen as flawed, Kenny leapt into argumentum ad (hominem)—arguments about the person instead of the idea. Something my old Jesuit logic teacher taught me never to do.

Kenney must have missed that class.

On distinguishable precedents

It's most helpful of John Ivison to be concerned about the NDP's well-being only when it serves to promote continued Con government. But there are a couple of points worth making in response to his attempt to paint a coalition as more distant than it actually is.

To start with, there's the question of whether the NDP is in fact interested in pursuing a coalition, such that it's a viable strategy for the Libs to work toward forming one. And on that point, one would expect Ivison to read up on the NDP's past and present plans to bring together Canadians who want something better than continued Harper government.

That does leave the question of whether the NDP should be taking any cautionary messages from the UK Lib Dems' experience. But it's not hard to see how the parties' priorities differ - and how that would figure to affect public perceptions once a coalition is in place.

After all, the Lib Dems entered into their coalition as both the junior partner and the relatively nonideological partner, which left them with effectively no basis to make policy demands. As a result, they traded off virtually all of their policy commitments, treating high-profile positions within the coalition government as the main apparent goal - leaving little discernible benefit for supporters to point to as an achievement resulting from the coalition, and shedding voters who saw them as an alternative to Labour on the left.

Needless to say, that couldn't stand in much more stark contrast to the NDP's position, which has regularly focused on policy gains over personal profile, including by declining to be a junior partner where it would have resulted in a right-wing party taking power. And one can most clearly see the difference in the NDP's 2008 position - where it readily sent the message that it wouldn't pursue positions like finance minister or deputy prime minister, but held firm to a progressive set of policy priorities.

Of course, the above isn't to say that there wouldn't be some challenges in managing a coalition from the NDP's perspective. But there's plenty of reason to think the outcome of a coalition will be far better for a party which actually has some ideological grounding by which to measure government policy - and every reason to think the NDP's past efforts to bring progressive Canadians together will continue past the next federal election.

On battle lines

Shorter Matt Gurney:

The Harper Cons are invulnerable to questions about their prison expansion plans because Canadian voters don't care what it costs to deal with what they perceive to be a problem.

That is, except the areas where the Cons are already crying poor, like the need to improve health care. Or top up pensions. Or fight against climate change. But prisons, yessiree, those are bulletproof.

All you need to know

Ah, the prestige of being appointed into federal cabinet. The raised profile, the responsibility to make decisions on weighty matters affecting the country...wait, what's this?

We filed an ATIP request for Min/State Finance Ted Menzies briefing books: Answer today: There are none.

Never mind: apparently the main difference between being a Harper cabinet minister and a Tim Horton's cashier is that the cashier would normally be expected to learn the menu before starting.

Well said

Frances Russell nicely summarizes the outcome if the Cons get their way in decentralizing and defunding social programs:

Decentralism and provincial power appeals to the Canadian right for the obvious reason that the smaller the government, the less powerful and capable it is. Provinces do have the advantage of being "closer to the people," but that is of little use if they have no money to spend on the people, as was the case during the Great Depression. That economic cataclysm spurred the creation of Canada's equalization program, subsequently entrenched in the 1982 Constitution, and designed to ensure all Canadians enjoy reasonably comparable government services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation.

Should Bernier, and presumably Harper, get their wish and cancel all shared-cost programs, replacing them with individual provincial tax points of vastly unequal value, the social and economic devastation in every province, with the possible exception of Alberta, would be calamitous.

(Edit: fixed typo.)

On obvious solutions

Andrew Jackson's post on the modest amount of resources needed to outright eliminate poverty in Canada is jarring enough on its own:

In 2008, the incidence of low income for all persons in Canada measured by the LICO After Tax measure was 9.4%, and the average gap or income shortfall relative to the LICO AT line was 33%. That gap in turn is equivalent to 1% of the after tax income of all Canadians.

In short, we could eliminate poverty by shifting just 1% of our collective income to the almost one in ten Canadians living in low income.

But Jackson's observation is particularly noteworthy when compared to the growing income shares of the wealthiest Canadians. After three decades of increasing inequality, the entire amount of money required to eradicate poverty in Canada is equal to only one sixth of the increase in the income share of the top 1% since 1977. Or if one prefers to start higher up the income chain, one third of the increase for the top 0.1% would do the job as well.

Of course, merely dealing with poverty wouldn't itself solve all the issues raised by the growing income and wealth gaps. But it's well worth noting the potential to completely wipe out poverty with only a small slice of the gains of the upper classes - signalling that the reason for inaction has nothing to do with an inability to afford steps to tackle poverty, and everything to do with a lack of will to do so.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Undercover cats.

Just wondering

Macleans apparently feels the need to set up an experiment as to the relative effects of stimulus vs. austerity - presumably on the basis it doesn't like the comparisons already in progress. But is it too much to ask that one of the options actually involve some actual stimulus?

By necessary implication

Let's leave aside whether or not Michael Ignatieff should be doing more to promote the concept of inter-party cooperation, and take a look at John Ibbitson's remarkable leap of logic on Ignatieff's actual strategy.

Apparently, it's now an indisputable fact (or at least enough of a media narrative to dominate coverage) that if two leaders are touring separate parts of the country in support of their own parties, then they must be in cahoots.

Which can only mean one thing: come election time, every single party leader in Canada will be in a coalition with one another. That is, except for the one who chooses to stay home rather than bothering to campaign - which is why Ibbitson's take is apparently good news for the Work Less Party.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday.

- Pogge nicely sums up the proper response to the Libs' declaration that voters should pretend that other, more viable alternatives to the Cons don't exist:

Based on the last several federal elections, the greatest threat to the Conservative incumbent in my riding is the NDP. Based on the last two elections, that's true by a large margin. If Michael Ignatieff comes into my riding right now and tells me that in order to get rid of Harper I have to vote Liberal, I have to conclude that either he's an idiot or he thinks I am. Neither explanation encourages me to vote Liberal.

- The Hill Times proclaims a change in language: while the Cons' completely unfounded claims of delay in the Senate were regularly described as unconscionable obstructionism, the new Con Senate majority's power to overrule Canada's elected representatives will merely give rise to "minor legislative battles".

- John Ivison points out that the Cons' direction on criminal justice policy is officially worse information than that of states like Texas and South Carolina:

The “hanging’s too good for them” brigade should read an eye-opening piece from last Friday’s Washington Post, co-written by Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, and Pat Nolan, former Republican leader of the California State Assembly. They pointed out that the U.S. currently spends US$68-billion on corrections — 300% more than 25 years ago — and the prison population is growing at 13 times faster than the general population.

“Our prisons might be worth the current cost if the recidivism rate were not so high but, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, half of the prisoners released this year are expected to be back in prison within three years. If your prison policies are failing half the time, and we know there are more humane, effective alternatives, it is time to fundamentally rethink how we treat and rehabilitate our prisoners,” they concluded.

Even Mr. Toews wouldn’t accuse Texas of being soft on crime, yet the Lone Star State has instituted reforms that have strengthened its probation system, reduced its prison population and freed up money to be redirected into community treatment for the mentally ill and low-level drug addicts. Since the reforms were launched in 2004, the crime rate has dropped 10% to its lowest level since 1973.
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At a time when every department in government is experiencing budget cuts, Canada should not be embarking on an expensive prison-building program. Rather it should be following U.S. states like South Carolina, which is reserving costly prison spaces for violent criminals and dealing with lower level offenders in more imaginative ways.

- Finally, we can certainly hope that the Cons' "ethical oil" spin will bring the environment back to the forefront as an issue. But is it too much to ask that the response to the Cons' attempts to change the subject not start with "we agree, but..."?

Well said

Brian Topp nicely sums up how faux populism has served to breed a violent political culture in the U.S. - and the description is all too apt here at home as well:

Their brand of right-wing populism – their appeal to unreason, to hatred, to anger, and their dance with violence (just as the previous generation of right-wing American populists danced with white racism) – invites what happened in Arizona on Saturday.
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Why do populist right-wingers need to play these games? Because they can't defend their program on its merits.

Help for the poor through tax giveaways to the rich. Economic security by breaking people's pensions. Fiscal responsibility by bankrupting the state. Jobs by promoting economic recklessness that has produced a global economic crisis. A better society by promoting gross income disparity. Double and triple the police and prison apparatus to deal with a crime rate that has long been in decline. Better health care by making it available only to those who can afford it. Getting the state out of people's lives by imposing narrow religious views in the schools. Legislating responsibly by abdicating the legislative and budget process to corporate lobbyists. Peace by warmongering.

None of the central goals of American populist right-wingers hold up in rational debate. So a smokescreen is required. Take our country back! Respect the constitution! And... lock and load!

It's had a good run in the past two years, this latest manifestation of right-wing unreason in the United States. But perhaps this is the moment its real nature stands revealed. Like all right-wing populism, that is something it cannot survive.

Juxtaposition

Matt Bai:

The problem here doesn’t lie with the activists..., ordinary citizens who are doing what citizens are supposed to do — engaging in a conversation about the direction of the country. Rather, the problem would seem to rest with the political leaders who pander to the margins of the margins, employing whatever words seem likely to win them contributions or TV time, with little regard for the consequences.

Keith Beardsley:

(R)emoving the taxpayer funding will force them to streamline their operations, improve their fundraising mechanism and pay attention to issues that matter both to Canadians and their membership. To ignore that reality would mean that your fundraising would be unsuccessful and you would have to cut back your operations. You would get a pretty quick wake-up call to refocus on what mattered...

Good news, everybody!

Job losses are now officially being treated as state secrets. So as far as we know, everybody's doing just fine!

On blockage

Eric is right to note that most scenarios involving party disappearances or mergers would result in relatively little change in Canada's political stalemate. But he also confirms that there's one what-if which would make a world of difference:

The Bloc was born out of the failure of the Meech Lake Accord. Had the accord succeeded, it is plausible to assume the Bloc Québécois would never have existed.

In such a case, the social democratic NDP would take the place of the social democratic Bloc Québécois in the province, winning 30 per cent of the vote in the next election. The Liberals, at 29 per cent, would not be far behind while the Conservatives would take 24 per cent of the vote. This would result in the NDP winning 34 seats in the province, most of them coming in francophone Quebec outside of the two main cities. The Liberals would win 23 seats, mostly in and around Montreal and in the Gaspé, while the Conservatives would take 17 seats, concentrated around Quebec City and the Saguenay region.

Using current projections for the rest of the country, this change in Quebec would boost the Tories to 146 seats nationally, still short of a majority government. The Liberals would win 104 seats. With more than half of their caucus from Quebec, the NDP would win 57 seats. It would give the Liberals and New Democrats the possibility of forming a majority coalition.

Of course, many a commentator has looked silly for predicting the end of the Bloc over the years. But it's worth noting that the Bloc looks to be the one opposition party whose share of votes and seats would lead to an almost certain change in government if distributed along current voting lines - and wondering whether a strong message about the need for progressives to work together inside and outside Quebec (regardless of the party structures involved) might serve to get things moving in that direction.

We're Number Last! We're Number Last!

Just one more example of how the Harper Cons are getting Canada noticed around the world:

A new study ranks Canada dead last in an international comparison of freedom-of-information laws — a hard fall after many years being judged a global model in openness.
...
Canada was among the first dozen countries in the world to pass a freedom-of-information law, which came into effect in 1983 long before the era of the web.

As freedom-of-information came to be regarded as a building block of modern governance, countries around the globe would often seek Canada's advice on how to implement such legislation.

But today, with more than 70 countries on the FOI bandwagon, Canada has become a laggard — and, paradoxically, an occasional source of advice on how not to implement freedom of information, says Canada's information commissioner Suzanne Legault.

“I'm not surprised that they ranked Canada last,” she said of the latest study. “We were seen as the leaders. ... We have fallen behind.”

On incentives

Both Andrew Coyne and John Robson have pointed out the absurdity of the Harper Cons having the largest cabinet in the democratic world. But while I agree entirely with the sentiment, I'd wonder whether there's any realistic prospect of addressing the issue.

After all, I'm not aware of any point in the process of selecting a cabinet where there's any room for public or parliamentary input. The first step taken by a new government is to have its new cabinet sworn in, so presumably it's able to start doling out the perks of cabinet membership even in the absence of the budgetary review processes which nominally result in Parliamentary vetting and approval of government expenses.

Of course, there might be some ways to impose checks on the size of cabinet through legislation. But as things stand now, we can probably safely assume that the Cons aren't about to accept anything of the sort as long as they're in power. And indeed, it doesn't seem unlikely that many opposition MPs would prefer the prospect of someday holding a position in an expanded cabinet to a system that limits them to "ego gratification (which depends) on annoying the executive as effective committee members".

With that in mind, it would seem surprising that more parliamentary governments around the world don't abuse the ability to unilaterally proclaim that public dollars will be used to reward MPs from the governing party while quieting anybody whose ambitions might involve questioning a party's actions from within. And it may be worth watching whether the lack of a political price for the choice made by Harper (and other PMs before him) might set a precedent which leads to worse governance around the globe.

On second choices

Alice's post on second-choice preferences in the 2008 election is well worth a read. But the most valuable part of the information collected through the Canada Election Study figures to lie in its ability to present some background to calculations along the lines of Malcolm's guest post on the retention rate required to make a non-compete agreement the least bit useful.

For those who aren't familiar, Malcolm concluded that based on the 2008 federal election results, we wouldn't see a non-compete agreement result in a majority government (or in any party exceeding the Cons' seat total) absent an overall net retention rate of 70% in an agreement involving the Libs, NDP and Greens. So let's look at a simplified and perhaps unduly generous net retention rate for types of vote shifts based on the CES data, calculated as follows:

((votes to non-compete partner as second choice) - (votes to Cons)) / total votes for original party

Using that formula, here are the actual net retention rates for various types of votes in the 2008 election:

Lib to NDP: 13%
Lib to Green: -10%
Lib to (NDP + Green): 28%
NDP to Lib: 17%
NDP to Green: -2%
NDP to (Lib + Green): 36%
Green to Lib: 19%
Green to NDP: 13%
Green to (Lib + NDP): 46%

Now, it's worth highlighting that the above doesn't factor in any question as to the likelihood of the vote switching as intended in a non-compete scenario. And the numbers for the three-party scenario are almost certainly on the high side, since they assume that a voter whose first two choices are both part of the non-compete will vote for the other partner as a third choice in the absence of any data to that effect.

But even granting every favourable assumption to a three-party non-compete agreement, its application to the 2008 vote totals would result in...effectively the same situation we have now, with the Cons holding the most seats of any party, and any alternative requiring the Bloc's support to win power.

So Alice's numbers look to offer yet another indication that the more important work to be done involves shifting baseline vote preferences, as well as laying the groundwork for the argument that the confidence of the House of Commons trumps one party's claim to the most seats - not pretending that a non-compete agreement will have any meaningful effect.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- While I normally find Gerald Caplan's justified cynicism to be well worth reading, his latest looks to go well past the point of reasonable frustration, instead moving well into the territory of destroying even the possibility of trust in public institutions (which ultimately only serves the purposes of parties like the Cons looking to devalue them).

- The Star's Sandro Cotenta asked Canada's 100 highest-paid CEOs to justify their salaries - and found exactly one taker. But perhaps the most interesting part of the story is how top-end salaries are being pumped up even when that's contrary to the theory behind the boom in stock options:

“The main concern is that there seems to be rewards to the CEO when the company does well but there isn’t enough risk to the CEO when the company does poorly,” Hawton says.

Roger Martin, dean of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, describes the way executives get paid as a key factor in the latest economic crash.

Today’s pay schemes, he says, date back to 1976, when U.S. economists Michael Jensen and William Meckling argued in an influential paper that the interests of shareholders would best be served by giving CEOs stock-based compensation. That would focus CEO efforts on making stock prices rise.

Boards of directors embraced the theory. In 1970, according to figures compiled by Martin, less than 1 per cent of compensation for Fortune 500 CEOs was stock-based. The average compensation package, in 2000 dollars, was $850,000. By 2000, 50 per cent of total compensation was stock-based, and the average compensation was $14 million.

Now, it would be interesting to wonder how performance may have varied in cases where stock-based compensation may have been offered without a concurrent rise in base salary. But based on Martin's numbers, CEOs received an eightfold increase in their base salaries to go with the massive increase in stock-based compensation. And it's not hard to see how the availability of $7 million a year in base compensation unrelated to performance might lead a CEO to be willing to take risks with a company's stock price which may not be so palatable to shareholders or employees.

- Meanwhile, Carol Goar offers up some useful suggestions as to what people can do to combat inequality.

- Finally, the Star confirms that the Cons' claim to have gutted the long form census based on public complaints in fact relates to nothing more than a few kooks and cranks outnumbered even by the number of prominent organizations fighting the change. But then if evidence meant anything positive to the Cons, they'd already have avoided or reversed the decision several dozen times over by now.

On closed reviews

Before anybody tries to pretend that a secret parliamentary committee to deal with intelligence issues is some radical positive development for government accountability, it might be time for a reminder of the problem with pretending that it's enough to give the truth only to a few politicians who are sworn to say and do nothing about it:

Remember that many of the worst abuses by the U.S. government under Bushco were defended later on the basis that Democrats were informed of their existence. And that the fact that the opposition officials were sworn to secrecy and lacked any practical means to stop the abuse didn't stop a bullying government from claiming that their failure to act immediately made for tacit agreement with the policy.

Of course, that wasn't a reasonable position by any stretch of the imagination. But it did create a handy distraction tactic as soon as revelations did leak into the public eye - ensuring that the governing party wouldn't bear sole responsibility for its own actions, while the public would perceive insiders of all parties as having hidden information. And in order to avoid a similar precedent that important information on a matter of public interest should be disclosed only to MPs, I'd think the opposition parties should be careful to ensure that as much information as possible also finds its way to the public.

Burning question

Sure, it's somewhat informative to learn that Don Meredith considers his Senate sinecure to be a "gift from the Lord". But shouldn't somebody follow up as to whether that's based on his religion's definition of a "Lord", or his party's?

Musical interlude

Gareth Emery - Metropolis

A point of clarification

According to the Cons, we absolutely can't wait another second to commit Canada to buying F-35s at some point in the future (assuming the entire program isn't scrapped by more canny would-be purchasers around the world). But when it comes to making time for those F-35s for arrive...well, suddenly we have all the time in the world:

Liberal critic Marc Garneau said the four-year delay and doubling in price of the F-35 “is cause for extreme concern because the federal government is committing itself to an aircraft that is not fully developed.”

Lawson said development of the conventional F-35 has been advancing well and “it’s from that that I take great promise with this program and great confidence in it.”

The general said Canada is “buffered somewhat” from any further delays in the delivery of the F-35s because the recently upgraded CF-18s provide “manoeuvre space in when we would purchase aircraft. So, if required, we might be able to extend the final date of service of the F-18.”

Friday Morning Links

Content goes here.

- Paul Wells sifts through the latest Abacus polling on Canada's political parties:

The Conservatives do not lead only in feel-good perceptions. Respondents thought the Conservatives, more than Liberals or New Democrats, are “extreme” and “out of touch with ordinary people.” It hardly needs saying that Harper continues to divide the country. But enough of the division benefits the Conservatives to leave Harper in the catbird seat.

Abacus found Canadians have less trouble agreeing about the Liberals. When comparing the three parties, respondents were least likely to agree that Michael Ignatieff’s party “keeps its promises,” “understands the problems facing Canada,” “looks after the interests of people like me,” “defends the interests of people in my province,” “has a good team of leaders,” “stands for clear principles,” “has sensible policies,” or is “professional in its approach.”

But look on the bright side. The Liberals did not finish behind the Conservatives and New Democrats on every measure. Among the three parties, respondents were likeliest to agree it’s the Liberals who are “divided” and “will promise anything to win votes.”

These are the results Ignatieff obtains after a full year with a senior political staff Ottawa reporters like. It follows his long summer bus tour and the uniformly positive reviews that came with it. It comes after Harper prorogued Parliament, gutted the long-form census, turned summit-time Toronto into one big riot and flip-flopped on ending the Afghanistan deployment.

After all that, Canadians give Harper’s party the edge on reliability, pertinence and competence. After the Conservatives, on these same questions, they almost always prefer Jack Layton’s NDP to Ignatieff’s Liberals.

- Meanwhile, Dan Gardner hints at what's sure to be a winning message for the Harper Cons: "Not Quite as Crazy as the Tea Party". Though I do have to wonder whether even that is more a matter of simply not having pushed public opinion far enough to be able to speak their minds.

- But in case you need ten more reasons to vote against the Harper Cons, Kathleen O'Hara provides them.

- And finally, Susan Riley nicely counters the latest set of corporate-tax-cut spin:

It is hard to see how a few points shaved off corporate tax rates is going to produce a surge of well-paying, stable jobs; the details are still hazy. But, after government stimulus spending ends this year, the private sector, invigorated by its declining tax load, is apparently going to take up the slack. Despite such rosy projections, many Canadians are deeply uneasy about prospects for themselves and their children in coming months -- and no wonder.

True, very high corporate tax rates can discourage investment -- but, compared to the rest of the G7 and to our southern neighbours, Canadian rates are relatively low. Nor, as Ireland's sorry example underscores, are low business taxes a guarantee of lasting economic success.

Such contradictions -- and the fact that tax rates are only one of many factors influencing economic success -- are rarely the focus of serious scrutiny. Three decades of unrelenting neo-conservative preaching have turned taxes into a dirty word, as left-leaning economist Hugh Mackenzie says, "to the point where even governments don't defend government."
...
(I)t is the now-entrenched notion that corporate high-rollers have to be bribed with astronomical benefits and generous tax treatment to stay with the company, stay in Canada, keep working those long hours and creating jobs that is most questionable -- especially since their huge bonuses are increasingly unconnected to the actual performance of a company. This argument betrays a pinched, negative view of human nature.

On public interests

Reiko Aoki's idea to provide electoral weight to children while allowing a child's parents to exercise the right looks to have one major problem on its face (which I'll deal with in a later post). But for now, it is worth using Aoki's concern about weighting the interests of different groups as a starting point to point out the real value of a vote - and in particular the reason why most citizens should want to emphasize the power of a vote rather than being cynical about the prospect of one vote deciding an election.

As things stand now, most mainstream political discussion takes place through the lens of parties which have their own reasons for keeping a relatively narrow focus on tranches of marginal voters. Yes, any party would love to win a substantial share of the 40% of disaffected voters into its own camp - but since that's seen as a remote possibility at best, more effort gets put toward influencing the much smaller number of voters who are seen as far more likely to be able to tilt the results of the next election. And that may make for a rational short-term choice from the perspective of a political strategist.

But what makes that strategy rational is the assumption that a large and increasing number of voters won't show up - or at least, not based on the actions of any political party. And that latter point is key, as a message from a perceived outsider to a citizen or community whose members hold and reinforce a sense of being uninterested in the political sphere figures to have little impact.

So the real question looks to me to be this: how can we convince the 40% of citizens who don't bother to vote that their votes do matter, even when the parties' rational strategy doesn't seek to engage them all that closely?

Fortunately, there seems to be a relatively simple answer.

No matter how idealistic or cynical a view one wants to take, there doesn't seem to be much room for dispute that governmental authority as determined through electoral politics is one of many interconnected sources of power in society at large. And importantly, the electoral arena is the only one where that power is allotted equally among individuals, rather than being subject to concentration which excludes most of the public.

So for anybody outside the genuinely elite few which are able to exercise disproportionate influence in other spheres, the ability to have decisions made based on collective interests and preferences is a solution, not a problem. And the most obvious course of action for any individual who perceives a need for change in society at large is to emphasize the system that allows for the shared interests of the many to be reflected in the law of the land - rather than abandoning it to those who already have so much clout through other means.

But of course, the idea of using the radically equal system of one person, one vote only works for somebody who perceives both a need and a likelihood of actually making changes. So what about those who simply don't think it's worth bothering?

I'd hope that the answer to the first question would change a few minds on its own. But it's also worth asking rhetorically whether it's possible to fully disengage.

There, it's easy enough to make the seemingly uncontroversial point that government both directly (through its own actions) and indirectly (through its authority to regulate other actors in the interests of whoever is seen as worth catering to) impacts the lives of everybody under its jurisdiction. Perhaps more importantly, though, the real cynicism which so many people apparently hold would seem to reflect some acknowledgment that there's a gap between what is and what ought to be. And the recognition that something better is possible should at least serve as reason enough to look for opportunities to get there - even if such opportunities aren't seen as obvious among one's current political choices.

Of course, no one post or argument is likely to make a great deal of difference on its own. But I'll suggest to those who see the need to achieve better societal outcomes that the first step is to start talking positively about the value of democratic decision-making as the best means for most citizens to have their interests taken into account. And the more that message spreads among Canadians who are disengaged from the party system, the more incentive Canada's political parties will have to pick it up for themselves.

Nicely done

I seldom hesitate to criticize media outlets which are too eager to report Con spin as news even when there's no reason to think it has any basis in reality. So full credit to the CP for treating the Cons' unsupported assertions about their website rule-breaking with due skepticism:

The Harper government claims a senior bureaucrat gave it the go-ahead to avoid the rules governing the look and feel of its Economic Action Plan website.

But the Conservatives are declining to provide documentary evidence of the exemption, which does not appear among hundreds of pages of memos, drafts and emails obtained by The Canadian Press under an Access to Information Act request that took more than a year to process.
...
Day's office and the Prime Minister's Office did not respond to requests Wednesday and Thursday to produce the d'Auray document.

Without documentary evidence, the government assertion falls into the same category as previous claims that Statistics Canada bureaucrats recommended the abolition of the mandatory long-form census last spring. The head of StatsCan subsequently resigned in protest, and the "recommendation" proved to be merely a non-preferred option.

(Edit: fixed typo.)

Thursday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Thursday.

- Obviously missing from Ted Menzies' excuses for the Cons' decision to do nothing about the Canada Pension Plan: a single word of explanation as to how anybody is better off setting up new funds for private profit rather than actually expanding the CPP to include more people. This might be a point worth pressing, no?

- Maude Barlow weighs in on some of the issues with the proposed Canada-Europe free trade agreement.

- Bill Curry points out one significant drain on Canada's federal coffers that would serve as an obvious means to increase revenues if the Cons were the least bit serious about dealing with the deficit:

Billions of dollars worth of credits and tax writeoffs for everything from construction tools to textbooks and kids’ sports fees have been piling up for years. Their expansion ramped up under the Conservatives before the recession hit. Now in leaner times, they continue to eat up cash.

Billed as tax “cuts” when they are announced by politicians, they live on in the federal books as “tax expenditures.” The semantic debate between politicians and academics continues as the number of credits rise.

The annual report detailing their cost runs for 24 pages.

- Finally, Jamies Bowie may give far too much credit to the Libs' earlier lack of accomplishment. But it would certainly be worth taking his suggestion to start compiling a list of Con programs that did nothing toward their nominal ends - so stop by and add your suggestions.

On private interests

The CP's expanded story on the Cons' Economic Action Plan rulebreaking includes a noteworthy tidbit about how the Cons tried to claim the rules didn't apply:

By counting individual stimulus projects that were administered through institutions that did not have to comply to the Common Look and Feel policy – including such loosely defined “initiatives” as “moving forward with Public Private Partnerships” – the government was able to claim that “32.1 per cent of all initiatives” were not under the policy and therefore the EAP site needn't apply, either.

To date, my impression is that the main issues of concern about the political use of P3s have been the risk of favouring preferred private-sector partners and the removal of project documentation from the scope of access to information legislation. But if it's equally true that P3s aren't covered by the normal prohibition against using public money for partisan purposes, then doesn't that offer yet another reason to wonder about whose interests are likely to be served when they're used?

Are they really Liberals?

Susan Delacourt is right to be wary of the seemingly endless supply of sources proclaiming themselves to be Liberal strategists based on past affiliation while announcing their desire to see the party fail in the present. But there's a flip side to that reason for skepticism which also deserves some attention.

After all, the assumption that the Libs should be considered the alternative government in waiting is itself based in no small part on the party's historical record - in which those same fair-weather supporters presumably played a part. So if the media is going to start noting that some substantial portion of those proclaiming themselves to be Liberals out of habit are actually working to undermine the party, it should also take the opportunity to question exactly how much of a natural party base the Libs can actually claim.

Deep thought

Based on the Cons' destructive tendencies, it shouldn't be a surprise that we now have a Levantist anti-environmentalist as Environment Minister to join the anti-science Minister for Science and Technology.

Instead, the real shock should be that Rob Anders isn't yet in charge of diplomacy.

On malign neglect

The CP's story about the Cons breaking rules about avoiding partisanship on government websites is certainly noteworthy on its own. But it's particularly worth highlighting how one part of the story also fits into Paul Wells' classic critique of the Harper government:

According to federal documents obtained by The Canadian Press, bureaucrats advised that the Economic Action Plan website didn't meet rules (to ensure they are credible, technically accessible, uniform and non-partisan) – and didn't merit an exemption from those rules.

However, the website was given the green light anyway by then-Treasury Board president Vic Toews.

He justified it by writing that the rules – which only came into effect in 2009 – were going to be changed at some future date.
...
More than a year after the exemption, the rules remain in place – as does the website.

Of course, it's a problem as well that the Cons couldn't care less whether or not they're following the rules - particularly those which they've put in place themselves. But it's particularly worth noting that whether due to disorganization, neglect or some other factor, they also can't be bothered to follow through on their own supposed plans to change them - even when they've stated their intention to do so in order to offer some retroactive justification for their actions.

In other words, the problems with the Cons involve flat-out incompetence in addition to blatant ethical failures. And while we might take some comfort in hoping that the former may limit their ability to capitalize on the latter, both serve as rather compelling reasons for a change in government.

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your midweek reading.

- Thomas Walkom ponders the possible outcome of an election whose core message is whether or not to give the Cons a majority:

(G)iven the mood of the country, an NDP-Liberal coalition properly arranged ahead of time (with, for instance, common candidates) might win the next election — which, for politicians, is what matters.

With their anti-coalition propaganda, the Conservatives have already defined this coming contest in dualistic terms — good versus evil, us versus them.

If voters truly believe that they face a stark choice between Harper and the forces of Anti-Harper, the Conservatives could be unpleasantly surprised.

Now, I still don't see common candidates in advance of an election being a viable option (as distinct from a willingness to work together afterward). But if the Libs would allow the "Harper vs. Anti-Harper" them to develop rather than insisting that the latter will be ignored if they don't agree to do Michael Ignatieff's bidding, I'd agree with Walkom that we'd be likely to see a result that would disappoint the Cons.

- Meanwhile, anybody looking to speculate on when the next election might take place will want to take a look at Alice's handy guide.

- David McKie notes a disturbing drop in the use of access to information requests by journalists:

perhaps it's time for journalism schools and newsrooms to wake up and use a law that provides access, albeit difficult access, to important information. To be sure, journalists are using the act to tell stories, such as an excellent behind-the-scenes account last fall in The Ottawa Citizen that provided a window in the chaos that resulted after an earthquake shook the foundations of buildings in Ottawa and surrounding towns and cities on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border. The story was one of mind-numbing confusion that left some federal officials red-faced and embarrassed. But more importantly, the story also provided a useful example of why it's important for governments to be prepared for catastrophes and what can result if they aren't.

Stories like this need to be told. We must know the true cost of prison reform. We have to know the real impact of the government's stimulus spending. We need to have a meaningful discussion about the future of health care. Many of the records that help shed light on these and many other issues can only be pried loose with the help of access to information. Going through the process is not for the faint of heart. But neither is being a journalist facing a federal government bent on spin and obfuscation and a bureaucracy that is justifiably scared, and many times forbidden from talking to journalists. So let's all get cracking. There's too much at stake for journalists to be on the wrong side of a downward trend.

- And finally, The Real News features Tom Ferguson on the dangers of big-money, low-turnout politics:

A noteworthy admission

Yes, most of Neil Reynolds' latest consists of a breathtaking combination of torqued numbers and patently false assertions. But there's one aspect of his column that you can indeed take to the bank - at least if he and his corporatist ilk get their way:

Unless the federal government prevails and unless the rate-cutting provinces prevail, Canada’s competitive advantage – “the lowest corporate tax rates in the G7” – could well prove transient. In corporate tax rates, the race to the bottom has only just begun.

Never mind of course that we're already at the end of a decade of constant corporate tax cuts which have produced none of the promised economic benefits - and never mind that anybody paying the slightest bit of attention would recognize that Reynolds' argument about changing competitive advantages is exactly why corporate tax cuts are self-defeating, as additional steps in the race to the bottom simply encourage other jurisdictions to follow suit.

Instead, the most important takeaway is that no matter how much free money the corporate sector has already been handed, it still has no interest in doing anything but finding ways to put an even larger chunk of the economy in its pocket at the expense of the public. Which should put to rest the oft-floated theory that we should just grin and bear the next set of corporate tax cuts (whether now or in a few years) in hopes that it will someday pay off in the form of greater public resources - as the billions in giveaways to big business will ultimately only hand it more ability to dictate the terms of public policy.

Of course, it's not hard to see how the business sector would love to see the race to the bottom reach the point where governments outright pay the business sector for nominally providing jobs while executives and shareholders skim off ever-increasing profits. But it's long past time for the rest of us to demand a better deal rather than buying the corporate spin.

Update: Erin has more.

Well said

John Moore nicely rebuts the claim that we should be grateful for the privilege of paying obscene amounts to our corporate betters:

The average working Canadian earns $43,000 a year. The average for the top 100 CEOs is 155 times that. Roll that figure around for a second. Think of what you earn in a year. Now imagine being paid 155 times more. Not twice as much. Not 10 times. 155 times.

That’s not merit. That’s not about stockholder value. That’s a shakedown. And it’s further proof that when elites are responsible for their own pay, they make out like bandits. Kelly insists that boards of directors set executive compensation based on shareholder value, ignoring the fact that directors come from the same spoiled-rotten, self-entitled class as the CEOs they hire and pay.
...
These aren’t entrepreneurs, venture capitalists or private company owners. They are nothing more than high ranking employees. Yet they expect their earnings to rival those of people who risk all and genuinely create wealth. And often they grow their companies through massive layoffs of those who earn less.

In his column lampooning the executive-compensation study, Kelly McParland insists “the money doesn’t come from your pocket or mine.” It most certainly does if we are shareholders. More importantly, thanks to the vagaries of Canadian tax laws, when executives exercise their generous stock options, taxpayers are on the hook. The average lost tax revenue for each of the 100 top paid CEOs in Canada amounted to $467,000. That’s a heck of a lot more galling than the sundry restaurant receipts of some scandal-plagued assistant deputy minister, but it seems the fans of big business can’t get worked up about it.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Feline sprawl.

On alternative avenues

I don't remember hearing this particular theory from Peter Russell (cited in Lawrence Martin's Harperland at p. 158) before Stephen Harper pulled the plug on Parliament to precipitate the 2008 federal election. But it seems to be worth noting in light of the possibility of the Cons breaking their fixed election date law once again:

A heap of criticism was visited upon the PM (for calling the election), especially from those who knew the details of the legislation. Others, however, concluded that because his was a minority government, the fixed-election law couldn't really apply. Some constitutional experts believed the governor general could have refused to grant Harper the election call. That would have been especially true, observed Peter Russell of the University of Toronto, if the opposition parties had been prepared to offer a coalition alternative. They weren't, however, and so Michaelle Jean acquiesced to the PM's wishes.

On limited recall

Shorter Gary Mason:

Recall legislation is supposed to be used in the case of individual politicians who have become an embarrassment to the people to whom they have been elected to represent. Which means that if an entire government meets the standard, the public should have no choice but to suck it up.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday.

- It would be nice to be able to believe that the U.S.' greenhouse gas emissions regulations would lead to some action on our side of the border as well. But is there actually any realistic prospect that the Cons' won't simply give the Wheel of Excuses another spin - likely landing on "Made In Canada!" again - in order to avoid doing anything meaningful in response?

- The Star weighs in on the ever-more-appalling gap between CEO pay and the income of Canadians in general, and echoes the CCPA's proposed solution to at least part of the problem:

Basing pay on the stock market is like rewarding a quarterback on the basis of whether his team beats the point spread, says Martin. And in the long run, the whole economy suffers, not just individual companies, as CEOs spend their time “jerking around expectations.”

Some argue that executive compensation ought to be of concern only to shareholders and corporate directors. But as Mackenzie notes, directors and CEOs are all members of the same “club,” and executive pay is based on what other club members are paid. “The logic is perfectly circular,” he writes.

As for giving shareholders “say on pay,” that just allows them to say they are unhappy with executive pay, says Mackenzie. “It does not mean they can actually do anything about it.”

A better option, adds Mackenzie, is for government to intervene -- starting with treatment of stock options as regular income, not capital gains, which are taxed at half the normal rate. That’s an idea for Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to consider in his upcoming budget – or, if he is disinclined, for the opposition parties to adopt in their platforms.

- And amazingly, even Kelly McParland may not be entirely disagreeable toward the idea:

There is no question CEO pay has grown faster and more steadily than other income levels, and that much of it receives a favourable level of tax treatment the rest of us can only wish for. It’s a matter worthy of discussion, and serious treatment.

- Finally, Neal Lawson and John Harris have some suggestions for the UK's Labour Party which may resonate in Canada as well:

The new paradigm understands the nature of capitalism: a dynamic force that is as creative as it is destructive. Unless confronted, regulated and shaped, it undermines society and community - and crucially, its own positive aspects, as the trailblazing entrepreneur is sidelined by the monopoly corporation, and the once-thriving town centre gets killed by the faceless out-of-town mall. Moreover, if we don't regulate free markets, we end up regulating people, to force them to behave as the market desires - a fact glaringly reflected in the huge growth of the authoritarian state. Crucially, however, most regulation will increasingly have to happen at a transnational level - at the very least, via the European Union. Economic sovereignty will have to be pooled to ensure that damaging effects of capitalism are tamed. Every second of every day the bond market pools its sovereignty to destroy whole economies. This week it's Ireland, next week it is wherever they decide. This means controls on speculative capital flows and the ability to shift location and production to where taxes and labour conditions are lowest; it means coordinated corporation taxes and establishing the principle of a European minimum wage. The old social democracy never got this. Neither did it understand the demands of people for meaningful voice at their place of work. Capitalism is a tiger that we cannot ride but must tame.

New Socialism knows the state is vital but recognizes too the crisis of the bureaucratic and market state. It is Labour's grip of statism that must be broken. The New Socialism seeks to balances our need for security through the state with our right to freedom from the state. It wants a state whose scope is democratically determined and made accountable, responsive, sensitive and local through the most radical political reforms of public service this country has ever seen. A more proportional national electoral system is only one part of the change required: we have to reinvent the state from top to bottom to entrench people's involvement through the principle of co-production and the critical role of both producers and users of services. Health, education, social care and much more need to be liberated from the bureaucratic and outsourced state and reshaped accordingly, aiming at two transformative effects: creating in-built efficiencies through ongoing improvements on the frontline, and helping to make the tax case for the public sector. In the midst of the current fiscal crisis, the importance of this second element cannot be overstated.

On issue management

The Ottawa Citizen's analysis may be exactly the kind of attention needed to redirect attention in question period from news-cycle trivialities to longer-term isues. But it's well worth noting who's already leading the way on that front:

An Ottawa Citizen analysis of question period transcripts shows the opposition asked far more questions about Canada's mission in Afghanistan and government ethics than any other subjects in 2010.

The Liberals asked about ethics three times as often as they did about the economy, putting the government record on accountability ahead of questions on the G8 and G20 summits. The controversy over the post-politics antics of former Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer accounted for many of these.

The Liberals also used more of their question period time to chastise the Harper government on the elimination of the long-form census than on its management of the economy.

Afghanistan topped the list of subjects in questions from the Bloc Quebecois and the New Democrats. The NDP was the only party with health care in its top 10 questions. It also used a higher proportion of its allotted questions to ask about aboriginal issues and pensions.
...
An analysis of key words and phrases used in questions and replies also reflects different areas of concern for each party. The Liberals referred to Jaffer in about one of every 22 questions, while the Tories spoke his name in less than one of 100 replies.

The keyword analysis shows the NDP mentioned health care, child care and poverty far more than other parties. The Tories led the way with references to crime and were the most likely to cite the Liberal sponsorship scandal.

Now, I would consider it a plus that the Libs worked on keeping the census issue alive by dedicating plenty of time to it in question period - particularly since it actually represented an executive decision which was never explained to the public. But with even a modicum of hindsight, it would seem obvious that focusing on Rahim Jaffer to the exclusion of health care, child care and other serious policy issues was bound to be just as much a political loser as it was a waste of time in Parliament. And hopefully the knowledge that they'll be held accountable for the content of their questions will lead all parties to focus more on questions which they can be proud to have asked - and concurrently less on personality-based gossip.

Monday Afternoon Links

Some light reading for all those CEOs who can afford to take the rest of the year off...

- I'd like to think I haven't missed too many Con outrages over the past few years. But Emily Dee's list includes a few which had largely flown under my radar, as well as plenty of greatest hits which deserve another look.

- The CCPA makes its predictions for 2011 - though it's well worth noting how many of them are understandably based on what's all too obvious from what we've seen on the political scene in the past few years.

- Am Johal presents a prescription for the NDP in the course of deconstructing how the Harper Cons took power:

The right has rather effectively used the mantra of simplified messages like 'we'll put more money in your pocket, they'll support the bureaucracy.' When the center-left should have been pushing for democratization and local control, they were left defending bureaucracy. It was the very unionized working class members that voted NDP that were now voting for Preston Manning. The NDP became the conservatives and the Reform Party became the radicals in the early 90's. The Reform Party's biggest gains in the 1993 election were not just from Progressive Conservatives, but also from the NDP. They stole populism from the CCF'ers and gave it a distorted, anti-government storyline.

If the center-left wants to recapture the political imagination, it needs to have a critique of government as its beginning point and a defense of the Commons as its follow up. It also needs to synthesize its policy narrative down to three or four big ideas. The government isn't Santa Claus -- it can't do everything.

The NDP needs a simplified message. Re-energizing the populist base of the NDP while genuinely joining with emerging political and social movements should be the new blueprint for the NDP. At the federal level, social democrats don't need to be the majority government or even the official opposition to set the progressive agenda in the country. They do need to be winning between 50-75 seats at election time to have sufficient leverage to influence the policymaking sphere of the country. The NDP doesn't just need to move either to the left or the right in order to grow as a party or be more relevant -- they actually need to do both simultaneously to reach that level of support so it's a rather silly, cyclical debate to be having. The need to reignite their base to show up to the polls and they need to reassure a broader public universe that they can be effective, but principled managers of the economy.

- And finally, the Real News features an interview with Michael Hudson on the history of the U.S.' income tax:



But I do wonder whether there's another lesson beyond those drawn by Hudson: might the fact that the U.S. made a conscious choice to favour taxing private owners (who obviously kept a strong interest in reducing those taxes in order to bolster their own wealth) have made for a more unstable system than one which actually put more of its economy in public hands directly?