Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Frances Russell finds that authoritarianism and bozo eruptions are two of the defining characteristics of right-wing politics in Canada:

Put simply, the double standard states “ I can do it but you can’t because…” followed by a lengthy list of inequalities: because I’m better than you; because I’m older than you; because I’m smarter than you; because I’m richer than you; because I have more power than you; because I’m a man and you’re a woman;…because, because, because.

The double standard holds different people more, less, or not at all accountable for their actions according to different – and unequal – standards. The list of those standards is a roadmap to most of humanity’s ugliest traits, from discrimination against and persecution of those who are different or have the temerity to disagree with the power elite to outright social, gender-based, religious or ethnic discrimination to a desire to “stamp out the rot.”
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When it comes to lawbreakers, it’s not surprising authoritarians want to impose long prison sentences, especially if the criminal is “unsavoury” and, obviously, lacking connections in high places.

High RWAs generally believe crimes are more serious than non-authoritarians. They also believe more strongly in the efficacy of punishment. They tend to see criminals as repulsive and disgusting and admit to feeling satisfaction and pleasure at being able to punish wrongdoers.

Significantly, Altemeyer also found that high RWAs can, however, be very selective if the criminal or wrongdoer in question is an authority figure. Hence, the rock-solid and perhaps even growing support still being granted to Ford even as his troubles with the law and close connections to criminals and criminal behaviour grow.

- Meanwhile, Mark Ballard finds another prime example of the double standard at work from the UK's Conservatives, who are furiously scrubbing all references to their past statements and promises (from mirror and archive sites as well as their own website) after promising to govern openly and accountably.

- Robyn Allan discusses the blatant falsehoods behind Joe Oliver's Keystone XL spin.

- And finally, PressProgress neatly summarizes the effects of the Cons' income-splitting scheme:

The largest share of the benefit would go to high-income families where one partner is in the top tax bracket and the other has no earned income (think Leave it to Beaver). The Conservative approach to income splitting would provide no benefit at all to single-parent families – even though more than a quarter (28%) of all children live in single-parent families. The same holds true for families where both partners work and have incomes below $43,561.

 

In other words, income-splitting provides zero relief to families with children who are most in need, including those who live in poverty. Rather, what it does is transfer more of the tax burden onto single-parent families and lower- and middle-income families. It promises to exacerbate – not reduce – existing income and gender inequality.

Maybe that's the point.

On shortsighted assumptions

Time for a true or false pop quiz. Is the following a self-evident statement of economic fact?

"A capital asset which is not currently being exploited has a value of zero for all purposes."

I only ask because that seems to be the fundamental assumption behind Andrew Leach's cost-benefit analysis comparing raw bitumen mining to upgrading. And unfortunately, Leach's viewpoint seems to fit all too well with the current resource management philosophy of provincial and federal governments alike.

Here's Leach's conclusion as to a hypothetical set of developments - one involving an extraction project alone, one an attached upgrader:

On a per-barrel basis, the numbers are equally ambiguous – in fact, you’d probably say that the upgrader looks better. Revenues per barrel of bitumen extracted are higher with the upgrader, at an average of $80.80 per barrel vs. $62.93 for the mining project alone. Average costs (capital, debt, and operating costs combined) are higher for the integrated project, at $43 per barrel of bitumen produced and upgraded versus $29.15 for the mine, while royalties and taxes are similar at around $19 per barrel of produced bitumen in both cases. The result is that the upgrader earns higher cumulative cash flows, by $4.10, per barrel of bitumen produced.
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There’s also a trick in the per-barrel numbers above – the project with an upgrader earns higher cash flow per barrel, but it produces far fewer barrels—1.7 billion fewer. So, over the life of the two projects, the total royalties and taxes collected from mining and upgrading combined versus bitumen extraction alone would be lower by $36.6 billion, while the profits to the producer would be lower by $13.4 billion. Combined, for a similar capital investment and with similar associated jobs, the bitumen extraction project returns $50 billion more in royalties, taxes, and profits.

But how much of a "trick" is it to recognize that the upgrader project leaves an additional 1.7 billion barrels of oil in the ground to be produced - providing an opportunity for further development once the single proposed project is in its operations phase?

That question is particularly important in light of the Cons' usual message around oil transportation. The Harper line is of course that every drop of oil will ultimately be squeezed out of the tar sands - and if anybody questions a particular pipeline or tanker traffic scheme, the Cons will instead approve a balloon-and-catapult system to launch dilbit in the general direction of Shenzhen, with the resulting splashback covering the entire northern hemisphere to be explained away by a vigorous chant of "ethical oil!".

By the same token, if it's true that accessible tar sands reserves will ultimately be fully developed (with some public policy desire to brand Canada as an "energy superpower" serving as an excuse to bridge gaps in actual demand), then the appropriate means of evaluating the resulting benefit is precisely the per-barrel calculation rejected by Leach - even if it takes somewhat longer to get there.

Alternatively (and more plausibly), one can ask whether other developments might make further extraction uneconomical at some point in the future. But surely the risk of changed economic conditions represents at most a basis for partially discounting the value of reserves in the ground - not a valid reason to assign them a giant zero, or consider any acknowledgement of their existence as a "trick".

Unfortunately, far too many people seem willing to assume our land and resources have no value in their current state - resulting in our accepting minimal royalties and massive environmental damage as the price of immediate extraction. And while it may not be easy to assign an exact price to that which doesn't get ripped out of the ground, it's not at all difficult to see how the zero-value assumption is wrong on its face.

[Edit: fixed typo.]

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Clingy cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- George Monbiot writes that corporate control over a political system may be a huge factor in limiting public participation - even as it makes a substantial counterweight all the more important:

The political role of business corporations is generally interpreted as that of lobbyists, seeking to influence government policy. In reality they belong on the inside. They are part of the nexus of power that creates policy. They face no significant resistance, from either government or opposition, as their interests have now been woven into the fabric of all three main political parties in Britain.
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Every week we learn that systemic failures on the part of government contractors are no barrier to obtaining further work, that the promise of efficiency, improvements and value for money delivered by outsourcing and privatisation have failed to materialise.

The monitoring which was meant to keep these companies honest is haphazard, the penalties almost nonexistent, the rewards can be stupendous, dizzying, corrupting. Yet none of this deters the government. Since 2008, the outsourcing of public services has doubled, to £20bn. It is due to rise to £100bn by 2015.

This policy becomes explicable only when you recognise where power really lies. The role of the self-hating state is to deliver itself to big business. In doing so it creates a tollbooth economy: a system of corporate turnpikes, operated by companies with effective monopolies.

It's hardly surprising that the lobbying bill – now stalled by the House of Lords – offered almost no checks on the power of corporate lobbyists, while hog-tying the charities who criticise them. But it's not just that ministers are not discouraged from hobnobbing with corporate executives: they are now obliged to do so.

- Meanwhile, Don Lenihan discusses the elements we should expect to find in an accountable, responsive political system. And Michael Harris once again finds the Harper Cons feverishly eliminating any trace of those traits within their government.

- Taras Grescoe wonders whether Fort McMurray will soon join a long list of resource-bubble ghost towns. And Kelly Cryderman points out how the middle class is getting squeezed out of Calgary.

- Finally, Stephen Gorden finds that the federal balance sheet continues to include a structural deficit. Which naturally means it's time for Deficit Jim Flaherty and the Cons' lackeys to start hyping yet more gratuitous tax cuts (particularly ones with severe long-term budget impacts) to keep the red ink flowing.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Nick Pearce offers an interesting discussion of conception of equality that should be placed at the core of social-democratic thinking - with one goal in particular standing out as demanding further attention:

(S)social democrats would be more self-consciously political in pursuit of their goals, eschewing some (if not all) of the preference for legally-enshrined social policy targets that characterised the New Labour project. Instead, greater weight would be placed on building durable coalitions of support for political ambitions, widening the ground on which to advance their policies and drawing energy from new social movements. Driven by ideological rethinking and future fiscal limits towards a so-called ‘pre-distribution’ agenda, Labour is already opening up – albeit tentatively – new territory in economic policy for fresh ideas and practical coalitions. It should extend that logic more widely into social policy and political reform, thinking through how it can gain the popular support it currently lacks for tackling poverty, reforming the welfare state, and creating more integrated communities. In each of these areas, it has to find ways of converting political weakness into strength, anchoring its ambitions in new institutions, identities and practices, and in political alliances that are oriented towards the future, not given to defence of the crumbling bastions of the past.

- Meanwhile, Ian Welsh's post on how to properly define an economy offers some hints as to the types of institutions and movements which might form key parts of a progressive coalition. But the Cons are going out of their way to show they value an "economy" measured solely in terms of profit and GDP rather than the needs of Canadians.

- Yves Engler writes that CETA is best seen as attacking democratic decision-making for the benefit of monopolist rent-seekers, while Stuart Trew wonders whether the Harper Cons are legally required to make the deal public (notwithstanding their obvious preference to keep it hidden). And David Martin notes a similar corporatist bent in an impending deal between the US and the EU.

- Finally, the Globe and Mail's interactive discussion of inequality in Canada is well worth a look. But I do note that the proposed solutions are rather limited in scope - with a basic annual income for everybody (as distinct from benefits for the working poor and/or workers in precarious jobs) left off the table altogether.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- The Economist discusses research by Miles Corak and others on intergenerational inequality. And interestingly, other studies seem to suggest Corak has actually underestimated the barriers to social mobility:

THE “Great Gatsby curve” is the name Alan Krueger, an economic adviser to Barack Obama, gave to the relationship between income inequality and social mobility across the generations. Mr Krueger used the phrase in a 2012 speech to describe the work of Miles Corak of the University of Ottawa, who has shown that more unequal economies tend to have less fluid societies. Mr Corak reckons that in some places, like America and Britain, around 50% of income differences in one generation are attributable to differences in the previous generation (in more egalitarian Scandinavia, the number is less than 30%).
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As late as 2011 aristocratic surnames appear among the ranks of lawyers, considered for this purpose a high-status position, at a frequency almost six times that of their occurrence in the population as a whole. Mr Clark reckons that even in famously mobile Sweden, some 70-80% of a family’s social status is transmitted from generation to generation across a span of centuries. Other economists use similar techniques to reveal comparable immobility in societies from 19th-century Spain to post-Qing-dynasty China. Inherited advantage is detectable for a very long time.

A second method relies on the chance overrepresentation of rare surnames in high- or low-status groups at some point in the past. If very few Britons are called Micklethwait, for example, and people with that name were disproportionately wealthy in 1800, then you can gauge long-run mobility by studying how long it takes the Micklethwait name to lose its wealth-predicting power. In a paper written by Mr Clark and Neil Cummins of Queens College, City University of New York, the authors use data from probate records of 19th-century estates to classify rare surnames into different wealth categories. They then use similar data to see how common each surname is in these categories in subsequent years. Again, some 70-80% of economic advantage seems to be transmitted from generation to generation.

That said, I do wonder whether a "rare surname" starting point would pick up factors which might be better classified as relating to family reputations and connections than wealth - though the advantages presented by those factors obviously serve to create an unfair playing field as well.

- Meanwhile, Tim Dickinson notes that the wealthy in the U.S. have stacked the deck even further in their favour with the help of the Republican Party - as a massive increase in high-end incomes since 1997 hasn't been matched with much added contribution to the greater good by way of tax revenues.

- And speaking of stacked decks, Max Paris reports on the oil industry's (thus far successful) lobbying to avoid any significant greenhouse gas emission regulation.

- Crawford Kilian reviews Paul Wells' The Longer I'm Prime Minister while noting that Stephen Harper may have planted the seeds of his own demise.

- Finally, Stephen Maher points out that the Cons' attitude toward law-breaking by their own allies would be better applied to the criminal justice system in general:

The Conservatives’ tough-on-crime message, delivered at every opportunity, is a message about the criminal as other, like the late Anthony Smith and the other guys in hoodies in that photo of Ford outside a crack house. They are evildoers who need to be punished.

The Tories, like Ford himself, oppose supervised injection sites for drug users, which save lives and reduce crime. They give voters what they want: the emotional satisfaction of punishing wrongdoers.

This government has imposed mandatory minimum sentences across the board, not just on violent criminals but also on pot growers.

It sounds tough, but taking away discretion from judges costs us more, does nothing to make us safer and leads to injustices.

Consider the case of Leroy Smickle, a gainfully employed 27-year-old with no criminal record who in 2009 had the bad luck to be caught posing with a loaded handgun for a Facebook profile pic, and found himself looking at three years in prison. Ontario Superior Court Judge Anne Molloy ruled that the sentence would be “fundamentally unfair,” and declared the minimum unconstitutional. The Crown appealed, demanding that he serve his three years.

Flaherty shed tears for the Fords because he knows them and knows they’re suffering, because whatever the tawdry facts of the case, he feels for them.

We should show as much compassion for Leroy Smickle and his family.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Brendan Haley discusses how the role of government should include both a concerted effort to innovate, and a proper share of the benefits when that innovation proves successful:

To reinforce her argument, Mazzucato provides detailed histories of some of our most important innovations. She finds that throughout modern history, government has been integrally involved in directing the economy, undertaking basic research, and nurturing new technologies into the market when the private sector found it too risky to touch them. Only after governments have subsumed much of the risk do private entrepreneurs do their bit, though they often take all the credit and make off with most of the money. The most entertaining example of this practice is her review of the state's integral role in the development of the information technologies that Apple later packaged into the iPod, iPad, and iPhone.

Mazzucato worries that the current relationship between public and private entrepreneurship is a parasitic one, whereby the private sector captures the benefits of public sector work, and the public sector becomes captured by private interests. This makes it difficult for the state to play its socially valuable role of kicking off new rounds of innovation. She calls for a symbiotic innovation relationship where private entrepreneurs can continue to play their important role in commercializing innovative technologies. The place of the state, she argues, must also be recognized and given its due. Thus Mazzucato advocates for mechanisms to ensure the state receives a share of the financial awards from the innovations it helps create.
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Today, there is a special need for the Canadian government to play a more activist role. First, because the private sector is having difficulties finding the new technologies that will direct the next stages of economic progress. Corporations are holding onto hordes of money instead of undertaking new investments (the "dead money" problem), and heavily indebted consumers precariously support economic growth. The second reason we need a more activist government is because, as Mazzucato argues, the state has always been involved in leading important structural shifts in the economy. Such a structural shift is required to introduce the green technologies needed to dramatically reduce carbon emissions.

- But of course, our current slate of right-wing governments is going out of its way to try to sell their own incompetence as evidence that government can't serve the public interest - with the Cons' jobs grant debacle apparently offering a prime example.

- And both Katie Hyslop and Vaughn Palmer comment on Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond's report which found tens of millions of dollars spent on child and family services structures without actually serving children or families.

- OPSEU provides some answer as to what we should instead be pursuing (in the course of discussing the role of income as a key determinant of health):

Social inequality on this scale not only denies kids considerable opportunity in life, but leaves society worse off by denying capable individuals the ability to contribute at a much higher level.

Dunn says by the age of four the average child from a low socioeconomic background has heard 32 million fewer words than children born to professional parents. That makes a big difference in early childhood development.

Canada lags behind other countries in addressing these significant inequalities. The good news is we can learn from those who have gone before us.

Dunn says the solution lies in more inclusionary housing, more affordable housing, wrap-around cross-sectoral care, and more dense urban design that can accommodate better public amenities – including transit.

 - And finally, Barrie McKenna also takes note of the corrosive effect of inequality in Canada:

Large swaths of the country are missing out as well. There is now evidence of growing regional and postal code disparity, exacerbated by the disproportionate growth of financial services, commodities and real estate. More than half of the rising share of income that flowed to the top 1 per cent between 1982 and 2010 went to just two cities – Calgary and Toronto – according to a newly released study by economists Brian Murphy of Statistics Canada and Michael Veall of McMaster University.

The two cities are home to just 20 per cent of Canadian taxpayers. And unlike many other wealthy countries, tax policies have become less effective at reducing inequality in Canada over the past two decades, according to the OECD. That’s due to lower marginal tax rates, fewer tax credits for low-income workers and enhanced savings incentives that go mainly to higher income earners, including RRSPs and tax breaks that favour capital gains over earned income.

In the workplace, many workers have less bargaining power now than at any time in their careers, a consequence of declining unionization, persistent labour surpluses and increased foreign competition.
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Why should Canadians care? It isn’t just a question of fairness. It’s about the long-term health of the economy, and society.
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(G)reater inequality may make financial crises more likely as lower income-earners borrow more and save less in a race to keep up with the lifestyles of those at the top. The massive run-up in Canadians’ ratio of household debt to income in recent years suggests many families are chasing a dream they can’t afford.

Inequality is also linked to poorer health outcomes and higher rates of crime and social unrest. Even in Canada, low-income earners are less likely to have a family doctor and to seek early treatment for medical problems.

The result: poorer health for those at the bottom of the income scale – a trend that can exact a heavy economic toll through lost productivity and higher health care bills.

Musical interlude

Mat Zo - Fractal Universe

Friday Morning 'Rider Blogging

Obviously the final two games of the 2013 regular season didn't go the Saskatchewwn Roughriders' way. But they did seem to offer a clear indication what the 'Riders will need to do in order to advance in the playoffs.

For the 'Riders' defence, the issue the last couple of weeks seems to have been largely one of timing. In the first half against Calgary, the defensive line was able to anticipate many of the Stampeders' plans (particularly in reaching Kevin Glenn just as he was deciding on a course of action), resulting in four fumbles which gave Saskatchewan an early advantage. But when Drew Tate took control, the 'Riders had to contend with a more mobile quarterback in the absence of the same amount of preparation to anticipate his habits - and Tate was able to keep the 'Riders off balance just enough to pull out the win.

Likewise, while Mike Reilly managed to scramble his way into field goal range on a couple of first-half drives, the Eskimos' offence scored its lone touchdown with third-stringer Jonathan Crompton at the controls.

All of which sets up a rather noteworthy test against the Lions. Saskatchewan dominated its two previous previous matchups with Thomas DeMarco and Buck Pierce at the helm, but the Lions now have Travis Lulay back in the lineup. And it's worth watching whether any any variations from his usual timing actually work to the Lions' advantage.

On the offensive side of the ball, the 'Riders' passing game was once again iffy in both games to close out the regular season. But the promise of a healthy offensive line offers reason for hope the 'Riders' ruchin gattack can return to its early-season form - particularly as Chris Garrett's strong performance at running back against Edmonton coincided with the return of Chris Best.

If the defence and the running game can live up to the standards they've set earlier this season, then Darian Durant should be able to play it safe through the air - a major plus with one of his favourite targets at something less than full strength. But it's far from clear whether the 'Riders can keep up if they're forced into a shootout - and now isn't the time for that kind of guesswork.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- John Ivison makes the case for more discussion of government spending rather than corruption and scandal. But it's PressProgress leading the way in actually reporting on that front - featuring revelations that multiple resource-related ministers' office have received massive spending boosts, while program spending for First Nations, the environment and foreign aid is getting slashed and/or going unused.

- Justin Ling reports that the NDP - pushed largely by Pierre Ducasse - is taking much-needed steps to set up a Quebec provincial wing. Meanwhile, Paul McLeod notes that Nova Scotia's MPs - with the possible exception of Peter Stoffer - are taking a pass on the provincial NDP leadership race.

- Andrew Coyne points out that the supposed B.C.-Alberta "framework agreement" on pipelines actually means far less than one would think based on the hype surrounding its announcement. But Barbara Yaffe recognizes that Christy Clark's sudden abandonment of repeated campaign promises to avoid the environmental risk linked to pipelines and tanker traffic doesn't figure to satisfy B.C.'s general public.

- And ultimately, political parties will have to answer to voters for their choices - as the Libs are finding out in Toronto Centre despite their best efforts to duck any debate about pipelines.

- Finally, Tom Hayden wonders whether Bill de Blasio's strong positions on inequality and evidence-based crime policy might signal a new form of progressive populism:

De Blasio also can tackle income inequality by signing the living wage ordinance on city contracts, or by preventing Wall Street developers getting special city abatements – measures that Bloomberg vetoed. De Blasio didn't flinch on the issue when confronted in closed meetings with developers during the campaign.

When De Blasio first raised his opposition to the police stop-and-frisk policies, according to Vincent Warren of the Center for Constitutional Rights, the candidate began rising in the polls against other contenders in the Democratic primary. The stop-and-frisk policy, a variation of racial profiling against black and brown young people, is generally supported by white and worried New Yorkers and overwhelmingly opposed by communities of color.
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It is reassuring that De Blasio has roots in past social movements instead of the usual pedigrees for a political career. If he has veered back to his lefty roots, it is enabled by a popular anger among voters. This anger was fanned by the growing gap between the haves and have-nots, reinforced by heavy-handed policing, in a city whose power brokers are addicted to opulence.

The media widely acknowledges that Occupy Wall Street "changed the conversation" in America. De Blasio won't represent the 99%, but a healthy majority will do. From Wednesday, Bill de Blasio will have the largest megaphone of any conversation-changer on the national scene.

New column day

Here, on how P3 structures create a divergence of interest between short-sighted governments and the general public - and a few policy fixes to ensure we don't lose value or accountability as a result of politically-motivated choices to use them.

For further reading...
- The Saskatchewan NDP introduced its P3 accountability legislation (PDF) here.
- And Murray Mandryk has some questions of his own about the Saskatchewan Party's reluctance to subject P3s to any oversight or accountability.

[Edit: added link.]

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Tim Harper discusses Stephen Harper's current list of distractions - with Rob Ford and his Senate appointees naturally topping the list. But sadly, while John Ivison may be right in noting that actual citizens are having trouble getting the Cons to bother administering federal programs, the combination of scandal and dishonesty doesn't seem to be slowing down their anti-worker omnibus legislation in the slightest.

- On the Senate front, Scott Stelmaschuk compares the Duffy payoff and cover-up to the long-forgotten Chuck Cadman scandal - with the key differences in exposing the story being that Duffy both took the Cons' offer, and managed to document some of the dealings in writing. And Michael Harris points to Helena Guergis as a cautionary tale for anybody hoping to curry Harper's favour.

- Meanwhile, Rinaldo Walcott sees Ford as an ugly example of selective privilege. And John Cruickshank discusses the challenges facing the media in dealing with Ford and others who have no qualms about lying to the public - while hinting that the Star may be more willing to highlight false messages as an integral part of news coverage:

Journalistic fairness says subjects have a right to comment in stories about them. The Supreme Court of Canada insists this is indispensible to responsible journalism.

The Toronto Star has repeatedly quoted Ford denying the existence of a damaging drug video. We have quoted him denying that he has smoked crack cocaine.

But our reporters had seen the notorious cocaine video and knew that he was seeking to deceive Torontonians.

Were we unfair to our readers in allowing the mayor to practise his deceptions on them? Are journalism’s conventions too restrictive in an era when some leaders use lies and manipulative spin as basic tools to tighten their grip on power?
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The Star has begun a practice of documenting factual errors in accounts of the mayor’s economic claims. This, in itself, is a departure from usual journalistic practice in which the fact-checking or “reality check” function is separated from the news coverage.

Until now, we have not questioned the mayor’s motives in providing the citizens with false news in our stories.

We have let him make his case as we would any news subject.

But the mayor has made all the Toronto media agents of his deceptive propaganda. And this can’t help but further erode the trust Torontonians place in politicians and the media.

- Finally, Jared Milne's detailed discussion of Red Toryism in Canada is well worth a read - even if I'm dubious about his claim that Stephen Harper has done much of anything to conform to its principles. 

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Cats claiming territory.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- George Monbiot discusses how another corporate investment agreement - this time one between Europe and the U.S. patterned after CETA - will transfer yet more power from people and their elected governments to corporate elites:

The purpose of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is to remove the regulatory differences between the US and European nations. I mentioned it a couple of weeks ago. But I left out the most important issue: the remarkable ability it would grant big business to sue the living daylights out of governments which try to defend their citizens. It would allow a secretive panel of corporate lawyers to overrule the will of parliament and destroy our legal protections. Yet the defenders of our sovereignty say nothing.
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You don't believe it? Here's what one of the judges on these tribunals says about his work. "When I wake up at night and think about arbitration, it never ceases to amaze me that sovereign states have agreed to investment arbitration at all ... Three private individuals are entrusted with the power to review, without any restriction or appeal procedure, all actions of the government, all decisions of the courts, and all laws and regulations emanating from parliament."

There are no corresponding rights for citizens. We can't use these tribunals to demand better protections from corporate greed. As the Democracy Centre says, this is "a privatised justice system for global corporations".

Even if these suits don't succeed, they can exert a powerful chilling effect on legislation. One Canadian government official, speaking about the rules introduced by the North American Free Trade Agreement, remarked: "I've seen the letters from the New York and DC law firms coming up to the Canadian government on virtually every new environmental regulation and proposition in the last five years. They involved dry-cleaning chemicals, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, patent law. Virtually all of the new initiatives were targeted and most of them never saw the light of day." Democracy, as a meaningful proposition, is impossible under these circumstances.

- Don Lenihan comments on the importance of honesty and transparency in government. But since that would require massive changes of policy and political fortune when it comes to corporate dominance of politics (to say nothing of climate change, the Senate and other issues), I'm not optimistic we can expect much from our current ruling class - particularly when it's successfully rigged the tax system in its favour.

- So instead, we can expect plenty more dishonest attacks on anybody trying to build a fairer and more representative society. On that front, Robyn Benson highlights the Cons' attacks on public service workers, while Josh Eidelson points out some all-too-typical employer intimidation and "re-education" tactics.

- Finally, Mark Rank counters the right-wing effort to demonize the poor by observing that upwards of 80% of Americans will face poverty or other related forms of income insecurity at some point in their lives. And the push toward ever more precarious employment only figures to boost that number in the long run.

On false promises

Last week, I linked to this story on the cost of prescription drugs under CETA. But let's follow up on another aspect of the giveaway to big pharma which might sound fairly familiar:

Russell Williams of R&D Canada, which represents the brand-name drug industry, questioned whether it was possible to estimate cost increases because it is impossible to predict what new drugs will hit the market a decade from now.

“Nobody knows what the prices will be. Nobody can predict a 2023 scenario with any credibility,” he said.

He also disputed that the changes will have no impact of investment by the industry, saying spending on research and development shot through the roof after 1987, the last time Ottawa made significant changed (sic) to patent protection.

Now, I'll leave it to others to assess whether it's accurate to say that there haven't been any significant changes to patent protection in the past 25 years (other than the Cons making clear that they'd be happy to stick Canadians with higher drug prices under CETA itself). But it's easy enough to assess Williams' spin against another major giveaway:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government quietly unveiled controversial new regulations Wednesday that will extend market protection for some drugs produced by brand name firms in a move critics predict will lead to higher costs for consumers and provinces already facing skyrocketing medicare bills.

The new rules, which took effect earlier this month, increase exclusive selling rights for all brand name drugs to eight years from five, with an additional six months of protection granted to drugs involved in pediatric studies.

The change will affect 25 per cent of manufactured drugs those that are not protected by the usual 20-year patents that exist on the majority of pharmaceuticals.
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If the changes had been in effect over the last five years, it would have meant an additional $600 million in drug costs and blocked companies from producing generic versions of about 20 drugs, including Zoloft, Pravachol, Wellbutrin and Celexa, he said.

 So did big pharma tell the Cons not to expect any return on that freebie? Let's go to the tape...

However, the association representing Canada's research-based pharmaceutical companies said the regulatory changes will serve to put Canada in line with other countries and will be an incentive for companies to produce new and innovative drugs here.

"I think this is an important step in bringing in new medicines, innovative new medicines for patients and it will help Canada become much more competitive on the global scene," said Russell Williams, the president of Canada's Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies.

At best, one can try to parse Williams' words by saying that "important" might be less than "significant", or that he had some definitive of "competitive" in mind other than the R & D spending which hasn't materialized in the meantime.

But the more plausible reading is this: big pharma happily accepted free money and claimed the result would be greater investment in research, development and production. It then pocketed that free money without contributing anything in return (other than an avoidable drug shortage which boosted its own profits even further). And now, it's editing that generosity out of the historical record - while claiming we have to increase the giveaway tenfold in order to see the benefits it promised last time.

Which is to say that we shouldn't expect for a second that the latest handover to big pharma will result in anything for the public. And the fact the Cons haven't learned any lesson should serve as reason to question their competence in agreeing to CETA in the first place.

Monday Morning Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- The CP reports on the latest federal-provincial discussion about pensions. And as is so often the case, all parties at the table seem to agree that there's an important problem to be fixed - even as Brad Wall, Stephen Harper and others stand firmly in the way of any actual change to ensure a more secure retirement for Canadians.

- Gerald Caplan wonders whether the Cons' base will give up on Harper, while Dan Leger thinks it's Harper himself who should start turning his loyalties elsewhere. But Andrew Coyne offers up the definitive take on the Cons coming out of their closed-door Calgary convention - even if he's a little ways behind the curve in noticing some cultish tendencies:

But the impression was that of a party closing in on itself, of a leadership that accepts no blame for the depths into which the party has sunk, but that sees itself as wholly the victim of outside enemies. As a short-term strategy for preserving internal unity, this has its uses. The problem is that the list of enemies keeps growing, and as it grows, starts to include more and more of the party’s staunchest supporters. Some of the prime minister’s closest confidants and advisers are now on the list, from Tom Flanagan to — the scapegoat of the month — Nigel Wright.
...
Thus the Conservative tragedy grinds on. When your only principle is paranoia — when your central organizing proposition is that “everyone is out to get us” — when every criticism is merely confirmation of the essential rightness of that proposition, and every deviation is evidence of disloyalty, then you are less a party than a cult.

I don’t say that is what the party has become. But it is an early warning sign in any group when its members are required to cut themselves off from the outside world.

- It will surely come as a shock - particularly for those paid to pretend otherwise - to learn that supposedly unbreachable containment ponds may not live up to their billing. And Robyn Allan discusses the cynical manipulation behind Christy Clark's attempt to sell pipelines and tanker traffic by telling British Columbians their only other choice is even more hazardous transport of tar sand products by rail.

- Finally, Stuart Trew discusses Canada's sudden and unexpected ratification of rules taking yet more power out of the hands of governments and open courts to better serve the interests of transnational corporations.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Stephany Griffith-Jones points out the lack of any coherent argument against a Robin Hood tax on financial transactions - and the public support when political parties actually raise it for debate:

Major financial sectors such as the United States, Hong Kong and South Korea already have FTTs which together raise tens of billions in revenue annually without causing economic damage. In the UK we have the very successful stamp duty, an FTT on share transactions that raises more than £3bn a year, of which 40% is paid by foreign-based investors and banks. It too rightly taxes all those trading UK shares, wherever they are based. This is the same principle on which the European FTT will be based.

Fortunately, the European commission is clearly supportive of the proposal, as is the European parliament. Eleven European countries, representing 66% of European GDP, remain committed to implementing the tax.

It is encouraging that in coalition talks between the German SPD and CDU, they achieved clear consensus on the FTT. This is not surprising, as in Germany 82% of citizens, according to Euro-barometer, support a European FTT. In France this figure reaches 72%, and the EU average is 64%. Let's hope politicians elsewhere will listen to their voters and fully implement the tax soon.

- Brian Topp draws a connection (as I've done before) between the caucus fraud scandal of the Grant Devine PCs and the Harper Cons' Senate abuses. And Haroon Siddiqui finds a disturbing number of similarities between Harper and Rob Ford in their common demonization of anybody who would question their laughable claims to infallibility.

- Meanwhile, Chantal Hebert sees the Cons' convention as a missed opportunity to propose and push a national Senate referendum.

- Finally, Bruce Livesey writes that the NSA's surveillance has little to do with security, and almost everything to do with the pursuit of economic advantage:

During the Cold War, signals intelligence agencies focused mostly on the Soviet Union and its satellites and allies. But with the collapse of the Soviet bloc, these agencies needed a new raison d’etre. In my 1998 Financial Post piece, I detailed how these agencies were now focusing on economic targets, such as spying on countries to glean information that would give them an advantage in trade talks, or allow multinationals to garner business deals to the detriment of their foreign competitors. “We were all looking at other ways of earning our living other than military and political intelligence,” Mike Frost, a former CSE operative who spent 18 years with the agency, told me when I was researching the Post story. “It was just a given we would be looking at economic things. We thought there was nothing wrong with this.”

For example, the CSE spied on South Korea while Canada was attempting to sell $6 billion worth of CANDU nuclear reactors to that country (presumably to ensure the deal went through). And it spied on Mexico during the 1992-93 NAFTA talks, again to garner advantages in those discussions.

In the current scandal over the NSA, it’s clear that the real intention of the agency’s spying on America’s so-called allies like Germany, Brazil, France and Spain, is solely for economic purposes. After all, these are not countries that are hotbeds of Islamic or al Qaeda terrorism that would justify this level of espionage.
...
Today, intelligence agencies can pretend that all of their spying is to hunt down “terrorists” in our midst. In reality, their entire function is to further the interests of capital, even if it means trampling our privacy and civil rights in the process.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Thomas Walkom notes that the Harper Cons' latest EI cuts look to amplify the pain of unemployment in Ontario while serving the broader purpose of forcing workers to conclude their federal government doesn't care if they go hungry:

The great irony is that these days hardly any jobless qualify for EI to begin with.

Latest figures from Statistics Canada show that only 37.6 per cent of unemployed Canadians qualified for employment insurance in August.

In part, that’s because the nature of work is changing. More people have the kind of jobs (such as self-employment) that EI was never designed to address.

But as a 1998 federal study found, about half of the gap is the result of earlier employment insurance reforms put in place by Jean Chretien’s Liberal government.

Now the Harper Tories are making their own effort to eliminate what is left of EI.

The strategy is quite simple: Destroy whatever political support exists for employment insurance by making the benefit almost impossible to collect.

The aim is equally straightforward: Crush any social program that interferes with the downward pressure on wages.

- And Paul Krugman discusses the Republicans' war on the poor south of the border:

I still sometimes see pundits claiming that the Tea Party movement is basically driven by concerns about budget deficits. That’s delusional. Read the founding rant by Rick Santelli of CNBC: There’s nary a mention of deficits. Instead, it’s a tirade against the possibility that the government might help “losers” avoid foreclosure. Or read transcripts from Rush Limbaugh or other right-wing talk radio hosts. There’s not much about fiscal responsibility, but there’s a lot about how the government is rewarding the lazy and undeserving.

 Republicans in leadership positions try to modulate their language a bit, but it’s a matter more of tone than substance. They’re still clearly passionate about making sure that the poor and unlucky get as little help as possible, that — as Representative Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, put it — the safety net is becoming “a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency.” And Mr. Ryan’s budget proposals involve savage cuts in safety-net programs such as food stamps and Medicaid.

All of this hostility to the poor has culminated in the truly astonishing refusal of many states to participate in the Medicaid expansion. Bear in mind that the federal government would pay for this expansion, and that the money thus spent would benefit hospitals and the local economy as well as the direct recipients. But a majority of Republican-controlled state governments are, it turns out, willing to pay a large economic and fiscal price in order to ensure that aid doesn’t reach the poor.

- Andrew Coyne highlights the sheer lack of substance in Harper's convention speech, while Tabatha Southey imagines the difficulties facing a hotel trying to take Harper's room service order. And Stephen LaRose documents the connection between Brad Wall and Pamela Wallin - featuring a series of promises to lead the way toward Senate elections, coupled with an utter refusal to follow through when it meant ceding an inch of political advantage.

- The Toronto Star questions whether the green bonds being pushed by Ontario's Libs make sense as a transit strategy on their own. But Mike Moffatt raises more important questions as to whether they make sense at all - since they seem to do little other than impose extra costs on a government financing regime which is already the most efficient means of funding infrastructure.

- Finally, David Atkins points back to the positive, community-based message sent to the world (and indeed the universe) by the U.S.' leaders just a few decades ago - and asks what we've lost if it's out of place in our current political climate:

The tone and message of (Jimmy Carter's statement sent in the Voyager) should strike the modern reader as oddly optimistic and daringly progressive. It clearly assumes that the modern nation-state is a temporary and anachronistic step on the way to a global civilization. It assumes that "our problems" such as poverty, illness and the like can, should and will be solved. It assumes that, much as the nation-state will be subsumed into a global civilization, so too will the denizens of Earth hopefully take our place in a greater galactic community.

It's a profoundly hopeful and inspiring message. It's also one that would sadly likely never be written today by a sitting President.
...
When the Left talks about how far the national conversation has shifted to the Right, this is what we mean. In spite of huge advances in civil rights, we live in a political society where sentiments such as those we placed on Voyager seem anachronistic and almost shockingly liberal.

That's a problem. It means that we as a society, as a culture and as a civilization, are making a headlong retreat from what makes us human, from what binds us to one another, and from what will ultimately drive us forward toward a successful future if we are to share one at all.

And for what? So that billionaires can steal more money while stoking jingoistic sentiments so that no one notices the optimism we have lost? That's shameful and inhuman.

Musical interlude

Brainbug - Rain

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- David Green asks whether decades of corporate insistence on "flexible" labour markets (i.e. ones which offer no stability for workers) have resulted in the improved wages promised at the outset:

Increased wages are how we share the benefits of economic growth among a wide range of people in our society. It’s hard to see the fairness in policies that seek to stamp out wage increases wherever possible.

But this raises the second question – has the policy of increased labour market flexibility worked? Has it delivered a better life for most Canadians?

The short answer is no. To answer this more fully, we have to cut the data by region. Between 1980 and the early 2000’s the economy performed badly in terms of real wages. Real wages fell for both men and women starting a new job and whose highest education was a high school diploma or less (an education group making up about 50% of the male labour force). For males, real wages fell by nearly 20% in virtually all provinces.

Since the mid-2000s, real wages in Ontario and the East have essentially stagnated so that workers entering new jobs are making less in real terms than their fathers did 30 years before. One could argue that the wages haven’t gotten worse since the mid-90s paradigm shift but its hard to see how the new paradigm is delivering in terms of wages in this part of the country.

In the West, and particularly Alberta, the story is different. Real wages have risen dramatically since the mid-2000s. Though, so far, that has only gotten workers back to about the real wage levels their fathers earned. It would be hard to argue that these increases are due to the policy shift. They have much more to do with global resource price movements that are beyond the influence of Canadian policy. 

- Zoe Williams discusses how a privatized probation system in the UK is expected to raise costs and produce worse outcomes. But presumably nobody's supposed to worry about the public paying more for less - as long as somebody makes money off of social ills.

- Jeffrey Simpson calls out the Cons for their false spin about greenhouse gas emissions (even as their own numbers show they're breaking promises to rein in emissions by the day).

- And finally, Adnan Al-Daini discusses the madness of basing our economy on never-ending growth. But I'll  note that it's worth distinguishing between types of growth which are inherently limited (such as those based on the extraction of finite resources) and those based on renewable and human resources which might not face the same constraints - with the latter offering a feasible means of maintaining sustainable improvement in standards of living.

New column day

Here, on the combination of institutional and personal flaws that's combined to create the Stephen Harper Senate scandal.

For further reading...
- CBC reproduces the documents tabled by Mike Duffy in the Senate here.
- The Senate debates featuring the defences of Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau can be found here.
- PressProgress reminds us what the Cons said about the residency of Duffy and Wallin just a few months ago, while Jordan Press and Kirsten Smith offer a partial timeline (if one which ignores the fact that the controversy dated back to 2008). And it was Press who reported on the Cons' "boot camp" in which appointees were encouraged to use Senate resources for political purposes.
- Jonathan Kay suggests that the main problem with the Senate is a complete lack of any moral or merit-based claim to the power associated with a chamber of Parliament.
- And Paul Adams concludes that whatever else happens as the scandal unfolds, Harper's reputation for strategic and tactical thought is in ruins.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Don Braid comments on Alberta's complete lack of credibility when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental issues. And Andrew Leach nicely sums up the PC/Con position in trying to put a happy face on growing emissions:

Suppose you run into an old friend whom you haven’t seen for some time. You notice that he looks a little thicker than you remembered around the waist, but, since you aren’t one of those academics who shuns basic manners, you keep mum.

“How are you doing?” you say, “What’s new?”

His response leaves you shocked: “I feel great!” he tells you, “I’ve lost 20 pounds.”

Despite your best efforts, you can’t hide your scepticism.

“It’s simple, really,” he says. “On the path I was on — eating chicken wings and drinking beer almost every day — I would surely have gained 40 pounds in no time. I stuck to my plan, though, and by having wings and beer only on weekends, I gained a mere 20 pounds. Who would have thought you could drink beer, eat chicken wings, and still lose weight!”

Sounds like an absurd calculation, doesn’t it? This type of thinking, though, is the bread-and-butter of discussions about greenhouse gas policies — it’s called a reduction relative to business-as-usual.

- And for those looking for a way out of Canada's staples trap which has done to much to distort discussion about economic and environmental issues, Daniel Drache offers a road map - if one that may not be easily followed:

In Canada, we must build a very different policy environment to escape the modern staples trap and address the imbalances of fixed overhead costs, mountains of debt, and over-investment in unsustainable mega projects. Other countries have successfully climbed out of the staples trap, altering their economic trajectories. A survey of this experience suggests that seven conditions need to be met.

First, there must be a champion inside the political class to make it happen: such as a latter day Walter Gordon or Eric Kierans. Second, there must be a strategic purpose and moral compass for environmental and redistributive goals. Third, the country must possess a valuable commodity that gives the state the leverage to negotiate new resource revenue sharing with MNCs (revenues which in turn are recycled to support broader development goals). Fourth, the country needs a modern infrastructure. Fifth, public opinion must be on side to demand fundamental policy changes. Sixth, there need to be credible new ideas to transform the “resource curse” into a blessing. This requires a strategy to use resources as a driver of domestic growth and diversification, competitive industries, and strong job-creation. The final ingredient, of course, is luck. Here, timing is key: the optimal moment to introduce a national energy policy is during the upswing of a commodity boom, when the state has optimal leverage with banks and resource players.

- Ethan Roeder explains how the Obama 2012 campaign used detailed data analysis to get a better picture of voters than its competition.

- CUPE discusses how the Cons continue to keep Canadians in the dark about CETA by substituting for its actual text. And Julian Beltrame reports on a study showing that the added prescription drug costs caused by CETA will far outweigh any reductions in tariffs (not to mention that the increased price will flow to big pharma rather than toward public coffers).

- Finally, Sean Holman introduces a new series testing the limits of government accountability in Canada:

It's easy to disagree with such opacity -- making it easy, as Legault has, to conclude that freedom of information is the expression of our core values.

Yet I wonder how many Canadians would disagree with the assumption that privacy is necessary for decision-making?

Because once you accept that assumption, as many of our political leaders have, it becomes easier to reject requests for information about such decisions.

What that says about our core values is admittedly debatable. It suggests freedom of information is not an expression of those values or, at the very least, that we have conflicting values.

But what's undeniable is that at the beginning of the 21st century, we find ourselves residents of an unknowable country.

It is a nation of the governed rather than the self-governed -- a place where transparency is routinely sacrificed on the high altar of peace, order and what some would call good governance.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Thomas Walkom writes that the Harper Cons' much-hyped economic record in fact offers ample reason to demand a change in government:

The Conservatives insist that the economy is their strong suit. And for a while it was. In 2011, voters bought Harper’s pitch.

But voter patience can last only so long. For too many Canadians, life is not improving. Income gaps are becoming more blatant. Wages are sluggish. Students are taking on massive debts to prepare themselves for jobs that, in the end, fail to materialize.

Those lucky enough to have jobs — even good jobs — too often find their work being sent offshore to low-wage countries.

Other Canadians find themselves in competition with the tens of thousands of temporary foreign workers let in by Ottawa.

Latest immigration department figures show that, to date, more temporary foreign workers entered the country in 2013 than during the same period of 2012 — itself a record year for importing cheap labour.

These are the things that should worry Harper.

- But then, Michael Harris discusses how ethics issues - led by the combination of bribery and cover-ups in the Senate - will likely prove the undoing of Stephen Harper and his government. John Ivison recognizes that the Cons are flailing for a political lifeline as Thomas Mulcair gets the better of Harper in the House of Commons on a daily basis - though I'm at a loss as to how a Senate referendum would help their cause when it's the NDP that's decried patronage and corruption under Lib and Con governments alike. And Jeffrey Simpson points out that nothing in the Cons' latest string of scandals and missteps is anything new.

- And lest anybody think the elected Cons are any more ethical than the unelected versions, pogge highlights the latest revelations about Dean Del Mastro's attempt to cover up illegal election expenses.

- Stephen Leahy is rightly outraged that the Cons are trying to claim a complete failure to meet Canada's Copenhagen greenhouse gas emission targets as progress. And Stuart Trew criticizes the continued lack of transparency on CETA - as the Cons try to claim victory without allowing Canadians to see what's actually happened on the field.

- Finally, Don Lenihan sees more open government as the needed solution to citizen disengagement.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Solitary cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- James Bloodworth discusses the most important challenge facing Ed Miliband and Labour in the UK - which largely matches the task for progressives around the globe:

People have never put all that much stock in politicians of course, and the expenses scandal did a great deal to erode trust further. But to some extent voter apathy (not the ‘frauds and liars’ sort, but the more common sort of fatalism) might also be blamed on the limits within which today’s managerial politicians operate: voters are only too aware that there is only so much today’s politicians can do, therefore they don’t put much faith in those they elect (if they vote at all) to change things.

For better or worse, most questions today tend to be decided ultimately and by all three parties on the basis of what works best for ‘the market’. It is not a question of what you would like the government to do, it is a question of what government can do without creating ‘instability’ in that market.
...
Even popular policies which propose modest corrections to market distortions are viewed with fatalism by an electorate which doubts the ability of politicians to make a real difference.

In convincing the electorate to back not only his energy policy but also his party’s whole cost of living agenda, Ed Miliband is tasked not only with drowning out the rhetoric from the Conservative Party and the right-wing press, but also with persuading a sceptical electorate that government can intervene in the market to create better outcomes.

To say that this won’t be easy would be an understatement: Miliband is not only taking on some of the most powerful people in Britain, he is pushing back against a public fatalism about the power of government that has been some 30 years in the making.

- Which is to say that we shouldn't go too far in accepting Andrew Coyne's assertion that the Cons' Senate scandal serves to indict an entire system of government. But the combination of bribes and partisan cover-ups does signal the problem with both an illegitimate, unaccountable upper chamber, and a Prime Minister who's conspicuously avoided finding or telling the truth about his government's actions.

- The Star highlights the futility of declaring that the Cons' ritual flagellation of First Nations schools will continue until morale improves.

- Rick Salutin tells one story of the type of immigrants Canada stands to lose if it measures immigrants solely in terms of dollar values.

- Finally, Matt McClure reports on Alberta's disastrous attempt to bundle the construction of multiple schools into a single P3 contract - which looks to have failed entirely due to a lack of bidders. And Murray Mandryk rightly questions the Sask Party's insistence on following a similar path even when it figures to cost an extra $10 million per school.

By invitation only

There's been plenty of outcry over the Cons' latest omnibus budget bill. But I haven't yet seen any discussion of the changes it makes to immigration - and I'd think it's well worth looking in more detail at the additional steps the Cons are taking to slam the door in the face of would-be Canadians.

Now, the story is far from a new one. It was in 2008 that the Cons made changes which I discussed here and here - with the result that the immigration minister is effectively free to set whatever restrictions he or she wants in determining which applications for permanent residency are processed.

But the latest bill goes a step further. While current law provides that ministerial instructions govern applications actually received, the new provisions allow the minister to prohibit economic-class immigrants from even applying - again based on nothing more than arbitrary whims:

10.1 (1) A foreign national who seeks to enter or remain in Canada as a member of a class that is referred to in an instruction given under paragraph 10.3(1)(a) may make an application for permanent residence only if the Minister has issued them an invitation to do so, the invitation has not been cancelled under subsection 10.2(5) and the applicable period specified in an instruction given under paragraph 10.3(1)(k) has not expired.

Again, the nature of an "instruction" is left entirely up to the minister responsible (see section 10.3(1)(a)). So the Cons are once again setting the stage for discrimination by ethnicity, nationality or religion - or even based on criteria designed to filter out anybody who's not likely to prove a Con voter. (Or to be about as generous as possible, we can expect the few people who receive invitations to be those singled out and pushed for by the business community - again turning the immigration system into nothing more than a means of hand-picking a few corporate cronies or easily-exploited workers while locking the door to everybody else.)

And this time, the Cons aren't merely backing that discrimination up with a refusal to process existing applications, but with an explicit declaration any effort to become a permanent Canadian resident to is illegitimate in the first place. Which means it's well worth asking whether "don't call us, we'll call you if an employer tells us" properly reflects our attitude toward people who want to contribute to Canada's future.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

Monday Morning Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- Frances Russell discusses the dangers of Stephen Harper's authoritarian democracy. And Michael Harris takes note of Harper's decision to mete out career executions to his own Senate appointees based on exactly the same evidence he once declared to be fully exculpatory.

- Dan Moutal points out Mike Tobis' spectrum of positions on climate change as compared to how the issue is covered. And in a related story that doesn't tend to receive anywhere near an appropriate amount of attention, CBC documents over a thousand Canadian pipeline safety incidents over the past 10 years, while looking to crowdsource the details.

- Chris Aylward comments on the Cons' decision to make federal workplaces less safe.

- Ian Welsh laments the relative failure of the progressive blog movement to achieve its potential to influence the broader political scene. But I'll note that a couple of additional factors seem to deserve mention: a tendency for progressives to be less oriented than conservatives toward taking the word of elite gatekeepers rather than preferring peer-to-peer communication in the first place, combined with the availability of more opportunities to bypass gatekeepers through social media at the same time that the Democrats were ideally positioned to build popular support.

- Finally, the Broadbent Institute's newly-launched PressProgress looks to be a must-read source for both original coverage of Canadian politics, and a thorough roundup of progressive content.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Andrew Nikiforuk writes that air quality in Alberta's Upgrader Alley may be among the worst in North America, including dangerous concentrations of cancer-causing chemicals. And Danny Harvey points out that the planet as a whole stands to be damaged by excessive tar sands development which is utterly incompatible with meaningful action to combat climate change.

- Andrew Jackson discusses how preferential tax treatment of stock options both exacerbates inequality and warps incentives for big business:

One objectionable aspect of paying already well-remunerated executives in the form of stock options on top of their salaries and bonuses is that the gains are not taxed as ordinary wage and salary income, but as if they were capital gains. In other words, just 50% of the windfall from exercising an option is liable to income tax, even though tax experts argue that there is no risk of a loss, but only of a small or no gain.
...
Moreover, stock prices vary widely over time rather than being directly related to profitability or other indicators of company performance. As much as anything else, they reflect the overall state of the economy as filtered though the expectations of markets and the upswings and downswings of speculation.
 
Even worse, Martin argues, stock options give senior managers a perverse incentive to boost short-term stock performance so that they can be in the money when their options are about to come due. Short-terms (sic) expectations which move markets are subject to manipulation.

As a result, stock options generally encourage short-term horizons and game playing with stock market expectations at the expense of boosting long-term corporate performance through major new investments and other determinants of company performance in the real economy.

- Scott Clark and Peter De Vries point out that the Cons' latest omnibus budget bill is just another attack on the concept of a functional parliamentary system. But perhaps more telling is the fact that the Cons are using the latest bill which they refuse to have properly analyzed to fix mistakes in a previous set of bills they rammed through without proper review - raising the question of whether those mistakes (obvious to others at the time and to the Cons in hindsight) could be avoided if Stephen Harper would countenance some reasonable debate and amendment opportunities in the first place.

- Marty Klinkenberg reports on musings that the Cons will reintroduce an expanded temporary foreign worker program as soon as they get the chance.

- And finally, Shahla Khan Salter writes that Canadians should take notice of the abuse of First Nations rather than allowing our shameful track record to be swept under the rug:

First Nations communities across Canada are uniting, in the struggle to maintain and preserve their land from environmental destruction, as corporations remove resources on native land with our governments' blessing. In doing so, they are also working to save their individual and treaty rights from further deterioration.

A movement has taken hold. It arose amidst the apathy and racism of mainstream Canadian society that surrounds First Nations people wherever they go.

It arose notwithstanding the torturous abuse First Nations people withstood as children and youth at Canada's residential schools which took place during the course of my generation and previous generations. The after effects of the abuse continue to haunt communities.

It is a movement that exists despite the poverty that indigenous people face daily.

It is a movement that has gained strength notwithstanding the challenges First Nations communities face as a result of addiction, violence and suicide.

And it has been born to oppose a system, instituted by our governments, who remove native control of resources on reserve land and continuously fail to deliver basic necessities such as food, water, adequate shelter and education to First Nations families.
...
As the children of immigrants, it is not our role, no matter how many connections we may make between the injustices we face anywhere and the injustices they face here, to provide the sort of support that may deny, in any way, the existence of qualified leadership within First Nations communities.

We can only stand in solidarity behind our First Nations friends and in doing so, open our eyes to the corporate greed, environmental damage and the breakdown of civil liberties that will soon affect us all. And convey our thanks for the land on which we find ourselves standing.