New column day

Here, on how Justin Trudeau seems to have taken up the cause of unaccountable executive power even from his third-party place in the House of Commons.

For further reading...
- For some of the background on of the Libs' entitlement hangover following the Cons' taking power, see here (insisting that Parliament has no place in approving of military engagement) and here (criticizing the Accountability Act as a response to their actions while in power).
- Josh Wingrove reports on the attempt by privacy experts to challenge the Cons' appointment of Daniel Therrien. And Lisa Austin highlights some of the substantive problems with Therrien's past roles. But James Fitz-Morris reports on Trudeau's full support for the choice.
- Finally, Terry Milewski discusses the Con/Lib tag team effort to shut down the NDP's parliamentary outreach offices, while CBC follows up with on their retroactive and selectively-enforced rewriting of the rules around mailouts. But as I've pointed out before, we should be far more concerned with the yawning gap between government and parliamentary communications, rather than stifling MPs' communications solely for the purpose of attacking a single opponent.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Emmett Macfarlane and Justin Ling both weigh in on the Cons' newly-unveiled prostitution legislation - which seems downright calculated to exacerbate the risks to sex workers' lives and safety that resulted in the previous version being struck down as unconstitutional.

- And on the subject of policy designed entirely out of prejudiced desire to punish and exclude marginalized groups, Christopher Ingraham writes about a study showing that restrictive voter ID laws arise out of discriminatory intent.

- Newsweek takes note of the Harper Cons' gag order against meteorologists informing the public about climate change. And Mike De Souza rounds up the top ten quotes from scientists who have been muzzled.

- The CP reports on a study showing increased mercury levels around the tar sands - which of course wasn't made public after being completed last December. Paul Krugman rightly dismisses the claim that continued (or increased) carbon emissions are necessary for economic growth. And Linda McQuaig identifies the dinosaur in the room when it comes to the oil industry:

Harper now stands poised to ignore massive opposition and stomp on the historic rights of First Nations people by approving the Northern Gateway pipeline, thereby putting in place a key piece of his energy superpower scheme.

What makes all of this so perplexing — almost other-worldly — is that it’s so unnecessary.
Due to the marvels of modern technology, the world now has the technical capacity to move to a post-carbon age. The International Energy Agency is clear about this. In a report last month, the agency — which is the energy equivalent of the OECD or the IMF — pointed out that it is possible for the world to “decarbonise almost all power generation by 2050.”

Sure, but we’d all be back in the Stone Age, right? Employment would be confined to shovel-ready pyramids.

Actually, no. The IEA estimated the global cost of moving to a post-carbon world at $44 trillion — which sounds like a deal-breaker until you read on and discover that this massive cost would be more than offset by $115 trillion in fuel savings, resulting in a net saving of $71 trillion.

- Finally, David Pugliese breaks the news that the Cons' increasingly unaccountable and intrusive surveillance apparatus now has literally every public demonstration in Canada in its sights.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Neil Irwin highlights the reality that top-heavy economic growth has done nothing to reduce poverty in the U.S. over the past 40 years:

In Kennedy’s era, [the "rising tide lifts all boats" theory] had the benefit of being true. From 1959 to 1973, the nation’s economy per person grew 82 percent, and that was enough to drive the proportion of the poor population from 22 percent to 11 percent.

But over the last generation in the United States, that simply hasn’t happened. Growth has been pretty good, up 147 percent per capita. But rather than decline further, the poverty rate has bounced around in the 12 to 15 percent range — higher than it was even in the early 1970s. The mystery of why — and how to change that — is one of the most fundamental challenges in the nation’s fight against poverty.

...
The 1959 to 1973 period might be an unfair benchmark. The Great Society social safety net programs were being put in place, and they may have had a poverty-lowering effect separate from that of the overall economic trends. In other words, it may be simply that during that time, strong growth and a falling poverty rate happened to take place simultaneously for unrelated reasons. And there presumably is some level of poverty below which the official poverty rate will never fall, driven by people whose problems run much deeper than economics.

But the facts still cast doubt on the notion that growth alone will solve America’s poverty problem.

...

The reality is that low-income workers are putting in more hours on the job than they did a generation ago — and the financial rewards for doing so just haven’t increased.

That’s the real lesson of the data: If you want to address poverty in the United States, it’s not enough to say that you need to create better incentives for lower-income people to work. You also have to devise strategies that make the benefits of a stronger economy show up in the wages of the people on the edge of poverty, who need it most desperately.

- Kate Allen reports that 300 scientists have teamed up to call attention to the flawed assessment process applied to the Gateway pipeline, while Kai Nagata theorizes that the Cons might well scrap the project themselves. But I have my doubts about that theory in light of the Harper Cons' continued devotion to Keystone XL even as it produces a constant flow of shutdowns, leaks and spills.

- Meanwhile, the Montreal Gazette laments the Cons' continued climate change obstruction.

- PressProgress offers ten reasons to be worried about the Cons' disregard for privacy. Colin Horgan recognizes that while the Cons' arguments against an effective census were nonsensical in that context, they would represent a strong case against the accountability-free sharing of personal information which the Cons now want to ram into law. And Michael Harris discusses how fits into Harper's Genghis Khan-like view of power.

- Frances Russell writes about Canada's descent from being internationally admired for its model democratic system, to serving as a cautionary tale.

- Finally, Seth Klein points out how modest tax increases on the wealthy could fully fund needed improvements to B.C.'s education system. But naturally, the Clark Libs are fully focused on attacking the province's teachers instead.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Kidding cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Gary Engler explores Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century from the perspective of a reader who's far more skeptical than Piketty about the prospect of tinkering around the edges of our current corporatist economic system. And Seth Ackerman writes that Piketty's observations look like compelling evidence challenging the doctrine of marginal productivity theory which is taken as an article of faith by laissez-faire fundamentalists.

- Meanwhile, Bill Moyers interviews Joseph Stiglitz about corporate tax evasion. And Michael Madowitz points out what we should have learned about austerity economics by now:

There are three major lessons for policymakers from this research:

1. Direct government intervention during recessions, either through deficit-financed tax cuts or deficit-financed increases in government spending, is a more powerful tool for fighting recessions than we realized before the Great Recession.
2. In a slack economy, or one that is operating below its potential, austerity—taking money out of the economy to balance government budgets—is especially bad policy. Whether via tax hikes or cuts in government spending, contracting the government’s budget during a recession reduces gross domestic product, or GDP, by more than the size of the cuts—possibly as much as three times more.
3. The costs of doing nothing can be permanent and much higher than we previously thought: U.S. GDP is currently 10 percent below its prerecession 2014 projection, and many economists believe that we have reached a new normal. If this is true, austerity could cost the U.S. economy more than $1 trillion in economic activity every year, even after we have fully recovered from the Great Recession.

The most important development in economic research during this recession has been a better understanding of how short-term labor markets affect the long-run size of the economy. It is simply not the case that recessions have only transitory effects on an economy. This is a profound, if counterintuitive, lesson for policymakers: The prudent approach during a recession may be much more aggressive fiscal and monetary activism than we are used to.

- PressProgress reminds us of the Cons' obstructionism on climate change - which of course looks all the more silly now that the U.S. is taking far stronger action than Canada ever has. And Aaron Wherry suggests that we'd be better off moving past the Cons' vocabulary barrier to discuss the costs and risks involved in climate change policy.

- But Joyce Nelson discusses the connection between fossil fuel lobbyists and right-wing politics which largely explains the Harper Cons' continued determination to stand in the way of any action on climate change.

- Finally, Robyn Benson sounds the alarm about the Cons' plans to attack pensions for current and future retirees alike:

“Target benefit plan,” eh? What’s next—a target wage plan?

“We’ll try to pay you $22 an hour like the contract says. But if things get tight at budget time, we might have to drop that to $14 or so. OK by you?”

No. Not OK.

Workplace pensions are, in fact, deferred wages. They’re a forced savings plan that permits, or should permit, retired Canadians to live decently. A defined benefits plan (DBP)—what our members presently have—is a contract: in return for making regular contributions, a set retirement income, with indexing for inflation, is guaranteed.

Enter Kevin Sorenson, minister of state for finance. He has a brand-new scheme in hand, and he wants to sell it to employers in federally-regulated industries and Crown Corporations. He calls it a “shared risk plan,” but it’s no such thing. It’s just shifting risk onto employees and pensioners.
...
Eroding pension plans by shifting risk onto vulnerable employees and retirees with limited ability to absorb income cuts is quite in keeping with the Harper government’s determination to lower the boom on public sector workers and improve the profitability of their corporate friends in the private sector. Instead of showing leadership by improving retirement income security for all Canadians, it wants to “level down,” threatening young workers and seniors across the country. 

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- David Graeber writes that unfettered capitalism will never tame itself, but will instead need to be countered by a sufficiently strong counter-movement to seriously question its underpinnings. And Thomas Frank follows up with Graeber about the warped incentives facing workers as matters stand now:

I think the spotlight on the financial sector did make apparent just how bizarrely skewed our economy is in terms of who gets rewarded and for what. There was this pall of mystification cast over everything pertaining to that sector—we were told, this is all so very complicated, you couldn’t possibly understand, it’s really very advanced science, you know, they are coming up with trading programs so complicated only astro-physicists can understand them, that sort of thing. We just had to take their word that, somehow, this was creating value in ways our simple little heads couldn’t possibly get around. Then after the crash we realized a lot of this stuff was not just scams, but pretty simple-minded scams, like taking bets you couldn’t possibly pay if you lost and just figuring the government would bail you out if you did. These guys weren’t creating value of any kind. They were making the world worse and getting paid insane amounts of money for it.

Suddenly it became possible to see that if there’s a rule, it’s that the more obviously your work benefits others, the less you’re paid for it. CEOs and financial consultants that are actually making other people’s lives worse were paid millions, useless paper-pushers got handsomely compensated, people fulfilling  obviously useful functions like taking care of the sick or teaching children or repairing broken heating systems or picking vegetables were the least rewarded.

- Meanwhile, Jared Bernstein writes about the damage done to our public policy by an undue willingness to accept simplistic (but false) assumptions:

(I)t’s widely argued that government actions that set wages or regulate commerce create “inefficiencies.” Regulate an industry and capital will flee; raise the national wage floor and employers will leave the market (or, in Piketty’s world, handily substitute machines for workers). Increase a marginal tax rate and workers will supply less labor; investors, less capital. Form a union and the unionized firm will face competitive disadvantages that will put it out of business. Provide a safety net benefit to someone and they’ll work less. Tax a polluter and you’ll crash GDP. Tax a financial “innovator” and credit markets will dry up.

Conversely, cut back on a tax rate, a safety net program, the minimum wage, the unionization rate, financial oversight, and growth, jobs, and liquidity will flourish.

I’ve been arguing against these positions for decades, backed by considerable empirical evidence showing that moderate changes to tax rates, minimum wages, union density, the safety net, regulatory oversight and so on trigger nothing like the disasters their opponents claim and can yield important benefits (which is not to say there are no “negative impacts” at all). Yet the bar to win the anti-interventionist argument is set remarkably low. You don’t need evidence; you can just cite “basic economics.”
...
As another Thomas—Pynchon—said: “If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.” Progressives have all kinds of ideas to shape a more equitable primary distribution. But those ideas will never get much oxygen if we remain voluntary trapped in the cramped debate of a short-sighted economics.

- And Murray Dobbin comments on how the concurrent slashing of government revenues and public services is leading to dystopian outcomes.

- Stephen Maher reports on Stephen Harper's latest abuse of appointment processes, as the Cons ignored the advice of their own selection committee in order to appoint the least experienced and most deferential possible candidate to act as the federal Privacy Commissioner. Dean Beeby notes that the Cons are still illegally collecting background information on access-to-information requesters long after promising to stop. And Scott Harris discusses how the Cons' compulsive secrecy includes refusing to clarify even points which have long been public - such as their nine-figure payoff to Newfoundland and Labrador in an effort to push CETA.

- All of which leads into Chantal Hebert's sudden insight into the Cons' wanton destruction - even if that may be something less than news to many of us.

- Finally, Rod Sweet writes about the oil industry's attitude toward the risks of new and untested operations - and why we shouldn't be surprised when BP-style disasters result:

The rapid expansion of deep water drilling worried him. “I had ongoing concerns with the risk of deep water drilling operations, concerns that started back when I was at Chevron,” he writes.

“They stemmed from just too many things going on simultaneously within the industry. The deep water rig fleet expanded by close to 300% over several years along with much turnover between drilling contractors and so I worried about the erosion of the level of competency that we were accustomed to, particularly at the driller and tool pusher levels.

“These deepwater wells are very complicated. There are downhole conditions that even very intelligent people struggle accurately to asses. The time when you had a drilling foreman who has seen everything and knows what to do in every situation is long gone.”

In his article Lacy insists that when it comes to disasters like Macondo the assumption that ‘this won’t happen’ still pervades the industry...

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that to end your weekend.

- Lana Payne challenges the Big Lie that right-wing politics are anything but antithetical to broad economic growth. Dennis Howlett weighs in on the Cons' choice to make the rich even richer through their tax policy. And Daniel Tencer juxtaposes the boom in Canadian corporate profits against the continued economic difficulties facing most people.

- Meanwhile, Paul Krugman notes that the most prominent attempt to challenge Thomas Piketty's work represents nothing but inequality denialism. And Auriandra compares the policy views of the 1% with those of the American public - making for a particularly important contrast given the propensity of the U.S.' political system to ignore the latter in favour of the former.

- But political capitulation to the wealthy few comes at a significant price. And Ian Welsh discusses the connection between the lack of parties offering a meaningful response to neoliberalism, and the rise of the fascist right in Europe:

Neo-liberalism is an effective ideology and set of policy prescriptions: not because it produces good outcomes for the majority of people (that’s not its purpose), but because it creates a constituency (oligarchs and their supporters/retainers) who are able to maintain it in power.

All ideologies eventually come to an end, however.  The oligarchs hate real left-wingism far more than they do fascism.  They have crushed the left.  Because no new coherent ideology can arise due to oligarchical control over the mechanisms of dissemination, all that remain are old ideologies.

Given no real and viable left-wing parties to vote for; given the failure of what they are told are left-wing policies (as with Obama being called a left-winger when his economic policy has been to give trillions to oligarchs); people will vote for the only other option: the hard right—the neo-fascists.

They are, at least, against the status quo.  The UK-IP wants to leave the EU.  They want less “free” trade.  And so on.  Given no other option for actual change, people opt for the parties actually offering it, even if those parties are noxious.

- Finally, George Monbiot highlights the cost of giving in to the doctrine of perpetual material growth:

The trajectory of compound growth shows that the scouring of the planet has only just begun. As the volume of the global economy expands, everywhere that contains something concentrated, unusual, precious, will be sought out and exploited, its resources extracted and dispersed, the world's diverse and differentiated marvels reduced to the same grey stubble.

Some people try to solve the impossible equation with the myth of dematerialisation: the claim that as processes become more efficient and gadgets are miniaturised, we use, in aggregate, fewer materials. There is no sign that this is happening. Iron ore production has risen 180% in 10 years. The trade body Forest Industries tells us that "global paper consumption is at a record high level and it will continue to grow". If, in the digital age, we won't reduce even our consumption of paper, what hope is there for other commodities?

Look at the lives of the super-rich, who set the pace for global consumption. Are their yachts getting smaller? Their houses? Their artworks? Their purchase of rare woods, rare fish, rare stone? Those with the means buy ever bigger houses to store the growing stash of stuff they will not live long enough to use. By unremarked accretions, ever more of the surface of the planet is used to extract, manufacture and store things we don't need. Perhaps it's unsurprising that fantasies about colonising space – which tell us we can export our problems instead of solving them – have resurfaced.
...
The inescapable failure of a society built upon growth and its destruction of the Earth's living systems are the overwhelming facts of our existence. As a result, they are mentioned almost nowhere. They are the 21st century's great taboo, the subjects guaranteed to alienate your friends and neighbours. We live as if trapped inside a Sunday supplement: obsessed with fame, fashion and the three dreary staples of middle-class conversation: recipes, renovations and resorts. Anything but the topic that demands our attention.

Statements of the bleeding obvious, the outcomes of basic arithmetic, are treated as exotic and unpardonable distractions, while the impossible proposition by which we live is regarded as so sane and normal and unremarkable that it isn't worthy of mention. That's how you measure the depth of this problem: by our inability even to discuss it.

Musical interlude

Big Wreck - Albatross

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Joseph Stiglitz offers his suggestions (PDF) for a tax system which would encourage both growth and equality:

Tax reform...offers a path toward both resolving budgetary impasses and making the kinds of public investments that will strengthen the fundamentals of the economy. The most obvious reform is an increase in the top marginal income tax rates – this would both raise needed revenues and soften America’s extreme and harmful inequality. But there are also a variety of other effective possible reforms related to corporate taxation, the estate and inheritance tax, environmental taxes, and ensuring that the government gets full value when it sells public assets.

- PressProgress calls out Restaurants Canada for dishonestly claiming its members are abusing temporary foreign workers only because they can't find workers at any price. And Alison points out how the same group saying it doesn't matter how much workers are paid has gleefully pronounced its success in suppressing the minimum wage.

- Meanwhile, Carly Schwartz discusses the plight of the working poor in North America - or in other words, some of the same the employees the fast-food industry brags about having held to sub-poverty wages. And Lynn Stuart Parramore takes a look at the "gig economy" and its disastrous effect on workers:

Proponents of the gig economy, from the New York Times' Thomas Friedman to bright-eyed TED pundits, tout it as a welcome escape from the prison of the standard workweek and the strictures of corporate America. Working on a project-to-project basis will set you free, they tell us. Wired magazine has called it "the force that could save the American worker.”

But when you’re actually stuck in it, the gig economy looks quite different.

Consider the New York Freelancer’s Union: According to a report in the New York Times, 29 percent of the union’s New York City members earn less than $25,000 a year, and in 2010, 12 percent of members nationally received some type of public assistance. Turns out that life with no health benefits, vacation pay or retirement plan is not a rosy picture.
...
What’s really going on is the desire of businesses to chop wages and benefit costs while also limiting their vulnerability to lawsuits, which can happen when salaried employees are mistreated. The burden of economic risk is shifted even further onto workers, who lose the security and protections of the New-Deal-era social insurance programs that were created when long-term employment was the norm. 

- Upstream points out Canada's poor ranking compared to international peers when it comes to children's well-being. Jon Land discusses Save the Children's research showing how the UK's austerity is driving millions of children into poverty. And Roger Cohen writes that the problem of capitalism eating its children applies globally:

[Mark Carney's] bluntness reflects the fact that, six years after the crisis, the core problem has not gone away: The deep unease and anger in developed countries about the ways globalization and technology magnify returns for the super-rich, operating in a world of low taxation and lax regulation where short-term gain becomes a guiding principle, even as societies become more unequal, offering diminished opportunities to the young, less community and a growing sense of unfairness.
...
(H)uman beings matter. An age that has seen emergence from poverty on a massive scale in the developing world has been accompanied by the spread of a new poverty (of life and of expectations) in much of the developed world. Global convergence has occurred alongside internal divergence. Interdependence is a reality, but the way it works is skewed. Clinton noted that ants, bees, termites and humans have all survived through an unusual shared characteristic: They are cooperative forms of life. But it is precisely the loss at all levels of community, of social capital, that most threatens the world’s stability and future prosperity.

- Finally, Marilla Stephenson writes about two Con patronage scandals arising out of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. But predictably, the Cons' response to news of their own corruption has merely been to slam the door on anybody trying to figure out what they're up to - as evidenced by their sudden and inexplicable decision to turn the publicly-funded Challenger fleet into Stephen Harper's personal and confidential private jet service.

New column day

Here, expanding on this post about the Cons' ruthless discipline in keeping the benefits of any tax policy from flowing to those who need it most - and pointing out the need for a strong challenge to that single-minded focus on withholding money from the poor.

For further reading...
- Again, the PBO's report is here (PDF).
- And PressProgress' analysis of the Cons' tax cuts is here.
- Update: And Paul Wells manages to cut through the Cons' spin, though he notes that demolishing the federal government's fiscal capacity is the main point of Harper's plans.

Also, James Moore is firmly devoted to swatting flies which threaten the very fabric of space-time

No, the Cons still can't be bothered to try to actually identify mythical "trade barriers" as they push to give the corporate powers that be a practical veto over provincial governments. But they're certainly trying to make the myth sound more terrifying - and they won't meet anything more than mindless repetition from John Ivison.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- PressProgress digs into the PBO's report on tax giveaways to look at what Canada has lost from the Cons' cuts to federal fiscal capacity - and how little has been gained as a trade-off:

(T)he Harper government, by starving the public coffers, is losing $43 billion that could be used to boost investments in axed services, build needed national programs, as well as balance the budget and pay down debt.
...
Finance Canada's own data suggests every $1 billion spent on corporate tax cuts generates a measly 3,310 jobs. Not very effective.

And the PBO's report indicates that median income taxpayers with kids (averaging between $42,450 and $56,505) would see between 2.8% to 2.9% increase in their after-tax income. But those tax savings can be quickly eaten up by increased costs that would otherwise be covered through public programs.

For example, tax credits for children cost Canadians $2.74 billion. But a month or two of childcare in Ontario is equal to the total after-tax savings from these tax credits, while an affordable national childcare program would cost less to implement -- and saves families thousands of dollars.

- Of course, one would hope to be able to point to the difference between the Harper Cons' actions and the principles most prized by Canadians. But as Sean Holman points out, the Cons are also going out of their way to make sure that policymakers don't have access to accurate data about Canadians' values:

As a result of a lack of federal government funding, Canada wasn’t included in the most recent World Values Survey — one of the few means we have of knowing what our values are, how we differ from people in other countries and whether those values have changed over time.

The survey — which uses individual, face-to-face interviews rather than phone calls — has happened six times over the past 33 years, with the most recent being conducted in 59 different countries. Respondents answer a questionnaire that measures nearly 250 indicators covering everything from someone’s feelings about race to their political leanings.
...
Past surveys have also told us 64 percent of Canadians in 2005 would have agreed or strongly agreed to an increase in taxes if the extra money was used to prevent environmental pollution — an (sic) seven point increase over 2000.
...
Findings such as these are valuable for everyone from journalists and researchers to politicians and everyday voters — potentially leading to stories, studies and policy-changes. But Canadians won’t know if those values or any others changed between 2010-14 because our country — which has been part of the survey since 2000 — wasn’t included in its most recent wave, the results of which were released late last month.

- Meanwhile, Mike De Souza reports on the Cons' edict that environmental scientists stay silent about environmental science. And Devon Black writes about the Cons' archaic, position-based negotiating strategy - though I'd argue they've consistently shown themselves determine to pursue a philosophy of "getting to 'Yes, Master'" rather than "getting to Yes".

- Geoff Leo confirms the less-than-surprising conclusion that complaint-based regulatory systems aren't doing anything at all to preserve the rights of temporary foreign workers who can be deported for complaining. And Cathie highlights why we can't expect the Cons to fix a mess based on their own combination of toxic anti-worker ideology and incompetent management.

- And finally, Jim Stanford studies the effect of CETA on Canada's auto sector, and finds that once again the Cons' trade plans will make matters worse for major industries.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Boxy cats.

On poor choices

Unfortunately, the CP's coverage of the Parliamentary Budget Office's assessment (PDF) of Canadian tax policy over the past few years seems to largely miss the point - and the initial lack of attention to a major issue has been spun by the Cons into something even worse.

So let's highlight what should be the most remarkable piece of news:

The financial gains from cumulative PIT and GST/HST changes since 2005 skew toward households with larger incomes when measured in absolute dollar terms. Reductions to the personal income tax rate on the lowest tax bracket, and increases to the basic exemption and PIT income bracket thresholds skew absolute dollar gains to higher income earners.
...
The lowest 10 per cent and the top 5 per cent income earners gain least, in relative terms. Each group will accrue after-tax and transfer improvements of 0.5 per cent.

It's possible to look at the progressivity of the tax system based on either raw dollars or percentages of income. And the Cons - with the help of the initial reporting on the numbers - are trying to highlight the latter rather than the former.

But while the difference matters in assessing relative benefits around the middle of the income scale, they're of no consequence for the bottom 10%. Amazingly enough, the Cons have managed to enforce such a consistent beggar-the-poor approach that the lowest tier has nonetheless managed to gain less than any other group even as a percentage of its already-meager income.

(And to be clear, the top 5 per cent have been plenty privileged in ways not captured by the relative-to-income metric. Not only did members of that group enjoy benefits near the top of the pack in absolute dollar terms, but they're also disproportionately reaping the fruits of corporate tax slashing which was excluded from the PBO's calculation.)

In sum, the PBO has confirmed what's seemed all too obvious from the beginning: the Harper Cons are firmly dedicated to avoiding doing any good for the Canadians who need it most.

Monday Morning Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- Jim Stanford looks into the fine print of the Hudak PCs' assumptions about corporate tax slashing and finds that even their own numbers show that most of the money gifted to corporations would be thrown away (emphasis added):

On second reading there are other interesting aspects to the Conference Board simulation of corporate tax reductions.  The one that jumped out at me was their estimate of increased business capital spending after the tax cut (reported in Table 5, and the main driver of economic benefits in the simulation), reported in the fifth line of Table 4.  They see an additional $133 million of business investment in the first year, rising to $227 million in the third year.  In other words, by their estimates, less than one dollar in three of the CIT cut is reinvested by business in new fixed capital investments.  This highlights the problem that has been experienced with CIT reductions as a stimulative tool.  They translate only weakly into new business spending.  That’s why the final gain in GDP (even counting indirect and induced multiplier effects) is always smaller than the initial cost of the tax cut.  Even in the Conference Board study, one big lasting legacy of CIT cuts will be an additional increment to corporate cash hoarding, worth over $600 million per year by the 10th year (comparing the value of the CIT reduction in that year to the modest increase in capital spending).  That sounds like a good reason not to do it at all.

Remember also that the Conference Board report did not incorporate (at the PCs’ request) the negative effects on GDP of employment from any offsetting reduction in other government programs (which the PCs have promised they would do, making the CIT cut supposedly “revenue neutral”).  They make this clear on p.5.  It is thus not a reasonable simulation of what the party is actually proposing.

- Meanwhile, Bill Curry reports on the Cons' choice to allow employers to import thousands of temporary foreign workers for the minimum wage rather than making effort to recruit local workers. And Julia Smith writes that the real issue with the TFWP lies in its development of jobs intended to be exploitative - no matter who ends up filling them:

(T)he jobs TFWP are filling do not come with the same rights that Canadian workers enjoy. TFWP visas for low wage jobs are tied to a specific employer and location, meaning TFWs can't leave one job for another if there's a problem. In many cases they're required to live in accommodation provided by their employer -- so if they lose their job they also lose their home.

Caregivers and agricultural workers, who make up the majority of TFWs, are not allowed to unionize. Instead, in cases of exploitation, they must submit individual grievances. As is well documented, when TFWs do complain, they risk unemployment, homelessness and deportation. One recruitment company emailed businesses with strategies to prevent TFWs from becoming 'Canadianized.' In others words, seeking Canadian labor standards.

Helena Sanchez, from the Temporary Foreign Workers Association of Quebec, notes, "We are paying taxes as Canadian citizens, but are not treated as citizens. We do not have the same rights as Canadians."
...
Sanchez says she hopes that instead of seeing TFW as competition, Canadian workers will stand with TFW and demand better conditions for all. "If Canadians protect TFW rights, they are also protecting their rights," she says, pointing out that if employers have to offer the same working conditions, then competition for jobs also becomes impartial.

- Michael Harris looks at the latest Bruce Carson influence peddling scandal - and the judgment of the prime minister who's repeatedly allowed a convicted fraudster into his inner circle:

Since [Carson] himself was not yet five years out from the date that his own government employment ended, it was illegal for him to be dealing with public office holders over the development or amendment of any government policy; the awarding of any grant; or the arranging of a meeting between a public office holder and any other person.

Why was he able to do that? Carson’s passport to the highest offices in the land bears Stephen Harper’s face.

So do tell us Mr. Prime Minister, besides a criminal record, a taste for young escorts, and an alleged yen for unregistered lobbying, how did Bruce Carson come to sit by your side – and why did you give him so much power and so much of the people’s money?

An explanation and an apology would be appropriate right about now.

- Matthew Millar reports that two Con MPs are using their time and public resources to develop a partisan election application - and figuring to gain personally in the process. And Sophia Harris finds yet another example of the Cons refusing to collect evidence which would show their choices are wrong-headed - this time dropping the survey questions which have shown their publicly-funded propaganda campaigns to serve no useful purpose.

- Finally, Susan Lunn reports on a belated federal attempt to look into growing shortages of prescription medications. But while Lunn rightly notes the futility of trying to address that problem with a list of which drugs are lacking, it's worth noting the obvious remedy: rather than merely setting up a slightly more organized system to beg big pharma to meet public health needs, it's entirely possible to set up a public manufacturer to actually end the shortages.

Sunday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your Sunday reading.

- James Greiff makes the case against the right's faith-based reliance on costly high-end tax cuts in place of attracting people through jobs and quality of life:

(T)he recent record suggests those U.S. states that cut taxes find themselves with bigger deficits and none of the economic revival that might stop the population loss plaguing the Rust and Farm belts.

Consider Ohio, where Republican Governor John Kasich is pushing to cut the top marginal tax rate to 5 per cent or less from the current 5.92 per cent. This might save the average taxpayer a few hundred dollars a year. It’s always nice to have a little more change in one’s pocket, though you should ask yourself: For this amount of money, would you pick up hearth and home and move to Ohio or cancel plans to move out of state?

But if people don’t relocate because of tax rates, why do they move? The answer is as basic as it gets. The biggest group of cross-border movers is people relocating for jobs or looking for work, according to a new study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Adding in people who move for cheaper housing and milder weather — mostly retirees leaving colder climates for the South and Florida — accounts for a majority of the people who leave.
...
There’s also evidence that cutting corporate taxes is of little use in stimulating business. First, many entrepreneurs aren’t that mobile; second, they tend to want to be in cities with large talent pools. Taxes don’t often figure among the reasons entrepreneurs cite for where to start a business. And once a company is up and running, marginal tax rates are rarely something that leads a company to move.

- Paul Krugman discusses the Financial Times' failed attack on Thomas Piketty's discussion of wealth inequality. And Travis Lupick reports on Oxfam Canada's effort to put inequality at the forefront of its international development work.

- Meanwhile, Guy Standing argues for a "precariat charter" to enshrine new rights of citizenship (most notably a guaranteed basic income). But I do have to wonder whether he's proposing the wrong means to the right end - as the case for greater control over time and income security seems more defensible and appealing as applying to all individuals, rather than mattering only to the subset of workers who see their current employment (or lack thereof) as including them within the precariat class.

- Jim Stanford eviscerates the Cons' attempt to keep a pool of disposable employees at business' fingertips based on the claim that they're particularly important to international service industries:

On average, TFWs on LMOs are more important in goods-producing industries than service-producing industries.  They accounted for almost 3% of all jobs in goods industries, but only 1.35% in services sectors.  (While these ratios may seem small, don’t forget that the rapid expansion of the TFW program under the Conservatives has meant that migrant workers accounted for a surprisingly large share of all net new jobs created in the economy; employers tapped migrants for one in five net new paid positions created in the whole economy from 2007 through 2012).

Moreover, within services industries, TFWs are clearly concentrated in non-tradeable services sectors.  60% of all service-sector LMOs were issued in the three biggest sub-sectors, each of which is overwhelmingly domestic in its outlook: hospitality (with 45,000 LMOs), “Other Services” (21,000 LMOs, most of whom work in personal care), and wholesale and retail trade (11,000 LMOs).  The proportional reliance on LMOs is highest, not surprisingly, in the hospitality and other services categories, where LMOs represented almost 4% of all employment — and where the expansion of the program has provided employers with attractive low-wage recruitment opportunities.

In contrast, a total of 23,000 LMOs were in effect in 2013 in the four major tradeable service industries listed on the table above: transportation, information, finance, and professional services.  That represents 0.9% of employment in those four sectors.  A more detailed disaggregation of employment within those tradeable services industries (were the data to allow for it) would likely confirm, I suggest, that the use of TFWs in the more specialized and innovative services jobs (those which are most oriented around exports to foreign purchasers) would likely be significantly lower.  Of course, there are some TFWs who have entered Canada to fill higher-skill jobs, including some in finance, professional services, and other tradeable services.  So we cannot say that TFWs play no role in services exports; they clearly do.  But we can certainly say that TFWs are used less intensively in tradeable services than non-tradeable services, and even less intensively again than in goods industries.  That makes it all the more curious for Mr. Kenney to highlight this part of the economy with his dramatic argument.
...
Opponents of the TFW program have argued for its replacement with systems of permanent immigration, and adequate transition measures to allow those who are in the country to continue working here under alternative provisions.  (See for example the fine work of the Alberta Federation of Labour on this point.)  In that regard, with due notice to both employers of TFWs and the migrant workers themselves, the TFW program (and in particular its most troublesome aspect, the low-skill stream) could be cancelled with no impact on Canada’s services exports.  In fact, the impact on goods-producing industries and non-tradeable services would be greater (but still negligible, given appropriate notice and transition measures) than the impact on tradeable services.

In light of this evidence, Mr. Kenney’s claim that the TFW program is essential to Canada’s international trade in services should be seen as far-fetched and desperate.  And the extravagant hyperbole of this argument makes a mockery of his own appeal, in his earlier tweet that same day, for more “nuance in the discussion” of the TFW issue.

- Finally, Antony Lowenstein discusses how public broadcasters represent a much-needed counterweight to the wealthy and powerful - and why they're thus bound to come under attack.

Saturday Morning Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- Tavis Smiley discusses the need to speak realistically about the causes and effects of poverty, rather than simply dismissing real human costs as somebody else's fault and problem. And similarly, Tim Stacey comments on the appalling "empathy gap" - which sees upper-class mouthpieces complaining about the cost of luxuries while claiming that the poor have it easier in trying to scrape together the essentials of life.

- But for the most compelling indication as to the consequences of policies designed to attack rather than assist those in need, CBC reports on a Harris poll showing that 39% of Canada's long-term unemployed have completely given up on looking for work - as the Cons' attempts to bully people back to work have predictably done nothing to create opportunities worth pursuing.

- Meanwhile, PressProgress challenges Tim Hudak's complete and baseless belief in the magic of corporate handouts. And Thomas Walkom notes that Hudak's entire jobs plan has been met with nothing but refutation by anybody who takes a meaningful look at it.

- Emily Atkin's report on the Harper Cons' squelching of environmental and scientific reporting is well worth a read. And Charles Pierce offers a reminder that the use of state coercion to further corporate power at the expense of the public interest isn't limited either to the oil sector or to Canada's federal government.

- Finally, Tim Harper poses six questions about murdered and missing aboriginal women in Canada which cry out for answers (rather than the Cons' continued denial and obfuscation).

Musical interlude

Arcade Fire - Half Light II (No Celebration)

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Linda McQuaig writes that while the Cons don't want to bother listening to the public about much of anything, they'll always make time for a disgraced former advisor lobbying on behalf of oil barons:

In...new RCMP allegations,... [Bruce] Carson was working for the Energy Policy Institute of Canada (EPIC), described in the media as a “non-profit group formed by business organizations in the energy sector.”

This rather benign description fails to convey what EPIC really is: a lobbying vehicle for dozens of extremely wealthy, powerful fossil fuel companies, including Enbridge, Imperial Oil, Shell, Suncor and Irving Oil, as well as the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers — all hell-bent on developing Alberta’s tar sands.

The important story here isn’t the alleged illegal lobbying behaviour of Carson (who is banned from lobbying for five years after serving in government). The real story is the reception he receives when, now representing Big Oil, he approaches the top man in the PMO, Nigel Wright, someone he doesn’t know personally, with a document laying out what Big Oil wants.

According to emails disclosed by the RCMP, Wright promises to read the document over the weekend, and urges Carson to “feel free to give me a call at any time.”
...
Any interest group getting that kind of easy access in the PMO should raise eyebrows.

But the fossil fuel industry is no ordinary interest group — its interests run counter to the interests of humanity, if continuing to live comfortably on earth is what humans want to do.

Even as climate disasters occur with growing frequency — including the worst flooding in Serbia in a century, killing 43 people this week — the Harper government relentlessly promotes Big Oil’s development plans, guts our environmental review processes and aggressively audits environmental groups, muzzles government scientists and undermines international UN-sponsored efforts to rein in climate change.

So here’s the bottom line about the Harper government: those defending the earth are muzzled and harassed, while those willing to destroy the earth for profit are warmly invited to “call at any time.”

- In a similar vein, Josh Wingrove catches the Cons lying about the state of U.S. greenhouse gas emission regulations as an excuse to encourage further climate pollution from the tar sands. And Gary Doer confirms that the Cons have no interest whatsoever in regulation emissions except as a means to secure approval for pipelines. Which means that nobody looking for health, safety and the environment to be protected has much reason to waste time dealing with the Cons - as evidenced by the reality that every single First Nation who gave the Cons the benefit of the doubt about a new tar sands monitoring program has now walked away from the table.

- Meanwhile, the Parkland Institute studies the connection between wages, unionization and inequality in Alberta, while PressProgress neatly boils down how a lack of labour organization has made Alberta the most unequal province in Canada.

- Finally, Joseph Stiglitz reminds us why burgeoning income inequality is so significant and so damaging. And Gary Engler discusses the ends we should expect our economy to serve - in contrast to its current orientation toward further enriching those who already have the most:

At its most basic level the economy is the sum total of the things people do to provide themselves food, shelter and other things that enhance life, such as recreation, healthcare, entertainment and art. So, the answer to our question should be clear-cut: The point of an economy is to serve people.

But the reality for most of us is exactly the opposite.
...
Rather than serving us, “the economy” has become an excuse to treat many people badly, to create unhealthy products, to damage our environment, to justify exploitation, to steal from other people and even to wage war.

Why?

The primary reason is that too much of the economy is run by and for a small minority of people. As [Piketty]’s statistics show, actual existing capitalism (as opposed to the phoney idealized system taught in school) concentrates ownership of wealth in the hands of a few people. This wealth produces both income and power, so much of which has gone to the richest 1% that any effective democracy is threatened.
...
Piketty argues for a tax on wealth and that might be a good starting point, but if we really want to fix this we must go further. When the problem is too much power in the hands of a few the obvious solution is to distribute that power more widely.

We should take away control of the economy from the greedy minority and share it amongst all of us. A good name for such a system is economic democracy.

The exact form such a system might take would probably depend on a country’s history, culture and level of development.  But essential elements would be: one-person-one-vote instead of one-dollar-one-vote decision making in all aspects of the economy; workplace democracy instead of master-servant relations and community control instead of corporate control.

If we want an economy that serves all people we must create a system of democratic governance to ensure that happens.

New column day

Here, following up on the Robert Buckingham saga at the University of Saskatchewan by asking whether tenured university professors should be the only workers who have any hope of being able to discuss issues of public importance without fearing for their jobs.

For further reading...
- Buckingham's story is told here, here, here and here among other places - with the latest news seeing the U of S terminating the president who oversaw his firing.
- The terms of the U of S Faculty Association's collective bargaining agreement made public in association with the story are here.
- Matt Kwong reports on the uncertainty of academic tenure across North America, while Lauren Williams discusses Kansas' restrictive social media policy which is referenced in the column.
- Finally, Debbie Mihalicz sees the silencing of professors as part of a corporate mindset at the U of S. The Star Phoenix highlights how the firing creates reason to distrust the university's leadership. And Lindsay Tedds discusses the dangers of insisting that professors stick to the party line - though in keeping with the column, I'd think her points apply more broadly than the university setting alone.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Jared Bernstein discusses how fair and progressive taxes on the rich are a necessary element of any effort to improve the lot of the poor:

The rising tide of inequality does more than create great economic distance between income classes. It also produces higher barriers to mobility. Increased investment in the poor’s economic opportunities and in their children, their health care, their housing and their education will be needed to overcome those barriers.

To be more precise, there are three reliable ways to help or “lift” the bottom: subsidies that increase the poor’s economic security today; investment in their future productivity; and targeted job opportunities at decent wages. The first two are more closely related than you might think, because researchers are discovering that anti-poverty consumption programs such as nutritional and income supports have long-lasting benefits to children in families that receive them.

None of these three approaches are free.
...
Yes, growth is necessary; in the age of high inequality, though, it is insufficient. What will work here is a large, publicly funded infrastructure program to begin to repair our deteriorating public goods, with the jobs targeted at the working poor.

All of the above — the expanded earned-income tax credit, universal preschool, job-creating infrastructure — will take more tax revenue, and much of that new revenue will need to come from those at the top of the wealth scale.

To be clear, the tax burden on all Americans, not just the wealthy, is low both in historical and international terms. We’re collecting less revenue than many other advanced economies and less than we have in the past. So it’s not just the rich that will ultimately have to pony up if we’re going to continue to fund the things we want and need in a sustainable way.

But since most of the pretax income growth in recent years has accrued to households at the top scale, that’s an obvious place to start.

- Mel Watkins comments on Arundhati Roy's observation that we're stuck with "gush-up economics". And Duncan Cameron weighs in on Tim Hudak's plan to create jobs by destroying jobs and public services alike.

- Bruce Campbell discusses the regulatory failure behind the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster while noting that the people most responsible for systemic problems aren't the ones facing charges. But then, Lauren Krugel reports that the Cons are trying to obstruct even an investigation of tar sands tailings which can't possibly lead to any direct consequences other than fact-finding - signalling that instead of caring about the health and safety of Canadians, Harper and company are fully occupied trying to make sure that nobody uncovers what they're so desperately sweeping under the rug.

- Meanwhile, Margo McDiarmid reports on the latest research showing the catastrophic effects of climate change. And Denise Robbins points out the Republican response that they'd rather try to uproot much of civilization in a few decades than lift a finger to reduce the damage today.

- Finally, Andrew Mitrovica rightly calls out the press gallery's groupthink (and willingness to mindlessly dispense other parties' talking points) about Tom Mulcair. And both thwap and Karl Nerenberg highlight how absurd the Con/Lib attempt to gang up on Mulcair and the NDP was in the first place.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Cushioned cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Frank Vibert writes that our democratic system includes more than just electoral politics, while recognizing that we all too often neglect the distinct role of regulatory bodies:

When one looks more closely at regulation and the interdependencies between systems the more apparent it becomes that regulation now needs to be viewed as a basic means of coordination in modern democratic societies. For example it corrects for the inadequacies of the law in dealing with evidence from the natural and social sciences – an area where lawyers, judges and juries have special difficulties. Far from demotivating people to act responsibly, regulation provides society with a basic means of addressing a key weakness that all democratic societies face. The weakness is that people have conflicting motivations that impair their willingness to observe  the underlying norms of behavior that are necessary for all systems to work. For example markets depend on honesty and trust in contracting. Market incentives may motivate people towards making false representations. At the same time the efforts of democratic societies to socialize norms through education also yield very imperfect results. Regulators step in to underpin norms and to educate.

The most important sense in which regulation is basic to modern societies is that it provides an adjustment mechanism, smoothing and facilitating the constantly changing mix between the different systems in a democratic society. Thus, if governments look towards markets to fund and manage services that were previously within government, such a move will be accompanied by regulatory structures in order to minimize the ‘creative destruction’ associated with markets. Conversely, if governments look to intervene in markets, as in the case of Obamacare, they will also accompany such moves with a regulatory structure in order to try to ensure that the end users benefit from the new insurance arrangements. Regulation has unique properties as an adjustment mechanism and is of fundamental importance in modern democratic systems both for functional and normative reasons.
...
(R)egulation addresses what has been termed ‘adaptive bias’ in systems. The term means that there is a tendency for social institutions to be backward looking and to favor the status quo. For example the law is famously rooted in citing precedent. The horizon of politicians is forward looking to an extent – but only as far as the next election. The market is forward looking, but it often projects past relationships and conveys its information in the form of prices – prices that contain a mixture of signals and noise. Regulators are engaged in forecasting and horizon scanning for professional reasons. They convey their information in policy relevant terms. For example an outbreak of an internationally disseminated infection such as swine fever or avian flu will likely be reflected in market prices. But public policy will pay more attention to the indicators of morbidity and mortality estimated by health sector professionals.

- Ted Strickland highlights the need to focus on poverty and inequality in our political choices - and to facilitate collective action in the process:

The excuse we hear too often from political leaders who don’t talk about poverty is that budgets are too tight and you can only do so much.  But there is a reason budgets are tight—we have cut taxes!  If we had a progressive tax system that was anywhere near the levels it was before Ronald Reagan became President, we would have the resources we need.

This is one area where I think we can do a much better job—talking about the link between tax policy, decreasing revenues, and cuts in programs that people need to have a fair shot at the American Dream.

We also have to do a better job talking about work and shared prosperity.  It’s un-American, frankly, that you can work and work and work and not get out of poverty.  And I think something that is sometimes missing from progressive consciousness—and something that certainly benefited my family—is an awareness of the importance of organized labor.  We became as egalitarian as we did as a nation because working people gained power and influence by banding together and bargaining for better wages and benefits and safety conditions.  And as economic disparities have increased over these last few decades, the influence of organized labor has decreased.

So whether it’s the same paradigm or not, we’ve got to find some way for people to act collectively in their self-interest.  And that’s a challenge that I think is facing organized labor but also all of us who care about giving everyone a fair shot and a fair chance.

- Patrick Wintour points out UK Labour's proposal for a minimum wage set at a reasonable percentage of the country's median hourly earnings - which on the upside would mean a significant increase for now, but on the downside could give employers an incentive to further suppress wages across the board. Meanwhile, in the category of policy changes with a far less ambiguous effect, Corey Robin discusses the Republicans' moves to encourage wage theft by employers.

- John Quiggin takes a look at Delaware's role as one of the globe's most notorious corporate tax havens.

- Finally, Michael Harris sees the Cons' highly selective sanctions as further evidence that they'll put oil interests above any sense of morality given the choice.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Elias Isquith interviews Matt Taibbi about the complete lack of morality underlying Wall Street and the regulators who are supposed to protect the public interest from banksters run amok. Paul Buchheit reviews some compelling evidence that poorer people are more ethical than the wealthy - suggesting that extreme wealth and inequality may themselves serve as an indicator of social dysfunction. And Charles Blow writes about the absurdity of blaming poor people for forces beyond their control:

That construct, that the poor are in some way deficient, is a particularly poisonous and unsupportable position. And, by extension, the proposition that people can simply love and marry — traditionally only — their way out of poverty is supremely condescending.

This position, cloaked in an air of benevolence and good will, is in fact lacking in understanding of the lives of poor people and compassion for their plight.
...

Poverty is a demanding, stressful, depressive and often violent state. No one seeks it; they are born or thrust into it. In poverty, the whole of your life becomes an exercise in coping and correcting, searching for a way up and out, while focusing today on filling the pots and the plates, maintaining a roof and some warmth, and dreading the new challenge tomorrow may bring.

We should extend the conversation about tackling poverty, but that conversation should not be governed by the belief that poverty in resources is synonymous with poverty of values.

- But as the Observer notes, workers (and particularly the most vulnerable ones) have come to be seen as prey rather than people by the corporate lobby and right-wing political leaders alike:

For the past 30 years, one of the big aims of policy has been to make the labour market more flexible. Trade unions have been curbed, industries have been privatised, welfare reformed and employment protection reduced. The balance of power between labour and capital has been tilted decisively in favour of the latter.

The evidence of this is all around. There are 1.3m jobs on zero-hour contracts; wages can barely keep pace with price increases, even with unemployment coming down at a fair lick. Around 80% of the jobs created in the past year have been for the self-employed, with the suspicion that many of those "running their own business" are doing so involuntarily.

This is the flexible labour market in action. It is what has distinguished the UK economy from some of the more heavily regulated economies in the rest of Europe. Supporters of the reforms of the past three decades say the flexible labour market is the reason the jobless rate is around half the average for the eurozone. Critics say that the smashing of organised labour and the triumph of management is bad for workers, bad for growth and ultimately bad for employers.
...
(I)n the long term there is a clear choice. Either the power of labour will be increased by full employment, stronger trade unions and collective bargaining or the flexible labour market will arrive at its ultimate destination: a form of capitalism that cannot function without excessive debt; is marked by low wages, low investment and low productivity; and which eventually ends up eating itself.

- On the subject of workers being used as prey, Kathy Tomlinson reports on the use of Canada's temporary foreign worker program as an extortion racket - and the complete lack of regulatory action even after that flagrant abuse of employer authority was reported to federal officials. And Alison duly mocks the attempt of business groups to pretend that Canadian workers somehow stand to benefit from being pushed aside in favour of more pliable replacements.

- Kaylie Tiessen and Kayle Hatt write about Tim Hudak's desire to turn Ontario into a low-wage profit haven by slashing public services and the jobs that go with them. 

- Finally, Murray Dobbin highlights how Stephen Harper has put Canada on the road to ruin. And Carol Goar notes that the Cons have gone out of their way to prevent the public from knowing exactly what damage they've wrought:

Two things are noteworthy about [the Cons'] pattern of disinformation.

One is that it has lasted so long. Until recently there was no systematic questioning of the “facts” dispensed by Harper and his associates.

The other is that it is locked in. The Tories have downsized Statistics Canada, the country’s chief information gathering agency, so severely that future governments will have to rely on blunt — and sometimes unreliable — tools to monitor socio-economic developments.

Half of the agency’s workforce is gone. Hundreds of its programs have been dropped. The mandatory long-form census has given way to a voluntary household survey. It would cost tens of millions of dollars to reverse these changes — and any government that tried would face resistance from taxpayers conditioned to regard number-crunchers as a needless public expense.
...
StatsCan is shrinking from a public information agency into an in-house research bureau for the government. It has curtailed its consultations with entrepreneurs, academics and non-government organizations. It has narrowed its focus. “We found the agency primarily consults with the federal, provincial and territorial governments” the auditor said. “In order to ensure the continued relevance of its data, Statistics Canada should obtain, document and analyze ongoing feedback from the full range of its users.”

StatsCan disconsolately agreed and said it would broaden its future consultations.

What emerged was a picture of a highly professional agency forced to cut corners and lower its standards.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- The Globe and Mail joins the chorus calling for Canada to welcome more citizens, rather than exploiting cheap and disposable workers. But Bill Curry reports on yet another corporate lobby group demanding that the Cons actually expand the flow of temporary labour to secure profits at the expense of workers.

- Andy Radia discusses the laughable attempt of the Cons to rebrand themselves as anything other then enemies of the environment after eight years of constant attacks on regulations and advocates alike. And Daniel James Wright points out that the organization chosen to greenwash the Cons was subject to a full corporate takeover.

- Meanwhile, the CP reports on a mercury advisory for fowl near the tar sands - being just the type of health and environmental disaster the Cons are always happy to sweep under the rug in the name of oil profits. Chris Varcoe writes about the complete takeover of Alberta's government by the oil sector. And Bob Weber reports on Alberta's moves to make sure the same people who have pointed out exactly the types of environmental dangers which have come to pass never get a word of input into further development:

Critics say Albertans are in danger of being shut out of discussions on how the province's natural resources are developed.

Expert observers and opposition politicians worry Alberta's new energy regulator is drawing the circle of who can speak so tightly that one hearing on a proposed energy project had to be cancelled because no one was allowed to appear.

...

The Alberta Energy Regulator is responsible both for holding public hearings on oilsands proposals and other energy developments and for determining who has the right to appear. The regulator is obliged to allow only those "directly and adversely affected" to appear.
...
Blakeman said decisions such as what happened with the Kirby project ignore important realities.

"The government seems to believe that the air doesn't move, water doesn't flow and soil doesn't leach," she said.

- Harry Neufeld notes that the Unfair Elections Act remains a serious step backward for the prospect of free, fair and transparent elections even after the absolute worst abuses were altered by amendments. And Amira Elghawaby reviews Alison Loat and Michael McMillan's Tragedy in the Commons as a basis for asking whether there's much worth salvaging in Canada's current system of party politics.

- Finally, Don Lenihan argues against mandatory voting on the basis that popular turnout can serve as a measure of a government's mandate. But I can only respond by wondering whether there's any evidence whatsoever to support the theory that governing parties are more open to competing ideas based on a low turnout - or whether we should take the Harper Cons' determined exploitation of every lever of power based on a modest mandate as a cautionary tale against the hope will restrain power-mad leaders.