Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Karl Nerenberg weighs in on the Libs' choice to direct billions of dollars toward higher-income individuals, rather than working to help Canadians who need it:

The Liberals are now in power, and have just brought in a tax change that will give the most generous benefit to an elite, wealthy group.

You can call six-figure earners middle class if you like, but that would be stretching the definition. They are certainly not middle income. They are near the top. And they are definitely not the most in need.

A few, such as the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) and the now third party NDP, have called the Liberals on this choice.

The CCPA has even proposed alternatives. One is to use a tax credit, which can be more precisely targeted, rather than a tax cut for the middle bracket.

So far, its odd and unfair fiscal choice has not had much political impact on the honeymooning Trudeau government.

There is still time, however.

Let's see what happens around tax time when Canadians start to pay closer attention to how much they, and others, actually do or do not get from this much-touted middle class tax cut.

- CBC reports on Statistics Canada's latest figures showing the continued rise of personal debt compared to Canadian incomes. And Erika Shaker highlights the juggling act facing parents trying to bear the cost of child care.

- Chris Hedges writes that our exploitative economic system is effectively built on a foundation of human sacrifice.

- Denise Leduc criticizes the exclusion and marginalization of people with intellectual disabilities from the workplace. And Robert Scott counters the spin that reasonable wages are a barrier to a successful manufacturing industry.

- Finally, Neil MacDonald rightly comments that the appropriate response to terrorism is not to grant its perpetrators the fear they seek - but that it will take a concerted effort to avoid succumbing to it.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Collapsed cats.

On blockages

Yes, Bill Tieleman, you've left no doubt that people who are opposed to electoral reform generally are also in favour of a needless and convoluted referendum process to try to block it.

But for the many of us who don't see "no change" as the desired end result, there's every reason to hold the Libs to their explicit promise that this year's election would be the last under first past the post. And contrary to Tieleman's spin, the Libs were entirely clear (PDF) as to how and when the alternative would be developed:

We are committed to ensuring that 2015 will be the last federal election conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system.

We will convene an all-party Parliamentary committee to review a wide variety of reforms, such as ranked ballots, proportional representation, mandatory voting, and online voting.

This committee will deliver its recommendations to Parliament. Within 18 months of forming government, we will introduce legislation to enact electoral reform.

In other words, unlike many of the Libs' promises, the commitment to electoral reform leaves no room for delay or backtracking. And so we should be working toward all-party consensus on how to build a better system to be passed in accordance with the Libs' specific timeline - not making excuses to refuse to try to build one at all.

[Edit: Fixed wording.]

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Matthew Yglesias rightly points out the absurdity of monetary policy designed to rein in at-target inflation at the expense of desperately-needed employment. And Joseph Stiglitz reminds us that we can instead make policy choices which will fix inequality rather than exacerbating it:

Beyond changing taxes and government benefits, we can reduce inequality by rewriting the rules once again. A comprehensive rewriting will help to level the playing field, grow the middle class, and give all Americans an opportunity to succeed. Moreover, we can do this secure in the knowledge that we can have both more economic equality and more growth.

This view of the economy undermines the notion that those at the top are merely receiving their “just deserts” for their contributions to the economy. Some wealthy Americans have, in fact, contributed greatly to the strength of our economy and the well-being of our society. But many have simply gamed the rules — their gains have been largely at the expense of others. Still others have made important innovations, but then amplified their returns through the exercise of monopoly power. Discouraging quarterly capitalism, diluting monopoly power, and preventing the exploitation of workers would strengthen the economy. But rewriting the rules would better align private rewards with social value, thus improving economic efficiency. In other words, the argument for rewriting the rules is not just about fairness: It’s about promoting stronger and shared economic growth.

- Oscar Reyes reviews just a few of the weaknesses of the Paris climate agreement which aren't receiving enough attention. Marc Lee argues that we won't know what it accomplishes until we see how regulators and markets respond, while Simon Dalby discusses how Canada will need to rethink a fossil-fuel-oriented economy in order for the deal to work. And PressProgress lists just a few of the things Brad Wall seems determined not to learn about climate change.

- Andre Picard writes about the dangers of political meddling in health care - and it's worth mentioning Saskatchewan's most prominent examples of corporate fads and anti-social ideology being put ahead of evidence-based policy.

- Graham Thomson comments on the Alberta NDP's work to keep governing in the best interests of the province despite the harassment of unhinged right-wingers. And Stephanie Kusie and Lana Cuthbertson write that the abuse is antithetical to good government and leadership no matter how much one disagrees with a governing party's policies.

- And finally, Susan Wright highlights the ultimate task for Rachel Notley's government - being to tilt Alberta's overall values from a money-based, me-first mindset toward much-needed recognition of the common good.

Monday Morning Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- Roshini Nair reviews Jim Stanford's re-released Economics for Everyone, with a particular focus on the need not to give up on the prospect of change for the better:

Although economics might be the dismal science, this book is never dismal in its outlook. While acknowledging that capitalism is the system we have, Stanford insists there is hope for a more humane alternative.

This idea is in contrast to the litany of books that firmly adheres to the idea that we are doomed and that capitalism is our only option -- the sort of morose left-wing acceptance of Margaret Thatcher's declaration "there is no alternative."

There is plenty of (valid) criticism that capitalism has invaded and co-opted different movements and spaces often irreparably, but Stanford never relents from his position. He reminds us that "if the entire history of Homo sapiens to date was a 24-hour day, then capitalism has existed for three-and-a-half minutes." From this wider, long-term perspective, Stanford assures the reader that not all hope is lost.

And Stanford makes a good point that this moroseness is really a byproduct of neoliberalism.

"A central goal of neoliberal economic and social policy has been to alter the fundamental balance of power in the employment relationship, by recreating a broad degree of insecurity and discipline among workers," says Stanford.

- Meanwhile, Jonathan Freedland offers his take on why and how to offer a populist alternative on the left - both for the sake of actually representing the public interest, and to limit the appeal of a dangerous right-wing version.

- Jim Edwards examines what a basic income system might look like in the UK. And Tom Parkin comments on the desperate need for an economic strategy which doesn't leave out low-income citizens.

- Jason Fekete and Lee Berthiaume report on the $9.5 billion in budgeted money the Cons allowed to lapse in order to claim a single-year surplus for electioneering purposes. And Cameron MacIntosh points out the millions in First Nation funding being withheld.

- Finally, Canadian for Tax Fairness' study of the problems with the Canada Revenue Agency deserves plenty of attention. But so far, the main response to the revelation that our public tax authority is serving political ends rather than actually collecting revenue seems to have been an attempt to shoot the messengers. 

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Joseph Stiglitz writes that inequality is killing the American middle class. And Crawford Kilian examines the direct connection between inequality and midlife mortality:

For some white Americans born between 1961 and 1970, however, something has gone wrong. They grew up in what should have been a wonderful time: the fall of the Soviet Union, the emergence of China as the world's economic powerhouse, the fading of the threat of a global nuclear war.

In 1998, however, some members of this age cohort began to sicken and die...
...
...(T)his cohort's mortality began to rise at half a per cent a year. Not much, but it has continued year after year. By 2013, that meant 488,500 white Americans were dead when they should have lived...
...
As discouraging as these studies are, they largely vindicate a century of public health research that shows your very life depends on the class you're born into. Every social class is healthier and less stressed than the class below it, and sicker and more stressed than the class above it. Mobility between classes is far easier downward than upward.

It's not that poor, uneducated people don't know how to eat properly or keep themselves clean. They usually do; they're just too stressed to take care of themselves. As researchers like Dr. Richard Wilkinson have shown in book after book, income inequality within nations creates stressors on the relatively poor (even if they're far better off than the proverbial Bangladeshi peasant).
...
Canada's mortality rates may be consolingly low, but for some Canadians they have always been high -- especially for aboriginal Canadians. Their incomes are a fraction of other Canadians', and their incarceration rates are much higher than others'.

In both countries, far more research needs to be done to understand -- and remedy -- the deadly consequences of inequality.

- Meanwhile, Harry Leslie Smith contrasts the welcoming humanitarian attitude toward refugees following World War II to the inclination toward denial and isolation across much of Europe today.

- David Macdonald studies the soaring cost of child care across Canada. And the Star follows up by arguing for a national program to make child care affordable for all parents - to replace the status quo in which child care can carry the same cost as an additional mortgage.

- Philip Preville takes a look at Canada's shadow lending industry - and how it drives up both housing prices and stressors on the people who rely on it to fund house purchases. 

- Finally, Stuart Basden discusses how Canada remained part of the problem in Paris - even if its obstruction was targeted toward specific issues rather than the general principle of agreeing on reining in climate change at all. George Monbiot highlights the flaws and retrenchment in the final Paris agreement. And Brad Plumer charts how the emission reduction commitments made so far would take us less than halfway to the supposed goal.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Lana Payne discusses Jordan Brennan's research showing that corporate tax cuts have done nothing to help economic growth (but all too much to exacerbate inequality). And Andrew Jackson sets out the main fiscal choice the Libs will have to make in determining whether to keep going down the same path:

(T)he Liberal platform also envisaged temporary deficits to finance higher spending on social programs such as child benefits, a higher Guaranteed Income Supplement for single seniors, public health care, child care and First Nations programs, and did not increase overall federal tax revenues. The proceeds of the new top income tax rate will be recycled entirely into a proposed so-called middle class tax cut which in fact heavily favours the top 10% and weill not even cover the cost of the middle class tax cut.

Progressives will be expecting the government to deliver on its ambitious social agenda, and will note that this could be easily funded on the revenue side by implementing a modest corporate tax increase, by scaling back the so-called middle class tax cut, and by setting more ambitious targets for the promised Liberal review of tax loopholes for the most affluent. Meanwhile, business Liberals, perhaps including Minister of Finance Bill Morneau, will likely be pushing for less social spending than promised in the platform in order to balance the books on the original schedule.

Platforms are crafted to win elections, but governments must make real choices. The Liberal government should stick to its spending promises, but this will require some adjustment to their taxation plans and stated fiscal goals.

- Meanwhile, even to the extent one wants to presume that the Libs were bound to offer tax cuts of some sort, John Geddes notes that one focused on the lowest income tax bracket would produce far more equitable results.

- Deirdre Fulton comments on the hollowing-out of the U.S.' middle class. The Economist weighs in on the UK Cons' attempts to define child poverty out of existence. And Bethany Farr writes that a strong majority of the UK public considers it important to take action to ensure people have access to food - though sadly their government disagrees.

- Sara Mojtehedazeh exposes how Ontario's provincial government (like far too many others) is contributing to the culture of precarious work in its own hiring practices. And in case we needed more indication that the commercialization of government is based on ideology rather than evidence, CBC reports on Saskatchewan Auditor Judy Ferguson's findings that the Wall government hasn't lifted a finger to measure the effects of the "lean" program it's imposing across the public sector.

- Finally, Bryan Thomas and Colleen Flood write that if we want to improve our health care system, the answer lies in modernizing public structures, not selling out to private ones.

Musical interlude

Zeds Dead feat. Twin Shadow & D'Angelo Lacy - Lost You

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Les Leopold rightly argues that financial and political elites won't offer a more fair distribution of wealth or power unless they're forced to do so:

Right now, we lack a robust mass movement with the power to reclaim our economy and our democracy to make it work for the 99 percent.

Instead, we have thousands of individual groups working on every issue from racking to a living wage. We have unions fighting for their members and worker centers fighting for immigrant rights. We have protests ranging from Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter to climate justice. We have hundreds of progressive websites and jour nals to cover all this activity. But we do not have a coherent national movement with a clear and bold agenda that links us together.

We will show that runaway inequality is at the root of many of the problems we face, including the meteoric and disastrous rise of the financial sector, defunding of the public sector, environmental destruction, increased racial discrimination, the gender gap in wages and the rise of our mammoth prison population. And we will posit that if we share a clear understanding of runaway inequality - and the basic economic situation we face - we can begin to build a common, broad-based movement for fundamental economic justice that will take on America's economic elites.

The political system will not move unless we organize on a mass level like the Populists did over a hundred years ago, like the trade union movement did in the 1930s and like the Civil Rights movement did in the 1950s and 1960s.

Some liberal economists and politicians appeal to the self-interest of the super-rich. They argue that the rich would be (even) better off if they would just allow a fairer distribution of income and wealth. We disagree. Expecting the wealthy to help us secure basic fairness is a losing proposition.

Economic elites will only give up power and wealth when they're forced to do so by a powerful social movement.

- And Luke Savage notes that part of the problem lies in our acceptance of a withered conception of rights - as the economic and social rights recognized through much of the 20th century have never been given effect, and are now seldom treated as such.

- Philip Cohen and Jeff Spross both respond to a patronizing attempt to complicate the issue of poverty - Cohen by focusing on the ability to provide enough income to wipe out poverty at the source, and Spross by highlighting the potential effect of full-employment policies as well. And Bill Tieleman argues that we shouldn't have to rely on food banks and other charities to meet basic needs, especially on a systemic basis.

- Finally, the Star decries the misuse of cabinet secrecy to hide government operations from the public. And Claire Wahlen reports on the years of work required to identify and reverse the attacks on Canadian privacy implemented by the Harper Cons.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Dani Rodrik discusses the evolution of work, and notes that future development and sharing of wealth may need to follow a different model than the one that's applied in the past:

(T)he post-industrial economy opened up a new chasm in the labor market, between those with stable, high-paid, and fulfilling services jobs and those with fleeting, low-paid, and unsatisfying jobs. Two factors determined the share of each type of job – and thus the extent of inequality produced by the post-industrial transition: the education and skill level of the workforce, and the degree of institutionalization of labor markets in services (in addition to manufacturing).

Inequality, exclusion, and duality became more marked in countries where skills were poorly distributed and many services approximated the textbook “ideal” of spot markets. The United States, where many workers are forced to hold multiple jobs in order to make an adequate living, remains the canonical example of this model.

The vast majority of workers still live in low- and middle-income countries and have yet to go through these transformations. There are two reasons to believe that their future path will (or need) not unfold in quite the same way.

...

(T)here is both good and bad news for the future of work in developing countries. Thanks to social policy and labor rights, workers can become full stakeholders in the economy much earlier in the process of development. At the same time, the traditional engine of economic development – industrialization – is likely to operate at much lower capacity. The resulting combination of high public expectations and low income-producing capacity will be a major challenge for developing economies everywhere.

- Erin Anderssen weighs in on the desperate need for an effective national child care system.

- Andrew Coyne makes the case for public financial disclosure to be carried out by an independent body, rather than being limited to whatever format, timing and spin best suits the government of the day. And the CP reports on the ugly aftermath of the Cons' end-of-term patronage binge.

- Finally, Andrew Mitrovica explains why we shouldn't expect the Libs to fix what's glaringly wrong with Bill C-51 - even if we have every reason to demand it:

(I)f Trudeau truly wanted to use simple, clear language to offer Canadians some long-overdue information about the fate of this ghastly law, all he had to do was add five words to the [throne] speech, bringing the total up to 1,755: The Government will repeal C-51. Why didn’t he?

If the Liberals intended to repeal C-51, they would have said so. If they’d intended to repeal large parts of the law, they would have sent some signals by now. If they haven’t, common sense suggests it’s because Trudeau has chosen to leave C-51 largely intact.
...
Terrorism cannot be bombed or legislated out of existence. Bill C-51 and laws like it offer the gullible only the illusion of security. And they do so at a terrible cost to free societies. C-51 includes extremely dangerous language criminalizing the “promotion” of terrorism and the spread of terrorist “propaganda” — legal catch-alls that can’t help but erode the right to free speech.

It vastly expands the power of security services to make arrests without warrants, on suspicion. It targets things like interference with “critical infrastructure” (code for protesters messing with pipelines), gives CSIS the power to “disrupt” suspected terrorist plots without waiting around for the cops, and allows it to petition a judge for permission to violate the Charter of Rights.

This isn’t a slippery slope. It’s a cliff. The tired strategy of granting security services more powers in the immediate wake of the latest terrorist attack has been tried time and again, and has failed time and again.

On managing the system

Following up on this post, there doesn't seem to be much prospect of the Cons making any effort to pursue proportional representation as an alternative to a ranked ballot if Tasha Kheiriddin's latest reflects their' thinking. But I'll point out that there's reason for the Cons to give the option a second look even if the Libs have made up their minds.

It's absolutely true that a ranked ballot system will tend to favour a party positioned on the middle of the spectrum. And the exception on a single-election basis will arise only where voters are so disgusted with that one party that they drop it from the top of their lists and/or move it to the bottom (behind competitors on all sides of the spectrum).

In other words, the prospect of limiting the Libs' hegemony under a ranked ballot system depends on a national mood where people of different values can agree at least somewhat on the need (and reasons) for change. And multi-party agreement that the Libs have rigged the electoral system in their own favour in a way that's unfair to all other parties might offer the only plausible basis to get there in a first Trudeau term.

For that reason alone, the Cons would hurt themselves as much as anybody by sticking to an inflexible and exclusionary position, rather than looking for some common ground with other parties. But the longer the Cons operate as if they were still in power today, the more likely they are to be stuck with a system that keeps them away from it in perpetuity.

New column day

Here, on how the Libs' first major budgetary choice has been to continue the Cons' dangerous pattern of chipping away at the federal government's fiscal capacity.

For further reading...
-  Scott Clark and Peter DeVries have previously summarized the Cons' destructive revenue cuts and overall fiscal mismanagement. And Bruce Johnstone and Andrew Potter are among those who have pointed to the long-term elimination of fiscal capacity as a major part of the Cons' legacy.
- Meanwhile, the headline about the Libs' misnamed "middle class" tax shuffle features a $1.2 billion price tag due to the Libs' lumping in a reduction in the limit on tax-free savings accounts. But since the Libs planned (PDF) to make that TFSA change anyway, the real cost of barging ahead with the shift is the full $1.7 billion gap in income taxes.
- And finally, David MacDonald's alternative suggestions as to what the Libs could have done with any added revenue from the 1% are again worth a read.

On earned media

Ideally, a new Parliament should have the opportunity to talk about issues of far more direct significance and practical value than keeping even offensive speech such as Donald Trump's out of Canada. And so it's a bit disappointing to see Tom Mulcair pushing that issue.

That said, it's not hard to understand the reasoning behind the push. Since this fall's election, the NDP has made strong efforts to fight discrimination against refugees, highlight the need for action on climate change, for federal involvement in the fight against poverty. And its reward has been...buried or nonexistent coverage of its actual work, coupled with the familiar complaint that it's the NDP's fault if commentators can't be bothered to pay attention.

In that context, it makes sense to look for positions which (a) are likely to draw attention based on existing storylines and (b) set the NDP apart from its competitors in a positive way. And so far, the Trump message is doing that much - and indeed receiving no opposition from Canada's other parties.

In the long run, though, the NDP needs its appearances in the public eye to match its core priorities. And in the absence of the default coverage previously received as the Official Opposition, the task of winning the right kind of media and public attention may be one of the more difficult challenges Mulcair and his team face in the near future.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Robert Reich suggests that government should respond to corporations who engage in anti-social activity such as moving their earnings offshore by making sure they can't simultaneously take advantage of laws torqued in their favour. And Daniel Tencer reports on the $12.5 billion bonus pool being doled out by Canada's financial sector even as it cuts front-line jobs.

- Patrick Maze discusses the importance of investing in education as preventative medicine as well as a form of economic development:

If we agree that preventing an ailment is easier than curing it, and that being proactive is better than being reactive, then we should insist that our governments also apply this in policy development. At some point we need to flip our thinking, and our actions, from responding reactively to social needs and challenges, to working toward a vision of what we want for our future society. We should commit resources to support that vision appropriately, and faithfully.

Education is a key factor in the health of both individuals and communities. Many researchers have studied the causal relationships between the level of our citizens' education, and their requirements for societal supports like health care, social services and justice. They've found that as the education levels of a society increases, access to those supports all decrease.
...
When we combine these savings in health care and justice, and consider that more educated populations are also less reliant on social supports, it seems like such an easy decision to prioritize education as an investment in the health of our citizens, communities and our economy. The funding trends we have now are simply unsustainable, and at some point we'll be forced to look to sustainable alternatives. Shouldn't we want our government to be proactive, rather than reactive, when we try to take that approach with our own lives?

Let's consider a collective vision for our future. Let's plan proactively to prevent problems, instead of just reacting to new ones as they arise. Let's challenge our leaders to develop policy that addresses root-causes of the issues we care about, instead of relying on expensive treatment options like justice, social services and health care. If we flip our thinking, priorities and actions, we'll recognize that investing in the education of our children is far more cost-effective and sustainable.

- Meanwhile, Lawrence Carter and Maeve McClenaghan expose how climate denialists for hire are using their academic credentials to produce reports to fit the requests of secret corporate sponsors.

- Charles Mandel talks to Stephen Lewis about the need for Canada's new climate change talk to b backed by policy.

- Finally, Adam Dodek points out that there's reason for concern that the Trudeau Libs will back away from their promises on democratic reform. And Dave Meslin makes the case for a proportional electoral system - with particular emphasis on why the ranking and runoff systems which may be appropriate in non-partisan contexts are ill-suited to federal politics.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Couched cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- David MacDonald offers some alternative suggestions that can do far more to reduce inequality and boost Canada's economy than the Libs' upper-class tax shuffle. And Karl Nerenberg reminds us that the most important scandal on our political scene is the constant stream of corporate tax giveaways which has done nothing to help anybody but the already-wealthy few.

- Meanwhile, Paul Buchheit challenges the right's constant effort to demonize people living in poverty.

- Mariana Mazzucato discusses the need for entrepreneurial government to fund and manage a transition to a clean economy. And the Vancouver Sun comments on the need for actual leadership rather than mere talk. But Thomas Walkom highlights Ontario's green strategy gone haywire as a reminder that money alone won't lead to the results we need either if it isn't paired with effective management.

- Don Lenihan points out that openness in government needs to include the willingness to actually engage with the people affected by policy choices, not merely to allow people to see one's own unilateral decisions. And Jim Bronskill's story as to how the Cons view peaceful protests as security threats signals that there's a long way to go on both fronts.

- Finally, Elizabeth Thompson exposes the Cons' deliberate (and less-than-surprising) attempt to continue imposing their agenda on Canada from beyond the political grave.

Priorities

The Libs' top 10% tax giveaway will cost a total of a previously unbudgeted $1.2 billion per year. And that apparently hasn't caused anybody to think twice about whether it's a good idea.

For the sake of comparison, the Libs' total commitment to the entire areas of "Health", "Environment and the economy" and "Indigenous Peoples" in year 1 of their platform (PDF) is $1.105 billion.

So which of those choices looks like a higher-priority use of whatever fiscal capacity the federal government has to work with?

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Bryce Edwards comments on the politics of inequality in New Zealand, while noting that there's a huge gap between talk and action:

Could the political left benefit from more focus on economics and inequality? Absolutely, according to Labour Party dissident Josie Pagani - see her blog post, We need to talk about the one per cent. She makes the case that "Global inequality is the number one issue for the progressive left." She also argues for:
1) "switching taxes from income to wealth"
2) "managed markets"
3) international treaties and agreements to harmonise economic issues such as tax and trade.
But if the public is already so concerned with inequality, why aren't the parties of the left doing better? That's a question discussed by AUT's Peter Skilling in Perceptions Of Inequality. His answer - with reference to "system justification theory" - is that social psychology means that the framing of the problem can lead to resistance to change. See also Kirk Serpes' Why we need to stop talking about inequality.

- Mark Karlin talks to Susan George about the corporate sector's rewriting the rules of international relations for its own benefit. Hilary Osborne reports on Cadbury's glaring tax avoidance in the UK, while Richard Murphy offers a few simple fixes to corporate tax evasion. And Conor Lynch responds to the regressive promise of flat taxes.

- The National Post reminds us that we need tax revenue to pay for the public priorities we all value. And Charlie Smith discusses the long-term consequences of needless austerity - with a focus on Bill Bennett's past B.C. government.

- Finally, Tom Parkin writes that the Libs' supposed "middle-class" tax giveaways are in fact aimed at the top 10%. And Daniel Leblanc reports that they're planning to barge ahead even after acknowledging that their numbers don't add up, meaning they'll need to take away from other promises to do it.

Sunday Morning Links

Assorted content for your Sunday reading.

- Louis-Philippe Rochon highlights why we need governments at all levels to be working on stimulating Canada's economy, not looking to cut back:

The bank was referring to what economists call "secular stagnation": a long-period of very low growth, with all its obvious consequences on unemployment and income inequality. Secular stagnation is receiving increasing attention amongst academic economists, and rightly so; and it is something Canada should try avoiding at all costs.

Secular stagnation is like quicksand: the longer we stay in it, the more difficult it is to get out of, especially with governments insisting on cutting back spending.

...

Economies are driven by demand, and yet, in the last few years, in Canada and elsewhere, governments have persistently adopted policies that purposely deflated demand, thereby condemning our economies to secular stagnation.

So the answer to both questions is the same: fiscal policy. This is why it is more important than ever that the government in Ottawa undertakes fiscal spending on a much larger scale. Yet, my only concern is that the proposed spending will likely not be sufficient: there is a general inability of the new government and technocrats to truly understand the serious nature of what is going on. It will require more than tinkering with fiscal policy. What we need is a full-fledged fiscal attack.

Combating secular stagnation will be difficult. Clearly, Canada cannot do it alone. It will require a concerted, international and sustained effort for several years.

What we need is a New Deal for this decade and beyond.

- Will Grice reports on Finland's work on implementing a national basic income - and the high level of support it's receiving from the public. And Matthew Yglesias points out that the gap between the corporate elite and the rest of the U.S. population was far smaller just a few decades ago than it's become since then.

- albertarabbit reminds us that there isn't much reason to expect a difference between the Libs and the Cons when it comes to putting corporate interests ahead of people.

- Meanwhile, Martin Patriquin too finds little evidence of change when it comes to the Libs' refusal to accept any criticism whatsoever. And Cathy Guill highlights the issues we should be addressing as a result of this week's news about the Trudeau family's publicly-funded nannies.

- Finally, Rachel Notley explains her government's much-needed efforts to ensure the safety of Alberta farm workers. And Naomi Lakritz writes that anybody protesting the effort has reason to be ashamed.

Saturday Morning Links

This and that for your weekend reading.

- Jacqueline Davidson offers a personal account of the experience of living in poverty, including the need to rely on charity to make up for constantly-unmet needs. And Alana Semuels discusses how single mothers in particular have no choice but to rely on social connections to make up for the absence of both public supports and viable employment opportunities.

- Meredith Dost points out that there's strong support for a basic income and poverty relief even among U.S. Republicans who actually face low incomes for themselves - meaning that it's only the wealthier wing of a single party blocking a popular desire for improved social supports. And Sean McElwee comments on new research showing how voter disengagement allows that minority to control Congress.

- Dan Darrah writes that Canada is losing out due to our lack of proper corporate tax enforcement:

 We've almost always been soft on business. Canadian "welfare capitalism" has been around since the 19th century -- think John A. Macdonald's National Policy, which helped line the pockets of commercial interests through the production of the Canadian-Pacific Railway. James Ondrick argued in his fantastic thesis paper "The Erosion of Elite Accommodation" that elite interests -- especially business groups -- have enjoyed a very privileged treatment from the feds, and Canadians have accepted this practice as "legitimate."

We've accepted that well-positioned corporate interests are a part of the "public policy process," Ondrick argues. We respond to these political machinations not with protest, but with one gigantic, seismic nod.

Canada even has the lowest corporate tax rate in the G7.

So, maybe the question is, "have the politicians gone too soft?"

The Canadians for Tax Fairness (CTF) estimated that companies operating in Canada in 2014 held over $199 billion in "assets" -- unpaid taxes -- in havens like Barbados and the Cayman Islands. A grilling Oxfam report found that Canada is one of the biggest "losers" of corporate tax revenue. The "winner" countries are the ones with low-to-none corporate income tax, such as Bermuda, as well as the super-rich.
...
Giving the Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA) some power to pry into corporate pocketbooks would be a great start, as would be creating anti-avoidance legislation like the kind being explored in the U.K.

It would surely take some moxie, but for good reason. The not-so-new cash could also be injected into crumbling municipal infrastructure, underfunded healthcare facilities, improved settlement services for soon-to-be arriving Syrian refugees, or perhaps the very ambitious platform Trudeau is now charged with implementing. An easy $199 billion more bones in the federal coffers might ease the stress of doing so.

If not for the revenue, the government should crack down on principle: Canadian taxpayers have been pulling their weight since the first income tax was levied in 1917. Corporations should be, too.

- Tony Burman highlights the connection between climate change and global insecurity. And Tabatha Southey offers a handy classification system for climate-change deniers.

- Finally, Donna Baines and Pat Armstrong offer a survey of options for long-term care which deserve a close look at home.

On consensus-building

John Ivison is a bit melodramatic on behalf of the Cons in assessing the impact of possible electoral reform. But to the extent the Cons actually accept his argument, it might well lead them toward the best possible outcome in the form of a proportional electoral system.

After all, by highlighting electoral reform in their throne speech as a promise to be addressed in short order, the Libs have left themselves little room to stick with the status quo.

Nor will they have much incentive to do so. If the other parties go off in different directions, with the Cons trying desperately and alone to cling to first-past-the-post, the Libs will figure to use their majority to push through the system which benefits them the most. And that would mean a ranked ballot system which favours the Libs at everybody else's expense.

But if the Cons are willing to think through their options in supporting an alternative system (however grudgingly), their choice could be both positive and decisive.

As Ivison notes, the Cons in their current form would lose out significantly from a ranked-ballot system. And if first-past-the-post isn't an option, that leaves the possibility of supporting proportional representation - as at least some of the Cons' base has long done.

If the Cons were to join the NDP and the Greens in backing PR, the Libs would have a much more difficult time imposing a ranked-ballot system. Instead of being able to push their preferred choice on a divided opposition, they'd have to choose between facing criticism from all sides for rejecting a consensus alternative option, or being able to claim all-party support in delivering on a major promise (with a system which itself would be far from a clear loss for a party likely to be included in most potential coalition governments).

Of course, it remains to be seen whether the Cons are willing to accept that they're no longer in a position to dictate terms. And indeed the most likely outcome is probably that they'll try (and fail) to block any electoral reform whatsoever. But if they're willing to move past Harper's my-way-or-the-highway approach in shaping our electoral system, the result may be one that all parties can count as a win in the long run.

Musical interlude

Matt Darey & Aeron Aether feat. Tiff Lacey - Into The Blue

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Tom Bawden notes that inequality is as much a problem in our relative contribution to climate change as it is in so many other areas of life. And Steven Rosenfeld lists some of the ways in which the increasingly-wealthy few are making life worse for everybody else in the U.S.:

The super-rich are more politically active than average Americans, financing and contacting elected officials and knowing many on a first-name basis. Their agenda, which is often cited by public officials across the country, emphasizes private profit-making and is skeptical of almost every public program to address economic inequality, the study by Chicago-based university researchers found. The top 1 percent’s social agenda, while “more liberal than others on religious and moral issues, including abortion, gay rights, and prayer in school,” is still “much more conservative than the non-affluent on issues of taxes, economic regulation, and social welfare,” the researchers found.

Put another way, today’s top 1 percent generally do not believe the longtime conservative line that a rising economic tide will lift all Americans, but have a darker view in which one’s fate is tied to the survival of the fittest. They consider climate change a non-issue and most would cut federal and state safety nets and anti-poverty programs, shift taxpayer dollars into privatized education and do little to ensure access to higher education.

“We speculate that the striking contrast concerning core social welfare programs between our wealthy respondents and the general public may reveal something important about the current state of American politics,” the report says. “If wealthy Americans wield an extra measure of influence over policy making, and if they strongly favor deficit reductions through spending cuts—including cuts in Social Security and Medicare—this may help explain why a number of public officials have advocated deep cuts in the very social welfare programs that are most popular among ordinary Americans.”

- Mike Moffatt writes that there's plenty our governments can do to ensure that wealthy individuals pay their fair share of taxes, but that it will take significant political will to take the necessary steps.

- The OECD documents how tax contributions have changed over the past decade - with corporate taxes in particular plummeting (contrary to the promise that tax cuts will pay for themselves) while individuals pick up the slack. And Alexandra Posadzki reports that bank profits alone seem to be skyrocketing even as the rest of our economy largely stagnates.

- Roderick Benns argues that our next major national project should be a basic income. And David Gratzer suggests that we should work on eradicating homelessness.

- Meanwhile, Ben Walsh highlights the need for far more investment in avoiding catastrophic climate change. And Martin Lukacs challenges Justin Trudeau to follow up on his shiny climate rhetoric with action.

- Finally, Ed Broadbent follows up on this week's show of public support by making the case for a a more proportional electoral system rather than an even more distorted ranked-ballot version. And Dylan Penner also weighs in to support proportional representation.

[Edit: fixed typo in excerpt.]

Movements and moments

Let's continue this line of thought about the federal NDP's most recent election campaign with my slight twist on one of the more familiar questions which has faced the party (in various forms) over a period of decades.

I'll start by drawing a distinction between two related goals which are bound to figure in a political party's plans. Any party with the foresight to last more than an election cycle will put meaningful effort into building a movement over the longer term; any party wanting to accomplish anything during an election cycle will likewise prioritize the goal of capturing the moment when it counts most during an election campaign.

And while I'll question the respective allocation of resources between those two goals in hindsight, there are certainly precedents the NDP could point to in focusing largely on a "capture the moment" philosophy.

The 2011 Orange Wave resulted in no small part from a phenomenal amount of movement-building work by Jack Layton and his team. But it also concluded with a crescendo of support which went far beyond what would have been expected based on the the party's infrastructure.

And the NDP's provincial election wins in Nova Scotia and Alberta can also be taken as triumphs of a "capture the moment" philosophy in different ways - with Nova Scotia being based on stronger party infrastructure but less appeal to activists (and likely serving as the model for the 2015 federal campaign), while Alberta reflected the converse.

After 2011, the federal NDP faced the task of converting its sudden increase in votes, seats and public opinion into other gains, including the development of a broader movement. And lest there be any doubt, it took some important steps to do so.

Not only did Tom Mulcair put in double duty personally to match his opponents' travel schedule while also serving as an ideal leader of the opposition in Parliament, but the NDP also started engaging members in the type of ongoing issue-based outreach which hadn't been seen in some time. And indeed, the NDP's success in 2015 was founded in no small part on the combination of parliamentary work and activist engagement around Bill C-51.

But the effort to build activist support was complicated by Justin Trudeau's arrival as the Libs' leader - which bumped the NDP from its place at the top of the polls, and prevented the NDP from being seen as the lone magnet for Harper opponents. Hence the rise of the "promiscuous progressive" whose support remained in play through most of the 2015 election campaign. 

Trudeau's rise represented a factor beyond the NDP's control. But the party also took numerous steps (including focusing on MP and candidate "discipline" as well as rejecting candidates for questionable reasons) which narrowed its range of acceptable supporters and dampened enthusiasm within its usual base - presumably with the goal of remaining acceptable to a wider range of voters in the hope of capturing late deciders.

That on its own was problematic enough. But coupled with a choice to focus relatively little on values and policy definition during the campaign, it set the NDP up for failure in the battle to be seen as the alternative to the Cons - or at least, took the shape of the campaign out of the NDP's hands.

To be fair, it's entirely possible that the commentariat would now be lauding the political brilliance of Prime Minister Tom Mulcair and his far-sighted team if Trudeau had fallen down during the campaign, leaving the NDP as an inoffensive alternative to clean up the anti-Conservative vote. But the NDP's election plan didn't work against a Lib campaign which ran smoothly - and the appeal to default status is certainly outdated now that the Libs are back in power.

Fortunately, if the above analysis holds up as to what went wrong, the election result on its own should push the NDP in the right direction out of necessity. A leader who can't rely on being perceived as the default alternative is bound to make the case for his own values; a smaller caucus will inevitably have to focus more on outreach and advocacy than on discipline; a party with less parliamentary resources will need to put proportionally more work into its base of volunteers and donors.

Those are thus the measures I'll be looking for in assessing Mulcair's continued leadership. While it's important to offer effective opposition in Ottawa, it's more clear than ever that the NDP's future success depends on its ability to foster and tap into an active progressive movement. And it's by developing that popular base over time (and keeping it all the more engaged during a campaign) that the NDP can best position itself to win overall voter support when it counts most.

On purposes

There are plenty of questions which the NDP is rightly asking in the wake of this fall's federal election results. But Susan Delacourt is uncharacteristically far off base in her view as to what the main question is.

By way of contrast, the question of "What’s the point of the party anyway?" was a highly relevant one for the Libs after 2011 precisely because the longstanding answer seemed like it might no longer apply. A party whose historic base of support was built around the willingness to take on and discard principles in the name of power brokerage figured to have a great deal of trouble establishing a raison d'etre if it held no realistic prospect of actually winning power. And while I'd have been interested to see what the Libs would have come up with if forced to hash out a coherent ideological base, their remaining forces lined up as readily as they did behind Justin Trudeau precisely because his star power relieved them from any need to answer that question. 

In contrast, the NDP has always had a distinct identity as Canada's labour-based, egalitarian party which has held up through good times and bad. And while it may have spent large (and perhaps undue) amounts of time in the past election trying to reach voters who weren't motivated by those principles, there's no reason to think the NDP will have any trouble fortifying and building on its historical foundation.

And in case there was any doubt, the party's policy messages since the Libs' election win reflect exactly that philosophy - making Delacourt's hand-wringing about the NDP's positioning look like little but a symptom of a failure to pay attention.

So while there are questions about how the NDP can best pursue the goal of exercising and influencing power for the benefit of the many, there's no reason at all to question what its purpose actually is.

New column day

Here, on how the Saskatchewan Party's mid-year fiscal update shows it hasn't learned a thing about managing a boom-and-bust resource economy - and how it may take Saskatchewan's electorate to fix the underlying problem.

For further reading...
- The mid-year update discussed in the column is here (PDF). And the increase in unemployment of more than half - from 3.5% to 5.6% - can be found in the difference between Statistics Canada's numbers for October 2014 (which the Wall government crowed about here) here and the ones from October 2015 mentioned in the province's most recent monthly economic indicators report.
- CBC reports on the update and the related deficit, while Bruce Johnstone reports on the latest economic forecasts (including updated housing numbers). And Simon Falush discusses on the factors behind the global drop in oil prices which figure to last for some time to come.
- Finally, the Leader-Post's editorial board offers its own view about the missed opportunity to set up a heritage fund - even after the Wall government supposedly planned to develop one.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Paul Edwards discusses the availability of a gradual transition to clean energy while avoiding more than 2 degrees of climate change - but only if we start swapping out fossil fuels for renewable energy now. And Christopher Grainger argues that a space race-style approach to research and development represents a necessary part of the transition we should be pursuing:

Carbon lock-in is one of the key insights of recent work in “directed technical change” by MIT economist Daron Acemoglu and colleagues. They find the most cost-effective way to address climate change is early action on both fronts: pricing carbon and supporting low-carbon innovation. Acemoglu and co differ from traditional economic models of climate change by properly considering how new technology emerges, instead of treating it as an “exogenous” process that suddenly arrives like manna from heaven.

Early policy intervention is crucial. It can change the path of innovation from “dirty” (carbon-intensive) to “clean” (low-carbon) and then once clean innovation gains a sufficient advantage it can be left alone, as profit-maximising firms will pursue clean innovation in their own interests.
...
If markets left to themselves will continue to merely pump out “innovations” along certain pathways, then it is up to the state to play a more direct role in starting a “greentech” revolution. Mariana Mazzucato, in her book The Entrepreneurial State, argues that major advances in tech from the internet to nanotechnology to pharmaceuticals were born either directly from government research or because governments made the risky investments necessary for the private sector to act.

The good news is that not all money is the same, and those behind Mission Innovation and the Breakthrough Energy Coalition seem to have read Mazzucato. They explicitly reference “patient capital” which can reduce the risk of uncertain technological investments. There is no question this is a major step in the right direction.

Governments certainly need to price carbon, but they should also act as entrepreneurs and market-creators to kickstart innovation for the green growth of the future. If we are underspending on this by orders of magnitude, then doubling is not nearly enough.

- Justin Fisher laments Brad Wall's continued determination to be an obstacle in the way of any progress. David Turnbull points out how much more is being spent on fossil fuel subsidies than on the latest round of climate change funding promises. And George Monbiot compares the UK Cons' cavalier attitude toward climate change to their eagerness to engage in war.

- Yves Smith weighs in on the futility of expecting economic growth out of corporate tax slashing. And Adrian Morrow reports on the Ontario Libs' corporate welfare programs which are burning through billions of public dollars in the absence of any apparent effort to set funding criteria or track any results.

- Richard Elliott highlights how the Trans-Pacific Partnership will limit the availability of desperately-needed prescription drugs.

- Finally, the Broadbent Institute highlights the Canadian public's eagerness for a change in our electoral system - though there's an obvious choice to be made between preferential systems supported by the public, and a ranked-ballot system which would have further inflated the Libs' seat count.

On balancing acts

For those wondering, I'm indeed following up on these posts and working my way through some of the factors in the NDP's federal election result. (For more on the subject, see the latest from Lawrence Martin, and Desmond Cole talking to Cheri DiNovo.)

I'll turn now to what's often been labeled the most important turning point of the campaign - that being the NDP's promise to balance the federal budget, in contrast to the Libs' commitment to run deficits. But the problem looks to me to have been less that the NDP took an unreasonable position, than that it didn't do enough otherwise to win what's come to be labeled the "progressive primary".

While I don't see DiNovo's comments in particular as accurately presenting the NDP's message (no, "austerity" was never on the table), they do reflect how the Libs managed to spin the NDP's position. And that's largely because the NDP's messaging early in the campaign was aimed at maintaining the party's consideration set with warm-and-fuzzy messages about Tom Mulcair and challenges to the Cons, sometimes at the expense of appealing to a progressive base which was apparently waiting to decide on its direction.

To be fair, the NDP may have expected its past messaging and policy work to have accomplished that task already. After all, both other major parties took the opposite side of issues including C-51, child care, and the minimum wage among others, while the Libs had seemed to run right more than left until the campaign began.

What's more, the NDP did plenty to earn the support of people who were paying attention to positions on specific issues. And while its platform didn't receive the attention it deserved (due in no small part to the party's choice to release it late and with little fanfare), it included plenty worth promoting.

Ultimately, I don't see the Libs as actually having earned the title of "more progressive" among any but a narrow subset of voters. But they did manage to confuse matters enough to ensure that values-based positioning wasn't a significant advantage for the NDP, particularly in terms of motivating its base supporters along with unaligned progressives. And that helped the Libs immensely when it came time for voters to settle on a choice based on affinity and electability.

To the extent the problem was one of muddied waters rather than clear distinctions, I have my doubts that following the Libs and announcing a willingness to run deficits would have radically changed the campaign, particularly if it seemed to be the result of calculation rather than commitment.

Instead, the problem seems to have been a single-minded focus on keeping remote connections to soft voters at the expense of motivating progressives - particularly when the primary goal should arguably have been a focus on the latter in order to facilitate the former closer to election day. And in my next post, I'll tie that choice to what looks like the core lesson to be taken from the NDP's successes and failures alike over the past few years.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Paul Krugman reviews Robert Reich's upcoming book, with a particular focus on the connection between corporate power and growing inequality:

...Reich makes a very good case that widening inequality largely reflects political decisions that could have gone in very different directions. The rise in market power reflects a turn away from antitrust laws that looks less and less justified by outcomes, and in some cases the rise in market power is the result of the raw exercise of political clout to prevent policies that would limit monopolies—for example, the sustained and successful campaign to prevent public provision of Internet access.

Similarly, when we look at the extraordinary incomes accruing to a few people in the financial sector, we need to realize that there are real questions about whether those incomes are “earned.” As Reich argues, there’s good reason to believe that high profits at some financial firms largely reflect insider trading that we’ve made a political decision not to regulate effectively. And we also need to realize that the growth of finance reflected political decisions that deregulated banking and failed to regulate newer financial activities.

Meanwhile, forms of market power that benefit large numbers of workers as opposed to small numbers of plutocrats have declined, again thanks in large part to political decisions. We tend to think of the drastic decline in unions as an inevitable consequence of technological change and globalization, but one need look no further than Canada to see that this isn’t true. Once upon a time, around a third of workers in both the US and Canada were union members; today, US unionization is down to 11 percent, while it’s still 27 percent north of the border. The difference was politics: US policy turned hostile toward unions in the 1980s, while Canadian policy didn’t follow suit. And the decline in unions seems to have major impacts beyond the direct effect on members’ wages: researchers at the International Monetary Fund have found a close association between falling unionization and a rising share of income going to the top one percent, suggesting that a strong union movement helps limit the forces causing high concentration of income at the top.

Following his schema, Reich argues that unions aren’t so much a source of market power as an example of “countervailing power” (a term he borrows from John Kenneth Galbraith) that limits the depredations of monopolists and others. If unions are not subject to restrictions, they may do so by collective bargaining not only for wages but for working conditions. In any case, the causes and consequences of union decline, like the causes and consequences of rising monopoly power, are a very good illustration of the role of politics in increasing inequality.

- Takashi Nakamichi reports that the Bank of Japan is going so far as to push unions to demand higher wages for the good of that country's economy as a whole. And Chico Harlan writes about the publicly-subsidized spread of low-wage work through the southern U.S. (and the limited opportunities it creates for workers), while Sara Mojtehedzadeh highlights the exploitation of cleaning workers through subcontracting arrangements in Ontario.

- Courtney Howard points out an open letter to the Trudeau Libs from Canadian physicians about the importance of the Paris climate conference and action against climate change. And that appeal would seem to fit with the Libs' talk about recognizing the social determinants of health as an element of their policy-making process.

- But of course, it remains to be seen whether they'll live up to that promise - and their installation of an oil executive in a prominent natural resources position doesn't exactly bode well.

- Finally, Andrew Mitrovica rightly slams any attempt to blame terrorism on people who value civil liberties. And Robert Benzie and Robert Cribb report on Ontario's long-overdue - and unanimous - push to limit how information in the hands of police can be misused for other purposes.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Up and down cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Paul Mason weighs in on how income and wealth inequality spill over into every corner of a person's life:

It is very possible to be poor in the 21st-century welfare state. One in five children lives in poverty, and this decade will see the first rise in absolute poverty in a generation. For decade after decade, post-war governments have chipped away at the principle of social insurance: you pay your stamps, you get your cash benefits as of right. The result is a world-class health system struggling to deal with large-scale, growing ill health determined by poverty. Even if we all live longer, the poor live shorter lives and will spend decades in disability.

So what would a modern Beveridge write? I think he would reiterate that “want” – or poverty – is the basic evil that, if you don’t abolish, drags down all your attempts at making people healthier or better educated. It’s very obvious – to anybody who has been near a food bank, or a women’s refuge, or a probation office – that “want, ignorance, squalor, disease and idleness” still exist, at disgraceful levels, and in highly concentrated pockets. A 16-year gap in healthy life expectancy between Blackpool and Wokingham – towns a three-hour journey apart – would shock us into action if we really cared about it.

And here’s why we should care: health inequality follows a clear gradient path. If you break down the population into 5% chunks according to income, every one of these chunks is healthier than the one below them. The editor, on average, dies of heart attack later than the deputy editor. This is one of the clearest findings of Marmot’s and other epidemiological research.

So inequality is not just about rich and poor – it’s about the tilted playing field of life, and how to stop it getting steeper.

- And Paul Buchheit duly challenges the spin that poverty has any meaningful connection to laziness, rather than being primarily the result of systematic disadvantages which often can't be overcome by any amount of hard work.

- Ashley Csanady reports on one long-overdue improvement in working conditions in Ontario, as employers are finally being restricted from taking a cut of workers' tips. But Martin Regg Cohn highlights how employers are still trying to wriggle out of their obligations, with the province's new pension plan serving as the latest example.

- Joby Warrick discusses the connection between corporate-funded denialism and the U.S.' polarization on climate change. But Bruce Cheadle reports that the Libs are throwing all of their promised climate research dollars into a corporate-led pool.

- Meanwhile, Lauren McCauley reports on the activists defying a ban to be heard around the Paris climate change conference. And Naomi Klein reminds us of the lives at stake as we decide whether our planet is worth saving.

- Finally, Carol Goar writes about the dangers of a bandwagon effect toward war in the absence of any accurate information as to what we're getting into.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Jordan Brennan studies the relationship between corporate taxes and the economy, and finds that the promise of growth in exchange for corporate giveaways has proven entirely illusory.

- Andy McSmith looks at another of the consequences of the trend toward corporate control, as the UK has seen the pay gap between CEOs and everybody else increase by leaps and bounds. And Nora Loreto highlights the need for the labour movement to lead the charge against the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other agreements intended to entrench the power of business against mere citizens.

- Tania Kohut reports on Campaign 2000's latest study (PDF) showing that Canada's rate of child poverty has increased in the decades since our MPs agreed unanimously to eradicate it. And Steve Buist reports on new research showing the connection between poverty, class, health and mortality in Hamilton.

- Andreas Malm discusses the futility of the non-binding non-targets at the centre of the Paris climate change negotiations. And Eric Doherty writes that the only hope for a real shift in climate change policy is the prospect of a far stronger social movement demanding better.

- Finally, Ben Worthy points out the pattern of government contempt for the concept of public access to information. And Dean Beeby reports that in keeping with that cynical view of accountability, the Libs have repudiated their promises of open government, instead setting up a lengthy review process designed to ensure that the public's demand for change now doesn't turn into meaningful policy improvements down the road.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Rosemary Barton reports on the Libs' announcement of increased funding to help developing countries fight climate change - which does represent a noteworthy improvement on the Cons' comparative stinginess. But as I've noted, it doesn't much help to deal with only one aspect of the issue - making it an especially serious problem that the business lobby looks to be setting the agenda for the Paris conference while citizen voices are silenced.

- Meanwhile, Nicholas Confessore writes that Illinois is serving as the prime example of the corporate takeover of U.S. politics - with a single ultra-rich candidate and his financial-sector buddies combining to buy his way into the governor's mansion to impose policies despised by the majority of the public. And as I've written before, there's a real possibility of the same happening in Saskatchewan due to our lack of appropriate checks on political donations.

- Jenny Wittner points out that workers end up bearing the brunt of the corporate push for holiday profits - and that our choices can shape whether businesses keep pushing the envelope.

- Duncan Cameron offers some musings on what Canada's left needs to do in light of this fall's federal election. And Andrew Jackson points out that there's ample room for advocacy in calling for central bank financing of stimulus measures.

- Finally, Claire McIlveen highlights the fact that the Libs' decision to turn away male refugees reflects exactly the politics of fear they were elected to end. And Jeremy Nuttall collects the appropriate responses to five of the most common anti-refugee excuses.