Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Joseph Stiglitz comments on how the Trans-Pacific Partnership looks to make democracy subordinate to corporate interests:

The US concluded secret negotiations on what may turn out to be the worst trade agreement in decades, the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and now faces an uphill battle for ratification, as all the leading Democratic presidential candidates and many of the Republicans have weighed in against it. The problem is not so much with the agreement’s trade provisions, but with the “investment” chapter, which severely constrains environmental, health, and safety regulation, and even financial regulations with significant macroeconomic impacts. 

In particular, the chapter gives foreign investors the right to sue governments in private international tribunals when they believe government regulations contravene the TPP’s terms (inscribed on more than 6,000 pages). In the past, such tribunals have interpreted the requirement that foreign investors receive “fair and equitable treatment” as grounds for striking down new government regulations – even if they are non-discriminatory and are adopted simply to protect citizens from newly discovered egregious harms. 

While the language is complex – inviting costly lawsuits pitting powerful corporations against poorly financed governments – even regulations protecting the planet from greenhouse-gas emissions are vulnerable. The only regulations that appear safe are those involving cigarettes (lawsuits filed against Uruguay and Australia for requiring modest labeling about health hazards had drawn too much negative attention). But there remain a host of questions about the possibility of lawsuits in myriad other areas. 

Furthermore, a “most favored nation” provision ensures that corporations can claim the best treatment offered in any of a host country’s treaties. That sets up a race to the bottom – exactly the opposite of what US President Barack Obama promised.

...

Those seeking closer economic integration have a special responsibility to be strong advocates of global governance reforms: If authority over domestic policies is ceded to supranational bodies, then the drafting, implementation, and enforcement of the rules and regulations has to be particularly sensitive to democratic concerns. Unfortunately, that was not always the case in 2015. 

In 2016, we should hope for the TPP’s defeat and the beginning of a new era of trade agreements that don’t reward the powerful and punish the weak. The Paris climate agreement may be a harbinger of the spirit and mindset needed to sustain genuine global cooperation.

- Ben Norton writes about the potential effects of TransCanada's NAFTA litigation over the Keystone XL pipeline, while Ethan Cox and Erin Seatter summarize the Chapter 11 process which allows big business to attack decisions made in the public interest. PressProgress reminds us that Canada too has faced corporate attacks on its environmental policies. And for those wondering who Brad Wall really serves, Saskatchewan's premier is cheerleading for the claim even though its primary outcome would be a transfer of U.S. public money to a single corporation.

- Charles Mandel points out in the wake of a massive California methane leak that the same could easily happen in Canada as well. And Paul Hanley calls for Saskatchewan to join the rest of the world in phasing out coal power, rather than insisting on being a dirty-energy outlier. 

- Finally, Hugh MacKenzie offers some suggestions to rein in excessive executive pay. And Michael Massing provides a primer to the media on covering self-interested "philanthropy".

Musical interlude

Gorgon City feat. MNEK - Ready For Your Love

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- John O'Farrell argues that a basic income provides a needed starting point for innovation and entrepreneurship by people who don't enjoy the advantage of inherited wealth:

But in fact it is the current situation that prevents initiative and holds back entrepreneurs. Anyone who ever invented or created anything did so with a modicum of financial security behind them. That’s why so many of our statues are to upper-class white men; that’s why Virginia Woolf needed “a room of her own and £500 a year” (slashed to £27.85 after that spare room fell under the bedroom tax). For centuries we have tapped the potential of only a small proportion of the British people; the rest have been powerless to initiate or discover where their true talents lay. With the UBI, innovators would be given the room to experiment knowing they would still have something to fall back on; it would see more small businesses and less grovelling on Dragons’ Den.

Vitally, it would begin to redress the chronic imbalance in today’s labour market. There’s a reason why call centre workers sound so miserable when they claim to be sharing really exciting news about your phone tariff. Since the decline of the unions, workers have been increasingly powerless to refuse longer hours and less money, with only the food bank to fall back on if they walk away from an exploitative job. With a guaranteed state income to keep the wolf (or Wonga) from the door, employees would regain the bargaining power to demand civilised working conditions and reasonable rates of pay...
...
For all the apparent expense of the UBI, we would save the small fortune that the state currently spends mopping up the mess of social problems caused overwhelmingly by chronic poverty.

Of course, there are complex reasons for increasing homelessness, for bulging prisons, for growing mental health problems – but desperate financial pressure is a major factor in all of them. Every decade sees us spending increasing billions trying to tighten the lid of the boiling cauldron. It might be so much cheaper just to turn down the temperature a bit.

- Meanwhile, Maria Konnikova discusses how we learn about fairness - as we naturally notice and complain about being on the wrong side of unfair circumstances, while learning to identify our own privilege takes significant work.

- Claire McIlveen comments on the need for a far more secure system of retirement income than we can currently claim.

- Pamela Cowan talks to Ryan Meili and Tom McIntosh about the importance of a national pharmacare program as part of a fully functional public health care system. And Moira Donovan weighs in on the dangers of ambulance fees in discouraging people from calling an ambulance even when needed. 

- Finally, Lee Berthiaume writes that a Saudi arms deal seen as an unqualified plus for a cynical, militaristic Con government is something else entirely for anybody who even pretends to care about human rights. But Steven Chase and Daniel Leblanc report that the Libs may not bother keeping up the charade much longer, as they're not only pushing through the sale but suppressing human rights assessments to do it.

On common values

There's reason to be wary about the Libs' handling of the Senate, as Thomas Walkom writes in his latest column. But it's also worth noting that contrary to Walkom's conflation of the two, there are important differences between selecting prospective Senators based on whether they "back the Liberal government", versus evaluating whether they are "amenable to passing bills the Liberal government wants enacted".

Indeed, if the Libs want to defuse any potential for controversy while avoiding Senate obstruction, the one key requirement should have nothing to do with support for their government in particular.

Instead, any new senators could be screened (among whatever other criteria the Libs want to apply) based on their willingness to generally support all legislation passed by the House of Commons regardless of its party of origin. That could be subject to variation in exceptional cases, such as where MPs who have actually contributed to passing the bill signal a need for a bill to receive further review or amendment - but the overarching principle should be that the Senate will not get in the way of the decisions of elected representatives of any partisan stripe.

If the Libs limit their appointments to new Senators fitting that description, that strategy would simultaneously avoid the Cons' cynical obstruction and set the groundwork for an institution designed to function on a non-partisan basis in the future. But if they listen to Walkom's concurrent message about looking for political supporters, then we're all too likely to end up with yet another set of faux reformers (much like Harper's nominees themselves) who end up serving as nothing more than partisan tools.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Justin Fox explores why it took the economic field in general (with some noteworthy exceptions) decades to start dealing with burgeoning inequality. And Bryce Covert discusses the latest study showing that in looking beyond tax data alone, the level of inequality is even worse than it's appeared in past research.

- Meanwhile, Rebecca Rosen traces the links between increased inequality and extended hours of work. And Jamie Klinger notes that Uber and other businesses designed to avoid normal employment relationships may only make matters worse.

- Wendy Glauser, Joshua Tepper and Jill Konkin offer some suggestions to address the alarming health inequities between indigenous and non-indigenous Canadians.

- Derrick O'Keefe duly criticizes the Libs' insistence on pushing ahead with an eleven-figure arms deal with Saudi Arabia with no regard for its ongoing human rights abuses. 

- Finally, Charles Taylor talks to Sonali Campion about the dangers of exclusionary themes which are all too easily used for political advantage:

Democracies need a very strong sense of common goals, more than autocracies, because they have to call on citizens to show solidarity, to discuss together, so there has to be some sense they are talking about the same thing or trust begins to fall apart. In that sense they need what I call a “political identity”. This is a mixture of key principles, such as democracy and human rights, and something particular to the individual state.

These elements of the political identity can easily be turned into measures of exclusion: “these other people don’t really fit”, “they aren’t part of the ethnic background of this particular national project”, or “they don’t really seem to accept the basic principles of our democracy”. In many cases these are not really founded judgements, but they are still very powerful because as long as people perceive things in that way it seems right to exclude certain groups, or make special demands of them – for example that they assimilate totally.

So this of course is something that democracies can’t very easily cope with because it produces great rifts, even a sense of second-class citizenship, which clashes with the ethic that we include everyone. So people have to be willing to consider redefining their political identity in order to really bring together the degree of diversity that actually exists on the territory.

New column day

Here, on how people generally have a better idea about the facts underlying our political choices than they suggest in response to an ordinary poll - and how we can make better decisions by looking to the root causes of that distinction.

For further reading...
- The studies referred to in the article are here (pdf) and here. And as previously linked, Neil Irwin discussed them here.
- And while I didn't work it into the column, I'll wonder whether something akin to the dual process theory might play a role in the different findings - with the objective reward of even a small payoff leading people to use more rigorous analysis in response to a question.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Mariana Mazzucato comments on the need for the public sector to play a significant and direct role in sustainable economic development:

The debate about the relative roles of the state and the market in capitalist economies tends to swing from side to side in the hearts and minds of public opinion: periods when the state is defended for its role in economic development are always superseded by an attack on its intervention into ‘well functioning’ markets. It has been like this throughout the twentieth century. And it is what has happened since the most recent global financial crisis and economic recession: a brief period right after its outbreak, when there was consensus that the state had a key role to play in both saving the banks and using fiscal policy to promote growth, was quickly apprehended by those who feared rising levels of public debt. Indeed, this debt was mistakenly seen as the cause rather than the result of the crisis—due to lower tax receipts, rising bailouts, etc. So austerity became again the flavour of the day, while any sort of serious economic and industrial policy became anathema.

What is missing from the public perception is how through the history of modern capitalism, the state has done, and continues to do, what markets simply won’t. This is not about its role in simply fixing ‘market failures’, but its role in directly shaping and creating markets.
...
Key to Italy’s future is to get rid of the static public versus private sector debate. Both sectors are crucial. The question is how to promote synergetic partnerships which allow the public sector, in its engagement with the private sector, to remain courageous, strategic and set the direction of change, rather than only de-risking, facilitating, administering, subsidizing and incentivising. Whether we are looking at education, health, transport, culture, renewable energy or the future of micro-electronics, the problem should not be ‘opening up to the market’...but how to structure and shape the market, through public and private investments, in such a way that allows a sector to become more dynamic, innovative and investment driven. Instead, because we pretend that investment is for the private sector, and the public sector is there to only regulate, subsidize or save the day when things go wrong (bringing into the public sector the ‘bad’ toxic side of the equation, allowing the ‘good’ to be absorbed privately), this leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy where precisely because we don’t see a real ‘public role’ beyond, it becomes under financed, but also under “imagined”. When a sector lacks imagination, it dies. It becomes irrelevant, and of course easier to attack. This vicious cycle is happening in Italy’s public sector and it is contributing to its demise.

- Michael Hiltzik discusses the connection between the obsession with short-term share values and the increasing precarity of work, while Andrew Callaway writes that workers are getting little but instability from a "sharing" economy. And Jonathon Gatehouse reports on the growing chasm between Canadian CEOs and the rest of us - as well as the fact that we're likely underestimating that gap to begin with.

- Jeremy Nuttall notes that new federal funding announcements for export development figure to pale in comparison to the harm done by the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other trade deals. And Michael Geist is writing a new series on the harms done by the TPP in particular.

- Meanwhile, Robert Fife breaks the news that rather than seriously examining the impact of handing perpetually more power to the corporate sector, the Libs are instead bent on signing an even more restrictive deal with China than the one the Cons signed onto a year ago.

- Finally, Ralph Surette points out the need to progress from a mere statement of intentions to actual, global-scale action to rein in greenhouse gas emissions and limit the effect of climate change.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Skirting cats.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Nicholas Fitz observes that inequality is far worse than the U.S. public believes - even as it already wants to see significant action. And Thomas Piketty updates his policy prescriptions arising out of Capital:

As I look back at my discussion of future policy proposals in the book, I may have devoted too much attention to progressive capital taxation and too little attention to a number of institutional evolutions that could prove equally important. Because capital is multidimensional and markets are imperfect, capital taxation needs to be supplemented with other asset-specific policies and regulations, including for instance land use and housing policies and intellectual property right laws. In particular, as rightly argued by Elizabeth Anderson in this symposium, monopoly power and the regulation of intellectual property rights play an important role in the dynamics of private wealth accumulation. Given the central role played by changing real estate values and rent levels in the aggregate evolution of capital-income ratios and capital shares in recent decades, it is clear that land use and housing policies have potentially a critical role to play, in particular to regulate and expend access to property. On the other hand, it is equally clear that such policies are sometime difficult to implement (e.g. public construction policies or housing subsidies have not always been very successful in the past), so they should certainly be viewed as complementary rather than substitute to progressive taxation.

Also, in my book I do not pay sufficient attention to the development of other alternative forms of property arrangements and participatory governance. One central reason why progressive capital taxation is important is because it can also bring increased transparency about company assets and accounts. In turn, increased financial transparency can help to develop new forms of governance; for instance, it can facilitate more worker involvement in company boards. In other words, “social-democratic” institutions such as progressive taxation (see Miriam Ronzoni in this symposium) can foster institutions that question in a more radical manner the very functioning of private property (note that progressive capital taxation transforms large private property as a temporary attribute rather than a permanent one – already a significant change). However these other institutions – whose aim should be to redefine and regulate property rights and power relations – must also be analyzed as such...

- Meanwhile, David Heinemeier Hansson writes from experience that extreme wealth is overrated even for those who accumulate it.

- Rebecca Green rounds up some reasons for hope and despair on the economic front. And Maximiliano Dvorkin notes that jobs involving routine tasks - whether manual or not - are in the midst of an extended stagnation.

- Andrew Learmonth discusses the devastating effects of austerity in creating child hunger in Scotland. And Naomi Lakritz rightly points out that Alberta's precarious fiscal situation can be traced back to Ralph Klein's obsession with slashing taxes and public services alike.

- Finally, Anita Nickerson argues that everybody ultimately loses out under a winner-take-all electoral system - meaning that it's long past time to ensure a more fair proportional system.

On countermovements

Alison is right to highlight the latest right-wing astroturf group in Canada. But we shouldn't assume that mere exposure will meaningfully affect the growth of corporate-owned politics alone.

As is typically the case, Canadian politics tend to be influenced strongly by U.S. trends due to the overlap in culture and media. And there, privately-owned political structures are beginning to exceed the reach of political parties.

That makes for a serious problem to the extent the model is adopted on a similar scale in Canada - as a fairly modest amount of money by business standards could drown out nearly all other political voices between elections without any legal restraints.

But it also signals that citizens' movements can likewise work across and beyond party lines with relative freedom (at least for the moment). And so while we call out the astroturf in our midst, we should also recognize the opportunity to sow real seeds of change for the better.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Hugh MacKenzie reminds us how quickly Canada's richest CEOs will exceed the income of the average Canadian worker on the year's first work day. And James Surowiecki takes a look at how the U.S.' corporate sector is fleeing any social obligations by sending profits offshore. 

- Stephen Kimber rightly slams the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies for demanding austerity which will only make a stagnant economy even worse.

- Roderick Benns suggests that Canada take the lead in developing a basic income to combat inequality at home and set an example for the rest of the world.

- Eric Doherty points out that any new infrastructure program will have significant consequences for our ability to rein in climate change - and there's reason to worry the Libs will focus on projects which make matters worse. And Evan Herrnstadt and Erich Muehlegger study (PDF) a connection between air pollution and violent crime.

- Finally, Scott Gilmore highlights the rarity of terrorist violence compared to far more significant risks:

In France, cervical cancer is seven times more lethal than terrorism, but Hollande would be ridiculed for convening a special session of parliament to address that threat. In the U.S., you are 28 times more likely to be shot by a policeman than by a terrorist. But that’s a problem the Republican primaries won’t be debating. And the murder rate in Edmonton is almost twice that in Paris. Although I suspect the pitiable school trustees lack the math skills required to decipher “homicides per 100,000 people per annum,” or the common sense to know what to do with that information.
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In the New Year, learn to ignore the primal fears in your brain and relax. Remind yourself that you’re safe; safer than you were last year and every year before that. But remember that others, people in the Middle East and Africa, aren’t. And don’t let your politicians go on about how they’re going to protect us; demand to know what they’re doing to protect those less fortunate than us. Also, please check in with your doctor. Cancer is several thousand times more likely to kill you than a suicide bomber.

Sunday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your Sunday reading.

- Ian Welsh summarizes why inequality is intrinsically problematic:

Even where people’s needs are met, the more unequal a society the more unhealthy everyone is and the more unhappy they are.

Those who feel lower on the totem pole also perform worse than they otherwise would.  Remove the feeling of inequality, and they perform better.

This is before we get to the social effects, which are pernicious.  Those who are at the top of the heap distort politics to keep themselves at the top of the heap, and engage in repression.
...
Inequality is thus a political and organizational negative. It ensures that more effort goes into unproductive and destructive activities which are of benefit to a few at most than would otherwise.

Inequality is unhealthy, makes people unhappy, and distorts politics in terrible ways.

This is intrinsic to inequality.  Beyond a relatively low level, there is no such thing as “good” inequality.

- And Joseph Stiglitz discusses how austerian economics have caused global economic stagnation. 

- Roger Annis laments the Libs' refusal to follow through on their promise to ensure that the Canada Pension Plan provides a reasonably secure retirement for all Canadian workers. And the New York Times' editorial board rightly concludes that a lack of retirement savings represents a reason to expand public pensions, not to slash them in the hope that people will find money to put away if only they otherwise stand to suffer enough.

- Finally, Doreen Nicoll writes that we have ample resources to end child poverty - but that we need to start by designing policy to help children rather than squeeze parents. 

On rebuilding steps

I've posted before about the NDP's strong progressive stance since the October election - which looks to be a positive move in terms of principles and politics alike. 

But there's also a great deal of work to be done on the party side. And I'll suggest a couple of points which strike me as important in advance of the spring convention where Tom Mulcair's leadership is up for review.

First, there's the seemingly simple matter of the party's policy book (which I believe is found in an updated PDF here) and other member-generated documents.

As a reminder, the policy book was originally developed as part of Jack Layton's effort to professionalize the party - providing a statement of core values which could then form the foundation for platform development (while being general enough to allow plenty of room for maneuvering).

Nothing has been done to make the policy book any less authoritative than it ever was in reflecting the policy set by NDP members. And it would thus seem important both as a standing expression of values, and a starting point for resolutions which riding associations may want to develop.

But the policy book was removed from the NDP's website in advance of the election based on what still strikes me as a dubious rationale. And it doesn't seem to have been replaced since; in fact, the party's website no longer seems to point to any of the party documentation which was once available.

At best, that might be explained based on the party's priorities falling elsewhere in the immediate aftermath of the election. But if the issue was once one of a perceived lack of urgency, an impending resolution deadline for the convention surely makes it worth letting people know where party policy stands now. (And I'd also argue it's worth making sure that far more of the party's history in action, including convention resolutions past and present, is preserved and made available.)

Second, there's the concern about the central campaign's treatment of important parts of the progressive social movement - which arose both in candidate vetting, and in the message sent to some candidates during the campaign.

There's little way for the party to know what it can (or can't) accomplish by reaching out to the people who were refused a place within the election campaign. But at the very least, it should make the effort to do so on the basis that winning back past supporters and strengthening ties with the activist left need to be top priorities following a disappointing election.

If some of the key individuals who were turned away directly or who spoke out at the time can be brought back into the fold, that would go a long way toward confirming that Mulcair can win over some of the people who tuned out the NDP in 2015 and lead a movement-based party toward power. But even if Mulcair didn't find a receptive ear, he and the party would be better off for recognizing the need to try.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Paul Krugman discusses the connection between concentrated wealth and extreme anti-social political behaviour:

Wealth can be bad for your soul. That’s not just a hoary piece of folk wisdom; it’s a conclusion from serious social science, confirmed by statistical analysis and experiment. The affluent are, on average, less likely to exhibit empathy, less likely to respect norms and even laws, more likely to cheat, than those occupying lower rungs on the economic ladder.

And it’s obvious, even if we don’t have statistical confirmation, that extreme wealth can do extreme spiritual damage. Take someone whose personality might have been merely disagreeable under normal circumstances, and give him the kind of wealth that lets him surround himself with sycophants and usually get whatever he wants. It’s not hard to see how he could become almost pathologically self-regarding and unconcerned with others.

So what happens to a nation that gives ever-growing political power to the superrich?

...

(T)he biggest reason to oppose the power of money in politics is the way it lets the wealthy rig the system and distort policy priorities. And the biggest reason billionaires hate Mr. Obama is what he did to their taxes, not their feelings. The fact that some of those buying influence are also horrible people is secondary.

But it’s not trivial. Oligarchy, rule by the few, also tends to become rule by the monstrously self-centered. Narcisstocracy? Jerkigarchy? Anyway, it’s an ugly spectacle, and it’s probably going to get even uglier over the course of the year ahead.

- Meanwhile, Michael Snyder weighs in on how precarious workers are being treated as things rather than people by employers - and how the resulting lack of security is affecting them. And Frances O'Grady makes the case for a meaningful industrial policy to make sure that everybody benefits from economic development.

- Neil Irwin comments on new research showing that an individual's view of the economy is based on partisan preference - but that most people in fact know the underlying facts when they're given even a tiny incentive to get it right.

- Gordon Pape examines the real impact of the Libs' upper-class tax cut - with an individual making $216,000 getting a handout, while somebody making a tenth as much gets nothing.

- Finally, Margaret Wente confirms that her preference for a first-past-the-post electoral system is based on a desire to limit voters' input to a periodic referendum on the incumbent. And Erich Jacoby-Hawkins makes a noteworthy point about the first-past-the-post apologists bleating about refusing to accept a new electoral system without a a referendum:

(W)hat's funny about this likely change are the demands, mainly from supporters of the status quo, that any electoral system reform come only after a successful referendum vote where more than 50% vote for the change. This flies completely in the face of the underlying value of our current electoral system, the one they would have us retain, where decisions aren't made by a 50%+ majority, but by the "majority" of MPs elected with a mere 39% of votes.
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The basic principle behind first-past-the-post is that whichever party forms a "majority" based on enough local riding pluralities gets to make (and change) the laws. Anyone who argues that such changes should instead require support of 50%+ of voters in a referendum is, in effect, arguing for proportional representation, because under PR, only laws that have more than 50% voter support will pass. So which do you want, the "powerful, stable" false majority governments that FPP elects, or a proportional system that actually reflects voter desires? Because you can't use the latter principle to argue against the former.

Musical interlude

Royksopp - Here She Comes Again (DJ Antonio Remix)

Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content to start your new year.

- Paul Krugman points out that as tends to be the case, the U.S.' modest increase in high-end tax rates in 2013 managed to produce both more fair taxation and strong economic growth.

- But Michael Hudson notes that increasing inequality and wage suppression are still among the dominant economic forces in the U.S. And the New York Times' set of year-end charts features a stark example as to how the wealthiest Americans are still siphoning off more and more income at everybody else's expense.

- Lauren-Brooke Eisen and Inimai Chettiar study the costs of pointless mass incarceration, including its significant contribution to overall poverty.

- Finally, the Globe and Mail offers a list of laws calling for immediate rewrites by the federal government, with the extreme provisions of C-51 leading the way. And Bruce Cheadle notes that the cost of the Cons' bad judgment is still accumulating, as a challenge to their attempt to retroactively permit the illegal destruction of data is still making its way through the courts.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Owen Jones writes that the UK's flooding is just one example of what happens when the public sector which is supposed to look out for the common good is slashed out of short-term political calculation. And J. Bradford Delong observes that the choice between an economy that works for everybody and one designed merely to transfer wealth upward is inevitably one to be made within the political system.

- Harold Meyerson highlights how stock-based compensation (and the resulting obsession with share buybacks) has utterly warped corporate decision-making.

- Meanwhile, Hannah Levintova reports on Shannon Liss-Riordan's success in ensuring that service workers aren't exploited by unscrupulous employers or contractors. And Sara Mojtehedzadeh discusses how workplace polarization (including both more high-priced managers, and more precarious workers lower down the scale) is affecting Toronto's library services.

- Finally, kev rightly argues that we should be spending more time discussing the type of electoral system we expect. Spencer McKay writes that there's no need for a referendum on a type of electoral reform which provides for better representation and is supported by multiple parties. And the Cons' threat of using unelected patronage appointees to block any electoral reform (no matter how many parties agree on it) makes clear that their position is based solely on partisan advantage rather than democratic principles.

New column day

Here, expanding on this post about Brad Wall's sad attempt to beg Justin Trudeau for federal money to make up for his own mismanagement.

For further reading...
- Once again, Wall's call for a bailout was here. And his previous decision to drop any attempt at a sound equalization system at Stephen Harper's request can be traced here and here.
- Meanwhile, the issues where Wall and his government have already tried to block any federal action since the fall election include climate change, pensions and refugees.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Steven Hill discusses some of the most glaring problems with an economy based on precarious work. And Tim Harford rightly asks whether a shift away from steady employment will necessitate more public delivery of social benefits:

Details vary but most advanced countries have a list of goodies that must be provided by employers rather than the government or the individual. In the UK a full-time worker is entitled to 28 days of paid leave. In the US the default provider of health insurance is your employer. In many countries, employees cannot be sacked without long notice periods and a decent pension is the preserve of people with a decent job. As for freelancers, they may enjoy flexibility and independence and sometimes even a good living — but as far as social protections go, they are on their own.
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(W)e should end the policy of trying to offload the welfare state to corporations. It is a policy that hides the costs of these benefits, and ensures that they are unevenly distributed. Instead we should take a hard look at that list of goodies: healthcare, pensions, income for people who are not working. Then we should decide what the state should provide and how generously. To my mind, there is a strong argument that the state should provide all of these things, to everyone, at a very basic level. What the state will not provide, individuals must pay for themselves — or seek employers who provide these benefits as an attraction rather than a legal obligation. Call it libertarianism with a safety net.

- Meanwhile, Noam Schieber and Patricia Cohen report on the shadow tax system which has allowed the wealthiest Americans to avoid contributing to the country around them.

- Omar Arias and Dorota Chapko highlight the massive impact of early childhood education on brain development - with particular emphasis on the contrast between more efficient child care funding and the far-less-controversial job training measures which have significantly less positive economic effect.

- James Wood reports on the Alberta NDP's plan to make affordable housing one of its key priorities in the new year.

- And finally, both Gillian Steward and Don Braid highlight Rachel Notley's work to make Alberta into a constructive participant on the Canadian political scene rather than a rogue province.

Scrooged

Shorter Assorted Conservative Hacks with Too Much Time On Their Hands:

In keeping with the conservative movement's holiday spirit, we pose this most humanitarian of questions: why are there no workhouses?

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Cats with babies.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Matthew Yglesias writes that The Big Short and other stories focused on the financial aspects of the 2008 economic meltdown miss by far the most important part of the picture in the real economic destruction wrought by irresponsible banksters. And David Dayen notes that U.S. mortgage lenders are now laughably pointing fingers at regulators who have made lending forms more understandable for the fact they aren't lending as easily as they were during the housing bubble.

- Martin Boucher discusses the urgent need for a shift to a low-carbon economy in Saskatchewan. And Seth Klein argues that it's time to move past pipe dreams like Christy Clark's liquid natural gas get-rich-quick scheme.

- Robin Sears sets out three crucial tests for Justin Trudeau - and while one can quibble with his order of difficulty, there's no doubt that major advances on climate change, electoral reform and First Nations relations would represent a first-term agenda worth pursuing.

- But it's also worth noting how the Libs may be tying their own hands on those among other issues - and the fact that they seem to consider a single e-mail address to be enough consultation on the Trans-Pacific Partnership doesn't bode well.

- Finally, Andre Picard highlights the dangers of a culture which pushes employees to work when they're sick - with the inflexible requirement for sick notes to excuse any absence serving as a particularly counterproductive policy.

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Jordon Cooper offers his take on the many social issues we should be addressing alongside our work to welcome Syrian refugees:

All levels of government have passed resolutions to end child poverty in Canada and have done almost nothing to back it up. There has been the occasional study done or commission struck, but as soon as they report back that poverty is solved with more money, nothing gets done.

Chretien wrote that he saw Canadians were tired of activist prime ministers such as Lester Pearson, Pierre Trudeau and Mulroney. Constitutional battles had taken a toll on the country. Shackled by an overwhelming budget deficit, Chretien narrowed the scope of government by necessity and political choice. Ottawa got out of the business of making Canada better and simply managed what we had. Harper took that further, and narrowed the focus to the economy and security.

I am not sure that Justin Trudeau is correct in his vision for an expanded mandate for Ottawa, but it is encouraging to see a federal government thinking of what it can do rather than focusing on what it can’t. Settling 25,000 refugees is one of the most ambitious acts Canada has undertaken. Let’s hope it’s a first step in solving many of the serious social issues that exist in Canada.

How much longer can we keep ignoring homeless adults, hungry kids and families with unsafe water?

- Bryce Covert points out how limited any new social programming will be if it's coupled with a refusal to raise any revenue from an implausibly-defined middle class. And of course that lesson is equally important in Canada given the Libs' similar language.

- As for what we might be able to accomplish with a more reasonable revenue model, Joseph Brean discusses the prospect that the Libs' past discussion of a basic income might put it on the table at the federal level. And Allison Vuchnich reports on recommendations from the editors of the Canadian Medical Association Journal to develop evidence-based health policies including universal pharmacare.

- Finally, Sean McElwee discusses the latest comparison of economic development development under different U.S. presidents - reflecting the familiar outcome that the right-wing parties who brand themselves as economic managers in fact produce far worse results than their further-left competitors.

On selective equalization

So apparently some unspecified event in federal politics this fall has caused Brad Wall to start demanding money from Ottawa which he'd never have considered seeking before.

Now if only he hadn't trashed Saskatchewan's bargaining position by dropping the court challenge which could have ensured that resource revenues didn't play a disproportionate role in equalization allocations - and all at the request of the Conservative Prime Minister he served at the time.

On failed diversions

Not surprisingly given my previous comments on the Libs' electoral reform promise, it's a plus that they're sticking with it rather than giving in to any demand for a referendum. And hopefully the temporary diversion raised by the Cons will lead the parties where they need to go, even if a couple have had trouble getting there.

Having ruled out other decision-making mechanisms besides Parliament, the Libs will need to ensure they're not trampling the views of other parties (in addition to consulting thoroughly with the Canadian public) for a new system to be seen as fair. And having failed in their attempt to block any change at all, the Cons now look to have little choice but to engage in the consultation process. 

So if there was ever any doubt, the task for all parties and interested members of the public is to discuss what we actually want in an electoral system. And it shouldn't take long for the ability to have each vote count toward what a voter actually wants to emerge as the key principle.

Sunday Afternoon Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Andrew Jackson makes the case for a federal budget aimed at boosting investment in Canada's economy:

Public infrastructure investment has a much greater short term impact on growth and jobs per dollar spent than tax cuts since the import content is low and there is no leakage to higher savings. Increased income benefits for low income households, as through the proposed new system of child benefits, also have a relatively large impact on GDP.

The CSE study also found that in the short term the federal and provincial governments would each gain over 40 cents in additional revenues for every dollar of infrastructure investment, to a total of 88 cents per dollar spent. In the long run, governments would recoup almost all of the increase in investment by boosting productivity in the business sector and thus the future tax base.

The key point is that a 2016 federal budget heavily tilted towards infrastructure investment and higher benefits for low income households would give a significant boost to growth and job creation. The new government could and should give priority to areas of spending which have the greatest economic impact at the lowest net fiscal cost. This does not include tax cuts for the relatively affluent.
...
Some will argue that we cannot afford more spending as the federal government falls into deficit due to a deteriorating economy. But well chosen new investments could give a major boost to growth and jobs, and be at least partly self-financing due to higher revenues.

- Meanwhile, David Climenhaga points out how the right-wing model of total reliance on oil royalties at the expense of a steady revenue base is proving even more disastrous in Alaska than in Canada's oil-producing provinces.

- Molly Ball writes about Nick Hanauer's work on a fair minimum wage and other policies intended to reduce inequality, while LOLGOP contrasts that against the Republicans' determination to make inequality worse. And Sean O'Grady argues that other jurisdictions should follow in Finland's footsteps in developing a basic income.

- Sydney Sharpe rightly calls for an end to abuse and bullying in Alberta's legislature. And Paul Berton comments on the need to make kindness rather than nastiness the rule in discussing politics.

- Finally, Michael Harris offers some suggestions as to how the Cons could learn from their mistakes.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Carolyn Shimmin discusses the connection between inequality and social ills, while Sarah Khapton reports on new research showing part of the biological explanation.

- Rachelle Younglai documents the growing number of people living with low incomes in Canada. And John Falzon points out that anybody who values the concept of an economy based on new ideas should be eager to ensure people have the necessary social supports to be able to work on developing them.

- John Nichols comments on the many U.S. politicians who seem determined to play the role of Dickens villains in denigrating even the idea of relieving the challenging facing the poor. Scott Santens notes that Dickens' work anticipates many of the lessons we're learning in studies of the relationship between the wealthy and inequality. And Bruce Johnstone highlights how the Saskatchewan Party is not only trumpeting counterproductive austerity among other regressive principles at the provincial level, but trying to push it across the country as well. 

- Alex Himelfarb's keynote address to the Parkland Institute's most recent conference on the decline of the collective and the possibilities for progressive change is well worth a view:



- Finally, Murray Dobbin has some ideas as to how the Libs can develop a more progressive tax system, including by ensuring that wealth isn't transferred offshore or left to accumulate in corporate coffers.

Musical interlude

I Have A Tribe - Yellow Raincoats (Frank Wiedemann Remix)

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Desmond Cole rightly slams the stinginess of Ontario's government in taking support away from parents based on child support which isn't actually received. And Karl Nerenberg laments Bill Morneau's decision to let the Scrooges among Canada's finance ministers dictate the future of the Canada Pension Plan.

- Meanwhile, Tom Cooper writes that the payday loan industry is profiting off the vulnerability of people facing a precarious financial situation. And Michael Geist notes that the phamaceutical sector is also raking in massive amounts of money thanks to governments willing to put its interests over those of the public.

- Angella MacEwen examines Canada's job trends over the past year (and worries that the high-demand areas of health care and social services might not serve as the sources of jobs they should due to public-sector austerity).

- But on the bright side, Duncan Cameron is optimistic that renewed interest in democratic socialism will carry over into 2016 and beyond. And Corey Hogan looks at Calgary as a prime example of a city with a far stronger progressive base than conventional wisdom may have assumed.

- Finally, Kelly Carmichael calls for the Trudeau Libs to implement a fair, proportional electoral system for once and for all.

New column day

Here, on how the kindness and compassion underlying our welcoming of Syrian refugees deserves a far larger place in a wide range of public policy decisions.

For further reading...
- Zack Beauchamp summarizes the exclusionary rhetoric that's propelled Donald Trump into the thick of the U.S.' presidential race. And Janet Hook and Patrick O'Connor note that the worst of Trump's proposals don't seem to be hurting him with primary voters.
- By way of contrast, Will LeRoy reports on Justin Trudeau's holiday message featuring a call to share the holiday spirit with refugees - though Thomas Walkom is right to note that the Libs' own combination of delay and backtracking leaves plenty to be desired. And CBC reported here on Brad Wall's initial (if since-reversed) efforts to slam the door on refugees.
- Susana Mas reports on the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into residential schools.
- And finally, Catherine McIntyre's example of Toronto's unfunded plan to fight poverty offers a useful example of the gap between good intentions and the political will needed to give them effect.

[Edit: fixed wording.]

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Ronald Inglehart discusses the political roots of inequality - and the likelihood that the forces that have allowed it to fester for decades will eventually be reversed:

New political alignments, in short, might once again readjust the balance of power between elites and masses in the developed world, with the emerging struggle being between a tiny group at the top and a heterogeneous majority below. For the industrial society’s working-class coalition to become effective, lengthy processes of social and cognitive mobilization had to be completed. In today’s postindustrial society, however, a large share of the population is already highly educated, well informed, and in possession of political skills; all it needs to become politically effective is the development of an awareness of common interest.
...
The essence of modernization is the linkages among economic, social, ideational, and political trends. As changes ripple through the system, developments in one sphere can drive developments in the others. But the process doesn’t work in just one direction, with economic trends driving everything else, for example. Social forces and ideas can drive political actions that reshape the economic landscape. Will that happen once again, with popular majorities mobilizing to reverse the trend toward economic inequality? In the long run, probably: publics around the world increasingly favor reducing inequality, and the societies that survive are the ones that successfully adapt to changing conditions and pressures. Despite current signs of paralysis, democracies still have the vitality to do so. 

- Bill Moyers also weighs in on the need to take back our political system from the plutocrats who have managed a hostile takeover. And Deirdre Fulton reports on the GMO industry's appalling attempts to silence a single teenaged critic as an example of corporatism run amok.

- Meanwhile, Tom Bergin reports on the barely-existent taxes paid by the UK's big banks as just one example of the corporate sector trying to avoid any responsibility to the society which makes its profits possible.

- The Canadian Labour Congress answers a few of the false talking points being used to attack any effort to strengthen the Canada Pension Plan. But the most important myth about the CPP may be any remaining belief that the Libs can be trusted to follow through on improving public pensions - as Thomas Walkom points out.

- Finally, it's well and good that Justin Trudeau is telling others to welcome the refugees arriving in Canada. But Lee Berthiaume observes that our refugee system is currently designed to saddle new Canadians with debt from day one.

Tuesday Night Cat Blogging

Festive cats.

On voting from experience

If I have any concern with Nathan Cullen's suggestion that Canada hold a referendum on electoral reform only after seeing a different system in action, it's that it may concede too much to the people looking to set up roadblocks in the face of a clear mandate for change.

But the proposal should nicely challenge the obstructionists as well. For anybody motivated to ensure we have the fairest possible system of whatever type, it provides reason to work on developing that in the near future. And anybody still demanding no change at all will be quickly exposed in valuing their own entrenched advantages over any attempt to develop something better.

[Note: Re-post, as the initial post disappeared into the intertoobz.]

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Patrick Flavin studies (PDF) the direct benefits that flow from giving people secure access to health care. And Daphne Bramham writes that the damage done by child poverty can be directly observed in educational outcomes:

Anyone who questions whether child poverty is real in British Columbia should go back to school.

Schools are at the nexus of various governments’ policy failures — high housing prices, low wages, low welfare rates, clusters of children who don’t learn English at home, inadequate mental health and addictions services.

Teachers see it in the faces of the kids who come to school hungry, ill-clothed with bed-bug bites and yawning because they haven’t got a decent bed to sleep in. Or it shows up in the absentee rates.
...
It’s not right that there are such gaps that vulnerable kids fall through.

And it bears emphasizing that schools have neither the mandate nor the money to fix these societal problems. But all until governments work together to fix the underlying problems, it’s left to teachers, principals, individuals and charities like The Vancouver Sun’s Adopt-a-School and others to fill those gaps.

- Catherine McIntyre makes the seemingly obvious point that the best of intentions in combating poverty won't help if they aren't matched with commensurate resources.

- But then, PressProgress reminds us that our most recent federal government wasn't the least bit inclined to provide even a minimal standard of living for Canadians - not even the sense of altruism needed to see one as worth pursuing.

- Alison exposes the Cons' astroturf attempt to put roadblocks in the way of a more fair electoral system. And David Climenhaga notes that Alberta's right is following the playbook of the Republicans and their puppetmasters in trying to swamp democracy with corporate cash.

- Finally, Toula Drimonis argues that we won't be able to achieve anything approaching reconciliation with indigenous peoples without facing up to Canada's shameful role in suppressing people and cultures.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- John Quiggin examines - and refutes - a few key complaints about fairer taxes on the wealthy. But Kathryn May reports that the Cons are eager to use public resources to investigate and punish public servants who have exposed the problems with the Canada Revenue Agency, rather than lifting a finger to actually bring in needed revenue.

- The Canadian Labour Congress makes the case to expand the Canada Pension Plan to ensure a secure retirement for all Canadian workers. And James Fitz-Morris reports that the Saskatchewan Party's constant obstruction doesn't look like it will stand in the way of an enhanced CPP.

- Kevin Page, Pat Martin and Bob Plamondon argue that we need Parliament to reassert control over the use of public money. And the Star-Phoenix rightly questions the fact that the Sask Party continues to withhold the information needed to assess big-money P3 projects, while hiding behind the consultants who make their money off the industry.

- Jim Bronskill reports on the Libs' noises about a long-overdue review of federal access to information legislation - though of course there's a massive difference between making promises and following through. And on that front, Tom Parkin highlights a few of the promises which are already being left in the rear-view mirror - with a common theme that the Libs' claims to progressive values have been quickly abandoned.

- Finally, Doug Saunders writes that while the words may have changed, the theme of racial prejudice is still far too widespread.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Alan Freeman notes that the Libs' aversion to raising public revenue may lock in some of the Cons' most damaging actions:

With the new Liberal government facing fierce economic headwinds — plus a billion-dollar shortfall created by its middle-income tax cut, and a growing need for revenue to cover promised spending on everything from infrastructure and veterans to First Nations and refugees — it would seem logical to at least mull the possibility of raising the GST.

That appeared to be what Finance Minister Bill Morneau was doing earlier this week when he gave a convoluted response to a journalist that was interpreted as opening the possibility to a GST hike sometime in the future.

Within hours — probably after a panicked call from the Prime Minister’s Office — Morneau tweeted a climbdown of his own: “Contrary to misleading headlines, we are not considering changes to the GST.”

What Morneau made clear is that the Liberals are scared to death of being slammed as tax-grabbers by the Conservatives. While much of the Harper legacy is being scrapped — his obstinate refusal to take action on climate change, his surly, tough-guy foreign policy — the anti-tax mantra lives on.

It’s notable that the first thing on Parliament’s to-do list after the Liberals’ election win was the middle-class tax cut. The Liberals want Canadians to believe that the government’s tax burden (except on the super-rich) can continue to decline as it has since 2000.

- Eric Jaffe reports on new research showing how social deprivation can keep children from meeting their potential for intellectual development. And the Globe and Mail argues that Quebec should be honest about any plans to eliminate a high-quality, public child care system in favour of pushing parents toward more expensive private care.

- Andrea Germanos reports on the latest Human Development Index rankings which show Norway at the top of the pack.

- And in what may not be a coincidence as to the importance of respect for workers in generating shared prosperity, the ILO highlights Norway's leadership in ratifying a new protocol against forced labour among other conventions protecting labour rights. And Edward Keenan discusses the different sides of a gig economy - and notes that the 1% may be confusing its own ability to engage in highly-paid consulting with the reality facing precarious workers.

- Finally, Branko Milanovic offers a theory as to the limits in how much worse income inequality could get in the U.S.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Charlie Cooper reports on the UK's increasing wealth inequality, with the richest 10% now owning half of all wealth. And Facundo Alvaredo, Anthony Atkinson and Salvatore Morelli highlight (PDF) how even the best information we have now likely underestimates what's being hoarded by the richest few.

- Chris Dillow points out why even if inequality didn't itself interfere with social mobility, we couldn't count on such mobility alone to produce fair outcomes.

- Nils Pratley writes that one of the most prominent recent sources of growing inequality - being the gap between executives and other workers - could be narrowed by giving the latter a role in setting the former's pay.

- Kenneth Arrow and Apurva Sanghi discuss the increasing recognition that health is an essential building block for social and economic development. And Ariana Eunjung Cha reports on new research showing the vast majority of the risk of cancer comes from social and environmental factors.

- Finally, Terry Milewski points out that the Libs' election promises are changing far more quickly than the policies they promised to improve. And Gary Younge comments on the need for progressives to develop a movement which can hold regular influence over policy, not just win elections occasionally:

People complain that Corbyn is not electable. They might be right. Electability is not a science. But the more pertinent question is: imagine if he was?

He could soon find that not only is the parliamentary Labour party not up to the challenge of taking on global capital – nor is the nation state he would be leading. This is not a new problem. Indeed, it is precisely because it has gone on challenged, but virtually unchecked, for more than a generation, that political cynicism has intensified. Whoever you vote for, capital gets in.

This was the experience of Syriza. After standing on an anti-austerity platform, winning the election, putting its negotiating position to the test in a referendum, and winning, Syriza was forced to buckle when confronted by the might of the European Union leadership. The party was later re-elected to implement austerity in much the same way as the centre left party it eclipsed had done.

Each case, in its own way, has demonstrated both the potential of electoral engagement and the limits of democratic control. The left is finally developing the strategic skills to gain office; it has yet to work out how to exercise power in the interests of those who put it there.

Friday Evening Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Danny Dorling discusses the need for kindness among other attributes to bridge growing gaps in wealth and social status:

Gross inequality creates a lack of respect for the other group – people who are not like us. There is a lack of respect among the rich for the poor, and that will be the same among the poor for the rich. Lack of respect breeds cruelty and hate. Lack of respect is not new and has grown between groups many times before, over religion, race, nationality, social class, sex and sexuality. These older divisions all remain and can be easily reignited, resulting in cruelty and hate, fear, suffering and despair. However, nowadays it is financial inequality both globally and in the UK that is the greatest source of our separation from each other.

- Meanwhile, Yascha Mounk and Roberto Foa report on polling showing the U.S.' lack of trust in its democratic institutions - with an authoritarian streak developing particularly among the wealthy. Robert Reich traces the rise of Donald Trump's destructive politics to the insecurity of the hollowed-out middle class. And Jill Treanor points out how that gross income inequality is demotivating for workers.

- Joe Fantauzzi argues that Ontario should fund a desperately-needed infrastructure program with additional revenue from corporate taxes, rather than selling off public assets:

Given the potential counterproductive nature of privatizing public assets, as flagged by the Financial Accountability Officer of Ontario, the decision to go down that path by the current government is concerning. As well, the failure of past federal-provincial infrastructure funding schemes demands a change of the status quo. Put bluntly, those funding initiatives simply have not in the past and are not presently addressing Ontario’s infrastructure deficit in a meaningful way. That any increases to those federal-provincial programs are contingent on political will is also a drawback. New thinking is required to deal with Ontario’s infrastructure problem. I recommend that the federal government move to begin taxing Canadian overseas corporate assets currently held in tax shelters and share those confiscated revenues with the province of Ontario under the condition that the money be used exclusively for infrastructure spending. I also recommend that the joint provincial-federal rate of Ontario corporate taxation be increased to 2009 levels immediately. Further increases of the rate also need to be considered. Ultimately, a more aggressive tone is clearly needed by government with the Canadian corporate sector, which has demonstrably not fulfilled its end of the low tax bargain since the financial crisis began.

- Finally, Paul Schliesmann reports that Kingston's City Council has become the first elected body in Canada to formally endorse a basic income - and that it did so unanimously.

Musical interlude

Foals - Inhaler

New column day

Here, expanding on these posts as to what might come next as Canada's political parties map out their strategies on electoral reform.

For further reading...
- Chantal Hebert wonders whether Justin Trudeau will face internal pressure to renege on his promise of electoral reform. But considering that the Libs' voter coalition consists of significantly more voters willing to consider other parties, I'd think Trudeau has every incentive to ensure he responds to the demand for electoral reform both inside and outside his party's base. (That said, those looking for reason for concern about the Libs' follow-through will find it in John Geddes' interview with Dominic Leblanc.)
- Tim Harper notes the different positions the federal parties have taken on electoral reform thus far. And Andrew Coyne examines how each figures to approach the issue as it develops.
- Finally, Aaron Wherry pointed to Stephen Harper's past take on proportional representation and coalition-building here. 

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Duncan Cameron offers his take on the Paris climate change conference. Martin Lukacs notes that while the agreement reached there may not accomplish anywhere near what we need, the building climate movement should provide more hope than we've had to this point. Similarly, Thomas Walkom sees the summit as a useful fraud which should lead to something better. And Jonathan Sas argues that it's long past time for Canada's federal government to start acting - rather than merely spinning - on climate change.

- Meanwhile, Reporters Without Borders points out the dangers of environmental journalism in the face of potential violence and corruption.

- Bob Mackin reports on David Loukidelis' criticism the B.C. Libs' delete, delete, delete attitude toward information. And Michael Smyth is skeptical as to whether matters will improve, while Travis Lupick finds particularly little reason to think anything will change given Christy Clark's aversion to putting anything in writing which might allow anybody to assess her actions later.

- CBC reports on Mike Simon's call for a focus on the social determinants of health in Atlantic Canada. And Jennifer Grahan discusses how Saskatchewan doctors are fighting back against putting MRIs up for sale.

- Finally, Polly Toynbee writes about the connection between the gender pay gap and the proper valuation of care work (whether paid or not):

Caring, cooking, cleaning, childminding and all the jobs servicing a society that would fall apart without women’s work are despised because these things are what women do, and women are despised for doing it and for being women.

At its most extreme, the horrendous domestic violence statistics reflect that abiding social control and contempt. Images of a few powerful women do nothing much to up-end that essential truth. One woman prime minister was remarkable, as are all manner of “role models”. But their exceptionalism makes the point: only 34% of managers, directors and senior officials are women. And these top women suffer a bigger pay gap than women at the bottom: the finance sector has the widest gap.

More women reaching the tree-tops doesn’t reflect most working women’s fraught dilemmas: caring is the obstacle, so a disproportionate number of high fliers don’t have children.
...
It would be astonishing if there wasn’t a huge pay gap with a downward pay spiral where underpaid women care for children and old people, taking in each other’s caring, unable to pay each other enough, causing the crisis in social care, in healthcare and in childcare. All that is despite women’s better educational results, despite 45 years of equality law.

MP Maria Miller, the Tory head of the committee, may not call for an equality revolution. But we could start with total pay transparency, so everyone knows who earns what and why. Make employers let in a trade union rep once a year to recruit, restoring some power to the workforce. As hospitals overflow for lack of home care, nursing homes close and the promised 30-hour free childcare can’t be delivered, we could reset the valuation on caring until as many men as women do it, at home and at work.