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By Greg Fingas, on April 5, 2013, at 11:17 am Assorted content to end your week.
- Frances Russell weighs in on the Cons’ continued contempt for democracy: The Conservatives under Stephen Harper are running an effective dictatorship. They believe they are quite within their rights to muzzle Parliament, gag civil servants, use taxpayer money for blatant political self-promotion, stand accused of trying to subvert a federal election and hand over much of Canada’s magnificent natural heritage to the multinational oil and gas lobby.
What is even more disturbing is that the national media, with a few notable exceptions, has underplayed or ignored these developments that are a clear assault
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on April 5, 2013, at 10:22 am Murray Mandryk’s Wednesday column serves as a downright painful example of Monday morning quarterbacking – cherry-picking examples from seven decades of Saskatchewan governments to criticize “rash decisions” without recognizing the difference between reasonable experimentation and blatant cronyism. And under Mandryk’s implicit standard for public-sector risk aversion (that if something could possibly prove to be anything less than an unqualified success, it’s not worth doing), Saskatchewan’s legislative assembly would be meeting around a donated table in a barn situated in the middle of the still-undeveloped prairie.
But Mandryk is far from the only voice suggesting that such a standard should apply
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: On adaptation
By Greg Fingas, on April 4, 2013, at 9:53 am Here, on how the CFIA’s inability to do anything about tainted horse meat exemplifies the problems with weak and under-resourced regulators.
For further reading…- Again, Mary Ormsby’s original story is here. – Andrew Nikiforuk’s take on the appointment of oil lobbyist Gerald Protti to set up Alberta’s new regulatory system is here. – And for those who haven’t given it a read in awhile, Matt Taibbi’s feature on the role of financial institutions and their alumni in causing repeated crashes is worth another look.
By Greg Fingas, on March 28, 2013, at 10:01 am This and that for your Thursday reading.
- Edward Greenspon discusses the importance of a public service whose focus extends beyond the narrow interests of the government of the day: The hundreds of thousands of Canadians who work for governments, particularly those employed – in the evolving argot of recent decades – as knowledge workers or symbolic analysts or members of the creative class, are, in a sense, servants. They owe a duty of loyalty to carry out the programs and policies of the elected government of the day. But they also have a broader public duty to the pursuit . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on March 15, 2013, at 9:35 am Assorted content for your Friday reading.
- Jennifer Ditchburn reports that the Harper Cons are making ample progress in their goal of removing Canada from any list of socially-developed welfare states, as Canada has dropped from being the world’s leader in the UN’s Human Development Index to a position outside the top 10 countries by that measure.
- Peter Penashue’s resignation in the wake of a campaign financing scandal will open up plenty of lines of discussion – as well as an opportunity to flip a seat into opposition hands. But let’s ask another question arising out of his stepping
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on March 15, 2013, at 8:47 am Shorter Harper Cons:
The public-service beatings will continue until employee wellness improves.
By Greg Fingas, on March 7, 2013, at 9:03 am This and that for your Thursday reading.
- Lawrence Martin discusses how the B.C. Libs, Harper Cons and other governments have responded to transparency requirements by deliberately refusing to record what they’re doing and why: News from the government of British Columbia. Sorry citizens, we have no files. There is no written record of our decisions. You want to know how we operate? Sorry.
It’s no joke. A report from Elizabeth Denham, the province’s Information and Privacy Commissioner, says the rate of ‘no records’ responses to freedom of information requests is soaring. At the premier’s office, no less
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on February 28, 2013, at 8:52 am This and that for your Thursday reading.
- Molly Ball writes about the false assumptions underlying far too much political discussion – with one looming as particularly significant for Canadian purposes: 5. Campaign ads really, really, really don’t make much difference.
In this part of the paper, Fiorina’s exasperation becomes palpable. Political scientists have studied the effect of campaign media for decades and consistently found it to be very small. But that doesn’t stop commentators from talking endlessly about the potential effects of ads. “I shall say no more about this, because given the long history of the disjunction, it
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on January 25, 2013, at 8:44 am Assorted content for your Friday reading.
- In addition to providing my latest tagline, Alex Himelfarb takes aim at the austerians who seem happy to attack social well-being and economic development alike in the name of government-slashing: (A)usterity had never been driven by fiscal policy or economics or evidence. It was driven by ideology. Market fundamentalism. A desire to make government much smaller, eliminate or reduce, as much as politics allowed, so-called entitlements, create a “pro-business” climate of less regulation, less government, and, above all, lower taxes.
Think about the irony of this: that the huge recession-induced deficits
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on January 7, 2013, at 8:30 am Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.
- Michael Harris discusses the impending moment of truth for the Cons in owning up to their substantive failures toward Canada’s First Nations: Whether it’s Canada’s natives or its health ministers, Stephen Harper’s preferred place for his opponents is under his thumb. He has replaced the alternating current of democracy with the direct current of oligarchy. Ordinary people remain as invisible to him now as they have been since 2006.
For that reason, Chief Theresa Spence’s hunger strike has been a disaster for the man who doesn’t like to negotiate, let alone negotiate with
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on November 17, 2012, at 12:04 pm Assorted content for your weekend reading.- Bill Curry reports on the Cons’ latest public-sector slashing. But there hasn’t yet been much discussion of the most alarming number: upwards of 30% of the Cons’ cuts are coming from the Canada Revenue Agency… . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on September 29, 2012, at 11:36 am Assorted content for your weekend reading.
- Thomas Walkom discusses how the McGuinty Libs are going beyond imposing immediate pay freezes on the public sector, and instead passing what’s better seen as the War on Workers Measures Act – giving Ontario’s government the power to dictate labour outcomes by decree without any forum for review: If approved by the legislature, the Protecting Public Services bill would allow the government to not just freeze the wages it pays to unionized employees — ranging from nurses to home care workers to hydro linemen — but roll them back.
It would give cabinet
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on September 28, 2012, at 9:22 am Assorted content to end your week.
- Althia Raj reports on the Cons’ concerted effort to undermine organized labour in Canada (along with anybody else who might object to putting the interests of dirty oil and dirty money above the needs of citizens): Behind the rhetoric about “union bosses” and “transparency” lies a strategy, political observers say, that stokes controversies and throws up red herrings in order to force key opponents on the defensive — in this case, Canada’s labour movement and the NDP.
“The whole approach is not to push your guy but to totally demean and to discredit
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on September 16, 2012, at 10:35 am This and that for your Sunday reading.
- If there’s anything missing from Mark Weidbrot’s musings about the possibility of a U.S. debt downgrade, it’s that the only significant threat to the country paying its bills has been the Republicans’ reckless willingness to block routine approvals in the name of exactly the austerity policies the bond raters are pushing. But he’s right on in his suspicion about the raters’ motives:
It is clear that these credit rating agencies have a political agenda. Like most of Wall Street and the politicians that they can buy, they want the US government
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
By david, on June 28, 2012, at 2:12 am Hey Marge! Danielle Smith says there’s a budget crisis and this is no time to be giving raises to civil servants! Marge? Typical Albertans may not be exactly as illustrated this summer. Below: Danielle Smith.
It’s hard to imagine all that many Albertans getting their knickers in a twist at the thought of the province’s 25 most senior civil service managers getting a 4-per-cent pay raise.
This will come as a profound disappointment to the provincial Legislature’s Opposition Wildrose Party. Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith was squawking just last week about how the timing couldn’t be worse for the managers to
. . . → Read More: Alberta Diary: Budget crisis? Civil service raises? Go pop a Valium, Smith!
By Lorne, on June 20, 2012, at 9:08 pm
With the specter of the Parliamentary Budget Officer taking the Clerk of the Privy Council to court, a momentous question looms over our public affairs: will the Harper government answer a single legitimate question about its conduct of Canada’s public business?
Or is the government’s message that we can all go pleasure ourselves until 2015?
And so begins Michael Harris’s penetrating and insightful analysis of a wounded democracy under continuing threat in Canada. Recommend this Post
By Greg Fingas, on June 9, 2012, at 7:11 pm Assorted content to end your Saturday.
- Susan Delacourt’s mention of “likeonomics” as a branding strategy offers an interesting reference point for Canadian politics (particularly since our political scene has been radically reshaped by one obvious example of it in the 2011 election). But I’m not sure there’s much new in the Cons’ division of labour between Stephen Harper’s attempt to portray himself as above political debate, and his designated attack dogs who work tirelessly at dumping partisan muck on any and all opponents. And David Climenhaga documents a few glaring examples of how “when in doubt, make it up”
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
By Greg Fingas, on April 30, 2012, at 10:47 am Chapter 2 of Ryan Meili’s A Healthy Society discusses the place of politics as “medicine on a larger scale”. Meili looks for lessons in our political discussion based on how medical knowledge has advanced in the past few decades, and points out a new definition of success that looks to be entirely transferable to our expectations of government: One interesting result of this approach is that the definition of success has changed. We now talk about meaningful outcomes. When we know what is meaningful to patients and their families, we can know whether to move ahead with a difficult treatment,
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: A Healthy Society – Chapter 2 Discussion
By Greg Fingas, on April 25, 2012, at 9:46 am Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.
- Jared Bernstein discusses the effect of raising taxes on the highest-income households, featuring this in particular: Growth and jobs. History shows that higher taxes are compatible with economic growth and job creation: job creation and GDP growth were significantly stronger following the Clinton tax increases than following the Bush tax cuts. Further, the Congressional Budget office (CBO) concludes that letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire on schedule would strengthen long-term economic growth, on balance, if policymakers used the revenue saved to reduce deficits. In other words, any negative impact on economic growth from
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on April 23, 2012, at 11:20 am Miscellaneous material to start your week.
- Yes, the individual examples are worrisome enough. But the real takeaway from Sarah Schmidt’s report on the CFIA’s testing of food products for sale in Canada is that more often than not, consumers can’t trust what’s on the label: CFIA allows for a variance of up 20 percentage points on nutrition information found on food packages to account for natural variances in ingredients or deviations in testing equipment. Anything beyond that is considered unsatisfactory.…CFIA’s overall statistics from 2006 and 2010 involving key product categories (breads and baked goods, confectionary items, and snacks)
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on April 16, 2012, at 9:31 am Miscellaneous material to start your week.
- When even free-trade warrior Barrie McKenna can only respond incredulously to a message campaign on behalf of the wealthy, you know it’s gone too far. So here’s McKenna answering the contrived outrage over the NDP’s proposal for a slight increase in income tax on the wealthiest Ontarians: The vast majority of Canadians agree with Ms. Horwath. More that 80 per cent approve the idea of a tax on the wealthy and two-thirds are ready to take a personal tax hit, according to a new poll of 2,000 people by Environics for the Broadbent
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on April 15, 2012, at 4:32 pm Assorted content for your weekend reading.
- Danielle Martin discusses the importance of federal involvement in Canada’s public health care system: Whose job is it to co-ordinate health-care reform in Canada? Canadians expect our federal government to play that role. We want to know that wherever we live, we will have access to an equivalent basket of services. We want to know that our governments are buying in bulk whenever possible, maximizing savings. And we want assurances that some basic standards are being met from coast to coast to coast. Health care may be a provincial responsibility, but we know
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
By Greg Fingas, on April 14, 2012, at 10:34 am Assorted content for your weekend reading.
- John Cassidy neatly contrasts growth in the postwar period against that in recent decades – with the former seeing a “picket fence” growth pattern where all segments of society benefited roughly equally, while the latter produces a “staircase” effect (aside from an utterly unreachable jump between the top 1% and those below).
- Meanwhile, the CP corrects Jim Flaherty’s blatantly false spin about the effect of slashing corporate tax rates by pointing out that it’ll be another 5 years before we return to past revenue levels. And Thomas Walkom weighs in on the
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on March 29, 2012, at 9:18 am This and that for your Thursday reading…
- No, we shouldn’t read too much into the first wave of polling following Thomas Mulcair’s election as NDP leader. But there are a couple of points where the early returns are far enough out of line with expectations to be worth pointing out. First, there’s the comparison between a leader just elected and one who’s been given the profile normally reserved for the leader of the Official Opposition for the better part of a year: Mr. Harper had a moderate lead nationally when voters were asked which of the three leaders they
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on February 29, 2012, at 1:50 pm Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.
- The revelations just keep on coming in Robocon, to the point where the news of an offensively-named burner cellphone account used to leave fraudulent messages with Racknine has already been overtaken by more ridings and staffers being implicated – even as the Cons embarrass themselves with some of their least plausible talking points yet (along with a completely cavalier attitude toward electoral fraud).
- Meanwhile, Stephen Hume notes that the Cons’ legitimacy is at stake – and rightly in question as long as they keep on hiding and distracting from the facts. Alison’s
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
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