Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Joan Westenberg writes about the insistence by Elon Musk and others that people be forced to listen to bigotry in the name of "free speech" - along with their dissatisfaction that people keep developing new communication systems to avoid their hate-filled channels. Athmeya Jayaram points out how extreme wealth is used to threaten decision-makers not to consider any interests other than the demands of the richest few individuals and corporations. And Ajay Parasram discusses how solidarity and cooperation have served as the most effective message to stop the political rise of the regressive right.  

- Kate Yoder discusses how politicians (and even the general public) drastically underestimate the popular support for climate action - due in no small part to anti-clean energy astroturfing funded by fossil fuel tycoons. Rebecca Hersher reports on the reality that our oceans are warming significantly faster than projected, producing even more severe weather than anticipated. And Jack Simpson reports on the effect of extreme weather on insurance payouts. 

- Everett Kehew highlights the folly of blaming a housing shortage on lower-income immigrant workers rather than the capital class which refuses to build homes which most people can afford. And Alex Lord discusses the reality that the UK (like other countries) needs to reverse decades of neglect to meet housing targets - though it's telling that the needed number of homes isn't unprecedented, merely unfulfilled due to a lack of public investment.  

- Jason Foster, Bob Barnetson and Susan Cake study how governments have meddled in public-sector collective bargaining in Canada. 

- Finally, Gus Speth discusses the need to focus on well-being as the basis for our policy choices, rather than fetishizing growth for its own sake. 

On barriers to cooperation

It's for the best that the NDP and Libs have been able to come to terms on a supply and confidence agreement which should at least provide for substantial material gains for people who need them, and may go further in setting up core elements of a universal health care system which have long been lacking. And it's particularly gratifying to see at least some recognition of the leadership that requires. 

But while it's well worth celebrating what looks like a turn for the better, it's also worth a reminder as to what - and who - has prevented that type of cooperation from happening in the past.

Remember that Jagmeet Singh's message after the 2019 election was one of willingness to work with the Liberals on shared priorities. And Justin Trudeau's response was...to reject any systematic cooperation with a single party, as he preferred piecemeal politics and perpetual Parliamentary chicken to acceding to any NDP priorities in exchange for ongoing confidence.

After last year's election, Singh again floated the possibility of closer cooperation, while apparently seeing it as futile to even suggest a formal confidence agreement. But even with that lesser possibility on the table, the Libs expressed at most "not a closure" in response, with nothing coming of it until talks between the leaders this year. 

And lest there be any doubt, that disparity in interest in working together is all too familiar for anybody who has hoped that Libs would treat minority Parliaments as opportunities to achieve progressive outcomes. From Paul Martin sneering that Jack Layton was "two votes short" of being worth talking to, to Pierre Trudeau torpedoing a functional confidence arrangement to manufacture a majority for himself, the history of the two parties is rife with theoretical possibilities which fell victim to the Libs' hubris and/or self-interest. 

Needless to say, that leaves reason for concern that the same factors will affect both the length of time the current agreement figures to hold up, and the expectations as to what will be achieved while it does. And while the points of agreement may make some major achievements seem like real possibilities, there's a lot of work to be done to keep pushing toward actually bringing them to life before the Libs decide to go it alone.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Jill Lepore writes that the COVID pandemic has left no room for doubt that there is such a thing as society reflecting mutual obligations - and that its decay or subjugation to laissez-faire ideology produces disastrous results for everybody. And Randy Robinson discusses how inequality is resulting in the propagation of child poverty. 

- Fatima Hassan argues that vaccine nationalism only stands to draw out the suffering from COVID, while Peter Walker reports on the efforts nurses' unions are making to remove intellectual property obstacles to increased manufacturing and distribution. Larry Elliot discusses how the Omicron variant in particular shows the problem with leaving large swaths of the globe without access to vaccines. And while Katherine Wu and Kai Kupferschmidt each point out what we don't yet know about the variant, Ewan Birney writes that we shouldn't take that vacuum of knowledge for an excuse to hold off on the action need to limit transmission. 

- Meanwhile, Urbi Khan talks to eight nurses about the damage that's already been done to Ontario's health care system by the pandemic. And CBC News reports on the outbreak of tuberculosis which is devastating Pangnirtung years after a federal campaign was supposed to have put Canada on a path to eradicating it.  

- Lawrence Scanlan writes that people appear to be increasingly willing and eager to take back some power from the wealthiest few. Alan Murray and David Meyer point out the absurdity of granting preferential tax treatment to capital gains when capital is accumulating at unprecedented rates. And David Cay Johnston discusses how the rich further entrenched their power and privilege under the Trump Republicans. 

- But in case there was any thought there's nowhere to go but up in balancing the interests of the wealthy and the rest of us, Dan Fumano reports on the attempt by British Columbia businesses to claim extra votes for corporations in municipal elections. 

- Finally, Robin Sears discusses the lessons Canada could draw from Germany's successful cross-party cooperation if our two main parties weren't so obsessed with politics built around false majorities. 

This is why we can't have even minimally acceptable things

Here we go again. And somehow, the latest round of hysteria includes the Cons learning nothing from the failure of their attacks on coalitions or other forms of inter-party cooperation in the past, while the defence of a principle which has always enjoyed strong public support is getting weaker with time.

So let's once again be clear. We would be better governed if our political parties spent more time figuring out how to accomplish the goals they profess to share (or at least can view as mutually agreeable), rather than engaging in constant efforts to prove the other guys unfit for office (which ultimately succeed only to the extent of proving all parties right in that assertion).  

And for the NDP in particular, the politics and principle couldn't align much more cleanly: keep in mind that it was Jack Layton's defence of cooperation, and work to offer examples in practice, that helped shake voters out of their default allegiances to produce the party's best result ever. So even if it may be worth clarifying the facts on the ground, that needs to be coupled with a statement that a willingness to work across party lines to get results is a far more desirable attribute in both an opposition party and a prospective government than a refusal to consider anything of the sort. 

#Elxn44 Roundup

Assorted reactions to a federal election which changed so little.

- The Canadian Labour Congress points out that we can't afford to be stuck with the status quo when there's an opportunity for parties to chart a more equitable and sustainable course for Canada. And Aaron Wherry wonders how the federal parties will adapt to another apparent run of minority Parliaments by working on systemic cooperation rather than turning every confidence vote into a game of chicken, while Alex Marland points out the range of outcomes in historical minority governments from generational change to complete gridlock. 

- Seth Klein writes that the new Parliament will hold Canada's climate future in its hands. And Morgan Sharp argues that young voters will be looking for the parties to work together on that front, while Vijay Tupper makes the case that Jagmeet Singh needs to serve to counterbalance the influence of the fossil fuel sector. 

- Justin Ling writes that the main factors driving the outcome proved to be fatigue and resignation. Cameron Holmstrom writes that there were ultimately no winners among Canada's political parties.  

- Meanwhile, PressProgress reports on the problems with ballot box access in a pandemic election, including unconscionably long lines in some areas and a complete lack of polls in others. 

- Finally, Armine Yalnizyan offers a reminder that the pandemic's disproportionate impact on women is far from over - and that countering its effects needs to be another top priority in the next Parliament.

On policy bubbles

While Justin Trudeau is putting any economic planning in the hands of somebody with a vested interest in privatizing profits, it's also worth noting how his government is deliberately avoiding any of the type of consultation needed to make a minority Parliament work at a time when cooperation should be more important than ever:

The source said a minority government has to be ready for the moment when there may be no compromising “and, quite frankly maybe it is time for the Canadian people to weigh in a post-pandemic environment.”

Another senior official said only that when it comes to working with the other parties, “we’re not at that stage yet.”

It would seem obvious enough that for a minority government wanting to get anything accomplished through the current Parliament, there should never be a stage where working with other parties is off the table. And that goes doubly when discussing the path to recovery and renewal in the face of an ongoing pandemic.

But Trudeau appears to have decided to model his own plans after Stephen Harper's perpetual games of Parliamentary chicken: no meaningful consultation, no compromise, and no interest in considering what's good for anybody besides his corporate backers and cronies. And if being reduced to a minority hasn't been enough to convince Trudeau that voters expect leaders who listen rather than running roughshod over the country, then the electorate will need to deliver a far stronger message when it has the opportunity.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Dylan Matthews writes about the growing body of evidence showing that minimum wage increases boost pay for lower-income workers while having no effect on the availability of jobs. And Paul Karp and Amy Remeikis report on new research challenging the explanation for reducing Australian superannuation rates in the name of wages.

- The Sutton Trust's polling shows how a strong plurality of UK voters see significant deterioration both in the equality of opportunity, and in the standard of living for future generations. But Grace Blakeley highlights the massive gains which can be achieved through UK Labour's plans for a transition to a green economy.

- Sharon Riley reports on the health and environmental risks imposed on Alberta landowners by the province's existing network of pipelines - particularly ones which are intended to be abandoned by their operators. 

- Andrew MacLeod discusses the importance of accountability and responsiveness to whistleblowing in ensuring that public institutions actually serve their intended purposes.

- Finally, Glen Pearson writes about the need for progressive leaders and activists to be willing to cooperate - though it's well worth noting which parties have shown their inclination to work together toward shared policy goals, and which has stubbornly rejected the concept.

New column day

Here, on how the historical competition between the NDP and the Greens hasn't precluded cooperation where it counts in British Columbia - and how the governing accord there might offer an example of cross-party collaboration for all levels of government.

For further reading...
- Martyn Brown wrote about the danger the Greens might have posed to a change in government early in the election campaign.
- Nancy MacDonald documented the post-election negotiations on all sides, including the common ground between John Horgan and Andrew Weaver once they got to talking. And Andrew MacLeod reported on what Horgan's NDP and Weaver's Greens were able to agree to.
- Finally, Andrew Coyne discusses Justin Trudeau's contempt for the public which has helped smooth over any differences between the NDP and Greens at the federal level. And the Greens' adoption of a preference for a mixed-member proportional electoral system offers an area where it may be possible to translate agreement between the two parties into policy change.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Don Pittis discusses the growing price everybody pays for more extreme weather events caused by climate change. And Adrienne Lafrance offers a grim look at what's in store if we can't curb greenhouse gas emissions in a hurry.

- Seth Klein and Shannon Daub write that British Columbia's Green-supported NDP government represents a historic opportunity for lasting progressive change, while Derrick O'Keefe comments on the prospect of a regular progressive majority to give effect to what most B.C. voters want. Maxwell Cameron recognizes the importance of a successful cooperate government in pursuing that end. Paul Willcocks declares citizens to be the big winner in B.C.'s election. And Nick Fillmore points out reasons for optimism for progressives from across Canada.

- Stefania Seccia highlights four principles which can end chronic homelessness - though they can largely be boiled down to treating people as mattering rather than being unworthy of help. And Matthew Yglesias comments on the importance of defending and improving the social safety net which already exists, rather than relying solely on a basic income to address poverty and inequality.

- But Steve Inskeep talks to Richard Reeves about the U.S.' privileged class which is hoarding opportunities which should be available to everybody. Patricia Cohen weighs in on the personal precarity created by uncertain incomes.

- Finally, Alberta Treasury Branches charts the rise of inequality in Alberta over a period of decades.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Alex Himelfarb writes about the urgent need to reverse the vicious cycle of austerity. And Toby Sanger takes a look at the economic records of Canada's political parties, and finds that the NDP ranks at the top of the class not only for balancing budgets, but also for reducing unemployment and raising wages.

- Meanwhile, Shawn Katz calls out the Libs for being all PR and no substance when it comes to progressive values:

In the media echo chamber, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s most substantive claim to the mantle of “change” in this election is his rejection of the balanced budget orthodoxy that has been used by neoliberal politicians as the premise for slashing social programs. It's a shrewd target for Liberal strategists.

Dig deeper, however, and we find it has been the victory of austerity politicians to successfully confuse the two: the real source of austerity policies is less the smokescreen of balanced budgets than the emptying of the public purse by decades of massive tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.
...

The problem with this shallow narrative, as well as Trudeau’s absurd attack line about the NDP adopting “Harper’s budget” by promising to balance the books, is that it focuses only on the bottom line — and media headline — while ignoring the actual programs and policies that compose the government agenda.

A truly progressive program is one that aims for the reduction of social and economic inequalities in society and the strengthening of solidarity. In this election, that mantle goes indisputably to the NDP, who are alone in proposing the first major expansion of Canada’s social safety net in decades.

True to the traditions of social democracy, the NDP’s signature proposals for new universal child care and pharmacare systems are transformative social policies that would help those at the bottom of the economic ladder the most, as would their massive reinvestments in health care, which earned the party first place in the electoral report card issued by the College of Family Physicians of Canada. 

They would pay for these investments through a range of measures targeting those at the top, including a two-point increase to the tax rate on large corporations and the closing of tax loopholes used by CEOs.

Taken together, these policies would amount to the most significant push in a generation to rebuild the tattered public domain. They would signal the end of the austerity era in Canada, and a modest first step in reversing the tide of corporate power and privilege that is undermining our democracy.

Next to these robust efforts to reduce the inequalities that soared under the Liberals’ watch in the 1990s, Trudeau’s vow to tax “the 1%” is akin to striking a coup in the bumper sticker wars: the measure is laudable, but the Liberal plan will do precious little with the acquired funds aside from shifting it slightly down the ladder towards the upper middle class.

- Elizabeth Thompson and BJ Siekierski shed more light on Daniel Gagnier's role lobbying for Trans-Canada (and seeking to position himself to keep doing just that) while acting as the Libs' campaign co-chair.

- Lynell Anderson and Iglika Ivanova compare the federal parties' child care plans to an expert proposal for $10 per day care in British Columbia. And Susana Mas reports on the Assembly of First Nations' review of the parties' platforms.

- Jordan Press reports on Joe Oliver's habit of wasting public money for his own luxury (like so many of his fellow Cons). And Jorge Barrera writes about the connection between drug financiers and cash donations to the Cons.

- Max Cameron writes about the prospects for co-operation in a new Parliament.

- Finally, Michael Hollett argues that Jack Layton's message of "don't let them tell you it can't be done" is particularly important as we approach what could be a historic election day.

On end goals

We can fully expect Canada's election campaign to feature plenty more talk about possible coalition outcomes - which are favoured by the public, and may represent the best way to ensure the Cons' replacement if Stephen Harper again tries to cling to power. And as I've noted before, there remains little reason to take the Libs seriously in their threats not to cooperate.

But I'll take a moment to answer the latest excuse as to how the Libs are trying to present themselves as a party of change while needlessly ruling out what may prove to be the only way to get there - that being in a junior role in a coalition might be a fatal blow to the party.

Back when a coalition was formed between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats after the UK's 2010 election, I had this to say about the difference between what the Lib Dems negotiated for and what the NDP has pursued in past election cycles when it's sought to be the junior coalition partner:

Particularly during the 2008 coalition discussions, the NDP has consistently made clear that its top priority has been securing positive policy outcomes. And in order to reach those, it's been willing to trade off any expectation of top cabinet positions such as deputy Prime Minister, as well as to work in structures where its goal of electoral reform isn't on the table.

In contrast, the two largest benefits for the Lib Dems in their agreement seem to have little to do with substantive policy. Instead, Nick Clegg's appointment as deputy PM and the promised referendum on an alternative vote model look to be the main carrots for the Lib Dems in an agreement loaded with conservative policy priorities with only a modicum of mitigation for the worst off.

In other words, a party negotiating from a third-place position doesn't have a lot to gain merely from pursuing cabinet positions rather than policy accomplishments, particularly if it has no clue what it wants to achieve once it gets a seat at the cabinet table. And the subsequent annihilation of the Lib Dems offers evidence in favour of that argument.

But a third-place party which has a genuine policy vision will find few better opportunities to see it brought to life than in at the negotiating table and the cabinet table alongside a party seeking which needs its support to win a majority in Parliament.

Now, it's true that it's possible to support legislation on a case-by-case basis without a more formal coalition. But if anybody's needlessly confusing the issue, it's the party which is prematurely ruling one of those options out in the absence of anything even remotely approaching a defensible reason.

Moreover, a coalition which signals the availability of a stable alternate government to the Governor General forms an important subset of the cooperation options which can usefully be pursued - placing a significant onus on the Libs to provide a better explanation than they've deigned to provide so far.

In sum, if there is a reason for the Liberal Party to exist other than inertia, that reason should offer a justification to work with others - as well as the promise of building the party in the future through the accomplishments achieved under the coalition. We should then expect the Liberals to be able to articulate what they'd want to pursue (under a coalition or otherwise) if they do end up as the third party in a minority Parliament - and to be willing to work with the NDP and others to get it done.

On the other hand, if the Liberal Party is so confused about its own reasons for existence as to have no idea what values or policies are important enough to make cooperation worthwhile, then it's hard to see what Canadian voters could possibly have to gain by keeping it around. And so the more the Libs whine that they'd be doomed if they tried to work with anybody, the harder it is to escape the conclusion that they're broken beyond repair either way.

Trampled

Elizabeth May tells us that her idea of a grassroots movement is a finely manicured lawn carefully maintained to suit the aesthetic preferences of its owners:

May said she didn’t want to thwart local efforts towards co-operation with other parties, but that she thinks she, Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau and NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair should be the ones to discuss how grassroots co-operation should work.

To be clear, there were plenty of problems with the Kelowna red-green pact which May seems to have nixed: it didn't make a lick of sense in terms of either reciprocity (since the Liberals were offering nothing in return for a Green candidate's withdrawal) or anticipated outcomes (since the NDP is in a far better position than the Libs to challenge the Cons in the seat). And so it's entirely justifiable that the deal itself would come under scrutiny.

But it's one thing for May to highlight where a specific arrangement has gone awry, and quite another for her to say generally that the plebes should be quiet until party leaders have decided how their activity should be channelled. And if anybody harboured any illusions that the Greens saw their own grassroots activists as significant political agents rather than easily-controlled minions, May seems to have decisively shattered them.

Choosing the wrong side

Following up on this morning's column, let's note that there's another area where the Libs are stubbornly sticking to a previous position whose underpinnings have been even more thoroughly destroyed.

The Libs have been at pains to at least offer the perception of changing their direction from nearly everything done by both Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff as leaders. But the common theme of arrogantly ruling out cooperation with other parties continues to lie at the centre of the Libs' messaging - even though it failed miserably in both of the last two federal elections, and looks downright absurd now that the Libs are at third place in the federal seat count.

And now, any argument as to political convenience or public opinion is also out the window. 60% of the public is onside with the idea of a coalition, leaving plenty of room for voters to support multiple members of a potential coalition while winning enough seats to topple the Cons. And that's in the absence of anybody making the obvious connection between the Libs' (however vapid) theme of doing politics differently and any actual willingness to do so.

But apparently, a dogged determination to leave Stephen Harper in office if they can't have sole power for themselves is so fundamental to the Libs' worldview that they're willing to cling to it even when virtually none of their supporters favour it. And the strong majority of voters who want to see a change in government may fall short of that goal due solely to the Libs' entrenched position until they first send Justin Trudeau a message he can't ignore.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Jay Baron Nicorvo discusses how the myth of U.S. meritocracy serves largely as a means of funneling profits toward the 1%. And Mary Hansen points out one way of fighting back against evolving forms of corporate power - being the development of new, cooperative alternatives to businesses designed to exploit workers.

- David Korten highlights a few of the most obvious dangers in the Trans-Pacific Partnership as just the latest and most draconian agreement intended to lock anti-democratic principles in as a restriction on government decision-making. And ICIJ and the Huffington Post shed needed light on how past attempts to account for the public interest in trade arrangements - in this case through the World Bank - have proven to be miserable failures due to a lack of interest in enforcing rules which protect people rather than profits.

- Meanwhile, Louis-Philippe Rochon notes that even the International Monetary Fund is admitting that decades of constant attacks on workers have served solely to drive down wages rather than doing anything to improve economic performance.

- Steven Zhou writes that the Cons' politicization of the Canada Revenue Agency to attack groups who disagree with their corporatist message represents a serious threat to democratic discussion.

- Finally, the Broadbent Institute highlights just a few of the ways the Cons are deliberately making inequality worse. And Scott Clark and Peter DeVries comment on the Harper Cons' catastrophic economic record:

At the end of 2014, the unemployment rate was higher than at the end of 2008. The labour force participation rate was lower than in 2008. The employment rate (the percentage of the adult population employed) was lower than at the end of 2008. The youth unemployment rate was higher than at the end of 2008. The share of total employment made up of full-time jobs was less than in 2008 — and the quality of jobs had sunk to its lowest level in a quarter of a century.

Then there’s Oliver’s claim that his government has put money back in the hands of Canadians through its commitment to reducing taxes. This government has definitely cut taxes for high-income, single-earner families with children under 18 — just 15 per cent of all families. They’ve been very good to families with teenage children who — somehow — still need ‘child care’. They’ve been generous to families who can afford to put their kids in sports leagues and summer camps, and they’ve cut taxes for high-income seniors who can split their pension income with a spouse.

The government has announced it will double the contribution limits for Tax-Free Savings Accounts, despite research by the PBO and others indicating this will — again — overwhelmingly benefit high-income Canadians and leave a growing unfunded liability to be paid for by all Canadians in the future. Oliver and Harper claim to be doing this for our grandchildren. Somehow we don’t think they’ll be grateful.

All of this, of course, came after the government’s biggest and most foolish tax cut — the two point cut in the GST which every economist warned them was a terrible idea. Sure enough, it was a major factor in putting the government into deficit.

The key thing to remember here is that these tax cuts accomplished nothing for the economy. None of them contributed to economic growth or job creation. They certainly didn’t contribute to tax fairness.

Numbers don’t lie, but people do. It’s one thing to spin your failures as successes — it’s another thing entirely to try to present a decade of fiscal failure as one long triumph.

On prospects for change

The latest round of discussion about the possibility of a coalition to offer something better than the Harper Cons has taken an noteworthy turn. At this point, everybody but the Libs seems to have settled on the position that there's no real obstacle to a coalition government - and the Libs' spin machine has responded with little more than a plan to fabricate mistrust between themselves and the NDP.

But no matter how far that effort goes, the foreseeable outcomes of the next election feature a low probability of anybody holding a majority, and a strong prospect that the NDP and the Libs working together can deliver the change each of their voters would like to see.

So how far does Justin Trudeau think he'll get telling Canada that cooperation is too much hard work to be worth pursuing, and that we should instead settle for another term of hopeless Harper government?

[Edit: fixed wording.]

On first steps

I'm skeptical about Paul Adams' argument that some type of electoral non-compete agreement between the NDP and the Libs is inevitable an election cycle or two down the road. But he does hint at something close to the type of cooperation that I could see as useful in the meantime:

(T)here is a very slight possibility that there will be yet another opening to the idea [of a non-compete deal] before the 2015 election. If the Conservatives were to start polling quite a bit stronger — say nearer the 40 per cent mark — and the Liberal and the NDP were deadlocked in the mid-20 per cent range for long enough, there might be internal and external pressures for Trudeau and Mulcair to temper their intransigence about cooperation.

That’s not the likeliest scenario. Much more probable is that the Liberals and the NDP will insist on at least one more election running on their own.

If it comes to that, progressives should at least demand that their party leaders swear off demonizing each other as they compete for support in the common pool of voters from which they draw.

In effect, the first step toward progressive cooperation could be to at least avoid doing Stephen Harper's work for him by echoing and validating the most damaging parts of the Cons' spin. And I'd argue that the messages worth avoiding include not only gratuitous attacks on each other, but also right-wing tropes which feed into the argument that we shouldn't expect our government to be a force for positive social change.

Of course, even that level of non-competition may not be achieved as easily as it sounds at first blush: the Libs' traditional means of differentiation from the NDP involves parroting Con "tax and spend" soundbites which reinforce a reactionary worldview, while the NDP's ethical and trust arguments against the Libs similarly figure to have a spillover effect in generating cynicism about politics in general. And it's far from clear that either party will give up on those familiar arguments without a fight.

But if our existing parties can't even manage the minimal level of agreement involved in shaping messages which don't undermine long-term values for short-term gain, then it's all the more futile to think they'll do better in assembling a complex and time-consuming non-competition scheme. And if it is in fact possible to agree the priority for the next couple of years is to focus on challenging the Cons' plans for Canada rather than other opposition parties, that might go a long way in ensuring that there's an opportunity to cooperate in governing in 2015 and beyond.

On speculative advances

Somehow most of the discussion of Thomas Mulcair's Question Period appearance this morning seems to have missed what strikes me as the most important point. So let's take a closer look at how his message has evolved from the leadership campaign - and how it figures to position the NDP to form government in 2015.

At first glance, Mulcair's answer in response to a question focused on the possibility of a coalition government in 2015 might not seem like a particularly strong one:

Mulcair said the party will be running candidates in all 338 federal ridings (adjusted with new additions) in the next election, otherwise the party would be conceding territory to the Conservatives.

"Anything beyond that is pure speculation," he said. "My goal is to form an NDP majority government and with the types of polls we're seeing now Canadians are rallying to us."

But there's a rather significant difference between the new declaration that it's too early to say whether Mulcair would consider a coalition, and Mulcair's earlier statement that a "no" to any such possibility was "categorical, absolute, irrefutable and non-negotiable. It’s no. End of story. Full stop."

In effect, merely in recognizing that any talk of a post-election coalition will depend on the circumstances at the time, Mulcair is taking a more cooperative line than the leaders of the Official Opposition in the previous two elections. Which means that the NDP will preserve at least some of its hard-earned reputation as the party most willing to work pragmatically toward progressive goals.

Mind you, the statement that we'll need to see what happens doesn't serve as quite the strong defence of cooperation that I'd most like to see. But it does open the door for a neat contrast against Libs past and present - allowing Mulcair to say he'll consider working with the Libs and others toward common goals, while highlighting just what those goals are for the NDP. And if the Cons decide to follow up with another bizarre anti-cooperation crusade that pushes Mulcair to make stronger statements about the importance of working together rather than being as insular and narrowly-focused as Harper and company, then the result for the NDP figures to be all the better.

New column day

Following up on this morning's roundup, I comment here on how the NDP's group of leadership candidates includes loads of possibilities to take up Jack Layton's mantle of negotiation and cooperation.

As a brief bit of further reading, it was Dan Gardner who asked whether Stephen Harper had ever engaged in serious negotiations with parties outside his government. And it doesn't look like anybody had a single example to suggest.

Finally, for anybody interested in finding out more about the NDP's leadership candidates, the candidates' sites are accessible through my reference page among other sources.