Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Ellen Wald writes that Canadian oil companies would be smart to be prepared to answer for their environmental and human rights abuses. But Carly Penrose reports that they're instead funding petropoliticians and shadowy lobby groups in an effort to undermine climate change policy, while David Climenhaga discusses Danielle Smith's latest scheme to make accurate information about emissions illegal. 

- Hiroko Tabuchi writes about the propaganda campaign being waged by the plastics industry in an effort to avoid answering for massive and easily-avoidable damage to people's health and the environment. And Tom Perkins reports on new research finding that microplastics and "forever chemicals" are particularly dangerous in combination with each other. 

- Jack Hauen discusses how the Ontario PCs' destruction of bike lanes shows the outsized influence of a few wealthy donors. Sarah Elton and Madeleine Bonsma-Fisher write that Doug Ford's diktat forcing the removal of bike lanes doesn't merely reflect hostility to bikes themselves, but a war on data and evidence in policy choices. And David Rider discusses the misinformation being deployed to undermine the development of walkable and people-friendly cities. 

- Silas Xuereb examines the hundreds of billions of dollars per year being diverted into excess profits - and the resulting opportunity to both reduce inequality and fund social needs through a windfall profit tax. 

- Finally, Adam King discusses how the Canada Post strike fits into wider trends around precarious work and the destruction of public services. And Paris Marx points out the contrast between the strength and solidarity of public sector workers in a well-established bargaining unit, and the results of isolate-and-conquer practices imposed Amazon and other corporate giants. 

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Melissa Hanson writes about life as a climate refugee from what was billed as a relatively safe area - making for a particularly painful position in the midst of an election where a major contender denies both the reality of climate change and the humanity of refugees generally. Andrea Thompson points out that a natural disaster such as Hurricane Helene will have continuing impacts on victims for years to come. Jonathan Watts reports on new research showing that wildfires are rapidly burning through humanity's carbon budget, while Benjamin Shingler charts how Canada's 2024 wildfire season was severe by any standard other than the unheard-of fires of the previous year. And Marko Hyvarinen et al. study how our climate is breaking down faster than many species can possibly adapt. 

- Katharine Hayhoe discusses how China is far ahead of the rest of the world in developing clean and cheap renewable energy. But Richard Murphy laments that UK Labour is joining far too many Western governments in throwing massive amounts of free money at the fossil fuel sector even while telling citizens they'll have to fend for themselves in an environment of austerity. And Karin Larsen reports on Burnaby's agreement not to criticize Trans Mountain after its pipeline was forced through the city at pblic expense. 

- Jon Milton interviews Nora Loreto about the decline of public services in Canada in the name of neoliberalism. And Linda McQuaig discusses how the Ford PCs - like their ideological cousins elsewhere - are undermining public health care in order to ensure donors can profit from needed health services. 

- Meanwhile, Angela Amato reports on the UCP's decision to facilitate corporate influence and control in municipal politics.

- Colin Lecher and Tomas Apodaca expose how Facebook profits from the environment of violent extremism which it promotes. And Alex Kierstein reports on Ford's patent filing seeking to eavesdrop on car users in order to foist ads on the occupants of vehicles.

- Finally, Fair Vote Canada fact checks Justin Trudeau's excuses for breaking his promise of a fair electoral system - while highlighting that its members and others who support a more proportional system were specifically targeted for misleading promises which Trudeau never planned to fulfil. 

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Hilary Beaumont and Nina Lakhani report on the fossil fuel lobby's pressure on U.S. governments to impose draconian anti-protest laws to prevent climate activists from being heard. darryll k. jones points out the dangers facing environmental activists around the globe at the hands of mining corporations and the governments who serve them. And Robert Reich writes that Elon Musk's control over crucial infrastructure - and his complete lack of compunction in using it to settle personal scores or strongarm governments - represents an unacceptable security risk for the U.S. 

- Tamara Palmer discusses the embarrassing lack of recycling of electronic waste - though it's worth noting how manufacturers put far more resources into pushing people to buy new devices than allowing them to recycle old ones. And Rosa Galvez makes the case for an international treaty on plastic pollution.

- Meanwhile, Richard Murphy argues that it's long past time for the UK to abolish "freeports" intended to allow corporations to operate outside the law - while noting that there's been little apparent interest in taking up that option in any event. And Aditya Chakrabortty reminds UK Labour that voters turfed the Cons for trashing public services in the name of catering to the corporate sector - meaning that they're not likely to be pleased with continued austerity from the government which ran on the need for change. 

- Finally, Lorraine Carpenter reports on the spread of fake X accounts in Quebec - following the pattern of similar accounts parroting Con messaging. And Don Braid and Jason Markusoff each discuss how Danielle Smith is catering to the most extreme wing of the UCP, while Jeremy Appel notes that there's little to distinguish those demands from the most dishonest and bigoted faces of the MAGA movement. 

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Mo Amir discusses how John Rustad is attempting to cover up his longstanding climate denial in advance of this fall's B.C. election. And Gregory Mikkelson, Arlene Slocombe and Jessica Murray plead for Canada's federal government to stop greenwashing tar sands pipelines, while Gillian Steward offers a reminder that Danielle Smith is pushing to have the rest of the country foot the bill to clean up the messes being made by unscrupulous oil operators today. 

- Pep Canadell, Marielle Saunois and Rob Jackson point out that methane emissions in particular are reaching new extremes, causing an especially large immediate effect on the Earth's climate. And Zebedee Nichols and Tim Baxter note that the short-term exacerbation of a climate breakdown can have immense long-term consequences. 

- Linda Lakhdhir points out that peaceful climate activists are being locked up with far more severe sentences than violent racists. And Bruce Campbell reminds us that workers' safety concerns are at the core of the labour job action which was terminated by the Trudeau Libs in favour of arbitration at the behest of the corporate railways. 

- Simon Wren-Lewis offers a seemingly needed reminder to UK Labour that voters turfed the Cons to preserve public services - not to gut them in the name of fiscal conservatism. And Jean Swanson discusses the problems with a B.C. "social housing" program which is designed to exclude lower-income renters. 

- Finally, Audi van den Hove reports on the decision by the European Court of Justice requiring Apple to pay back taxes rather than laundering its profits in Ireland. And the Canadian Press reports on the Federal Court of Appeal's decision finding that Facebook breached user privacy in allowing apps to scrape and commercialize personal information. 

Wednesday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Christopher Nardi reports on Liam Iliffe's unwitting revelations about how fossil fuel companies regularly thumb their noses at lobbying requirements and other rules while pulling the strings of compliant Canadian governments. Amanda Follett Hosgood discusses the growing push to ban at least blatantly false greenwashing, while John Woodside notes that it's telling that only the oil and gas sector is screaming bloody murder over a standard of accuracy which would apply to all kinds of business.  And Genevieve Guenther examines the new language of climate denial (which will sound painfully familiar in the Canadian political context). 

- Eric Ralls reports on a new study finding that air pollution is responsible for a nine-figure death toll since 1980, while Joao Medeiros laments the reality that such an ubiquitous killer is barely even recognized. And point out that the damage from forest fires includes multiple harms to lakes and waterways.

- Simon Wren-Lewis discusses the importance of highlighting how right-wing attacks on public revenue are the cause of the crisis in public services - and the reality that more and fairer taxes are a must to build the public institutions people want and need. And Kim Siever points out that strong public-sector jobs are good for the economy - meaning that the perpetual right-wing drive to make them privatized or precarious is all about waging class warfare against workers. 

- Finally, Gabriel Zucman offers a proposal (PDF) for a coordinated wealth tax to ensure the global ultra-rich can't evade any responsibility to the social sources of their profits. 

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Kevin Jiang reports on the results of the largest-ever study into the effects of COVID-19 vaccines - which concludes they've been extremely safe (while serving to prevent far worse outcomes). But Gregg Gonsalves laments that public health authorities are under attack by the forces of ignorance - and taking a dangerously defensive posture as a result. And sadly, Patrick Butler's summary of issues facing children in England reinforces the false and anti-health message that the effects of a pandemic on child development should be blamed solely on public health measures to control the spread of COVID, rather than the dangers and effects of the disease itself. 

- Leigh Phillips discusses how wealthy countries are sabotaging work on a global pandemic treaty by insisting that drug manufacturers' profits take precedence over people's health. And Helen Santoro reports on new research showing that big pharma has made over $70 billions in profits off of $11 billion in public research expenditures to develop ten drugs - and has the gall to be demanding that it be entitled to avoid negotiating those drugs' prices to make them remotely affordable to patients. 

- Mark Olalde and Nick Bowlin examine how the oil industry's profits are similarly based entirely on extracting subsidies from, and dumping environmental costs on, the general public. 

- Matthew Rosza weighs in on the need to stop treating ineffective recycling programs as an excuse for permitting the mass pollution generated by plastics. And Gerry McGovern notes that the default assumption that we should accept waste in the name of convenience serves as a source of easily-avoidable energy use. 

- Gil McGowan writes that the UCP's corporatist zealotry represents a grave threat to basic public services. And Joan Westenberg calls out "side hustle" culture for seeking to squeeze even more out of workers while the rich accumulate more and more unconscionable fortunes. 

- Finally, Cory Doctorow offers a much-needed response to the establishmentarians who spout "horseshoe theory" to falsely equate work at building equality with its polar opposite. 

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Meara Conway examines the absolute frivolousness of the Saskatchewan Party's Ottawa-bashing, while Stephen Magusiak offers a reminder of the oil-backed astroturf project behind Alberta sovereignty messaging (and its Saskatchewan copycats). And Simon Enoch discusses Scott Moe's choice to keep underfunding public services even when the province has more money than it knows what to do with. 

- Meanwhile, Sheila Block, Randy Robinson and Ricardo Tranjan point out that Doug Ford has chosen to "balance" Ontario's budget by starving public services which are already on the brink of collapse. And Helena Pamic discusses how food banks are having to serve a growing share of Ontario's working class as the necessities of life become increasingly unaffordable.

- Adam McKay rightly points out that we're continuing to fail to treat the climate crisis as an emergency even as its direct effects become all the more frequent and stark. And Andrew Nikiforuk writes that by any reasonable measure, the skyrocketing price tag on the climate-busting Trans Mountain pipeline expansion would be treated as a massive scandal.

- Finally, Timothy Noah discusses how the Republicans (who of course set the agenda for Canada's Cons and their right-wing allies) have become unabashed cheerleaders for the exploitation of child labour.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Mariana Mazzucato responds to Boris Johnson by recognizing that capitalism has no viable answers for collective action problems such as the ones posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

- Scott Schmidt discusses how the familiar right-wing attempt to squeeze the wages and working conditions of public servants does nothing but harm to both the services we need, and the economy as a whole. And Fife Ogunde argues that the people providing services that we treat as essential deserve to be paid accordingly. 

- Owen Jones warns that our living environment can't survive the single-minded pursuit of immediate profit over the well-being of its inhabitants. Tariq Fancy discusses how sustainable investing in its current form falls far short of the mark in averting a climate breakdown. And Andrew Leach wonders whether the Supreme Court's decision upholding federal carbon pricing in Canada will represent the end of a loud and scientifically-illiterate resistance to climate policy.

- Adam Morton reports on a new study showing how Australia could reach net-zero emissions by 2040 with a transition to wind and solar power. And Dirk Meissner reports on British Columbia's steps to set emissions targets for industries and communities.

- Angus Reid's latest polling finds large numbers of Canadians facing financial insecurity both in general, and particularly in light of the coronavirus pandemic. 

- Finally, Lee Stevens examines the glaring gap between the social programs available in Alberta and the support needed to lift people out of poverty. And Jason Hickel highlights why there's reason to be skeptical of claims about the elimination of extreme poverty which depend on both questionable assumptions about past standards of living, and an an exceedingly low standard to define the term today.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Crawford Kilian writes about the $47 trillion heist of wealth from the U.S.' working class to its wealthiest elites. And Umair Haque discusses how Donald Trump is a foreseeable consequence of the U.S.' structural inequalities, rather than an anomaly within its political system.

- Julia Rock discusses how the Trump administration's subsidies for fossil fuel development have left the public with additional bills to clean up the mess made by the oil industry, while Mitchell Anderson notes that the tar sands owe the Canadian public far more than they have any hope of repaying. And the Globe and Mail's editorial board warns that Alberta (and other fossil fuel-dependent provinces) shouldn't be counting on future booms to paper over their failure to develop diversified economies.

- Paul Willcocks points out the political desperation and economic illiteracy behind the B.C. Libs' attempt to gut the province's sales tax in the name of pandemic recovery. And Jim Stanford points out the folly of cutting taxes in a recession as a form of stimulus.

- Meanwhile, Elba Bendo, Deb Bryant, Shannon Daub and Viveca Ellis offer their take on what a potential government should be pursuing instead. And Lori Johb writes about the need to invest in public services in order to fully recover.

- Finally, the Saskatchewan NDP's election platform includes a wealth tax to ensure both improved social equity, and greater funding for needs like reduced class sizes. And Stephanie Taylor offers a look at Ryan Meili's background as a leader motivated by caring for others.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Anca Matei writes that the coronavirus pandemic has provided us with another vivid example of how the accumulation of wealth (particularly in a small number of hands) has little to do with social health and well-being. And Rosa Pavanelli writes about the importance of rebuilding public services in the wake of COVID-19.

- Meanwhile, Richard Warnica reports on how Doug Ford's budget cuts and poor management undermined Ontario's public health agency just when it was needed most. And Phillip Inman points out that the UK Cons are treating a public health crisis as an opportunity to hold a fire sale of public land.

- Catherine Pearson reports on polling showing how teenagers have been affected by the pandemic - and the implications for already-insufficient mental health supports. 

- Michael Prince proposes that Canada establish a federal basic income for people with disabilities, with any savings to the provinces then allocated to personal supports and community services.

- Finally, Adam Galinsky discusses the brutality that results when police are equipped and trained to be military forces - though reports on the RCMP's plans to keep stockpiling armoured vehicles even in the face of additional scrutiny. And Philip Moscovitch writes about his reasons for never again calling police to check on his son's well-being.

Monday Afternoon Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Noam Scheiber, Nelson Schwartz and Tiffany Hsu point out how the social isolation required in response to COVID-19 is only confirming and exacerbating the U.S.' class divide. And Shawn Micallef highlights the vast difference between social isolation in a large home as opposed to a confined living space.

- David Naylor and Tim Evans offer their suggestions for a path back to normalcy. CBC News reports on the wake-up call the pandemic represents for Canada's prescription drug supply. Danyaal Raza and Hasan Sheikh discuss the importance of strengthening our health care system as part of our rescue from the coronavirus pandemic. And Miles Corak argues that the delay in responding to COVID-19 should push us to maintain more government capacity at all times - rather than relying on a "just in time" relief apparatus to assemble only once a crisis is already underway.

- Sara Birrell takes note of the extremely limited help for workers on offer from Scott Moe's Saskatchewan Party government. And David Macdonald examines the all-too-gradually-improving federal relief package.

- David Dayen exposes a few of the U.S. lobbyists looking to turn a public emergency into a windfall for their well-connected corporate clients. Reuven Avi-Yonah makes the case for a war effort to include excess profit taxes of the type applied during World War II. And George Turner is rightly concerned about tax avoiders who have callously refused to contribute to society now cutting to the front of the line in the midst of a crisis. 

- Finally, Jonathan Watts looks at the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic which apply equally to our climate crisis.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Laurie Macfarlane writes that contrary to the dogma of budget scolds, the truly reckless course of action is to fail to invest public money in state capacity:

After four decades of neoliberalism, the state’s capacity has been drastically hollowed out. Key public functions have been outsourced to management consultants and private service providers, while the application of private sector management techniques to the public sphere has placed civil servants in an administrative straightjacket. Tasked with delivering such a large increase in public investment tomorrow, it’s likely that what’s left of the public sector would struggle to invest on the scale and pace required. 
 
But this is not an excuse for inaction. As the above chart shows, the public sector has delivered much higher levels of investment in the past, and many countries around the world continue to do so today. Many of humanity’s boldest advances – from the internet and microchips to biotechnology and nanotechnology – were only made possible by strategic public investments that were made by dynamic, mission-oriented public institutions. In many of these areas the private sector only entered much later, piggybacking on the advances made possible by long-term, high-risk public investment.

If the next government is to transform its economy on the scale that is required to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century, it’s clear that it must urgently rebuild public sector institutions, and increase their capacity to think and act big.

- Bob Baldwin points out the dangers of setting up comparatively small and inefficient provincial pension plans based on shaky assumptions about future demographics. And Robert Fraser argues that the provinces trying to operate in denial as to the waning future of the fossil fuel sector should take a lesson from Ontario's loss of manufacturing jobs in the wake of NAFTA.

- Meanwhile, Seth Klein and Gil McGown offer a constructive suggestion to fund a just transition away from industries which pose unacceptable threats to our climate. And Kevin Smith discusses both the desperate need to improve the capacity of our public health care system, and the importance of federal involvement in that work (including by returning to its historical commitment to 50-50 funding).

- Finally, PressProgress reports on the devastating effects of a ransomware attack on Nunavut's public infrastructure.

New column day

Here, on how the federal Liberals and provincial Saskatchewan Party are both unduly concerned with optics around "balance" rather than budgeting for the good of their constituents.

For further reading...
- Pamela Palmater writes that the Libs' budget continues to neglect Indigenous women and children. Katherine Scott points out the absence of child care funding in the federal budget (which is even more glaring in light of cuts from Saskatchewan's already-meager resources). Paul Willcocks notes that one of the Libs' new spending items will result in lower-income renters subsidizing people who can afford to buy a house. And Joel Lexchin notes that when it comes to pharmacare, the Libs are doing nothing by eights which can be done by sixteenths instead.
- Meanwhile, CBC examines the Saskatchewan Party's tenuous claim to balance in any form. But more importantly, NUPGE recognizes that any nominal fiscal balance is based solely on Scott Moe imposing unacceptable burdens on the public service and the people who rely on social supports.

Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Eric Holthaus writes that the Green New Deal which looks to be at the centre of Democratic policy development offers an important opportunity for the U.S. to make amends with a world bearing the brunt of its past pollution. But Rick Salutin discusses how the coup on behalf of the resource sector in Venezuela (with the U.S. and Canada playing major roles) is all about inflating corporate profits, rather than protecting human rights or democracy.

- Fatima Syed reports on Doug Ford's plan to stop tracking carbon pollution to paper over the inevitable effects of his elimination of any climate change plan. And the Globe and Mail's editorial board calls Ford out - albeit too late - for promising that slashing services will do anything but harm the public.

- Luke Savage highlights why any plan for vital public services needs to be aimed toward universal access, rather than stopping at "affordability":

The word “affordable” appeared some thirty-one times in the 2016 Democratic Party platform, in reference to policy areas ranging from housing and college tuition to childcare and finance (for comparison, “middle class,” that hallowed floating signifier, appeared only sixteen times).

Its omnipresence in political language makes a certain intuitive sense. Life for many Americans is, after all, dominated by institutions that make things more expensive by design: health insurers offering pricey packages for even the most basic coverage; telecom and energy giants imposing inscrutable new rates and fees on customers trying to maintain their cell service, keep the lights on, or not freeze to death in the winter; schools making themselves ever more exclusive through higher tuition; landlords raising the rents at each and every opportunity.
...
Pushes to make vital public goods such as health care or education “affordable” — whether well-intentioned or deliberately misleading — still invariably imply a transaction taking place between a seller and a consumer: the dynamic of the market in its most elemental form. Even if the good in question does become cheaper (and therefore easier for more people to access), the basic dynamic is maintained and the good remains a commodity to be bought and sold rather than a universal right to be guaranteed and enjoyed.

This is what makes the incrementalist attitude to health care (and innumerable other policy areas) favored by some Democrats so flawed: the Left’s push for universality isn’t just a more holistic version of liberal efforts that aspire to make things more “affordable.” Its ultimate goal is to democratize social goods, removing the market altogether and extinguishing the need for anyone to worry about whether they have the requisite funds to see a doctor, acquire education, put their children in a safe and caring environment during working hours, or sleep with a roof over their heads.

- Finally, Paul Wells discusses the need for a public inquiry into Justin Trudeau's interference in the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin and its executives for illegal donations largely directed toward the Libs' own coffers.

Thursday Evening Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Richard Waters and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson report that five large tech companies alone turned the Trump corporate tax cuts into tens of billions of dollars in share buybacks benefiting nobody other than those who already had the most. And Caroline Haskins writes about the inequality in firefighting services which has left only a few wealthy California residents with any hope against wildfires.

- Jorge Barrera reports that the Libs have added an Indigenous rights framework to the list of campaign promises now being pushed past the next federal election. And Jenelle Davies discusses how many young adults are disillusioned with politics as they stand, but have reason to hope for better with a proportional electoral system.

- On the bright side, Chris Arsenault reports on a new foreign aid experiment to benefit poor people with direct cash transfers - though it would make sense to try the same strategy to combat poverty at home as well.

- Robert Booth relays the stories of exclusion and deprivation told by young Britons to the UN's rapporteur on extreme poverty.

- Finally, Josha McNab points out the health benefits of acting to fight climate change. And Fernando Arce discusses how Doug Ford's attacks on worker protections stand to make all of Ontario ill:

When asked about the rationale for eliminating paid sick days, the Ministry of Labour offered in an email response to NOW that “these eight days... would be in line with Alberta and British Columbia, and could be taken without fear of termination.”

But as studies have shown, paid sick days can make a crucial, sometimes even fatal difference, when workers choose to stay home or work through their sickness.

“A lot of specialists don’t have availability in the evening, so having sick days allows patients to get to those appointments during the day,” says Raza. Employees without paid sick days also tend to get fewer flu shots, mammograms, pap smears and blood pressure checks.

The changes proposed by the Ford government mean that Ontarians will be at greater risk of contracting diseases when workplaces become inundated with sick workers unable to afford a day off to see their physician or get well. Raza says schools could soon follow when sick children are forced to attend because their parents or guardians can’t stay home with them.

Two years ago this scenario came to pass, with tragic consequences, when two-year-old Jude – described by his mother Jill Promoli as an otherwise “perfectly healthy child” – succumbed to influenza B, which had begun with a fever the day before. His sister had first caught the bug in her kindergarten class. Said Promoli at last week’s press conference: "One sick child came to school, and basically, it became an entire classroom full of sick children."

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Bob Lord discusses how the concentration of wealth in the U.S. has pushed beyond even the obscene levels of the Gilded Age. Sunil Johal and Armine Yalnizyan examine (PDF) both Canada's inequality and polarization of wealth, and a few of the options to rein them in. And David Sirota highlights how a new aristocracy considers itself to be above any laws or other accountability:

Since Skilling’s conviction 12 years ago, our society has been fundamentally altered by a powerful political movement whose goal is not merely another court seat, tax cut or election victory. This movement’s objective is far more revolutionary: the creation of an accountability-free zone for an ennobled aristocracy, even as the rest of the population is treated to law-and-order rhetoric and painfully punitive policy.

Let’s remember that in less than two decades, America has experienced the Iraq war, the financial crisis, intensifying economic stratification, an opioid plague, persistent gender and racial inequality and now seemingly unending climate change-intensified disasters. While the victims have been ravaged by these crime sprees, crises and calamities, the perpetrators have largely avoided arrest, inquisition, incarceration, resignation, public shaming and ruined careers.

That is because the United States has been turned into a safe space for a permanent ruling class. Inside the rarefied refuge, the key players who created this era’s catastrophes and who embody the most pernicious pathologies have not just eschewed punishment – many of them have actually maintained or even increased their social, financial and political status.
...
...(T)o paraphrase Leona Helmsley, accountability is for the little people, immunity is for the ruling class.

If this ethos seems familiar, that is because it has preceded some of the darkest moments in human history – the eras of violent purges, authoritarian dictators and sharpened guillotines. There is no guarantee that is our future – and let’s hope it isn’t our destiny. Whether or not things proceed in that terrifying direction, though, the moral question remains: what can be done to restore some basic sense of fairness and justice?
...
This is no easy way forward and there are no shortcuts – but if we avoid this path, then the accountability-free zone will fortify itself and we will probably see the rise of an institutionalized form of moral hazard that dooms us to a tragic repetition of history.

- Meanwhile, Mark Bou Mansour weighs in on the effect of the "finance curse" in which overall well-being in the UK has been treated as secondary to the profits of the banking sector.

- Both Paul Wells and Jen Gerson discuss how carbon taxes have turned into political targets, particularly for politicians catering to oil industry donors. And David Climenhaga offers a reminder that carbon pricing alone actually represents a market-focused, right-wing response to a problem which might be more obviously (and easily) dealt with by regulation.

- Kathryn May reports on PIPSC's push for public services to be insourced rather than outsourced. And Richard Partington notes that a substantial proportion of workers with casual contracts would prefer more stable employment - signalling that their precarity is a matter of a lack of choice rather than an exercise of it.

- Finally, Matthew Hays makes the case for the elimination of the notwithstanding clause from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Christo Aivalis discusses the future of organized labour and the need for workplace democracy in an era of increased automation:

New organizing models and shorter workdays are both viable solutions to address the struggles of encroaching automation, but neither strike to the heart of the matter that AI exposes. In our current capitalist system, the politics of automation are inherently adversarial, because while productivity increases and cost savings are consistently sought by owners, managers, and shareholders, the workers themselves don’t want to be displaced from the job that provides them their livelihood. Historically, many workers and socialists have acknowledged the immense social value automative processes have had in eliminating the most tedious and dangerous of jobs, meaning that we can shift our human resources in more productive and fulfilling directions. But automation driven primarily by profit motives serves to further concentrate power and wealth, making our society more unequal, and our democracy more imperilled. Even things like the basic income guarantee may fail to solve this issue, because putting the masses of people on mere subsistence incomes while an increasingly small number of owners and technical workers reap riches is more likely to lead to Elysium than to a just society.

So the rise of AI may well provide the conditions for a reinvigorated challenge to capitalism. Unions must not only bargain for better wages and conditions, but must push for mechanisms that give workers greater say in the direction of their workplaces, and a greater share of the value derived from actions which have traditionally served to unemploy them. But beyond bargaining, labour must align with politicians seeking to democratize workplaces and the wider economy by increasing the proportion of our economy owned not by capitalists, but by cooperatives and the public. If we are indeed at the precipice of a new industrial era, the only way to ensure 90 per cent or more of the population isn’t permanently marginalized from economic life is to demand that our democratic levers extend into the operation of industry. Put another way: in the automated age, democracy will need socialism.

- Wojciech Keblowski makes the case to abolish fares for transit to maximize the public good it can achieve. And Ricardo Tranjan discusses the crucial role of public service employment as a matter of both economic and social development.

- Maude Barlow and Sujata Dey offer a reminder that Canada can do just fine without NAFTA. Jerry Dias implores the Trudeau government to be willing to walk away from NAFTA negotiations if the Trump administration is being as reckless and heavy-handed as it appears. And Brent Patterson wonders whether an even worse NAFTA might serve as the impetus for a more fundamental challenge to elite-driven capitalism.

- Carlyn Zwarenstein writes about the value of harm reduction as a response to addictions issues. And Liam Britten reports that in keeping with its stellar early returns in managing British Columbia's public resources, John Horgan's government is suing opioid manufacturers for their harm maximization model of drug distribution.

- Finally, Bashir Mohamed highlights why birthright citizenship - and the associated recognition that no person should be treated as illegal or without status - is important for all Canadians.

On public interests

Plenty of others have pointed out the most direct lie in Jason Kenney's attempt to blame Alberta's NDP for the decisions of an Ontario court dealing with Carillion's Canadian bankruptcy. But it's worth taking a look at the much more fundamental lie at the core of Kenney's complaint.

As mentioned in the very article linked to by Kenney, the privatization of Alberta's highway maintenance operations took place under his Conservative predecessors.

It was the PCs who put a high-risk foreign operator in charge of maintaining a wide swath of the province's highways in the first place (PDF) due to their distaste for public services. And they further put the public at Carillion's mercy (PDF) just in time for the corporate house of cards to come toppling down. 

In response, Alberta's NDP has been criticizing (PDF) the PC's determination to push public-sector austerity as an excuse for privatization, and calling for decisions about infrastructure to be made by and in the interests of citizens.

Needless to say, that fault line remains between the two parties. The NDP continues to want public services to function under public control for the benefit of citizens and local businesses alike. And Kenney continues to be determined to undermine public services by selling them off or exposing them to corporate competition or control at every turn.

Of course, neither Kenney nor his corporate backers are about to let the facts get in the way of an attack on Rachel Notley. But voters in Alberta (and elsewhere) should note that there's only way to avoid having the public interest turned into an afterthought in business proceedings - and that's to make sure Kenney and his ilk don't get to lock governments into privatization scams.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Hugh MacKenzie comments on the continued need for an adult conversation about public revenue, including the importance of bringing in enough in taxes to fund the services which serve everybody's best interests:

The disconnect between public services and the taxes we pay to provide them that has dominated the Canadian political narrative for the past quarter-century isn’t just quirk of politics that we can just file under the heading “lies our politicians keep telling us.” That disconnect matters. It invites us to vote for a property tax freeze, a sales tax cut, an income-tax cut — even if it doesn’t benefit us much. It invites us to disregard the reality that governments have a responsibility to ensure the ability to pay for the public services that we depend on.
...
None of the tax cutters ever has the guts to be honest with people about the impact of reduced revenue on public services. But the pattern has been repeated over and over again across Canada.
In 1992, the five-year average of total government expenditures as a share of GDP was 48.6 per cent. In 2016, the five-year average was 40.1 per cent — in the context of today’s $2 trillion economy, that’s worth $170 billion in lost spending on public services.

We see clear crisis indicators of decline everywhere we look:

• Crumbling public infrastructure. 
• An elementary and secondary education system whose funding cannot meet the needs of today’s students. 
• Post-secondary tuition that is now more than triple what it was 25 years ago. 
• The lack [of] affordable housing and the rise in homelessness. 
• A public health insurance system that excludes the fastest growing component of health care costs (pharmaceutical drugs) and that is straining to meet the needs of an aging population.

And now, in Ontario, here we go again, with a clear denial of the link between taxes and public services “no dollar is better spent — than the dollar that is left in the pockets of the taxpayer” elevated from meaningless political rhetoric to a line in the official Throne Speech of the new provincial government.

Nine years on, the report card on the adult conversation we need to have about taxes and public services can be summed up in two phrases: missing in action; and still badly needed.

- Meagan Day discusses the gap between CEOs and the rest of us as highlighted by Bernie Sanders' town hall on work and inequality. Debbie Weingarten notes that the vacations taken for granted by many aren't available to people scraping by in precarious work situations. And Maham Abedi writes about the personal stress caused by poverty.

- M.H. Miller writes about the crushing effect of personal debt on U.S. workers. And Hailie Salvian reports on Saskatchewan's number of mortgages in arrears which is disturbingly high both in historical context, and in comparison to every other Canadian province.

- Finally, Nicholas Keung reports on an audit showing how Canada's treatment of immigrants is already biased toward arbitrary long-term detention, while Nora Loreto fully expects matters to get worse with Bill Blair having been put in charge of a new anti-immigrant portfolio due to his lock-'em-up track record. Lana Payne calls out the Cons for stoking xenophobia as a matter of cynical political calculation. And Dan Zakreski reports on the attack on Abu Sheikh as yet another example of the violence being perpetrated in the name of bigotry.

[Edit: added link.]

Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Joel French discusses the need to move beyond merely preserving the public institutions Alberta has now, and to start building the new ones which will be needed in the future.

- But Eric Levitz observes that the U.S. is instead taking deliberate policy steps to ensure that workers don't benefit from nominal economic growth. And Douglas Rushkoff writes that the long-term plan of the capital class is to detach itself from the rest of humanity rather than working toward common benefits - while noting the futility of that worldview:

This “out of sight, out of mind” externalization of poverty and poison doesn’t go away just because we’ve covered our eyes with VR goggles and immersed ourselves in an alternate reality. If anything, the longer we ignore the social, economic, and environmental repercussions, the more of a problem they become. This, in turn, motivates even more withdrawal, more isolationism and apocalyptic fantasy — and more desperately concocted technologies and business plans. The cycle feeds itself.
...
(W)hen the hedge funders asked me the best way to maintain authority over their security forces after “the event,” I suggested that their best bet would be to treat those people really well, right now. They should be engaging with their security staffs as if they were members of their own family. And the more they can expand this ethos of inclusivity to the rest of their business practices, supply chain management, sustainability efforts, and wealth distribution, the less chance there will be of an “event” in the first place. All this technological wizardry could be applied toward less romantic but entirely more collective interests right now.

They were amused by my optimism, but they didn’t really buy it. They were not interested in how to avoid a calamity; they’re convinced we are too far gone. For all their wealth and power, they don’t believe they can affect the future. They are simply accepting the darkest of all scenarios and then bringing whatever money and technology they can employ to insulate themselves — especially if they can’t get a seat on the rocket to Mars.

Luckily, those of us without the funding to consider disowning our own humanity have much better options available to us. We don’t have to use technology in such antisocial, atomizing ways. We can become the individual consumers and profiles that our devices and platforms want us to be, or we can remember that the truly evolved human doesn’t go it alone.

Being human is not about individual survival or escape. It’s a team sport. Whatever future humans have, it will be together.

- Susan Dynarski discusses new research confirming the role unions play in the sharing of income and wealth. And Lana Payne highlights how the Trudeau Libs have traded away the possibility of stronger labour policy in order to enrich businesses through the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

- Finally, Leilani Farha points out how the corporate sector is capturing the housing desperately needed by residents of larger cities around the world.