The Conservative Party of Canada maintains its support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, which is now doomed following the United States’s withdrawal earlier this year. The post Canadian Conservatives still support the TPP, which died after Trump’s withdrawal appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
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Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Mark Holmgren writes that there’s no reason why we should allow poverty to continue in a country which has plenty of wealth to reduce it, while Patrick Butler notes that the conservative view of poverty as being solely the result of personal
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Stephen Harper says “big multilateral trade deals are dead”
If you can believe it, former prime minister Stephen Harper wants you to know that the future of mega multilateral trade deals such as the doomed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is uncertain. The post Stephen Harper says “big multilateral trade deals are dead” appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Freeland Admits: U.S. Withdrawal Effectively Kills TPP Trade Deal
This week, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland admitted that the United States’ withdrawal from Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) effectively kills the mega trade deal. The post Freeland Admits: U.S. Withdrawal Effectively Kills TPP Trade Deal appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Evening Links
Assorted content for your Friday reading. – Aditya Chakrabortty writes about the devastating combination of an urgent need for collective action on the key issues we face, and a deeply-entrenched political aversion to anything of the sort. And Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett highlight how the UK Cons are going
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Owen Jones writes that we should give credit for the failure of the Trans-Pacific Partnership to the popular opposition which will be need to push back against Donald Trump, rather than pretending it represents a win for Trump himself: That Trump has
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Bad news for Canada as Donald Trump announces withdrawal from TPP deal on day one of presidency
In an infomercial-style video released Monday, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump confirmed that he’ll withdraw from Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement as soon as he assumes office in January. Trump’s “America First” approach means Canada is unlikely to benefit from the inevitable renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Thomas Piketty discusses our choice between developing models of global trade which actually produce positive results for people, or fueling the fire of Trump-style demogoguery: The main lesson for Europe and the world is clear: as a matter of urgency, globalization must be
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: Trudeau, like Obama is an enthusiastic supporter of the TPP
In Canada, Trudeau, like Obama is an enthusiastic and obedient supporter of the TPP and catering to the fossil fuel forces. Trudeau also embraced Obama’s military adventurism committing Canadian troops and equipment to that effort.bama Read more…
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: The Democrats Turned Their Backs On Their Traditional Base-Many Of Whom Voted for Trump.
The numbness is beginning to wear off following the strangest election campaign in modern history. I do not choose to write off all Trump voters as misogynists, racists, and the like. Sure there were some, Read more…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Karen Foster and Tamara Krawchenko discuss how policy can – and should – be designed to improve intergenerational equity: Canada trails far behind other industrialized nations in its attention to intergenerational equity. The country could do far more to report on a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Terry Pedwell reports that young workers who were apparently expected to provide Justin Trudeau with a public relations backdrop instead delivered an important dose of reality by protesting his appearance. And Angella MacEwen points out that contrary to the Libs’ spin, there’s in
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Free Trade Is Never Free
While it is beginning to look like International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland’s departure from CETA negotiations was more of a ploy than the end of talks, the hiatus at least gives Canadians the opportunity to once more reflect on its dangers, the same dangers that afflict other so-called free trade
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Larry Elliott writes that the public is rightly frustrated with an economic model designed to shift money to those who already have the most – and that progressive parties in particular need to offer a meaningful alternative: The belief on the left was
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week.
– Scott Sinclair, Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood and Stuart Trew study the contents of the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement. Sinclair and Trew also highlight why Canadian progressives should oppose the deal, while Howard Mann notes that the same criticisms, including a gross transfer of power to the corporate sector and the absence of any concern for developmental and environmental issues, apply to all of the new generation of corporate rights agreements. But the Council of Canadians notes that not only are the Trudeau Libs pushing ahead with every single trade agreement currently on the table, they’re also trying to lay the groundwork for a similar deal with China – even if it comes with both a blind eye to human rights violations, and an obligation to approve a tar sands pipeline.
– Bill McKibben examines how new climate data shows that we need a nearly immediate transition away from dirty energy in order to meet the Paris conference commitment to rein in global warming. And Seth Klein and Shannon Daub call out the new form of climate denialism – which pays lip service to the science of climate change, but attempts to detach it from any policy steps to improve matters.
– Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson argue that there’s no reason to keep hewing to neoliberal orthodoxy when decades of evidence show how it exacerbates inequality and harms health:
Even before the 2008 global financial crisis, neoliberalism was causing what the University of Durham’s Ted Schrecker and Clare Bambra have called “neoliberal epidemics.” As Schrecker and Bambra and many others have shown, income inequality has profoundly damaging and far-reaching effects on everything from trust and social cohesion to rates of violent crime and imprisonment, educational achievement, and social mobility. Inequality seems to worsen health outcomes, reduce life expectancy, boost rates of mental illness and obesity, and even increase the prevalence of HIV.
Deep income inequality means that society is organized as a wealth-based hierarchy. Such a system confers economic as well as political power to those at the top and contributes to a sense of powerlessness for the rest of the population. Ultimately, this causes problems not only for the poor, but for the affluent as well.…Careful analysis of statistical data debunked the idea that stressed executives are at a higher risk for heart attacks. Now, it has debunked the 1980s myth that “greed is good,” and has revealed the extensive damage inequality causes. It was one thing to believe these myths decades ago, but when experience and all the available evidence show them to be mistaken, it is time to make a change.“Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error,” said the Roman philosopher Cicero. Now that we know how inequality harms the health of societies, individuals, and economies, reducing it should be our top priority. Anyone advocating policies that increase inequality and threaten the wellbeing of our societies is taking us for fools.
– Finally, Thomas Walkom rightly notes that a federal crackdown on extra-billing under the Canada Health Act is long overdue.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, examining how Chris Hamby’s brilliant reports on the effect of investor-state dispute settlement terms in past trade agreements should inform our choices in discussing new ones. For further reading…- Haley Edwards offers another worthwhile look…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week.
– Henning Meyer interviews Tony Atkinson about the readily-available options to combat inequality – with the first step being to make sure people actually have a voice in the decisions which define how wealth and power are allocated:
So, if you dive into the potential solutions you seem to suggest institutional changes. You mentioned that public policy should aim at a proper balance of power amongst stakeholders; what exactly do you mean by this?
Well I think I should say first of all that my aim in writing the book was to try and dispel the sort of sense of inevitability about high inequality and therefore I was putting forward various ways of seeking to understand why it comes about and therefore how we can moderate it. And I think one of the things that has certainly happened is that institutions, like for example corporate institutions, companies, which used to have a broader view of their responsibilities, that they recognised that they had a responsibility in addition to that to their shareholders – also to their workers and to their consumers and their customers.
And I think it’s this broader notion of the social obligations of institutions and of course of individuals as well that we have responsibilities beyond both our own personal economic gains and losses. So I think that it’s part of a reaction that I have had to what seems to be a narrowing to a very much individual based self-interest which has come to emerge in the last two or three decades.
Okay, and then new ideas like Michael Porter’s shared value capitalism, they try to sort of, not revive the old dichotomy between shareholder and stakeholder models but try to align public and private interest in addressing some of the most pressing social and economic needs. Could that be one way of addressing these considerations?
Yes, I think in a sense part of the issues arise because we had in the post-war period some kind of balance of power between on the one side employers and the other side often trade unions or workers’ representatives. And that of course has shifted in quite a number of countries as a result of a number of things including, for example, the effect of privatisation resulting in reducing the power of trade unions to influence the behaviour of those institutions. So, I think we’ve seen a shift of power definitely away from workers towards capital, those who run firms.
So I think a number of proposals were designed to try and at least make sure that those interests of workers and indeed consumers should be represented. And a good example is provided by the negotiations with regard to trade agreements which seem to involve only one side as it were of that equation.
– And Van Jones writes that the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other trade deals are set up to block action against climate change.
– CUPE points out the leakage of massive amounts of revenue to tax havens and avoidance as a crucial factor in austerity politics. And Craig Wong reports on the latest increase in Canadian consumer debt as people borrow to try to make up for the lack of advancement in wages.
– Susan Ochs discusses Wells Fargo’s widespread fraud as yet another example of workers and consumers being punished for the misdeeds of high-ranking executives.
– Alia Dharssi continues her reporting on migrant workers in Canada by highlighting how recruitment agencies exploit workers who can’t stand up for themselves. And Chris Buckley argues that labour and employment laws in general need to be updated, particularly to protect people stuck with precarious work.
– Finally, APTN reports on the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal’s latest order requiring the federal government to stop discriminating against First Nations children – though the fact that two previous orders haven’t led to the government complying signals that the Libs’ in following through may be rather less than advertised.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.- Graham Lowe and Frank Graves examine the state of Canada’s labour market, and find a strong desire among workers for an activist government to ensure improved pay equality and social supports. Oxfam reaches sim…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Joseph Stiglitz On The TPP
A very brief video, but a very important message about the dangers of the Investor-State Dispute Settlement mechanism that is a central part of the Trans Pacific Partnership, and something enthusiastically embraced, it would seem, by our ‘new’ governme…
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