The Fraser Institute released a report (on Earth Day naturally) claiming that, "air pollution declines as economic freedom rises." PressProgress provided a quick reality check on some of the main idiocies of the report.

But there is more to be said about this report and what it tells us about the ways that conservative forces attempt to appropriate (and de facto, even if this is not their intent, undermine) environmental policy. In part this is because behind the ideological obfuscation, the report asks a good question – can we say anything sensible about the political conditions under which good environmental policy is made?

Important changes to Canadian citizenship and immigration policy have broken into the headlines of late, from the introduction of the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act to serious abuses of the controversial temporary foreign worker program to refugee determination concerns.

One can think of the changes underway as renovations to what former Immigration Minister Jason Kenney liked to describe as the “house” of the Canadian nation.

Showing how seemingly disconnected floors and rooms of the "house" are related reveals a troubling blueprint of change — a renovation that will overhaul the very architecture of rights and membership in Canada. 

Recently I had the chance to participate in Saskatoon Change Makers, one of the Broadbent Institute’s first events to enhance capacity for people to work for positive change. This emphasis on training and leadership recognizes that it’s not enough to have the best ideas; winning campaigns, electoral or issue-based, requires the organization and skills to do so.

A widely-reported study by the New York Times shows that middle-class Canadians now have higher after-tax incomes than middle-class Americans, and that Canadian middle-class incomes, adjusted for inflation, have been rising significantly over the past decade.

The facts cited in the original article are not in dispute. The median per-person income in the United States (half earn more and half earn less) has stagnated for the past decade, and the income share of the top 1% in that country has continued to rise to record-high levels.

But this does not mean, as the Harper Conservatives and right-wing pundits have been quick to claim, that all is well with the Canadian middle class.