Category: Political (Page 2 of 4)

Mr. Selinger, we need some upgrades…

4 July 2014 / Sean

As I write, Brandon is experiencing another “high water event” on the Assiniboine River. Torrential downpours last weekend in Saskatchewan and Manitoba has led to an overabundance of moisture in the watershed that feeds the Souris and Assiniboine Rivers, both of which feed through Western Manitoba, the Assiniboine cutting through the north end of Brandon.

As of this morning, the Assiniboine river is over Grand Valley Road west of the Corral Centre, and has resulted in the closing of First Street North as it curves around the river in the east. Eighteenth Street is down to one lane in each direction until this evening. For the second time in just over three years, we are a city cut in two.

1st ST at 8:00am this morning. Waters coming fast. Stay safe and dry #bdnmb. pic.twitter.com/w4EkGrm11V

— Mayor Shari (@MayorShari) July 4, 2014

This morning, Deveryn Ross, Winnipeg Free Press columnist and Brandon resident tweeted the following link to his new column.

In today’s Winnipeg Free Press – Broken promises, rising waters – via @winnipegnews http://t.co/iKChIEScnR via @sharethis #bdnmb #mbpoli

— Deveryn Ross (@deverynross) July 4, 2014

In the article he points out that the province has made repeated promises for upgraded flood protection since 2011 and had promised us 1-in-700 year flood protection at one point which has been downgraded back down to 1-in-300 in limited areas.

Now, I understand why the city is letting 1st Street flood, there is simply not enough time or labour available to protect the street, they only had a day to do a job that in 2011 took weeks to prepare. It was simply an impossibility. For this event it is the right call; it is the only call.

However, when this event is over, we need to really pressure the province to bring this city up to a 1-in-700 year flood protection level. My expectation would be that that would mean we need to find a way to keep 1st Street at least partially open. It seems to me that the southbound lanes of 1st are probably not able to be upgraded as they are essentially on the riverbank. However, we have the northbound lanes which are far enough away to do something. I would like to see the engineering possibilities to raise the northbound lanes higher, up to the 700 year height level, but not as a dike, instead more of a causeway in places. That way the water could still flow past and under the street while keeping an extra artery to the north end of the city open, although at reduced capacity. First Street is a provincial trunk highway (1A) so the province should perhaps concentrate on getting something done to keep it open. Two lanes is better than none. They did after all promise that our city would receive 1-in-700 year flood protection after raising our PST rate by one percent. Perhaps they need to stick to that. In the meantime our city works to get us through this latest event. Thanks to all the officials and workers that are working around the clock to keep us safe.

Winnipeg gets the floodway, we should at least get an upgraded road.

Let the market decide…

19 May 2014 / Sean

I’m not a fan of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program. It is not fair to the immigrants that it purports to help, and it is not fair to Canadian citizens who are looking for work at a fair wage and cannot find it.

There are a few things that bother me about this program, and most of them involve the sheer hypocrisy of the proponents. Both the Liberals and the Conservatives are responsible for this mess, both have had their hands in the program over the years. However, the NDP I suspect would not be much better on this file. Both sides have their reasons to support the program, although purely political. When it comes down to it, from a purely philosophical position, it goes against all parties’ values.

The Conservative position has always been the position that the free-market should be allowed to exist and prosper with little government interference. The mantra of small-c conservatives has always been “let the market decide”. It is widely considered the number one rule of conservatism. The government should stay out of the way of business. Go to the food or retail sectors and suggest that something needs to be regulated or inspected more and people will say that the industry should be able to self-regulate. If consumers do not like it, they will find another company for the goods and services they want, and the demand for that company’s products will go away. Again and again the laws of supply and demand are used to keep government interference as low as possible. The Conservatives are the owner’s of this mantra, but the Liberals, being a center-right party, often buy into the same argument.

It’s not a bad argument. Let the market decide is usually a good way to go. The government should try to keep its interference as low as possible. As long as companies are acting ethically, treating their employees with respect, paying a living or competitive wage, and producing safe and effective products, governments should just stay out of the picture. I understand that and agree with it.

This is where the TFWP makes no sense to me. If a company cannot find workers for its business at the wage it is offering, then a company should raise its wages until it can find workers that are willing to work for it. That is how supply and demand works. You have a high demand for workers and a low supply, then you have to pay more for workers. If you run a meat packing plant, you cannot expect people to work for you at the same pay rate as people who are working at the local fast food place. Your work is harder work and you therefore have to pay more. That is how the free market works, live with it, you helped create it.

Dan Kelly, head of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business says in a CBC article, “Retail, restaurant margins are already razor thin. I fully expect that particularly across Alberta, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland, there will be restaurant closures as a result of this, taking Canadian jobs with them.”

Of course Mr. Kelly is being disingenuous. He statement tries to blame razor thin margins as the catalyst of the current situation. What he is essentially saying is this, “We have to hire temporary foreign workers because Canadians would want higher wages and we cannot afford that because we charge too little for our products already.” Why is it the responsibility of the Canadian government if a restaurant is charging too little for its product to stay in business? Essentially, he is saying that his members are poor managers.

The big argument I always hear is how greedy Canadian workers are. How they don’t want to do anything or expect the world on a silver platter. That is generally not my experience. Canadians are hard workers, and all they ask of their job is that it pays a living wage. Sure, we have some stragglers, but all societies do. Mostly all Canadians want is a sense of fairness. Pay me what I deserve for a job well done and I’ll do it. And there is the problem, that deal has been broken.

Around here, the example brought up is our local hog processing plant. It is often stated how hard it is for the facility to find local workers, and that is why a foreign worker program was needed. In fact, our Mayor goes on about that in an article from Saturday’s National Post.

“The majority of day shift at Maple Leaf’s Brandon facility was staffed with local and regional hires, but there was never quite enough employees to run the plant at optimum efficiency, and no capacity within the regional labour force to staff a second shift, which was essential for the plant’s viability. There was no doubt that the local and regional labour market was not going to provide the workers needed for this demanding, physical work, regardless of how much the company paid, or how many additional benefits were offered.”

So, what Mayor Decter Hirst seems to be claiming here is that either the company didn’t have any foresight into the realities of the Brandon and Westman labour market, or that they did know and were planning on recruiting elsewhere from the start. I personally have no idea what Maple Leaf Foods plans were for Brandon and area, and I would like to think that they truly believed that they could find enough workers here. Was their research of the Brandon labour market that flawed? Did it exist? Were they just going by assurances of the local politicians at the time?

I do find it interesting that the exact same scenario has played out in town after town since Iowa Beef Packers, now Tyson Fresh Meats, first started lowering meat packing wages in the 1960s.

See: The Chain Never Stops by Eric Schlosser – Mother Jones

Here’s the thing that really bothers me about this program, and the Mayor’s love letter to Maple Leaf in the National Post, it goes against her self-claimed NDP roots. I cannot for the life of me figure out how anyone in the NDP can support the TFWP.

I’m not talking about just our local situation here, all I see with this program is a continuation of the exploitation of the foreign worker that has been going on since the day of the building of the trans-continental railroad. You bring in a foreign worker to do a job. Sure, you pay them minimum wage or just above to do the job, so you feel good about yourself. To me that’s not enough. Many of these workers must stay in the job that they came over to do, even if someone was to offer them a job that paid more, was more in their field, or that fit them better. If the worker cannot leave the current employer for a better position, then how is that not indebted servitude? Just because you are paying someone does not mean you’re not treating them as a slave.

A couple weeks ago the CBC Radio program, Cross Country Checkup, had the TFWP as its topic. One caller ran a restaurant in a rural prairie town. Apparently the only way that they could keep in business was to have temporary foreign workers running the kitchen, as hometown people kept leaving the town. It never occurred to her that perhaps if the only way that she could keep her business open was to bring in people who couldn’t leave, maybe her business was no longer viable; maybe her town is not either.

Cross Country Checkup
Is there a place for temporary foreign workers in Canada’s economy?

Taking advantage of someone’s poor job prospects in their home country does not make you a saint. If you believe in the free market, it makes you a hypocrite, plain and simple.

This is why I cannot understand the article written by Shari Decter Hirst. I’m not sure, despite being mayor, that she actually understands the situation. She says near the end of the article,

“Canada would be far better off to adopt Brandon’s approach of treating foreign workers as transitional workers and recruiting these individuals into secure jobs with opportunities to bring their families over. In my experience, these reunited families are focused on building a strong community for their children.”

I agree with her, Canada would be far better off to adopt such a policy, but that is not what Brandon has. I have always been in favour of immigration and multiculturalism. My argument is that if someone is good enough to be a temporary foreign worker, then they are good enough to be a landed immigrant and get to choose, like any other Canadian, where they want to live and work. Forcing them to work at one place, all the time fearing possible deportation, does not make for fair treatment. How is one supposed to advocate for fair working conditions and fair pay, the two hallmarks of the labour movement and of the NDP, if the employer holds all the cards?

It’s not a fair game, it’s stacked too much in favour of industry. It’s also not very Canadian, at least not the Canada I would want.

Make an offer they can’t refuse

27 April 2014 / Sean

On Friday the Supreme Court (SCoC) released its decision on Senate reform.

Essentially, to reform the Senate the way that the Conservatives wanted, with fixed term limits and elected senators, would require a constitutional amendment involving at least 7 provinces that represent at least 50% of the population of the country.

The NDP dream of abolishing the Senate would require agreement of all 10 provinces. That is most likely not going to happen without some major concessions from the federal government. It is Tom Mulcair who is most hurt by this decision because it shows that his party was completely out to lunch on this issue. There is no way all 10 provinces would agree to abolition. Ontario and Quebec have too much power in the Senate to give it up. It wasn’t going to happen.

Harper is not the loser in this that people are claiming. In fact, this could be a big win for the Conservatives, and in particular Stephen Harper. In this case he needs to think more like Jean Chretien; worry about getting the job done and if it has negative effects on, or limits the power of, his successors, so be it.

With a majority in the House of Commons, Stephen Harper can basically get anything through there that he wants to. After making appointments to the Senate, which he HAD to do whether he wanted to or not, he also has a majority there. Getting things through the House and the Senate is no problem, so opening up the Constitution for smaller changes is no problem for Harper at the federal level. The trick is what to pass that the provinces would also; what can he give the provinces that would make them pass the amendment too?

Basically, he needs to make them an offer they can’t refuse.

Harper’s big push with Senate reform was the idea of term limits, and of an elected body. He needs to add one more piece to this puzzle. Give the power of appointing senators to the premiers. Basically, you pass a constitutional amendment in the House of Commons and the Senate that establishes term limits. Secondly, you give the provincial legislatures the ability under the constitution to have their own Senate election laws, but you don’t require it. If a province does not pass an election law, the job falls to the Premier. My guess is that most provinces would eventually go the election route because it would look undemocratic to do otherwise. Frankly, a Manitoba senator should be decided by a Manitoban, either the premier or the electorate anyway. Alberta already has Senate elections, so one piece of the puzzle already exists in that province.

I’m not sure what province would not agree to such an offer. I also can’t see why Harper would not do such a plan. An elected Senate takes the power out of the Prime Minister’s Office, so he was already giving that up anyway. With this plan he sets the whole mess in the Premiers’ laps, slightly screws over his successors in a Chretien-like move, and gets his term limits. As a bonus to the PM, any future Senate scandal falls at the feet of the premiers, not him.

Frankly, on Friday the SCoC gave Stephen Harper a gift. They showed him a road map and all he needs to do now is follow it. He can reform the Senate exactly the way he wants, just by giving that power to the provinces.

Tom Mulcair on the other hand got handed a lump of coal.

Time to get this move moving?

26 April 2014 / Sean

I grew up in on a farm just southwest of Brandon in the Rural Municipality of Cornwallis. I went to school in Brandon for all of my educational endeavours: Meadows Elementary, Earl Oxford Junior High, Neelin High School, and Brandon University. Never did finish at BU, but I’m currently attempting to rectify that situation. Two more courses this year will bring my renewed attempt to three; looking forward to some introductory political science and more psychology. For better or for worse, I’m a product of the Brandon educational system.

I’ve never attended Assiniboine Community College (ACC), but I have two brothers as well as many friends and colleagues who have attended or even taught there. ACC is a valuable piece of our educational puzzle here in Brandon and Westman. When I first saw the plan to move the college to the more spacious and by then unused Brandon Mental Health Centre (BMHC) grounds I thought it was a grand idea and a welcome expansion to our city.

As of 2014, the job is not completely done. The Brandon Sun reports in today’s edition that the main campus, currently at Victoria Avenue East and 17th Street East still needs to be relocated to the Parkland Building at the BMHC site on the North Hill. The move will take millions of dollars and a lot of construction work. For a more detailed rundown and the challenges of the move, the article by Lindsey Enns in the Sun is a good read.

ACC tries to stay on funding radar – Brandon Sun, April 26, 2014 (Paywalled)

One thing that I would urge the provincial government to consider is that when they are considering the move of ACC to its new home and the costs involved, they must also consider the costs involved in waiting too long to complete the project. Yes, there is the regular concern with actual costs going up with inflation that every project has to deal with, but I’m not talking about that. What I’m referring to is other needs of the citizens of Brandon that at first do not appear related to ACC.

My biggest concern is the fact that the Brandon School Division (BSD) has made it known to the province that the city will require another school in the south end in the next few years, presumably for early and middle years students. As a resident of the south end, the fact that some residents in this area end up in the Riverheights catchment area, a school that is in the far west end, shows that this need is most likely very real.

Another thing that I have noticed is that the vocational programs at Crocus Plains Regional Secondary School in the south end always seem to be bursting at the seams. I have had many people, parents and kids, tell me that the most popular programs are difficult to get into. We seem to have a couple of growing problems with education in this end of the city.

Believe it or not, the south end is over-served when it comes to high schools. Neelin and Crocus are essentially on top of each other. They are a 2.2 kilometre walk apart, I suspect that “as the crow flies” they are less than the 1.6 kilometres that the BSD and province use to determine bus eligibility. They are really close.

It seems to me that the solution here would be to look at making Neelin something other than a high school. A short time ago, Earl Oxford was converted to a kindergarten to grade eight school; Neelin with its single story design seems even more suited to such a conversion. That partially solves the problem with the south end not having enough early and middle years capacity. But where does the population of Neelin then end up?

That’s where ACC comes in. If the move to the Parkland Building gets done, that opens up a building in the east end, a building that has hosted an educational institution for years, and a vocational program for years. The former ACC site could very well be home to a new, larger third high school for Brandon after any needed upgrades, and that location would serve the east end, and possibly the north end, better than Crocus and Neelin do now. A second high school in Brandon offering the vocational track seems to be something much needed in this growing city. I would personally be sad to see Neelin no longer be a high school, I graduated from there, but things change.

We need to make sure that we are spending our money in the right places. Yes, it is important to not spend money that we don’t have to, and I commend the government for not just throwing money at the ACC relocation without restraint. However, we need to make sure that that restraint will not cause us to have to build another school when our current infrastructure may do the job in a reconfigured way. Do we spend money on ACC that does not then have to be spent on public schools?

Sometimes spending money now may save you much more later. The question becomes, does this make sense?

I think it does.

Flip this house…

20 April 2014 / Sean

It is starting to get fairly evident that the next provincial election in Manitoba is not looking that great for the governing New Democratic Party. A number of recent polls have had the opposition Tories approaching the 50% mark in popularity, with the NDP hovering around half that, and the Liberals not far behind.

I fear it will only get worse for the NDP. In a province where politics is usually bland, where differences between the NDP and Progressive Conservatives seem minimal, it seems like the NDP have made enough people mad that voters will switch their vote to the other guy. The NDP seem sure to lose this next election. An unpopular rise in the provincial sales tax rate, a badly viewed decision on Bipole III, and former cabinet minister Christine Melnick being ejected from caucus all are making this look like a government becoming mired in controversy after over a decade in power. Many people see little difference between the two main parties, so switching your vote in Manitoba is often seen as fairly easy unless you are a die hard partisan. Hell, at one time both parties were led by a guy named Gary.

It’s looking bad for Premier Greg Selinger, and pretty awesome for Opposition Leader Brian Pallister. This is the part that frustrates me, there is a third party here, and if I had a feeling that more voters who would normally vote NDP would jump to the Liberals also, I would like to vote Liberal too.

The Liberals have a new leader with rural Manitoba roots, a unique perspective as a visible minority and a woman, and who is a graduate of law at the University of Manitoba. Rana Bokhari seems to me to be an interesting choice. I would like to see the Liberals have a chance in this election. During the last number of years, the Liberal’s former leader, Dr. Jon Gerrard, always seemed like the best choice each election, and often seemed like the most informed and thoughtful in the house. This party doesn’t seem to get enough of a chance in this two-horse province of Manitoba.

It seems like something other that our regular politics needs to happen right now, and until today I didn’t know what it was. As often happens, you need to bounce ideas of of someone until something sticks. Today was one of those days.

My brother and his wife were visiting on their way back home near Winnipeg when we started to discuss this very topic. We all agreed that something has to happen to make Manitobans see the Liberal party as a viable alternative to the NDP instead of trying out the Conservatives whenever we get tired of an NDP government; something needs to shift that momentum to the Liberals. We have a centre-left party (NDP), a centre-right party (PC), and a centre-centre party (Liberal). There needs to be a reason for Manitobans to see the Liberals as the progressive party in the next election.

Why?

Because most likely the NDP are going to be destroyed’’, is why. As someone who leans left, I know that the NDP are not forming the next government, and I will not be voting for the Tories. I would like my vote to count and I now lean toward Liberal.

So what needs to happen?

Some disenchanted NDP MLAs need to cross the floor, not to the Tories, but to the Liberals.

There are currently 37 members in the NDP caucus. I would not find it hard to believe that out of 37 members, that a few backbenchers would not find the current government’s trajectory in the polls worrisome, especially if they are personally quite liked. They may feel that they would be pulled down by the party brand in the next election. Jumping from the NDP to the Liberals in Manitoba would not be much of a philosophical jump either.

Brandon East is a good example where such a jump may help a candidate. The area has voted strong NDP for many years, but it seems that in the next election that the Tories may have a chance there. If the incumbent wants a better chance, maybe unhooking the dead weight of a faltering party might be a good first move. Caldwell has won the riding enough times that people are voting for him, not necessarily the party.

It gives the Liberals some much needed momentum, voters another progressive choice, and disenchanted NDP MLAs a life raft from a sinking ship.

Time to flip this house, and give some of these orange walls some red paint.

An enhanced misstep

18 April 2014 / Sean

I’m in the process of getting my passport. I don’t currently have travel plans, but the fact that I can’t even go to Bottineau right now without the right documents is annoying. I could have obtained a Manitoba Enhanced Driver’s License (EDL) for less money, but it’s inability to be used as a travel document for anything but land and water crossings, and the fact I lose it if I move out of province, makes it less than ideal.

According to the Winnipeg Sun, as of August 31, 2012 the Manitoba EDL program had issued 18,821 pieces of I.D. since the program started in 2009/2010. Apparently the program cost about $14-million.

Manitobans are not exactly running to sign up for this thing. As a comparison, in 2011 57.47% of Manitobans had passports according to Passport Canada. Assuming that the population of Manitoba is the 1,208,268 as stated in Wikipedia, then that would mean that 694,392 Manitobans currently have passports. That means that the rate of passports use in Manitoba is over 36 times as high as EDL use.

An EDL costs $30 over and above your driver’s licence, $50 for the non-driver version, and you renew normally every 5 years. A Canadian passport on the other hand is $120 for 5 years or $160 for 10 years. So in 10 years you would spend $60 on an EDL and $160 on a passport. The passport obviously costs more, but it is a document that allows you to do more in the long run. I’m not sure why we spent $14-million to save 18,821 people a hundred bucks each, we should have just cut them a cheque if we were being realistic.

This brings me to another point. If the Government of Manitoba wanted to make travel documents cheaper for Manitobans, they should have just looked at subsidizing passports. Now that we have the option for a 10-year passport, the province could subsidize the 10-year option by $30 bringing it down to $130, which is only $10 more that the five year. Convince the federal government to toss in a another $10 and 10-year passports for Manitobans would be the document of choice.

Assuming that 10% of passport holders would apply of renew each year, that works out to about 69,440 Manitobans per year getting a Canadian Passport. At a subsidy of $30 per person, the cost of the program would have been just over $2-million per year. That’s seven years of a program for the same cost that would have benefitted 36 times more citizens of the province.

The EDL program just wasn’t thought out.

As an aside, another thing I find annoying is how you go about the process of getting a photo for your passport. It seems ludicrous to me that I have to go get a private photo, have it certified by a guarantor, and then send it in. In 2014 when every province has photo driver’s licences, why do you not have them pull your latest provincial photo onto your passport. This seems like a simple cost-saving, cost-sharing solution between the levels of government.

Manitoba flag still sucks…

1 April 2014 / Sean

I dislike the Manitoba flag. I have for years. I first noticed how much I disliked it back around 2001. I was sitting in the parking lot at Superstore waiting for my spouse to pick something up when I looked at the flags flying there. We had just moved back from Saskatchewan that March and it struck me how much more the Saskatchewan flag stood out compared to the Manitoba one. Superstore there flew the Canadian and Saskatchewan flags, while here it is Canada and Manitoba.

I love the Canadian flag. Despite its relatively recent adoption in the late 60s, it is a wonderful symbol of our country. At once unique, simple in design, and unmistakeably Canadian. It is a wonderful flag. The Manitoba flag, not so much.

How do I know that it was 2001? Well, in June of that same year, the North American Vexillological Association (NAVA), a group dedicated to the study of flags, released a survey of their members on the flags of North American States and Provinces. We beat many states, but as far as Canadian flags go we were dead last.

Just looking at the thing, I knew it wasn’t a good design. It was kind of just intuitive. After NAVA’s survey I knew why. From their website at Nava.org:

The 5 Basic Principles of Flag Design

Keep It Simple – The flag should be so simple that a child can draw it from memory…

Use Meaningful Symbolism – The flag’s images, colors, or patterns should relate to what it symbolizes…

Use 2–3 Basic Colors – Limit the number of colors on the flag to three, which contrast well and come from the standard color set…

No Lettering or Seals – Never use writing of any kind or an organization’s seal…

Be Distinctive or Be Related – Avoid duplicating other flags, but use similarities to show connections…

Using those basic principles it is easy to see why the Canadian flag is great flag design, and the Manitoba flag is not.

First, Manitoba’s flag (top) probably is fairly simple until you get to the coat of arms on the right hand side; then the thing gets overly complicated. It uses way too many colors , and worst of all, it is not distinctive. It is terribly difficult to tell apart from a number of other flags in Canada and the Commonwealth both historically and current.

It also not only duplicates the flags of Ontario (centre), and the Canadian Red Ensign (bottom), but all three actually contain the Union Jack from the United Kingdom in its entirety.

Worst of all, it is not distinctive. Fly any of those three flags to the left, and on a calm day you would not be able to tell them apart. That’s not even taking into account all the uses of the Red Ensign design outside of Canada. Sure, the flag does represent our history by using those symbols, but it ignores all the other peoples who have contributed to this province.

Because of its non-distinctive nature, the flag fails its most important role as a symbol. I look at the flag and it does nothing for me. It does not cause any feelings like those of the Canadian Maple Leaf flag. At least when I look at Saskatchewan’s flag, I see how it says “Saskatchewan.”

So, in 2001, after the news of NAVA’s flag rankings broke, I wrote to the Winnipeg Free Press and I suggested that they hold a contest for a new Manitoba flag. I included my idea for a Manitoba flag as seen to the right. I knew that the eventual winner would most likely not be adopted, but the Free Press ran with the idea anyway. My design was to keep it simple, at least simple enough to design in MS-Paint! The blue was to represent our northern lakes and expansive skies while the green represented our vast prairie landscape. The bison of course is a well used symbol of our province going back many years. It was also meant to have a similarity to the flag of our western neighbour Saskatchewan who we share much of our identity with.

My entry if I recall correctly made the top 10, which I was pretty happy with.

I do have to admit though, that I instantly fell in love with the winning entry, from Heather Jones of Winnipeg. I would be proud to fly it. It is distinctive, it is meant to represent Sunny Manitoba and the inclusion of the bison uses one of our most recognizable symbols. It has been suggested that the bison be reversed so that it is facing the flagpole as to not be considered rude, but other than that, it is perfect. I’d actually like to buy one to fly it.

Is there a plan?

16 March 2014 / Sean

The Daly Overpass isn’t getting overhauled this year, or next year most likely. The province announced on Thursday that the First Street Bridge is in dire shape and work on it will need to be completed before any work on the Daly over on Eighteenth Street gets looked at.

In Saturday’s Brandon Sun (March 15, 2014) the editorial questioning who knew what about the bridge, and when, is a good read. Whether or not there was some political gamesmanship is not the main point of this post, however the question does come to mind.

To me, it appears that the province is buying time on Daly because they are having a hard time getting a plan together. First clue? They still say the bridge needs widening. My feeling is that the people saying that have not actually looked at the bridge. So, let’s take a look.

Through the magic of what is Google Street View we can all look at the underside of said bridge. This picture is from Stickney Avenue looking south towards the “duck plant” building at the corner of Pacific and 18th. That my friends is a bridge that has already been widened. See those steel supports all the way along the left side? Those are holding up the sidewalk that is hanging off the eastern side of the bridge separated from the roadway by Jersey Barriers. That sidewalk is beyond the concrete supports that actually hold up the bridge. I’m no structural engineer, but my guess would be that those supports are at or near their design capacity while still supporting traffic.

My guess is that the province needs time to get a plan in order. A plan that requires expropriating land and demolishing a very large building. I cannot see how they avoid building another bridge beside the existing structure. To do that, they have to knock down the “duck plant” building and force the homeowners at Stickney Ave to move out. This is not going to be an easy task. Eighteenth Street northbound will have to be curved slightly east to meet a new bridge which means cutting through the mini mall parking lot at the corner of Pacific and 18th.

I frankly hope that I am wrong, but to the layperson widening this bridge does not seem possible; twinning will have to happen. I’d love to see someone investigate this further.

In the meantime, with no action on the Daly Overpass anytime soon, perhaps the city should apply for federal funding to help connect Hilton Avenue to 26th Street and send some traffic west, as mentioned in a previous post, “Is the Daly Overpass the Problem?”

Strange bedfellows

22 February 2014 / Sean

To an outsider, the Manitoba New Democratic Party would appear a strange beast. Unlike their federal counterparts, Manitoba’s NDP has actually governed for a large amount of time. The federal party has never held power.

So it comes as no surprise that the provincial party has a more pragmatic approach to governing, and leans more centrist than its federal cousin. This could really be seen during the years of Premier Gary Doer who often made decisions that appeared to be more in tune with federal Liberals or even Conservatives than the NDP. The Selinger government has moved back closer to the left, but some things still perplex me.

A case in point is the Manitoba NDP approach to crime. It is understandable to a point for when they came into power, Winnipeg had some crime problems that had to be looked after. Car theft and murder capital are not good titles to hold.

This brings us to last week. The Winnipeg Free Press reported that Andrew Swan, Manitoba Justice Minister, had urged the federal government to use the Nordic Model when it comes to the sex trade in Canada. It seems that the Manitoba party of the left is going down the road in lockstep with the federal party of the right.

I have voiced my opinion on this matter in two previous posts about federal Minister Peter MacKay and WInnipeg MP Joy Smith.

So now the provincial NDP are weighing in and it seems that they also fail to see what the Supreme Court was trying to say. The short version of the Court’s decision was that you could regulate but not outright ban the practice of sex work in Canada. To me at least, it appeared that they said that any outright ban on prostitution would fail when challenged in the Court.

“It should make any purchase of sex illegal, period. But we should decriminalize the victims of sexual exploitation, ” Swan was quoted as saying in the Free Press.

Now I do understand how this fits in with the NDP’s outlook that everyone should be allowed a certain amount of dignity in their life regardless of their economic abilities and that the poor and disadvantaged among us must not be allowed to be mistreated or victimized by others in our society. I share this outlook on life, and I do believe that people should be afforded dignity by their fellow citizens and by their government.

This is where the argument breaks down. How can you claim to be honouring a person’s dignity and then tell them that their personal decision to do what they choose with their body is not acceptable? You cannot give someone the right to determine their own future and then take choices away. Consenting adults have the right to make choices for and about themselves. As per Swan’s comment, yes we should decriminalize the victims of sexual exploitation, no one would think that’s a bad idea. His comment is actually meant to infer that all sex workers are victims of sexual exploitation. While many sex workers are victims, some are not, and lumping everyone together is disingenuous.

Again, from the Free Press article:

Swan said crafting a fair prostitution law is complex, but targeting demand will decrease the number of sex-trade workers who are murdered or go missing. And it will reduce the levels of coercion many young women face from pimps and sex traffickers.

This is where the proponents of the “Nordic Model” lose me. To recap, the Nordic idea is to target the customers, the johns, of the sex trade and make it illegal to pay for sexual services, but not to receive payment. This decriminalizes the sex worker but keeps the customer criminalized. The idea behind it is to reduce prostitution by drying up the demand. This does not make sense. It is already illegal to pay for sex and people still do it. The customer is already taking that risk today, decriminalizing the sex worker will not change demand.

I also do not understand why targeting demand will necessarily reduce the number of sex workers who are murdered or go missing. I do not believe that everyone who wants to pay for sex is a murderer. My feeling is that to lessen the number of prostitutes that go missing or get murdered is to have a place for them to work that would be safer. A legal brothel in my mind would be a much safer environment than the back alleys and cars that the illegal johns would still be hiding in. If parts of the industry remain illegal, then pimps and sex traffickers retain their power of coercion over their victims.

The only safer environment is a regulated legal environment.

I understand what is going on here. The NDP has traditionally been the party that most defends the rights of minorities, women, and the poor. Therefore, on the surface this seems to be the right position. Sex workers, mostly women, are often victims of sexual abuse, coercion, and outright violence up to and including rape and murder. I don’t pretend for a minute that this doesn’t happen.

Where I start to think differently is what the reasons are for the problems that women, and some men, in the sex trade face. To me a huge part of the problem is that society as a whole has a real problem with talking about and acknowledging sex. Slut shaming is almost like a national sport in much of our society. Who one has sex with, in or out of marriage, seems to be the concern of a lot of people who really shouldn’t be concerned about it at all. People assume that their attitude and feelings on the subject should be shared by everyone. There is a big ick factor when it comes to the sexual practices of others.

This is where things become illogical.

I consider myself a feminist. I believe in the equality of women, and that is how I lead my life and my personal relationships. I abhor anyone, male or female, who would put women in a secondary class or role to that of men. I don’t stand for it.

So it confuses me when people, many who claim to be staunch feminists, discount the choices of their fellow citizens who choose to do sex work. If an adult woman chooses to have sex with someone for money, without threats of violence or coercion, I find it completely disrespectful to tell her that she cannot do that to which she chooses. It is her body, her choice.

Our job as a society is to make it so that it is not her only choice. Someone can only make a choice freely when they see that it is not the only option. To do otherwise would mean that you were a victim of coercion. That is what is not acceptable, to not allow other choices. As a society we need to stop furthering policies that drive citizens into making desperate choices in the first place. All of that being said, if someone makes the choice to work in the sex industry, it is their choice and theirs alone. I am not going to pretend that I have the moral authority to tell them otherwise.

The other thing we need to do as a society is stop marginalizing those that would participate in a legal sex work system. That is really the crux of this. When it comes down to it, this is our society’s ever present practice of slut shaming. Large parts of our society see sex workers, present and past, as somehow broken people. Perhaps many are, but I’m not the judge of that. It is not my place to pass judgement on other consenting adults doing what they decide to do.

My feeling is that sex work is more dangerous because society would rather not accept that sex workers are people too. If we could accept that they are people who need protections from traffickers and murderers, then we would go after traffickers and murderers instead of pushing the industry to the fringes of our society.

But targeting traffickers and murderers directly would actually make sense.

As an aside, the Federal Government did actually start a Public Consultation on this issue from February 17 to March 17 on the Justice Department website.

http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cons/curr-cours/proscons-conspros/index.html

Fat Tax / Skinny Credit

21 February 2014 / Sean

The Government of Manitoba recently explored the idea of a “fat tax” for Manitoba, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

It seems that there is dubious evidence about whether a fat tax works or not. My guess is that it probably doesn’t, as even with the tax, many of the junk food items are most likely still cheaper than the items that people should be eating.

While thinking about this topic, it occurred to me that other factors besides a tax would affect what people would buy. The most likely culprits when it comes to making unhealthy food choices is that healthy foods are often more expensive to source and store for the retailer. Many processed foods also have the backing of large corporations and their marketing department. Retailers make more money on junk food, so the retailer promotes it.

So it occurs to me that it is the retailer that we as a society need to find a way to change. If you change the behaviour of the retailer toward featuring, promoting, and selling more healthy choices. If the retailer promotes more healthy foods, or makes more of them available, or even has them at lower prices, then chances are that the consumer ends up buying more healthy food choices.

So how do you do that?

My thought is that you do introduce a “junk food tax” but it applies to the retailer and the total amount of junk food that they sell. However, that alone would not do it, because prices would just raise across the board to cover the tax. What you do is also introduce a “healthy food tax credit” to the retailer. Essentially, you tax the bad stuff, and reward the good. The customer never sees the tax.

I don’t know how it would work, but if it gives stores like 7-Eleven a reason to promote healthier choices to its customers, I’d like to look at it.