Norman Rockwell’s “Four Freedoms”

by Errol Black and Jim Silver An exhibition of Norman Rockwell paintings – American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell – opened this week at the Winnipeg Art Gallery (the only stop in Canada). It will run until May 20. Rockwell is, …

Winnipeg City Council Misses the Bus – Again

Councillor Harvey Smith will be introducing a motion at City Council tomorrow to rescind the 20 cent bus fare increase slated for June 2012. There will also be the possibility for public input on the issue at the …

“Radicals” need to turn up the heat.

By Lynne Fernandez I was listening to the CBC Radio business reporter explaining what was happening at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He was impressed by the number of billionaires who were present (I don’t remember …

Social Justice in Canada?

By Errol Black A 2011 OECD report on social justice in OECD countries ranks Canada, with a score of 7.26, in 9th place. The 31 countries were evaluated on the basis of six key measures: poverty prevention; access …

Connecting the Dots: The OECD report on poverty and Winnipeg’s inner city

by Shauna MacKinnon There has been much progress in addressing the issues facing Winnipeg’s inner city in recent years, but there remain many challenges. This reality frustrates no one more than those individuals working on the front lines …

The Globe and Mail’s Take on the Inequality Agenda

By Errol Black and Jim Silver On August 12, 2011, we published a Fast Facts titled, The Inequality Agenda and the Specious Ideas that Support It.  In that article we cited a July 20, 2011 Globe and Mail article …

Do Social Mixing Policies Work?

by Jonathan Hildebrand PDF version Does social mixing as public policy result in more equitable cities, more culturally diverse neighbourhoods, and less social marginalization? These are some of the goals to which social mixing policies have aspired, but …

What is middle-class income these days?

On July 20th, CCPA- BC economist Iglika Ivanova posted her analysis of Statistics Canada data showing a breakdown of incomes in Canada and B.C on the BC blog, Policy Note  We were inspired to examine how the distribution of …

Poverty Reduction and the Politics of Setting Social Assistance Rates

PDF version by Shauna MacKinnon Over the past ten years we have begun to see provincial governments across the country implement poverty reduction plans in various forms. Manitoba is the most recent to introduce anti-poverty legislation. The Poverty Reduction …

Youth Columnist speaks up on SAFE work environments

by Michael Champagne Once upon a time, I did a presentation to a group of young people in the North End about health and safety. I told them about how hey had worker rights, about how workers compensation …