Kathy Mallett – Inner City Builder

Kathy Mallett

Kathy Mallett is being honoured at this year’s CCPA-MB Errol Black Chair Fundraising Brunch being held November 15 at the Hotel Fort Garry.

There are unsung heroes in Winnipeg’s inner city, especially in the Aboriginal community, and few of them have a list of accomplishments as long and as significant as does Kathy Mallett. Winnipeg’s inner city today is an exciting place, bursting with positive change. Kathy Mallett has been a key person in laying the foundations for these changes.

New federal government: opportunity to end crisis of poor housing

By Josh Brandon

For Winnipeg residents with low incomes, the lack of affordable quality housing is a crisis. According to the 2011 National Housing Survey, 34,000 Winnipeg renters paid more than 30 percent of their income in rent, while thousands more lived in housing that was overcrowded or in poor condition.

Federal election: What’s at stake for Winnipeg women

Women have a lot at stake in this election: higher rates of economic inequality, impacts of violence and lack of child care. Here’s how Winnipeg women fare, and what the major federal parties have said they will do.

A recent study The Best and Worst Cities to be a Woman in Canada found that Winnipeg ranks low as a good place for women to live – the 18th out of 25 major Canadian cities. One of the key factors for this ranking is the income inequality faced by women. The wage gap in Winnipeg is higher than average: women working full time full year earn 76% of what men earn. Winnipeg’s women’s poverty levels exceed the national average by 4% and women are more likely than men to live in poverty. These rates are worse for Aboriginal and newcomer women, and women with disabilities.

A Real Energy Strategy Can Create Jobs and Save Government Money

By Shaun Loney

The energy strategy debate thus far in the federal election has focussed on the future of the oil sands and pipeline politics. The Federal Tories have trumpeted the economic benefits of oil sands development but the benefits are paltry compared to a comprehensive energy and water retrofit program focussed on low income Canadians.

CCPA Manitoba Fundraising Brunch November 15

EBC Brunch poster

November 15, 2015

Guest Speaker
Kevin Chief

MLA Point Douglas
Minister of Jobs and the Economy

Honoured Guest
Kathy Mallett

Community activist, Aboriginal educational leader, genealogy buff,
and past director of Community Education Development Association
Hotel Fort Garry
222 Broadway
Winnipeg, MB
November 15, 10:00 am
$100 ticket or table of 10 for $1000
Purchase tickets before November 6
204•927•3200
blackchair@policyalternatives.ca
On-line

Poverty: Not Present this Election Campaign

By Jim Silver

If you’re following the federal election campaign you would think that poverty in Canada has been eliminated. Politicians, guided by their ever-cautious advisors and thinking only of short-term electoral advantage, rarely if ever utter the word, and creative anti-poverty strategies are largely absent from electoral platforms.

Trans-Pacific Partnership: CCPA Commentary

Looking for progressive responses to the newly signed Trans-Pacific trade deal? Here’s the latest from CCPA National:
Trans Pacific Commentary a Big Win for Corporate Interests
https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/commentary/should-canada-be-completing-trade-deal-middle-election

Should Canada be completing a trade deal in the middle of an election
https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/commentary/should-canada-be-completing-trade-deal-middle-election

Oct 7th book launch of Shauna MacKinnon’s new book on U of M Press

CCPA-MB congratulates
Shauna MacKinnon in the launching of her new book Decolonizing Employment, Aboriginal inclusion in Canada’s labour market

October 7th, 7pm at McNally Robinson. All are invited.
“A cogent, well-documented critique of neoliberal labour market policy and how it impacts Indigenous peoples in Canada. This book points out the implications of ideologically motivated policy which ignores the impacts of colonization. MacKinnon challenges some of the accepted norms of neoliberal policy, with well-researched and compelling arguments for substantial policy reform.”

– Gayle Broad, Associate Professor, Department of Community Development and Social Work, Algoma University

Shauna MacKinnon is assistant professor in the Department of Urban and Inner City Studies at the University of Winnipeg, and a CCPA-MB Research Associate.

Decolonizing employment

The Tough on Crime Strategy Has Not Made our Communities Safer

stony-mountain-institution

By Elizabeth Comack, Cara Fabre and Shanise Burgher

Crime rates in Canada have been steadily declining for more than a decade, yet prison populations have been increasing in recent years. Commentators have attributed this disconnection between dropping crime rates and rising incarceration numbers to the Harper government’s tough on crime strategy. Since 2006 the Harper Conservatives have implemented legislative and policy changes designed to “tackle crime” and “make communities safer.”

Focus on Food to Take Pressure off Health Care System

By Shaun Loney

By some estimates, health care expenditures will account for about 80 percent of provincial program spending by 2030. This means fewer dollars for other priorities. With a problem this big, it’s important to get the diagnosis right.
Many on the right would have us believe that it’s our public health care system causing expenditures to increase, but that’s nothing more than a corporate fantasy. It’s been well documented that public delivery is far more efficient than the private alternative.