Protestors, Rights and Social Justice

By Jim Silver

Much critical commentary has been directed at Aboriginal students and others who disrupted a recent talk by Phil Fontaine. I would like to offer a response that is different, but that nevertheless agrees that the right to speak and to be heard is essential in a democratic society.

Unifor’s Jerry Dias Raises Important Issue

Lynne Fernandez, Errol Black Chair in Labour Issues

As reported in today’s Winnipeg Free Press, Unifor president Jerry Dias is visiting communities across Canada with an important message: attempts by a variety of political forces in Canada to undermine unions have, and will continue to erode the middle class. 

Dias is right: we’ve lived enough of the neo-liberal experiment, with its attendant union bashing, to see the effects. Even mainstream players are seeing this: the OECD finds that member states with low union density rates have the highest rates of poverty. Recent research out of the US by Western and Rosenfeld finds that “. . .  unions helped institutionalize norms of equity, reducing the dispersion of nonunion wages in highly unionized regions and industries. Accounting for unions’ effect on union and nonunion wages suggests that the decline of organized labor explains a fifth to a third of the growth in inequality—an effect comparable to the growing stratification of wages by education.” 

Manitobans of all stripes would do well to listen to Dias’ message: unions help all workers, not just their members. If we want to seriously tackle the growth in inequality in Canada, we need to have a serious conversation about the role unions play in our society.

Housing Crunch Continues in Manitoba

By Josh Brandon

Across Canada, housing prices slowed down in 2013, but in Manitoba, there are no signs of the housing crunch abating.  Last month, the average house price in Winnipeg surpassed $300,000 for the first time ever, according to new data from the Canadian Real Estate Association. Good news if you are looking to sell, but tougher if you are just getting into the housing market.

However, it is not just home buyers who should be concerned about this news. Because the housing system is interconnected, these prices affect everyone. The increased cost of property pushes up shelter costs for both owners and renters. Although the Provincial government has made welcome investments in affordable housing in recent years, other levels of government need to ante up to ensure that all Manitobans can afford a place to live and call home.

Winnipeg and Manitoba Housing Data

Once again, here are the updated housing statistics for Winnipeg and Manitoba. CCPA-Manitoba compiles an annual update of housing data from a number of sources including Statistics Canada, CMHC, and the Province of Manitoba. This year’s update is the first to include data from the 2011 National Household Survey.

Download Winnipeg and Manitoba Housing Data (in PDF)

Canada Jobs Grant does not work for Manitoba

By Molly McCracken

Re: “Lets put the jobs-grant idea to work”, Winnipeg Free Press, January 17, 2014

The Canada Jobs Grant will not work for people who face barriers to employment, especially Aboriginal Manitobans. As Shauna Mackinnon wrote in The Canada Jobs Grant: Perpetuating Aboriginal Exclusion, the new federal program will take money away from successful programs that are helping unemployed people get the training they require to move into the labour force. In Manitoba, the changes remove $11 million federal dollars from programs that do important pre-employment education and training with Aboriginal students and lead to career-track jobs that pay a living wage. Even with the new offer from the federal government, which eliminates the requirement for provincial matching contributions to the Canada Jobs Grant, the provinces are still forced to decide to back-fill these programs or eliminate them. Federal off-loading to the provinces persists.

Manitoba on the right side when it come to the east side

 Lynne Fernandez

CCPA Mb. has contributed much to the ongoing debate on the fate of the east side of Lake Winnipeg (known as Pimachiowin Aki), particularly concerning the controversial decision to run Bi Pole III down the west side of the province. Part of the reason we believe this decision was the right one is that it supports the bid to have this area designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

That bid ran into a snag after it was submitted – a snag that was exploited by critics of the government’s choice of the route for Bi Pole III. An insightful report in the Winnipeg Free Press sets the record straight and confirms that Manitoba is firmly on the right side of this issue.

Hope for a New Year: four resolutions for 2014

By Molly McCracken

A new year brings hope and the possibility for a healthier, happier and more just province for all Manitobans. As the holiday season draws to a close, let us carry forward the feelings of good will towards all into this New Year. This is within easier reach than it seems; here are four actions governments and citizens alike can do to make change for the better.

Job Posting: Research Administrator

Administrator – Manitoba Research Alliance / Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Manitoba Office

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Manitoba office (CCPA – MB) is an independent, non-partisan research institute concerned with issues of social, economic and environmental justice. Founded in 1980, the CCPA is one of Canada’s leading progressive voices in public policy debates. CCPA has a national office in Ottawa, and provincial offices in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Nova Scotia, as well as Manitoba.

Post Canada Post. Is it inevitable?

By Lynne Fernandez, Errol Black Chair in Labour Issues

Apparently our country is going to hell in a mail bag. According to conservative analysts, public-sector workers are playing fast and loose with tax payers’ money and the only remedy is to get them off the public payroll. In order to save the public purse, the federal government will be dramatically changing how mail is delivered in this country, something that deserves some local attention given that Winnipeg very recently updated its plant specifically to adapt to new realities. But despite a couple of very good articles in Canada’s national newspapers, little has been said locally about the changes coming to Canada Post.

Both The Globe and Mail and The National Post have featured level-headed articles asking some tough questions about the need to cancel home delivery and get rid of up to 8,000 unionized workers. CCPA’s Armine Yalnizyan points out that Canada Post has made money in all but 1 of the past 17 years. By the time the Christmas traffic is tallied this year, it is likely it will be in the black again. So what’s the problem?

According to the pundits, the problem is the pension: once again, spoilt public sector workers will be living the high life on a pension paid for by taxpayers, many of whom don’t have a pension. It’s enough to make your blood boil.

Except that there’s not really a problem with the pension.

Yalnizyan, who has actually examined the issue, finds that Canada Post’s pension fund has assets over $16B and “is not in deficit and is fully funded on a going-concern basis.” She explains that the plan would have problems if Canada Post closed shop today, but there’s no reason to think that will happen.

Yalnizyan and others point out that other post offices have adapted to the changing times. Parcel delivery is up and postal banking has proven lucrative in Italy, Switzerland, Japan and New Zealand. In the National Post, Ethan Cox reminds us that Canada had a vibrant postal bank for over 100 years, until the banking lobby helped shut it down. Given that so many Canadians don’t have access to banking services, now would be a good time to revisit the concept.

Cox confirms Yalnizyan’s analysis: in the past decade, Canada Post has delivered $1.5 billion in profits to taxpayers. So, let’s review this:

Canada Post is a profitable enterprise

Canada Post’s pension is in fine shape

Letter traffic is down, but parcel delivery is up and expected to grow

Postal banking is a demand looking for a supply

Still don’t see the problem? The truth is likely quite simple: Canada Post is a public corporation with unionized workers. Both these concepts are anathemas to a federal government bent on privatizing public institutions and breaking unions. This point is poignantly made by Cox:

“[…] it’s worth recalling that in 2011 mail delivery was a service so essential that it required back-to-work legislation to end a lockout.”

They attack unionized postal workers on one hand by declaring them essential workers, and they blindside them on the other hand by saying tax payers can’t afford to continue investing in their services.

Contradictory? You bet.

Ideologically driven? Most certainly.

Inevitable? It’s up to us.

Wither Human Rights?

By Lynne Fernandez, Errol Black Chair in Labour Issues

That Nelson Mandela’s memorial be celebrated on International Human Rights Day is destiny; a more poignant coupling of events cannot be imagined. It seems unusually cruel then to sully today’s tributes to this great man with grumblings of suppression and abuse, but the irony of today’s events coinciding with anti-union legislation being passed in Alberta demands comment. At the same time that her government has pushed Bill 45 through the Alberta Legislature, Premier Alison Redford is paying tribute to Nelson Mandela.