by Brendan Mierau
Early last year stories hit the news about the potential for food prices to rise throughout 2011. Commodities prices for wheat, corn, sugar, and others were all on the rise which ultimately resulted in a 4.4% rise in the cost of food to December 2011. Since then, commodity prices have continued to rise and have recently been spurred on by severe drought in the mid-western United States that has all but destroyed corn and soybean crops over a wide area. These conditions have created concerns that price volatility could adversely affect the world’s nearly one billion citizens who already face barriers to accessing adequate food.
Food prices are also expected to rise in North America as increasing corn and soybean prices drive up the cost of everything from raw ingredients to processed foods and meat products. Some current predictions for the United States suggest possible increases of 4-5% on average. However, the ultimate impact is still uncertain and could yet be influenced by other factors, such as crops in other locations around the globe. Resulting price increases likely won’t hit actual grocery stores for several months as commodity prices take time to trickle down to consumers.
The work of CCPA-Manitoba is made possible through the support of our many members and donors. We are grateful to all those who support us.
In 2010, we received a gift from a donor that was particularly poignant.
Robert Ernest Clague passed away on October 11, 2006. Robert named 15 charitable agencies in his will. CCPA-Manitoba was one of them. In 2011 we received a contribution from the Robert I. and Margaret J. Clague Memorial Fund endowed with the Winnipeg Foundation. This contribution will now come to us annually.
by Errol Black and Jim Silver
In June 1969, Manitoba elected Canada’s first NDP government and Manitoba’s first social democratic government. The NDP has since become the dominant political party in Manitoba, winning 8 of the last 12 elections and governing for almost two years in every three since June 1969. The NDP’s latest run as government began in 1999.
The Schreyer Years
The first NDP government, led by Ed Schreyer, consisted of a diverse group from different backgrounds, bound together by a belief that government can and should act to improve conditions in society. Schreyer and others characterized themselves as democratic socialists or social democrats. They implemented public auto insurance, eliminated Medicare premiums, and amalgamated the City of Winnipeg and surrounding municipalities. They adopted measures to reduce poverty, improved labour standards and industrial relations legislation, and built public housing for seniors and families.
Housing is an important issue here in Manitoba. Watch and share our short video to learn why housing is important, what housing challenges many Manitobans face, and what should be done about it.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5yxp0Xdkko]by Errol Black
In early July the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg announced that it was seeking to obtain money to fund a study to determine the feasibility of relocating the C.P.R. yards that geographically currently divides the city.
Subsequently, the Free Press carried a CCPA-Manitoba piece written by Jim Silver titled, “Better ways to fight poverty than moving CP yards“. Silver noted that there is also a socioeconomic divide between that part of the city on the north side of the tracks and the part on the south side. He suggested that the resources required for the feasibility study, and indeed the relocation of the yards in future, would be better spent on programs now aimed at closing the socioeconomic divide. To this end he proposes a series of initiatives covering both early year and adult education, housing, and the establishment of “labour market intermediaries” to assist unemployed and underemployed workers to find jobs and improved employment.
by Ruth Pryzner
On the day the Fast Facts titled Will the Province Protect the Little Saskatchewan River? was published, the Daly Irrigation Development Group (DIDG) was granted Environment Act license No. 3010. Two days earlier a formal request, specifying numerous concerns, had been made of Gord Macintosh, Minister of Conservation and Water Stewardship to deny the license.
Many of the thirty-three conditions in the license fail to protect fish, endangered and at-risk species, recreational and other established shared uses of the River. As expected, flexibility to adjust current license requirements during periods of low flow in the Little Saskatchewan River has been built into the license. It is now possible for the amount of water reserved for ecosystem needs to be lowered so that the irrigators may get the water they need despite Conservation’s unofficial assurance that the flow rate for riparian needs may only be adjusted after the completion of an in-stream flow study.
by Errol Black
I was pleased to read in today’s Free Press that Darlene Dziewit was invested with the Order of Manitoba. When I first met Darlene in the late 1970s she had just been appointed a union representative for the United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 832 with responsibilities for union services in Brandon and area.
At that time, she serviced a local on the campus of Brandon University. She immediately impressed everyone with her energy, commitment, knowledge and skills. She was also outgoing and liked to get involved in discussions relating to the big challenges facing the labour movement and society in general, and was at the forefront of campaigns both within and outside the labour movement to advance the rights of women, minority groups and workers in general.
by Errol Black
A June 30 op-ed piece in the Winnipeg Free Press by Jason Clemens (MacDonald-Cartier Institute) titled, “Over simplifying income inequality,” dismisses concerns raised about the growing inequality of incomes in Canada. He proposes that “the over-simplification of inequality by the left” has “potentially damaging consequences”.
His argument is based on the proposition that “Inequality is not at all simple, but is rather terribly complicated.” But turning the inequality issue into something “rather terribly complicated” allows the Right to maintain the status quo rather than implement policy changes that will reverse the growing inequality between the rich and everyone else in Canada. As hard as Clemens tries, the position is indefensible.
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