For fashion trends the world looks to Milan; Copenhagen has become synonymous with urban planning; but for community development, Manitoba is increasingly the source for inspiration and cutting edge policy. Manitoba’s home-grown approach to community development is being studied by other cities looking for ways to deal with the complex…
Who benefits from government actions? Our corporate rulers Lucius Cassius, a consul whom the people of ancient Rome revered as a wise and honest judge, was often required to adjudicate disputes involving the laws or policies of the Senate. Time and again, his first question was “Cui bono?” which can…
DIRT(1) Cheap: Students for sale and the tilting of a scale Abstract This paper illustrates how parents, teachers and school administrators have been quietly and unknowingly enlisted as accomplices in the sale of children to commercial interests. This facet of the economic imperative is obscured by the siren call of…
Graduating from high school is a rite of passage, but for students at risk, high school can be an oppressive and intimidating place. Programs like the Gordon Bell Senior Off Campus program (GBSOC) however, offer an alternative to the mainstream school system, allowing students to work at their own pace,…
Class size in Alberta–an ongoing debate! The debate over class size in Alberta’s schools has sharpened significantly in the last few months. It has set parents and teachers against government. However, neither research nor polls seem likely to move the provincial government to enforce class sizes in kindergarten through grade…
Well, I’ve made it to the end of my week eating only what I could buy for $26. But eating the same thing for breakfast, lunch and dinner for seven days is no damn fun. I can’t wait to eat something different and fresh. Did a final weigh-in this morning.…
Forced labour and pollution rampant at Canadian-owned mine According to a recent report, Ivanhoe Mines Ltd., a Canadian company owned by Robert Friedland, is “raping the environment” and using forced labour in Burma. Ivanhoe operates the US$90 million Monywa copper mine, Burma’s largest mining investment, in a 50-50 partnership with…
Small farm owners Pam and Clint Cavers were blindsided on August 28, 2013 when Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives (MAFRI) staff showed up to “seize and destroy” their locally produced and cured prosciutto (pork). Ironically, just months ago, MAFRI presented the Cavers with $10,000, naming their prosciutto the “Best…
The right-wing Fraser Institute has released a paper that, if implemented, would dramatically lower our standards for worker pay, workers’ rights and workplace protections. It urges governments in Ontario and B.C. to adopt American-style “right-to-work” (RTW) laws which violate a core principle upheld in Canadian law: if a majority of…
Creditors get fatter financially, their victims get thinner Like plague in the 14th century, the scourge of debt has gradually migrated from South to North. Our 21st-century plague isn’t spread by flea-infested rats, but by deadly, ideology-infested neoliberal fundamentalists. Once they had names like Thatcher or Reagan; now they sound…
Back in February, 2013, CCPA-Mb put out a Fast Facts titled Six Unions: One Voice1 which chronicled the many problems faced by staff at the University of Manitoba campus . We explained how an intense process of corporatization was negatively affecting all manner of University employees, from tenured professors to…
In 1997, after wide consultation across the country, the federal government’s National Forum on Health concluded that home care should be considered an integral part of publicly funded health services. A year later, the National Conference on Home Care identified home care as a vitally important component of a responsive…