Search results for “site/human rights”

  • Housing crunch continues in Manitoba

    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…

  • Trade and Investment Research Project

    Ten questions about the CETA

    After weeks of rumours, it’s now official: the CETA talks have produced an “agreement-in-principle”. This proposed treaty is about far more than simply trade.  It is a constitutional-style document that affects patent protection for drugs, foreign investor rights, local government purchasing, public interest regulation and many other matters that are…

  • From Charity to Entitlement

    Look to history for best way to end persistent poverty I recently heard a caller to a radio talk-show complain about poor people turning to government for assistance to survive. He suggested that community efforts, such as food banks and charity, should suffice. And from his grave, Dickens groaned. One…

  • Cattle ranchers and farmers are big groundwater users. But many ranchers and farmers have failed to apply for groundwater licences. Photo: Matt Miles.

    Out of water?

    As deadline looms, thousands of BC groundwater users risk losing access to water, but not most water bottling, fracking and mining companies In February 2018, the head of a little-known Surrey-based company asked the BC government for a licence to withdraw 864 cubic metres of water per day from a…

  • October 2007: The Trouble With Inequality

    “Wealth might trickle down if not for sponges at the top” When the CCPA earlier this year published The Rich and the Rest of Us, a report by Armine Yalnizyan on the growing income gap in Canada, reactions from the political right quickly followed. This was, of course, to be…

  • Where Icebergs are Born

    Nearly all the icebergs in the North Atlantic start in this place. Disko Bay, Greenland, is littered with ice as far as the eye can see. Huge icebergs sit somnolent in the morning sun, their surfaces lined with dark blue veins of frozen fresh water. A sudden clap of thunder…

  • Ignorance and Slurs: Indigenous Election Coverage

    Every election, there are important reminders of the ignorance and racism Indigenous people face each day in Canada. The ignorance is quite literal. Entire election campaigns go by where the media mostly ignores First Nations, Inuit or Métis peoples. Take clean water for example.  Trouble with the water supply in…

  • September 2008: The Decline of Collectivity

    Triumph of individualism a defeat for society as a whole A few years ago, former Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed astonished us by denouncing what he called “the decline of collectivity” in Canada. “We are becoming increasingly Americanized,” he warned, “and this imposes an un-Canadian individualism on our ethic.” Coming from…

  • Fast Facts: Proposed parental control of schools remains baffling

    First published in the Winnipeg Free Press April 23, 2021 A teacher hands a child his report card in the morning, and intervenes in a child’s bullying in the afternoon — a few hours later, their parents tell the principal if that teacher’s career should continue.  Bill 64 creates that…

  • Harper’s Record on Immigration – Lawyers Weigh In

    The following is cut and pasted from an email that is in circulation to lawyers, practitioners and academics regarding the Harper record on immigration.  It does not address the rapid growth in the issuing of temporary foreign worker permits, particularly since the recession began. Harper’s record on that issue is…

  • Creating a Just Society

    Reducing poverty, inequality will spur economic recovery An economic recovery that is mainly reliant on consumer spending is unavoidably fragile, since most Canadian consumers are now deeply in debt. Going into the Great Recession, the average Canadian household owed $1.40 for every dollar of disposable income. By mid-2009, that figure…

  • Trade and Investment Research Project

    The EU wants a wide-open banking system. We should say no.

    The stakes are high in the last stages of the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) talks, yet there remains a serious lack of public information and debate about what is actually on the table. Negotiators boast that the CETA is the most ambitious and comprehensive economic treaty ever,…