Agriculture

Subscribe to Agriculture
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.  
As part of an ongoing overhaul of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) the federal government imposed what is referred to as the “four and four” rule, the results of which will begin to impact newcomers this April 1st.
As the promise of British Columbia’s liquefied natural gas bubble has begun to deflate, the conversation on how to grow good jobs in BC’s economy has been overlooking a key ingredient: food.
Public demand to buy food directly from farmers is growing. In Manitoba the government response has been slow and the regulatory hurdles are discouraging. The recent release of Advancing the small scale, local food sector in Manitoba is a first step but farmers are asking if it will really make any difference.
Recent attention to the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP) has raised questions about how these workers are treated and how their presence affects Canadian workers, wages and labour and employments standards.   These issues are of particular concern in Alberta – with the greatest number of TFWs in Canada and in Saskatchewan, where the number is growing faster than any other province.
I practise public interest law. My files often involve basic questions affecting fundamental legal and economic arrangements in our society. The issues are often daunting. Fortunately I have lots of help from talented colleagues at Sack Goldblatt Mitchell. While we do our part, the following cases reflect the determination of civil society groups and progressive trade unions to defend our commons—the institutions and economic arrangements that were built to serve the collective or public interest. Stealing from the Canadian Wheat Board
We all want healthy food for our neighbors, we all want to promote as many farms as possible growing that food and we want to inspire as many young people as possible and, how can we do this together? -David Neufeld, farmer This question was prompted by the controversial and well-publicized raid by Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Development’s (MAFRD) on Harborside Farms in August 2013. As a result, citizens are calling on government to better support Manitoba’s local food system in support of family-scale farmers, fishers, hunters and processors.
This was orginally published in the Winnipeg Free Press April 15, 2014 A banner 2013 crop year and some rail delays due to cold weather doesn’t account for all our grain transportation woes. Coordination of rail to ships is out of synch: a study by Quoram Corporation found that rail shipments to the West Coast are down 2 per cent from last year, but there are excess ships waiting in port. In the east, grain shipments were down 20 per cent at Thunder Bay as of March with some ships turning away empty.
Manitoba has embarked on aggressive immigration strategies to attract newcomers to settle in a variety of communities in the province with the purpose of meeting local labour force demands. In response to these trends, it is necessary to have appropriate and effective support systems to assist in the long-term settlement and integration of the increasing number of newcomers. Prior to the federal government’s changes to the delivery model of settlement services in 2012, these services were a provincial responsibility in Manitoba, Quebec, and British Columbia.
For visitors from around the world, the opportunity to see polar bears and beluga whales in the subarctic splendor of Churchill is a major attraction. This window to the tundra world is a source of pride for Manitobans. It also might be a solution for the shipping woes of prairie farmers.    Ecological tourism in Churchill faces a crude threat, as Omnitrax – the company that owns the rail line to Churchill as well as the seaport – is planning to ship crude oil up sketchy railway tracks through polar bear habitat, and then by tanker through beluga whale habitat.