It takes more than time

kwaddell — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:07:17 +0000

When we are unsure about the future consequences of a certain action or inaction we resort to the old saying, “Time will tell.” Actually time doesn’t tell much, it’s pretty much a passive thing. A truer statement might be that “time marches on”. Another adage is, “Time stands still for no man.” While that’s true, it doesn’t speed up for anyone either.
Yet another saying, “Time heals all wounds”, isn’t true, but it pacifies some people. Physical wounds indeed usually take time to heal but while man may provide the cure, it’s God who provides the healing.
So too with emotional healing, time simply measures the passage of days, months and years but without man providing the cure and God providing the healing, emotional wounds can fester forever.
That’s why the current approach by many people to the wounding of First Nations people over the past century and a half is totally unproductive. On the First Nations activist side, re-opening the residential school debate and finding new ways of attaching blame to successive generations of former Europeans isn’t very productive. Similarly, people, regardless of background, who want to forget it all aren’t solving a lot of problems either. On the “white” side of the question, the continued and ongoing agonizing and soul searching and blame attaching isn’t helpful. Let’s get a couple of things straight. I didn’t put anybody in residential schools. Neither did my father or grandfathers. They were all born in Scotland and had absolutely nothing to do with Canadian governance back in those days.
The second thing we need to get straightened out is that, given conditions for many First Nations people in the mid to late 1800s, the government of the day felt they had to do something to help First Nations people. And further understand, that sending children off to boarding school was a well accepted and somewhat successful practice in England. For us to second guess the governments of the day is unfair and unproductive. To study the policies and learn from them is a good thing.
The simple passage of time will never solve the emotional hurts of the past unless man provides the cure and God provides the healing.
First Nations need to stop blaming the “whites” and everyone, First Nations and whites, need to learn from the mistakes of the past and move on with better policies and programs. There have been enough apologies already. Another adage comes into play here, “Actions speak louder than words.” So, given that everybody is sorry that bad things happened, and given that we know things need to change, what needs to happen before too much more time slips away?
We all need to understand that the reserve system is unfixable. If in fact FN people want to have self- government as individual “nations” across the country known as Canada then they have to become much more municipal in governance, generating taxes and setting by laws. Individuals need to get title to their homes. Home ownership is a very important step towards beating back poverty. Our home is often our biggest investment and our most important possession from a physical and emotional point of view.
Economic opportunity for many FN communities could revolve around local food production. We now have the technology to grow many kinds of vegetable based foods within a community, regardless of how remote the community may be. Greenhouse technology is a must for remote communities to be enabled to grow their own food. Domestic animal based food production isn’t practical in many remote communities because hay and grain can’t be grown there, but vegetables will grow anywhere you have a greenhouse, water and sunshine. The wild animal harvest is still an option in many remote communities.
Getting back to time, it was proposed back in the 1960s by Prime Minister Trudeau and Indian Affairs minister Jean Chretien that the so-called Indian Act be dissolved. The FN leaders objected. If they had agreed, it would be interesting to see how that “cure” might have succeeded to bring about positive change and healing. Instead, a law that was brought in in the 1800s and was to be abolished in the 1970s, but wasn’t, is still inflicting fresh wounds today.
Until man provides the cure, God may not be able to do the healing.

The gold medal

kwaddell — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 14:21:43 +0000

Canadian winters need great events to give us some much needed diversion. This year we have had the Olympics and our whole nation’s attention was indeed diverted toward this great event. The critics can complain and so they should. There’s great expense and as with all human endeavour, there’s some down side. But that said, the Olympics, in spite of the politics and in spite of the heartbreak of losing by a hundredth of a second, the Olympics are still a great thing. Anybody who says that they didn’t enjoy some part of the Olympics needs some therapy.
The Olympics are an open tribute to the achievements of mankind, both mentally and physically. It’s the ultimate expression of adulation for human effort. The Olympics make no apology for the fact that they showcase human effort and human effort alone. God simply isn’t part of the official Olympic mindset. In fact God, or the mere mention of God is so completely absent from all official aspects of the Olympics that it becomes almost conspicuous by it’s absence.
The only time that God was even mentioned was in the 14 times O’ Canada was sung, the occasions of the awarding of our 14 gold medals. An all time high for golds by the way.
And so it has become in Canada. We are a secular country and that’s the way most people want it to be. We as a country barely recognize God. It would be good if as a country, we recognized God and all He has done for us a bit more but the secularization of our democracy has pretty much erased that from the public scene. Except for the O’ Canada reference, God is pretty much on the sidelines.
But we shouldn’t be surprised. God made mankind in his own image with a free will. We all have a choice, we can acknowledge God or we can ignore Him. Many people “seem” to ignore God. The vast majority of people in Canada certainly ignore the church, be it Christian, Jewish or other.
As devoid of reference to God as the Olympics appear to be, I’m willing to wager that just about every athlete that competed was in prayer mode at some point in their Olympic competition. Whether it was while being in the air high over a ski slope or gasping for breath at the end of a cross-country ski run, I’m sure there were many prayers said. Perhaps by some who hadn’t prayed in a long time.
Recognizing God and praying to God is very personal thing. Just as we are made with a free will, we are not constrained by God to recognize Him, to love Him, to listen to Him or to obey Him. That’s our God-given individual freedom and choice.
A wise person will realize that they are born, they live and then they die. Life spans are obviously different in length. No one gets a choice about being born, few choose when to die. Both are sacred events or should be. What happens in between birth and death and how we use that time is affected by our choices and choices that are made for us. Some we can control, some we can’t. In Canada, we get to control a lot more choices than people do in some countries. Even within Canada , some people have very limited choices.
However, there’s one choice that every adult or young adult person has available. That choice is to serve God or not. Regardless of talent, physical abilities or disabilities, regardless of riches or lack thereof, each and every person has a choice. And we shouldn’t be surprised. God made us that way, with a free choice. The decision to be an Olympian may not be available to us.The decision to be rich or famous may not be available to us. But the decision to serve God, our maker, is available to us.
In that life event we can all have a gold medal.

Contributing to the public debate

kwaddell — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:25:45 +0000

By Ken Waddell

There are two “traditions” in the newspaper business that have done great harm to public debate.
One is the fact that among the newspapers that actually publish an editorial, its written by an editorial board or, if written by an individual, it’s written anonymously. There is a marked difference between an editorial and a column. What you are reading here is called an editorial but by today’s definition, it’s a column. In today’s newspaper world of anonymity and weak journalism, what they call an editorial would never have a writer’s name or picture attached it. It wasn’t always that way. Some famous, even notorious editors have applied their names and pictures to editorials over the years. Somewhere over the years it was decided that an editorial can’t be an individual opinion, it must be a “corporate” opinion. Corporations don’t have a conscience so how can they be expected to have an opinion?
Perhaps the reason for anonymity could be to avoid backlash or repercussion against an individual writer. In times past, readers who disagreed with an editorial might even inflict violence on a particular writer. Not many editorials conjure up that level of animosity any more. Today, anonymity prevails even over the most bland of topics. In 20 years of writing I have only had one threat to my life. It came early in the days of The Banner when I got an anonymous late night phone call from a man with a distinct British accent. He claimed to be a labour union leader and he assured me that I would be taken out of I kept on writing against the unions.
In Canada’s style of political blandness, there are few issues that generate the level of animosity that could result in harm to an editor. In many countries that is not the case and journalists and editors face danger and death all the time. In Canada, the only topic today that might generate any real threat to a writer would be if he dared to discuss the terrorist intentions of certain Islam extremists.
The other newspaper “tradition” that has developed is the fact that all the news industry has far too many “repeaters” and too few “reporters.” Getting the real news in the papers isn’t that hard. It takes some work and a willing staff at a local paper to accommodate local submissions. Most local newspapers do that fairly well. Some not so much. Community newspapers are having a bit of a struggle as ad revenues seem to be a bit more elusive than say 10 years ago. However, it’s obvious that small towns still like their newspapers as, including our own two papers The Neepawa Banner and Rivers Banner, there are a dozen or more scattered across western Manitoba. They have a fair bit of local news, the kind that matters to local readers.
Where the problem comes up is that even in local newspapers and certainly in the larger daily papers there is lots of news that a reader has seen on the internet the day before or on television. Reporters, and editors, seem happy enough to take stories off a wire service and plunk them on a page and call it news. Well it’s not really news unless it contains fresh facts. At least it should be written from a local perspective.
The real problem is that newspaper ownership is too concentrated. The corporations such as Quebecor and Glacier have bought up papers by the dozens. They figure that they can run a newspaper with very few people. And they can, if all they do is “repeat” the news rather than “report” the news.
About 10 years ago, an astute editor of a community paper started to peruse the large dailies across the country. He looked at the front page story in about 20 large newspapers. Eighteen or 19 had the same front page story. Now, it’s really sad that there’s that little original thought going into our daily papers.
In order for there to be proper public discourse, readers need fresh news and opinion columns that are both local and original. We try to do that. Readers can help us by sending in news stories, pictures and news tips. We prefer email but a phone call works too. Dropping by our offices is nice too but we may not be able to visit for a long period of time.
As far as editorials and news columns go, may the day never come when we have to resort to unsigned columns. And if you want to call what we write on these pages, editorials, that’s fine with us. An editorial should have a name attached to it. Surely we can have that much freedom of speech in Canada.

Paying for what we need

kwaddell — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:02:30 +0000

Every Canadian should sit back a bit and enjoy the Olympics. It seems by the television ratings that’s exactly what’s happening. Ratings are very high. And so they should be. The Winter Olympics only come around every four years and we have excellent athletes.
Canadians shouldn’t get too upset about the medal count as many countries have a much larger population and a much larger budget for training than we in Canada have. It may seem strange to have Canadian skaters beaten out by Chinese or Koreans but look at how many people they have to draw their talent from. Korea has 69 million, twice our population almost. China has 20-30 times our population.
So we should sit back, relax and enjoy the show. We paid for it after all.
Paying for the Olympics is akin to buying a Christmas gift for your parents or your kids. You usually overextend, you reach beyond what you can afford. So that’s what we do as a country every 20 years or so, we may over reach a bit. Better to do so for the Olympics than to over reach in many other ways. The point of that comment is two-fold. First, the Olympics are an inspiration, or should be an inspiration, to all of us. Second, it’s better to spend money on the Olympics than some of the dumb stuff we spend tax payers dollars on now. Large car companies come to mind actually, followed by bloated salaries for bureaucrats in our senior governments.
On that point it’s hard not to sound old-fashioned, to sound like an old person longing for some “good old days”. But get over the fact that older people take a strong interest in where the tax dollars are being spent and think about it for a bit. Yes, just think for a few minutes.
Our governments have gotten far too large and expensive. In Manitoba we pay the premier about $150,000 per year. He or she is the head honcho, the one in charge. The person who takes the glory when things go well and takes the fall when things go bad. There’s not much job security and there’s not much pension plan. Premiers rarely last more than 10 years and if anyone has worked out an average but it’s likely less than five years. So given the risk and level of responsibility, why are there dozens, if not hundreds of bureaucrats paid twice and three times that which we pay that premier.
There is a high level of accountability at the premier level. If the premier’s party or the people in general get tired of them, they vote premier out of office. Its a fairly simple system. However, if a bureaucrat gets a cushy job, they may well be there for life and and at two to three times the salary of the boss. We have let the bureaucracy get away with theft of the highest degree.
The problem is, how do you change it? Can you imagine if we all of a sudden told every bureaucrat above that level that they were getting a salary cut to the level of the premier or less? That’s what should happen but it’s not going to. The high level bureaucrats would scream bloody murder if that had to get along with “only” $150,000 per year.
The logical question that should be asked is how about the civil servants and front line health care workers? Why should some person who runs the Winnipeg RHA get $3-400,000 per year and a full time nurse say only $50-70,000. If I get sick and am laying deathly ill in a hospital, I want to see an RN looking over me, not an overpaid bureaucrat.
The world has gone mad. We pay the least valuable jobs the most money. I’m sure that many bureaucrats are well intentioned and honourable people but, sad to say, their jobs are not worth what we pay them.
If we actually got our priorities straight in Canada, we would pay people according to their importance to society. You know, the priority of needs thing. First of all, we would pay high wages to water treatment plant operators as, assuming we have air to breathe, we need good water next on the priority list. Then we would pay our farmers and food workers because, after air and water, we need good food. Then we would pay our carpenters to build us good homes. Somewhere down the line after water plant workers, farmers, carpenters, doctors, nurses, teachers and a few other ranking needs, we might get around to needing bureaucrats.
The list would get awfully long before we would add the bureaucrats. Perhaps somewhere just ahead of government lawyers.

No rural Manitoban should ever vote NDP again

kwaddell — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:28:48 +0000

Cries of equality and liberty have rung out through the centuries. The twin cries have become the trademarks of numerous political movements. The Manitoba NDP would certainly make a stated case for liberty and equality. However, in the case of rural and northern Manitoba, they have failed miserably.
The problem with the Manitoba NDP is that they believe that simplistic solutions must be applied to every circumstance. Perhaps the average Manitoba NDP person’s IQ is lower than the provincial average and therefore simplistic solutions are all they can understand. Whatever the reason, the issue of liberty is usually overcome by the improper application of equality.
Now equality is a good thing when it applies to human rights, to access to education and to health care. It’s a good thing in many instances. Our current government has failed miserably even in assuring equality in either human rights or access to health care and education but that’s another story for another day.
While equality is essential in the above three instances, it isn’t the best approach in all circumstances. In some cases, equality is actually a feeble or even harmful approach. Case in point, there are a few environmentally sensitive areas where hog barns shouldn’t be built. No one argues that point, not even the most fervent hog producers. But the NDP solution is to ban hog barns almost everywhere. Equality of regulation isn’t the right method. Hog barns need to be restricted in certain areas but new hog barns are essential to the industry in areas that can easily handle the barns. Now considering the current hog market some would simplistically ask, “Why build more barns?” Good question, but there are good answers. One is that older barns may not be as efficient or environmentally sound as new barns, so it makes sense to build a new one. Another answer is that, given the high cost of fertilizer and the high cost of trucking commercial fertilizer hundreds of miles, a grain farmer might well benefit from a nearby barn so he can apply hog manure to his crop land. There’s another reason. A person may just want to invest in the industry and he should have the freedom to do so, but the NDP government has pretty much shut down all three reasons or motives to build.
On another front, the government, faced with a sewage leakage issue in some parts of cottage country, applied an oppressive and equal law to all rural ares. Equality of policy application has hit rural residences really hard. No more sewage ejectors! If you own one you can keep it but if you sell your rural property, then you have to upgrade to a sewage tank and a septic field. If you don’t have room for a septic field, then it’s a holding tank.
Equality of application of a law designed to fix up some cottage situations is now going to unnecessarily cost rural property owners millions of dollars. The irony of it all is that sewage ejectors, which pump out grey water onto the ground in a secluded and often fenced off part of the property, actually provide for several levels of economical sewage treatment. Ejectors subject septic tank-treated grey water to the sun, to the air and to soaking into the ground. Sewage fields take the tank-treated water and put it underground directly. No sun, no air and ironically several feet closer to the water table.
For 10 years we have had a government that adopts simplistic measures, applies them to all and then walks away from the consequences. Rural and northern Manitoba, and First Nations communities in particular, have all suffered at the hands of the simple minded NDP government. That the NDP gets any votes in rural and northern Manitoba or on First Nations communities is strange. One needs to ask, how much abuse needs to be dished out before the electorate turns their back on simple minded oppression.
This cheerless bunch of “equality” pursuers, the Manitoba NDP, in the ultimate irony, have done little for themselves and absolutely nothing for anyone else.
How long must we suffer, how long indeed?

Do they really know what they are talking about?

kwaddell — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:45:52 +0000

Deputy Premier and Finance minister Rosann Wowchuk sent me a letter recently about Manitoba Hydro. The letter was in response to a challenge I sent to the NDP government about the money they had spent on consulting with First Nations communities. I asked if I could publish her letter and permission was refused but the letter was re-written as a letter to the editor and part of it is quoted below.
“Manitoba Hydro is entering an exciting new decade of investment in the future of our province. Major new hydro-electric generation and transmission projects require large capital investments but the returns to Manitobans are many times greater and will endure for generations to come. The $160 million of payments provided to Aboriginal communities must be considered in the context of the total costs of these major projects. In the case of the new Wuskwatim and Keeyask generating stations, the funds provided are less than 2.5 per cent of total estimated project costs.”
Now Mrs. Wowchuk may think “Manitoba Hydro is entering an exciting new decade of investment in the future of our province”, however, given the track record of the NDP in particular, and governments in general, I doubt that all the “due diligence” has been done. Aside from investing $160 million into consulting with First Nations, by the government’s own figures noted above we are about to spend $6.4 billion on Hydro expansion. We all know they plan to waste over half a billion by putting the Bi-Pole III line in the wrong place.
Just this week the government blasted the PC Manitoba party, not for questioning where the line will go but accuse the PC party of “delaying” the line and costing Hydro future sales. The NDP conveniently forgets one thing, that Manitoba Hydro was aiming for the shorter cheaper line at least a decade ago. The delay has been of their doing by not building the line on the east side 10 years ago. We would be selling power by now if they had moved ahead 10 years ago. Perhaps the grandiose and inefficient new Hydro office sidelined their thinking.
So why didn’t they move ahead? Basically the promise of new Hydro dams is to Manitoba politics like mid-Western U.S. politicians promising to send money to the farmers. It’s just how you appease the voters. So, the longer the Manitoba politicians can stretch out the promise of Hydro prosperity, the longer you can get re-elected.
There is likely another reason that the NDP didn’t go ahead. There may be little guarantee of new markets. Hydro has two markets. One is domestic, the Manitoba market and the other is the holy grail of U.S. exports.
We were supposed to see unbridled prosperity in Manitoba if we kept domestic Hydro prices low. Businesses would flood into Manitoba to take advantage of our cheaper Hydro rates. That hasn’t happened and it’s because Manitoba isn’t all that business friendly. If a company was planning to build or expand in Manitoba, and all things were equal in their analysis against other places, why would they come here and pay a payroll tax? Even if the payroll tax here was off-set by higher income taxes in another place, the company would go there. Why? Because with a payroll tax you have to pay every month. With income tax, you only pay when you have a net income. Even if you lose money in Manitoba, you pay the payroll tax. Manitoba may as well have a “Stop, don’t stay here” sign on every entrance to Manitoba. In other words, the tax policy of Manitoba far offsets cheap Hydro rates.
Export markets are elusive. One has to wonder if Hydro will ever sell more power to Ontario or Saskatchewan or the United States. In order to sell more power, there has to be an increased market. Saskatchewan and Ontario may well develop their own power sources rather than pay us. The same could be said of the United States, especially as nuclear power becomes more efficient, is reported to be safer and is more accepted in the public eyes. There is another fact that is doubtful that the NDP have even looked at. Have they drawn a line on the map along state lines of the area they hope to sell power to? Have they looked at the population stats for that area? I’m willing to bet that population isn’t increasing that much in those ares. Without a population increase, there’s no need for more power.
How about industrial needs? Could it be that the power needs of the declining U.S. industrial base is also declining. Those are questions that need to be asked. If in fact the markets are as elusive as they appear, have we asked the really tough questions? In its simplest terms, will the markets be there after we have invested billions in new hydro dams, new power lines? Given Hydro’s record of obtaining and then losing Ontario power contracts, we should be very wary of where we place our debt dollars. And what happens if interest rates go up significantly?
These questions need to be asked. Perhaps the future of Hydro should be placed in the hands of people who are lot farther from retirement than Rosann Wochuk, Greg Sellnger or Hydro CEO Bob Brennan. After all if they screw up, it won’t be they who will have to pay for it. Just a thought.

Auctioneering, a durable tradition

kwaddell — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 22:36:25 +0000

This weekend the Manitoba Auctioneers Association holds their convention in Brandon. The annual gathering of the local Manitoba bid callers is a fun time to see how others are doing in the business, how the spring bookings are coming along and what’s new in the auction industry.
In Manitoba, auctioneers are under used and under appreciated. The “auction” is a fundamental market place mechanism in the farm machinery trade, some of the cattle trade and to a small, small amount in the real estate industry. In many parts of the world, and especially so in the United States, the auction is a much more readily used instrument for determining fair prices for a range of goods.
In Manitoba, livestock such as cattle and horses, are often the subject of auction sales. Hogs used to be auctioned but that is almost a thing of the past. Hogs are priced by some convoluted accumulation of prices from various markets and then they are simply announced. There’s no argument, no discussion, that’s the price. As more and more livestock sales have moved under marketing boards over the years much of the auction action has dwindled. It’s too bad. The auction is the only really fair way of determining price on livestock. Even when deals are made between two parties privately, they refer to an auction somewhere to get a base for their discussions.
With today’s technology, there’s less need for livestock to be trucked to an auction, an internet auction can be conducted without the animals leaving their home farm and price can be determined before they are transported. The auctioneer and the auction bid process is being used as it adapts to new realities and new technologies.
When it comes to selling real estate, auctions are much more common in other parts of the country and the continent than here in Manitoba. The big advantage of land or real estate auction is that everybody gets a chance to bid if they wish. Long a problem in rural areas has been the hard feelings caused when a piece of land is sold by one person to another and the neighbours may not have had a chance to bid on it. One disadvantage is that potential bidders have to have their money in place up front. That’s a bit of a hard nut to crack as in Manitoba we are used to getting the price set first and then going to get the financing. Getting the financing may mean borrowing from a bank or FCC or from a relative, but we have grown accustomed to having the price fixed in a conditional sales agreement before we seek the financing.
If a shift could be made in thinking about preparing financing, then the auction method of land and real estate sales would flourish. Real estate firms would have one of their people trained as an auctioneer or would use the services of an auctioneer to set up a well advertised real estate sale. It works other places and, aside from the pre-arranged financing, the auction method may well be a better way of determining price.
Compared to other ares of North America, auctioneers in Manitoba are somewhat limited in the way the public sees and uses their service. Strangely enough, the biggest decision a farmer will ever make, that of selling off his machinery, is often entrusted to the auctioneer. It’s just an accepted way of selling assets when a farming operation is winding down for whatever reason. There’s nothing quite like farm dispersal sale. The neighbours and family pitch in, the auctioneer does way more prep work ahead of time than the actual auction day entails and the prices are pretty transparent. Oh yes, there’s the highlight of the farm sale, the lunch counter. An auction sale hamburger and piece of apple pie is an absolute must.
The most common sale in Manitoba is the household disbursement sale. The largest and best sales are bittersweet affairs as often the owner has died and the family is left with the onerous task of dividing up the estate. It’s a huge job and one best done with the aid of an auctioneer. The earlier the auctioneer is called in the better. Unfortunately families usually have one or two overly zealous members who insist that a bunch of “stuff” has to be thrown out before the auctioneer is called. That’s probably the biggest mistake a family makes. Before anything is tossed, the family should consult with the auctioneer. Case in point, a few years ago when I was in still in the auction business, I was called to a home where a lot of prep work had been done and the family members were busy washing relatively worthless quart sealers and packing them in boxes. That wasn’t so bad but they were using highly collectible Roy Rogers calendars to wrap the sealers. The calendars were worth a lot of money, the sealers, well maybe not so much. If I can offer one word of advice, call the auctioneer as early as possible when a sale is being planned.
Very few auctioneers in Manitoba work at it full time. Auctioneering is usually a side line or a second source of income. Few have made enough money at auctioneering to say it’s their sole source of income. Nevertheless, the auction business in Manitoba is alive and well, a mainstay of both tradition and price setting. The Manitoba Auctioneers’ Association has worked hard over the last 20 years or so to raise standards, to educate members and the public and to provide service with integrity to Manitoba.

Too mild, too slow, too late

kwaddell — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 00:40:30 +0000

Take a look at a quote from Stats Canada about Manitoba’s farm population.“Manitoba’s farm population continued its steady decline in numbers, dropping by 8.1 per cent since 2001 to 62,930. In 1931, when the farm population count in Manitoba was compiled for the first time, 256,305 people were living on a farm—36.6 per cent of Manitoba’s population. By 2006, the farm population accounted for only 5.5 per cent of the province. In less than one lifetime, Manitoba has moved from one in three inhabitants living on a farm to one in 18. At the same time, Manitoba’s total population has grown from 700,139 in 1931 to 1,148,400 in 2006.”
By the same comparison, the percentage of Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) from rural Manitoba has declined. There was a time when the legislature actually hurried to get through their spring sitting days so the MLAs could go home to their farms to seed their crops. That’s not even a consideration today.
There was also a time when rural Manitoba’s interests and farming was looked after by the MLAs and by the government or they wouldn’t get re-elected. That’s not even a consideration today either.
In the last four decades or so of the 1900s, many farm organizations rose up to promote and protect the interests of farmers. Every commodity has its group such as potato growers, wheat growers and canola growers. There there’s the Manitoba Cattle Producers Association, The Manitoba Pork Council and the umbrella organization, the Keystone Agricultural Producers.
All have had their struggles but have in some ways served their members well.
However, all have failed in that government no longer listens to farmers or to farm groups. They don’t actually listen to any rural groups, be they agricultural, First Nations or Inuit.
How have the farm groups failed?
Too mild
As the title at the top of this column suggests, farmers and farm groups have been too mild, too slow and now it’s too late. Too mild in that they have failed to get in the face of government when proposed legislation has been bad for farming. The recent hog moratorium was bad, bad legislation. Furthermore, the former premier, Gary Doer lied outright to the Manitoba Pork Council. Instead of exposing that lie and refusing to deal a with government it wasn’t more than two months later that “Grinning Gary” was on the legislature steps flipping pork on a bun with the head guys at the Pork Council. I’m not sure who organized that love-in event but it was bad tactics for the Pork Council to be so cozy with the enemy.
Too slow
Farm groups have let themselves get side tracked by government. When BSE hit the beef industry in May 2003, the farmers were angry and motivated. They wanted to set up a federally inspected slaughter plant to export Manitoba beef. There were some good ideas. One was to ask the government to allow MASC to finance shares in numerous smaller, existing and new slaughter facilities. Perhaps 15 or more small federally inspected plants could have been built or upgraded. But no, before long the government had into the driver’s seat. Not willing to let farmers and the existing butchers build their own solutions with a few $1-2 million plants, it had to be one big $8 million monster, then a $12 million giant and then over $20 million. By that time, the whole thing collapsed like a house of cards. Many small plants, federally inspected and locally sourced and operated might have worked. At least the risk would have been spread out. One huge plant was doomed to fail just like many in the past have failed. Too slow, way too slow.
Too late
For most of Manitoba’s farm commodities and dozens of farm communities, it’s too late. Sure, we’ll grow and export grain and oilseeds, but much potential has been lost. The hog industry is on a long, painful road and the only thing keeping it going is that companies like Hytek and Maple Leaf are highly integrated and have international markets. Hytek started, and is still today, a family owned cpmpany. The beef industry lacks any big players like Hyek and Maple Leaf and is is pretty much in the tank.
Unless Manitoba farm groups can get the ear of government, no farmer-friendly legislation will come from forward. In fact unless farm groups can get the ear of government, only resistance and multiple road blocks will continue to come from government.
Farmers no longer have any political clout in Mnaitoba. They have no cohesive gutsy leadership that can bend government or public sympathy their way. Not for subsidies, which are wrong, but just for good strong enabling legislation that will help environmentally friendly agriculture to feed us all while making a profit in a progressive manner. All the farm groups must get their act together.
They have to stop being slow and mild. No more burger flipping photo opps with government leaders who have been downright nasty to farmers. No more sitting down in plush government offices and hearing nicey, nicey words from ag ministers who neither know about, nor care about, agriculture.
No more soft approaches. Farmers have to stand up and be heard or they will simply keep on disappearing.
The reality is that without a farmer friendly government, we risk not being able to produce food any more. It doesn’t matter in the short term. The other provinces or the United States could feed all of Manitoba very easily. But, in the longer term, a secure food system is a national security issue. Just ask European countries or ask South Korea. They will tell you that national security and food production are intricately linked.
It’s time our farmers realized that and it’s time our governments realized it too.

kwaddell — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 05:22:06 +0000

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has come under a barrage of criticism over proroguing parliament. It’s actually a bit amusing as, to hear the opposition and the media squeal, you would think that Harper had done something quite new and therefore dastardly.Compared to Liberal PMs, Stephen Harper is a proroguing amateur. If you look at the scorecard it shows some interesting points. The following data is courtesy of John Feldsted of Winnipeg. Take a look at Chretien versus Harper and Trudeau versus Harper.
“Chretien 4, Harper 2.
35th Parliament 1996/2/2, 36th Parliament 1999/9/18, 37th Parliament 2002/9/16 , 37th Parliament 2003/11/12 (done to avoid the auditor generals’ release of the report on Adscam)
And if you really want a lopsided score how about this one:
Trudeau 11, Harper 2.
26th Parliament Trudeau 1963/12/21, 26th Parliament Trudeau 1965/4/3, 27th Parliament Trudeau 1967/5/8, 28th Parliament Trudeau 1969/10/22, 28th Parliament Trudeau 1970/10/7, 28th Parliament Trudeau 1972/2/16, 29th Parliament Trudeau 1974/2/26, 30th Parliament Trudeau 1976/10/12, 30th Parliament Trudeau 1977/10/17, 30th Parliament Trudeau 1978/10/10, 30th Parliament Trudeau 1983/11/30
Now, where was all of the outrage on these 15 prorogations, and more importantly why are these numbers not front and center in the multitude of stories on the topic?”
Feldsted goes on to explain, “Parliament is not prorogued until Jan. 25th and will only last for 22 sitting days, so whenever you hear such things as it lasting “three months” or statements implying that it is already prorogued, or that is unconstitutional etc., feel free to call BS on whomever said it and let them know we are on to their lies.”
Now John gets a little expressive in his views but he raises good points. Indeed, where was the media howling when Chretien prorogued or Trudeau. Harper is using the rules, the accepted and decades old rules, to operate parliament. What many people forget is that although Harper only has a minority he is indeed the prime minister and has the most seats in parliament. He has every right to prorogue parliament and set up a new throne speech and a new budget.
He also has the right to appoint news senators and may soon do so. When he does he will have a good possibility of getting the Senate to actually pass some bills. Many of those bills have been stalled for three years by a Liberal dominated Senate. The media don’t tell us much about that. Even the Manitoba NDP government want tougher crime bills passed and rather than work with legislation they have they are blaming the Senate.
Now the reason the opposition say Harper is proroguing parliament is to cover up the Afghan detainee issue. They say the Harper government knew about possible torture and covered it up. That could be, I guess, but let’s be realistic here. The Canadian soldiers go out on patrol at huge risk to life and limb. They get shot at, they get bombed, some of them are now dead. Often they are injured. So, in a tribal warfare country, where the enemy doesn’t wear uniforms and where every devious trick known to man has been used against us, the Canadians are supposed to capture Taliban and then play nice. The truth is the Canadian troops usually do. They quietly lower their guns and escort the prisoners to a holding area. Then they turn them over to the Afghan police or army. Does any Canadian really care if one of these terrorists actually gets roughed up by his own countrymen while under detention? I don’t bloody think so. The Afghan detainees can be thankful that it’s 2010 era Canadian soldiers that have captured them and not 1945 era Russian or German soldiers. I happen to know from first hand accounts told to me that nobody wanted to surrender to the Russians in 1945 and for very good reasons.
The opposition is off base and so is much of the media in hounding Harper about proroguing parliament. Let the MPs consult with constituents and let them come up with a good budget and good policies. The opposition say they want to let parliament work, well here’s their chance.

Guys, guys, get it under control

kwaddell — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:08:27 +0000

Guys, guys, get it under control
By Ken Waddell
A number of years ago I heard a profound statement. I was attending a Promise Keepers convention in Minneapolis. There was at least 40,000 men attending and one statement in particular hit home for me. While introducing a speaker, one of the sessions chairs said, “The problem with America today is that we have too many men 40 to 50 years old wandering around wondering what they will do when they grow up.”
There was about two seconds of dead silence in the stadium and then applause and laughter broke out. The guy spoke the truth and it doesn’t appear that much has changed, as evidenced by celebrity behaviour over the past few months. From Tiger Woods to Mike Kelly to Eric Tillman, and a host of others recently, we see what happens when a man goes astray.
The title of this column is something you often hear on the sports field or from the coach on a hockey bench. It also applies to men in general and it needs to be said, to be learned and to be followed.
How many centuries does it take for a man to realize that he is in control, or should be in control, of his affections and emotions. In today’s lingo, men need to “man up” and take ownership of their problems. To the small credit of some of the celebrities they have admitted their guilt, tearfully apologized and promised to do better for their families and for society. That they are willing to come back to these minimum levels of responsibility is very nice, a little late for their realization, but at least it offers some hope for their future.
At the risk of sounding old-fashioned or stodgy or preachy, this is the way it’s meant to be. A healthy man should appreciate women. However, intimacy with a woman is supposed to occur within marriage, not before, not in addition to, but within a marriage. And marriage is one man, one woman, for life. That’s the ideal.
It’s certainly not always achieved but it’s the ideal, or at least it should be the stated ideal.
If one listens to Hollywood, to television, to sports media or even to society in general, it’s far from the ideal. However, there’s a problem. Those groups have a long road littered with shattered lives to prove them wrong.
Think it through guys. When Tiger Woods plays his last golf game, conducts his last interview or eventually lays on his death bed, what do you think will be going through his mind? Will it be the championships, the billion dollars he split with his wife or the accolades of fans? No, I think he will see the hurt on his wife’s face, the empty spots in his mind that should have been filled with scenes of his kids’ birthday parties and even larger blank spots that should have been filled with the achievements that could have been.
When a man strays he can blame a lot of things. The potential list is lengthy. Liquor, drugs, fame, frustration, money, lack of money or beautiful women who place themselves inappropriately in his path. The list may be lengthy or brief but there’s really only one place to put the blame. Look in the mirror
Guys, guys, get it under control. Realize that temptation will always be there as temporary solution to frustration but it’s up to the men to take leadership. Growing up is a process that starts a lot younger than 40 or 50 years of age.

Protests and power

kwaddell — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:39:11 +0000

Protests and power
By Ken Waddell
When the Greenpeace activists breached security at Parliament Hill in Ottawa this past week they should have been offering prayers of thanks. As they scaled the green copper roofs of the West Block of Canada’s parliament buildings they should have known that they can be thankful they pulled off that stunt in Canada and not in China for example. In some countries they would have been picked off with bullets, not fire department ladder trucks.
Personally I think the fire department sent in the wrong truck. They should have sent in the water cannon and told the protestors that they had 10 minutes to get off the roof or be washed off with a water cannon.
The protest was staged to draw attention to the Copenhagen climate conference. Prime Minister Harper is going to attend but he has been quite clear that Canada will not be signing on to another Kyoto type agreement and as Harper said, “wearing it like badge” and not doing anything with it. Harper is correct. Kyoto was a dumb agreement that achieved nothing except spark many debates and conferences.
Climate change is undisputed. The idea that the world is warming is open to debate, and especially so every winter in Canada. A study of history in the Scandinavian counties and Greenland shows that the climate has changed drastically every 1,000 years or so. The last “little” ice age around 1150 AD was certainly not caused by industrialization but it did in fact occur. Neither was the subsequent warming that took place 3-400 years later caused by industrialization as it was pre-indistrial age. Add to that the fact that one volcano can add more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than all of man’s industrial spewing and any logical person would have to ask, “Does it really matter what we do?”

Well, yes, it does matter on a local basis. We should try to keep our air as clean as possible. I’m personally grateful that I never had to use my inhalers when I visited Korea. That country is much cleaner than I thought it would be. Seoul is cleaner than it used to be because of constructed green spaces and construction of buildings, creeks and green spaces in such a way that air circulation and quality is improved.

In Manitoba there’s a cruel irony. We have Manitoba Hydro,whose source of power is electrical generators powered by water held behind large dams. It’s relatively clean but very expensive to construct. Manitoba Hydro has a monopoly on grid power and a monopoly on sourcing other power. That is to say if a company wants to generate wind power or solar power, they have to sell it to Manitoba Hydro. And they have to sell it at a price that Hydro dictates. It’s no wonder there are no alternate power sources in Manitoba. The desire for cheap power, and the fact that we have cheap power means, we waste a lot of power. With a low and wasteful price on our power, no alternate sources will ever be developed.

It’s even more ironic in that cheap hydro power was supposed to bring huge economic benefits to Manitoba. Businesses were expected to flock to Manitoba so they could benefit from cheap power. It didn’t happen and that’s at least in part due to the fact that we have such high taxation that businesses can easily pass us by for better business climates. Why do we have such high taxation? It’s in part to finance the huge debt for Manitoba Hydro.

If we had competition in power production, or if somehow Manitoba Hydro could be more open or receptive to alternative energy, we might see some changes. We can’t sell Manitoba Hydro because it is so resource based and it’s a monopoly. Taxpayers can’t tolerate selling Hydro because it’s so tied to utilizing our water resources and you never place a monopoly into private hands. It’s bad enough that we have Hydro as a monopoly only barely subject to the legislature and the Public Utilities Board. In private hands, with no ties to the legislature or PUB it could be a disaster.

The final turn of irony is that with its hands tied by politics and its extremely high debt load Manitoba Hydro is close to being a disaster already.

A call for help

kwaddell — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:23:37 +0000

A call for help
By Ken Waddell
Rural Manitoba needs help.
Examine the background and a quick look at history will show that rural Manitoba has supplied many things to our cities, to our province, to Canada and internationally.
We export our young people to staff the offices, factories and companies of the world.
In times of war, we send our youngsters off to battle. In fact, McCreary is noted for having sent more men per capita off to battle in WWII than any other centre in Canada. That’s a thought worth pondering as we approach Remembrance Day.
Rural Manitoba has always contributed heavily in many ways.
We feed ourselves and we feed the province, the nation and to some extent the world.
We have educated our best and sent them off to research and develop the best grains, livestock, technology and science known to man.
Whenever the call goes out for people, for food, for ideas, for innovation, for bravery, rural Manitoba has always answered the call.
But the time has come when we need help and especially so in western Manitoba. On two fronts we are being grieved, one passively and one actively.
On the passive side, we are desperately short of good housing. Be it towns like Gladstone, Neepawa, Rivers or Minnedosa, we need affordable housing. In Neepawa we are so short of housing that it’s at a crisis stage. We don’t seem to have the capacity from developers and our town council to make it happen. Neepawa is short at least 150 units of housing as we stand today. But having never had to do “big” housing projects we have not developed the capacity to do so. Neither the money, the expertise nor the ability to manage a project are attracted to area. We need help badly. We need capital, building capacity that goes beyond our own capable trades peoples’ capacity. We need expertise to manage rental and purchased housing projects. And we need it fast.
So the appeal needs to go out, we need help and there’s an opportunity for a reward to those who answer the call. In this area we have 45 Ukrainian families that need housing, 125 Filipino, and over 60 Korean families. And that doesn’t count the shortage of housing that existed before the Hytek-Sprinhill expansion that brought the workers here.
We need help, and considering all that this area has contributed to the well being of Manitoba, I think we deserve it.
On another front we are being actively grieved.
Rural Manitoba is being assaulted by provincial government regulations on waster water management. Farms and rural residential holdings have had septic tanks and fields or pump out ejector systems for decades. About 30 years ago rural holdings were forced to put in ejector systems as it was considered better than a septic filed. Ejectors are efficient and with them sewage is treated in a very cheap way by plant growth, oxygenation, and sunlight. Now ejector systems are about to be banned. Many rural properties will not be able to be sold due to these new regulations. There’s no science behind the regulations. The rationale is one more kick at rural people in the mad-dash by government to pretend to be protecting the environment. Pretend I say, as the City of Winnipeg regularly flushes raw sewage into the Red River.
If there is a problem with individual sewage systems due to inadequate capacity or age then the individual systems should be upgraded. Against that there is no argument. But to take the approach that has been taken by the province is both drastic and unfair, and as is often the case with politically driven solutions, the desired results are not the real results. Even if every sewage system in rural Manitoba somehow was shut down, it would make minimal difference to the lakes and rivers. It’s a matter of simple math. The sewage from 200,000 people filtered out over thousands of square miles can’t possibly have the effect of the sewage from 700,000 people concentrated into a few square miles. Picture all of southern Manitoba and then picture the city of Winnipeg. A rational person should get the picture.
On both these fronts, rural Manitoba needs help and deserves it. Given the gravity of these two situations, we need help fast and and we need it from our city cousins. We can only hope they are listening.

Let’s have honourable holidays

kwaddell — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:06:41 +0000

Let’s have honourable holidays
By Ken Waddell
At the end of the year seems to have more “significant” days than other times of the year. We have Thanksgiving in early October, Hallowe’en on Oct. 31, Remembrance Day on Nov. 11, Christmas on Dec. 25 and Boxing Day on Dec. 26. That’s closely followed by New Year’s Day, which of course is at the beginning of the year but follows so closely on the heels of Christmas that it feels like the end of the year.
How we view each of these days is a study in human behaviour.
Thanksgiving is an obvious celebration. Harvest is coming in, food is abundant. We stop and be thankful for all the blessings that have come our way. It’s an easy holiday to embrace.
Hallowe’en is the strangest of significant days. It’s devoted to a worship of death and all things scary. It has become a huge retail event and that simply baffles me. The celebration, if you can call it that, is focussed on graves, witches, death and gory, scary things. That we want to celebrate this day at all is somewhat amazing and disturbing. Why would we celebrate a day devoted to death? And furthermore, it’s not about a peaceful transitional death that’s talked about in the Christian faith. It’s about a troubled, violent death, the more gore and fright the better.
In my mind, Hallowe’en is one holiday that can pass into the history books and never be re-visited and we would all be better off.
Remembrance Day is quite another matter. While it deals with death and the horrors of war, it shows that in times of trouble, a nation can depend on the fact that good men and women will rise to the defense of the defenseless; that countries can and will work together to fend off evil. It in no way negates the need to avoid war but rather it reminds us all of the possible need for a sacrifice when the stakes are high.
Christmas is about giving. That “God gave his only Son” is the theme message. It has been commercialized and yes, it has been perverted somewhat by many. However, the theme of giving is honoured; there’s the thrill of showing love to one another in gathering and gifting. Only God could give the ultimate gift but we can honour that and each other by giving as best we can. The theme is solid, the message is pure. God gives life to us all initially on earth and eternally in Heaven to those who accept his ultimate gift.
Boxing Day is a bit frivolous but it reflects and extends the Christmas message. It’s a huge shopping day but you have to be a dedicated consumer to survive the rush. It’s better to stay at home and rest up.
New Year’s is a bit different. We celebrate the new year at a rather arbitrarily set date. New is good. Noting where we want to go and where we have been is a good thing. New Year’s is good. If a person stays away from the boozy side of life, it’s even better. The old tradition of kissing a whole bunch of people at midnight is wearing thinner with each passing pandemic. I think SARS pretty much smothered the big kissing thing. H1N1 should about kill it off. Anyway, New Year’s is good.
So out of these late season special days one has to wonder with the abundance of Thanksgiving, the reverence of Remembrance Day, the giving of life emulated at Christmas and the fresh start signified by New Year’s, why would we celebrate the death holiday Hallowe’en?
Beats me, but I know that when it’s over I’m a happier man. If it never started, I would be even happier.

Local solutions the best kind

kwaddell — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:32:35 +0000

If you look at our living room on any given day you are likely to see a pile of newspapers.
I read three daily papers, two by hard copy and one on-line. Each week we get several weekly papers and it’s always interesting to see how different communities handle the same issues.
But before I go any further I must congratulate Greg Sellnger on becoming premier of manitoba. He won his leadership race handily and he obviously generated a lot of support in the NDP party. I know Mr. Selinger fairly well and it’s no secret that I wanted his opponent, Mr. Ashton, to be premier. The reason was both stated and obvious. Mr. Ashton is willing to debate policy much more readily than Mr. Sellinger. The new premier has , in the past, debated little and spent much. He may, in the future, be forced to reverse that priority. I will do my best to be supportive but I will also do my best to point out better and different ways to run the government of Manitoba.
Closer to home, a review of weekly papers shows that every community in Manitoba is facing huge infrastructure deficits. Neepawa has it’s on-going water debate. Rivers needs a new community complex and the old train station stands begging for new purpose and funding. Every other community has an infrastructure problem.
The real problem is that communities, both large and small have, for the most par,t not had a long term plan. Councils are really only required to have a one year budget. A longer term capital plan is loosely cobbled together but few, if any, have a 20 or 50 year plan.
Long term planning should be easier now than it was in 1950. Many of our towns haven’t grown much since then and the experiences they have had have been repeated over and over again. The smaller towns have of course changed, they have shrunk or disappeared. We should be able to see into the future based on the last 50 years experience. We also can more easily measure, plot and map out infrastructure. With computer modeling and computer assisted drawing and plotting we can quickly update a map, a projection or a written presentation. We have more experience and we have more tools than 50 years ago.
What we are lacking is foresight, will and courage.
We need to face the fact that we have limited resources, that government grants are scarce and elusive and that the only thing we can certainly depend on is our own locally, generated resources. Outside funding and investment is welcome but it’s not the norm. We need to look outside for ideas, for research and for best practices but it’s usually internally that we need to cast our gaze for our long term sources of financial resources for infrastructure construction and maintenance.
That said, every councillor and mayor can tell you about a project that if locally designed and locally built would have come in a lot less expensive than the government-funded project designed by a high priced engineering firm. Stories abound doubling and quadrupling of costs are not uncommon.Something as simple as a low level creek crossing assumes astronomical costs as two federal agencies vie for outrageous spending limits, that is the Department of Fisheries and oceans and the navigable waters regulators. Most people would be absolutely astounded at how small a creek can be and still be classified as a navigable waterway. You would think that Pierre Trudeau himself might want to come back to paddle his famous canoe up some little rural Manitoba creek. There have been creeks subjected to these expensive regulations where even the ducks have to walk upstream in July.
You get the point. While we need to look far afield for ideas, we should be able to implement our own solutions.
I wonder if the government is listening. After Mr. Selinger has had a day or two to celebrate and rest we’ll check back and see.

Who calls the shots?

kwaddell — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:29:17 +0000

When the dust settles after the NDP leadership race, Manitobans will have many opinions on the winner and the loser.
No matter who wins the race, Sellinger or Ashton, there will be one big winner who isn’t even on the ballot.
That winner is the labour movement. The unions will decide who the next premier of Manitoba will be.
That was pre-arranged a few years ago when the NDP went away from their plan to have one – member, one – vote. They went back to the delegate system. Even though they had adopted using one – member, one – vote, they went back to the delegate system. The unions are guaranteed 400 delegates at the convention. Now most parties, provincial and federal, have used the delegate system at one time or another. The NDP planned to do so but the unions knew they could control the outcome of a leadership race much better with a delegate quota system. They can control policy conventions much better that way as well.
If another political party, such as the Conservatives, used a delegate quota system but, rather than allocating 400 delegates to the unions, decided another group would be better, what would the reaction be? If the Manitoba Chamber of Commerce or the Keystone Agricultural Producers were allocated 400 votes at a leadership convention there would be a huge outcry. The NDP would cry foul, the media would be howling too. But when the NDP have 400 union delegates at their convention, hardly anyone says a word.
The NDP system of electing a leader is effective and it will get the desired result. The winner will probably get the most union votes. Even if he doesn’t, the new premier will know that, come policy convention or election platform time, he better be union friendly. The unions are the largest controlling block of votes in Manitoba. The aboriginal vote could be very large but they rarely get activated in large groups. The unions control Manitoba politics and they know it. They don’t intend to give up control either.
The NDP system isn’t democratic; it may be effective for the unions but it’s far from democratic. With a one-member, one-vote system, everybody gets a chance to vote. It doesn’t matter whether you are old or young, whether you can travel or not, whether you can afford delegate fees or not, a member gets a vote. You can be a shut-in senior in Grandview with no chance to get to Winnipeg and you can get a say in who the leader of the party will be. It’s a very fair system.
As we get a new premier through a quota delegated system, we’ll know it wasn’t by a democratic or a fair system but we can rest assured that the unions will have had their say. They will continue to have their say, and that’s not a really good thing judging by recent history. Health care will focus on increasing salaries and job numbers. Job numbers equal union member numbers. Results in health care will come fourth to increasing salaries, job numbers and union numbers. Similarly in education, emphasis on salaries, job numbers and union numbers put results in fourth place on the priority list. In industry the same effects will be continuing. Labour unions only look at a company’s bottom line when they absolutely have to do so. Many don’t look at the bottom line until the company has closed down.
We will see a continuation of business stifling legislation such as the payroll tax, tax bracket creep and labour friendly legislation, some of which will simply be bureaucratic rather than helpful.
Manitoba is in for a rough couple of years. Gone is the Doer charm that kept the left-wingers somewhat at bay. The unions will be emboldened and little legislation will be passed that actually helps the economy. If the debt-spending continues at the current rate, Manitoba government debt will rise to $25 billion.
Hopefully, Manitobans will realize soon that government isn’t the answer to every problem but it looks like it will be two more years before they get to say so.

How stupid have the NDP become?

kwaddell — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:08:13 +0000

Or why Greg Sellinger should never be premier of Manitoba
By Ken Waddell
How stupid have the NDP become?
Very stupid indeed. Just read the following quote from the Winnipeg Sun from last Tuesday regarding the prison riot at Brandon correctional facility.
“This is indicative of a system that is under stress and is at the breaking point,” said Ken Crawford, MGEU’s corrections staff representative. Crawford said 72 per cent of 1,763 adult inmates in Manitoba are on remand while the remaining 28 per cent are sentenced prisoners. BCC has beds for 157, but Sunday it housed 282, including 50 who bunk in a gymnasium.
In total, Manitoba jails are currently overcapacity by at least 300 to 400 people. Manitoba jails are filled with many people who are either alcohol or drug addicts or both. Add to that, many are mentally ill and urgently need treatment even to be stabilized, if not rehabbed.
So how stupid have the NDP become? Well, stupid runs pretty deep and the NDP have been in denial for years. First they deconstructed the anti-gang initiative of the previous government. That was stupid, but it was worse than that if you can believe that at least one charged gang member was related to an NDP cabinet minister.
The NDP have been in denial for over 10 years about the true nature of the problem as outlined above. Yes, we have a crime problem but we have a huge overcrowding problem and we a have huge problem with inadequacy of the type of facilities and treatment needed.
How stupid are the NDP?
They blame the federal government for the overcrowding because the federal government doesn’t pass tougher sentencing laws. The last time I checked, the feds tried to pass laws, repeatedly. The last time I checked, the federal NDP, which are closer than cousins to the provincial NDP, voted against such laws. That includes, by the way, the daughter of NDP leadership candidate Steve Ashton, that being Nikki Ashton, NDP MP for Churchill.
How stupid are the NDP?
In the last election they were really stupid. When PCManitoba leader Hugh McFadyen announced his intention to build a 300 unit treatment centre he was scorned by the NDP and the media. How can that be? Why didn’t the NDP embrace the idea and run with it? Why didn’t they say thank you very much and ask McFadyen to call his federal friends and lobby for funding? Why didn’t they do that? Because they are stupid, that’s why.
But, maybe not so stupid. One has to ask what’s the main goal of the NDP under Gary Doer? It’s to get re-elected. Nothing more. As this space has stated before, what has Gary Doer done? Name one solid thing that we can put down in the history books for a legacy? It’s that he got re-elected again and again. So if that’s the goal, and it obviously is the goal, then the NDP aren’t stupid. They are smart. They know that if you want to get elected you ignore the problems and, when you can no longer ignore the problem, you blame the federal government.
Blaming the federal government has become a fine science. Just ask ag minister Roseanne Wowchuk. BSE comes along, blame the feds. Floods come along, blame the feds. The hog industry approaches a collapse, slap on a moratorium and blame the feds.
But as anyone who looks closer than the media headlines will see, the NDP is in fact stupid because Manitoba isn’t going anywhere except backwards. The economy is reasonably good but nowhere near its potential. Jails are double booked, the health system is teetering across the province and has disappeared in most small towns. The livestock industry is collapsing.
And that folks is why Greg Sellnger should not be premier of Manitoba. His only claim to fame is that he isn’t Steve Ashton and he will stay the course set by Gary Doer.
If we fall for that, then we are stupid too.

Why Steve Ashton should be premier of Manitoba

kwaddell — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 03:28:51 +0000

Why Steve Ashton should be premier of Manitoba
By Ken Waddell
Steve Ashton should be premier of Manitoba. At least he should be premier for a short while, say until the next election which is scheduled for fall of 2011.
From personal experience and observation, the reasons are clear that Ashton should be premier.
First of all, let’s deal with the opponents. As of Monday, when Andrew Swan dropped out of the race, about all that I could say from personal experience is that Swan has a deficient personality.
The remaining opponent, Greg Sellinger, has few attributes to his credit either. He’s not terribly personable, but overlooking that deficiency, he has presided over all 10 Doer NDP budgets. He’s never seen a tax dollar he didn’t want to spend. And he’s done it very well, spending now $4 billion a year more than when he took over from the Filmon PC Manitoba government in 1999. And to add insult to injury, he’s done it by sucking every dollar he can out of the federal government.
Turning to Ashton, the story is quite different. In my term as mayor of Neepawa, we had a small flooding disaster in the Town of Neepawa. We applied for help under a the provincial disaster relief program and Steve Ashton, as minister in charge, actually came out to Neepawa to have a look. He made sure that members of council could be there. He even made sure that Ste. Rose MLA Glen Cummings, who of course isn’t NDP, was able to be there. Ashton handled the problem well.
On a more personal note, in my travels Ashton and I have crossed paths a number of times. He always takes time to stop what he’s doing and have a brief chat. He asks me how I’m doing and how things are at Neepawa. Ashton is an experienced politician but even more important, he’s an experienced person.
Ashton has always taken a firm stand on policies. The leadership race is no exception. He has put out many policies, including planning to raise welfare rates, freeze tuition fees and bring in anti-scab legislation. Anti-scab legislation is more politely known as legislation to prevent replacement workers in case of strikes or lockouts.
Ashton puts his policies right out there for all to see. That’s a good thing. With that style of politician you can then have a debate on policy. As strange as it may seem, policy is rarely debated in public, in the legislature or anywhere. With Ashton you know what his policies are and you can examine various options. You can agree with some, and I do agree that welfare rates should be raised a bit. People who genuinely need welfare can’t live on the out-dated rates of assistance. Anti-scab legislation isn’t a good way to take our labour laws. As to tuition fees, one can sympathize with Ashton’s intent but the method is wrong. Freezing tuition fees hasn’t met its intended goal of increasing university access. The problem is deeper than tuition fees and needs to be addressed.
So there you have a mini debate on three policies. One is okay, one is wrong and one is misguided. Debate is pretty simple.
In contrast, name one piece of legislation or one policy that Gary Doer brought in in his 10 years. It’s pretty hard to nail that one down. Gary Doer is a pragmatic politician almost totally lacking in principles. Except for the fact that he worked to get re-elected over and over again, there is no other legacy. Continuing that style and path is what Greg Sellinger is all about. Continuing that path is not what Steve Ashton is all about and that’s why he should become leader of Manitoba’s NDP and the premier of Manitoba.
The NDP should come out of hiding and state their policies. The opposition parties should do the same and let the electorate decide which option they want.
Steve Ashton is definitely a step in the right direction for the NDP and his approach is good for Manitoba.
Manitoba needs a good, solid policy debate on our future. Ashton’s approach is a good start and he should be given the opportunity to govern.

Long overdue

kwaddell — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 02:15:24 +0000

Long overdue
By Ken Waddell

As the good weather continues and the harvest crews have been working hard, it’s obvious that our belated and extended summer is coming to a close. There’s lots of ground to cover so we should all pray for good weather and for our farmers’ safety as they bring in the crops that will feed us all until next year’s food supply comes on stream.
With fall ahead and the inevitable winter coming soon after, it’s perhaps time to reflect on the past summer.
Aside from a difficult and nerve wracking summer for our farmers, there’s been a lot of other stresses that have affected people. It’s very obvious that our society in Manitoba is becoming much more violent. We’ve lost count of how many people have simply disappeared over the past few years. No doubt many have met their death and likely not from natural causes. We obviously have a murderous society here in Manitoba and, as proven last week, not just in Winnipeg. Murder happens in rural Manitoba too and it’s high time we examined why that is so.
Perhaps it’s desperation or passion or outright anger.Much of it is likely gang drug related. And yet we have a government, in some case in all parties who refuse to realize that we have a problem. It’s so much easier to ignore it and hope it will go away. No we have a crime problem in Manitoba and its roots run deep and complicated.
We have had a huge increase in awareness of aboriginal culture over the past decade and rightly so. The heritage is rich and there has been suppression, oppression and abuse. No matter how closely you examine native culture, you can’t you find a place where violence, abuse and murder are condoned in the general aboriginal population. Yet we have people more than willing to excuse violent behavior among aboriginals as somehow acceptable. That’s a cop out and an insult to aboriginal people.
Then there are others willing to blame TV shows or video games or peer pressure or…. Well the list goes on. Violence isn’t acceptable, it should not be condoned and we are reaping the the effects of the societal excusing of unacceptable behavior.
It doesn’t matter what a person’s ethnic background is. Whatever the country of origin, whatever the education level, violence isn’t accepatabe.
So why do we tolerate it?
Is it fear? Is it that we don’t care? Is it that we don’t know what to do? These are partial answers.
The basic anwer lies in the fact that we value life so little. Life is precious. Life is sacred. Everyone knows that deep down in their heart. It’s the original basic instinct. We are wired to survive and we all know that ife is important. It’s hard to tell that by how we behave as a society. As a society we have done many unaccepatable things that downgrade life. We have drifted to the place where adoption is viewed as a poor option to abortion. How stupid is that? We have downgraded care of our elderly to a place where we push mountains of pills at them and just assume they will die soon and the problem will be over. Sound harsh? Just ask some older person in your life how many different pills they take. And just try and get preventative diagnostic testing done at any age in Manitoba. It’s hard enough to get emergency diagnostics done.
On the streets, if a thug doens’t get what he wants he doesn’t just steal Granny’s purse, he kills her. We have car thieves that have stolen dozens of cars, not one or two, but dozens. And they’re still not in jail. We have drug dealers who think nothing of killing to enforce debt collection and make examples of debtors.
God said that we should not murder. Do we really believe that. God’s commandment doesn’t cover war and it can be argued that it doesn’t cover capital punishment but it’s very clear that in day-to-day life we are not to commit murder.
Most often murder and violence come after many other lesser steps down the slippery slope of crime. That means we have to clamp down on crime in every way possible from prevention to punishment. I’m not sure how many wake up calls we need in Manitoba but we should have had enough by now.
We still aren’t really serious about preventing violence and murder or we would have made significant changes.
We get the level of leadership we deserve and the level that we ask for. That applies to government, to church, to business, to everything. Perhaps we should be asking for better. It’s long overdue.

Did we get what we paid for?

kwaddell — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:49:08 +0000

Did we get what we paid for?
In the light of history, the flood of compliments about Gary Doer’s record as premier of Manitoba will look over done and misplaced.
The only amazing thing that Gary Doer has done is to get elected over and over again. In his own words to me personally he said, “ I’ve worked hard to get a systems in place that works so well.” Indeed he has. He set out in his earliest days to become a high ranking politician and he learned well how to do it.
His record will not go down as being anything exceptional except that he got re-elected. And he did that well. All else is open to question. Gary Doer studied the system and learned early on in the union meetings of his youth that you only had to get more votes than the next guy. You don’t even need half, just more than the next guy. Consistently, Doer and the well-oiled union-backed system know very well that all you have to do is get slightly more than two out of 10 voters to vote for you and you win. Five out of 10 don’t vote. The other three spilt between the other two opponents and you win. It works like magic. But it indeed works.
University of Winnipeg political studies professor, Allen Mills said in a Winnipeg Free Press column, “All in all, Doer has been a superbly successful politician, a man of nice impressions but replete with political guile. What a shame that with all these assets he could not have brought 10 years of consistent reform to the province.”
Manitoba farmers will likely all join in congratulating Manitoba premier Gary Doer on both his retirement and his appointment as Canada’s ambassador to the United States. For many, especially in the livestock industry, it will be hard to be gracious. It was Premier Doer after all who threw the hog industry under the bus last year. It was Doer whose government completely dropped the ball on the BSE crisis, something the beef industry hasn’t recovered from in Manitoba.
A National Post editorial said Doer kept government spending in check. The post didn’t read Manitoba’s budgets before they made that dumb remark. He’s increased the budget by 60 per cent, largely based on federal transfer payments.
To be fair, Gary Doer did what Gary Doer set out to do as young man and that was to become premier of Manitoba. But as Mills said it’s shame he didn’t do something along the way. Schreyer, for good or bad, gave us Autopac. Roblin gave us better roads (50 years ago), some modern schools and the floodway. Filmon gave us balanced budgets and in very tough economic times. Remember Paul Martin? He was chasing the balanced budget dream he borrowed from Preston Manning and he achieved it by cutting payments to the provinces. Doer gave us, well he gave us Gary Doer, again and again and again.
Given that the provincial budget went from $6 billion to $10 billion a year in 10 years, we should have had more to show for it. That’s an average of $2 billion per year or $20 billion total.
What should we have had?
We should have had a reformed health care system where people could proactively pursue their own health care profile. A person should be able to buy an MRI or a CT scan whenever they want to so they can establish a baseline medical file so their health can be tracked over the years. Can’t do that in Manitoba.
Health care facilities should be built privately and leased to the government. In Neepawa’s case we would have had a care home 10 years sooner and at half the cost.
We should have had a dozen new or expanded small beef processing plants funded by farmer-owned shares, backed by MACC. Instead, we have no beef processing expansion and a pile of rusty government bought equipment that’s now up for auction at a warehouse in Dauphin.
We should have had huge steps in sewage treatment, effluent to land rather than rivers. We should have had a renewed Winnipeg sewage system, again funded by private-public partnership dollars. We should have had algae recovery programs for biofuel production.
We should have had innovation in roads, public works and farm programs. We should have had an education program where parents could actually tell if their children are learning at acceptable standards.
For our $20 billion dollars we got the status quo and we got Gary. I think we spent too much for what we got. It cost us $20 million to groom Gary Doer to be the ambassador in Washington. It hasn’t been a good deal folks but until the people of Manitoba catch a vision for something more than status quo it’s what we’ll always get. It will be interesting to see if $20 billion and 40 years of public life will transform Gary Doer from status quo politician to statesman.

Treated like dirt

kwaddell — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 01:20:12 +0000

Farmers can be excused if they were a touch bitter about the lot they have been handed by governments over the past few years. In spite of “some” financial help and in spite of “some” very good crops, the livestock industry is on its knees in Canada. Farmers aren’t usually upset with the things that come naturally such as hail or drought or flooding. They know the rules going into farming, those three things can’t be avoided, they just happen. If it were only for the natural stuff that happens, farmers would be in a much better frame of mind.
But there are three things that have happened that are not only beyond farmers control, they are man-made disasters that have befallen farming. Namely the BSE problem, the H1N1 flu being dubbed Swine Flu and on a closer to home basis, the overflow from Winnipeg sewers.
The Winnipeg Sun reported last Tuesday that the sewers of Winnipeg had overflowed into Lake Winnipeg no less that 18 times this summer. Of course, few are blaming the City of Winnipeg for polluting their darling lake, it’s the farmers who get the blame.
BSE has been in the news for about six years and the border closures that resulted from a very few cases of BSE has devastated the beef industry. The more recent misnamed Swine Flu has nearly destroyed the swine industry.
It’s tough to tell who has benefited from BSE and H1N1.
In some ways governments have benefited because by blowing up a small problem into what appears to be a huge problem, governments can masquerade as the saviour of the people. They can say how quickly they acted and how many deaths were prevented. In actual fact, it can’t be proven that any deaths can be directly traced to either the beef or swine industry, so it’s actually a flimsy case. That never has stopped governments from trying to make their point.
As for the government of Manitoba and the City of Winnipeg, they do have a real problem. A city sewer system that’s a 100 years old simply can’t meet today’s standards. When the sewage system for Winnipeg was designed, there were many homes that still had out door privies, outhouses. In fact in the 1960s, houses in Winnipeg’s suburban Fort Richmond still had outhouses. Outhouses didn’t send the sewage to the lake.
In addition, Winnipeg’s sewage systems was designed on 100 year old standards and for a population of 2-300,000 people, not 700,000.
Ironically, the CIty of Winnipeg might be able to capitalize on the problems of Lake Winnipeg. Rather than spending billions on an upgrade, they perhaps could harvest the algae that results from the nutrients in the lake and turn it into biofuel. It’s being done in other places and even if it needs subsidization to do so, it might be cheaper than re-jigging the whole sewage system. The Town of Killarney is desperately looking for a lake solution and their council is checking out algae harvest.
And it’s not as if there’s no information out there on algae and biofuel production. A Google search found 7,200,000 sites in .08 seconds on Tuesday morning so the information is out there if those in charge would take the time to look.
What does all this information mean. Is biofuel possible? Is BSE actually a threat to people? What’s the truth about H1N1?
Here’s the problem. Politicians, higher level bureaucrats and even media are lazy. They don’t think things out, they don’t do much research. They only want short snappy answers that don’t require any work. Plain and simple.
Compared to say traffic accidents, BSE is of negligible, if any, detriment to mankind.
H1N1 has little if anything to do with swine. It’s a flu bug that infects people, mostly those with a weakened immune system or who live in unsanitary conditions.
Farmers are easy to blame for “nutrients” in Lake Winnipeg because they are small enough in numbers that they count for nothing politically in the City of Winnipeg.
Given the informational environment that we live in and given the attitude of many politicians in urban areas it’s no wonder that a few years ago a frustrated farmer spewed out these words in utter frustration, “I hope food gets so scarce that you ba….ds starve in the streets.”
Our few remaining farmers could be excused for being frustrated.
They work with the soil but they shouldn’t be treated like dirt