Make Pallister a one-term premier

Province can cut more than $20M in education funding: KPMG report

KPMG has told Education Minister Ian Wishart there are tens of millions of dollars in cost savings to be squeezed out of the public education system — immediately, if he chooses.

In its massive financial report on government spending, KPMG says it's unfair to give $26.1 million to 22 of Manitoba's 37 school divisions that don't deserve the money under the province's complex funding formula....

So You Hate Capitalism. What's the Alternative?

Wednesday, May 23 at 7 PM - 9 PM

Millennium Library, Anhang Room

251 Donald Street, Winnipeg

Climate change. Famine and war in the Global South. Jobs getting worse, growing debt and attacks on public services everywhere.

This is just some of what the capitalist system is doing to the world. But is there a positive alternative? Is capitalism the end of history? Or could capitalism be replaced with a better society? If so, what does that mean for us today? If you're sick of the system, join us for a discussion.

*Free childminding will be provided for this event. Please let us know in advance if possible to let us know if you need a spot.

*Accessibility note: the Millennium Library is a wheelchair accessible building. Please contact us as soon as possible if you have any other accessibility needs and we will do our very best to fulfill them.

This is the second piece in a three-part blog series.

Why is the Manitoba Left Struggling?

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5. Electoral Politics No Replacement for Organizing

Decades of neoliberalism coupled with limited fightback by unions in Manitoba have helped create a culture in the prairies and other parts of Canada where unions place the bulk of their “political action” on parliamentary and electoral politics.

Conversations with elected union leaders in Manitoba confirmed this. One elected union leader said a core means to get rid of the Tories is “being active and being engaged and involved in the Party [ie. Manitoba NDP]. Volunteering and working for them and encouraging others to do the same.”

The problem with this approach is that there is virtually no non-electoral mobilization taking place outside of fragmented protests and small advertising campaigns. (There are some positive exceptions to this.)

The absence of an effective popular campaign that is waged through collective political action in workplaces and communities is giving the PCs a free pass. As stated in the first post in this series, popularity for the PCs is actually rising.

It’s time to build popular fightback against the PC agenda and there are plenty of good building blocks to work with. In short, it’s time to organize.

This is the third and final piece in a three-part blog series.

Five Ideas for Building the Manitoba Activist Left

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5. Support Organizing and Movements

Most unions and organizations in Manitoba have limited capacity when it comes to a core base of members or organizers. The majority of the grunt-work is done by a dedicated few, who often work on multiple campaigns and occasionally burn out.

When opportunities for temporary coalitions around a specific mobilization or campaigns exist, it is worth making the tent big, even if there are groups at the table that you disagree with. Education work becomes essential here as it’s important to have a broadly shared perspective and common goal.

One of the benefits of working together is that campaigns, actions, and plans can be coordinated. Groups without anything on the immediate horizon can contribute personnel and resources to aid the cause when an action or event is taking shape.

Campaigns and actions organized by unions and groups like Communities Not Cuts, Manitoba Energy Justice Coalition, Fight for $15, CUPE 204, teachers, nurses and others are just a few examples of opportunities to collaborate.

Supporting organizing and movements by contributing resources and – most importantly – personnel, helps build a culture of solidarity that must be cultivated across unions, communities and grassroots groups during these difficult times.

The activist left in Manitoba already has several amazing organizers in grassroots groups, community organizations, and trade unions. There is emerging potential and momentum, however slow-brewing. Planning should be underway now to create a season of discontent this fall that builds ongoing momentum into 2019 while Pallister retreats to his Costa Rican villa.

Manitoba Hydro’s dirty power — and dark legacy

A new Clean Environment Commission report released this week is another reminder that there’s nothing “clean” about the power produced by Manitoba Hydro.

The Crown corporation has neither a clean environmental record nor a clean conscience when it comes to sabotaging the lives and livelihoods of Indigenous people in the north over the past half-century.

The 86-page report is a review of a joint Manitoba Hydro/provincial government “cumulative effects assessment” launched in 2014 on the impact of Hydro developments along the Nelson, Burntwood and Churchill river systems over the past 60 years. Naturally, government and Hydro didn’t think to consult the people directly affected by the developments when gathering their evidence. That was an afterthought, a consultation process carried out subsequently by the CEC. It wasn’t until 2017 that the current provincial government amended the CEC’s terms of reference to expand that consultation process to include in-person hearings.

It was from these hearings that we learned of the alleged sexual assaults perpetrated by male workers against Indigenous women in the 1960s around the northern town of Gillam — the ones Sustainable Development Minister Rochelle Squires referred to the RCMP Tuesday — and of the many other horror stories around how Hydro walked into northern communities and shoved Indigenous people off their land, razed their homes, bulldozed their playgrounds, segregated their kids on separate school buses and destroyed their livelihoods.

Apparently, that was business as usual in northern Manitoba when it came to building hydro dams and transmission lines and setting up work camps and temporary digs for Hydro staff and their families.

“The things that happened, that changed so fast was the people who came into the community of Gillam,” Marie Henderson, an elder from Fox Lake Cree Nation who described at a hearing in January what it was like growing up in Gillam when Hydro came to town. “I remember hearing in Cree, that means electricity. And I couldn’t really understand what was really talked about, until I started seeing people coming into the community with all of these changes happening, wrecking the town that I lived in, taking over the community, wrecking our playground, wrecking the land that we so enjoyed…”

It was a nightmare, basically. And it put an end to a life of self-sufficiency for the local Indigenous population, as the construction of dams and transmission lines turned the ecosystem on its head, resulting in massive flooding, deforestation, blocked transportation routes, contaminated water and displaced game, the CEC report found....

jerrym wrote:

epaulo13 and Aristotleded24 

Thanks for your illuminating articles. 

Add my thanks, please. Just because we don't always comment, doesn't mean we aren't reading and learning.

First Nation demands inquiry into violence linked to hydro development

A northern Manitoba First Nation is calling for a provincial inquiry into racism, discrimination and violence linked to hydroelectric development on its territory.

York Factory First Nation Chief Leroy Constant said Premier Brian Pallister should order an inquiry into the Crown-owned Manitoba Hydro.

“They need to acknowledge the collective and individual trauma that has been occurring through northern hydroelectric development in the province,” he said at a Winnipeg news conference Friday.

A report released last month by the province’s Clean Environment Commission — an arm’s length review agency — outlined discrimination and sexual abuse at the Crown utility’s work sites in the 1960s and 1970s. The report said the arrival of a largely male construction workforce led to the sexual abuse of Indigenous women and some alleged their complaints to RCMP were ignored.

The report said there was also racial tension, environmental degradation and an end to the traditional way of life for some Indigenous people.

Since the release of the report, Constant said traumatic memories have resurfaced in the Indigenous communities hurt by hydro development.

First Nations have tried to bring the issues up in the past, but Constant said it always fell on deaf ears. He said issues with hydro development, including harassment and racism, continue to this day.

“It’s impacted women for decades, since the ‘50s and nothing has changed. Women are still treated the same as then,” said York Factory Coun. Evelyn Beardy.

“I want to see a day where, before the project is done, that my member doesn’t phone me and say she’s been called a savage or she’s walking down the hallway and has been groped. I’d like to see that stopped. It has to stop.”....

..time for me to have a peek inside wpg's finances. i see no better place for me to begin than the alternative budget that came out in jun of this year.

Imagine a Winnipeg...

Alternative Municipal Budget 2018

Imagine a Winnipeg... Alternative Municipal Budget, Winnipeg 2018 is a  community effort that dares to imagine a greener and more equitable Winnipeg. Placed in a balanced financial framework, this is a tough love  budget that challenges Winnipeggers to grapple with growing inequality, climate change and a formidable infrastructure deficit. It also calls on the  province to shoulder more of the heavy lifting when it comes to these issues.

Can the Alternative Budget capture the imagination of Winnipeggers? Our collective future depends on it.

Manitoba is Ready to Fight for $15 and Fairness

Manitobans have been pushing for a $15 minimum wage for years. In 2016, students and labour organizers participated in a National Day of Action and delivered a petition to the University of Winnipeg. Last year, the Canadian Federation of Students ran a campaign on billboards and busses. In the media, the Manitoba Federation of Labour has repeatedly pushed for Brian Pallister’s government to help lift Manitobans out of poverty by mandating a minimum wage that is fair.

Make Poverty History Manitoba has also called for a $15.53 minimum wage, citing research by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives that states $15.53 as the province’s current living wage.

Now, it’s time to build on the foundations that have been laid and get out to communities and workplaces. Fight for 15 & Fairness Manitoba wants to ensure that every Manitoban working a low-wage precarious job has the opportunity to participate in the struggle to improve their conditions....

https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/almost-half-of-decided-manitoba-voters-suppo...

The results show that across the province 44 per cent of decided or leaning voters would support the Progressive Conservatives , 25 per cent would back the NDP and 20 per cent would vote Liberal. Only eight per cent of respondents said if the election were tomorrow they’d check the Green Party on their ballot.

..from an email

Counter Protest on November 4th, 2018

Every fall, anti-abortion protesters picket for 40 days in front of the Women's Hospital, pacing and praying on the sidewalk wearing "Regret Your Abortion?" placards. They claim they're not there to antagonise anyone, but their mere presence is a form of harassment to passersby and especially to people trying to access reproductive services.

On September 30th, a small group of feminists and allies met them on the sidewalk with signs, noisemakers, and a pro-choice marching band to drown out their hateful messages. We hope to get a much bigger crowd out for November 4th, the last day of their vigil.

Please join us to stand up for bodily autonomy and to celebrate reproductive freedom!

Sunday, November 4th

1:00 pm

735 Notre Dame Avenue (Women's Hospital, Health Sciences Centre)

Feel free to bring signs*, noisemakers, and friends!

....

Organizing Meeting on October 19, 2018

We will be holding an organizing meeting on Friday, October 19th at 8:00 pm at the University of Winnipeg, room still to be decided. We're also planning a sign-making party for closer to the date.

Women's March Winnipeg

Saturday, January 19, 2019 at 11 AM – 2 PM

Manitoba Legislative Building

Women United

One of our biggest goals during this march is to encourage a larger sense of unity within the women's groups and communities locally in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Internationally. While individually our reach is only so far, as a united force our waves can be that much larger.

Please join our rally on the steps of the Manitoba Legislative Building at 11:00 A.M. on Saturday January 19, 2019. #WomenUnited

Once gathered we will hear from three amazing speakers - Charlotte Nolin, Samantha Rayburn Trubyk, and Vivienne Ho. Our speakers will be followed by a March around the Legislative grounds.
Please watch for individual biographies of each of our speakers to be posted in this event.

At the march we will be collecting donations to expand our Women’s March Winnipeg chapter. These donations will be used for things like printing chant sheets, making posters and buttons for future events, and hosting future events.
If you are interested in joining our chapter and volunteering with us please reach out to [email protected]

The right to the city as a foundation for social justice

A view from the streets of Winnipeg

The right to the city comes out of critical theory, a branch of intellectual thought originating in the early 20th century at the University of Frankfurt. The Frankfurt School consisted of a group of radical scholars who theorized about the rise of mass popular culture and its effect on society. A December 2016 New Yorker article by Alex Ross, “The Frankfurt School Knew Trump was Coming,” points out how relevant their ideas are today: “The combination of economic inequality and pop-cultural frivolity is precisely the scenario [Theodor] Adorno and others had in mind: mass distraction masking élite domination.”

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The fundamental role that urban centres play in capitalism has only intensified under neoliberalism. We see it in what Brenner et al. refer to as the hyper-commodification of urban land, housing, transportation, utilities and public space. Housing prices in Vancouver and Toronto are driven sky high by speculation (see Michal Rozworski’s article in the November-December 2018 Monitor); public transportation has declined in many cities while single-use vehicles and app-based ride-sharing services choke our deteriorating roadways; developers exercise almost total control over urban spaces like True North Square in Winnipeg. These are all examples of how cities are built to meet the needs of profit rather than people.

The right to the city is valuable not only for helping us understand urbanization: as a theoretical framework, it is also extremely useful in helping us build resistance to mass consumerism and corporate control of our cities. The right to the city provides the impetus for those who are socially and economically excluded to take back the direction of their lives—to “expose, propose and politicize,” as Marcuse puts it. Groups working on single-issue campaigns including social housing, job creation, environmental issues, workers’ rights and poverty reduction, as well as anyone working within more transformative campaigns to disrupt neoliberalism and colonization, can mobilize under the RTC banner.

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Exposing, proposing and politicizing in Winnipeg

Whereas a city like Winnipeg displays all the usual characteristics of neoliberal urban development—the dominance of developers, ever expanding suburbs and car-friendly infrastructure—its large Indigenous population means the way groups might collectively respond to this type of urbanization will differ from, say, Toronto or Vancouver. Decolonization must play a part in any RTC movement in Canadian Prairie cities like Winnipeg.

There are a number of initiatives in Winnipeg that align with a RTC philosophy even though they have not been expressly framed that way. We propose that more consciously framing our efforts under the RTC banner would draw out how much they share in common, with the potential to strengthen a co-operative power base from which we are more likely to achieve our social justice goals.

Millions in federal funding that could lift Manitobans out of poverty, homelessness sitting on the table

Millions in federal dollars that could make its way to Manitoba is sitting on a negotiating table, rather than benefiting thousands of people who are living in substandard housing or homelessness.

Access to genuinely affordable, adequate, safe and stable housing continues to be the biggest challenge facing low-income Manitobans. So when the federal government introduced the National Housing Strategy in 2017, Manitoba's Right to Housing Coalition was cautiously optimistic that we would see an increase in the much-needed supply of social housing where rent is geared to income.

However, the Manitoba government has yet to negotiate a bilateral agreement to bring new federal housing dollars to the province.

Other provincial governments have begun to address the Canada-wide housing and homelessness crisis by signing bilateral agreements. Ontario is throwing in $2.1 billion and B.C. nearly $500 million over a 10-year period, which will be cost-matched by the federal government.....

The story of Helen Armstrong, a working class woman and mother who blazed through the constraints of sex and class to become a legendary union organizer and strike leader for women workers in one of the most explosive labour confrontations in Canadian history--the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919.

..from an email

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Great to see so many folks at last night's meeting! We talked about several topics, but the most time-sensitive issue is the city budget. We confirmed yesterday that there is no funding increase for service.

There is a small increase in funding for capital expenditures in this budget - namely for driver safety shields and additional bus shelters. There is, however, no additional funding for transit service in this budget and at yesterday's Public Works Committee meeting yesterday we confirmed the city plans on maintaining status quo service levels - ie no improvement to frequency, reliability or overcrowding.

The city's climate change plan calls for increasing the number of trips by Winnipeggers by transit from 8% to 15% by 2030. To do that, ridership will need to increase by 5.88% per year by 2030. By refusing to increase funding for service, the city is choosing to ignore their own climate change report and climate change in general.

While the city claims that they are in a tough budget year, the reality is they have the power to make tax and spending decisions. Additionally, public transit was reported as Winnipeggers' top priority in the 2019 budget consultation. It is shocking that the city chooses to neglect service given the mandate given to them by their constituency and the necessity posed by climate change.

Improving service means buses are less overcrowded, arrive more frequently and are more reliable. Research on public transit has found that these features are most important to enticing riders to use the system. That means in order for the city to meet their own climate change goal, improving service necessary. 

Attached are some images and charts to assist in understanding our current situation. FTW asks that our members and supporters sign up to speak at the Executive Policy Committee meeting on Wednesday, March 13 at City Hall. Climate change and the demands of Winnipeggers must not be ignored. If you have any questions about the budget process or about the information shared here, please send me an email or call me at 204-232-2023. I will be available all weekend any time and I am happy to explain anything from this budget in greater detail.

To register to speak at the March 13 Executive Policy Committee meeting, contact 311.

..from an email

I know it's been a lot of emails in the last few days. For the folks who just signed up for emails, just know we don't normally crowd your inbox as much as we have been over the last week. But given that the city wants to freeze transit service, contacting your city reps is very important.

This is just a quick reminder to sign up to speak at EPC if you are able to. If not, you can give your councillor a call and let them know how important it is to boost service funding. Your phone call can be as simple as telling your councillor that you are one of their constituents and you want them to increase the service budget for Winnipeg Transit.

You can find your councillor's contact info here: https://www.winnipeg.ca/council/wards/#/2018

To sign up to speak at EPC, contact 311: https://winnipeg.ca/shared/mailforms/311/contact.asp

Fight for $15 and Fairness Manitoba

Workers demand a $15 minimum wage, criticize Pallister’s 30-cent increase

The Manitoba chapter of Fight for $15 and Fairness is calling the provincial government’s paltry 30-cent increase a cruel and cowardly method of increasing the minimum wage in Manitoba.

“What this province needs is a minimum wage that can stand up to the pressures of life and make sure workers aren't in poverty. Poverty is not acceptable,” stated Fight for $15 and Fairness organizer Tanya Andrusieczko. “Manitoba needs a $15 minimum wage now, and this insignificant increase is just not enough.”......

It seems that far too often we seem to be attracting the wrong kind of candidates. We need to find a way to stop the 'who gets the next government contract' focused candidates, and get candidates who are running to improve the lives of the less fortunate ones in our society.  The key is for voters though is to do a little detective work and find out before they vote which candidates are straight shooters and who are bullshit artists.