Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 24, 1985, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press january Page How native by Lionel Orlikov special to the free press native women encounter multiple problems in seeking they suffer As and also As even in Good economic they find it difficult to obtain Good in these Days of High unemployment they stand even fur ther behind in the lineup for when native women earn less than native those employed Are concentrated in Low status often without Job native women succeed in More prestigious and skilled jobs such As social work and health when Given the Manitoba can show Many such successes in programs where native women form a Large sometimes a majority in their since the provincial Job training program new careers has trained hundreds of less advantaged Manitoba adults Low income and unemployed people and those with limited graduates of this two year work study program directly enter Vari Ous jobs including resource Library technician and chemical abuse the program has a dropout rate of about 20 per cent which is especially for a group often erroneously denigrated As the Winnipeg education Centre trains Core area Low income Resi recent in teacher and social worker degree courses under the authority of the University of the 100plus students take a regular College pro Gram with additional remedial classes have been taught off Campus since in part in order to build in More Job and Community activities into the a program coordinated by the Core area training and employ ment providing one year of training in residential child recently graduated 11 of whom were mostly All Are now employed in such agencies As Knowles Chil Drens and sir Hugh John an expansion of a credential course at red River Community this program is one of a number generated by the enhancing employability the three programs greatly enhance the employability of native each recruits trainees from a population who Are denied employ even entry into mainline places of education and native women in particular Lack education credentials Only two out of every 100 Grade 2 students Complete Grade Many Are unable to obtain work experience in isolated these programs con sequently provide remedial Educa Job related training and work academic and ont Ejob Stan Dards Are new careers trainees have to measure up to Job standards in the Public service and nongovernmental the Rel Evant managers responsible for the designated jobs have a Strong role in the design of in class and on the the teacher and social worker candidates do not received watered Down the native participants have to although usual Entrance requirements Are selection procedures do recognize that learn ing can take place outside a school time spent coordinating a Volunteer working As a teacher participating in a non credit All comprise lessons in often More relevant a Grade native women succeed both in Tough training programs holding Complex and sensitive jobs and usually keeping a family in recounting the advances that have taken one must add the single native women still do not have an equal when they achieve specified qualifications for particular native women Are less Likely than Nonna Tives to get the take teach ing As an during the Brandon University prepared natives for schools near reserves and Metis settlements in southwestern Many of the graduates never were employed by school Divi Sions that could have used native some very qualified graduates of the Winnipeg eduction Centre Are they should be in High if Only because some Core schools approach almost 100 per cent native limited value a commitment to nondiscrimination to be color Blind has had limited unconscious discrimination when employers hire people like Nonna the fairness implied in Equality of employment Opportunity suffers As subjective judgments Are applied at some remedial actions on behalf of native people have been linked to nondiscrimination in employment natives have less knowl Edge of available Job for and native oriented counselling for women and outreach recruitment services were Organ these special activities serve to Foster Competition by removing inappropriate disadvantages held by special Finan Cial Aid is granted native women with family responsibilities while they Are these extra resources and Assis Tance to promote the entry of More natives into More and higher Quality jobs have been publicly As Long As nonnative Are not openly penalized in the numbers have had to remain relatively consequently a policy of nondiscrimination with modest special ser vices has not ensured significant and rapid native advances in employ it has become evident to some in Public policy formation that a much More aggressive policy must be government activities in employ ment would Centre on preferential the Manitoba govern for is expected to introduce its affirmative action plan in each department in preference in hiring qualified applicants would recognize the special employment needs of women and the physically Handi an affirmative action plan is re it emphasises a fail Cross Section of the Manitoba popu lation in equal Opportunity in on the other hand it relies upon judgments of a subjective at the entry rather than at the with evidence of unemployment of disadvantaged Public controversy about preference for native women will persist in Manitoba through the 1980s be cause the Issue inescapably involves Basic values and what number of native women should be hired for which Job categories How far Are individual rights to be subordinated to that of which forms of Relief can counter the effects of years of previous societal discrimination against native women what is Clear As one looks at an Uncertain future is that native women succeed when Given the of poor economic discrimination in the workplace and a legacy of inadequate supports in eduction have combined to Handicap they Are not fail Lionel Orlikov is an educational Manitoba has several programs that help native women to overcome Lack of thus opening a larger Range of employment living with economic dependency by Richard Gwyn special to the free press Ottawa in the approved Aca Demic British economist Michael stewarts recently published controlling the economic fun alternates Between the unread Able and the Stewart does express one Centra idea which is very much to the Point these this is that National governments can no longer run their nations As he puts it National economic sovereignty is an evidence to support this analysis is easy to come the Oil crisis of a decade ago gave us our first lesson in International today debt crisis is teaching us the same lesson if big like Mexico and Brazil go so will our Banks How Well we do depends therefore upon How Well Mexico and Brazil and the rest French president Francois Mitterrand has provided the clinching As socialists Are supposed to he set out when new in office to cure unemployment by spending in the frenchmen moved their Money investors stopped sending any More Money the franc inflation Rose and unemployment remained As High As the next question to be addressed if governments can no longer run their nations How should they keep themselves occupied How can that maintain the illusion that they still Are doing something useful for their own Stewart does not provide any an other than to in vague about How National govern ments should coordinate their economic policies with each an answer relevant to what is happening in Canada is contained in a review of stewarts sent to me by a Friend and written by a David Marquand for the London review of according to National governments today have two they can give up trying to manage the Economy and instead fight inflation by to break the Power of organized labour by allowing unemployment to or they can establish systems of corporatist consensus building in which labour and the state bargain together to Settle the distributional conflicts which set the wag Cost spiral in if government allows unemployment to do its inflation fighting Job for the state retains its Power at the Cost of shedding one of its most important writes mar if it opts for consensus build it retains its functions at the Cost of sharing its the corporatist consensus option is obviously the nicer How human nature being the Way it company managers and Union leaders Are unlikely to give up their old ways until they have first been battered by High unemployment and corporate we have had outrageously unemployment the past three now the Mulroney government is trying consensus build being the total pragmatist that he prime minister Brian Mulroney certainly has not arrived at his policy of consulting everybody about everything out of some grand intellectual even More certain he will not at All appreciate being called a since the first one was the italian dictator Benito in there is no need for the Label corporatist to give off a whiff of Many of the most successful Western economies follow corporatist including West in All these la Bour and business and government bargain Between them acceptable increases in wages and Mulroney pre budget economic or talk fest by representatives from Consumers and other which most probably will be held in will provide the first real test of whether the corporatist Model can be made to work in this is not quite the first test of Back in at the time he introduced his ant in Flati onary wage and Price then prime minister Pierre Trudeau talked about it controls is a massive intervention in the decision making Power of economic and its telling canadians the free Market system int at its convention the following Cana Dian labor Congress delegates passed a Resolution calling for so Cial the business Community went Ber Union leaders changed their Trudeau said he had been and never mentioned the need for new since three things have Hap we have gone through the worst recession since the great de we have Learned the limits to National economic have watched France try and fail to break those and far from we Are led by Mulroney rather than by a pragmatist rather than an was agriculture minister Billie Ruskis Call for United action to Deal with the farm financial crisis a political ploy or a sincere Effort to bring about Concrete action there is Little argument about the seriousness for certain Manitoba As farm bankruptcies Dou bled in 1982 and others were in the provincial government introduced an interest rate Relief program which eventually provided about despite problems in a tory Survey indicated at least Manitoba farm ers would be in trouble by the end of the year and critic Jim Downey placed the blame on the nip governments failure to provide substantive economic he also urged More pressure on Ottawa for Federal although department officials estimated Only 500 Farmers in Uruski agreed with Downey on one wanted the Federal government to ease the crisis by slashing interest rates immediately and increasing financial since Little in 1983 the province acted on its by setting up a guaranteed farm operating loan which would provide Short term credit up to million at an interest rate no higher than one per cent above the prime financial institutions would make up the majority of with the Manitoba agricultural credit Corpora Tion responsible for per cent of All Loans because the plan did not cover existing Loans and tories under the dome Arlene Billinkoff were not they More supportive of the provinces establishment of Farmer debt review panels to mediate be tween financially trapped Farmers and Banks and planned Federal legis lation to defer farm debts and set up arbitration despite those bankrupt cies continued to with 65 in compared to 30 the previous the figures did not include those who had quietly folded their tents and moved farm fail ures continued to increase in 1984 and one official estimated that As Many As farms would be in Many of those were operated by younger people who were attempting to Cope with Large Loans taken out at the High in Terest rates of when Calls were heard for either Federal or provincial intervention to prevent those operations from going Uruski said the province had done All that was it was time for Ottawa to ease the debt he but the Bill which would have deferred debts had died on the order the Saskatchewan did act and introduced a farm land Security Bill to prevent foreclosures and give Farmers an Opportunity to Cope with debt a total debt moratorium would be placed on All Mort gages until provincial tories were not certain that was the Best but urged the government to consider reducing interest rates offered through the Macc and persuading Bankers to give Farmers a Uruski was equally Uncertain about the Saskatchewan plan and preferred Feder Al considering that no one should have been surprised by the ministers Call for a massive action to be developed at a National meeting of representatives of lend ing institutions and the Federal and provincial possible action included a write Bas farm bankruptcies Down of outstanding farm credit interest rates to eight per with future Loans at a rate no More than three percentage Points above the prevailing rate of he also wanted the Federal government to reintroduce amendments to the bankruptcy and insolvency which provided court ordered debt arbitration with Powers to reschedule was time for All governments and private lending institutions to work Uruski and if the others were Manitoba in tended to drop Macc Loans to sin Gle digit interest rates and introduce a program to meet the needs of younger there was a Lack of with great reluctance Manitoba would introduce its own farm debt adjust ment the ministers sincerity made the revelation that Macc was increasing the interest rate of some Loans to 13 per cent from 11 per some what but even that became there was a generally negative reaction to the Bank officials said a Universal Low interest rate would not resolve the problem while it might help those in it would harm those who had managed their operations they also questioned whether lenders could afford to make Loans at lower others appreciated the but were concerned about the in fearing that if interest rates were held Down invest ment Money would leave the coun thus leading to increased com petition for Loans and pressure for higher meanwhile the tory critic regarded the announcement As pure political political strategy definitely is a if the government introduces farm debt adjustment it is Likely to be attacked for its authoritarian therefore last weeks announcement May have been planned As Only the first act in a two part with the governments belief that the rejection of the original proposal would pro vide some justification for another financial doonesbury thou own your5a Guy not woulpb5such Aso Opi by Garry Trudeau Mil heaps my ;