Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 3, 1990, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press january Page focus social activism required by Terrance Hunsley special to the free press the next decade will require major changes in the Way we Deal with social prob because Many social pro Grams Are based on assumptions which May no longer be these such As unemployment or social As tend to be residual re Stora Tive in they do not intervene in social or the Market but try instead to repair the through in come transfers or subsidized ser in the there will be a demand for More Active inter Venti Onist aimed at prevention of or at resolving them through the development of alternative we entered the present decade with a general perception that the welfare state was in As a it was losing political sup it had become Ove Bureau Crati Zed and insensitive to new As a Broad system of Bene fits and it was under growing financial pressure de Mand was costs were and the world Economy was in pushed by costly new medical growing supplies of the direct and indirect costs of unemployment and demo graphic pressures on benefits for the social costs increased during the first half of the caught up social spending As a proportion of Gross National product went up by about three percentage by the Economy had caught and the growth eased by the end of the social spending had begun to decline As a proportion of and according to the International monetary fund 1986 it should continue to decline for the next 15 or 20 years because our labor Force has grown so we end the decade with the welfare state still very much in although changed in some important ways d costs have been pushed from one service system to in a series of efforts to save d subsidies to Middle and High in come people have been removed from Public visibility by chopping Universal invisible subsidies to High income people have been increased through income tax reductions and higher resp and capital gains stigmatized d benefits for the poor have be come More highly stigmatized in come Protection has been and work for welfare has be come a common d Middle income now constituted mainly of two Low in come have been the target of tax in the our social prob lems will require policy decisions which Are More sophisticated than just increasing spending or for example d closing the poverty Gap until we have reduced poverty by gradually improving programs for but the largest group of the poor Are children and their Young female single parents have the highest poverty their poverty increased from the 1970s to the despite in creased government for according to the Canad an Council on social development the poverty Gap that amount of Money needed to eliminate poverty in con Stant from billion to billion Between 1973 and but if we measured the Gap without government Transfer it would have increased from billion to despite More government poverty in Why because minimum wages did not keep up with Infra and Low wage workers lost the extra government spending became a subsidy to Low wage if we Are to reduce poverty among children and Young Fame we will need to intervene More actively in the labor Market to ensure that Market forces do not continue to create inequality and a different pattern of Federal provincial activity will be so that the Battles to push costs from one to the other do not continue to undermine the As in the present system for Federal benefits Are effectively deducted from provincial social assistance d labor adjustment programs need to be Canada does not have an Active labor Market contrary to swe a leading welfare state coun Canada spends More on traditional welfare than we do on work supporting we tend to warehouse the Unzem Sweden puts much More emphasis on on expand ing Public works and social ser vices to create and on subsidizing the living conditions of lower wage social policy must tackle social d reducing the growth of costly institutional services hospitals Are expensive so Are doctors so Are prisons and institutions for the mentally or the dependent Al in the we tried to divert growth from institutional to Community based they Are supposed to be cheaper and More but the process is not an easy institutions do not give up people May get but the Money to serve them May that May explain Why As Many As half our homeless population Are a psychiatric a if we do not develop adequate we get tremendous pressure on and wind up with Hospital Beds being used for chronic or with expensive nursing if we dont support Foster or families under we wind up with children in in our housing our health care our corrections and crime prevention pro and our labor Market pro we Are trying to shift the emphasis to the but we need to recognize that this also Means a shift of resources and of relying on volunteers or Charity to fill the gaps will not communities need the ability to research their social and to plan and coordinate their pro yet no government funds Are available to support this Essen tial Public bureaucracies must find a Way to empower those communities to do the plan Ning and there Are Many ways that social policies can be More but one of the big challenges of the 1990s will be for them to also be More International in Many of our social both in Canada and around the re sult from the globalization of the the accumulation of wealth within one group tends Al ways to be matched by the impoverishment of Basic rights we need to build an International consensus on Basic and minimum living if inequalities in the world will surely continue to grow and it will be increasingly difficult to enjoy our own when they Are so evidently counter posed by the mis Ery of in the our governments indicated that they would place limits on social they can do but they cannot legis late limits on social if we Are to do something about it will require a much More Active orientation for social policy in the coming Terrance Hunsley is executive director of the Canadian Council on social Raf Sanjenis hands tied by radicals by Robert Stone special to the free press Tehran the inauguration of All Akbar Raf Sanjana As Iran president last August led some optimists in the West to believe that the ayatollahs prag Matic successor was at last a Man to Start bargaining a Sfanjani would fling open the doors and right Down to business Over the hostages in Lebanon they the West is still Rassan Janis speeches have indeed alluded occasionally to the idea of helping to Settle the hostage fiasco and of starting direct talks with but he has presented a confusing and contradictory in some of those same speeches he has also reaffirmed the death sentence on the British author Salman Rushdie and called the United states by All the familiar tiresome even throughout Iran expectations were running the War had been Over for a year and the revolutions final convulsion at the death of its scowling spiritual Leader was people Felt the need to turn Over a new to begin putting the past into want Raf Zanjani the son of a family of successful Pistachio merchants from the desert City of Raf Sanjuan people were saving that at last Here was a Man who could set things there is Little doubt that Rassan Jani wields a great Deal of Power in Post Khomeini Iran but he has proven less effective than outsiders had hoped he would and he has turned out to be a great Deal less powerful than iranians most of his efforts to improve relations with the West and to liberalize the Economy have been under constant attack or openly sabotaged by those who believe such measures betray the ideals of the vast Powers in a Sfanjani enjoys vast executive Powers As president of control of the Security and the armed forces Are All supposed to be his but the constraints he must operate under Are extremely he must defer constitutionally to a majlis Parlia ment which has the Power to impeach him and which has been Dis playing an undisguised Radical its members initiated the current session by choosing a fiercely ant Western Mehdi Karu As their new Veteran revolutionaries who think of themselves As guardians of Kho minis legacy Are still firmly entrenched at every level of the by a Sfanjani does indeed enjoy the reputation of a Man who does not make enemies if he can avoid there has never been any doubt about his he is a Man who knows intimately the value of Compromise Over conflict a Man of action rather than an he also knows that the system he inherited cannot be left As it is because one Way or another it is falling Howato Heslam Ali Akbar Hashe Mira Sfanjani didst emerge to prominence in Iran out of a look at the history of his Rise to Power gives valuable insights into what he might be expected to do with his born in a Sfanjani began his clerical career studying islamic the ology under Khomeini in the holy City of he was imprisoned for his political activities under the Shah and later played an Active but not prominent role in setting up the revolutionary to mites which established Khomeini dominance in it was in the free Orall of the majlis debate that he began to emerge from the Junior ranks of government to make himself the most powerful Man in Iran after the Imam unlike Khomeini who had never used the Telephone until he was 78 years of Rassan Jani Learned quickly How to skilfully manipulate the with the proceedings of the majlis being telecast regularly and with his Mohammed firmly in charge of the nations Broad casting Raf Sanjenis Rise was in the process Hes become master of two of the key tools of the revolution the Xerox machine and the cassette tape his per Sonal Alliance with the top Leader ship of the revolutionary guards made him the spokesman of the most effective military Force in the noise and emotion the West came to know Rassan Jani during this As he presided Over the noise and emotion of the majlis from his seat in the speakers chair he seemed one of the few Brown Robed mullahs who Ever he wore his turban at a Jaunty Angle and a tiny Wisp of hair showed Over his beardless but make no a Sfanjani has never been pro Western nor is he a furthermore he is decidedly not a he can be counted upon Only to pursue the interests of the Iran created by the Mullah led 1979 revolution against the his about what constitutes Iran interests Are dramatically different from those of his he understands instinctively that people need More than inspiring to prevent Iran Economy from sinking permanently into third world hopeless Ness he must employ men with More ability than in this a Sfanjani is More con strained than he expected to with less flexibility than he had a Sfanjani has lost some of his Shine both at Home and his supporters say he is a patient Man and is waiting for his they Point out that Hes also still Small achievement in the Quicksand of Iran unresolved a Sfanjani after one Trade pacts benefits doubted what a difference a year just 13 months the conservatives were winding up their successful reelection Campaign with a three color newspaper that represented something new in Canadian political in party colors of White and the newspaper proclaimed the ten big lies being peddled by the liberals and new democrats about the free Trade the newspaper was the Climax of a deliberate tory strategy during the last half of the Campaign not just to attack their opponents but to silence stifling free and open it was it was auth Ritari and it the ten big lies were followed by a series of Proftay testimonials from prominent individuals and said the Canada West foundation the greater Access to and Security of the Market will be a positive development for Export oriented primary and manufacturing industries throughout Western said Katie economist at the Howe Institute the expanded eco nomic prospects that free Trade would bring Benefit All said former Alberta Premier Peter Lough eed the agreement is a launching pad for our said Peter president of Canfor Forest company opponents of the agree ment argue free Trade will cause Canada to lose jobs and Trade to the yet history proves just the when tariffs go Trade will go As the fat passes its first Annivera that newspaper stands As a testament to a style of political Campaign Hope never to see Frances Russell it also serves As a measure of performance against by Labelling opposition arguments against the fat the conservatives promised the fat would pose no threat to Universal social programs or to Canadian sovereignty and distinctiveness protect present jobs and create new ones provide an average a year saving for Consumers be a shield against protectionism above expand under the Guise of fighting the the government has terminated universality in family allowances and old age both Are now to be confiscated from canadians with incomes Over Federal funding for health care has been reduced twice since the tories took Power and further cuts Are expected in the 1990 there Are reports that Ottawa May cease All Cash contributions to leaving the provinces free to alter their programs at effectively abolishing National health after a steady decrease in american ownership in Canada Over the past 15 years from per cent in 1970 to per cent in the rate of especially takeovers of Canadian Enterprise now forms a graph line headed straight More than 30 per cent of All no financial Indus tries in Canada Are by con Only three per cent of business is in foreign a major investment the billion is the single largest shareholder in the newly privatized air investment Canadas recent report on its first four years shows that of billion in new foreign investment to june 96 per cent represented takeovers of Canadian business Only four per cent represented new the Mulroney government talks constantly about How the billion deficit limits its fiscal it says nothing about How the foreign ownership it pursues and the fat encourages limits Canadas Freedom and therefore its High Levels of foreign ownership Force Canada to run a perpetual deficit in Trade in investment and in Canadas net investment income deficit was a record the rate for the first half of 1989 Points to another record of these figures do not include foreign retained earnings in by the end of Canadas Overall for eign indebtedness was More than 38 per cent of Gross Domestic it is now approaching 40 per in it stood at per until canadians could count on partially offsetting that dismal situation with a healthy surplus in Trade in but is plummeting under the most in the last year due to the soaring Dollar and High interest in when the tories were sworn Canadas merchandise Trade surplus stood at it Sank to less than half that in to billion for the first three quarters of 1989 in the month of to a deficit of this is the first merchandise Trade deficit since Canadian Consumers Are but by an estimated billion shopping spree in the statistics Canada reports someday visits to the Rose per overnight 11 per since the Canadian retailers in Border communities Are suffer ing and expect their situation to Worsen when the goods and services tax comes in Manitoba jobs have been lost due to fat restructuring Plant clo sures or social programs Are not Canadian jobs and living standards Are not economic and political sovereignty is not the ten big lies were not but issues in dispute in they Are coming True in doonesbury by Garry Trudeau senator dams i sma10r Ponall senator 1 1hink its kza71n6 Pip or but what Pip you to him Pip you try to an a for him with the Heap of indicate a w own or Pip As Al intervene a6bnt5 latopsiaiho1kb senator Bank i of How his checks ;