Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - June 2, 2001, Winnipeg, Manitoba A18 pin 2001 comment editor Terence Moore 6977044 editorials Freedom of Trade Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights desperate farms Premier Gary doer found Little support at the Western premiers meeting in Moose jaw for his demand that the Federal government Dou ble its financial help for the silence of provincial governments on the subject diminishes the already Small Chance that the Federal govern ment will come up with further the improving state of farm incomes gravely weakens the Case for new taxpayer support for doer sought the support of other Western Canadian governments for a joint demand for fed eral farm but the premiers communique asked Only for a fuel tax break for when irate Farmers turned up at the legislature in March demanding enhanced farm doers government promised to seek More from since farm rage has subsided and govern ments have turned to other net Cash incomes of Canadian farms last year increased for the first time in three Statis tics Canada reported this net Cash income of Manitoba farms but when you allow for growth in the value of far owned inventories of calves and the total net income of Manitoba farms last year was double that of the preceding year and far ahead of the average for the last five in these it is hard to prove that All of agriculture is in crisis or that nobody can survive on the land these some farm sectors Are doing but you have to be producing the right any Way you slice producers of wheat and oilseed Are still doing Price signals year after year Are telling those producers to find some other crop to produce or some other use to make of their skills and their this year is Likely to see still further shifts in the Structure of Prairie agriculture As Grain and oilseed farms merge and reorganize to form More cos effective production units or switch into different Premier doers policy is that he wants to maintain the family Small scale farms have difficulty absorbing the costs that food markets increasingly impose on Farmers to produce an absolutely uni form product handled in a prescribed free of free of genetically engineered mater some family farms Are Able to adjust to these steadily rising but it is not in striving to preserve the family doer is defying the economic logic of Large scale Indus trial the family farm is a precious institution of Manitoba a social and eco nomic unit that embodied both an Ideal of self Reliance and a deep personal commitment to the land and its doer is asking for invest ment of Federal funds in a Hope that economic logic will in time be reversed so that Grain and oilseed farms of modest scale will once again enjoy pros he found Little support for this View at the premiers and he May have to review the facts that underlie his own Arena finances barring unforeseen the construction of a Arena will begin this fall As the bricks of the old Eaton store Are three Levels of government and the private investors showed their enthusiasm for the project in the Speed with which they agreed on terms for Public the Federal and Winnipeg governments have committed Mil lion to help build the the privately financed for the most looks like the Best Chance for filling a huge Hole on Portage the deals reasonable terms and the Promise of revitalizing the should not diminish the need for Manito bans need to see the numbers supporting the projects Lon term the True North a group of three investors putting up the private funds for the has said it expects its operating revenues to come from the drawing Power of the Manitoba Moose hockey team and approximately 130 events annually at the in there will be Money from the naming other advertising and rent from the retail operations to be located within the the Manitoba government has agreed to locate 50 volts at the from which True North can draw a maximum million each the Public contribution is secure to the extent that True North alone will carry any Cost overrun during construction and no government is expected to help fund operating the greatest risk to Protection for the taxpayer investment is the strength of the True North partners calculation on revenues and Manitoban can Only know How sound the plan is after reviewing the numbers on which projections of expenses and revenues Are representatives of True North have committed to releasing some of that information in summary which Means that the numbers will be made Public in a fashion that will not jeopardize business deals yet to be that is a reasonable expectation on the part of taxpayers and a reasonable commitment by True Sherman president of the Crocus invest ment one of the private said that detail will come when the figures Are better known in the provincial and Federal Politi in the taxpayers should work to see that Revenue and expense estimates Are made pub Lic when they Are ready and before the Public funds now this is Winnipeg on 5 last i wrote in this can West and the Aspers have done so much for the it seems almost churlish to ask that they do but would it it be wonderful if they did that piece was about the possibility of Winnipeg becoming Media i was writing soon after Israel Aspers com can West global under the direction of his son had paid billion for most of the newspapers in controlled by Conrad Blacks Southam i urged the Aspers to take a and to do with their commercial assets what they had already done philanthropic ally and bring As much As possible of their new Empire to the City they Call at the i thought that i was asking a while it May be True that individuals can cause a City to change direction and to shift from relative decline to it is a Brave step for anyone to corporate leaders first responsibility is not to the City they live in but to their if the City they live in does not compete with its taxes and incentives with other if it is not As Good a place to do business because it is in relative then it is hard to argue for placing new business decline Breeds it was thoughts along these lines which no doubt led Leonard Asper earlier this year to warn that Calgary looked a much More attractive place than Winnipeg for a 60person Busi Ness unit he was going to set i took Issue in this column with his depressing View of the tax regimes and business climate in this but in my heart i thought that Leonard Asper was preparing us All for a fact we would All have to Winnipeg would not be getting the next stage of benefits from the growing family it appears my heart was in a delicious the Aspers Are moving telemarketing and newspaper sales functions to the free press building in downtown Carlton Street that this newspaper vacated at the Start of the there will be 400 jobs another 800 Are just what those jobs will How Many will be head office Type How Many cutting Edge is not recent including that of Murdoch a former Edi Tori chief of the Edmonton As vice president and editor chief of Southam news to work out of May Point the direct if the Aspers recruit significant numbers of key head office the spinoffs for win in terms both of image and of recruiting other High profile businesses and Are it is hard not to believe that after Many years of Winnipeg at taking it is not just the Aspers that Are doing there seems to be a new the Whin ing has not but it is at least at a Simi Lar Decibel level to most just look at the special Section we produce today on the goings on on a Friday the City is jumping and that before the building of a new the new waterfront drive along the red at the Exchange before the completion of planned loft projects and new uses for the old pump House and other old buildings Down the new image Given to the City As the head quarters of a new Canadian Media Empire is part of what has the Aspers Are doing with their investment what they have also done with their what seemed churlish to ask for is happening and it is won others can also take Premier Gary doer and mayor Glen Murray have combined to develop the Arena and the Princess Street Campus for red River the Busi Ness Mark Chipman of the Sam Katz with his the quiet Federal Cabinet minister for Ron David Graves of Centra and a Host of people working behind the scenes in the the province and at the downtown development Are All playing their in my column last week i wrote that the City had at his press conference announcing the first phase of his Leonard Asper picked up the word to describe what was happening to this City and its Down we have lets keep who next to come Here hold on to your there about to go up in d sex slavery the new global Scourge by David Perlmutter a Friend of mine was walking Back to his hotel in when he entered what locals Call the prostitutes it was a Street where Young women from most of Eastern Europe and parts of Asia plied the sex models of International Diplo they proffered services in Many Lan All they had in common As my Friend put looks of combined misery and the Triumph of global capitalism has increased the demand for Young women and sometimes Young men As sex they come from All but the term sex work ers is the sex Industry has Little patience for fair voluntary service and Safe working Many third world prostitutes Are slaves or indentured a report just issued by the International labor organization Ilo on forced labor and slavery focuses much of its attention on the global sex As Many As women and children Are smuggled into the United most to be inducted into the sex Trade or Domestic the report sex trafficking is a global approximately women from Kazakhstan work in South Korea sex kazakh com Mercial television reported asian women have their own neighbourhood in the relight District of Amsterdam in the nether roughly girls in Thailand the world capital of the underage sex Industry Are pressed to Cater to professional sex Tours that operate openly for europeans and according to the International organization for Young girls Are coerced into or sold for sex work from Nepal and Bangladesh to from Bangladesh and Burma to Pakistan and from Pakistan and India to the Middle japans social Security research foundation estimates that Eastern euro Pean and latin american women Are imported each year for sex spending on prostitution in Japan is about equal to the nations defence from China and the Philip girls Are delivered to prison like Broth Els in the United states and the organizers of the Trade Are As Well its a strange Alliance of the japanese chinese russian and italian East european albanian latin american nigerian asian businessmen and american financiers and embarrassing to the idea of human moral the present global sex Trade is reminiscent of the first global Trade in flesh that for african we need another abolitionist move this one against sex the Ilo report Calls for a coordinated global response to tackle the worldwide sex Trade and other forms of forced International conventions such As the 1949 in convention against the trafficking of women and children exist but they Lack enforcement the same is the Case for the uns optional protocol on the Sale of Chil child prostitution and child which was approved last year and has been signed by almost every country in the we need a globally responsive institution a combined Interpol and High court with the Power to fight this and we need to redefine recruiting Man aging or using International sexual slavery As an International the previous Scourge of global slavery was suppressed Only through Laws enforced by gun boats and solutions to the greatest modern outrage of the global Economy cannot be found David Perlmutter is a senior fellow at the Reilly Center for Media Public affairs at Louisiana state Winnipeg free press Winnipeg free press est 1872 Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 vol 129 n0172 2001 Winnipeg free a division of newspapers division of Thomson Canada limited published seven Days a week at 1355 Mountain Manitoba r2x pm 6977000 a member of Ida Manitoba Pratt Cauncil Rudy publisher email Nicholas Patrick editor ;