Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - June 14, 2012, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A14 EDITORIALS WINNIPEG FREE PRESS, THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 2012 Freedom of Trade Liberty of Religion Equality of Civil Rights A 14 COMMENT EDITOR: Gerald Flood 697- 7269 gerald. flood@ freepress. mb. ca winnipegfreepress. com EDITORIAL B UDGET cuts at Parks Canada have triggered a wave of hyperbole in Manitoba - " they are closing down our history" - and much of it can be blamed on the Harper government's trademark inability to communicate. The decision to centralize archeological services in Ottawa and reduce the number of professionals in the province will have minimal impact on daily services to the public, but it is still an unfortunate loss to researchers and academics. It also adds both a bureaucratic and geographic barrier between federal archeological collections and the Manitoba scholars who might want to use it. It's motivated by the government's costcutting agenda, but how much will be saved is unknown, or at least not disclosed. An enormous saving of millions of dollars might be defensible if it could also be shown it won't significantly damage historic services, but information on these important questions is lacking. Amid the cacophony, however, a few facts have been neglected. The federal government is not picking on Manitoba. In fact, until now, Winnipeg was one of only four major service centres in the country for archeological inventory. Other historic objects owned by Parks Canada are also warehoused in Halifax, Quebec City and Ottawa. Calgary and Vancouver had small satellite services, but Winnipeg's warehouse was a major hub for Western Canada. Groups in Nova Scotia are complaining about the loss of their new custom- built warehouse in Dartmouth, but the rhetoric is more subdued than here. The vested interests in that province also ignore the fact their Parks Canada warehouse held collections from across the Maritimes, including rare and highly valuable artifacts from Newfoundland and Labrador. There was no rallying cry by Nova Scotia's archeological community for the return of Newfoundland's history, any more than Winnipeg's experts lobbied for Saskatoon and Regina to have their own warehouses. Confusion over the future status of Riel House, meanwhile, is another example of the Harper government's difficulty in making a clear announcement. Parks Canada will cut $ 56,000 in funding for interpretive services at the end of this season, meaning the historic house could be padlocked and closed to visitors next year. Environment Minister Peter Kent and St. Boniface MP Shelly Glover then muddied the issue by claiming it would remain open without explaining how that would be possible without money to pay staff. The federal contribution was pocket change, which the community can probably replace, if there is a will to maintain the same level of service. The site alone is historically significant, but opening the house to visitors brought to life the story of Louis Riel and the M�tis system of land organization. Canada has 42 national parks and park reserves, as well as 950 national historic sites, of which 167 are administered directly by Parks Canada. They may be expensive to operate, but they also generate revenue, including $ 2.7 billion by visitors last year alone. Parks Canada made money for Canadians, so the Harper government should explain why it is trimming such an important service. In fact, the department was the hardest hit by Ottawa's plan to cut jobs and costs. Nearly 700 jobs have been declared surplus, and more cuts are planned. Despite legitimate concerns about the impact, Manitoba's history will continue to be on display in scores of provincial and federal heritage sites. The Manitoba Museum, which does not rely on federal researchers or artifacts from Parks Canada, will continue to tell the story of Manitoba from the earliest times to the present. The St. Boniface Museum, the Transcona Historical Museum and a dozen more will also go on telling their stories, using artifacts patiently collected over the decades. P REMIER Greg Selinger recently spoke out about high food prices in remote northern communities ( Manitoba government looks for ways to reduce food prices in remote areas , The Canadian Press, June 10). Selinger advocates a ( yet- to- be- determined) subsidy program that would reduce the prices of milk and other food products for consumers in northern Manitoba. Manitoba Liberal Leader Jon Gerrard has responded by suggesting the provincial government mandate a single price for milk across the province. The comments from both politicians are troublesome and badly misguided. They seem to believe adding new bad public policies on top of existing bad public policies will be a quick fix for a difficult problem. The article highlighted Selinger's concern milk prices in northern Manitoba are high relative to urban centres. It is worth noting dairy prices are high across Canada ( including urban areas) because of supply- management policies that restrict domestic production and keep out imports. These policies amount to hidden taxes on dairy products ( paid from consumers to producers instead of from taxpayers to governments). But the issue of high food ( including dairy) prices in remote areas would not be solved even if the federal government were to dismantle supply management. There are several reasons for this. First, food prices are high in remote areas because of real transportation and storage costs. These costs have to be borne by somebody - consumers in the case of a free market, taxpayers in the case of transportation subsidies. A transportation subsidy would pass the burden onto taxpayers, most of whom do not live in remote areas. Second, policies that subsidize healthy foods ( or tax unhealthy foods) have not been shown to improve health outcomes. Worse, these policies are often regressive because people with high incomes tend to consume healthier foods and people with low incomes tend to consume lesshealthy foods regardless of their relative costs. Such policies can end up taxing the poor and subsidizing the rich. The richest people who eat healthier diets would be the largest beneficiaries of a program that subsidized healthy food in remote areas. A policy that subsidizes food shipments may be a feather in a politician's cap but is unlikely to improve health outcomes. Third, we need to question whether the high cost of food in remote areas is really the problem on which governments should focus. The cost of living will always be higher in remote areas - public policy cannot change that; it can only change who pays for it. Wages, and therefore incomes, are expected to be correspondingly higher in remote areas, thereby offsetting high living costs. The problem in northern Manitoba is that incomes do not appear to be sufficiently high to offset food prices. There are several complex reasons incomes in some remote areas are not higher; these include difficult and sensitive social obstacles. Also, the federal and provincial governments already provide a number of programs to increase the incentives for people to live in remote northern areas through tax allowances and other benefits. Adding new or higher food subsidies is an ineffective way to address poverty in these locations. The only solution is higher incomes, which will lead to healthier diets and make high- priced food more affordable. Gerrard's proposal for a unified provincial milk price is even more troublesome. Gerrard believes if the provincial government can enforce a single price for liquor across the province, then such a policy could be extended to milk. This, he argues, would reduce future health- care expenditures by generating a healthier population. Manitoba, however, has a single price for liquor ( note the single price does not apply to private resellers) because of a government- enforced monopoly on liquor sales, not because of progressive social policy. Enforcing a single price for food when market forces dictate different prices in different locations would mean some consumers would pay too much ( likely in urban centres where there are also many poor people) and others would pay too little ( likely in remote areas). The costs don't disappear, they just get shifted around. Even if an administrative structure to implement a single milk price ( the Manitoba Milk Control Commission?) were feasible, the benefits of such a program would be doubtful. It is not clear increasing the consumption of milk beyond infancy would generate improved health outcomes, and subsidies on healthy foods have not been shown to be effective. It's unfortunate elected officials feel the need to be viewed as taking action, even when their actions will not solve the underlying problem and may even make it worse. The problem is poverty in some remote northern areas, not high food prices. Poverty is a complex and difficult problem and cannot be solved through ad hoc subsidies in markets that are already heavily distorted. We need to better understand, and confront, why enclaves of poverty persist in a country as rich as Canada. That would warrant a lot of feathers for a politician's cap. Ryan Cardwell is an associate professor in the department of agribusiness and agricultural economics at the University of Manitoba. B RANDON - " This is a council that was elected to provide more transparency at city hall. Where's the transparency we voted for? It's been replaced by closed- door meetings and a siege mentality. It's bewildering." Those were the comments of a Brandon pensioner as we discussed Brandon city council's decision to not refer conflict- of- interest allegations against Mayor Shari Decter Hirst to the Court of Queen's Bench for adjudication. Council's decision was conveyed to the public via a press release emailed to media outlets last Thursday afternoon. In an interview conducted shortly after the email was sent, deputy mayor Murray Blight told Brandon radio station CKLQ that " Yes, there was a conflict of interest, but did it necessarily mean we have to pursue? We felt that it wasn't necessary to do so." Council's decision follows an investigation by city solicitor Robert Patterson of Decter Hirst's relationship with the Brandon Folk, Music and Art Society ( BFMAS), a corporation attempting to secure more than $ 3.5 million of government funding to transform the aging Strand theatre into a performing arts centre. Decter Hirst owns property across the street from the mothballed theatre and has acknowledged her property would increase in value if the project is completed. Her husband was both the treasurer and a director of BFMAS until very recently. The City of Brandon committed $ 474,000 toward the venture ( to be delivered through Renaissance Brandon) before Decter Hirst became mayor. Though that funding was conditional on applications by BFMAS to the federal and provincial governments also being granted, the Renaissance Brandon board agreed last summer to a request by BFMAS for an advance of $ 100,000 for repairs of the Strand building. The Municipal Council Conflict of Interest Act prohibits any member of a municipal council ( including a mayor) from being present at a council meeting where a matter in which the council member, or a member of his ( or her) family, has a direct or indirect pecuniary interest is being discussed. The same rules apply to " a meeting of any commission, board or agency on which the councillor serves in his official capacity as a councillor." Decter Hirst serves on the Renaissance board of directors in her capacity as mayor. The statute requires a councillor to immediately disclose the general nature of the interest, remove himself or herself from the meeting and refrain from attempting to influence the matter in any manner. Only a Queen's Bench judge can determine if the conflict- of- interest laws have been broken by a councillor. Council was under no legal obligation to refer the matter to the courts, but the manner in which they arrived at their decision has left many Brandonites feeling frustrated and confused. They have been told their mayor was in a conflict of interest, but they have been not told what the specific conflict was, nor have they been given the evidence that dissuaded council from referring the matter to the courts. As details regarding council's decision are slowly leaking out, troubling questions about the transparency - and perhaps the legality - of the process are being asked. According to sources familiar with the situation, the decision was made at a secret, private meeting of all 10 council members that occurred at city hall the previous Monday night. During that meeting, Patterson delivered an oral report of the results of his two- week investigation. Though he read from a lengthy document, councillors were not given a written copy of that document. No minutes were taken during the meeting and no votes were recorded. For several days prior to the announcement, Brandonites were told by the media the report was being reviewed by city officials and it would be released to the public. They are now being told Patterson never actually submitted a written report and no additional information will be given to the public regarding Patterson's findings. If that's the case, what was being reviewed? In addition to falling short of the promises of transparency made in the last municipal election, the actions of council on this matter may also violate the requirements of the law. The Municipal Act says " minutes must be made of each council meeting," that " every meeting of a council or council committee must be conducted in public" and the public has the right to be present at every council meeting. While the law permits council to close a meeting to the public in certain circumstances, " no resolution or bylaw may be passed at a meeting that is closed to the public." The City of Brandon's own procedural bylaw requires minutes be made of all meetings of council, including " all decisions and other proceedings." If this was the only occasion on which procedural irregularities occurred involving city council, it would be cause for concern, but it isn't the first time. Over the past several months, a number of important initiatives - including the starting of negotiations aimed at having a casino constructed in Brandon - have been announced without any prior public discussion at the council table. Unbudgeted spending commitments totalling millions of dollars have been made without any council vote. The success of our form of government rests on transparency and accountability. Its legitimacy flows from the belief citizens are entitled to know the decisions being made by their elected representatives and the reasons for those decisions. The growing practice of " government by press release" fails to meet that standard. It has grave implications for the state of democracy in Brandon and for the careers of the politicians who practice it. Deveryn Ross is a political commentator living in Brandon. deverynrossletters@ gmail. com More bad public policy for the north RYAN CARDWELL Secrecy on conflict of interest troubling DEVERYN ROSS Hyperbole of historic proportion A_ 14_ Jun- 14- 12_ FP_ 01. indd A14 6/ 13/ 12 8: 46: 43 PM ;