Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 24, 2013, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A9 F EDERAL funding cuts will be top of mind when the premiers' annual two- day meeting gets underway in Niagara- on- the- Lake Thursday. Premiers could gain strength by standing together with those affected rather than standing by while the federal government dismantles public programs and Canadian values of respect, equality and justice. The changes are happening with little notice but their impact is huge. In early June, for example, the federal government cut 30 per cent of funding to programs in 43 key aboriginal organizations across the country. This is in addition to cuts in 2012, severely limiting First Nations' ability to provide essential services such as health care and clean water. Last year, the federal government unilaterally stopped paying for refugee health care and abandoned already vulnerable people. The Manitoba government stepped in to foot the bill - about $ 5 million per year. The off- loading increasingly forces Manitoba to fend for itself. A reduction in federal transfers limits the province's ability to meet current needs and tackle under- resourced issues like poverty. Lack of a federal funding also limits its role in setting national policy frameworks and standards. In the context of severe reductions, it is not surprising Manitoba has had to increase the PST. Transfers to the provinces are a cornerstone of Canadian federalism, helping to maintain a standard of living across the country. Federal money, however, is drying up. Federal transfers to Manitoba in 2013- 14 are the same as 2012- 13 - $ 3.4 billion. This is broken down as follows: $ 1.1 billion in Canada Health Transfer, $ 443 million for the Canadian Social Transfer for postsecondary education, social assistance and social spending; $ 1.8 billion in equalization payments. Federal money is 31 per cent of the total provincial budget of $ 11.5 billion. Manitoba's 2013 budget papers explain the combined federal cash transfers already are 4.5 per cent lower per Manitoban than in 2009- 10. Factoring in inflation, transfers have declined 11 percent per Manitoban. This lack of income will make it hard for Manitoba to continue to offer services citizens have come to rely on. For example, the health care system will face financial pressures as it deals with aging baby boomers: 18 per cent of lifetime health costs are incurred during the last year of life. When medicare first started in the 1960s, the federal government footed 50 per cent of the costs. The federal share is projected to decline from 20.5 per cent in 2010- 11 to 17.1 per cent in 2030/ 31. Health spending in Manitoba is 44.3 per cent of the budget, or $ 5 billion per year. Provinces will be forced to replace the decreasing federal funding for health with money from elsewhere in their budgets. This is especially difficult to swallow when the federal budgetary surplus is expected to be $ 3.4 billion in 2015- 16 and $ 7.8 billion in 2016/ 17. Ottawa is balancing its books on the backs of the provinces. Premiers are aware of the situation. Premier Greg Selinger is leading finance ministers working on fiscal arrangements. This committee reported over the next four years provinces and territories will receive $ 23 billion less in federal transfers than under the current arrangement. Another committee is looking for ways to improve health care delivery. Premiers seem reluctant to speak to citizens about these issues, choosing instead to study and solve the challenges on their own. This is ironic considering the huge public popularity - borne out in polls - of medicare and Canada's social programs. Perhaps they are held back from taking a strong stand publicly because they need to maintain their negotiating relationship with the federal government, which holds the purse strings. Premiers, however, need to realize the benefits of working proactively together with those also impacted by federal cuts, such as First Nations. At the same time, premiers need to educate their constituents on the financial limitations the federal government is placing on social and economic development in Canada. If not, health and social spending will continue to gobble up the provincial budget and the ability of Manitoba to address under- invested areas of need such as social housing and the environment will be severely impaired. Molly McCracken is the director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives - Manitoba office. Winnipeg Free Press Wednesday, July 24, 2013 A 9 POLL �� TODAY'S QUESTION What name should William and Catherine give to their royal baby? �� Vote online at winnipegfreepress. com �� PREVIOUS QUESTION Are you happy the Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to a baby boy Monday? Winnipeg Free Press est 1872 / Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 VOL 141 NO 248 2013 Winnipeg Free Press, a division of FP Canadian Newspapers Limited Partnership. Published seven days a week at 1355 Mountain Ave., Winnipeg, Manitoba R2X 3B6, PH: 204- 697- 7000 BOB COX / Publisher PAUL SAMYN / Editor JULIE CARL / Deputy Editor W E were amused by yet another announcement of major expenditures to improve Manitoba's parks system. The minister may announce often; let's hope he only spends once. A close look at Conservation Minister Gord Mackintosh's figures for the " historic" Whiteshell development, as reported in the July 20 Free Press, prompts some salient observations. First, much of the money targeted for these projects has already been spent. Second, all of the projects have been publicized by the ministry before. Third, by far the bulk of the projects have no benefit for cottagers. Finally ( and ironically), the minister has plans to pick the pockets of cottagers to cover much of the remaining costs for Whiteshell development. It makes no sense for cottagers to pick up the tab for " infrastructure" they will never use. For example, new washrooms, showers, Wi- Fi service and water and sewage treatment for campgrounds will be wonderful for campers, but cottagers already pay for their own water services and telecommunications. Similarly, cottagers are not the primary beneficiaries of the " downtown development" at West Hawk Lake, nor of many of the other big ideas of the government for parkland development. In the case of services of value to cottagers, for example, the new dock at MacDougall's landing at West Hawk Lake was completed two years ago, yet it is still being counted in the new infrastructure category. In reality, the old dock should have been condemned as a safety hazard years before. To add insult to injury, parks didn't bother to consult with users over the design and capacity of the new dock so, in the end, money was squandered on rebuilding an inadequately sized launch and boat- port facility. It is also notable this same inadequate docking facility and a garbage- collection cage are the only two tangible services provided by parks to more than 60 cottages at the north end of West Hawk Lake. These cottagers already pay an annual service fee of about $ 400 for boat docking and garbage collection, both for four months per year. The minister wants to triple this already outlandish service fee. While the minister threatens to raise the cottager fees to cover all kinds of general services, he also keeps promising an even- handed userpay system for the parks. Cottagers agree they should pay for the services they receive, but their problem is the ministry systematically fails to follow the very rules of transparency required by the Parks Act. While parks services decline visibly, the ministry keeps the details of its revenues and expenses secret. The only way the ministry can stake a claim to fairness is by opening the books, as required by law. One can only guess they would be embarrassed by the truth. Whiteshell cottagers have waited five years for parks to live up to obligations of the Parks Act to provide park stakeholders with full accounting of actual revenues and expenses and a forwardlooking budget. Their failure to do so casts serious doubt on both the integrity and capability of the minister and his department. Tom Walker is president and Daniel Klass is president elect of the Whiteshell Cottagers Association Inc., which represents about 5,000 cottagers in the Whiteshell. By Tom Walker and Daniel Klass Re- announcement of Whiteshell projects truly is ' historic' I WILL never forget the first time I heard about the horror of Indian residential schools. It was 1982 and I had been commissioned to write a play for the World Assembly of First Nations. A musical combining traditional native song and dance with contemporary rock, jazz, blues, classical and operatic styles, the play was to cover 500 years of history of First Nations in North America. My script had to be checked by elders throughout Saskatchewan, and when I told them the play was going to be presented at the magnificent mainstream Saskatchewan Centre of the Arts, many of them told me this might be a fine opportunity to finally tell the world about their experiences at " boarding school." I had never heard about this sad chapter in Canada's history and some of the stories went way beyond what we have since learned about physical and sexual abuse, cultural genocide and the latest revelation that entire communities were used as " laboratories" with people as guinea pigs for experiments about malnutrition. My first reaction was one of horror, then shame, then guilt, even though I knew full well I would never be a part of such atrocities and I would never support such terrible behaviour. I was pretty sure I would do everything I could to expose such a wrong and try to get it stopped and prevent it from happening in the future. This is the natural reaction of any decent person. But there is a major problem is all of this. And it is holding us back from dealing with the IRS experience and finding the healing we need. I realized this when I returned home and told some of my friends about what I had learned. After an initial reaction of shock and disbelief, they were horrified, and rightfully so, because they are certainly not the kind of people who would condone that kind of behaviour. We all agreed the impacts of the residential school experience were multi- generational and had to be dealt with, but I soon discovered most of my friends would just as soon forget about it and move on. You see, there's kind of a stink that goes along with being the same colour or ethnic background as the perpetrators of this horror. A big stink and this is what is going to compromise whatever the Truth and Reconciliation Commission tries to do. Because most good Canadians would prefer " denial" than face up to the fact this great country and its great people were part of such a horror. " Look! I didn't do it. My parents didn't do it and neither did my grandparents! Why should I be responsible for something that happened in the past?" Pressed with incontrovertible evidence, Canadians have come around to issuing a historic apology and made individual payments to survivors in addition to providing $ 60 million for the TRC. There is this huge desire to put this whole sorry mess behind us. " After all, we said we were sorry and we gave you some money and..." But still there remains this guilt. The fact that somebody who looks like you and perhaps even could have been you could do something so horrible. Guilt by association. Some people finally just say, " Get over it," like the longer we talk about it, the longer it stays around and the longer we feel guilty about it. But most of us just go into deep, deep denial. Canadians are tired of hearing about the Indian residential school experience. And they desperately want to move on. And this is what is preventing us from doing that very thing. We all know the mistreatment First Nations people received in residential schools created dysfunctions in later life that have passed on through generations. Loss of parenting skills, alcoholism and abuse have become a way of life for some and this is manifest in the social and economic problems we are experiencing today. We cannot solve these problems unless we recognize where they came from and why they are happening. And we cannot do this unless we get over this collective denial and roll up our sleeves and work together with First Nations leadership to restore families and communities which were torn part by the IRS experience. I have watched amazed as good people, people I love and trust, almost throw their hands over their ears and shouted like little kids, " I don't wanna hear about that anymore." But no matter what the apology, the payments and the TRC achieve, we are going to have to realize the multigenerational impacts still need to be dealt with and it may take a few generations to get past that. It starts by overcoming the denial that inflicts us all. Don Marks wrote and directed the play in Deo, the music video Perfect Crime and other productions that exposed the Indian residential school experience. There are very few African- American men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me. - Barack Obama I AM Trayvon Martin. Distill it to its marrow, and that is what African- Americans have been telling other Americans since February 2012 when the unarmed teenager was stalked and killed by George Zimmerman, who, for no good reason, thought him suspicious. And it is essentially what President Obama said in an impromptu appearance in the White House press room last week. We African- Americans see ourselves, our sons and grandsons, in this dead boy. And we hear no whisper of " there but for the grace of God," but, rather, a nightmare scream of what could yet be, in a nation that would afterward slander them till it seemed they deserved what they got and more. In pointedly including himself among our number, in testifying that even the most powerful man in the world once saw women clutch their purses when he got on an elevator, Obama committed an act of moral courage. It was all the more remarkable because it carried no political upside. Not that everyone understood. " Trayvon Martin could have been me," said the president, after which Sean Hannity, a grand wizard of the extreme right, professed confusion, wondering if by this, Obama meant he " smoked pot and he did a little blow." And so it goes. That coarse attempt at wit pretty much emblematizes the behaviour of many so- called conservatives since Zimmerman's acquittal. They have redoubled their efforts to fashion a fairly ordinary teenager into some generalpurpose thug who somehow needed shooting, and his killer into some righteous street avenger who stalked him from justifiable fear because, " we all know" young black men are criminal. " Young black men." Not Trayvon Benjamin Martin, 17, son of Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton. Because the first casualty of racism is individuality, the right to be your singular self. This is what was stolen from Trayvon even before his life. It is stolen anew every time some pundit bloviates upon the perceived criminality of young black men to justify his killing. That perception is rooted more in stereotype and fear than actual fact, but put that aside and ask yourself this: What man or woman among us would be willing to let the rest of us judge them based not upon who they are and what they have done, but solely upon our perceptions of people like them? There is, for instance, a perception methamphetamine use is concentrated among white people in red states - in other words, Sean Hannity's audience. May we treat all white people in red states accordingly? Will they go for that deal? Of course not. Yet we daily crucify young black men upon that cross and pretend to moral righteousness in the doing. Trayvon is not the first victim. He's not even the latest. But he is the one whose death has made us cry, " Enough!" There comes a time when people get tired. So said Martin Luther King in his first speech as leader of the Montgomery bus boycott. From that fatigue grew a movement that reshaped America. One hopes people are that tired again - and that it spurs a new movement to challenge not just laws, but attitudes so corroded and stained some of us cannot even muster compassion for the death of a blameless boy. This is wrong. It is unworthy of decent people. And so, it cannot stand. The thing the rest of the country may not fully appreciate is how deeply that loss of individuality cuts for African- Americans, how closely it binds us. So yes, of course Barack Obama is Trayvon Martin. And let there be no mistake: I am Trayvon, too. Leonard Pitts Jr., winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, is a columnist for the Miami Herald. - McClatchy Tribune Services See also: How to talk about race at wfp. to/ comment. LEONARD PITTS JR. Race fatigue can be constructive DON MARKS Canada's history of denial CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES / LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA A nurse takes a blood sample from boy at a B. C. residential school at Port Alberni in 1948, a time when nutrition experiments were conducted. Premiers' focus on transfers By Molly McCraken Yes, I'm thrilled 2,192 ( 37%) I was hoping it would be a girl 951 ( 16%) I have no interest in the Royal Family 2,704 ( 46%) TOTAL RESPONSES 5,847 A_ 09_ Jul- 24- 13_ FP_ 01. indd A9 7/ 23/ 13 6: 57: 36 PM ;