Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 21, 2015, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A7 IDEAS �o ISSUES �o INSIGHTS THINK- TANK A 7 Winnipeg Free Press Tuesday, July 21, 2015 J UST off a bustling urban street, in the heart of this middle- class Canadian community, I came upon an elderly man wilting in the lowlying shrubs, mere feet from heavy traffic and visibility. He appeared unconscious, perhaps brought on by the searing summer temperatures that had pushed the mercury above 30 C. Judging by his appearance and nearby possessions, I made the assumption he was homeless. As I waited for emergency personnel to be dispatched, I did my best to describe his appearance and condition, which seemed dire. As we know, being homeless presents many socio- economic hardships. Homelessness also increases vulnerability to extreme heat events that can exacerbate health issues brought on by heat exposure, including cardiac events, dehydration and respiratory illnesses. Most often Canadians tend to think of the effect of cold weather in our cities during the winter months, when vulnerable persons have too often frozen to death. However, heat is also a killer and cities need to be better prepared to address the risks associated with extreme weather events - not only today, but also as our climate changes and brings forth more volatile weather patterns. This past winter, several tragic events occurred in Toronto, where deaths related to cold weather hit the homeless community hard. During that same frigid period, on the other side of the world, the Australian city of Melbourne was grappling with a pending heat wave. The city issued a series of measures to support its local vulnerable population with cooling stations. In addition, Melbourne also adopted a strategy to deal with increasing extreme weather. Such government strategies will become even more important as climate volatility is expected to worsen, especially with respect to the frequency and duration of hot days exceeding 30 C. To put this in perspective, Environment Canada defines a heat wave in Ontario as three consecutive days of 32 C along with high humidity. In May, parts of India hit temperatures of 48 C, resulting in an estimated 2,000 deaths, many being among the poor and homeless. Closer to home, the Chicago extreme heat event of July 1995 resulted in an estimated 700 heat- related deaths. The spike in mortalities took place during a span of about 10 days when temperatures soared past 40 C. The New England Journal of Medicine published an article documenting the Chicago tragedy with the authors citing social isolation, preexisting medical conditions, poverty and living conditions as being among the key predictors of mortality for such occurrences. Not surprisingly, they conclude the provision of better housing, frequent interactions with social services and simple access to air conditioning as critical for survival. There are no shortages of examples of how extreme weather events have affected vulnerable populations on a global scale. Many of these events have caused policy makers to pause and consider the need for careful planning in order to be better prepared for sudden extreme weather occurrences. However, what is now emerging are a series of even more dire predictions as a result of modelling long- term trends in weather. In a recent article published in Nature Climate Change , lead author Bryan Jones and his research team examined long- term weather predictions in the United States. What they contend is the intensity of days in excess of 35 C will increase dramatically over the coming decades. The outcome could prove devastating if climate- adaption strategies are not created to address extreme heat events, especially for vulnerable populations. In Canada, we need more careful analysis of emergency planning focused on extreme heat events for vulnerable persons. Both Environment Canada and Health Canada have developed communications strategies and tools. These resources remain important for building awareness, but more concrete actions are needed that have a direct impact. This includes addressing income inequality, ending homelessness and retrofitting our aging housing stock. We must not only build more affordable housing, but do so in a much more efficient manner to both cool and heat buildings ( while using less energy). Governments of all levels across the country need to consider the mounting evidence for increasing climate variability and create actionable plans for vulnerable persons to ensure that those most likely to be adversely effected by extreme weather events are protected with the right supports. This must start with ending homelessness for as many Canadians as possible and closing the widening income gap that pushes far too many into poor- quality housing. Jino Distasio is the director of the Institute of Urban Studies at the University of Winnipeg and an advisor with EvidenceNetwork. ca. O TTAWA - According to Employment Minister Pierre Poilievre, Monday was " Christmas in July for moms and dads." The Sunday tweet - which was met with significant online backlash - was the latest salvo in the government's taxpayer funded promotional tour for the enhanced Universal Child Care Benefit. That expansion - increasing the UCCB to $ 160 a month for children under six and $ 60 a month for children between six and 17 - rolled out Monday. Poilievre says 3.8 million Canadian families ( 148,000 in Manitoba) were to receive cheques or direct deposits ranging from $ 420 to $ 520 per child depending on their age. The roll out gained a lot of attention Monday, was trending on Twitter and was the talk of many a Facebook parents' group and water- cooler gossip. But a lot of that discussion surrounded whether or not this benefit makes any real difference or not. When the government first announced the increase and said the first six months of payments would be delayed and delivered in a lump sum in July, cynics were quick to note that meant families would be getting money in their bank accounts right before the election began. The main reason the money was delayed was the need to actually get Parliament to approve the increase before sending out the cheques, so the government can't entirely be accused of purposely holding back the money for political gain. It just looks that way, and the government is shamelessly using tax dollars to promote this program to the hilt. Poilievre has been flying across the country for several weeks to stage government events promoting the UCCB. The election campaign hasn't officially started yet, but Poilievre even donned a Conservative logo shirt Monday morning for his press conference in Halifax - something he wouldn't explain, but which drew heavy criticism for blurring the lines of partisanship and government activities. Prime Minister Stephen Harper wrote to his MPs recently telling them to promote the UCCB increase and remind people the NDP and Liberals would get rid of it, even if that isn't really true. " This is the single biggest one- time direct payment in Canadian history," Harper told his MPs in the letter, which was marked confidential, but provided to some media outlets. His MPs complied. " It arrives today," shouted Edmonton MP Laurie Hawn on Twitter. Others, including Poilievre again and Manitoba regional minister Shelly Glover took to Twitter to ask people to tweet them when their payment arrived " to let us know you got it." Some people did just that, expressing gratitude for the money, while others lashed out in anger, noting the UCCB barely covers a few days a month of child care for most families. Some cheekily noted they were donating their UCCB cheque to the NDP or the Liberals. What is lacking in most of the government communication is a full picture of how much money we are actually talking about here. The government isn't reminding citizens, for example, that the UCCB is taxable income. So while you got a cheque for $ 420 or $ 520 per child Monday, come next April, you will send some of that back to the government. It also isn't pointing out come tax time you will not be able to claim the $ 2,255- per- child tax credit anymore because it was scrapped in order to increase the UCCB. It means you end up paying more tax, further clawing back the actual impact of the UCCB increase. The increased UCCB will cost the government $ 4.4 billion, but it will save almost $ 2 billion by eliminating the child tax credit. Some families will actually pay more tax because of the lost credit than they will get from the increased UCCB and will actually be worse off, not better, at the end of the day. To be fair, the Conservatives are also increasing the daycare tax credit by $ 1,000 so you can claim a little bit more against your taxes for that, and about one- third of the families receiving the UCCB will also be eligible for income splitting, so some families, mainly those with large differences in income such as families with stay- at- home parents, will see more benefits than others. But all of this is complicated and takes away from the simple message Poilievre wants you to remember this week: that he gave you some cash. So tweet him at @ pierrepoilievre, and tell him what you did with it. He really wants to know. mia. rabson@ freepress. mb. ca Twitter: @ mrabson T HE experience of the last four decades has made it clear there are two important economic pillars of globalization in this neoliberal era. The first is austerity - fiscal and monetary contraction at all times, except when it induces crisis. Then, enormous stimulus packages are handed over to corporations. The second is the removal of all barriers to trade between nations. These two policies combined, have played havoc with employment and with food security. While the employment aspects are quite well known, the seriousness of the food security question has not been adequately appreciated. Global grain output per capita declined from the early 1980s for the next quarter- century. This long- term supply trend, completely ignored by the economics profession, played an important part in the eruption of the food price crisis from 2008. The food security picture in developing countries in particular, including those with high GDP growth rates such as India and China is far less rosy than is commonly depicted. First, some history. Barriers to free trade had been put by developing countries trying to delink from the earlier colonial pattern of specialization imposed on them under which they had to devote more and more of their limited land and resources to export crops. This meant a fall in food grain consumption for their own people. The industrially developing countries in cold temperate regions wanted this shift, along with increased imports from the tropical countries, because for climatic reasons they could never produce for themselves all the foodstuffs and raw materials they needed. The colonizing countries which had direct political control over the tropical world were very successful in their objective. In India, for example, during the half- century before independence in 1947, the export crops grew 10 times faster than food grains and per capita grain availability fell by a whopping 50 kilograms. Since grain provided three- quarters of the calories as well as the protein intake of the average rural person even as late as 2005, the nutritional decline was huge. Similarly, Java, under the Netherlands during the same period, saw booming sugarcane and rubber exports while rice availability per capita fell by a quarter. Korea, colonized by food- deficient Japan, had half its rice output going to exports and a large fall in nutritional standard of its population. Initially after independence, by spending on irrigation and on research for raising yields, developing countries did succeed in reversing the decline. By 1990, with four decades of effort, India raised per head grain availability by 30 kg, ameliorating somewhat the earlier decline. Similar trends were seen in other countries. All this came to an end with neo- liberal economic reforms starting in the late 1970s in Latin America and Africa, reaching Asia a decade later. The state everywhere was put under pressure from international financial and trade institutions and as a result cut back drastically on development spending while removing barriers to free trade. As a result, there was a compression of mass purchasing capacity which reduced internal grain demand which supported the large- scale area diversion to export crops. Since yield rise was not possible under the regime of falling spending on irrigation and research, per capita food grain output declined. Sub- Saharan Africa saw a drastic fall in per capita grain and tubers output within a decade, and by 2005 India had diverted eight million hectares of grain land to export crops. It lost all its food security gains, slipping back to the era of the 1950s. Most of the global fall in per head grain output is due to the fall in developing countries which have not been compensated by the rise in advanced countries. A serious misconception is that with rising income, people diversify away from grains and towards animal products ( milk, eggs, meat and so on) so there is nothing to be worried about. On the contrary. The more diets are diversified towards animal products, the higher the demand for grain. With rising income, a much larger volume of grain is used for animal feed. There was no unusual inflation before 2008 only because mass- purchasing power was getting compressed by austerity measures, but inflation was finally triggered by large- scale conversion of grain to ethanol especially by the U. S. which reduced global market supplies and led to food riots in 37 countries. Speculation then kicked in to further produce high volatility in food prices which affect the poor adversely. The solution lies in reversing the misguided policies which have produced these outcomes. Raise employment and mass demand through sensible methods of public spending and at the same time ensure that output growth keeps pace with demand. Utsa Patnaik is professor emeritus at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India. She was recently on Winnipeg for the Geopolitical Economy Research Group's summer academy on food security and sovereignty. Globalization's effect on our food security By Utsa Patnaik JINO DISTASIO Climate change hurts the world's most needy MIA RABSON Christmas in July just more Tory PR A_ 07_ Jul- 21- 15_ FP_ 01. indd A7 7/ 20/ 15 5: 25: 12 PM ;