Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 30, 2015, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A9 IDEAS �o ISSUES �o INSIGHTS THINK- TANK A 9 Winnipeg Free Press Thursday, July 30, 2015 I T was not so much a straw in the wind as a cheese in the wind. It's a chewy, salty cheese that is delicious grilled: halloumi, as they call it in the Greek- speaking Republic of Cyprus, or hellim, as it is known in the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus. This week, the island's two rival governments jointly applied to the European Union to give halloumi/ hellim " Protected Designation of Origin" status, like French champagne or Greek feta, so no other producer can use the name. It was a small miracle. Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when a bloody coup backed by the generals' regime in Athens, intended to unite the island with the " mother country," was answered by a Turkish invasion to protect the Turkish- Cypriot minority. Turkey ended up holding the northern third of the island, and Greek- Cypriots who lived in that part of Cyprus fled south while Turkish- Cypriots in the southern part of the island fled north. When the dust settled, there were two Cypruses: the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus, now almost exclusively Greek- speaking, and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus ( TRNC), recognized by nobody except Turkey. Forty- one years later, Cyprus is still divided - but maybe not for much longer. The Greek- Cypriots have done much better since the split. With a legitimate state that is now a member of the European Union, they can trade and travel freely, and per capita income on the Greek side is twice that of the Turkish side. But it hasn't all been roses: the Greek- Cypriot banks ran wild during the boom years, and the country is just emerging from an EU- backed bailout that hurt a lot. For the Turkish- Cypriots, time is running out. There are only 120,000 of them, and they are already outnumbered by the Turkish immigrants, most of them ill- educated and unskilled, who have flooded in since 1974. In the past 10 years, with a conservative Islamic government in Turkey, they have also been facing the creeping Islamization of their traditionally secular society. So the Turkish- Cypriots have good reason to seek a deal that gives them their own state within a reunited, federal Cyprus. For Greek- Cypriots a deal is less urgent, but with 30,000 Turkish troops still on the island and neighbours whose identity is becoming more Turkish and less Cypriot their future is uncertain. The problem is presidents come and go, and there are rarely presidents on both sides willing to make a deal at the same time. Now there are. Mustafa Akinci was elected president of the TRNC in April, and immediately asked to start reunification talks with his opposite number, President Nicos Anastasiades - who immediately agreed. " The passage of time is not helping a solution," said Akinci. " The more time passes, the more the division becomes consolidated." After three months of talks, including seven personal meetings between the presidents, the talks seem to be going well. Well enough, in fact, that they both showed up on Tuesday night, together with 700 guests from both sides of the divide, for an evening of Cypriot music performed by the bi- communal group " Kyprogenia" at the Othello Tower in Famagusta. There was a lot of symbolism in this, because Famagusta was a Greek- Cypriot city, famed for its beaches, that ended up empty and on the wrong side of the ceasefire line in 1974. It has been quietly crumbling away ever since, but the Othello Tower, a 14th- century fortress, has just been renovated by a group of Greek and Turkish Cypriots working together to restore the island's shared heritage. There is much optimism about these talks, because both leaders understand there can be no going back to the good old days before 1974 ( good for the Greek- Cypriots, at least, although many Turkish- Cypriots were living under siege in barricaded ghettos). Most of the refugees of 1974 ( or their descendants) will not be going " home" again. Too much has happened, and even now Turkish- Cypriots would not feel safe in a unitary state. But a federal republic with two states, each largely but not exclusively communal, is perfectly possible. It would free Turkish- Cypriots from their long isolation and expand economic opportunities for people in both communities. The Turkish army would go home, the barbed wire and entrenchments of the " Green Line" would vanish, and Nicosia, the world's last divided capital, would be one city again. It is just good sense, and presidents Akinci and Anastasiades will probably make the deal - Akinci reckons they will be there before the end of the year. There is just one problem. A very similar reunification was negotiated in 2003- 04 with the help of the European Union and the blessings of both the United Nations and the United States. In the 2004 referendum, the Turkish Cypriots voted for it by a two- to- one majority, but the Greek- Cypriots rejected it by a crushing three- to- one majority. After all, they greatly outnumber the Turkish- Cypriots, and they are far richer. Things are peaceful right now, so why should they compromise? Because Cyprus lives in a very dangerous neighbourhood, and it's a really bad idea to keep the old domestic hostilities going as well. Gwynne Dyer is an independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries. GWYNNE DYER Reunification of Cyprus? T HINK back to the early 1990s, a period when Canada's federal and provincial governments faced a major fiscal crisis driven by massive red ink at both the federal and provincial levels. Governments responded with sweeping action, including restraint and spending reforms, which helped position the country for stronger economic performance thereafter. As part of their response, governments reduced transfers and their payrolls, resulting in a smaller share of Canadians employed in the public sector. Specifically, the public- sector share of employment in Canada ( excluding the self- employed) fell from 26.1 per cent in 1992 to 22.3 per cent in 2003. However, since then the share increased, peaking at 24.4 per cent in 2010 before dropping slightly to 24.1 per cent by 2013. The public sector now employs a bigger chunk of Canadians than it did in 2003. In fact, over the 10 years leading up to 2013, all provinces ( except Newfoundland and Labrador) saw an increase in their share of publicsector employment. Today, more than 3.6 million Canadians work for the public sector. So how did we get here? From 2003 to 2013, employment in Canada's public sector increased by 22.6 per cent, more than double the rate of increase in the private sector ( 10.7 per cent). During this period, publicsector employment grew at a faster rate than the private sector in all the provinces except, again, Newfoundland and Labrador. By a considerable margin, this phenomenon was most pronounced in Ontario. From 2003 to 2013, public- sector employment growth in Ontario ( 27.6 per cent) dramatically outpaced private- sector employment growth ( 5.6 per cent) by a whopping 22 percentage points. Interestingly, Ontario's 10- year increase in public- sector employment coincides with a period of dramatic increases in provincial- government spending, rising government debt and sluggish economic growth. There are important adverse economic and fiscal implications that may result from growing public- sector employment. Empirical research points to a so- called crowding- out effect where employment through public- sector job creation is offset by a reduction in private- sector employment elsewhere in the economy. This is a concern because it's the private sector - through investment and innovation - that ultimately generates the wealth and taxes needed to provide the public services we all hold dear. If public- sector employment simply crowds out private- sector employment, this could leave unemployment rates either unchanged or possibly higher. International empirical research has found some evidence of this crowding- out effect. Preliminary statistical analyses for Canada's provinces over the 1990- to- 2013 period support these international findings and suggest larger public- sector employment shares are accompanied by lower rates of private- sector employment growth and higher unemployment rates. A larger public- sector employment share is also accompanied by a flat relationship with provincial rates of economic growth. The correlations observed in the Canadian data are not necessarily causal relationships. Naturally, a complete statistical analysis requires controlling for the government's budget balance, the state of the business cycle on public- sector employment and any potential complementarities between public- and private- sector employment. Nevertheless, these trends and correlations help illuminate the impact of the public/ private employment balance on economic performance and the need for further research to rigorously assess causation and confounding factors in these important economic relationships. The public- sector share of employment in Canada today has recovered to levels not seen since the early 1990s, an era of persistent deficits and ballooning government debt. In the wake of the 2008/ 09 recession, large deficits have again surfaced at the federal and particularly provincial levels. Perhaps surprisingly, the public- sector share of employment has largely remained stable. Livio Di Matteo is a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute and professor of economics at Lakehead University. He recently authored An Analysis of Public and Private Sector Employment Trends in Canada for the Fraser Institute. - Troy Media LIVIO DI MATTEO Public- sector employment rising S HE once wore a red negligee to get her male colleagues to pay attention to what she was saying. She was the first female external affairs minister. And she's the name behind a metaphor used to describe the situation at leadership campaigns in which people say they'll support a candidate and then turn around and vote for someone else. Flora MacDonald died earlier this week at the age of 89. She represented the riding of Kingston and the Islands from 1972 until 1988, when she lost as a result of the backlash against the freetrade movement. As a Conservative, MacDonald worked behind the scenes for leaders John Diefenbaker and Robert Stanfield, working on 38 election campaigns in total. Then she stepped into the limelight herself to run for office, running in Sir John A. Macdonald's riding, using the clever campaign slogan " From Macdonald to MacDonald." In 1976, she was the first credible female candidate to make the bid for leadership of the Progressive Conservative party. In 1967, Mary Walker- Sawka was a last- minute addition to the PC party nomination list, in which Robert Stanfield took over as head of the party. In 1975, Rosemary Brown had made a similar bid for the NDP and almost won. Born in Jamaica, Brown was the first minority woman to seek leadership of a national party. For MacDonald, her loss in 1976 was a bitter pill to swallow. Despite the fact she went into the convention floor with some 300 pledged votes, they never materialized on the ballot, giving rise to the metaphor, the Flora Syndrome. Many commentators suggested the lack of support was the result of sexism. One of her supporters, Hugh Hanson said about her loss: " The Progressive Conservative party proved that day it hadn't the balls to elect a woman leader." She withdrew after the second ballot. Joe Clark would go on to win in the fourth ballot. Her defeat left her angry for a long time, she said in an interview. At the time of MacDonald's leadership bid, women made up only 3.4 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons. Today, there are about 25 per cent. Things have improved, albeit at a slower pace than hoped. Her campaign workers asked campaign delegates: " Are you going to do your wife a favour and vote for MacDonald?" Surrounded by male policy advisers, speech writers, campaign organizers and a spattering of women who were relegated to greeting roles, MacDonald had to deal with questions from the campaign floor about women in politics. In a speech at the convention, she told the audience: " I am not a candidate because I am a woman. But I say to you quite frankly that because I am a woman, my candidacy helps our party. It shows that in the Conservative party there are no barriers to anyone who has demonstrated serious intentions and earned the right to be heard." MacDonald is quoted in a National Film Board documentary on her leadership race about making the decision to run for leader: " Because women do not perceive of themselves in the role of the leader, therefore they find it difficult to perceive of another woman in the role of a leader. The more that that position is tried for by women, the more it explodes that myth." In the years following MacDonald's bid, five women have successfully won the job of party leader at the federal level: Audrey McLaughlin and Alexa McDonough for the NDP, Conservative Kim Campbell, Canada's first and only female prime minister and Kathryn Cholette and Elizabeth May for the Green party. In total, there have been 12 leadership contests following MacDonald's bid that had at least one female leadership candidate. One hopes MacDonald's view that the more women try, the more the myth is exploded holds true. MacDonald went on to become Canada's first female external affairs minister at a time when that role was dominated by men. Then- prime minister Joe Clark gave her that cabinet post in his short run with a minority government. Brian Mulroney, another leadership- candidate hopeful in 1976, made her immigration minister in 1984. When she lost her seat in 1988 in a wave of antifree- trade sentiment, she was interviewed about her political career. At that time, MacDonald said she didn't think it was necessary to create the dichotomy of male versus female. She just wanted to do her job as a politician, representing her constituents and her party. And in that interview, she revealed her rebellious streak, telling the story of how she once donned a red negligee while partaking as the only woman in a year- long course at Kingston's national defence college in a bid to get her male colleagues to pay attention to what she was saying. After that, she said, they saw her as one of them, and the barriers were down. When we lose women like MacDonald, part of me is saddened that yet another important piece of our history is lost. The other part celebrates her amazing spirit, skill and class and hopes more women like her will step forward and do what few women have done. She was one of the good ones. Shannon Sampert is the Free Press perspectives and politics editor. shannon. sampert@ freepress. mb. ca Twitter: @ paulysigh SHANNON SAMPERT Flora MacDonald's pioneering legacy Former Conservative MP Flora MacDonald used the slogan ' From Macdonald to MacDonald' as part of her campaign. She died Sunday at the age of 89. WOMEN'S DEMOCRACY 100 th A N N I V E R S A R Y The Women's Democracy Project is a series of news stories written in advance of the 100th anniversary of Manitoba women's right to vote, which occurred on Jan. 28, 1916. To commemorate this important anniversary, the Winnipeg Free Press , working with the Nellie McClung Foundation, is sponsoring the Nellie Awards, given to women who have worked tirelessly in the area of social justice, the arts and promoting democracy. For more information or to nominate, please go to wfp. to/ nellies. A_ 11_ Jul- 30- 15_ FP_ 01. indd A9 7/ 29/ 15 5: 26: 43 PM ;