Liberals sweep most seats in Winnipeg as part of Canada-wide red tide.

The Liberal red wave rolled through Manitoba but was stopped at the perimeter highway that circles the city of Winnipeg. The rest of Manitoba remains Tory blue except for one far north riding retained by the New Democratic Party(NDP).

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Of the 14 Manitoba ridings the Liberals won seven or half, but all in the city of Winnipeg. The NDP was able to keep its one seat in the far north and take one Winnipeg seat from the Conservatives. The other five seats, all rural, were easily retained by the Conservatives.

Long-serving NDP MP Pat Martin was defeated in Winnipeg Center by Liberal, Robert-Falcon Ouellete. Liberals defeating sitting NDP members was a trend across Canada. The Tory candidate Allie Szarkiewicz came third. The Green Party ran Don Woodstock. The voters also could vote for Communist Party of Manitoba leader Darrell Rankin or Christian Heritage's Scott Miller. Ouellete, who is aboriginal, said: "The goal of this campaign was never, never, never just to win. The goal of this campaign was to see your values reflected in Ottawa, to see your values reflected in our Parliament. There will be challenges in Winnipeg Centre. We should be putting more people back to work, and we can. We should be lifting people out of poverty, and we can."

In defeat Martin told supporters that it had been an honour and privilege to serve his riding for 18 years. He also said the Liberals needed a good group of New Democrats in parliament to make sure they kept to their liberal principles. Otherwise he said they govern just like Tories. There is a common saying that the Liberals campaign to the left but govern to the right. Martin has often had problems with statements he makes that will certainly get him an R rating for his discourse. On social media he called Conservatives "rat-faced whores" and was seen swearing at an opponent at a candidates' meeting.

In Saint-Boniface-Saint Vital, Liberal Dan Vandal, a Metis, won the riding for the Liberals . He said that he was fortunate to be part of something very extraordinary as he arrived for his victory party. The win was a gain from the hapless Conservatives who are now shut out from the city of Winnipeg. Liberal, Jim Carr, who won over a Conservative in Winnipeg South Centre played on the Conservative theme that Liberal leader Justin Trudeau was just not ready saying: "The people of Winnipeg South Centre say they're ready, and I'm ready to be your member of Parliament,"

NDP incumbent Niki Ashton was able resist a Liberal challenge by Rebecca Chartrand in the northern riding of Churchill-Keewatinook Aski who was over a thousand votes behind. In 2011 Ashton had swept the riding with over half the vote.

Although the NDP lost Pat Martin's seat, they gained a seat from the Conservatives in Winnipeg Elmwood-Transcona. The vote is so close though the Conservative incumbent, Lawrence Toel, may ask for a recount. The margin was just 51 votes. The NDP victor, Daniel Blaikie, is the son of the popular Bill Blaikie, who long held the seat for the NDP even through times when its present, very reduced count of 44 seats would have been seen as a giant leap forward. Blaikie was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1979 to 2008. Daniel said the NDP would have its work cut out for it to hold the new Liberal government to account.

My own riding of Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa re-elected Conservative incumbent Robert Sopuck, by thousands of votes even though he was running against a popular former Conservative MP with the improbable name of Inky Mark. No one came close to Sopuck even though Mark probably took a double-digit percentage of the Conservative vote. Mark had always been an independent representative. He joined a demonstration in support of the Wheat Board when his party wanted to end its monopsony, because the majority of his local farmer constituents opposed the Conservative policy. This time around he chose to run as an independent. The Liberal came far behind Sopuck with the NDP third and then Mark. The Green Party also had a candidate. This riding mirrors the situation in most rural Manitoba ridings where Conservatives have historically been dominant. The only exception is the north where aboriginal groups often vote for the NDP or Liberals and the Conservatives do poorly.

The Conservatives will need to extend their popular support beyond their rural base if they want to do better in Manitoba federally. The NDP were fortunate to elect members in even two ridings given that the provincial NDP government is not at all popular and that NDP members were being defeated by Liberals across Canada.

Festival du Voyageur in Winnipeg Manitoba

The annual winter festival in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the Festival du Voyageur, began on Friday February the 15th with a torchlight walk over the Red River.

The festival runs for a total of ten days with numerous different events. The program can be found here in English and here in French.

More than a hundred artists are set to perform at the Voyageur Park and 10 other sites around the city. There are popular jigging and fiddling workshops. This year will be the 44th year of the Festival. The Festival is a sign that winter will soon be over. However, there is no problem with melting so far this year. The ice on the river was plenty thick for the traditional torchlight walk.

As you can see from the attached videos, snow sculptures are also a big part of the festival. The weather has cooperated for this feature as well.

Other shows include a Louis Riel look-alike contest. Riel was born in 1844. He was the founder of the Province of Manitoba and a spiritual and political leader of the Metis people on the prairies. However, he mounted two rebellions against the Canadian government and was hanged in Regina, Saskatchewan in 1885.

There is also a beard growing contest. The Festival Beard category participants started their beards back on December 13th and will be judged on February 22nd. Many of the beard growers collect donations which will go to the Heart and Stroke Foundation. There are various categories of beards including the Voyageur Beard category that is wild and woolly, and the Novelty category such as a groomed moustache or beard. There is also plenty of French Canadian cuisine at the Festival, especially on February 21 and 22, at the Soiree du Bourgeois that includes entertainment in the Maison du Bourgeois inside historic Fort Gibraltar.

Winnipeg trash collector faces $400,000 in fines

Emterra, the company contracted by the city of Winnipeg to collect residential garbage, is facing fines of $350,000 to $400,000 for poor service during the month of November alone.

Councillor Dan Vandal, chair of the infrastructure and public works committee says he has finally received rough numbers about the fines. Earlier, administrators had come under fire for not providing information to the councillors.

Emterra just began to collect most city waste back in October. Since that time the city has been plagued by thousands of complaints of missed pickups. An appended video shows one such case.

The city had warned Emterra that it would be fined $100 for every home it misses garbage or recycling pickups starting on November 1 last year. Given the estimated range of fines, they must have missed quite a few pickups.

The councillors had been hoping to get exact numbers but that seems not be possible if Emterra does not want the figures revealed. Michael Jack,. the city head of legal services said that Manitoba's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act prevents city administrators from revealing the figures unless Emterra granted permission. Guess what? Emterra would not grant permission. IMHO the act needs to be amended so that it is not used by companies to prevent authorities from receiving information they should surely be able to have. The councillors pointed out that they needed to know the amounts of fines as the revenue could have an impact on budget decisions. Vandal complained that city administrators needed to be more open about giving councillors information they need.

Councillor Harvey Smith wants to see the city contract with Emterra. He said the contract should be made available to all councillors.

Vandal told reporters:

"If we're not seeing the standards that we had before reached within a reasonable period of time, after the month's grace, then we'll look at other options."

Mayor Sam Katz actually went out and collected uncollected cardboard from a recycling bin after a citizen phoned a radio station to complain. See the featured video. Katz said that city lawyers are looking at options:

"Maybe we should start looking at giving part of that collection to another contractor, so that they would have less part of the city and they can focus on getting that job done in a prompt manner."

Emterra has divisions in three different provinces.

Contracting out rather than in-house operation of trash collection is all the fashion now. It provides entrepreneurs new opportunities to make money in the public sector but often saves little or no money and reduces services. However it does serve the interests of capital.

May Day Protests in Canada

Several hundred public sector workers staged a demonstration outside Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office in Ottawa to protest the government austerity measures. They sang, chanted, and listened to speeches. There was no violence. Some demonstrators sported buttons that read "Stephen Harper hates me!" Union officials reported that a group of students were prevented from crossing into Ontario to join in the protest. Ottawa is just across the river from Hull Quebec. I really do not understand how the students would be prevented from joining the protest.

In Toronto there was a rally at a city square around 11 AM but the crowd was not large. However, they were entertained by a street theater group. The CBC reported that police outnumbered protesters. The protest group also plans a re-occupation event this evening which will last for a day.

There were also protests in Winnipeg Manitoba, Halifax Nova Scotia, Edmonton and Calgary Alberta and Vancouver B.C. and Windsor Ontario In Montreal Quebec a new conference of leaders of two student groups was disrupted by masked hecklers. The two student groups were presenting an alternative to the concessions offered by the Quebec government. A third more radical student group did not attend the news conference. There has been considerable conflict within the student protest movement. In recent protests the minority who engage in vandalism have been roundly booed by the majority of protesters.

A later May Day march resulted in smashed windows and conflict with police. The police in turn used chemical irritants, rubber bullets, billy clubs , and tear gas in response. Dozens of arrests were made. For more detail see this article from Global News.

Drivers complain of being fined for cell phone use when not using them

Two different drivers in Winnipeg Manitoba complain that they received tickets for driving while using their cell phones when they were not using them. It is illegal to drive while using your cell phone in Manitoba.

One driver Laszlo Piszker were pulled over by two police officers in Winnipeg. Piszker told the officers to search the car for a cell phone. He claims that he does not even have a cell phone.

The officers issued him a ticket for $199.80 anyway. He says that the officers were nasty both to him and his wife. The 74 year old claims to be so technically challenged he could not use a cell phone even if he had one.

The couple immediately went to a nearby police station to complain. He said the officer laughed. The officer suggested that the officers must have been trying to fill a quota. A two hundred dollar ticket is hardly a laughing matter.

The couple will fight the ticket in court. I would not be surprised if the officers fail to show and the ticket will be thrown out.

Another Winnipeg motorist Jody Nelson also reported receiving a ticket for using his cell phone while driving. He said that he was not using it at the time. The officer provided him with no explanation claims Nelson and would not give his badge number either.

Nelson said he would fight his 200 fine in court as well. He plans to get records from his cell phone provider that will show he was not using his cell phone at the time.

It sounds as if some tickets are being issued just to generate revenue and with the hope that most people will not bother to challenge the tickets. For more see this CBC article.

UPDATE: Winnipeg police have disputed Piszker and his wife's account of events. The police claim they followed the two for several blocks after seeing Piszker the driver hold a cell phone to his ear while driving.
 Piszker claims not to own a cell phone or use one. Meanwhile the police union said that the emphasis upon issuing tickets for cell phone violations was hurting relations between police and the public. See this article for more.

Privatization in City of Winnipeg

It seems that more and more long term contracts for water, sewage, etc. are being contracted out supposedly to save money but often at the expense of quality and service. These public private partnerships (PP3s) are increasingly popular and often increasingly under scrutiny for their shortcomings. This article illustrates some of the problems with the Winnipeg city plans. This is from the CCPA Manitoba office.

Fast Facts: Contract with Veolia for waste-water treatment does not pass the smell test
by Lynne Fernandez
Manitoba Office |
On May 12 EPC unanimously voted to accept a report prepared by Winnipeg Public Services. The Report recommends that the City award a contract to Veolia for the design, construction and, it appears, the shared operation of the South and North End sewage treatment plants. The Report assures readers that this is a good deal for Winnipeg. But those of us who have been following the process are not convinced.

Winnipeggers will be forgiven for not fully understanding what is at stake, or for not being able to follow the complicated, increasingly arcane recommendations and business plans leading to this week’s report. The CCPA and citizens’ groups raised enough concerns about the initial Plan A — first presented in November, 2008 — that the City came up with a Plan B. Plan B was passed by council last July, in spite of the many concerns voiced by citizens’ groups.

Plan B did not allay CCPA’s concerns around the plan to create a Municipal Corporate Utility (MCU) to provide water and potentially other services for the City of Winnipeg, and to enter into a public-private partnership (P3) for the upgrades to and operation of the North and South End Sewage Treatment plants. The MCU is on hold pending amendment of the Winnipeg Charter by the Province.

The mayor and his supporters responded to these concerns by removing the terms “P3” “corporatization” and “strategic partner” from their vocabulary. This isn’t the first time bureaucrats and the Mayor have tried to control the message by changing language. Neither P3 nor strategic partner are to be found in this latest report (Plan C). The first question that arises, then, is whether or not the contract with Veolia is a P3 and if so, what kind of P3.

Some P3 models protect public interest more than others. The City, well aware of these differences, modified the wording in the Report so that “the Public Service has pursued an innovated model of collaboration with world-class sewage treatment service providers where City utility staff will continue to operate and maintain the sewage system”. So the word operate has been taken out of the mix, making the arrangement a design/ build model of a P3, preferable to a design/build/ operate model.

But the plot thickens. The recommendations on page 1 of the Report tell us that the CAO will be granted authority to “enter into a multi-year contract with Veolia that conforms to the terms set out in this Report”. The terms are summarized in the vaguest of terms, but we learn on page 4 that “multi-year” means 30 years. We know that the upgrades have to be completed by 2014, so what will Veolia be doing for the remaining 26 years? Operating the waste-water treatment plants, of course.

The report assures us that City management and Veolia experts will work together in the spirit of partnership to provide service excellence and best possible cost of service for citizens” and that City staff will continue working under the supervision of City managers.

Where does all this leave us? We appear to have a design-build-operate P3 with a multi-national corporation infamous for its predatory business practices in developing countries, and with a less-than-stellar reputation in the developed world – in spite of what the report claims. We will never know the details as Veolia will claim that it has the right to safeguard its business transactions. For example, the City will be able to terminate the contract “if ever required”, but we are not told at what cost.

Supposedly this arrangement will save Winnipeggers between 10 and 20 percent over the 30 years. Details as to how they arrive at this estimate are sketchy. Why, for example, did they use a discount rate of 6% to calculate net present value? These small details can make a big difference to the bottom line.

They claim that taxpayers will be protected throughout the 30 year “program” because if service standards are not met, or if capital cost targets are missed, Veolia will forfeit margins to “share these costs with the City”. Will the City have to share such costs under all circumstances? What if Veolia is solely responsible for such shortfalls? Supposedly the City is willing to share the risk because it “will continue to control operating and maintenance parameters by which the sewage system shall operate”. This may sound reassuring, but a cautionary tale is in order at this point.

Consider a report by about the Indianapolis Department of Waterworks and its P3 partner, Veolia. The report found that “the city too often relied on the Department of Waterworks’ board, on consultants and on the private operator, Veolia Water, rather than on the department’s own staff ‘to ensure safe and efficient operation, maintenance and management’ of Indianapolis Water”.

Veolia is the private partner in a 20-year, $1B P3 contract to run Indianapolis Water. The author — who ironically works for CH2M Hill, one of Veolia’s competitors — is critical of Indianapolis’ water department and “its ability to ‘stand up’ on behalf of taxpayers”.

One must be careful when relying on a report by Veolia’s competitor, but this account is more a defence of public oversight of a P3 than it is a criticism of Veolia. The tone of the report is that we expect private companies to behave badly, so we need strong public oversight of these partnerships.

This brings us full circle to the most glaring omission in Winnipeg’s Plan C: the role of the MCU in the contract between the City and Veolia. Will the Province ensure that Winnipeg’s proposed MCU provides sufficient oversight? The fact that the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission — the equivalent to our Public Utility Board — is not standing up to Veolia is cause for concern. Not until we know how the Province is going to amend the Winnipeg Charter and how the MCU will accommodate the contract between the City and Veolia will we have a sense of what this deal means for Winnipeggers.

More than $2 billion and the future governance of our public utilities will be at stake on May 19 when council votes on this issue. We hope Winnipeggers will be there to register their concerns.

Lynne Fernandez is a research associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Manitoba.

Well over 50 per cent of people in some areas of Winnipeg below poverty line.

In Lord Selkirk Part 68 per cent of resident are below the poverty line. Not surprisingly unemployment is far above the provincial average, almost 19 per cent. Many are children, have little education, and are aboriginal. Much needs to be done to help these people out of poverty but with budgets being slashed there is not all that much room for optimism. This is from the CBC.

Poverty by Area
Most of Manitoba's poor live in Winnipeg. The city’s poorest neighbourhood is Lord Selkirk Park where 68 percent of the people in the community live below the LICOs-IAT poverty line. Two-thirds of Lord Selkirk Park’s residents are Aboriginal and more than a third of them are nine-years-old or younger. More than half of Lord Selkirk Park’s residents age 15 years and older have no educational certificate, diploma or degree and the unemployment rate is 18.7 percent. The median household income is $15,552 and most people rent their homes for an average of $436 a month. Many residents of this community have moved here within the past decade - a typical pattern for those who move frequently in hopes of finding better accommodations, because of evictions, and changing circumstances.