I’m not from Winnipeg, but simply googling “crime rate winnipeg” gives a ton of news hits and links back to StatsCan that indicate that the city has one of the highest violent crime rates in the country. I don’t know about the specific neighbourhood, though.
I assume Air Canada is responding to something - perhaps a small string of attempted muggings or hotel-room thefts on air crews - and not just coming up with a random policy change out of the blue. If it’s a cost-savings measure, they would have said that; so I have to think that something got them to react.
Whether or not the reaction is justified is another issue. I think Air Canada should be clearer on that point (“we’ve had several pilots report stolen smartphones” or something) but I don’t really see anything racist about the issue. It seemsthere’s about 100 First Nations people out of the 1000 that are displaced in the hotels right now; I think it’s slightly disturbing that First Nations groups jumped straight to “RACISM!!” because I think it’s inflammatory and doesn’t help address the problem, and because of the inherent implication that they assume their own people are rowdy drunks! It just strikes me as really bizarre and counter-productive.
In other news, the federal government has announced a feasibility study to - hopefully- lead to a selection of a Champlain Bridge replacementto be paid for via a public-private partnership and tolls. It’s about freaking time! It’s the most travelled bridge in the country and it’s in need of constant repairs and studies have shown that it would not be resistant to a large earthquake (which are not entirely unheard of in these parts).
Newspaper comments articles are already full of stupid people bitching about Québec getting money for this bridge, but for the sake of facts: IT’S A FEDERALLY OWNED STRUCTURE. The original design, the maintenance and the need for a new bridge are FEDERAL RESPONSIBILITIES, hence FEDERAL money needs to pay for it. :smack:
The bridge replacement is necessary and is well-timed. Some infrastructure spending is good for the economy at this point, and the Conservatives score another brownie point in Quebec.
I’m all for it, especially since I’ve been over that scary bridge dozens of times!
I can’t speak about Winnipeg, but for comparison, have a look at the next city to the east with a population of at least 100,000: Thunder Bay, Ontario. Thunder Bay and the adjacent Fort William First Nation have an aboriginal population that is similar to that of the City of Toronto – roughly 13,000. Thunder Bay and Fort William First Nation have a total population of a bit more than 100,000. The City of Toronto has a total population of about 2,500,000.
Now last year, the Toronto Police had about 6,000 public intoxication calls. One would think that Thunder Bay, being so much smaller than Toronto, would only have about 240 public intoxication calls. In fact, we had over 3000 public intoxication calls. http://www.chroniclejournal.com/content/news/local/2011/09/21/liquor-calls-keep-officers-hopping
Or to put it another way, if Toronto had the same public intoxication rate that we do, they would have about 75,000 public intoxication calls per year. Yet another way to look at it is to imagine yourself in Toronto as a tourist if the frequency of public intoxication calls was over a dozen times higher than it currently is.
Of course one could point other factors or groups, for example, Toronto and Thunder Bay have somewhat similar populations of Finlanders, however, when you look at the crime statistics, the aboriginal population is grossly over represented. “Aboriginal people represent only 2.8% of the Canadian population, they account for 18% of those who are incarcerated in federal institutions. In the Prairie provinces, 50% of prisoners are Aboriginals.” http://www.ccsd.ca/cpsd/ccsd/c_ab.htm
Of particular concern is the problem of aboriginal binge drinking, for when people go on binges, then other crime, often violent crime, takes place. Get your hands on Richard Thatcher’s “Fighting Firewater Fictions” Fighting Firewater Fictions: Moving Beyond the Disease Model of Alcoholism ... - Richard Thatcher - Google Books . He points out that the Canadian aboriginal alcoholism rate and the teetotaler rate are not that much different that the general population’s, but the binge drinking rate is far, far higher.
When people from remote reserves move to regional centres, it is not an easy transition to say the least, given their lack of education and lack of job experience. The skid rows of regional centres also end up as dumping grounds for people who cannot function well enough to live in their home communities. Frequently, entire communities are evacuated due to fire or flood to regional centres. In each of these instances, their problems are not left behind on the reserve. The same binge drinking, with the ensuing violent crime, continues to take place, at rates that are terribly higher than the rates that most non-aboriginal people are used to facing.
I very much expect that when Air Canada referred to displaced people, they were referring to aboriginals, for it is a very common problem in regional centres up this way. I have come across it very many times.
Alberta has a long and hounourable tradition of pushing for women’s equality:
[ul][li] third province to recognize women’s right to vote, April 19, 1916 (after Manitoba and ahem the province in-between )[/li]
[li] first woman judge in the British empire: Emily Murphy, appointed a magistrate in 1916.[/li]
[li] first woman elected to a Legislature or Parliament in the British Empire: Louise McKinney, 1917.[/li]
[li] second woman member of a provincial Cabinet in Canada: Irene Parlby, 1921.[/li]
[li] all five of the Famous Five, who won the landmark Persons Case in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, overturning the Supreme Court of Canada, were from Alberta.[/ul][/li]
Alison Redford is the inheritor and the continuer of that tradition: good for her, and good for the Alberta PC voters!
I take your point, and I really appreciate your post. That said…
Why can’t someone have a problem with the situation without having a problem with the ethnicity of the people involved? If the area does, in fact, have high crime and binge drinking rates, why is it racist to say so, and choose to go elsewhere?
Why jump straight to the defensive “OMG you’re so RACIST!” instead of pointing to efforts to educate, mitigate, improve, clean up or otherwise deal with a situation in which the downtown area of a city is being perceived as being an unpleasant place to be? Instead of accusing Air Canada of being racist, why not try and work with a major public company and see if any sort of sponsorship and support could be had to address the issue and perhaps put the company’s mind at ease? Why burn a bridge instead of try and improve the situation?
As I said, it comes across more as simply assuming that the displaced people will be aboriginal drunks and assuming that Air Canada has to just accept that because the the entire history of this country, rather than going “Yeah, you know what? There is crime here, but…” and working with the company to keep their business.
When there’s a problem you can either fix it or blame someone else. Air Canada fixed the problem they *perceived *existed. Screaming “OMG RACIST!” is just blaming someone else for a problem that might still need to be fixed.
Nothing in the short term. Small isolated communities with no economic base are doomed to poverty, which makes them breeding grounds for substance abuse, violence, and dysfunction.
In the long term, economic development for those communities in which an economic base is possible (for example, by partnering in resource development) will eventually lead to more stable communities, however, it will take generations to accomplish given the lack of education and business experience, and even then, most of the communities will never have an economic base simply due to geography.
The aboriginal birth rate is about 1.5 times higher than the general population The Daily, Tuesday, June 28, 2005. Canada's Aboriginal population in 2017 . To quote one of my on-reserve students, “We’re popping out babies like Pez dispensers!” I expect that the small isolated communities will continue to stuggle along for generations, simply due to teenage pregnancies leading to people with little hope of learning how to survive in the outside world.
For example, at that reserve where for the last couple of years the police have been run out ot town, Pikangikum (population 2,300), “Currently only 520 students are enrolled this year, with an estimated 300 to 500 school-age children not attending classes at all. From 2006 to 2008, 16 children and youth from 10 to 19 years old committed suicide in the community. The majority of the deaths were hangings.” http://www.canada.com/news/First+Nations+leader+hails+Parliament+plan+tackle+suicide/5508254/story.html
Lost generations, and as they have children while they are still children, further lost generations due to poor parenting, binge drinking, and other substance abuse (primarily gas sniffing), while the lack of an economic base will keep the community at a welfare level, making the breaking of the cycle extremely unlikely.
Also, the north end of Winnipeg has so many burnt out abandoned buildings that there aren’t enough artists in North America to Richard Floridate the neighbourhood.
The problems in the relationship between our First Nations’ peoples and the rest of Canada have been centuries in the making - there is no single solution that’s going to fix those problems in a couple of years. The best place to start, though, is in finding some way of discussing the problem that doesn’t devolve into accusations of racism. It’s a massive challenge… A sudden influx of money won’t fix it.
You make it sound like a significant part of Winnipeg is ghettoized and war torn. It isn’t.
There are certainly some pockets of severe social problems in Winnipeg. And it isn’t inaccurate to say there is a disproportionately large portion of people with similar first nations backgrounds committing illegal acts. What are the answers to the social problems to prevent gangs, arson and murder? I don’t pretend to know.
However, let’s not blow out of proportion the fact that 99% of Winnipeg remains safe, vibrant and peaceful. As with any city of this size, there are no safety concerns for anyone using the good judgment not to go into specific isolated pockets of town at night.
I have lived in Winnipeg off and on since birth. At various times, I’ve lived in Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver Island and Nunavut. I do not feel any less safe or secure in Winnipeg than I did in any other place I’ve lived.
I don’t have an issue with Air Canada’s plans. As an organization, they have to conduct themselves in whatever manner is best for them. For all I know, Air Canada used safety as a red herring in order to circumvent collective agreement clauses requiring downtown accommodations. They might have received an offer too good to pass up from a Polo Park area hotel and needed to justify the change.
I frequently pass through Winnipeg, and when I do, the state of its architectural heritage is a topic that comes up regularly. In fact, being old, boring and repetitious, I have made that ‘Richard Floridated’ statement in Winnipeg to Winnipeggers, who have resoundingly agreed with me and gone on to talk about the endemic corruption of developers, the demolition by neglect and the impotence of city council to do a damn thing to improve the crumbling core.
I love the city dearly, though I’m one of those rare Manitobans who have never lived there. There are some beautiful pockets in the city, and it is largely underrated despite a thriving arts community. But a simple drive from the airport to the exchange district will show you a Disneyland of failed businesses and boarded up buildings that just screams ‘this is not a place you want to stay’.
Can anyone compare Winnipeg to Hamilton for me? I get a weird impression that the downtowns are similar; not attractive, not safe (at night; daytime I was never worried) and just all-around scuzzy so that other neighbourhoods/boroughs are bigger attractions. I’ve stayed in a hotel in downtown Hamilton…I won’t do it again, though I’d stay in Westdale or Dundas or out in Burlington.
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