Firstly, a sincere thank you to everyone who contributed to the campaign to raise $500 to hire a freelancer to do our first investigation. In fact, that goal was exceeded and $638 was raised. Hitting this goal is important for the sustainability of The Flatlander because it shows potential funders and sponsors that The Flatlander readers are dedicated.
I truly appreciate everyone who donated, whether it was $3 or $150.
More about that later in this email.
Human trafficking on the Prairies
Two words caught my ear when listening to the Saskatchewan throne speech in October: human trafficking.
This got the wheels turning in my head. Is human trafficking a big enough problem in Saskatchewan that it needs to be mentioned in the throne speech? (Specifically, it was announced the government is setting up a Saskatchewan Trafficking Response Team to target criminals who traffic drugs, weapons and people).
And is this a problem in Manitoba too?
I looked into it and the answer is yes, it is indeed a problem.
Whenever I think of human trafficking I think of Taken, a movie, starring Liam Neeson, who has to save his teenage daughter after she is violently kidnapped, drugged and sold as a sex slave on the international market.
This isn't how human trafficking works. Those involved in trafficking are very manipulative and prey on people's socio-economic vulnerabilities. The homeless, runaways, people with mental and physical disabilities and/or people of colour are more likely to be trafficked.
On the Prairies, it is often Indigenous women who are victim to human trafficking after being manipulated into a situation where they feel like they have no power to leave.
A third of victims are trafficked by someone who is or was a romantic partner.
Public Safety Canada made a short but powerful video about what human trafficking looks like in Canada, which is worth a watch.
Trafficking stats from Manitoba and Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan had 36 reported incidents of sex trafficking, between 2009 and 2019. Many victims of trafficking don't report to police.
The Manitoba government estimates that hundreds of children and adults are forced to work in the sex trade on the streets of Winnipeg, making money for the pimps who are exploiting them. The government also reports there is an underground sex trade taking place in private homes and drug houses across Manitoba. Children as young as nine are trafficked into the sex trade.
Further reading on sex trafficking on the Prairies
Part 1 includes the story of Beatrice Wallace, who after being trafficked herself, now works with women who have either been exploited or are in danger of being trafficked.
Part 2 is a critique of Saskatchewan's Protection From Human Trafficking Act, which was passed in May. It allows victims to sue their traffickers and seek compensation from them. The act also makes it easier for police to search homes and vehicles where those being trafficked may be held. Critics of the act say the government should have provided more of the services victims asked for after public consultation.
If you're interested in a deep dive of sex trafficking in Manitoba, you can read the Ph.D. thesis of Staff Sgt. Bob Christmas from the Winnipeg Police on that very topic, which was published in 2017. It includes excerpts of interviews he did across Manitoba with police, as well as various experts, government leaders and sex trafficking survivors.
Labour trafficking is a tougher nut to crack, but it definitely exists. The most at risk are migrant workers, like those that come to Manitoba and Saskatchewan as temporary farm workers. Because of the language barrier, and the fact these workers are living in isolated rural areas, they can be at risk of being exploited. And as as we saw during the pandemic, particularly in Ontario, migrant farm workers can live in cramped housing conditions.
Last week, the federal government released a report ‘What We Heard’, summarizing feedback from consultations on employer-provided accommodations in the agriculture sector to help guide improvements to Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
Accommodations aside,ManitobaandSaskatchewanhave laws to protect temporary foreign workers, which makes it illegal for an employer to take a worker's passport or work permit, or threaten deportation, but if and how those rules are enforced will take some more research on my part for a future story.
Last week's top five stories from Saskatchewan
Officials quiet about sudden departures from SHA Saskatchewan Health Authority CEO Scott Livingstone resigned from his position effective immediately. Before him, Dr. Janet Tootoosis quit the SHA board, and, in October, Suann Laurent, the chief operating officer, retired. These vacancies have opposition and reporters asking what's with all the sudden high-level resignations.
Up to $1M approved by Saskatchewan government to battle mountain pine beetle threat The Saskatchewan government wants to keep the pine beetle out of the province that would threaten the province's northern pine forests. Pine beetles have already destroyed 55 per cent of salable pine in British Columbia and have moved east across Alberta.
Canadian farmers harvest record potato crop in 2021 Manitoba farmers might have had a bad year for grain production because of drought conditions, but it was a great year for potatoes. In fact, the province was the third highest producer of the vegetable in Canada this fall.
Flatlander readers voted on both Twitter and Facebook and the first investigation will focus on a story that intersects the environment and a social/systematic issue. I will be connecting with the freelance writer later this week to set up work on an important story that hasn't received much attention in Canada. More on that soon.
And thanks again to those who donated to the campaign. Hitting that $500 goal goes a long way in proving that The Flatlander can grow into a financially-sustainable business as eight per cent of readers donated. The metric that needed to be reached was between five to 10 per cent.
The next goal for The Flatlander is to increase its email subscriber base to 1,000 and build out the website. What should help is the fact that I was selected to take The Flatlander through the Google News Initiative Startups Bootcamp in the New Year. And over the holidays, I'm working my way through the Indiegraf Growth Program, so more exciting announcements for The Flatlander are on the way.
As always, if you found this newsletter interesting, please forward it to anyone else you think might appreciate it.
Thanks for reading.
Cheers and kind regards,
Kelly-Anne Riess
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The Flatlander - Where do the buffalo roam these days?
Happy Tuesday. Can you believe it’s December tomorrow? Time flies, even while living through a global pandemic.
New features
In addition to the topic of the week, I’ve added a new section to this newsletter, which I hope you’ll find valuable. It is a round up of five stories you may have missed from Manitoba and Saskatchewan last week.
I’ve also shared some recommended readings on this week’s topic, because when I’m researching an issue, even in a big-picture-kind-of way, I come across a lot of fascinating articles that some of you might want to read for yourself.
Speaking of which, a reader, last week, recommended a few books on poverty that offer a different perspective, so I will link to those below as well, for those who may be interested.
So where do those buffalo roam?
Not in North America, despite what the song Home on the Range would have us believe. If you want to see a real live buffalo you will have to go to Africa to see the Cape buffalo or Asia that is home to the water buffalo.
What people call buffalo in North America are, in fact, bison, which have bigger heads than buffalo, beards, thick winter coats, which they shed in the summer, and humps on their backs. Both the Cape buffalo and the water buffalo have much longer horns.
This week I thought I would talk about bison, or, as it is called by its scientific name, bison bison, because you may have seen in the news this month that the animals at Wanuskewin in Saskatoon helped discover a petroglyph carved in the form of an animal rib. A stone knife was discovered next to the rock, which is a rare find.
The bison hooves turned up the dirt, which revealed the rock.
Before this news, I’d already started doing my own research on bison after my husband and I began debating over whether buffalo and bison are the same animal after watching a documentary series called Chiefs recently, which I highly recommend.
The two episodes, about Sitting Bull, which sparked the discussion, can be found on YouTube (Episode 1 and Episode 2). It originally aired on the Saskatchewan Communications Network (May it rest in peace).
That’s a cross between male domestic cattle and bison.
Apparently, most bison herds in North America have been mixed with cattle at some point over the last hundred years or so.
There are only about 1,500 purebred plains bison in Canada’s conservation herds.
Bringing back the purebreds
Researchers at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon are working to increase the genetic gene pool of purebred bison.
They’ve been creating a genome biobank that allows bison semen and embryos to be stored, which will be used to expand herds.
The goal is to replace the beefalo, for lack of a better word, with purebreds over the next 20 years, which would improve the animal’s health.
Grasslands National Park, about 330 km southwest of Regina, is home to one of Canada’s few purebred Plains bison herds.
They’re originally from the forested Elk Island National Park, east of Edmonton, which has both Plains bison and wood bison.
Moving Plains bison to a more traditional landscape, like the Grasslands, has improved their overall well-being. They are fatter, healthier, and breeding more than the Plains bison left behind at Elk Island. The Grasslands herd grows by about 28 per cent a year.
By the late 1800s, there were only roughly 1,000 bison left because of government policies that encouraged settlers to hunt the animals in excess, mainly to demoralize and starve Indigenous people, who relied on them as one of their main food sources. Doing this helped them agree to move onto reservations.
Bison hides were, for a time, quite valuable, until so many were killed by hunters the price was driven down.
Systematically killing the bison also cleared the path for trains, which would frequently collide with the beasts.
Increased agricultural activity didn’t help, as it destroyed bison habitat.
Top five stories from Manitoba you may have missed
Winnipeg city council passes poverty reduction plan.
Mayor Brian Bowman says the plan is to use existing resources in a more strategic way to solve poverty. Time will tell if this will be successful. I’ll keep tabs on this to see how it works out.
Manitoba prioritizes reconcilation
Premier Heather Stefanson said in last week’s throne speech that one of her priorities was creating a path to reconciliation with First Nations and Métis. To show that the Conservatives were serious, there was an Indigenous land acknowledgement at the beginning of Monday’s legislative assembly proceedings. Grand Chief Arlen Dumas of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs said this was long overdue.
A nursing crisis
A third of Manitoba’s nursing positions are vacant, which works out to about 1,300 empty nursing positions. Health Minister Audrey Gordon is hoping the 115 nursing graduates from the University of Manitoba this year will choose to stay in the province, and that more than 1,200 international nurses have applied for a provincial licence. (I’ll have to look at how hard it is to have an international licence approved).
A bizarre natural phenomenon
Lake Manitoba looked like it had been covered by stones, which is because the water remained liquid below its normal freezing point as it was moved around the wind before eventually turning to ice.
Mental health pilot project for those in emergency crisis
Winnipeg is trying a new pilot project that will have a person suffering from a mental health crisis be visited by a clinician after police go in first to make sure the situation is safe. However, critics believe police shouldn’t be involved in such interventions.
Top five stories from Saskatchewan you may have missed
A monster of a find
Saskatchewan paleontologists at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum announced last week they found a 32-foot snake-like marine reptile in Grassland National Park back in 2012… so far they’ve dug up the lower jaw, the skull and half of the neck. They anticipate they will uncover more this summer.
The cost of climate change
According to a survey by the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan, about 75 per cent of respondents weren’t able to fulfill their grain contracts "due to historically low yields” meaning these farmers will have to pay $20,000 to $30,000 in penalties to grain contracts. Meanwhile, the Saskatchewan government spent $700 million supporting drought-affected farmers, which has helped push up the province’s debt load to an estimated $2.74 billion. (Note: an earlier version had a typo that read $2.74 million. That’s my bad, so apologies).
History may be in the making
Saskatchewan voted to amend the Constitution because of a civil trial with Canadian Pacific. The province wants to remove a section that exempts CP from paying certain taxes. The exemption was first put into legislation in 1881 after Canada and CP reached an agreement to build a transcontinental railway. CP is suing because it wants $341 million in tax returns, which is owed as part of this exemption. This issue will move to Ottawa, but if Saskatchewan is successful it will be the first time in history that the Saskatchewan Act and the Constitution would be amended with a motion beginning in the provincial legislature.
A #MeToo victory
Women in Saskatchewan successfully lobbied the Saskatchewan Party government to include sexual harassment in the province’s employment act. Last week, government introduced legislation that will cover any unwelcome action from independent contractors, students, and volunteers, as well as Uber drivers, musicians, models and people in the performing arts. If passed, Saskatchewan will be one of five provinces to specifically reference sexual harassment in legislation. The others are Alberta, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.
Conserving native grassland near Moose Jaw
The Nature Conservancy of Canada took over 646 hectares of endangered native grassland and wetlands in Saskatchewan off the Trans-Canada in between Moose Jaw and Swift Current. The area is along the eastern shore of Chaplin Lake, the second-largest salt lake in Canada, which is of hemispheric importance to shorebirds.
A small win
Last week, The Flatlander beat Global Regina to what was basically the same story on poverty. In journalism, we call that a scoop, even when those problems and statistics have been available for some time, and we just haven’t gotten around to looking at them yet.
In my experience, in the newsrooms I’ve worked in, we never did much in-depth reporting on poverty, so over the last week, I’ve been digging past the surface on that issue, and I’ve been starting to unravel the threads, so to speak, and see where they lead. I’ve been doing the same with how climate change is affecting local family farms, which was mentioned in The Flatlander’s first issue.
I’ve been starting to think of these newsletters as an opportunity, while taking a surface view of an issue, to read through reports, studies and at what other journalism outlets have written, which has allowed me to step back and start connecting some dots that I wouldn’t normally be able do while working the day-to-day news grind where you’re trying to get two, three, sometimes even four stories done in a day.
Which is why I’ve been interested in the slow journalism movement, to take one’s time in putting the pieces together, so I will keep you up to date with what I find out.
As a journalist, I’m trained to expose problems, but news media doesn’t do a good job at also reporting on possible solutions, so readers can assess these possibilities for themselves. Who are the people trying to fix our region? How much do these solutions cost? What are the other alternatives? I plan to try to do more of that kind of reporting as well as The Flatlander grows.
This is what is referred to in “the biz” as solutions journalism.
Books on poverty
In October, I did a small informal survey of people in Manitoba and Saskatchewan in what regional independent news should look like. One thing people mentioned is they are interested in being pointed towards different ideas, even if they don’t agree with those ideas.
Last week, a Flatlander reader wrote this:
May I suggest you read anything written by Thomas Sowell or Walter Williams. Both came out of poverty in big city America. There is the politics of poverty.
I looked them up. They are both American economists. And, so for those of you interested in different ideas, I thought I’d pass their names on.
Thomas Sowell
Thomas Sowell was a Marxist radicalized into a free-market libertarian and works at Stanford University. There’s a biography about him I’m going to try to pick up, because his life sounds fascinating. (There are no affiliate marketing links in this email, for the record). Sowell is 91 and still working.
Here’s an overview of his more recent books. The reviewer does a good job of “arguing” with him, and I think it provides a balanced assessment:
The Flatlander will be hiring a freelance journalist to launch its first investigation. There will be an extra email coming out about that this week.
In the meantime, I’m doing a series of polls on Twitter and Facebook to let people help choose what the first investigation will be. (If you don’t use Twitter or Facebook, feel free to hit reply on this email and send me your suggestions).
In traditional news, editors often pick what they think readers will be interested in.
But as editor of The Flatlander I thought I would ask what readers are interested in.
I don’t know about where you live, but after shoveling my car out of the driveway for the third time last week, I was tempted to curse the snow, but then I remembered last week’s issue and bit my tongue.
This summer, I was shocked to see dried out marshland, southeast of Buffalo Pound Lake in Saskatchewan. I’ve visited this area often over the last 30 years or so and have never seen it like it is pictured below.
This week’s topic was suggested by Ian, a reader in Regina, whose recent work has given him a close look at poverty on the Prairies.
“It’s been an eye-opener for me,” he wrote. “I’d been woefully ignorant about the level of poverty” people live in.
The numbers for Canada’s other two western provinces—Alberta (16.7 per cent) and B.C. (18.5 per cent)—are much closer to the national average of 18.2 per cent.
Roughly more than half of First Nations children live in poverty and a little over 20 per cent are New Canadians and/or kids of colour.
Poverty usually impacts single-parent homes more than households that have two parents.
Stats from Harvest Manitoba, the province’s food bank network, suggest the situation for these children likely only got worse during the COVID-19 pandemic. Manitoba food banks saw a 30 per cent increase in demand and a 60 per cent decrease in donations.
At one point during the pandemic, Harvest, which usually provides bi-weekly hampers of food, were only able to offer them monthly, which the organization knew wasn’t enough to last a family a month.
Online learning proved to be a problem during the pandemic for those in low-income homes that cannot afford internet service. In Manitoba, Garden Hill First Nation had to cancel the remainder of its school year in 2020 because of poor internet connectivity and lack of household computers.
Youth in poverty often don’t have adequate winter clothing, access to extracurricular activites, including swimming lessons. Dental disease also disproportionately affects low-income families, who usually don’t have the insurance coverage, nor the money, to see a dentist.
Parents, working two jobs, may not have time to read to their children or help them with homework, so lower-income children can do poorer in school, which can make it difficult for them to find employment and get out of poverty later as adults.
What are the federal and provincial governments doing to fight poverty?
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan has had several anti-poverty rallies lately after the government replaced the Saskatchewan Assistance Program with Saskatchewan Income Support at the end of August.
The government said the new program helps people become more self-sufficient, but anti-poverty advocates say its leading to more evictions and homelessness.
Under the SIS program, families with three or more children are given $1,150 for rent, but the average cost of a three-bedroom home in North Central Regina is $1,400 a month.
In Manitoba, a single parent with three kids get $1,572 under the provincial Employment and Income Assistance Program. The average rent for a three-bedroom home in a neighbourhood like William Whyte in Winnipeg’s north end is $1,214.
Last week, the City of Winnipeg released its first-ever long-term poverty reduction plan, which lists 80 strategies to be implemented over the next 18 months, including:
making surplus land available for affordable housing at low or no cost;
hiring people facing employment barriers;
providing a living wage for all employees;
free transit for youth aging out of care and tokens for those unsheltered;
supporting a safe drug consumption site; and
building drinking fountains in parks in low-income areas.
Winnipeg city council will vote on the plan before the end of the month.
Canada
In August, 2018, the federal government released Canada’s First Poverty Reduction Strategy. An important part of this was the Child Care Benefit, which, as of this year, offers a maximum annual benefit of $6,833 per child under age six and $5,765 per child aged six through 17.
The Liberal Party of Canada claims the CCB has lifted 435,000 kids out of poverty However, in my research, I couldn’t find a government study to support this claim. I did, however, find an academic study that showed the CCB only reduced the poverty of single mothers slightly when compared to the control group of single women, who didn’t qualify for the benefit.
The federal government offers a number of other tax benefits to low-income households, which have the lowest filing rate.
Often those living in poverty face a number of barriers to submitting their taxes, such as low literacy and issues with assembling documents, which means they may miss out on their financial entitlements. This is why a number of agencies working to lift people out of poverty offer tax help.
What else can be done to reduce poverty on the prairies?
There is much more the governments could be doing to decrease poverty. Anti-poverty groups recommend increasing the minimum wage, implementing drug, vision and dental benefits for all low-income people, strengthening tenet protection legislation, reducing tuition costs and much more that will be explored in future issues of The Flatlander.
How can you support The Flatlander going forward?
If you found this newsletter interesting, please forward it to anyone else you think might appreciate it.
You can also visit the Facebook page and give it a like, or follow The Flatlander on Twitter (@flatlandermedia).
If you have any suggestions for other topics affecting the Prairies you’d like me to dive into for a future Tuesday read, like Ian did, hit reply to this email and let me know.
Also, feel free to send me a letter to the editor if you have any thoughts on this issue, and I’d be happy to publish it as part of an upcoming newsletter.
The Flatlander has plans to start doing original journalism soon, and I should have an announcement about that next week.
Thanks for reading.
Cheers and kind regards,
Kelly-Anne Riess
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The Flatlander: Why snow is important to the local economy
Welcome to the first issue of The Flatlander. Thanks for being one of my early readers. You’re appreciated.
This newsletter is intended to essentially be the Coles Notes big picture overview of issues affecting Manitoba and Saskatchewan, a little like The Skimm or The Bullet, but more localized.
It is my hope The Flatlander will eventually start doing original journalism soon, but for now there’s this.
Let’s talk about the weather
Since winter arrived on the Prairies last week and the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) recently wrapped, I thought this issue will focus on why snow may be good for the economy; how that’s important to our pocketbooks; and keeps pasta on the shelves in Britain.
But first let’s remember our hot, hot summer with very little rain.
All of our farmland experienced drought. All of it.
Sixty-four per cent of Saskatchewan and 43 per cent of Manitoba faced moderate to exceptional drought conditions this summer, according to the NASA Earth Observatory. Basically, all of the agricultural land in the region.
Droughts are caused when there is no moisture in the soil, and there’s not enough snow and rain. Extremely high temperatures, like the ones recently experienced this summer, don’t help. We haven’t had a drought this bad since 1961.
As a result, this year’s grain harvest was not good. If Statistics Canada’s most recent crop production estimates come true, Canadian canola production will hit its lowest level in 13 years. Wheat harvests in Saskatchewan and Manitoba were also poor.
Blame the 2021 pasta shortage on the Canadian Prairies (in part, anyways)
Between drought conditions in Canada and heavy rains in Europe, there wasn’t much durum wheat, an important pasta ingredient, to be found anywhere. This meant pasta shelves in grocery stores in the United Kingdom were empty and consumers in France are spending more on spaghetti. Food costs are up here in Canada too because of low wheat yields, an increase in fuel prices, supply chain problems and other issues. A store in Alberta that imports pasta from Italy pays 20 per cent more for its inventory. Anecdotally, I’m not much of a pasta eater, but the price of the English muffins I regulary buy have gone up by more than 55 per cent at my local Walmart.
Purchasing meat is also more expensive. Cattle farmers had a tough go this summer too, as dry conditions meant feed was hard to come by. Some people made the choice to cull their herds, although rain at the end of August, in some parts of the prairies, helped because it meant cows could forage grass.
Extreme weather events of amplified severity will likely be the most challenging consequence of climate change in the Prairie Provinces. The impacts of flooding, drought and wildfire in recent years are unprecedented, and climate models suggest an increased risk of these events in the future.
The published Prairie chapter of the report goes onto say Western Canada has had “the strongest warming to date,” mainly in the winter, but this past summer 34 Saskatchewan communities and 19 in Manitoba shattered temperature records on Jul. 2. Saskatoon recorded the hottest temperature that day at 40 C.
What does climate change look like on the Prairies
Going back to the report by Natural Resource Canada, climate change will result in broad-scale ecosystem shifts across the Prairie provinces. Our boreal forests will receed while Parkland and grasslands expand north.
"Almost none of the future scenarios include sufficient increases in precipitation to compensate for the drying effect of warmer temperatures," the report says.
The good news is winters may be milder.
The bad news is droughts are predicted in the summers and falls.
"The worst-case future scenario for the Prairie provinces is the reoccurrence of consecutive years of severe drought, such as those that occurred in the 1930s," according to the report.
Well, those are stories for another time. Stories that The Flatlander would like to focus on in the near future. More about that soon.
Speaking of the future, do you have any topics affecting the Prairies you’d like me to dive into for a future Tuesday read? If so, hit reply to this email and let me know.
Also, if you ave any thoughts about this week’s issue, send a letter to the editor, and I’d be happy to publish it as part of an upcoming newsletter.
How can you support The Flatlander going forward?
If you found this newsletter interesting, please forward it to anyone else you think might appreciate it.
You can also visit The Flatlander Facebook page and give it a like.
Thanks for reading. I hope you found it interesting.