GCn20

There is a reason that the Riders are paying almost ten percent of their payroll to two jump ball specialist receivers.

On more than one occasion.

I understand academia quite well. I just strongly believe that academia is out to lunch. But just for shits and giggles here is one from the Fraser Institute citing several studies that counter your argument. You will no doubt miss that point though, and claim the Fraser Institute is a biased right wing think tank even though they have cited credible sources to their opinion. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/minimum-wages-dont-help-poor

There is nothing personal or anecdotal about how small businesses in the real world react to wage increases. Every business lobby has been screaming it from the rooftops to the socialists that would offload governmental responsibility to the business sector. Keep on dragging up absurd comparisons, they do not make your case any more compelling.

Sorry man but it is my belief that if it is not personal experience then it can ONLY be anecdotal. Evidence is not theoretical, it is real life experience. I am shocked by how many of you disregard that. For every piece of evidence you provide I can provide an equally compelling piece of evidence by an equally credible source. The problem with that is you will call it biased when it doesn't fit your narrative. Therefore, I will stick to my personal experience gained over 30 years of being a business owner in this province and from the network of colleagues who, by the way, agree entirely with what I'm saying. Have you ever ran a business yourself? Was your experience different? These are the only things that are credible to me, not university professors pontificating over sets of values that are unrealistic and set up with parameters that quite frankly rarely exist in the real world. Anyone can spin their study to say anything they want it to say by whoever is paying for them to do the study. That's the difference between academia and the real world and why I hold very little respect of the opinions of such studies. That being said I could probably provide a thousand links from academics that will counter your point but again, it will mean little, because these studies are produced to promote the viewpoints of those that sponsor them. The problem with the studies you promote, and academia really loves to produce, is that the economists assume businesses can survive the disruption created before the stabilization and that is idiotic because most small businesses do not have this kind of war chest to fall back on.

What a bunch of know nothing horse **** that is. You don't know me, you don't know my businesses and you are completely out to lunch on what I paid. Downloading cost to everyone else? That is precisely what vast increases to any wage legislation does. I had several businesses over the years, most succeeded, some did not. I worked on a 10% margin as most in the hospitality industry do. You think business owners are carrying millions of dollars to the bank? Sure, the corporations do....some of them....but the single biggest employer in Manitoba is small business and you are smoking crack if you think that they are selfish, or downloading costs to everyone else. Most are struggling to survive and in the internet age it becomes tougher and tougher for brick and mortar places to do so. Save you sanctimony, you don't have a hot clue about what you are talking about. I had a ton of employees making minimum wage, and most of them would have worked for nothing if I let them. In the hospitality industry it's all about the tips and on a slow day that minimum wage worker is making 30-40 bucks an hour. The problem with min wage legislation is that if I had to pay those same employees 20 bucks an hour they wouldn't have gotten their hours. I couldn't afford it. The business taxes in Manitoba, particularly the city of W, are much higher than other jurisdictions. Cost of goods, are slightly above average, and maintenance fees on property are very high due to our climate. Speaking as a hotelier, the red tape and regulation in this province is draconian. Our liquor laws are some of the most antiquated in North America. It's not just one thing, but many things and they add up to very narrow margins. Couple that with the war the NDP wages on the industry to try and force unionization, and you've got a hospitality industry that would simply have to fold it's tent with much more prohibitive taxation, or government policy that increases cost. I speak from REAL world experience, a lifetime of it. Not imagined, or think tank hypothetical bull ****.

A lifetime of being a successful businessman, I lived and died by the bottom line. You can stuff your academic papers. Academia will tell you a crap load of things that in theory should work, but don't in the real world. Could the market sort itself out....sure it could, but not without significant casualties and upheaval along the way. Look, I'm not against anyone getting a living wage but I am very much against knee jerk idiotic moves that chase business away and shut businesses down and if you don't think wage cost plays a significant factor in that than there is zero point continuing this discussion with you.

As a small business owner in this province, I can assure you that a big part of wages being low in our province is a higher cost of doing business here. For small businesses, in particular, margins are tight as they are. If you increase the minimum wage too quickly you will drive a spike through the heart of small business in every sector with retail being the most vulnerable. Ultimately, any big increase in wages will get passed on to the consumers by the corporations that can survive such a thing making it an almost net zero gain for the employees receiving them. Yes, life has become unaffordable for many on the low end of the wage spectrum, and single income families. This is not new, and it is not something that 2 bucks an hour is going to fix. Getting some responsible government during an inflationary crisis might help but that's not what this particular forum wants to hear. Bumping minimum wage is fool's gold. The answer is to provide more industry and better paying job opportunities and that comes from having the ability to attract these opps to our province by not having draconian socialist government policy and taxation. You can't tax yourself out of poverty, and you most certainly can't fix it by trying to offload fundamental flaws onto the business sector.

Totally agree. Just pointing out that when she took over it was to a collective groan. Kenney was immensely popular in the polls when he became leader of the UCP....and then he just plummeted. It takes a special kind of bad to have Alberta hating a right of centre premier.

Pallister's popularity was plummeting though, as was his party's. Never reached rock bottom at 33%. Stefanson did little to help herself for sure, but unlike Kenney she never took over a party with any kind of popularity to speak of. Kenney took a very popular party and tanked it. He is far more unpopular than Stefanson. Stefanson's party is more unpopular than Kenney's.

Not only that but Fajardo is a master at placing the ball where he cannot be intercepted. Can't be caught by his receivers either but I try to look at the positive.

In fairness, she didn't exactly come on board as premier at the party's highpoint. Kenney was very popular and tanked all on his own. Stefanson started with people POed at her party already. She shot herself in the foot a few times as well, but most of her unpopularity can be attributed to Pallister's handling of the pandemic.

That's highly speculative but is definitely one possibility. If I were a betting man I would suggest he was getting beat by other players. We have a good crop of recruits and the TC reports seem to suggest some of the young guys have been standing out.

There is a command centre that should easily be able to count em up at the end of the game. However, in game, I can't see how you could possibly enforce it as no one knows how many plays there will be.

C'mon down to Winnipeg, where we will have an NDP government next election. I guess there is definitely some irony there. Doesn't change how the people of rural Manitoba feel about it though.

Gun legislation. gun legislation. gun legislation. gun legislation. Followed by carbon tax. Did I mention gun legislation yet? I am not going to get into a debate about the pros and cons of the government legislation, just throwing it out there that rural people look at gun control a LOT differently than urban people.

Sad but true. You will find this exact same conversation in pretty much every rural community East of Toronto. Trudeau's policies are not popular in rural Canada.

We moved out of grain in the mid 70's because there was no money in it, so I will have to take your word for it on the CWB after that time. The cost of hauling grain to market all depends how much further you have to go. In some areas it was minimal, but others it was quite expensive because the distance was further. My brother now has to haul almost 100k to sell his grain. My brother was the eldest and took over the farm. Our farm wasn't big enough to support multiple families so I went my own way. I think I made the right decision. To answer your question though, I loved cattle farming and hated grain farming. My brother operates a few head of cattle for me that I butcher and sell at auction each year, in exchange I look after the livestock for him a couple weeks each winter while he goes South somewhere.

Same in the area of Interlake my Dad farmed and my brother took over.

No shame in any of that. Jeffers-Harris had all the talent in the world before attitude took him out of the game. Carr was awesome but learned the hard way that sometimes the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence and he struggled in a different offence.

100% bang on correct. I would say far less than 50% were in favor the CWB at the time of it's demise, their fear was of the unknown not the demise of the CWB. Also, absolutely correct that the demise of the Pool elevators and rail lines were extremely damaging to much of rural Manitoba small towns. It killed the family farm.

Definitely worked out for the better, the Wheat Board was awful. The prices were awful for grain in general. There is a reason that everyone switched away from wheat and barley. My brother farms in the Interlake and he planted wheat and barley for the first time in decades after they dismantled the CWB because there was actually potential to make money. The only people really upset about the dismantling of the CWB are people who don't farm, the employees of the CWB, and the occasional old farmer who had moved to other crops already.

Thankfully no. lol....but they are in enough trouble in the polls as it is, take away health care and it would take the return of Ralph to get them a seat.

Just a bit of a tweener size wise would be my guess. A little bit underweight for DE in the show, and a little bit too big for rush LBer.

There is no party in Canada that would even attempt the privatization of health care in Canada. It would be political suicide for that party for decades. I do find the term privatization to be an interesting interpretation between the parties though. Some people see allowing private hospitals and clinics to exist as the privatization of health care, while others feel it is about who is paying the bills, ensuring the quality, and ensuring equal access. I fall in the latter, but I understand that others hold a different opinion. The fact of the matter though is that Manitoba Hydro is protected by the Manitoba Hydro Act. While they can sell off subsidiaries that are money pits or have outlived their usefulness they simply cannot sell Manitoba Hydro core services without a referendum. I would agree if it were possible to privatize Manitoba Hydro...but it is not...or at least not without 51% of the population voting in favor of doing so.