My perspective - Investing in the future
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- Published on Thursday, February 1, 2018
Kate Jackman - Atkinson
Neepawa Banner & Press
The province’s agricultural industry faces a major challenge when it comes to succession— the high cost of entry. Few other jobs require such a high upfront investment; you don’t need to own a hospital to become a doctor or a school to become a teacher, but you need a farm to be a farmer. The cost of land, equipment, livestock, seed and other inputs is high and only rising. At their recent annual general meeting, Keystone Agricultural Producers, Manitoba’s general farm policy organization, passed a resolution to help combat two problems, with one simple solution. The high cost of entry for young farmers is one problem, while the other is the purchase of farmland as an investment vehicle.
Right in the centre - More on money
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- Published on Thursday, February 1, 2018
Ken Waddell
Neepawa Banner & Press
Whenever you read charts and do some math you run a bit of risk. On Jan. 19, I wrote about the minimum wage increases, especially the situation in Ontario. I said, “From the employee point of view, a 40 hours a week job at minimum wage of $11.15 per hour comes to $446 per week. At that level, there is no federal income tax, the provincial tax is $6.73, CPP is $15.41 and EI is $7.40. Net is $416.46 per week. At $15 per hour the wages rise to $600 per week, federal tax kicks in at $10.03, provincial tax at $22.26, CPP at 32.29 and EI at $ 9.96. Net is 534.71.” The net difference was $118.25.
Right in the centre - Pardon the re-run
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- Published on Thursday, January 25, 2018
Ken Waddell
Neepawa Banner & Press
Television viewers are quite used to re-runs. Newspaper readers not so much. This week, I am offering up a re-run of a 2017 column. This week, we have had so many staff off work due to illness that we are operating on a very stretched schedule. Hopefully, next week will be back to normal, whatever normal is in our newspaper world. I recently read a column about the universal day care myth. Day care has been a huge topic for many years and there are those who would have us believe that all children should be in day care. All day care should be owned by the government and certainly all levels of day care should be supervised and regulated by the government.
My perspective - Apologies
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- Published on Thursday, January 25, 2018
Kate Jackman - Atkinson
Neepawa Banner & Press
“Sorry”. While we may not claim total ownership of the word, as we can with “eh”, it’s as Canadian a word as you will find. On any street, in any Canadian town or city, you will find someone unnecessarily apologizing for bumping into an inanimate object. Almost as Canadian an image as skating on a frozen lake is the Canadian apologizing for being bumped into in a grocery store. So ingrained in the Canadian psyche is politeness, that when Canadian Geographic and The Walrus joined forces to put together “The Story of Canada in 150 Objects”, “politeness” was ranked number one.
Right in the centre - Minimal questions
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- Published on Thursday, January 18, 2018
By Ken Waddell
Neepawa Banner & Press
There has been a lot of discussion about the minimum wage being raised to $14 per hour in Ontario. It is scheduled to go to $15 per hour on Jan. 1, 2019. The recent increase was a raise of $2.40 per hour. It has jolted many small business owners and not in a good way.
