/02 JN 2011 / 06 volume 65 Invasive Species inside the A very violent twisted world of Father's Day three locAl Artists Astron-6 completes its ARTS page 13 mAsterpiece arts page 15 EvErything you nEEd to know about jazz fEst plus interviews with robert GlAsper And blonde redheAd arts pages 8-9 "Like" The Uniter on Facebook. Visit www.tinyurl.com/TheUniter to find our page. News 03 www.UniTer.ca June 2, 2011 The UniTer News Crumbling infrastructure could bring more revenue Federal government looking for long-term solutions to infrastructure deficit Dylan Hewlett Municipalities should play a lead role in fixing crumbling streets and old infrastructure, but right now they do not have the powers and revenues to adequately do so, says transit activist and Manitoba Liberal candidate Paul hesse. ethAn Cabel committed to permanently extend the Gas peg “wish-list projects” that received federal there's no doubt about it,” he said, adding volunteer stAff Tax Fund, which transfers about five cents cash, including the Southwest bus rapid tran- that the province, more so than the federal per litre to provinces for their cities, beyond sit (BRT) line. government, is obligated to assist the city. the 2014 expiry date. He added that the federal government Fielding wants to receive one per cent of After a federal election campaign notice- However, a significant chunk of the BCP needs to put stricter conditions on measures Manitoba’s provincial sales tax, which would ably silent on urban issues, the newly elected funds are set to run dry, including $1.2 billion in the BCP if it is to extend the plan past amount to about $270 million in annual rev- majority Conservative government may be per year in infrastructure funding through 2014. enue. getting ready to heed the demands of strug- the Building Canada Fund, according to the “You can't really have an effective BRT He added that the city has done its share gling municipalities across Canada. FCM. network if buses coming off the BRT corri- to moderate spending by using public-pri- “If we have vital communities, that's what Couple this with $20 billion in munic- dor suddenly slam into a pothole,” he said. vate partnerships to bring down construction makes a vital country,” said Hans Cunning- ipal costs associated with new federal waste What an extension of federal support will costs and by strategically reviewing its spend- ham, president of the Federation of Canadian water regulations and the future is looking look like in the coming years, and what con- ing. Municipalities (FCM), a federal lobby group pretty grim unless other levels of government ditions will be placed on the funds, remains that works on behalf of Canadian cities. step up to the plate, according to Paul Hesse, to be seen. “If we have vital “And we think the federal government is transit activist and Manitoba Liberal candi- Communications staff for Denis Lebel, communities, that's what starting to see things that way.” date in Fort Rouge. the new federal minister of Transport, Infra- In the 2011 federal budget tabled shortly “We're talking about crumbling streets, structure and Communities, would not com- makes a vital country. before the government fell, the Conservatives old infrastructure and a dysfunctional tran- ment on any future plans. and we think the federal pledged to work with provinces, territories sit system,” said Hesse. “At this time, we cannot speculate on the government is starting to and the FCM to “develop a long-term plan “Municipalities should play a lead (role) future of federal support for municipal infra- for public infrastructure.” but right now they don't have the powers structure,” wrote communications officer see things that way.” That long-term strategy will likely involve and revenues to truly be able to solve that on Dominique Langlaisin in an e-mail after The – hans CunninghaM, PresidenT, FederaTion oF negotiating an extension to some of the rev- their own.” Uniter made several attempts to reach the canadian MUniciPaLiTies enue transfers found in the $33 billion Build- Others are more cynical about extend- minister by phone. ing Canada Plan (BCP), established in 2007. ing BCP funds, claiming that municipalities Renewal in winnipeg? During the campaign, the FCM released have consistently squandered revenues meant “The province has shirked their responsi- an urban election platform calling for an for infrastructure maintenance on politically Although $62.9 million of Winnipeg’s bilities,” said Fielding. “We think it (one per extension of those funds past their current expedient new projects. 2011 capital budget was made up of federal cent of PST) is a reasonable proposal.” 2014 expiry date. “The problem with infrastructure in this funding, a significant portion of that money However, Brian Kelcey insists that receiv- “As communities, we will grasp at almost country is that there is sexy infrastructure was one-time revenue for an extension of the ing the one per cent is only feasible if the city any straws because we are in a really diffi- and there is ugly infrastructure,” said Brian Chief Peguis Trail. adjusts its attitude toward the province. cult position,” said Cunningham, referring to Kelcey, former budget advisor to Winnipeg The remainder, which came mainly from “They (the city) haven't offered anything shrinking resources for cities that must rely on mayor Sam Katz. the Gas Tax Fund, is not nearly enough to except for the vague assurance that the money limited property tax revenues in the absence “And Canada's mayors tend to use the bring down Winnipeg’s staggering infrastruc- might be spent on infrastructure,” he said. of income or consumption-based taxes. need to fix up the ugly infrastructure as a way ture deficit, according to St. James-Brook- “They have also done nothing to bring the The BCP created several new funds for of leveraging money from the federal govern- lands councillor Scott Fielding, who chairs province into that transaction or to acknowl- municipalities, including a Gas Tax Fund ment to pay for the sexy infrastructure.” Winnipeg’s standing policy committee on edge that the Manitoba government is in a and GST rebate. Although Kelcey believes federal sup- finance. financial deficit position of its own.” The Conservative government has already port is necessary, he cited a series of Winni- “We need to invest more in infrastructure, Smartphone text harder to comprehend: study to have it properly understood by users. their construction to begin with. According gested to Miller and his team that a complete mAtt meuse "People tend to read better on [paper] than to Jakob Nielsen, a researcher in web usabil- revolution in writing styles is needed to bal- the GAtewAy (university of AlbertA) on [desktop computers], and when you just ity, as of March 2011, Facebook's privacy ance deficits in understanding. drop down again, you're making much more policy is rated at a 13th grade reading level, "What we've been doing recently is try- visual demands," Miller said. meaning that people with less than a year of ing to characterize what the differences are EDMONTON (CUP) — Reading compre- The study focused specifically on privacy university experience already find it difficult between the text that you see on your printed hension from a smartphone screen is as low policies used by websites such as Facebook to understand. version of a newspaper and the text that you as half of that when reading from a standard and Google. Using a Cloze test — a standard "As far we can tell, privacy policies are, as would see on a version of a newspaper viewed desktop monitor, according to a recent study test of comprehension that omits words from a protection mechanism for people who are in a browser," he said. by a University of Alberta research team. a document at regular intervals and asks sub- using the Internet on smartphones ... basi- "We're trying to look at and character- James Miller, professor of electrical and jects to reinsert the correct word — Miller cally completely useless. They are completely ize how the writing style in the newspaper computer engineering and a member of the and his team found that comprehension of a unreadable," Miller said. "In reality, the user changes between the two media, and whether team that conducted the study, said that privacy policy when read on an iPhone-sized will be getting no real information when they there is then some way to extrapolate further quirks inherent to smartphones and how peo- screen was rated at 48 per cent when compare enter details. They will have no idea what's down onto smaller devices or whether in real- ple read from them means that mobile con- to the same policy read on a desktop moni- really going to happen to them." ity it needs a complete shift in thought to tent providers need to develop smartphone- tor. These results, combined with the rapid accommodate them.” specific versions of their material if they want Privacy policies are often problematic in increase in popularity of smartphones, sug- 04 News The UniTer June 2, 2011 www.UniTer.ca "how much would it suck cover image The complex nature of New column! to get summoned up to city planning heaven right when we're By RANDy ORTIZ sex, stories & secrets See story on page 13. robert galston on earl Levin getting the Jets back?" www.damnthedesign.com CULtUrE page 15 COMMENTS page 7 cultUrE page 15 UNITER STAFF PeOPLE wORTH READInG aBOUT Managing ediTor Joshua Mcneil: The future of the Green Party aaron epp » [email protected] BUsiness Manager campaign while still working at his job at Star- Geoffrey Brown » [email protected] bucks.