The Possibilitarians – let’s just do it!


Manitobans used to be among the most entrepreneurial people in the world, full of bold ideas and get-it-done gumption. Then for years, we seemed to lose this spirit as big government put a hold on our energies and inertia set in. Now Winnipeg’s Metropolitan Region is showing that we still own our let’s-just-do-it nature and how we can get it back.


Dorothy Dobbie I


have an aboriginal friend who is also an entrepreneur and who has the best advice in the world for his fellow man: If you want to do something, just do it!


That used to be the spirit that moti-


vated Manitobans to move mountains, and we did.


Isolated as we were in the early days, if we needed something to make something work, we just improvised and created a tool or a part or a method to solve the problem. Often, along the way, we came up with better ideas, better products and more efficient methods.


History has shown that we in Mani- toba can do almost anything. We fought our way into Confederation


The recent opening of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights is a prime example of what bold ideas can achieve!


when they hardly knew we existed in the East. Against all odds we built a railway over the perma- frost to Hudson Bay. To support our troops during the Second World War in 1942, we raised over $65 million – that would equal more than a billion dollars today! We overcame the great flood of 1950 and then built a diver- sion, Duff ’s Ditch, that can be seen from the moon. Along the way, we pioneered the air industry, we built rockets that explored the stratosphere and, on the side, we devel- oped a world famous ballet while gaining an unparalleled arts reputation. We believed in ourselves and we made things happen.


We didn’t ask for government handouts. We certainly didn’t ask for government permission. Now, we are looking at a future that is fiercely com- petitive for business – you have to be faster, smarter, more creative and willing to do what it takes to get ahead. Thankfully, there is a group of very creative civic lead-


ers who believe this and so have created an organization called Winnipeg’s Metropolitan Region (formerly the Partnership for Manitoba’s Capital Region). Led by a feisty executive director, Colleen Sklar, who jollies, jostles and jokes her way forward carrying the group along with her momentum, the organization is poised to makes some very productive changes to the way we do business with business in Manitoba. Their goal is to be more efficient, more nimble, more


proactive and more aggressive in running the Metropol- itan Region communities (of which there are 17 in the


partnership, counting Winnipeg) than their counterparts in other provinces where these kinds of regional organiza- tions already exist. One of the most successful of these is Edmonton which, ironically, took their ideas from the 16 years of study that has gone into the Manitoba initiative. In the short term, the aim of the Winnipeg’s Metropoli-


tan Region is to use the co-operative efforts of its members to reduce the cost of running their towns and to improve the infrastructure for the region. In the long term, their co-operation will help them attract big business looking for the advantages the region has to offer, bringing jobs and prosperity to local citizens. This is not a slam dunk even after all this time. Change always stimulates reservations, but the determination to make it happen is driven by reality. “We’re not here to hold your hand,” said site selection consultant Greg Wassmandorf on a tour of Winnipeg’s Metropolitan Region last year. “We are here to eliminate you.” In other words, if you don’t have your act together you won’t even be considered. Business doesn’t have time to babysit your problems. No matter how competitive your hydro rates or how expert your labour force or how convenient your product source, if you can’t provide a smoothly running, barrier-free infrastructure under which to do business, investors will just move on. With a small population of some 820,000 people in the Metropolitan Region catchment area, this is a tiny market.


But rather than seeing this as a negative, we need to see the upside. Our compact- ness can be a great advantage. Because we are small, we are nimble.


We can respond quickly. Because we have to be more resourceful, we are more re- sourceful. We solve problems ingeniously. We find ways when others would throw up their hands. We know each other, so we can work more collaboratively. The members of the group will start with the basics: synchronize bylaws, rules and regulations as much as possible. Save money though group purchasing. Ratio- nalize the amount of equipment and the number of social amenities needed over the entire region rather than over just one municipality at a time. Cluster the syner- gies that will show best to prospective in- vestors. Design transportation infrastruc- ture for the benefit of those synergies. In fact, they have already started by us-


ing the proceeds of a symposium on collaboration to buy enough computer power to store the region’s data needs on a wide front. “For example,” says Colleen Sklar, “we can now track emergency response data in a way we never could before. We can see where the hot spots are, where the activity is taking place and react accordingly.” She adds that the open access system is available for use by the whole province, not just the region.


This was just the beginning. Colleen envisions a day when the pesky planning documents required by the prov- ince can be on the system, letting users update data and see what others are doing. Currently, it can take anywhere from two to nine years to complete a plan, frustrating everyone and reducing the efficacy of the planning itself. There is much, much more that can be done. Sometimes, for Colleen and her group, it is hard to


recognize the progress they are making as it is by nature incremental, but with each achievement, the progress is accelerating.


Best of all, no one is waiting for senior government per- mission any more, although they, of course, keep a wary eye on budgets and other moves by the senior level of legislators. But they have come to accept that self-will is liberating. The Metropolitan Region is showing us the way back


to self-sufficiency in our province. The spirit that moved all those mountains out of the way is coming back. The Region is forging ahead and just doing it!


Spousal abuse – the path from passionate love to control to violence Dorothy Dobbie


in the local produce store, except for the clerk and the owner. As I browsed the fruit, I could hear him loudly proclaim- ing, “I’ve gone 185 in the city plenty of times.” He repeated himself a couple of times, going on to outline the reasons for his declaration.


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He was blustery and assertive. The women said very little. Finalizing his purchase, he burst out the door. The clerk drew in her breath and said, “I wanted to punch that guy in the nose!” The owner quietly agreed. Why, I won- dered. I’m sure you could easily travel 185 km in the city in a single day, so I asked, “Why?”


“He was a complete jerk,” said the


clerk. You should have heard how he was talking to his wife on the phone, yelling at her and calling her names.” “And who does he think he is?” chimed in the owner. “He’s going to kill someone going that fast in the city – or anywhere!”


“Ooooh,” I thought. So “going 185” meant travelling at that speed, not the distance. But my companions’ anger and disgust was about the verbal public abuse of the man’s wife. “He probably


10 www.lifestyles55.net


man, a bit rough looking and perhaps on the younger side of middle age, was the only person


beats her,” continued the owner. “I feel so sorry for the poor girl.” She went on to tell me about another customer who, years before, used to come to the store with his wife twice a week. “He would grab a handful of peanuts and eat them, one by one, dropping the shells on the floor,” she said. “His wife was the sweetest thing, but he verbally abused her in front of everyone. One day, he went to the car leaving her to pay for the groceries and I just couldn’t help myself. I leaned over and whispered, ‘You don’t have to take that.’” “Good for you,” I said. “No,” she replied. “They never came back. I am so sorry I said anything.” She was thinking that perhaps the wife talk- ed back to her abuser and who knows what happened to her. “It was none of my businesses,” she said sadly. But whose business is it, I wonder, if not ours? And why shouldn’t we speak up and say something to the abuser, if not the abused? Why should we let them get away with bullying and beating and crushing the spirit of their spouse? If we don’t speak up for them, who will? I still regret not saying something or offering help to a friend who, from time to time, came to work with bruises on her cheek visible under her make up. It was always the same cheek, except for one day when she appeared with a fat lip – a cold sore, she said – but there was no sore visible. I longed to


say something to offer support, but I didn’t, worried that I would shame her by doing so.


Why do we feel this way? The only one who should be ashamed is the jerk dishing out the abuse. Yet we in soci- ety let these things pass, turn our heads, pretend not to see. It’s time to speak up for anybody we realize is being abused. I think of Kevin Klein, the owner of


MyToba, who recently re-told the world the story of his mother’s murder by an abusive spouse. The last time Kevin saw him, Robert Munroe was in a pa- role hearing hoping to get out of jail. Parole was granted. He now lives free and clear in Windsor, Ontario and you can be pretty sure he has done it again – abused and beaten other women, who may not know his record. All accounts point to spousal abuse as being a se- rial event, even after imprisonment or counselling. At this man’s parole hearing, Kevin


wrote, “The parole board asked him to talk about what happened and what caused it. They revealed his past abuse of partners, which we weren’t aware of. Each time, his abuse became worse — it started with shoving a girlfriend, then pushing his first wife, then punch- ing her. That relationship ended but his pattern continued until finally he took a life … my mom’s life. I learned that day she previously had called the police about his abuse. She had even gone to


a shelter on a few occasions for some peace when my brothers left the house for a weekend or a school trip. She never told us but then again we never asked. We, like most of society, were blind to the signs, or simply ignored them. My mother was living in fear, just as thou- sands of women are doing right now.” At the parole hearing Robert Munroe convincingly pled remorse – they all do and society feels sorry for them. How unimaginably perverse. The abuser won. Kevin and his brothers were left to suffer the lifelong consequences. Even the inheritance from their mother went and was squandered by Munroe while he was out on bail. The boys got noth- ing. Kevin, only a young adult himself, looked after his younger brother. We need to take spousal abuse more seriously. Not only women are in dan- ger; sometimes, the abuser’s anger ex- tends to the kids who are also killed. Regardless, the children’s lives are filled with horror and dread while it is all happening and they are left with mis- placed guilt after it is all over as they wonder if there wasn’t something they could have done.


It’s not your fault, dear children of


these relationships. It’s the fault of all of us who turn a blind eye. We must change this and take responsibility for the victims, because in spite of what the abusers always claim, it is definitely not the victim’s fault!


November 2017


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