Every fall, EMILI — a Manitoba-based nonprofit for which I’m managing director — hosts our Agriculture Enlightened conference. This year’s event on Oct. 23 drew business leaders, producers, civil servants, technologists and investors from across North America. Some came from as far as Ghana and Mongolia.

Such interest in part stems from the echoes of Canada’s historical reputation as an agricultural powerhouse. Canada ranks ninth in the world for agri-food exports, with buyers in virtually every nation on Earth. Our public research institutions are recognized as global leaders in agrifood science. Our agtech ecosystem is inventing cutting-edge tools with enormous potential. And our producers are beacons of upholding high environmental and food quality standards.

But a converging set of global challenges are forcing all nations to reassess how they feed their citizens. It’s here that our nation — and Manitoba itself — have key insights and capacities to share with the rest of the world.

Amid a fragmenting geopolitical environment and sudden rupture in relations with our southern neighbour, the headlines these days declare Canada is a nation adrift. But that wasn’t the story told at Agriculture Enlightened this year. Rather, participants heard all about how Canada still has a vital role to play in making the world a safer, more prosperous and more sustainable place — and agriculture is at the heart of it.

Cameroon’s 92-year-old President Paul Biya is now poised to stretch his time in power to five decades. If he finishes his new seven-year term, Biya will be nearly 100. By contrast, the median age of Cameroon’s 30 million citizens is just 18. Indeed, the autocrat is the only leader that most Cameroonians have ever known.

“There was no election; it was a masquerade,” said the main opposition challenger, Issa Tchiroma Bakary.

The country’s pro-government election commission on Oct. 27 released final results showing Biya won 53 per cent of votes compared with 35 per cent for the former labour minister. Yet international monitors and political rivals routinely claim polls during Biya’s tenure have been marred by irregularities. This time was no different.

The president’s contested victory also came amid an ominous backdrop.

Recently, a school principal in Carman brought a defamation case against a parent who insinuated on social media that the principal promoted the dissemination of child pornography in schools.

The principal’s lawsuit against the parent is more than a matter of personal reputation. It is about upholding human rights and children’s rights. It is about teacher professionalism. It is about the future of public education.

“Parental rights” rhetoric is on the rise, where some parents or lobby groups seek to control the curriculum and books that are available to all students. “Parental rights” activists purposefully employ language about protecting children as rhetorical Teflon, deflecting any criticism.

In doing so, anyone that challenges their views or underlying motivations is positioned as someone who wants to harm children.

End Homelessness Winnipeg’s 2024 street census confirms the concerns of community agencies working with people who are homeless.

The 2,469 people experiencing homelessness is higher than previous counts. Indigenous people are overrepresented at 79.9 per cent of this population.

People are losing their housing because they can’t afford it, and because of health-related issues like substance use and mental health challenges. Housing Minister Bernadette Smith insists its plan to end chronic homelessness is “right on track.”

Let’s take a closer look.

If Donald Trump were a religious man, he might have said “There but for the grace of God go I” when he heard that former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has been sentenced to 27 years in prison. Bolsonaro’s crime was to have plotted a coup to take back the presidency he lost in the 2022 election.

Trump is acutely aware of the similarities between Bolsonaro’s case and his own bumbling, half-hearted attempt to incite a coup on Jan. 6, 2021. Both men were voted out after a single term in office, both immediately declared that the election had been stolen by the opposition, and both then chickened out of a coup at the last moment.

Trump feels the parallels so keenly that he did not just condemn the Bolsonaro trial, claiming that it was a “witch-hunt.” Although the United States has a positive trade balance with Brazil, Trump has imposed 50 per cent tariffs on imports from Brazil as an explicit punishment for putting his friend and ally on trial.

Trump must be feeling close to all-powerful right now. Only eight months into his second term after a triumphant comeback election, he is nearing the point where he can sweep the whole 238-year-old constitutional apparatus of the United States aside and rule by decree.

Recently, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that one-year mandatory minimum jail sentences for possession of and accessing child pornography (child sexual abuse and exploitation material) are unconstitutional.

In response to this ruling, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew appears to be calling for the extrajudicial killing of convicted offenders and encouraging vigilante justice saying “Not only should (you) go to prison for a long time, they should bury you under the prison. You shouldn’t get protective custody. They should put you into general population, if you know what I mean.”

Not only do these comments advocate further violence in prisons — threatening the life and safety of those working and incarcerated in these institutions — these comments are an affront to the administration of justice and rule of law.

Mandatory minimum sentences are a blunt legal tool that can prevent a judge from doing their job, which includes considering the individual circumstances of a case in arriving at a fit and proportionate sentence. Not only can mandatory minimums constrain a judge’s consideration of the circumstances of the accused, they can also limit deliberation about the harms to a victim or community in the specific circumstances of an offence.

Preventing and addressing homelessness needs to include learning disabilities.

Jino Distasio (Canada’s failing grade on homelessness, Sept. 3) correctly bewails the large increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness in Winnipeg which has increased from 1,256 to 2,469 in the latest count. He provides five concrete suggestions for actions.

Missing are important actions for the early diagnosis and help with ADHD and dyslexia. In 1996, researchers reported that about 80 per cent of youth experiencing homelessness had a learning disability. The most recent count of people who were experiencing homelessness in Winnipeg found that 46 per cent had a learning disability, or cognitive impairment (53 per cent for those under 30 years of age).

These numbers are almost certainly low because self-reporting of learning disabilities tends to be much lower than results from actually testing learning ability. ADHD is also common in those experiencing homelessness with up to 64 per cent of youth experiencing homelessness having ADHD in a study in Quebec. In 2022, the street census found that more than half of those experiencing homelessness had not completed high school, another potential indicator of a learning difficulty and/or ADHD.

Bravo to Ontario Premier Doug Ford, standing up for Canada.

The Ontario government’s advertisement which aired in the U.S., especially during the initial games of the World Series, was brilliant. It spoke directly to American citizens and was quintessentially Canadian: nothing but polite. It was effective, too. It did catch U.S. President Donald Trump’s ire, but given it was too close to home, using wise words by well-respected former president Ronald Reagan to raise serious concerns about tariffs. Ford’s aplomb contrasts starkly with Prime Minister Mark Carney, who can be generously described these days as “elbows down.”

Despite all the budget hubbub, Carney’s tactics with the U.S. appear protracted and ineffective, with “backing down” becoming his hallmark. The European Union has a deal. Mexico has at least a partial deal. We do not. Some have blamed Ford for the suspension of talks, but U.S. officials confirmed the ad alone was not the cause, further indicating progress was slow. This undermines Carney’s claim that a deal had been imminent. The situation also perfectly suits Trump as we face a constant drip of job-loss announcements going south.

Carney’s apology to Trump is also at odds with fiery rhetoric he employed during the election. In a broadly aired story last March, including on BBC, he stated, “My government will keep tariffs on until the Americans show us respect.” That did not transpire. He also disparaged, “the person who worships at the altar of Donald Trump will kneel before him, not stand up to him.”

I sometimes wonder if humanity is just a series of badly edited takes. Some people march, some legislate, some argue online like prophets with Wi-Fi. Me? I prefer the slow way. The kind that happens over burnt coffee, years of awkward silences and the steady work of trying not to mistake love for agreement.

My mother once bought me a book of quotes for 25 cents at a garage sale. On page 32, Desmond Tutu whispers, “My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”

That line should have been printed on every family dinner table, especially ours.

I think of Richard whenever I read it. Richard with the kind eyes and doomsday opinions. He still calls his mother every Sunday, remembers birthdays I forget and once drove through a blizzard to fix my broken mailbox because “it looked sad.” But for years, he carried stories about people who looked like me — old myths that clung to his good heart like cobwebs that refused to burn.

On Wednesday of last week, Bill 48 — The Protective Detention and Care of Intoxicated Persons Act — was passed into law by the Manitoba Legislative Assembly. It was introduced on Oct. 2 and enacted little more than a month later.

Rushed legislation often leads to confusion among the public due to the limited opportunity for study, discussion and debate. That may be the case with respect to Bill 48.

Many in the media and public have focused on the legislation’s establishment of “protective care centres,” along with provisions that would authorize the involuntary detention of highly intoxicated persons for up to 72 hours (up from the previous maximum of 24 hours), but there is more to the bill than that.

In fact, it is fair to ask how many MLAs and ordinary Manitobans had actually read Bill 48 prior to its passage. If they had, it is likely that far more questions would have emerged.

In 1788 James Madison, in Federalist No. 48 commenting on the American Constitution wrote, “An elective despotism is not the government we fought for … the powers of government should be divided and balanced among several bodies (legislative, executive, judicial) of magistry as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.”

Today, his worst fears are being realized.

At the time, his concern was the overreaching power of the legislative arm (Congress), the argument supports a system of checks and balances, which has since become a principle not only of politics but also of human relationships. Today the difference is that the executive branch (the president) constitutes an elective despotism, governing without limits, running roughshod over Congress, the courts, and the other check, the opposition Democratic Party.

Most recently, the sitting president demolished part of the White House, unilaterally overriding the precedent of that authority accruing to the National Capital Planning Commission. This is only one of the latest, seemingly arbitrary, decisions which ignore established constraints.