Letters to the Editor

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

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By: Staff Writer

23/11/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 3

Catch the wind

Manitoba Hydro claims the St. Joseph's wind farm will be smaller than the original proposal, reduced from 300 megawatts to 138 megawatts. With Manitoba being one of the windiest places in the country (especially southwestern Manitoba), Hydro should allow for faster tendering of wind projects to be built by private corporations, the public or rural municipalities.

These organizations will provide the financial backing to build the wind farms, rather than having the government finance the upfront costs, as it is doing with the hydro dams in northern Manitoba. All Manitoba Hydro has to do is follow Ontario's lead and buy the power back from the companies at an increased rate above the six or seven cents a kilowatt-hour Hydro is currently offering. If Manitoba is to reach its target of 1,000 megawatts by 2015, it had better buy power at a higher price or companies will build their wind farms elsewhere. (Ontario is currently offering 13.5 cents per kilowatt-hour to wind-energy developers.)

The Manitoba government should invest in wind, solar, and geothermal energy rather than hydro, because it helps to offset our dependence on one type of "clean energy." What happens if we have a drought, as was suggest by a whistleblower recently? Other clean power sources could make up the difference. Additionally, the power lost in transmission is likely to be lower for wind farms because the power is more likely to be produced in the more densely populated southern Manitoba, which consumes the bulk of the province's electricity. Germany has an integrated system of wind, solar, biogas and hydro all throughout the country. The German and Ontario examples provide a model that we could follow here in Manitoba -- if only this government was really committed to the idea of a diversified clean-energy portfolio.

Scott Harrison

Winnipeg

Leave library alone

Is there no stopping Mayor Sam Katz and his city hatchet? Library services are now on the chopping block. By contracting out library services, we stand to lose much. Libraries are fundamental to a society and the culture of a city should not be lost on out-of-town cataloguers. Giving up this local autonomy is just another way of failing to recognize the value of Winnipeg and its citizens.

PAT MALIS

Winnipeg

Taking from kids

People who received the H1N1 flu shot that were not on the priority list: You have taken that shot away from a child. Think on it! May God help you to live with your guilt.

KATE KEHLER

Winnipeg

Freedom in danger

Canada's constitutional monarchy is going down. There is an understandable cause for the fact that Canadian freedom of expression is being reduced while America's is increasing. Canada's constitutional monarchy is less democratic since the end of 2008.

The powers of Queen Elizabeth II represented by Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean are partly limited by the Constitution in Canada. If Ms. Jean's office is now largely ceremonial, she still has a lot of power in some areas of our government. She has the responsibility of choosing the prime minister. Ms. Jean opens and closes the Parliament and has the authority to summon it, adjourn it, dissolve it, and signs the bills it passes. On Dec. 4, 2008, she agreed to prorogue Parliament and saved the minority government of Stephen Harper, knowing that the absolute majority of MPs were against it. That day, the power of the Queen curbed democracy in Canada.

Remember that the 105 Canadian senators are not elected by the population but appointed by the governor general on the recommendation of the prime minister. They can hold their position until they are 75 years old. The Senate, sharing the function of lawmaking with the House of Commons, is now filled with people who had the prime value of serving their party and being rewarded for it. No Canadian can compare such a political system to the United States' model without blushing. Democracy in Canada is a work in progress while the election of Barack Obama shows that the United States' system is far better. As the Reporters Without Borders' index of freedom of the press shows, there is still a lot of work to do to drag Canada's constitutional monarchy to a modern democratic level.

Michel Gourd

L'Ascension-de-Patapédia, Qué.

Charge them

Three people have been found guilty of smuggling ecstasy into North Dakota from Winnipeg. They are serving sentences in the United States. They were apparently smuggling guns from North Dakota into Winnipeg. I strongly feel that upon their release, if they attempt to return to Canada, they must face charges of bringing illegal guns into the country. They are accomplices in any crime committed using these weapons and should be charged as such. They should serve time for any crime connected to them and serve sentences consecutively.

RON BOWERS

Winnipeg

Shame on HSC

As a proud graduate of the Winnipeg General/Health Sciences Centre School of Nursing, I hang my head in shame at the treatment of the gentleman who had brain surgery and was turfed out of HSC. He then became a much more debilitated patient on his readmission as a stroke victim. The nursing staff should be ashamed of the way they treated this patient. Where was the compassion of their profession, where was the discharge planning? The top- heavy administration of HSC has a lot to be accountable for. Thankfully, he will no doubt end up in an institution where nurses' aides, who have not forgotten how to deal with the elderly and sick, will care for him.

PAT VANDERGRAAF

Winnipeg

What about issues?

Re: Liberals stand by Israel: Ignatieff (Nov.19). I am very disappointed in your coverage of Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff's appearance in Winnipeg on Nov. 18. The photograph is pathetic. I attended the dinner and don't see any coverage of the speech delivered by the party leader, where he emphasized the need for improved education, "green-job" training and research. I simply can't understand why your paper chose to cover only the publicly funded propaganda distributed by members of the Conservative party.

Marina Plett-Lyle

Winnipeg

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 23, 2009 A13

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3 Comments

Posted by: Nelson

November 23, 2009 at 4:52 PM

Fellow Canadian from Quebec, so you think that the American system is the best, under there system you would not have the right under there constitution to speak French. And remember when the Americans during there war of Rebellion was not about to offer the people of Quebec the right to speak French and protect the Catholic Religion, but the British did. You do not have a beef your just poor losers.

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Posted by: Rigel

November 23, 2009 at 4:17 PM

Scott Harrison is overlooking one critical point here when he talks about the 138 MW from St. Joseph's or the province's 1000 MW target by 2015. Those numbers refer to installed capacity, meaning that's the output of windmills if they're working at total efficiency. The facts are that windfarms are typically no more than 20-25% efficient vs. 85% for hydro, coal, natural gas or nuclear. This means that the actual output will not be anywhere near 138 or 1000MW but more like 30 and 250 at best. The shortfall would have to be made up by fossil fuel generators, which have to be kept running in standby mode for them to be able to cut in immediately. So what sort of saving in this supposed to achieve? Hydro would be much better off looking to nuclear, just as many other countries are re-considering. In fact, between now and 2020, Europe alone will be building 226 nuclear plants. So Manitoba needs to face reality regarding supplementary power sources and never mind unreliable and inefficient fads like wind and solar.

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Posted by: Mhirnatsu

November 23, 2009 at 9:27 AM

Marina,

Of course they did not focus on the speech. The paper wanted to try to milk as much readership from the Conservative propaganda as they could. It's much easier to do this if you perpetuate the idea that the Liberals are without any kind of policy, focus, or vision. They are after all a business, and must try to make a profit.