Have your say

Regulate Hydro...

The Public Utilities Board is absolutely right to demand it should regulate water and sewer rates as it does the rates of other monopoly utilities; it makes no sense that it is unable to do so.

The government must change the necessary statutes and regulations on this as quickly as possible. Your May 4 editorial, Civic looting must stop, is bang on.

The government of Manitoba deserves thanks for the high quality of appointments it has been making to PUB. Now, give the PUB the mandate it needs to ensure Winnipeg's water and sewer rates are not only set in an open and transparent way, but that its revenues are not diverted.

By the way, why is the city holding its contract with Veolia under wraps? The city should be forced to allow PUB to review the contract. Consumers bear the cost, so what's the secret?

ROGER KINGSLEY

Winnipeg

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Re: Water rates 'hidden' tax: PUB (May 4). If it wasn't for the Public Utilities Board, we can only imagine what we would be paying for hydro, gas and, of course, Manitoba Public Insurance. Yes, that same MPI that still refuses to open its books to a PUB audit.

Hence it is important for a watchdog to be in place, especially within a province where voters have a strange infatuation for electing fiscally irresponsible NDP governments.

The concept of the PUB controlling sewer and water rates in Winnipeg, whose mayor and council have been equally unaccountable for their bizarre spending habits of public money, is not only a good idea, but long overdue.

AL YAKIMCHUK

Winnipeg

... or just unload it

Jim Collinson's May 3 column, Manitoba Hydro's new opportunity, outlines several very positive opportunities for the province's power utility. The opportunities are viable and most likely should be pursued.

However, if one reads between the lines of Collinson's article, one would see these are concepts any for-profit corporation would be considering. They would not need to read the local newspaper to get investment ideas. They would be working to get maximum return for stockholders' investment.

Instead, Manitoba Hydro wants to build the wasteful Bipole III power line at a government direction and route and continues to sell excess power to the U.S. at bargain rates. No rational for-profit corporation would behave in this manner.

It is time the province put Manitoba Hydro up for sale, with opportunities for Manitobans to purchase shares, and the financial markets to join in. This way, shareholders other than government employees can review strategic plans and can make appropriate decisions as to future investments of corporate assets.

Most power utilities in the U.S. are private stockholder-owned corporations. A number of them are enjoying bargain rates from Hydro, as the utility has no other buyer of the power. A for-profit corporation would not find itself in this position.

WILLIAM J. KELLER

Winnipeg

Gross misrepresentation

The April 27 Free Press contains a letter to the editor by Glenn Cheater, president of the board of directors of the Immigration and Refugee Community Organization of Manitoba. In it, he grossly misrepresents the content and purpose of my April 25 piece, NDP using immigrants as a ploy.

The basic premise of my op-ed was twofold: civil servants must be non-partisan; and the federal announcement to take over the settlement and the provincial nominee annexes of the current federal-provincial agreement does not mean the end of these programs.

I did not write about IRCOM, its history, or the quality of its services. Throughout the piece, I did not allude to or express that I am currently associated with IRCOM.

At the end of the piece I identified myself as a "former" executive director of the agency, an indisputable fact.

Cheater writes: "Wise paints a picture of a wasteful and inefficient system staffed by political activists and overseen by puppet boards. This in no way describes the organization he left so many years ago." Cheater is drawing erroneous conclusions and is misreading my text.

ALLAN WISE

Winnipeg

Some tax is good

For the first time, I didn't mind paying the small increase in the price of gasoline, knowing it was a tax that would come back to me in the way of services. Taxes, in the hands of a responsible government not corrupted by special interest groups like big business or unions, are good.

Taxes are spent money, which create jobs. But more important, they create domestic jobs that stimulate the local economy. Tax cuts, however, contrary to the rants of right-wing politicians and their corporate masters, actually kill domestic jobs and weaken the local economy, because much of the tax cuts for consumers will be spent on foreign-made products that create foreign jobs and strengthen foreign economies.

And to quell the outcry from the black or white "you're either with us or against us" Neanderthals, taxing all income would be just as bad as no taxes at all.

DAN CHECCINI

Winnipeg

Defying comprehension

Why a province like Manitoba, which allows the spring bear hunt, would not have a rehabilitation centre for orphaned cubs is beyond my comprehension.

It is a well-known fact that every year cubs are left to a slow death by starvation or are killed by predators. Now we are going to release Makoon sometime this summer, leaving him with the same precarious situation.

Cubs stay with their mothers until about 18 to 19 months of age for the reason they are too immature to fend for themselves before that age.

SANDRA ALLEN

Winnipeg

Wrong-headed policy

Re: Taxing is a factor (Letters, May 4). The Free Press is correct about the relationship between smoking and taxation. Dr. Alan Katz has forgotten those ambiguous (where and when?) smoking rates were in decline before the tobacco tax increases. They may have simply continued their downward trend.

Such is not always the case, though. Tobacco-tax increases do not lead to a reduction in smoking. Smoking rates have shown increases after the implementation of higher taxes and other policies. The U.S. and Ireland come to mind, especially as these countries had shown previous long-term decreases.

National Socialist-era Germany tried these policies, and a sharp increase in their smoking rate was also the result. Since Manitoba is mentioned, the tobacco tax here was doubled at least twice plus the yearly increases, and the smoking rate here still became the highest in Canada. This rate has dropped somewhat but is still higher than most other provinces with lower tobacco taxes.

If you compare international figures, you will find that those countries with the highest tobacco taxes also have the highest smoking rates. If tobacco taxes have any real bearing on smoking rates, it should follow the tobacco tax will be eliminated.

VINCE HARDEN

Winnipeg

Anger unjustified

Re: Leaders level flood accusations, walk away from media questions (May 2). No one ever said Grand Chief Derek Nepinak and Chief Ernie Hudson didn't have nerve, but it is their anger over questions by the media concerning fraud in their communities that isn't justified.

The taxpayers of Manitoba are compensating the flood victims. And when you are caught obtaining more money by fraudulent means, an apology is in order, not outrage over being caught.

It appears their expectation of entitlement has scattered what little common sense they had to the wind. And it is leaving them in a state where they don't seem to know the difference between right and wrong any longer.

DON HERMISTON

Winnipeg

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It is frustrating to realize the rather short-sighted blame game continues. Apparently nobody is responsible. Nobody accepts his or her failures, which is just hastening our end.

It takes character and strength to honestly look at oneself and to stop running away from one's own weaknesses. Will we ever learn?

WILHELM KREYES

Winnipeg

Bottom of the list

Re: Blatant objectification (Letters, May 3). In our world today, there is so much for us to worry about, such as war, sickness, hungry children, people with no place to call home and people with no jobs.

I would think a comic strip would be the last thing to complain about. However, if that is all Svitlana Maluzynsky has to complain about, she should consider herself a very lucky person. Also, maybe she should get a life.

MILDRED WRIGHT

Winnipeg

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I found hilarious, if not preposterous, the righteous indignation of the woman who found it necessary to stand up for Miss Buxley in the May 1 Beetle Bailey comic strip.

Unless she was reading the strip for the first time, she should have known that General Halftrack is not a captain and that the butt of the satire is not Miss Buxley, but the antiquated and chauvinistic attitude of the old general.

BASIL ROTOFF

Winnipeg

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 7, 2012 A11