Have your say

Those present would know

Your July 13 story No ID ban for social workers and editorial Hughes judges regarding the Phoenix Sinclair inquiry imply that a publication ban means the identities of social workers would be kept secret.

The truth is that anybody who attended the public hearings would know the names and faces of those involved. How does this compromise accountability and transparency, as you state?

HARVY FRANKEL

Dean, Faculty of Social Work

University of Manitoba

Too much information

Leave it to Free Press columnist Gordon Sinclair to turn his report on Bill Norrie's funeral (Bill Norrie loved his city and was loved in return, July 12) into a social event by telling us about "Winnipeg who's who attends funeral."

Too bad he did not bother telling us what they were all wearing. I for one certainly want to know.

JOSEPH POLLOCK

Winnipeg

Defending Stampeders

After reading Doug Firby's nasty column Stampede is many things, but 'cool' is not one of them (July 12), in which he demeans the Calgary Stampede and many of the people who attend it, I can only say this:

I believe Firby has ulcers and that they are bleeding. Such mean words, surely, could not come from someone in good health.

IAN C. THOMSON

Winnipeg

Compassionate care

Kudos to Anne McTavish for her timely article Is it just legalized murder? (July 12). She writes that many "Dutch doctors have gone from fighting death to administering death." Do we want this for Winnipeg? Do we want this for Canada?

People whose health is faltering need loving compassion, care and proper treatment.

People who are dying need compassionate, pain-relieving and supportive care, where their value is respected and their life is appreciated even when their ability to "contribute to society" does not seem apparent.

The medical profession has learned much about helping life while ministering to the dying. The dying contribute by just being there to learn with and from. If we destroy the ill and dying, we destroy a serious classroom of learning.

McTavish is right. Martin Luther King said, "Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance."

VALERIE WADEPHUL

Winnipeg

In your July 7 story ALS sufferer chooses life, Pentecostal Christian and ALS sufferer Judy Patterson, referring to changing assisted-suicide law, says, "It's too slippery a slope for me to put this into law."

The article clearly shows she chooses suffering because of her religious beliefs. But because of her religion, she has the right to force other people to suffer?

BOB RUSSELL

Winnipeg

Hundreds like Li

Re: The cure for ignorance (Letters, July 12). What we have to remember is that Vince Li didn't become schizophrenic and then, the next day, kill Tim McLean. He was schizophrenic for years, without medication, before he had a violent episode.

What the reactionaries are not considering is that there are hundreds of people like Vince Li, living among us now. Why aren't you aware of them? They are treated for their illness and they do not reoffend. The rate of recidivism is a thousand times higher with common criminals than it is with the mentally ill, who are receiving treatment.

DAVE FERGUSON

Winnipeg

Banking on corruption

Re: Barclays has lesson for Canada (Editorials, July 6). It is no surprise to hear of Barclays' corruption. This is the same bank that financed the Louisiana Purchase. That perhaps British gold should have been used to further British interests in North America instead of enlarging the United States -- along with that same gold financing Napoleon's proposed invasion of Great Britain -- seems never to have occurred to any at Barclays then or since.

Banks have always had toward even their own best interests the loyalty of rats to sinking ships. Lenin had it right when he said hanging the capitalists would be easy; they would sell him the rope.

TIM SAYEAU

Winnipeg

The colour of safety

I notice more and more of my fellow bicyclists wearing bright fluorescent-coloured T-shirts and construction-safety vests.

Unfortunately, the recent bike helmet provincial legislation has missed the point. Better to be seen than hit with a helmet on.

If construction workers can be legislated to wear bright-coloured vests, why can't bicyclists also be so legislated? It does seem better to prevent collisions than to protect heads from the effects of collisions.

SHANE NESTRUCK

Winnipeg

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 14, 2012 A14