Letters, July 7

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/07/2023 (1162 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Need more to protect women

Re: Manitoba supports memorial, not landfill search, for slaying victims (July 5)

While many people sympathize with the families who want to find the remains of their loved ones, many people would also think that the money would be better spent in preventing these tragic events from happening again.

Building a dedicated women’s shelter for one. Discovering why the majority of the victims are from the Indigenous community. Perhaps the women and girls need some self-defence training. Perhaps they need help to discover their self-worth and that they don’t need to put up with abuse from anyone. Perhaps they need job training in their home locations rather than having to travel to the city. There doesn’t seem to be much proactive discussion and certainly not much action.

The Manitoba government doesn’t appear to value the Indigenous population and how they can make the province so much better. They neglect the northern areas of the province to our detriment.

Evelyn Wakaruk

Winnipeg

Canada’s Indigenous people know far too much about inhumane behaviour. Tragedy, fear, heartache, frustration and anger have led to the commonly used initials MMIWG (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls).

Upon hearing there were plans being considered to conduct a search for the bodies of murdered Indigenous women in Winnipeg-area landfills, I began wondering if the time and money that would be spent during such a search, which might not be successful, could instead be directed to the creation of a lasting tribute to the victims.

One option came to mind: a charitable foundation with the objective of giving out scholarships (in the name of the victims) to Indigenous girls and women who want to further their education.

The federal and provincial governments could lead the way by making significant initial contributions and then citizens would have the opportunity to make charitable donations to support the program.

Such an education-focused foundation could be a long-lasting legacy.

Lloyd Atkins

Vernon, B.C.

Costly precedent

The Stefanson government finally gets something right.

Regarding not funding a landfill site search: if the government said yes to funding such a large endeavour, it would not only put people’s lives at risk but would set a precedent for future incidents that are similar that happen going forward.

If you do it this time, you would have to do it every time the police think the remains of victims could be in a landfill (you can not do for one and not the other).

If this happened to me and my family I would not like it, but I would try to come to terms with the reasons that a search should not be done and hopefully at some point I would understand and accept it.

Ron Robert

Winnipeg

Uncomplicate intersection issue

Re: The latest: Portage and Main (Editorial, July 6)

It is my opinion that as long as Portage and Main remains closed to pedestrians, this will be an ongoing and expensive issue.

Our preference is to walk as much as possible. As we love to be outdoors, we often have walked from Wolseley to the concert hall, passport office, and MTC. In all honesty, it is not easy to find a safe ground level option to traverse Portage and Main.

Having travelled a fair bit, large intersections that I recall are open and easily accessible for pedestrians as well as vehicle traffic. How is this so complicated?

Wanda Guenther

Winnipeg

Carrying the torch

Re: Bighill loses his biggest fan (July 6)

What a beautiful story about a beautiful man by Jeff Hamilton on the loss of Andrew Bighill, father of Adam Bighill.

That took a number of tissues to get through. Our deepest gratitude to Andrew, for his son Adam. We are lucky to have him in Winnipeg.

Our deepest sympathies to Adam and his family. RIP Andrew. Winnipeg will carry the torch of support from here.

Sharon MacInnes

La Salle

Bring back ceremonies

Re: Citizenship ceremonies too important to drop (Think Tank, June 20)

I strongly support the article by Dwight MacAulay. Dwight, as a citizenship judge, has presided over hundreds of ceremonies, and in his article portrays the wonderful sense of joy and celebration that every new Canadian experiences at the ceremony.

It is a celebration of accomplishment at attaining Canadian citizenship, almost a lottery win. It is a celebration in a room full of fellow Canadians sharing the experience. No Zoom notification can match this. Many volunteers, including my wife, also have shared in these moments.

New Canadians have a lot of hurdles to overcome in order to qualify for citizenship. One of these is to pass a test on knowledge of Canadian history, government and customs. I have conducted dozens of citizenship classes at the Immigrant Centre, and tutuored individuals to help them pass the test. Many call me with the good news they have passed and look forward to their ceremony.

Let’s keep the celebration going. We have a wonderful country to celebrate.

Kenn A. Green

Winnipeg

Rehabilitate rather than imprison

Re: Tories imprisoned by tough on crime approach (July 6)

I agree with Niigaan Sinclair’s column, although I don’t know that the “feast” concept is the appropriate solution here. The key point to take away from his piece is twofold, firstly is that 70 per cent of incarcerated persons are Indigenous, put in plain English, there are a lot of them in jail — a lot.

Secondly is Sinclair’s correct assertion that trauma leads to crime — again in plain English, hurt people hurt others. I’ve beaten the drum for some time now that a trauma-informed perspective explains the drug problem by and large. It’s not a stretch to connect those two to crime. One simply informs the others — branch meet trunk, meet root.

Tough on crime polls well because it appeals to two base level human emotions, fear (because of escalating crime) and anger (feelings of revenge, retribution, and violation). It’s much harder to move towards empathy and understanding of complex issues without an easy solution like jail.

Unfortunately to move past this problem we kind of have to go further into what some would call the fuddy duddy left-wing agenda — we need huge investments in get-clean initiatives which starts with a Stefanson non-starter, safe consumption sites, followed by easily available treatment beds followed by trauma therapy and then housing, job, and income supports until those people are ready to ride the bike of society without training wheels.

It will be prohibitively expensive but no more so than paying for more $100,0000-a-year constables, more prisons, staff and salaries and pensions to run them and, of course, a legal system which bills mostly to the taxpayer.

I’d prefer to rehabilitate, train, and employ these people as newly minted taxpayers over time rather than pay all of the above plus three hots and a cot for three to five on average.

Will Jones

Winnipeg

Lower cost of transport

If the government really wanted to lower the cost of household items like food, all that they would have to do is lower the cost of gas!

If it was lowered, it would also lower the cost of shipping on items available at stores. This would provide homeowners more available money to spend on other things.

William Ewing

Winnipeg