Letters, Dec. 7

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/12/2023 (1008 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Email removal bad move

Re: City to phase out emails to 311 service (Dec. 4)

In regards to the article about the City of Winnipeg’s desire to remove the option of emailing 311, our elected officials and city bureaucracy deserve a sad head shake.

While removing email due to a lack of info is acceptable given the details needed, do you expect me to believe that Twitter and Facebook contacts provide what’s needed, while email doesn’t?

I’m not sure getting rid of an option that most of us have is really service-minded.

I’m sure it’ll be easy to show wait times have gone down when there are less requests coming in.

Matt Penner

Winnipeg

Deficit carries lesson

Re: ‘Fiscal mess’: Manitoba deficit $1.6B (Dec. 6)

When the PCs announced a modest deficit, despite massive funding projects totalling hundreds of millions of dollars during their calamitous election campaign, it was clear that the math simply did not add up.

Thanks to Stefanson’s churlish sound bites — “proud parent moment,” “stand firm,” “coulda, woulda, shoulda” — and Gordon’s catastrophic mismanagement of health care, the PCs were expelled from power, and deservedly so.

Now, Manitoba is facing a massive deficit thanks to the PCs’ collective fiscal irresponsibility and, one might assert, their plot to “cook the books”.

That Stefanson disappeared for weeks after the PCs’ stinging defeat, in a futile attempt to avoid accountability on so many fronts, confirms the PCs are going to be sitting on the back benches for a very, very long time.

Let this be a lesson to future premiers who oust their predecessor and proceed to alienate and scorn the citizens of their province.

Kenneth Meadwell

Winnipeg

Projects for premier

Re: Kinew most popular premier in country (Dec. 4)

As reported by the Free Press, the honeymoon for Wab Kinew and the NDP is still going strong. While his popularity remains high, Mr. Kinew should take advantage of opportunities to address three files on which he is uniquely qualified. Solutions in these files could significantly improve the lives of Manitobans, although all three are the joint responsibility of the provincial and federal governments.

The first is health care. Mr. Kinew’s misanthropic predecessors left Manitoba’s health-care system in a scorched-earth condition. While there is plenty of low-hanging fruit for his health minister to pick, Mr Kinew has also been given a blank slate to begin to address fundamental change.

Lessening the burden of an overbearing bureaucracy that stymies innovation, entrepreneurship, and initiative, would make a world of difference, even before addressing how services are delivered.

The second file is government relations with Indigenous peoples. Individuals on reserves must be given the right to own property on the reserve, and government payments must be made to individuals, rather than to the band.

The third file that Mr. Kinew is uniquely qualified to address is drug abuse, the laws governing controlled substances, and the support for those with addictions. The current, politicized, system is a shambles.

Leadership change is coming in the federal government. While it seems that Justin Trudeau is determined to turn Canada into a 21st-century Argentina (once rich, now poor, and badly governed), it won’t be long before he is replaced as prime minister. Whether our new PM is Mark Carney, Sean Fraser, Pierre Poilievre, or (God forbid) Chrystia Freeland, there will be political will for change and a need for alliances.

Mr. Kinew is a fresh face, and he would do well to set the foundation for a co-operative role at the national level.

Manitoba voters will soon realize that other than a sunnier public face on the premier, the NDP is no more qualified to run the province than the PCs — and likely less so.

Mr Kinew, could however, make a difference to Manitobans by developing a national profile and exercising the concomitant influence for the betterment of constituents in his home province.

Robert Sproule

Winnipeg

Fresh reasons

Re: Tories urge Kinew to reject legal opinion, stop collecting federal carbon tax on natural gas (Dec. 5)

Forgo legal advice and follow a renegade province down a road bound to lead to confrontation with Ottawa? This is one more reason the Progressive Conservatives were uprooted on Oct 3.

Randy Clinch

Winnipeg

Sending major message

Re: 12 years for maker, trafficker of 3D-printed guns (Dec. 4)

In the Free Press, it stated that Jackson Prince was sentenced to 12 years in prison for a 3D gun manufacturing and trafficking ring.

Judge Don Slough said the 12-year sentence was sending a message for the crime Jackson Prince committed.

Why couldn’t Judge Kael McKenzie have sent a big message to Tyler Scott Goodman and given him more than seven years in prison for driving very impaired and killing Jordyn Reimer in May 2022?

Drunk driving will keep continuing if there isn’t more punishment for the killing of someone! Who will be the person to stand up and make the changes needed for drunk driving?

Sandra Coutu

Winnipeg

Keep sumps off sidewalk

With the weather being so nice out we love to go for a nice walk around our neighborhood, however, people have directed their sump pump hoses on to the sidewalks and streets making for extremely dangerous walking conditions!

Recently I slipped on the ice formed by this water and barely missed going down. I would also like to point out that it is actually illegal to direct your sump pump water on to the sidewalks and street ways. Check out the link for the city bylaw and let’s make the sidewalks and streets safer for all to walk on.

Michael Gordon

Winnipeg

Go by income, not property

Re: Note to Wab Kinew: stop tax cuts to clean deficit mess (Dec. 5)

Tom Brodbeck seems to infer the school tax rebates are a lousy idea, but he fails to acknowledge there is a much fairer way to go about funding our educational system and that’s by way of income taxes.

The antiquated approach which he seems to be advocating for, is based purely upon a perceived ability to pay as determined by the value of one’s home. Using that logic, why not base it upon the balance sitting in one’s bank or investment account, for that matter?

It’s quite conceivable that a family with roughly half the net income of their next-door neighbour, living in homes of comparable value, are paying the same net education tax predicated upon the assumption their respective financial situations are identical when in reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

If one wishes an adequately funded educational system, then perhaps it’s high time that income be the determining factor as to how each of us contributes towards it.

I do realize the political ramifications of such but when was doing the right thing necessarily popular?

Dan Donahue

Winnipeg