Letters, April 16

Poilievre’s uses

Prime Minister Mark Carney may want Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to stay on as Opposition leader but not for the reasons that the predictably smug Liberal crowd think.

It is the Opposition leader’s ideas that Carney draws from in order to govern successfully.

From the elimination of the carbon tax last year to the removal of the federal excise tax on gasoline, he can thank Pierre for those ideas.

In fact if one looks closely enough, one will see that Carney copied Poilievre’s entire election platform last spring almost verbatim.

The one part and perhaps the most important that he has taken a swing and miss on is the building of a pipeline to the east. A vision former prime minister Stephen Harper had initially which was quickly doused by Quebec.

Brian Mcwhirter

Winnipeg

On floor crossings

While I can understand Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s distaste at witnessing members of his caucus abandon their Conservative Party allegiance, I would argue this is what democracy looks like.

It ought to be remembered that Poilievre’s own constituency voted him out of office last federal election.

He was then parachuted into a riding that guaranteed him a return to the House, which to my mind ought never to have been permitted as he was clearly refuted by those he claimed to represent in the first place.

Thus when Poilievre and his supporters accuse Prime Minister Mark Carney of orchestrating backroom deals in an effort to deplete the Conservative ranks, they’d be well advised to acknowledge the backroom deals that were required to see a return to the House of their own defeated leader.

The truth cuts both ways.

Dan Donahue

Winnipeg

Booking problems

Re: “Dynacare disaster” (Letters, April 15)

As a frequent user of Dynacare labs for bloodwork I fully agree with the recent letter writer about the bad state of Manitoba’s privatized blood labs.

While the staff and technicians at Dynacare are great, the fact is if you are able to book a appointment, which you can only do online, you are looking at a two-week minimum wait time. To do a walk-in, depending on the time of day and day of the week, it’s usually 30 minutes to an hour in sometimes crowded conditions.

You are still able to have bloodwork and tests done at some hospitals but I’ve only used a couple, so can’t speak to every hospital. Again, depending on day of the week and time you can still expect a little bit of a wait there as well.

The province should demand Dynacare open more or larger labs as a condition for extending or renewing their contract. That would go a long way to improving access.

Jason Sudyn

Winnipeg

I have to agree with Eileen Gibson’s letter printed April 15 regarding the “untenable” situation she experienced while awaiting her turn to have blood drawn at a Dynacare.

It appears Dynacare has the contract or monopoly with our Manitoba health providers as the lab to draw and test blood as well as other lab tests.

I recently had a 1.5-hour wait for my routine bloodwork at a Dynacare location in Winnipeg.

The waiting room was full, many appearing quite ill and not tolerating this long wait.

Every chair was occupied, with some sitting on the floor.

The wait was certainly much longer than my annual physical exam.

There were only three staff performing blood tests and the fourth staff member at their reception desk.

The lineup was never ending so that fourth staffer rarely was able to attend to performing a blood draw.

After my 90 minute wait, the staff member confirmed to me this wait and staffing complement was “normal.”

In fact, it was often much busier!

The poor customer service and long waits many experience in our emergency rooms has now become the norm in our “non-urgent” health care.

Early discharge from hospital followup, such as blood tests, has become yet another hurdle in our health-care system.

Karen Zurba

Winnipeg

Immense suffering

Re: ‘We all have a collective responsibility’ (April 15)

In spring of 1964 while residing in Germany and touring the beautiful and historic countryside, I had the occasion to walk through one of the concentration camps — Dachau — North of Munchen (Munich) with no inkling at what I was about to perceive.

I came face to face with, up until then, the written horrors of the Second World War. Reminders of life as depicted in a concentration camp were everywhere. It was raining the day I went for this memorable walk and my feet sunk into mud as I trudged from barracks to the ovens to the showers. The ghosts of lost souls were all around you. You could hear, see, smell and yet there was no one there now. Displays for the public consisted of caked blood on the wall, the floor and the beating clubs. Photographs of atrocities and some of the lost souls were hanging everywhere along with the ghostly screams and unearthly silence.

My walk through this death camp was made on Good Friday, which made it even more memorable to me as something that should never have been. I will never forget witnessing the living nightmare that was … and now a tourist attraction! Trembling from the unearthly surroundings, I left the premises, quietly and silently, feeling like an intruder on the outside looking in at unimaginable suffering.

Diane R. Unger

Cooks Creek

The failure of renewables

Re: “Paralysis versus mobilization” (Letters, April 14)

When Ken Klassen claims that renewable energy sources represented 85 per cent of all new power capacity added worldwide, he omits mentioning that those sources have started from a very low base because the International Energy Agency points out that fossil fuels still dominate by far. In fact, it cites the fact that oil, coal and natural gas still provide 82 per cent of global primary energy generation for heating, electricity, transportation, industry and agriculture. It also predicts that fossil fuel demand will continue this dominance for decades, as it sees Texas alone producing record amounts of oil last year and China and India still consuming vast amounts of coal.

In Britain’s The Spectator, Matt Ridley, a longtime climate realist, points out that renewables, despite massive subsidies, have consistently failed to deliver reliable and cost-competitive power solutions. Meanwhile the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has reversed its earlier warnings about greenhouse gases being as great a danger to human health and welfare as previously believed. It also claims that higher CO2 levels have helped plant growth as evidenced by UN figures showing global agricultural output to have tripled in recent years.

Nor has the planet’s population suffered from climate change since it as quadrupled over the past 125 years, while life expectancies have increased from an average of 57 years to 73 in the last half century.

So the putative climate crisis, while not being an outright scam, is essentially an exaggeration because human, resourcefulness, creativity and resilience have overcome whatever threats ever existed. And if anything poses a threat to the human race, just look at how many lives have been lost in civil and international wars since 1900.

Edward Katz

Winnipeg