Letters, May 6

Matter of decorum

Re: Speaker cracks whip on lack of decorum in House (May 5)

I can’t agree with the legislature Speaker’s prohibiting certain descriptive words in the Legislative Assembly chamber. The vast majority of us never have the opportunity to have a conversation with our MLA and depend on media reports of the day’s sitting to reveal their personality.

If my member displays conduct that reveals them to be a “bigot,” “homophobe,” “racist,” “misogynist,” or “transphobe,” I want this revealed by their opposition members so that I can hold them accountable at the ballot box.

When, as a police officer, I complained to a lawyer after court for falsely accusing me of mishandling his client he said, “If you can’t stand the heat, Stan, get out of the kitchen.”

I would would offer the same advice to our MLAs.

Stan Tataryn

Winnipeg

I applaud Manitoba legislature speaker Tom Lindsey for taking a stand in this matter. Words like bigot, homophobe, racist, misogynist and transphobe should not be allowed to smear any politician’s reputation in the legislature, unless their words were clear and concise in their presentation.

Words can be twisted and misconstrued to a person’s liking, whether they were meant that way or not. If any politician really believes an opposition MLA was deserving of these slurs, stand on the steps outside of the legislature and make these accusations.

If these claims have any validity, they won’t run the risk of being sued for slander. Parliamentary privilege should not give one the right to slander another MLA on a whim, with the aim of gaining the support of minority groups.

Bill Parkes

Winnipeg

Recent scenes in our legislature are deeply troubling, particularly for those of us who have spent our lives teaching civic responsibility. I am an educator in my 40th year, retiring Aug. 1. From this perspective, I believe that adult elected members should receive only one warning before being ejected.

We are not talking about training a dog to behave by offering treats. These are adults working in a formal setting, doing an important job that Manitobans entrusted to them. They know the rules. If they are given a centimetre and get away with it, next time they will take a metre.

When students attend question period and witness such poor, substandard, and unworthy behaviour, we should not be surprised by the number of cynics or by those who turn away altogether from our democratic institutions.

To all elected members who have the privilege of serving, I have one thing to say: pull up your socks and stop acting like playground bullies. Become models of true democratic debate by demonstrating respectful, courteous, and constructive behaviour. The space in which you work was designed for intelligent dialogue, appropriate conduct, and sound decision‑making on behalf of our democracy.

Manitobans expect nothing less and deserve much better.

Assez, c’est assez.

Jules Rocque

Winnipeg

The headline frames the Speaker’s ruling as a blow for decorum. It is worth asking whose “decorum,” and at whose cost.

On the same day Speaker Tom Lindsey banned the words bigot, racist, misogynist, homophobe, and transphobe, he ejected an MLA who told Manitoba’s first First Nations premier to “quit drinking,” a remark he deemed worthy of an unequivocal apology. The chamber needed language to name what had happened. And yet, that language is now narrower.

Lindsey has said members can still be ruled out of order for offensive conduct and that he will watch for “creative variations.” But naming a pattern is not the same as objecting to a single remark. Words like “racist” and “transphobic” connect individual acts to broader systems of harm. Restricting them does not preserve decorum; it blurs accountability.

The caucus that includes the legislature’s only Indigenous women, Black, trans, and gender non-conforming members is also the one most likely to need that language in the ordinary course of debate. The Opposition leader, on the other side of that imbalance, has commended the ruling. That alignment in itself tells us a lot.

Rules that appear even-handed can still produce uneven outcomes. If the effect is to limit how harm is named while leaving the harm itself intact, the rule should be reconsidered. We need to call on our representative to advocate for a better ruling.

Jamie Arpin-Ricci

Winnipeg

Losing policies

Re: The kids are all right — there just aren’t enough of them (Think Tank, May 5)

It is interesting to hear why Gregory Mason (coded male) thinks birth rates in Canada are dropping. He rightly suggests that a drop in population is ultimately going to cause a slowdown of the economy with all its attendant woes, but rather than addressing the newly created antipathy towards (primarily non-white) immigration, he bemoans the fact that Canadians are having fewer children than in previous generations.

If a higher population because of immigration is (due to the supposed strain on services) an intrinsically Bad Thing, then logically it should be a Good Thing that women are having fewer children — but that paradox is not addressed either. The only reasons Mr Mason can proffer for the lower birth rate are either blandly economic — high housing costs (despite admittedly “modest” inflation), costs for “extras” like sports and enrichment, needing to delay childbearing for the longer education needed to pay for all of it — or bizarrely dismissive. Parents wanting “perfect Montessori children” is the real problem? “Playdates, dance (and) taekwondo” are the agents of societal and economic collapse? Seriously?

It is also telling that Mr. Mason claims (without evidence) that the “costs” of parenthood are now higher because teachers are not responsible for students for longer stretches of time. Frankly, the very voices that demand exclusive parental control over the school day are the same voices that want a higher birthrate.

Folks, you can’t have it both ways.

Absolutely nowhere in his opinion piece does Mr. Mason even mention women’s choices, to initiate, facilitate or delay childbearing for their own personal reasons rather than as a duty to society. Maybe a real driver for women having more children would be a cultural shift that meant caring and homemaking were no longer gendered expectations.

Maybe the Canada Child Benefit and the newly minted child-care policies are not odd bribes to inveigle women into having more children than they intended — maybe they’re just there to actually help people where they are at.

And if Mason thinks he can discover a country that, by increasing business investment, has also seen a rise in the birthrate — good luck with that.

Birth rates are dropping across the developed world, including in countries with conservative/right-wing/business-friendly politics.

Maybe underfunding social services, demonizing immigration, ignoring societal evolution and demanding that women magically pick up the demographic slack are just not the winning policies some people seem to think they are.

Sowmya Dakshinamurti

Winnipeg