Letters, July 23

Refining the aluminum can deposit system

Every week across Winnipeg, homeowners face a ridiculous choice — hoarding sticky, leaking stacks of empty beer and seltzer cans in the garage to haul down to a retail vendor, or toss them into the curbside blue bin and suffer a financial penalty for making the convenient choice.

This isn’t an accident. It is the result of a bloated policy double standard maintained by Manitoba Liquor & Lotteries (MBLL) and legacy industry loopholes.

To see how absurd the system has become, you only need to compare two identical 12-packs of cans on Manitoba shelves.

When you buy a 12-pack of a soft drink, you pay a flat, 24-cent container recycling fee (two cents per can) through the non-alcoholic Canadian Beverage Container Recycling Association framework. There is no register deposit, no return hassle and no hidden surcharge. That simple, 24-cent fee fully funds public recycling bins and directly pays the City of Winnipeg to collect your residential blue bin.

Now look at a 12-pack of hard seltzer or beer. First, MBLL levies a $1.20 cash deposit at the till. On top of that, a hidden, 35-cent wholesale handling fee is baked into the retail shelf price to compensate vendors for manual sorting. That is a staggering $1.55 extracted from your pocket for the exact same amount of aluminum.

If you choose not to drive those empties to a vendor and instead toss them cleanly into your blue bin, you lose $1.20. But here’s the kicker: the City of Winnipeg receives zero dollars of that unredeemed deposit “breakage” to help cover the cost of running the recycling trucks.

Instead, millions in unredeemed dimes quietly slide into provincial general revenues and private distributor accounts.

It amounts to a “tax by attrition” — a system that fines civic-minded citizens for using their municipal recycling bins while starving the city of the very funds needed to process that waste.

It is time to end this double standard.

Manitoba should modernize its alcohol recycling model by replacing the clunky 10-cent deposit and hidden handling fees with a flat, two-to-three-cent environmental fee across all aluminum containers.

This simple change would eliminate the garage mess, stop punishing homeowners and redirect millions of dollars straight into municipal recycling programs to lower the burden on local property taxpayers.

We don’t need a 13-cent stack of bureaucracy to recycle a piece of aluminum — we just need a system that makes sense.

Dave Plamondon, Winnipeg

Punitive fine ridiculous

Re: Landlord miffed after city orders cleanup of riverside homeless camp (July 22)

As a longtime resident of West Broadway who lives less than a block away from the Pen-Eve Apartments at 35 Balmoral Street, it boggles my mind that “the city is forcing private property owners to deal with a problem they didn’t create.”

What used to be a gorgeous stroll along a healthy riparian forest has become a burnt, dangerous and garbage-strewn conduit in the neighbourhood — one that nobody walks through anymore.

Surely there’s a better solution in this topsy-turvy world than threatening affected property owners with fines for not keeping an encampment clean.

So, here’s a couple of ideas that might switch that narrative and make the encampments themselves non-compliant: repurpose one of the apartments into a daycare or pop over to Canadian Tire for one of their above-ground pools and install it directly above the affected parking lot.

More to the point, shame on the city and province for putting the onus on residents and property owners in West Broadway to address what is clearly a broader homelessness problem.

Please do better.

We’d like our neighbourhood back.

Rob Shaw, Winnipeg

Toward humane justice

Re: Drug treatment court leads to success (Editorial, July 21)

Congratulations on your excellent editorial regarding drug treatment courts.

After centuries of enlightened progress toward restorative justice, politicians and some judges, since the mid-’90s, have reverted to crime and punishment.

We have no choice but to continue to educate them towards a more humane and effective delivery of justice.

Charles Klassen, Melbourne, Australia

Careful what you wish for

Re: “Find another way” (Letters, July 22)

One option for the Arlington Bridge that I haven’t heard yet is a level crossing. How bad could it be, waiting for 50 trains and driving over a bumpy street?

Just like the rest of north Winnipeg. (Joke?)

Allan Jakilazek, Winnipeg

Taking a knee

My disappointment with our prime minister continues to grow.

It reminds me of Colin Kaepernick, who took a knee to protest police brutality and racial inequality. I will take a knee to protest Mark Carney’s continual backtracking on environmental issues by kissing Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s ring after his election promises to care and act responsibly on protecting Canada’s environment; speaking on Monday about the Gordie Howe Bridge being a good financial deal for Canada and then on Wednesday, signing a 15-year deal to split net revenues — after operational costs — over the next 15 years.

The U.S. won this deal — and its response? Escalating the tariff threat against Canada to 50 per cent.

These are just a few examples of the prime minister’s weakness in dealing with the current president of the United States.

It would take a full page in the paper for me to outline all my concerns with Carney’s broken promises and his ability to fold like a deck of cards under pressure from Trump.

Not wanting to pay for the full page, I’ll stay on my knee(s).

Rennie Bodi, Winnipeg

My own private trade embargo

Re: Trump hits some Canadian products with 50% tariffs (July 21)

Trump’s tariff threat should be a reminder to all of us to conduct our own private trade embargoes and buy Canadian or at the very least don’t buy American.

I just bought a used Volvo to replace our 14-year-old one that was getting a little tired after 250,000 kilometres. I made sure that it was a model made in Sweden, not in the U.S.

I make this choice every time I open my wallet.

Tom Pearson, Victoria, B.C.

McLuhan’s life lesson

Re: “Remembering McLuhan” (Letters, July 22)

I would like to thank Howard Engel for his letter about Marshall McLuhan. His words took me back to a time in the early 1970s, when I was an assistant at the University of St. Michael’s College library.

At that time, users still had to have their books checked out by staff. I would often look up and see Dr. McLuhan in line, patiently waiting his turn behind other professors and students. He never once demanded or even quietly asked for a privilege and would chat amiably and ask my opinion about different matters.

One day, I shyly brought in books owned by different family members, and he signed each of them, making sure that he had the correct name. I treasure those memories and the valuable life lesson that they taught a young person — if you are secure and know who you are, you do not have to put yourself forward forcefully or in any other way.

Thank you, Dr. McLuhan.

Bette Jayne Taylor, Winnipeg