Letters, Aug. 11

What hypocrisy

I was raised in an era when parental responsibilities were assumed, and parental rights were rarely mentioned. Responsible speech was also valued and expected.

One of the things I was taught was that if you point a finger at someone, you will have three pointed back at you.

In a recent interview for a Steinbach radio station, Konrad Narth, MLA for La Verendrye, called Minister of Education Tracy Schmidt a hypocrite for requiring Hanover School Division, a public school board, to rescind a recent policy which instructs HSD staff not to respect the mature minor decision-making legislation in divisional schools.

This legislation allows a mature student at the age of 16 to seek medical help without informing parents — critical for students who might face emotional or even physical abuse at home.

In her letter, the minister asks the board to respect the law and reminds them of their mandate to provide high-quality education and a safe and healthy learning environment for all students in their care.

In criticizing the minister, Mr. Narth may be forgetting Bill 64, put forward by his own party shortly before it was defeated in the last election. Bill 64 would have centralized control of public education by the province and would have essentially neutered boards and trustees. Or he is hoping we had forgotten?

While he admits that that the school board policy in question is, in fact, illegal, he suggests that maybe the board should still be allowed to find ways around this.

He claims to want to see home-schoolers and private school students return to the public system, but only on their terms and with the parental rights to limit that system.

But I feel that parents who have have opted to educate their children at home or in private schooling have already exercised their choice and should leave a truly inclusive and child-centred public system to the rest of us.

And the safety and well-being of all students should not be compromised by engaging in divisive political behaviour or petty name-calling by our elected representatives.

Ken Klassen, Steinbach

Pet perspectives

Re: The true cost of your pet — for everyone (Think Tank, Aug. 7)

I believe most of us would agree that “you should be prepared to accept full responsibility” when choosing to own a pet. I also understand that pet ownership comes with costs, environmental concerns and risks, particularly when animals are neglected or poorly managed. However, the reality is that pets are deeply embedded in our homes and communities, providing benefits that are difficult to measure in dollars.

Statistics can be powerful — but they can also be selective. For example, Manitoba spends roughly $10 billion a year on health care, yet we accept that people will make personal decisions that contribute to those costs, including smoking, sedentary behaviour, and unhealthy food choices. Perhaps some perspective is needed before we start worrying about the cost of dog parks.

Having volunteered thousands of hours, I’ve seen the value of community connection — but pets offer something different. They provide companionship, support mental well-being, reduce loneliness, create routine and teach responsibility.

We need to address irresponsible ownership, neglect and uncontrolled breeding, while fully supporting the shelters and animal-support organizations doing this important work. In today’s world, our pets provide meaningful companionship, connection and support, making them far more a part of the solution than the problem.

Jason Hawkins, Winnipeg

As a pet owner I say kudos to Jerry Storie for writing an article which raised a number of legitimate points about the environmental and financial cost of pet ownership. And kudos to the Free Press for publishing an article which predictably provoked the ire of pet-loving people.

It takes courage to write articles which prompt ad hominem and virtue-signalling responses. One argument Mr. Storie did not put forward was that we have evolved into a society that values animals more than people. Calling his op-ed piece absurd and a mean-spirited diatribe suggests confirmation of this belief. And raises grave doubts that anyone is going to give up their car for their pet!

Mac Horsburgh, Winnipeg

Doing the right thing

Uzoma Asagwara and the College of Pharmacists deserve our appreciation for increasing the ability of women to access birth-control supplies and services through their pharmacies.

Women should be able to have children if and when they choose and this is a strong addition to services already provided. Earlier changes that made birth control free created greater equality and were a significant advance.

For women to truly be free, they need to be able to control their own bodies, and children deserve to be born to mothers who truly want and will celebrate them.

This advance also helps reduce the demands on our overburdened doctors when their expertise is not needed. Thank you, Minister Asagwara. Please continue with these kind of initiatives.

Linda Taylor, Winnipeg

Social media will persist

Re: The antisocial network (Aug.8)

Melissa Martin is always a thoughtful writer. On this subject, I wholeheartedly agree we’ve created a monster that must be tamed. However, there are powerful commercial interests that benefit from such liberality. They would oppose change.

Barry Craig, Winnipeg

Fuelling fires

Prime Minister Carney is building a Canadian economic strategy around the extraction and export of fossil fuels, particularly the bitumen in the oil sands of northern Alberta.

He is doing so while the extraction of fossil fuels is producing the climate change and especially the rise in temperatures that is a proven factor in accentuating the wildfires that are ravaging the boreal forest across northern Canada and elsewhere in the world.

Fire seasons are growing longer and the fires more intense — experienced forest fire experts are increasingly saying about recent fires that they have “never seen anything like it” — and it seems they are only going to get worse. The financial damage is large and growing, especially when added to the costs arising from floods and storms that are also being accelerated by climate change. These costs may soon exceed whatever financial benefits derive from the extraction and export of bitumen, especially when the enormous government subsidies being paid out to oil companies are considered.

The human costs are huge — repeated evacuations from homes, many of which are being destroyed; weeks and even months in hotels or other non-home settings; and death. For example, the 2021 heat dome in B.C. cost more than 600 lives.

Why is the prime minister building a future on fossil fuels when it is so damaging now and in the future, and when so much of the rest of the world, President Trump being a notable exception, is moving to less costly and less damaging renewable energy?

Jim Silver, Winnipeg