Have your say

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/11/2011 (5174 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Educational stress

Re: Historic morning at Brandon University (Nov. 4). The ongoing labour dispute at Brandon University has caused an enormous amount of stress and anxiety for students. As each day passes without a collective agreement between the faculty association and the university, fear and frustration increase.

The sources of consternation stem from the lack of progress being made in negotiations and the convoluted nature of the issues being negotiated. Accurate information is sparse and the information that is available is full of spin and half-truths.

Students have been placed in a precarious position where our future seems to be uncertain and compromised.

Students are the foundation of any academic institution, and Brandon University is no exception. We have the right to be accurately informed and addressed as the responsible and thoughtful young adults we are.

RAYMOND THOMSON

Brandon

�ñº

I am a Brandon University student who lives in Winnipeg and takes classes at the Winnipeg campus. I think the conduct of both the faculty union and the university is absolutely ridiculous. Both sides keep issuing press releases and communiqués on their websites refuting what the other side said. This amounts to a “he said, she said,” and absolutely nothing is getting resolved.

We’re not in grade school anymore. The innocent victims of this are the students who have paid for a university education and are not receiving even close to one.

CRYSTAL HYDE

Winnipeg

Missing the target

Re: Crosbie’s Pakistan joke gets him in hot water (Nov. 4). John Crosbie has a sense of humour. How very refreshing for a politician. All he needs to polish up on is his sensitivity.

As someone who was born in Pakistan, I know for a fact Pakistanis love to laugh at themselves. Pick up any newspaper and you will see satire and humour directed at all aspects of society.

What Crosbie fails to comprehend, however, is that terrorist attacks are killing innocent Pakistanis — men, women and children — every day, and their suffering and pain are not funny.

Shahina Siddiqui

Winnipeg

�ñº

I think that Stephen Harper should make an apology to John Crosbie on behalf of all Canadians who ever made a Newfie joke.

FRANK TERRA

Lac du Bonnet

Darkening side streets

In his Nov. 2 column, Doer fondly reflects on besting arena foes, about former premier Gary Doer’s address to Red River College students, Dan Lett argues that “former” opponents of the hockey arena building proposal years ago were “nitpickers” and now supporters.

I am willing to grant that a city’s ambition to have major-league sports teams is a positive idea — so long as public funds are not invested in a way that yields all gains to the private partner and major losses to the public.

I also grant the MTS Centre is perhaps better-than-average architecture and its acoustic superiority over the old arena has been a significant gain in both enjoyment and aural health.

Nonetheless, such a facility should never be on any city’s main street. This building has literally and psychologically darkened its two side streets, while making a negative contribution (like the Portage Place mall) to daytime life on the street. A welcoming urban area needs daytime and evening activity, not a lifeless day and then hundreds of people piling into a site an hour after dinner and piling out again a few hours later.

Finally, the loss of Eaton’s was a major blow to the city’s history and atmosphere, as was the decades-ago loss of the former city hall. (Will these investment-development vandals never learn?)

It would have cost a fortune to renovate Eaton’s for alternative use, but no more than the new arena has cost, and we would have upgraded the enjoyment, livability and security quotient of Winnipeg’s downtown.

DONALD BAILEY

Winnipeg

Odours from city hall

Re: Anger flows over slow info (Nov. 4). Given the three-week delay in notifying the public about the sewage-plant woes, perhaps the mayor and city manager should add a fourth wise monkey to the group already present at city hall.

This one would be covering its nose.

DAVID McPHERSON

Winnipeg

Validating NDP attacks

With regard to Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz’s Nov. 1 letter, The right to choose, I will not get into the debate over the Canadian Wheat Board.

I am here to ask why Ritz would do something to the Manitoba Conservatives like write this letter? In saying, “Parliament has the legal right to amend legislation; this is one of the fundamental tenets of parliamentary democracy,” he has validated all of the attacks of the provincial NDP from the past election in regard to selling Manitoba Hydro.

In four years’ time, and in perpetuity, when the Manitoba Conservatives try to alleviate fears by pointing to the legislation that prevents Hydro’s sale without a referendum, the NDP can say the Conservatives have shown they will not let legislation stand in the way of their plans to open markets to foreign companies.

I’m not claiming the provincial Conservatives intend to sell Hydro, because I like to think all our political parties are smarter than that, but Ritz gives the NDP some good ammunition.

CHRIS PELDA

Winnipeg

Bad social policy

Re: Provinces, feds bicker over cost of crime bill (Nov. 2). The NDP government in this province, particularly Andrew Swan, should give their heads a shake about supporting the omnibus crime bill.

The Quebec and Ontario governments have paved the way for other provinces to say, “We’re not picking up the tab for the Conservative government’s careless policy prescriptions for crime in this country.”

Not only is Bill C-10 financially costly, it is bad social policy that will fail to reduce crime and will make life even more difficult for people already marginalized by society.

CHUCK WRIGHT

Winnipeg