Letters, May 27

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/05/2015 (4089 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

More than bike lanes needed

While it is exciting to see downtown undergoing a renewal, one must look at the larger picture — namely, how the central business district fits in to the city as a whole (Plan would redefine downtown, May 25).

With office complexes and office parks in various outlying areas of the city, downtown has lost much of its importance as a centre of office-type employment. The suburbs established transportation services (roads) and expanded commercial districts (malls and strip development).

Meanwhile, downtown employment levelled off, with workers commuting for the most part by automobile. Thus, the major commercial downtown outlets began to see less sales compared with their suburban counterparts.

With 17,000 downtown residents, the so-called normal services — groceries, gas and the like — need to be provided. Few of these services exist in the downtown area; residents need to travel to outlying areas for these services.

How do bicycle lanes make it more attractive for the majority of Winnipeggers to travel downtown? How will they make it easier for downtown residents to get services not now available? It’s easy to paint lines on a pavement and erect no-parking signs, but where or what is the plan to make the downtown a community that supports the needs of the downtown residents?

To make downtown Winnipeg attractive to those in the outlying areas, it must be attractive to travel there. Bicycle lanes may not be the panacea.

The city needs an overall, co-ordinated plan — not just downtown bicycle lanes.

Will Keller

Winnipeg

 

School uniforms eliminate distraction

Jen Zoratti’s column Defending spaghetti straps: Dress codes sexualize girls (May 26) could only have been written by someone who has never taught in a high school.

Teaching for many years in a private school has convinced me uniforms are one of the few indisputably good ideas about education. They eliminate fashion competition and, yes, distraction. They allow students of both sexes to concentrate better on what is important and hidden from view: the life of the mind.

I often remind my students what is inside of them is infinitely more important than their physical appearance, and uniforms facilitate that message.

Mark Duncan

Winnipeg

 

Canada’s emissions disgraceful

In his letter Pipeline concerns overblown (May 25), Don Hermiston states “Canada’s emissions are tiny — about 1.7 per cent of the world’s total emissions.”

Canada’s population, however, is only 0.49 per cent of the world’s population, making our per capita output almost four times higher than the world average.

We are the 10th-largest emissions producer in the world overall and of the 20 largest producers in the world. We are the fourth-highest per capita producer.

That’s not tiny — that is disgraceful.

Steve Oetting

Winnipeg

 

Residential school freedoms overstated

Letter-writer Michael Melanson fails to note that before aboriginal children were placed in residential schools, their parents were forced to sign over all of their parental rights to those running the government-sponsored residential schools, making the children wards of the state (A question of genocide, Letters, May 26).

Melanson states these children were given a chance to return home for holidays and summer. This is incorrect — children were only allowed to return home if they were deemed ready by the school. Many were held at schools for years before they were allowed to return home; they lost their language, culture, and connections to their family and community because they could no longer communicate with them.

Aboriginal children were removed from one group to another, and residential schools were a tool the Government of Canada used to perpetuate a genocide.

Natalia Coggins

Winnipeg

 

Different parties, same tactics

Kudos to Bartley Kives for highlighting the reason behind some of the cost-overrun debacles at city hall (Meddling by politicians real roadblock, May 22).

As the federal and provincial elections draw near, we are seeing more and more examples of two governments at opposite ends of the political spectrum — the federal Conservatives and the provincial NDP — trying to buy the hearts and minds of voters with our own money.

Apparently politicians of all stripes rely heavily on the naiveté of voters.

Tom Pearson

Winnipeg