Letters, March 24

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/03/2023 (930 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One Great… Parking Lot

Re: Light rail transit out of Winnipeg’s reach: city official (March 21)

Kevin Sturgeon, senior transit planner with the City of Winnipeg, tells us the decision on whether to add light rail transit (LRT) should be based on ridership, and that research indicates adding LRT alone doesn’t cause an increase in public transit ridership.

“The main driver for conversion to light rail should be demand and capacity. When there are simply too many people to fit on buses… then we really need trains,” he is quoted as saying. “The city’s current ridership projections predict increasingly frequent bus service will be needed to meet demand by 2050… but the demand still won’t be high enough to require rail service” (italics mine).

Please explain to us why not!

Is it because, in Winnipeg, vehicle owners are given free “courtesy towing” on the taxpayer dime? Is it because enlightened civic leaders in at least 100 cities worldwide understand the relationship between urban mobility and social equity, and act accordingly with innovative policies such as free public transport (and Winnipeg’s do not)?

Is it because, in Winnipeg, many bus shelters are occupied by non-users? It is because many are unhygienic and unsafe? Because, in Winnipeg, people are routinely beaten up on the bus, and in bus shelters and the streets, and too few lawmakers wish to create a significant deterrent? Is it because too many vulnerable people are being victimized by the mismanagement and malfeasance of those who claim to vouch for them?

Is it because Winnipeg is also known as “Parking Lot City” (and why is that)? Go figure.

The natural landscape of Winnipeg favours a light rail system. It is the backwards thinking of government leadership (at least four levels of it I can think of) that will make Winnipeg’s senior transit planner’s unsettling prophecy a reality — 26 years down the road.

Karmel Schreyer

Winnipeg

Province’s priorities clear

Dr. Susan Cuvelier (“Province must do better,” Letters, March 22) is right that Dan Lett has demonstrated that the tax reductions in the 2023 Manitoba budget favour the affluent (In Manitoba, Tory tax cuts help rich most, March 17).

She is also correct that creating and maintaining high poverty rates is a policy choice of the Stefanson government.

The recent Manitoba Campaign 2000 report, Poverty, the Pandemic and the Province, reports that if the Family Affordability Package and the Education Property Tax Rebate had been directed to poor children, Manitoba’s child poverty rate would be reduced to 2.5 per cent. We would move from the province with the highest child poverty rate to the province with the lowest rate.

The Stefanson government has made its policy preferences clear. The question remaining is whether Manitobans agree.

Sid Frankel

Associate Professor, Faculty of Social Work

University of Manitoba

Winnipeg

Support home dialysis

Re: Renal patients on hook for dispensing fees (March 20)

When will the government recognize the huge financial benefits home hemodialysis patients give the health-care system each and every day by administering self-care?

Dispensing fees are an additional cost the majority of patients cannot afford.

Home hemodialysis patients successfully lobbied for utility coverage. The $68,000 to $70,000 saved annually per patient not only saves the government this cost, but allows this population to hold down jobs as well as decreasing their hospital admissions.

Perhaps this government should increase funding to facilitate renal patients to independently manage their treatments at home.

Cindy Wassenaar

Winnipeg

Oversight encourages transparency

I strongly applaud the editorial Bill 35 step toward teacher transparency (March 21), with regard to the regulation of teachers in Manitoba. Strong professional oversight ensures safety of the public, and who is more important than our children?

If teaching is truly a profession by definition, then moving to the proposed oversight body should be seen as a positive thing. The MTS, which has taken issue with this proposal, is a labour union and does not have a role in professional oversight.

As a long-standing member of a health-care profession who has had the privilege of participating in several regulatory functions, including complaints, investigation and disciplinary hearings, I can state that oversight encourages transparency and ensures safe practice by members, which then ensures safety for the public.

How can this not be a good thing?

Margaret Synyshyn, RPN

Winnipeg

Lack of regulation a disservice

Re: Require regulation for school psychologists (March 17)

Surely schools and parents want and deserve reassurance that best practices and a high standard of service is being delivered to their children in schools. Excluding school psychologists from the new regulations for psychologists under the Regulated Health Professions Act is untenable, and an affront to those same students, and to their parents and the schools entrusted with their care.

All other school-based clinical services, including speech and language, social work, occupational therapy, and physiotherapy, are required to be registered and regulated by their respective professional body, but school psychologists are not and will not be? Indefensible. Shame on the Manitoba government powers that be.

These are critical, essential school services provided at no cost to families, and funded by your tax dollars. So please, call on your MLA to move forcefully and expeditiously to halt this disservice and protect our children by opposing this exclusion, and by demanding that school psychologists, like all other school clinical services, be included and regulated under the Regulated Health Professions Act.

Joël Simpson

Retired former assistant superintendent/student services

Winnipeg

No, Jets, no!

Re: Desperate Jets hang on to beat Coyotes (March 21)

Poor players with poor work ethics make for poor results. Almost to a man, the highly paid Winnipeg Jets players should give their money back — they’re not earning their pay.

Against one of the worst teams in the league, the Arizona Coyotes, they were outshot, out-hit and badly out-hustled. When players play poorly, the coach needs to sit them out. Let’s see Jansen Harkins and Dominic Toninato instead of Blake Wheeler and any other non-producer, and Ville Heinola instead of Nate Schmidt. Neal Pionk is a danger to the team and needs to sit as well.

Coach, it’s up to you now: give the team a chance!

John Zaplitny

Carman

Flight, or fight?

What can be done about unwanted daily phone calls from WestJet to my residence offering me a discount on my next flight? This has gone on for several weeks. The numbers change daily, so I can’t block the calls.

WestJet lists all sorts of contact numbers and email addresses, but none relate to their unwanted intrusions and none put you in touch with a human being whose job would have anything to do with this type of nuisance.

On principle, I will never again fly on WestJet unless no other airline flies to that locale.

Bev Stacey

Winnipeg