Letters, July 15

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This article was published 15/07/2023 (1109 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Search refusal realistic

I feel compelled to offer my thoughts on the matter of the blockade to the Brady Landfill. While I feel badly for the children of the two women who are thought to be there, I feel the blockaders are being reactive, unrealistic and self-centered in their actions.

It seems to me that the blockade members think Premier Heather Stefanson is being racist in denying their request to spend over $180 million dollars to conduct the search. I think she is being fiscally responsible, and judicious in considering the health of the people having to conduct the search in her decision to deny the search. I believe the money would be better spent improving health care and developing programs that might prevent future missing and murdered women.

Am I being heartless or racist in my opinion? No, I am being realistic. My mother has been gone over 20 years now. I don’t need two hands to count the number of times I have visited her grave. Yet, I talk to her every day. That’s because she is in my heart, so I don’t need to visit a gravesite to pay homage to her.

Other Winnipeg residents have gone missing in the past. Thelma Krull and Eduardo Balaquit come to mind. The families of both of those individuals did not demand that the government spend millions of dollars searching for their loved ones. They organized their own searches, and when the bodies could not be found, accepted that keeping the loved ones in their hearts was the thing to do. Didn’t the families of soldiers killed in past wars also accept that loved ones would not have a gravesite they could easily visit?

No one should think they are more important or deserving than their fellow man. Give up the idea of the blockade. Let the money be spent on something that will benefit the majority of people.

Darlene Neufeld

Winnipeg

 

Compassion over money

I fully support the protests about the unwarranted treatment of our dearly departed. A garbage dump is no place for the eternal resting place of any human beings,

I respectfully submit further, that Premier Stefanson will never have the burden of seeing her offspring being buried in a garbage dump, Where is her compassion as a mother? All women are the potentials for propagating the human race? Quit being a politician and be an understanding mother and a human being for a change!

In my Aboriginal society our departed are not corpses, cadavers or remains. They were at one time living humans and demand respect after they have expired. They are referred respectfully as dene nee which translates as “People that used to be.”

What is more important to you? Money or the dignity of human beings? All Aboriginals that live in the city of Winnipeg pay all tax monies you pay.

Ralph Paul

Winnipeg

 

All must heed road rules

Re: The Idaho stop: a step forward for safety (Think Tank, July 13)

I take exception to Shannon Sampert’s opinion that cyclists should not have to stop at stop signs. Everyone, motorists, cyclists and pedestrians should follow the rules of the road. The rules were made with safety in mind. But casual observation tells me about 98 per cent of cyclists do not stop at stop signs. Many ride on sidewalks (I’ve been nearly hit a few times) and they do not stop for red lights. I see more and more pedestrians walking and running on the road when a perfectly good sidewalk is right beside them. These behaviours are dangerous and irresponsible, not to mention arrogant and inconsiderate of others.

There has been much reported in the Free Press and elsewhere about striving for equality in our society. But some groups think they are above the law and do not have to respect rules or other fellow citizens. Creating special status for cyclists or any other group is really creating “new elites” who have special rules or no rules to follow. I find that offensive and I do not like being made into a second-class citizen in my own neighbourhood and my own city.

Our society is breaking down. Civil discussion and respect for others is going by the wayside. Granting special status to certain groups is exacerbating the situation. If cyclists do not have to follow the rules of the road, why should anybody bother to follow them?

Ray Hignell

Winnipeg

 

Full stop unnecessary

Bravo to writer Shannon Sampert. Intersections can be a menace for cyclists and my own policy is to limit the opportunities for motorists to run me over — they have tried. If I have the right of way at a stop sign, I slow down but I don’t come to a full stop (unless there are kids around). Traffic lights and busy streets are of course a different story.

Early one recent Sunday morning, I was riding my bike slowly (knee injury) down Wolseley Avenue nearing Raglan Road. Wolseley is one of the designated seasonal bike routes with reduced speed limits and a one-block travel restriction for motor vehicles. There are even periodic barricades on the road. Truly a Sleepy Hollow scenario.

There were no cars on the road. There were no pedestrians on the road. There were no pedestrians on the sidewalks. Suddenly I was cut off by the only motor vehicle around, a police car. I actually had no idea what was going on.

I was informed I had not come to a full stop at a three-way intersection with stop signs. So they shouted at me and threatened me with a ticket. I was hard-pressed to bite my tongue.

Even before any traffic rules related to stop signs for cyclists are relaxed, a little common sense would be in order.

Greg Petzold

Winnipeg

 

Keep staff happy

Re: Mental health languishes as Winnipeg Transit rolls toward grim year of violence: bus drivers (July 12)

Thank you to Joyanne Pursaga for bringing to the public’s attention the possibility that inept management is at the root of some of Transit’s woes.

Sounds like the same management style used in hospitals, with similar effects on staff morale.

Human resource management training programs focus too much on garnering maximum productivity from employees, and not enough on the concept that a content employee is a productive employee.

Marilyn Bird

Winnipeg

 

Pay now or pay later

Re: Manitoba defends choice of lowest energy cost for new builds (July 13)

The July 13 Free Press reports that the Manitoba government has decided that future new buildings need to be built to the Tier 1 level of energy efficiency, which is the lowest of the five levels the government could have chosen.

I know that Heather Stefanson can’t look past the next election but this means that every building that is built to this lower standard will for the next 50 or 100 years have greater energy requirements for heating, cooling and operating than it would if the government opted for a higher standard.

I can’t imagine a more planet-damaging or backward-looking stance.

David Letkemann

Winnipeg