Letters, Aug. 4

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/08/2023 (1074 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Signs of the asinine

Re: There’s more to the personal care home story (Think tank, Aug. 3)

In his op-ed Rodney A. Clifton — who is a member of the right-wing think tank Frontier Centre for Public Policy, and who has been credibly accused of minimizing the harms of residential schools — asks “(should) the Stefanson government … only be judged by the failures that have been reported in care homes”? He helpfully answers “Of course not.”

Mr. Clifton apparently believes that his anecdotal experience of seeing seniors in care homes who were not at the moment being abused, means the damning auditor general report showing widespread coverup of abuse in care homes, is being overblown.

It is becoming a pattern where if you read something asinine in the Free Press opinion section, you can expect to find a Frontier Centre byline at the foot of the article.

Elmer Rudd

Winnipeg

 

Misplaced priorities

Re: Protests mar start of World Police Games (Aug. 1)

Surely it cannot come as a surprise that some Winnipeggers strongly oppose celebrating the police. Indigenous People, especially, have reason to see the police as agents of oppression.

Tuesday’s front page story about protests against the World Police Games seems oblivious to this context, but the Free Press has run many articles that support the protestors’ concerns. The article also conflates the unrelated bear spraying of a visiting athlete, who intervened in a fight, with peaceful acts of protest.

I was appalled to read that “major crimes officers are investigating” the graffiti sprayed along the race route. If political graffiti is considered a “major crime” then the police’s priorities are seriously out of whack — yet another reason why the protests may be justified.

Justin Jaron Lewis

Winnipeg

 

Failing grade

Re: The big wait — 456 days and counting (Think Tank, July 8)

Having read Judy Waytiuk’s article I can certainly empathize with her. I’ve had a knee replacement (May 2013) and a hip replacement (June 2017) which for both, at that time, the wait was approximately seven months.

On April 7, 2021, I initiated a referral for my other hip replacement. I found out five months later, my referral got lost in the system! My expected date of surgery is towards the end of October 2024 with my selected surgeon. That will be 1,143 days waiting if you don’t count the five months lost, which would then be 1,297 days.

I am extremely happy Ms. Waytiuk will be getting her surgery soon and wish her a healthy and speedy recovery.

As for myself, and thousands of others who must continue to wait on the orthopaedic waiting list, our patience and quality of life is being greatly tested! These inconceivable wait times are insane! For that the WRHA and its “experts” and “consultants” get a grade of “F”.

Certainly the citizens of Manitoba deserve better.

Donna Borys

Winnipeg

 

Other side of rent situation

Re: Rental rules not working (Editorial, Aug. 2)

The editorial on rent controls ignores the realities of property owners and managers.

CMHC indicated that over 4,600 condos owned by small business people, not large companies, were rental properties. These people take huge risks investing hundreds of thousands of dollars expecting that they will be allowed to gain something from it.

The rent guideline is supposed to allow all landlords to keep pace with inflation, but in 2024 the guideline is capped at three per cent by legislation, even though inflation was 6.5 per cent using their formula.

All landlords, large and small face a 3.5 per cent deficit in one year alone. I have been in this industry for 29 years and can assure you that almost every single year our costs for operating and maintaining our properties outstrip inflation.

Tenants deserve to be treated fairly but so do landlords. Without what you call skirting but I call Part 9 of the Residential Tenancies Act, we would not be able to maintain our properties, which would only serve to create less housing stock.

The solution to the problem is not putting landlords out of business, as could very well happen if we cannot make a living. It is helping tenants who cannot afford the rent pay it while landlords are allowed to maintain their properties.

That is why Manitoba was the first province to put in place rental assistance for low-income tenants, a program which has not kept pace with inflation.

Avrom Charach

Professional Property Managers Association

 

Reopen lost ERs

Re: $1.5-B revamp set for Health Sciences Centre

The Manitoba PC government announced the spending of $1.5 billion to upgrade the Health Sciences Centre.

I think a portion of this huge amount of money should be used to reinstate emergency rooms they removed from each and every Manitoba hospital first.

Robert J. Moskal

Winnipeg

 

Sad partings

I was deeply touched by the sad news that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, were to go apart.

The entire thing is nothing but pain. It is a deep agony the family goes through and the kids pay the ultimate price.

I feel sorry for them, especially the innocent kids who will have to live with the pain of separation.

I went through a similar ordeal. It was a shocking experience. I still suffer from it even though almost 10 years have passed.

Sometimes differences can not be mended. The two reach the ultimate decision of having one go east and the other west.

I wish them all the best.

Abubakar Kasim

Toronto, Ont.

 

Pallister’s legacy

Premier Stefanson’s refusal to search a local landfill for the bodies of several missing and murdered indigenous women is as unconscionable as it is callous and cruel. But it is consistent with the PCs’ approach to individuals and groups for whom they have a fundamental, ideological dislike.

This is best illustrated by looking at former premier Brian Pallister’s own words on the matter of helping those who are struggling. In an interview published in the Free Press in August 2021, the famously confrontational and unpopular premier told an anecdote about coming across an unemployed man while on the campaign trail. Pallister explained (proudly?) that he was more willing to curse at and kick the man than he was willing to help him get back on his feet. “I’m not after the lazy vote” he said by way of explanation.

In this light, the motivation behind the Stefanson government’s repeated failures to help our society’s needy becomes crystal clear.

They don’t want the elderly-in-care vote; they detest the addicted and mentally unwell vote; and they really despise the missing and murdered Indigenous women vote.

Prejudice, as a guiding political principle, is just plain wrong.

Pallister may be gone, but his cruel and contemptible politics are clearly alive and well in Heartless Heather’s Conservatives.

Robert Sweetland, MD

Winnipeg