Letters, Sept. 1

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This article was published 01/09/2023 (946 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Licensing move bad call

Re: MPI to waive road tests for driver-ed grads during strike (Aug. 31)

I read with abject horror that MPI will be waiving its road test for drivers education graduates during the strike. According to MPI Board chair Ward Keith, the justification for this is that students who pass a drivers education course have far fewer motor vehicle accidents than those who don’t.

Anyone with even a basic understanding of licensing examinations knows that there is no validity at all to Mr. Keith’s statement. A driver’s road test simply assesses an individual’s ability to demonstrate basic entry level competence to operate a motor vehicle. It has no power whatsoever to predict how “good” or “safe” a driver that individual will prove to be.

Making this decision carries with it a high risk that incompetent and therefore dangerous drivers will be let loose on Manitoba (and indeed North American) roads and I seriously hope MPI will reconsider before it finds itself adjudicating bodily injury claims that come about as a result of its decision.

Alan Slusky

Winnipeg

 

In a further sign of consistency, Premier Heather Stefanson, when faced with an uncomfortable (politically disadvantageous) issue, changes the narrative, and changes the rules.

Rather than return to the bargaining table to resolve the labour dispute between MPI and its 1,700 unionized workers, Stefanson passes the buck. Rather than having our vehicle damage repairs assessed and estimated by an MPI vehicle adjuster, Stefanson has done away with this standard. She has directed that any Manitoban with vehicle damage can skip this step and go directly to an authorized MPI repair shop for repairs.

She has waived the requirement for a road test to obtain a driver’s licence. If a person has taken the drivers’ education program, this person will automatically be granted a driver’s licence. Rather than focus on the issues resulting in a labour dispute, Stefanson has waved her magic wand and done away with standards, industry practice, safety and accountability.

This government is failing Manitobans. It is failing the unionized employees in this province. This government chooses to kick the can down the street — and at what cost? Both monetarily and in terms of safety? Surely, despite our differences, we can agree that new drivers should have to pass a road test and vehicle damage should be estimated by the organization that pays the bill.

Manitobans deserve better. The Stefanson government has a line in the sand. And that line is right in front of whatever is most advantageous to Stefanson being re-elected. Stefanson is gleeful when saying “no” to all Manitobans except herself and her MLAs.

James Young

Winnipeg

 

Hopes for ER plan

Re: Parties can’t suddenly save Manitoba’s ailing health-care system (Aug. 30)

I agree with Mr. Lett. The recovery of our health-care system will require a degree of cross-party co-operation that Manitoba rarely sees and the recovery will certainly extend beyond one government mandate.

Closing three emergency departments in Winnipeg hospitals was a plan based on logic, but doomed by disastrous execution.

Hopefully, the NDP pledge to reopen the three emergency departments will at least effectively communicate willingness to listen to, and collaborate with, our crucial medical professionals. That effective communication may encourage nurses, doctors and others to enter, remain in or return to medical professions.

Lynn Silver

Winnipeg

 

No more attention for Lich, please

Re: Freedom Convoy leader’s criminal trial goes beyond mischief trial (Aug. 31)

Never have I seen the meaning of one word describe a person so well as the word “revelling” does convoy organizer Tamara Lich.

Oxford dictionary meaning:

Get great pleasure from (a situation or experience).

“Bill said he was secretly revelling in his new-found fame.”

The only word not applying is “secretly.” Ms Lich has spoken at a rally, written a book and had given media interviews promoting not her cause but herself. She may have started out as an ordinary person with honourable intentions but she is now playing to the media for the attention that she obviously craves.

Let’s not allow her to become a martyr but remain an anarchist who has no respect for the democracy and the laws of the land that our forefathers fought for and died to preserve.

Stan Tataryn

Winnipeg

 

Private prices not so great

Re: Do away with liquor system (Letters, Aug. 30); and No easy fix to liquor system issue (Letters, Aug. 31)

As a side note to this debate and on the eve of Labour Day weekend where I and many other Manitobans head west for the weekend, has anyone purchased liquor at these private vendors lately?

At the June Riders/Bombers game, I stopped in a few spots in Regina and priced out my favourite Irish whiskeys and rums. All were either equal or more expensive in Saskatchewan, but without the $741 million in profits to Saskatchewanites. I was then down in Fargo and had the same experience with the whiskys and rums (when including exchange rate of course).

Please note beer and “discount” or “no-name” liquor were cheaper in Fargo. My point is that we need to do some fact checking before making the assumption privatization will actually reduce prices.

Jeff Roos

Winnipeg

 

Reminder of first PM’s past

Re: Montreal will not return toppled Macdonald statue (Aug. 31)

Here is a quote attributed to one, John A. MacDonald: “When the school is on the reserve, the children live with their parents, who are savages; he is surrounded by savages, and though he may learn to read and write, his habits and training and mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage that can read and write.”

Do Canadians want to commemorate a racist like Sir John A.?

In 1944 I was six years old when I was taken to Beauval Indian Residential School. At age 16 in 1954 all of the above quote applied to me.

I tried to act and live like Europeans but it never worked out. I completed high school and later became a school teacher from 1959 to 1998. I did not look like a white man and I was judged and portrayed as “just another Indian.” I could never win.

As an aboriginal Elder once claimed, you cannot change a deer into a moose.

Ralph Paul

Winnipeg

 

No more vigils under ag gag

Re: A step forwards (Letters, Aug. 28)

“Manitoba Animal Save regularly holds vigils and events around Maple Leaf’s pork facilities.” writes Lois Taylor in her letter.

In fact, Manitoba Animal Save used to hold vigils in these locations, but that ceased with the enactment of Manitoba’s Ag Gag law in 2021.

Ag Gag laws seek to criminalize whistle-blowers and activists for recording the grim reality of animal agriculture. Our particular law in Manitoba is Ag Gag Bill 62, the Animal Diseases Amendment Act. Bill 62 masquerades as enhanced biosecurity, concerned with transport trucks, farms, animal auctions, and slaughterhouses, and it is extremely vague.

The law declares that no individual may “interfere or interact” with the animals or trucks, but does not define what is considered interfering or interacting. Consulting with some law professionals, they have suggested it could mean something as simple as looking at a pig or taking a photo of a truck.

This law exists to silence those who would speak out on animal abuse and criminalize transparency in animal agriculture. This is a very dangerous road Canada is on, where telling the truth is illegal. We should ask ourselves what is hiding behind such a law, and who it protects. Certainly not public interest and certainly not farmed animals.

Danae Tonge

Winnipeg