Letters, Sept. 6

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/09/2023 (765 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Shame to see dining, dashing

Re: Restaurants plagued by patrons running out on bill (Sept. 2)

Sad to read about the increasing number of dine and dashes in Kevin Rollason’s Sept. 2nd story. Restaurants may need to adopt the hotel deposit policy of accepting a credit card in advance so the walkouts can be charged afterwards, or pub dining in the UK where you pay for your meal at the bar, give your table number and it is delivered to you. Tips are included in the pricing.

L. Checkley

Winnipeg

Convenient statements

In this article about a recent epidemic of dine-and-dash incidents, a spokesman for Justice Minister Kelvin Goertzen said the minister couldn’t speak about new initiatives to address this crisis in the run-up to the provincial election in October. Then, the spokesman, apparently of his own volition, proceeded to list a variety of supposed initiatives, as well as other claims by the PC party.

So, Goertzen couldn’t speak about new initiatives; however, (surprise, surprise) his spokesman, the very person who provides Goertzen’s statements to the media, was more than happy to elaborate.

Apparently, the PC party has handily found yet another loophole to exploit.

Cheryl Moore

Winnipeg

Stefanson video reveals much

On Sept. 2, I had occasion to see a clip of Shannon Sampert on the evening news speaking about Heather Stefanson’s recent video concerning striking government workers.

Ms. Sampert expressed the opinion that the video was poorly considered and that Ms Stefanson’s media staff could have done better. I saw something different, but perhaps that was what Ms. Sampert was alluding to.

What I saw was something quite ugly; a leader born and raised in privilege saying that unions (i.e. working people) should know their place and take what is doled out to them by the Conservative government. Notwithstanding that I worked most of my years in a management capacity, this angered me greatly. This attitude is precisely why unions exist.

This and Ms. Stefanson’s apparent schism with the truth as she discussed wage settlements in the video lead me to believe that we can do much better in the next election. This is a critical time for Manitobans. Please get out and vote.

Tom Pearson

Winnipeg

Entertaining ‘parents’ rights’ bad idea

Re: As ‘phony war’ ends, election campaign begins in Manitoba (Sept. 4)

If the Free Press photo op showing Premier Stefanson and an unknown either caucus (or hopeful) caucus member standing laughing during her announcement is any indication of their ignorance and/or insensitivity to the harmful impact that this proposed amendment to the Education Act would have on students in the public school system, then we are in deep trouble in this province.

The premier also went on to say that parents know what’s best for their children. Let me remind the premier and others in her caucus that there are any number of homes in the province where: racism, homophobia, gender discrimination anti-intellectualism, being insular and with shallow to no recognition of their responsibility to the community at large (aka me-ism) are the dominant thought processes. These are homes where there is considerable fear of the change that the world in the 21st century is experiencing.

The premier seems to be willing to let these folk “stop the clock” as it were. However, it is the public schools staffed by professionals and using the provincial curriculum who are doing every they can to enable their students to adapt to this rapidly changing world of about 8.3 billion people.

In a nutshell, the principal focus of the public schools is having students become highly literate, have a solid level of numeracy, have a foundation of knowledge in a variety of other areas, have the skills to acquire more knowledge and, equally important, begin the process of developing strategies to critically assess knowledge, new and old, for accuracy and credible research.

The “fighting for parents’ rights” movement has drifted across the 49th parallel from where right-wing activists have done every thing they can to minimize the positive effects of public education, by underfunding the schools and narrowing the scope and depth of the curriculum.

The 2018 OECD-PISA study of students in 79 countries shows that Canada outranks the U.S. in reading six to 13, in mathematics 12 to 38 and in science eight to 19. The U.S. is not the country we should be emulating when it comes to public education.

It should also be noted that several of the proponents of the parents’ rights movement are people such as Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron De Santis. Need I say more?

In closing it would be absolutely disastrous for the public education system in Manitoba if parents from the above mentioned groups were able to negatively impact Manitoba’s public school system.

I am a longtime educator and have two grandchildren in the public school system. I, and I am sure like thousand of other grand parents and parents, want their children and grandchildren to have the very best 21st-century education possible. Once again, the world is changing at an unprecedented rate and we can’t let those who fear change or a premier who trolls for votes to negatively impact the future of our children.

David Halstead

Winnipeg

Many Manitobans might recall the story of David Reimer, the Winnipeg boy who was raised as girl following a botched circumcision. John Colapinto’s book As Nature Made Him recounts how Reimer’s doctors and parents were so sure this was the right decision that they would not even tell Reimer the truth about his past until after the mismatch between his internal and external identities led to a suicidal depression.

Can we agree that it would have been better if David Reimer had been able to decide on his pronouns and gender identity for himself?

Duncan Thornton

Winnipeg

Don’t blame farmers for lake

Re: Lake’s state a pity (Letters, Sept. 5)

In response to Teresa Kuzyk’s letter blaming the pig farmers for Lake Winnipeg’s woes: let’s talk about Lake Winnipeg’s watershed. The second-largest watershed in Canada, it is made up of four provinces and four U.S. states. It takes up over one million square kilometres and is home to over seven million people.

Our own city frequently dumps raw sewage into the Red River which, as everyone knows, is one of the main tributaries to Lake Winnipeg. What else happens in this one-million sq/km area that we don’t even know about?

There is no doubt that action urgently needs to be taken to clean up Lake Winnipeg before it’s too late. But quit making farmers the problem here and look at the big — VERY big — picture.

Debbie Ammeter Sipley

Cartier

Yes Teresa I agree. The state of Lake Winnipeg is dismal. But there is hope. And there is an election coming up.

Feel free to ask, and do ask, questions of the candidates and where they stand on the environment and our beloved lake in particular. The Lake Winnipeg Foundation has a great website (lakewinnipegfoundation.org) where you can find a lot of science-based info pertaining to our beloved lake (yes beloved and I’ll say it probably a few more times!) and how you as an individual can advocate on behalf of our beloved lake.

Let’s make it known we want our beloved lake saved for generations to come.

Meg Gray

Winnipeg