Letters, Dec. 11

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/12/2023 (698 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Filibuster foolishness

I wonder how much the stance the federal Conservatives have taken is costing us the taxpayers. The House of Commons being open 24 hours a day can’t be cheap, and affects more people than just the MPs. Security, lights, heating, food and cleaning are all affected and who picks up that bill? Not the Conservatives but we the taxpayers who they claim to be helping.

While I am not a fan of new taxes I am a believer in clean air for my grandchildren. The stance the Conservatives have taken seems to indicate big business is driving their policy, something they accuse the Liberals of doing.

Theatrics such this all-night stance is akin to the child who takes his ball and goes home when his rules are not followed. Grow up, guys and gals, grandstanding doesn’t work.

Nor does it work to blame Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for everything and anything negative that has happened in the last decade or so. We live in a global society that is in the middle of many many issues that are not going to be solved with these tactics. They just end up costing us the taxpayers, more at a time you claim to want to help.

Come up with something constructive and helpful instead of being a negative voice.

Donna Gereben

Winnipeg

Cause for shame

Re: Millions in salary, ‘very little accountability’ (Dec. 8)

With more than 40 years in the health-care system I don’t know how I can still be so affected by news that task force members, including administrative assistants and out-of-province employees were paid outrageous amounts of money for their service, when the original issue of lack of medical personnel to deal with the backlogs in our province is due to chronic cuts, underpay of professionals and an unsupportive and often unhealthy workplace.

Why would nurses, doctors and allied health professionals want to remain in Manitoba?

Why is it OK to pay enormous amounts of money and create a task force when those professionals who have experience with the issues of backlogs work within the existing system that is broken, and could provide the information and likely the solutions if anyone would care to ask them.

Instead, the previous government decided to spend more of our health-care allocated dollars to appear to be doing something, but what they actually succeeded in doing was overpay a very few for information they could have received free of charge.

Shame on all of you who take the health of our citizens and their tax dollars and play politics with it, and shame on all of you who think we do not understand what is going on.

Carmen Lopez-Hille

Winnipeg

Congratulations to new AFN chief

As a Dene elder and a former elected chief of the English River First Nations in northwest Saskatchewan, I extend deep congratulations to the newly elected AFN chief, Cindy Woodhouse. I came to Manitoba in 1972 as a school teacher and now reside in the city of Winnipeg.

I was in Calgary when Shawn Atleo and Perry Bellegarde were vying for said position. It was an all-night affair and ended when Bellegarde conceded. I was one tired chief that day.

I do hope that Woodhouse remembers that not all Aboriginals live near towns or cities. She should make it one of her commitments to visit the Dene in northern Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and BC. Do not forget the Dene in the Northwest Territories, Yukon and Alaska. We are Aboriginals also who vote in these elections.

Ralph Paul

Winnipeg

Worrying data

Re: Math scores improve, but still ‘worrying’ (Dec. 6)

In a quote often erroneously attributed to Albert Einstein, the 1963 book Informal Sociology — penned by William Bruce Cameron — included the aphorism: “Not everything that can be counted counts; and not everything that counts can be counted.”

With the release of the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results, mathematics educators and bureaucrats around the world held their breath for what we used to refer to in Department of Education and Training as “Dark Tuesday.”

There is a great deal of merit in that snapshot of adolescent learners, and thoughtful advocates of mathematics teaching and learning like Dr. Anna Stokke of the University of Winnipeg tend to become more visible when results of international assessments are released. That emphasizes the ‘counting’ focus.

There is another, equally important focus at hand here; and it is what counts.

Students and teachers alike have identified through the 2022 PISA results that there are “soft numbers” which require considerable attention. Canadian students were the largest cohort in the world sample which had the privilege to occupy the top 20 per cent of socioeconomic status.

Our students are largely students of economic advantage, which is a significant indicator of high academic achievement.

Perhaps more important is the counter argument; that one in six Manitoba students occupied the lowest 20 per cent of socioeconomic (a quintile in stats) but scored in the top quarter of mathematics performance. The OECD calls these students “economically disadvantaged and academically resilient.” Child poverty is not a universal impediment to performance and success. That counts.

John Murray

Winnipeg

New to Canada?

You were a blessing for PISA mathematics results, as one in three students who sat the assessment test were born outside of Canada or had parents born elsewhere. This group outperformed non-immigrant students in mathematics by 16 score points, once an adjustment was made for SES. That counts as not seeking groups to blame for our declining performance.

Still ‘worrying’ about test scores? Here are some causes for worry, and these data points are not often counted or discussed: 20 per cent to 25 per cent of Canadian students “feel like an outsider at school”; almost 30 per cent claimed “I feel awkward and have no place in my school”; one in five feel that their loneliness at school impairs learning. That counts in terms of supporting an outdated school culture.

In my estimation, the disciplinary problems in Manitoba schools and increasingly complex student profiles are of vital attention.

This can be illuminated by PISA data demonstrating: 22 per cent of adolescent girls and boys revealed that they are victims of bullying at school more than three times per month; a similar number say the environment in their mathematics classrooms is not conducive to effective learning; 30 per cent said they “do not listen to the teacher at all in class”; almost half of students “get distracted in class by use of their smartphones” and indicated that being distracted by others on their devices is equally a problem.

All of the above counts in terms of disciplinary accountability.

What to do? We have counted enough… it’s time to be accountable.

John Murray

Winnipeg