Letters, Dec. 22

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/12/2023 (662 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Repulsed by appeal

Re: Killer appeals sentence, family’s victim disgusted (Dec. 20)

How is it possible that someone who drives drunk can kill a young, designated driver, then only get seven years, actually serving potentially only one-third of that? If you think that is absurd and unjust, imagine that same person has the gall to appeal their sentence after pleading guilty!

What kind of “justice” system do we have? How much more can the Reimer family take?

Tyler Scott Goodman is now able to waste taxpayers money by using legal aid to appeal a sentence he pleaded guilty to. There are no words to express the disgust and frustration. Add to that, the passenger who handed the keys to Tyler has never been charged. He walked away free as a bird. He might as well had handed Tyler a loaded gun.

I don’t know what justice means anymore. I am not sure it exists. Things must change. I hope the people who have the power to make changes see that.

Shannon Anderson

Winnipeg

No more homeless children

Re: Judge expressed concern for teen day before slaying (Dec. 20)

It seems that everything that could go wrong did go wrong for this 14 year old girl. Just being a child in care is often enough to set a person down a bleak path, if connections to family or a stable ongoing caregiver are not in place.

Being possibly affected with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder means, among many other things, that due to no decision made by this girl herself, she may have lacked the insight to possible consequences of her choices of friends or activities. But all of that is overshadowed by the fact that she left court with no place to go.

No matter what her social worker was trying to do, and it seems she was trying to do a lot of things for this child, she left the court with no home to go to. The message to the child was that she was worthless.

I believe the social worker was working hard to find a placement. I also believe that Jordan’s Principle should not have to be the funding source for child welfare placements. JP is backlogged for good reasons – they fund so many services for kids who need them, from dental to therapy to basic winter clothing – and all of it is urgently needed. Moreover I am convinced that Nahanni Fontaine continues to be a warrior for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and that she will struggle with this situation until a solution is found.

With all of that abundant good will, but with none of it evident the day this child was killed, it remains for the Kinew government to agree that fixing child welfare is as important as fixing the health care system. And I say that in full knowledge that rural Manitoba doesn’t have the emergency rooms they need and nurses are overworked to exhaustion, people are waiting for surgery and so on.

Maybe the tax cuts promised by the Stefanson government can be cancelled to make space for a new program for children. Surely the wealthy people who wanted to save even more money can be persuaded that leaving our children to die on the street is worse than paying more tax.

No more homeless children in Manitoba!

Gloria Enns

Winnipeg

Mandate masks in hospitals now

Re: Nurses asked to work extra shifts as illness, staff shortages overwhelm ERs (Dec.20)

The seasonal increase in respiratory illnesses has further strained our already chronically understaffed and stressed health-care system. The provincial respiratory surveillance report for the latest reporting period (Dec.3-9, 2023) lists three COVID-19 outbreaks in hospitals and two in long-term care facilities; additionally, there was increased activity of influenza and RSV.

To decrease the pressure on the health-care system, the Manitoba Nurses Union and Manitoba Health Coalition have among their other reasoned measures, called for mask mandates in hospitals and medical clinics.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara is all in favour of nurses working extra shifts but opined that mandating masks in health-care settings is off the table. Is Asagwara a PC in NDP clothing?

Minister Asagwara: the experts are on the front line. Listen to them and immediately enforce mandatory masking in all health-care facilities, long-term care facilities included.

Shashi Seshia

Winnipeg

Emergency departments in Winnipeg are overrun. Nurses are being asked to work extra shifts over the holidays. The cries of “Our health-care system is broken” reverberate. COVID-19 related hospital visits and admissions are on the rise.

Health Canada statistics show that Manitobans have a XBB 1.5 (the current formulation) vaccination rate averaging 14.8 per cent. Manitoba statistics are hard to find but the national rate in the 80-plus age group is 47.5 percent, the 18-19 year group 3.7 per cent.

Yet as I drive around the city I see no billboards encouraging vaccination. I see no appeals from government or health care authorities to encourage vaccination. Prevention should be a priority, not reside on the back burner of intervention strategies.

George Bednarczyk

Winnipeg

The MNU and Manitoba Health Coalition are right. Anyone in a health-care setting should wear a “mask” these days. That’s what the World Health Organization says, and what lots of Canadian and other hospitals are doing, faced with burgeoning COVID-19 cases.

Actually it should be a respirator to ensure a snug fit that doesn’t allow the SARS/CO-V2 or flu virus to sneak in. The “baggy blue” surgical masks don’t provide that fit.

Why is the fit (and filter material) so important? Because the flu and COVID viruses come in invisible aerosols when we breathe, talk, sing, etc. They float through the air, near infected people and in spaces around them. Calling on nurses to work extra hours without respirators only leads to more chances to get infected and then they’ll miss work, infect others and face the possibility of debilitating long COVID. Besides, Manitoba’s health and safety law requires they not have to face these hazards.

Dorothy Wigmore

Kingston, Ont.

There’s room to improve

Re: “Codes of animal care” (Letters, Dec. 21)

While I am not in a position to argue with the letter writers regarding the nutrition of animal based proteins or the industry’s efforts on mitigating environmental impacts, anyone with a little bit of common sense can argue the treatment of the animals is not, well, good.

Maybe most in the industry comply with the Animal Care Act. However, my bet is there is plenty of room for improvement in the legislation. I have never driven by a field of hogs or chickens leisurely roaming in the fresh air, for instance. I understand the need to protect the security of the food supply. However, to suggest these animals live comfortable lives is a stretch, by any measure.

Michelle Burdz

Winnipeg

Hope for the trees

I do hope the city forestry branch as well as private tree pruning firms have strict disinfecting guidelines to prevent the spread of Dutch elm disease to healthy elm trees.

Dedicated bucket trucks and chainsaws and chainsaw sharpening tools should only be used to cut down diseased elms and never be used to prune healthy elm trees to prevent cross contamination.

More and more elms are being cut down and I hope it’s only from the disease itself and not from poor tree pruning/sanitation practices.

Robert J. Moskal

Winnipeg