Letters, Jan. 29

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/01/2024 (797 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Diversity efforts misguided

Re: Mentorship hub would increase teacher diversity: report (Jan. 26)

Efforts to favour hiring of “immigrant, refugee and racialized” teachers are misguided on grounds of both principle and practicality.

With respect to principle, we should not be telling students that they learn better from teachers “who look like them.” All students should rightly expect to learn equally well from qualified teachers irrespective of ethnicity or appearance. Any message to the contrary does students, teachers, and society a grave disservice.

Promoting so-called equity of representation of minority teachers proportional to the student body is impractical given teachers are hired for 30 years or more. Their current composition cannot match that of Canada’s constantly changing demographics without culling teachers of the ‘wrong’ ethnicity or instituting a massive bias in hiring that will produce future problems of representativeness.

Artificial barriers to teaching or any occupation should certainly be eliminated. However, quotas based on identity are impractical and send the wrong message to students.

Jim Clark

Winnipeg

Tough situation at MPI

Re: MPI management blasted in organizational review (Jan. 26)

With so many layers of management, and so much redundancy, and with 20 high-level organizational changes over two years, managers surely must feel like they’re lining up to meet their executioner. And one lesson they’ve clearly learned when in such a position is to keep their heads low in order to keep it from being cut off.

While ensuring they or their colleagues don’t have defined roles or performance matrices, nobody can say with certainty they’re doing a bad job, but only that there’s far too many of them. That as managers, they’ve collectively managed to avoid managing.

And yet, the PCs have the audacity to claim a PUB-directed rate reduction of five per cent is evidence of MPI’s good financial responsibility. But who’s to say that with better management in place that reduction may not have been 10 per cent? Or more?

Randy Clinch

Winnipeg

Convoy memories

Re: Federal use of the Emergencies Act was unreasonable, judge rules (Jan. 23)

I am disappointed with the decision rendered by Federal Justice Richard Mosley but pleased to learn that the Liberal government intends to appeal the decision.

Justice Richard Mosley reached his decision after a three-day hearing in April 2023. In his ruling he said that he revisited the events with the benefit of hindsight and a more extensive record of the facts and the law than the government had when it proclaimed a public order emergency.

I still have vivid memories of watching on television and reading reports of the chaos that was inflicted on the citizens of Ottawa. The so-called freedom convoy terrorized the citizens of Ottawa for weeks and cost the taxpayers many millions to clean up the mess they left behind. When I reflect on his use of the word of “hindsight” it leaves me with the feeling that he may have reached his conclusion first and then used arguments to justify his conclusion.

Pierre Poilievre accused the government of using the Emergencies Act to silent political opposition and Candice Bergen commented that the Emergencies Act was used against peace-loving Canadians protesting Liberal overreach.

I disagree with both of them, based on what I saw what was happening at the time. I feel that if a public opinion poll was taken, a majority of Canadians would disagree with the decision rendered by Justice Mosley.

Michael Cudjoe

Winnipeg

One doctor makes a difference

Re: Diverting least-sick patients from ER looks good, accomplishes little (Jan. 23)

Our health minister announced that an extra physician will be added to the minor treatment clinic at HSC in order to reduce ER wait times. Tom Brodbeck makes the case that this was done to make it appear that our government is acting to reduce wait times, when in reality it will do little to solve this problem. However, this announcement has other benefits that are all baby steps in improving our health care.

Adding another physician to the minor treatment clinic at HSC adds another pair of hands to the staff mix. This can’t be bad, especially in terms of workload, staff stress and morale.

Urgent care centres were created to take the burden off ERs. The minor treatment centre appears to be a variation of an urgent care centre. This service is highly needed in the inner city. All urgent care centres are located in the suburbs since the Misericordia Urgent Care Centre was closed. Transportation to these centres is often a barrier to those living in the inner city.

Adding an extra physician to the minor treatment clinic at HSC will make the government look good but not in the ways our health minister leads us to believe. It will not decrease wait times but adding staff and making health care accessible does not accomplish little, it accomplishes a lot!

Nadine Scholl

Winnipeg

Returning to downtown

Re: Time to get downtown bustling (Editorial, Jan. 26)

The downtown core was struggling long before the COVID-19 restrictions, so forcing employees back downtown will not address the many long-standing challenges and issues downtown businesses face. They would be much better served by increasing residency, making the downtown a livable neighbourhood instead of just a work destination.

You chose to ignore the climate harm created by increased vehicle traffic in and out of the downtown core and failed to acknowledge that for every workplace where face-to-face collaboration improves morale and creativity, there are two or three where creativity is punished, pettiness is the order of the day and turmoil is the norm.

Work from home offers much more than personal convenience. It’s freedom from the toxicity of far too many workplaces.

It is rather hypocritical for the Winnipeg Free Press to champion a return to the downtown core for public servants and other employees, as the WFP chose to abandon the downtown core decades ago. Are you considering a move back?

Lucien Guay

Winnipeg

Premier Wab Kinew would like to see a lot more people returning to work downtown. In the Free Press it was stated that Shared Health is paying rent for six locations downtown, two of which are long-term leases that are vacant as of Dec. 18, 2023.

The rent that is being paid equals $2 million.

I would like to know how many employees of Shared Health have returned to work downtown at their six locations at the present time?

Sandra Coutu

Winnipeg

Pleased to see Lula

Re: Lessons from a coup (Think Tank, Jan. 18)

It’s great to see a variety of opinions which emanate from many sources in our local newpaper. I was very impressed to see an editorial from the president of Brazil included in your mix. As an American-Canadian, I found it very relevant.

Sadly not enough Americans are going to benefit from his wisdom.

Barbara Coombs

Winnipeg