Letters, Jan. 31

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 31/01/2024 (954 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Remembering Churchill Forest Industries

Re: Sifting through Sio Silica sands for answers (Jan. 16)

Being of a certain age, we carry the obligations of memory. When I think of the many dangers of the Sio Silica mining proposal, I remember the Churchill Forest Industries (CFI) debacle of the Duff Roblin government.

Dan Lett has described some of the questionable aspects of the proposed Sio Silica/Pyrophyte relationship and of its financial proponents. And questions remain around who exactly the backers of the various solar panel manufacturing proposals might be, and with what credentials.

Churchill Forest Industries was a 1966 agreement of the Roblin Conservative government with various international financiers, including Austrian businessman Alexander Kasser, to develop a forest industry at The Pas. In 1971 the complex was placed in receivership, but not before upwards of $90 million of public money had been paid into CFI accounts.

Roblin, the much lionized former premier, is today mostly remembered for “Duff’s Ditch,” i.e. the Red River Floodway. Perhaps we need to rebalance that reputation with the CFI affair. In a brief review of Roblin’s memoir, the Globe and Mail’s Martin Levin writes: “The Churchill Forest Industries scam, in which foreign con artists bilked the Roblin government out of millions by preying on its naive zeal for regional development, was Duff’s debacle and arguably the worst scandal in Manitoba in the past century…”

Fifty years ago now, In 1974, the Schreyer NDP government released the six-volume report of the Commission of Inquiry into the CFI scandal. Although the RCMP and Interpol became involved, Kasser was never located and others, as citizens of Switzerland, could not be extradited.

Government would be well served by familiarizing itself with the details of the CFI case as an example of chasing economic development will-o-the-wisps that hold undue risk of both legal and environmental harm. In the case of Sio Silica, prudence suggests the best thing to do would be to do nothing!

We can all agree with Premier Wab Kinew that, “The economic horse pulls the social cart,” but we can’t forget the environmental foundation that keeps the caravan on the road. Manitoba’s new government finds itself dealing with many urgent issues and Sio Silica, with its potential for harm to the underlying aquifer and the inherent legal risks, seems like a needless distraction.

Sig Laser

Winnipeg

Time for policy change

Re: City lobbied to freeze water, sewer rates (Jan. 26)

It is time for the city to do away with their utility dividend policy.

Every quarter the city taps (pun intended) the water and sewer department’s earnings to the tune of 11 per cent of gross revenue and transfers this money into the General Revenue fund. This means that 11 per cent of your water payment goes to things like staff, grants, and wage increases for the whole city instead of staying in the department. Typically these things would be funded by property taxes.

The problem, as Coun. Brian Mayes pointed out in a council meeting, is that this creates a six per cent shortfall in operating funding and would require a 9.5 per cent property tax increase (his numbers, I didn’t verify them).

But when we fund general revenue with a dividend from our utility, it creates perverse outcomes.

For a homeowner, it’s all the same — you either pay the money in water bills or property tax. But for the 37 per cent of renters citywide, it directly transfers wealth from them to their landlord, because renters are usually responsible for the water and waste bill, but property tax is paid by the landlord.

The utility dividend policy is regressive and forces renters to pay money that should be paid by their, likely, much wealthier landlord. It needs to be repealed.

Steve Snyder

Winnipeg

Both sides play same game

Re: A modest proposal, 2024 (Editorial, Jan. 30)

There is nothing wrong with the editorial. You correctly point out that the Conservatives must flesh out their slogans so that Canadians know the details of their policies.

You fail to note, however, that when Trudeau conducted his first campaign as leader (2015), the Liberal policy briefcase was similarly empty. The entire Liberal campaign was based on four words “Get rid of Harper.”

Trudeau correctly calculated that people were tired of Harper and believed that he had run out of ideas to deal with Canada’s problems. The details of Liberal policies were sketchy at best.

The weakness of the editorial is not in what you say, but the fact that you fail to note that the Liberals play this game as well as the Conservatives.

Kurt Clyde

Winnipeg

Why fight over safety?

Re: Arbitrator opens hearings on Manitoba Nurses Union grievance over safety in, around HSC (Jan. 29)

It is incredible that Shared Health, the employer of nurses (and obviously many other employees) at the Health Sciences Centre, would resist calls for more safety measures at the centre and instead force the issue to become a labour grievance that now has to be settled through arbitration. I cannot imagine an arbitrator supporting the Shared Health position that it has done enough when nurses are lining up to tell their stories of why they do not feel safe.

Surely the money being paid to Shared Health’s lawyers to fight the union on this issue would be better spent on addressing the safety issues. I am somewhat baffled that this is taking place with Shared Health now being controlled by the new NDP government.

Irwin Corobow

Winnipeg

Fund housing like we used to do

Re: Budget will show NDP’s commitment to housing, and Housing and profit (Think Tank, Jan. 29)

These two pieces should cause us all to say, loudly, “enough is enough.” Enough of the attitude that social problems can or will be addressed by the private sector.

Enough of the attitude that government doesn’t have a hugely important role to play in ensuring our collective well-being.

Enough of the privatization and monetization of everything in sight, especially that which used to be valued goods and services in the public domain.

I’m a big supporter of entrepreneurship and recognizing the initiative and risk-taking that is inherent in the private sector, but not at the expense of what the public sector can and should be doing.

Surely the evidence is in. We need a strong private sector, and a strong public sector, as our current housing crisis makes blindingly clear.

Governments at all levels need to step up big time and start investing in social housing as we used to do, and Finland still does.

Gerald Farthing

Winnipeg