Letters, Feb. 21

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/02/2024 (932 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Enough about roads

Re: Liberal roads pitch a tone-deaf vote-loser (Think Tank, Feb. 20)

Steven Guilbeault’s announcement on federal funding for new roads may seem tone-deaf to Deveryn Ross and Danielle Smith but it’s exactly what many of us have been waiting to hear. This time of climate crisis is not time to build new highways. Maintaining and improving safety on existing highways is good; building new ones is madness.

Sam Klippenstein

Powerview-Pine Falls

Deveryn Ross criticizes the Trudeau government for suggesting it won’t be funding expanding road infrastructure.

He asserts that voters want more road infrastructure because they believe it will reduce traffic congestion.

Of course, he might be right about what voters want.

However, we appear to have a logical fallacy here: millions of people believe something, so it must be true.

Unfortunately, as Brent Bellamy points out in the column directly above, evidence suggests that expanding road infrastructure will likely increase the use of those roads over the long term.

With expanded roads, more people tend to commute from longer distances. Hence, the congestion problem continues, along with urban sprawl.

Does Mr. Ross have evidence that the opposite is true?

Ron Swaine

Winnipeg

Kinew made right call on mine

Kudos to Premier Wab Kinew for refusing to grant Sio Silica a licence to drill up to 7,200 wells into the aquifer in the RM of Springfield. Kudos also to former cabinet ministers Rochelle Squires and Kevin Klein for also refusing to grant permission for this very ill-conceived project while they were still in office despite pressure from some of their cabinet colleagues.

I once represented that area (many decades ago). The Vivian/Anola countryside is a pristine, pure area which must remain that way. Clean, unpolluted drinking water is a human right; Sio Silica’s sole desire, which is to make money — damn the consequences — is definitely not!

This should be a non-partisan issue; it should be an issue that is solely concerned with the health, welfare and safety of the many area residents. Which begs the question as to whose side the current representative was on? I haven’t read or heard anything from him in the media. Perhaps it was not reported.

Gilles Roch

Winnipeg

Time to deal with reality

Re: Overdue shift to compassion from contempt will save lives (Feb. 9)

Why is it that there seems to be even more deaths in jurisdictions that have long had so-called compassionate consumption sites? Could it be that “the problem” has never been properly defined?

The problem is that some people want to use drugs and other people don’t want them to use, thus prohibition remains the prime government policy. Repealing prohibition is the only way to rid the streets of tainted drugs made who knows where, by who knows whom. Users want to get high, not die. If they wanted to die they would buy ropes. Forcing users to buy off the street is about as cruel as compassion gets.

Until humanity starts dealing with the truth about ceremonial and ritual drug use, I’m certain people will continue to lose their lives using tainted street drugs. The first thing governments have to do is to quit pretending we are dealing with a medical issue, when the reality is society is dealing with a spiritual issue.

People not happy with their lot in life resort to using drugs in a search for meaning in their lives. That’s all spiritual and has nothing to do with allopathic medicine. Thus so-called treatment is all soul doctoring rather than medicine and is of no concern to the state that is causing all the grief in the first place.

No one ever talks about all the sub-marginal jobs that have been legislated offshore over the last 60 years. No one ever talks about the market-distorting minimum wage that is creating a lot of poverty, thus we see moneyless people wandering the streets. No one ever talks about the soul-destroying effects that a welfare existence delivers to our doorsteps.

So we can keep lying to ourselves that some mysterious force in the ether called addiction is getting hold of people and making them do drugs against their will, or we can start talking about the negatives of government intervention in our lives from drug prohibition to welfare and how those well-meaning policies are paving the road to hell.

Chris Buors

Winnipeg

History’s importance

Re: A portal into our past (Feb. 16)

AV Kitching’s’ informative and instructive article on Louis Riel addresses both the political and personal story of this unique man and his times.

In addition, the Louis Riel timeline is a helpful guide to historic events as our province was founded. Of note is the fact that, the List of Rights he drafted became the Manitoba Act. History is important to all of us.

Whether you are a history buff or not, it enhances our understanding of our community by informing us on “how we got to here.”

Dan Furlan

President, Manitoba Historical Society

Winnipeg

Changes sign of evolution

Re: Judging from a historical distance (Think Tank, Feb. 16)

Jerry Storie is correct when he says that “presentism” (judging historical figures by modern standards) is unfair. It is not something serious historians do.

That said, renaming streets or schools is a different issue. I do not see it as a condemnation of the individual, but rather an important sign to our current community that we are, in fact, evolving and reconsidering distasteful policies from the past. An important part of healing together as a diverse province. As a history educator, I am far more concerned with the general erosion of historical consciousness and waning support for humanities education.

History is not the regurgitation of one narrative or the other — it is beautifully messy. If we don’t teach this, we risk producing a generation of simpletons lacking empathy and perspective and prone to populist nonsense.

Gordon Fritzsche

Winnipeg

Transparency needed in curling

It has been four days since the last-minute announcement by Curling Canada that lead Briane Harris of Team Einarson was ineligible for play at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts. Since then, it has been absolute radio silence and curling fans are left in the dark.

Curling fans can appreciate that there may be other processes at play or appeals underway, but there is no reason to not inform curling fans. What was the alleged infraction? What other processes may be underway? What is the time frame for these processes to conclude? Is there an appeal underway?

Curling Canada needs to be much more open and transparent and demonstrate respect for the curing fans who closely follow this sport.

Nelson Karpa

Winnipeg

Alternative protest sites

Re: ‘Freedom Convoy’ members plan small gathering in Ottawa two years after protest (Feb. 16)

Why don’t you people, rather than gathering again in Ottawa, do something more purposeful than drawing attention to yourselves?

Instead of potentially further stressing the merchants and the public, a better plan might be for you to fly over to either the Middle East or the Ukraine (or both for that matter) and see what the real loss of freedom looks like.

It would probably less expensive than risking yet another class action lawsuit.

David Cohen

Winnipeg