Letters, March 26

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/03/2024 (753 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Second-class citizens

I am relieved that the intersection of Portage and Main will have pedestrians again, even if the reason is financial, concerning the underground concourse. Better late than never for this current mayor and council.

However, I am concerned that these elected officials are kicking the issue of the Arlington bridge further into the future. This is not acceptable.

Can you imagine if a bridge were to close in the more affluent parts of Winnipeg for months, years? It would never happen.

City council treats north end Winnipeg like second class citizens. This is another example of injustice for this part of the city.

The long lineups of traffic on the Salter bridge and McPhillips are terrible and this is before construction season is in full swing!

New developments in the south of the city and northwest continue to grow with new roads, sewers, schools, etc. But in the north end, it’s please wait your turn. We will eventually get to it.

Andrea Kohuch

Winnipeg

What comes next

While I agree with Maryann Mihychuck that Manitoba is leaving a lot of minerals and jobs on the table by not aggressively encouraging mining, her Think Tank article (“Do away with mining gaslighting”, March 23) leaves a few bitter truths left unsaid.

She states that an ice-fishing-shack-sized diamond drill transported by helicopter will not hurt the caribou in Grass River Provincial Park.

OK, maybe not, but what happens when it finds a deposit large enough to make mining that location profitable?

A diamond drill and helicopter are a far cry from actual mining. Buildings must be put up, leading to trucks travelling through the forest, leading to a road to the site. All the infrastructure for the mine will need to be built. All the ore needs to be refined and transported out of the area. All the tailings need to be “stored” in the environment to prevent polluting that environment.

Sounds like an impending environmental disaster for the caribou to me.

The actual mining also needs to be discussed by Ms. Mihychuk as well.

Raymond Muller

Winnipeg

Dirigibles an option

A Free Press article of March 9 (“Lifeline on thin ice”) described the impact of global warming on winter roads and of servicing northern communities reliant on that access to heavy transport. The article mentions the extraordinary cost of the option of all-weather roads, but no mention of an alternative airship development was made.

Grand Chief Garrison Settee of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak has for years been looking at the possibility of airships and dirigibles flying to northern reserves.

Barry Prentice, president and co-founder of ISO Polar Airships, a professor of supply-chain management at the University of Manitoba and former director of the Transport Institute, has been working for more than two decades to develop airships to deliver large cargo in the Canadian north and is working to form a consortium toward having a cold-weather site in Thompson to test airships in the frigid conditions up north during winter.

The president of Canadian North signed a memorandum of understanding with the France-based company Flying Whales in late June of 2023. Canadian North is a wholly Inuit-owned airline headquartered in Kanata, Ontario, serving northern territories, Nunavut and the Nunavik region of Quebec. The Quebec government has also signed a deal with Flying Whales, contributing $30 million to further airship development.

Considering the cost to build a northern gravel road in Canada is about $3 million per kilometre and the scale of the recently completed 100-kilometre road from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk cost $300 million, the potential of this option merits consideration by the Manitoba government as well. Airship development is an opportunity to partner hydrogen development and a more economical solution to service the remote Manitoba and Canadian north.

Len Lewkowich

Winnipeg

A broader view

Re: Russia says 60 dead, 145 injured in concert hall raid; Islamic State group claims responsibility, March 22.

If Islamic terrorists can wreak havoc in an insulated country like Russia from a distance, imagine the risk of having terrorist organizations like Hamas as close neighbours! Russia may even have known that an attack was imminent, but was helpless to prevent the deaths of innocent citizens.

Strangely, or perhaps not, the media and western critics of Israel appear to turn a blind eye to the dangers posed internationally by Islamist terrorists.

According to the African Center for Strategic Studies, countries in the Sahel and other regions of Africa have seen dramatic increases in attacks and deaths from Islamist terrorists over the past decade. The Center estimates that deaths increased by 20 per cent in 2023 alone for a total of 23,000 lives lost.

Where is the outrage, protests, constant media coverage, repeated calls by the United Nations to end the violence, and charges of ethnic cleansing from South Africa? The last is particularly telling.

Ignoring years of deaths in other African nations at the hands of Islamists, South Africa makes dramatic calls for immediate action on the Middle East conflict.

Sadly, many appear to share this lack of concern for deaths in Africa and many parts of the world at the hands of Islamist terrorists.

Jim Clark

Winnipeg

A pox on all their houses

Re: Take care with taxes — you may be a “trustee” after all, March 23

Your headline should have been much bolder.

There will be no “may” for thousands of Canadians.

What a timely article for me, as my brother and I struggle to adhere to this ridiculous new idea from someone(s) who sits in the bowels of Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).

To add insult to injury, I just finished trying to get a trust account number online to complete the paperwork.

After filling everything out, I went to submit the application to “quickly” get the number, and I got a message that it could not be completed at this time.

Of the thousands of children who have their names on elderly parents’ bank accounts, just how many are laundering money — the ostensible reasoning for CRA’s new “bare trust” reporting requirement?

Is everyone in upper management at CRA so out of touch with the real world that they have no idea what is involved in managing the affairs of an elderly person?

Like we need one more thing to deal with. And damned if I am paying for professional advice when professionals have admitted in the media they have not quite figured out what is going on.

Why should we have to pay for advice just to respond to CRA?

A pox on all their houses.

If you are as angry as I am, write to the minister responsible for National Revenue, The Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, M.P., 7th Floor, 555 MacKenzie Avenue, Ottawa, ON, K1A 0L5 and Bob Hamilton, Commissioner of Revenue, at the same address.

Dawn Harris

Gimli

Beds and budgets

Re: Wab Kinew and pragmatism, Think Tank, March 23.

During Brian Pallister’s turn at the helm, infrastructure and health care budgets were underspent or slashed in order to eliminate the deficit.

What good was that? Did we see any residual benefits from that surplus other than bragging rights for one year possibly?

In researching issues for personal care homes (PCH), I noticed that Saskatchewan has more PCHs than Manitoba and more beds available per capita. Doesn’t Manitoba have a larger population?

I wonder if the PCs read the book “The Pig and the Python”, wherein the author stated the Baby Boom generation “has influenced just about every aspect of lives” because of the sheer size of the demographics of this period.

Not investing in PCHs is going to be a real problem going forward.

As well, some doctors who serve PCHs feel the need to keep extending life, even though you have a legal Do Not Resuscitate document and have indicated manage the pain instructions when admitted.

Some of us may want a natural death, and doctors who service PCHs should review those instructions prior to increasing drugs to extend life.

I don’t necessarily want to continue living for the next episode of Groundhog Day while others are dying to get in.

Nori Rubert

East St. Paul