Letters, June 1

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/06/2024 (832 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Suggested solutions

Re: Finding a solution to a complex issue (Editorial, May 30)

Further to the insightful editorial, what is not being discussed are the issues that bring individuals to shoplift, amongst which are poverty, mental illness, and drug addiction, which our MacKinnon’s Y-Not? Anti-Poverty Program, of which I am executive director, and other charities seek to alleviate.

People who shoplift do not think of their impact or how they are wronging the Zeid family whose store offers a service to the community that benefits from access to shopping. Why should the Zeid family bear the loss of $6,000 a year from shoplifting when this is a systemic problem?

Shoplifters in cycles of poverty think only of their immediate and real needs: hunger, a way to feed children, getting food when drugs and drug dealers are consuming their scant resources. Dr. Gabor Mate (Hungry Ghosts) convincingly proves we need compassion as addicts’ underlying traumas perpetuate addictions, so harm reduction is the most practical route.

Consider the frightening escalating violence, unwanted by all. Immediate peace-oriented creativity is needed here, to bring everyone to a good place. Clearly this Food Fare is a shoplifting destination.

What if the Zeid family set a corner in the store with shelves of free food, for those in need? What if the Manitoba chiefs put their considerable power into helping with this healing action? Paying clientele would continue to pay for groceries, and community partners such as Harvest, charities, farmers, or big box grocery stores could help supply the free foods. We are in this together, Winnipeggers.

Margaret Shaw-MacKinnon

Winnipeg

By all accounts, theft in our grocery stores has hit epidemic proportions. Prevention strategies in place are proving to be inefficient to deter thieves.

Is it time to implement what the Liquor Marts have adopted? Beyond sad that we’ve reached such lows in our city and province, but queuing in front of a locked grocery store door, opened by a security guard to allow a few people in at a time, much like it was done during the pandemic, is perhaps something to consider.

Making a run for our vehicle with a grocery-filled cart may be the next challenge.

Diane Labossiere

Winnipeg

Numbers game

Re: Manitoba is losing its housing affordability advantage (Think Tank, May 30)

Shannon Sampert’s opinion piece a masterful illustration of Mark Twain’s timeless saying that there are “lies, damn lies and… statistics.”

As the title suggests, the author’s ostensible argument is that housing in Manitoba — more specifically Winnipeg’s housing — isn’t as affordable as some may suggest. To illustrate, Sampert opts to compare Winnipeg to its Prairie cousins of Edmonton and Calgary. While Winnipeg’s and Edmonton’s average home prices were “pretty close” at just over $400,000, Calgary’s home prices were inconveniently higher than Winnipeg’s by upwards of 40 per cent, clocking in at $688,000.

OK, fine, so Winnipeg’s high property taxes are the problem! To look at property taxes, we need to brush aside the recently announced education property tax credit. It is, in any event, a provincial tax collected by the municipality remitted directly to provincial coffers. Very good. The problem, however, with the study cited by the author is that it uses the tired, old and dubious “mill rate,” a figure that — in the case of Winnipeg — is as high as it is meaningless. To get to the heart of the matter, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives looked at the average tax paid per residence. This makes a lot of sense. Their conclusion is that the Winnipeg tax bill is in fact the lowest in Canada, at around $1,850 per year, per home.

In spite of talking about housing affordability, the author fails to mention rents. For the record, a two-bedroom rental unit in Calgary costs $1,695 per month, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Copr., a mere 15 per cent higher than Winnipeg’s $1,427 average. (The Edmonton two-bedroom was “pretty close” to Winnipeg’s.)

We then pivot to affordability in general. Albertans pay no provincial sales tax! I certainly hope not. Looking at just a few major line items, Alberta households need a big break.

Let’s look at a few examples. According to the CCPA, average child-care fees in Winnipeg per infant was $217 in 2023, compared to Edmonton at $555 and Calgary at $780. Manitoba’s car insurance premiums were second-lowest in the country at $1,393 per vehicle, according to a study by HelloSafe. That’s less than half of the whopping $3,151 paid by the average motorist in Alberta. Leaving your car parked isn’t a solution either: Calgary, at a mean $366 per month, wins the most expensive downtown parking stall award, according to JJL, ahead of both Toronto ($347) and Vancouver ($300). According to Statistics Canada, the average Canadian undergraduate tuition at the University of Manitoba, at $5,242, comes in at 75 cents on the dollar compared to both the University of Calgary ($6,961) and Edmonton’s University of Alberta ($6,875). Finally, Statista estimates that the average cost for electricity in Alberta (25.8 cents per kWh) is over two and a half times what Manitobans pay (10.2 cents per kWh).

But I digress.

My personal conclusion from all this is that all three cities are much more affordable than objectively unaffordable Canadian cities like Toronto and Vancouver. I can personally attest that Ottawa is significantly less affordable than Winnipeg, having lived in both cities for extended periods. Returning to home prices, all three cities are below the national average of $704,000, with both Winnipeg and Edmonton registering far, far below that number. And internationally, studies — which usually exclude Winnipeg and Edmonton — regularly rank Calgary in the top 10 most affordable cities in global rankings.

But wait, at the very end, the author finally comes to the real issue: low wages are Winnipeg’s problem… Don’t get me started on that… wait… Sampert may have a point there.

Stephane Allard

Winnipeg

Women deserve timely treatment — period

Re: Earlier screening for breast cancer saves lives. Period. (May 31)

I was disappointed to read the response by Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara in the wonderful column Earlier screening for breast cancer saves lives. Period. by Tom Brodbeck.

I want the health minister to explain what they mean by “in some cases, we see folks who need this care at older stages who are very sick not being able to access that care because of capacity challenges.” If 13 per cent of women diagnosed with breast cancer are between the ages of 40-49, what is holding the government back for women in that age group to get screened?

I agree with Brodbeck when he said there is nothing more to study. I also agree that routine screening between the ages of 40 to 74 is one of the best ways to catch cancer early and reduce deaths — I speak from personal experience, I was diagnosed early, and treated in a timely manner.

My message to the health minister — ensure women 40 to 74 have access to screening in a timely manner, wherever they live in the province. They deserve it.

Cindy Kelly

Winnipeg