Letters, Oct. 1

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/10/2024 (551 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Tax holiday a decoy

Re: Province extends gas tax holiday until end of year (Sept. 25)

I am waiting for the NDP to announce how many health-care professionals they have hired, compared to the health care professionals that have retired/moved away. That would be a worthy of an announcement.

To the many who do not drive the following is meaningless: “Kinew said people who drove a pickup truck will save about $14 every time they fuel up. Gas prices were just below $1.30 a litre at many stations.”

I drive an economical car very sparingly and get a tax relief of about $3.70 per fill — or 18 cents a day.

Once again the NDP are using decoys to skirt the real issues plaguing Manitoba such the shortage of health-care professionals, crime, and homelessness, etc, to name just a few of the real issues, and not 50 cents more per day in the pockets of people who own cars in Manitoba.

Alfred Sansregret

Winnipeg

 

Problems with wind

Re: Reaching for the win-win-win (Editorial, Sept. 27)

The editorial on wind power should more properly be labeled “lose-lose-lose” You are refusing to look at what is happening in Ontario which is now being virtually abandoned by the wind companies due to the “unwilling host” provision in the approval process. More than 155 townships have adopted this policy.

In addition, credible analysis estimates that it takes far more money to take a windmill out of service after its 20-year useful life than the original cost.

If you insist in going down this path you need: 1. A guarantee of all provisions of the wind tower proponent by its parent company; and

2. Satisfaction of all legitimate complaints and instances of damage to people, animals, birds etc., guaranteed again by the proponent’s parent — Canadian and / or American.

Jim Oborne

Winnipeg

 

Cost of austerity

Please correct me if I am wrong but it seems all the nurses in Manitoba were trained at public expense, then some left for one of the 96 or more private agencies because government austerity penalized their wages, benefits and working conditions for seven years and more while they were in the government sector.

Private agencies don’t train nurses but bill Manitoba Health way more than it would have cost the government to give these conditions to the nurses, plus they pay the overhead of 96 administrations and profits to shareholders in addition.

By definition private health care (agency nurses in this case) therefore must cost taxpayers more, which is why we got universal health care in the first place.

Austerity actually costs more. The taxpayers eventually pay more, for less.

Perhaps we need the equivalent of a Public Utilities Board (which gives us among the cheapest Hydro rates in North America) to keep the politicians’ fingers off the buttons that push up rates for political reasons, and we should do more to protect our cherished Crown corporations, Healthcare, Education, infrastructure and other essential services from privatization.

Manitobans (and Canadians in general) should beware politicians who underfund essential services by cutting taxes then want to privatize them for profit.

There should be a referendum of all Manitobans with a healthy majority of support of at least two thirds, before privatizing in whole or in part, any of our essential services. And to avoid referenda a Public Utilities Board equivalent to ensure these services are always properly funded so sewers are adequate, water for all is potable, nurses are respected and compensated without having to grovel for decent working conditions and compensation.

It’s about investing in long term value, not the erosion of continually cheaping out on a few dollars and cents and destroying what we had.

Andy Maxwell

Swan River

 

Looking for specifics

Re: ‘I wasn’t thinking about sex,’ Conservative MP says after being accused of homophobia (Sept. 26)

About half of this story wasn’t even about the comments made or the MP’s defence of them. It focused more on the non-confidence vote and the opposition parties positions on them.

Was there really not enough here for the author to write about?

Maybe start by asking what are “casual homophobic comments”? Because I would like to know what those are. I always thought comments fell into two categories. Homophobic and non-homophobic. And from there we would apply the hate-speech test.

But now there is a new category of homophobia in sweatpants and a T-shirt? No thank you. Let’s stick with the two categories please.

And nobody has to be thinking about sex when they step on the back of the necks of an entire group of people. Unless we want a new category of sexy-slurs I guess. But I’ll leave that to the bathtub conservative MPs of Canada to try and work into our vocabulary and normalize like the rest of the hate Pierre Poilievre is peddling under the guise of moral outrage these days.

People are dying in parts of the world trying to hold their leaders to account. Here, several times a week, the opposition has a right to do so without any fear of retribution. And they are squandering that right for cheap shots and sound-bites.

Oh … and yell across the aisle on Parliament Hill that the prime minister takes baths with other men. But not in a homophobic way … because he wasn’t thinking about sex when he said it.

Brian Spencler

Winnipeg

 

Other uses for bridge

Re: Replacing Arlington Bridge could come cheaper (Sept. 25)

Yes, it could be much cheaper — it could cost nothing! There is only one feasible solution for (Winnipeg’s least used) Arlington Bridge: close it and don’t rebuild!

There are four other nearby ways to go over or under the rail lines (Keewatin, McPhillips, Slaw Rebchuk and Main) and in the case of Arlington and McPhillips (on Notre Dame) the routes are literally one block apart.

Some (like Coun. Ross Eadie) try to (ridiculously) position this as an issue of affluent versus non-affluent neighbourhoods.

We live in a city of rivers and rail lines — everyone, no matter where they live, has to go on a bridge or underpass to get somewhere in this city. Most of the time people have to go a few blocks (or kilometres) out of the way — there are few straight lines. A trip from most parts of River Heights to Portage Avenue requires some backtracking and a choice of two busy bridges (St. James or Maryland).

That’s just the way it goes.

When the St. Vital Bridge opened on Osborne, they didn’t expand the Elm Park Bridge — they repurposed it for walking and biking.

Close the underused Arlington Bridge to vehicles and use it for active transportation.

Derek Rolstone

Winnipeg