Letters, Oct. 5

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/10/2024 (649 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Perks of downtown living

Recent articles and pictures of Portage Place and future downtown development prompt me to provide positive comments about living downtown, where I lived for 16 years up to a few years ago, in one of several seniors blocks.

We never considered Portage Place a “poor fit” or “white elephant.”

Here is a partial list of advantages to downtown living: bus service, nearly always reliable to all parts of the city; a skywalk to many amenitites; close amenities such as stores (fewer, I admit), some professional and medical services, City Place, True North Square, etc.; education and leisure learning services, such as the University of Winnipeg, Creative Retirement, and (pre-pandemic) lunchtime lectures; and culture, e.g. the Millennium Library, art galleries, theatres, museums, and seasonal festivals.

This is not a complete list but you get the idea! There are hundreds of seniors — and students — who choose to live downtown, in spite of crime and vandalism.

I think the redevelopment proposals sound very promising and exciting.

Hilda Wagstaffe

Winnipeg

Consider the autogyro

Re: City police search for new helicopter as parts for Air1 hard to find (Oct. 2)

I am writing to comment on the story about our police helicopter being retired. I would like to suggest it be replaced by a modern autogyro rather than another helicopter.

Autogyros are far cheaper to buy, much cheaper to maintain and operate, and can duplicate the performance of helicopters, with the exception of hovering in place, although they can fly at very low speeds for tasks such as surveillance and searches. A quick Google search reveals a U.S. company that sells models that start at $150,000.

Michael Dowling

Winnipeg

Recognizing workers

Re: Home care patient fears bad service will get worse if workers strike (Oct. 3)

I am compelled to write in support of health-care support workers and their bid for decent wages. Home care workers (along with significant family support) have enabled our elderly family member to remain in the community for a number of years. We know that personal care home beds are at a premium, and wait lists are very long.

Home care is an essential service for those who need help to stay in their home.

In general, the workers we encounter are conscientious and hard-working. Yet we read that health care support workers are struggling — many use food banks and cannot make ends meet — and no wonder with a salary that starts barely above minimum wage.

It’s inadequate. It’s insulting to the people who depend on them — the most vulnerable people in society. Home care is not perfect and suffers like so many other jobs from recruitment and retention challenges. But why would someone choose this career if they can’t even live on the salary?

Choices are being made about how scarce dollars in provincial budgets should be spent. Let me say that people who use home care are, on the whole, not benefiting from the “gas tax holiday” because most of them don’t drive. This is one choice being made in real time. Let’s recognize health-care support work for the essential service that it is and compensate workers accordingly.

Anne Lindsey

Winnipeg

Cost of a strike

A strike of home care workers, who are currently among the lowest paid in Canada, will hurt our province’s most vulnerable sector, our elderly citizens who have “paid their dues” as citizens.

The only reason for a strike that I can fathom is that the province wants to save money so it can eventually achieve a debt-free bottom line.

If that is so, then it is being done on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens and one of Canada’s most underpaid health care worker sectors. Meanwhile, a gas tax holiday is significantly impacting the bottom line while increasing the debt, but it is reaping votes and popularity for the same government. Not a good way to win votes or popularity in my view.

Steve Rauh

Winnipeg

Silence not an option

I am often asked about the mental physical and emotional health of Canadian Muslims, Palestinians, and Arab communities. Do we feel safe? Do we have support? Sympathy is in abundance while empathy is wanting. However, please note we appreciate the sympathy.

The fact that this question is being asked tells me how distant my fellow Canadians are emotionally, intellectually, and humanly from the ongoing slaughter of the innocent, the violation of human rights, and international law.

Do not worry friends, our resilience comes from our faith. We survived the crusades, the Inquisition, colonization, wars in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, genocide in Myanmar Islamophobia in the West, and resulting killings in Canada, the United States, and New Zealand.

I understand that people are at a loss for words fearing backlash, they are afraid to stand up against injustices and demand human rights for all of humanity. However, we must know that when we allow as a society to dehumanize people we have “othered” — we are dehumanizing ourselves and not those we are allowing to be slaughtered.

This ongoing war in the Middle East is expanding, supported by the West and a few of the morally and spiritually corrupt Arab leaders; is a blemish on the soul of humanity.

It is apparent that the greed for wealth, land, resources, and hunger for dominance and power is driving this orgy of death and destruction.

I do not believe that all Canadians are Islamophobes or carry hatred in their hearts for Palestinians, Arabs, Lebanese, or Muslims.

However, they are hesitant to challenge the narrative that our political leaders and mainstream media have adopted. Mainly, one set of people is more human than others. The fact that one country that perpetrates atrocities and crimes against humanity is honoured and embraced, while the victims are demonized and seen as worthy of extinction, hatred, and othering. History is ignored, facts are subjective and support is selective. I think because the West remained a silent bystander while Germany perpetrated the Holocaust it is still trying to find a scapegoat to appease its conscience.

Silence, my fellow Canadians, is not an option.

Shahina Siddiqui

Winnipeg

Here we go again

Re: Building a city to keep the next generation here (Sept. 30)

It’s like travelling back in time. Why do we have to recycle this same sentiment every 10 years it seems? Winnipeg continues to learn nothing and still lacks the vision we were promised two mayors ago.

Portage and Main sits barricaded and work will hopefully begin next year at a much higher cost than projected in 2018. Winnipeg loves to fret about improving our infrastructure for an accessible, active downtown which of course encourages other neighbourhoods to do the same but we are plagued by inaction time and time again.

No elected officials seem to have the fortitude to be the visionary this city needs for 100 years into the future. They’re too busy worrying about their own re-election. How exciting for my kids and their kids.

See you in 10 years, I guess, when this narrative is sure to appear again.

Susie Erjavec Parker

Winnipeg