Letters, Nov. 6

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/11/2024 (334 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Remembering Sinclair

Re: Former judge and senator Murray Sinclair dies at 73 (Nov. 4)

In 1994, I was a nurse working in the pediatric cardiac operating room at the children’s centre at Health Sciences Centre. It was a year that changed my life.

At the subsequent inquest, the other nurses involved and I spent days in Murray Sinclair’s courtroom relating the horrific situations we had witnessed.

Throughout my time in that courtroom, Sinclair listened to my evidence with respect. I remember thinking that he was the perfect judge to hear our evidence because I felt that he was not part of “the old boys club” with whom I had been dealing, when I had made my concerns known about what was going on in that operating room. (I was “just a nurse” and as nurses we were told to do our job.)

All that took place 30 years ago. I have followed his career with interest and I hold him in the utmost respect and admiration to this day.

Rest in peace, Mr. Sinclair.

Carol Youngson

Winnipeg

Recognizing foster parents

As we are all aware, the province of Manitoba is seeing increased reporting of CFS in the news and making headlines despite foster parents rallying for more support and much needed changes.

This is what the Manitoba Foster Parent Association — of which I am chair of the diversity committee — has to say about the lack of government recognition and action on child welfare reform.

Foster parents across Manitoba are deeply disappointed by the lack of recognition from our government during October, widely acknowledged as Foster Parent Appreciation Month. For the past year, foster parents throughout the province have been rallying for urgent, systemic changes to the child welfare system. However, our efforts have yet to receive a meaningful response from provincial leaders.

The absence of acknowledgment for the invaluable and demanding work we do is discouraging. Foster parenting is an essential service in Manitoba, and we are joined by a wide network of caregivers, including kinship and customary care providers, who share our commitment to supporting children and families. Like us, these caregivers are underappreciated and often feel overlooked.

Kinship and customary caregivers receive the same support as foster parents, which remains inadequate, as highlighted in the Auditor General’s report from 2019. Despite these findings, no substantial changes have been implemented. We urge the government to recognize the essential role of all caregivers in Manitoba’s child welfare system and take meaningful steps to address the critical gaps in support.

Brittany Bannerman

Winnipeg

Trudeau’s failure

Re: Party leaders condemn violence at Hindu Temple amid consular visit (Nov. 4)

Over the past year, several Hindu temples across Canada have been desecrated and anti-India and pro-Khalistan slogans sprayed. The most recent example on Nov. 3 is the violence by Canadian supporters of Khalistan at Hindu temples in Brampton, Ont., and Surrey, B.C.

Canadian Hindus cannot be held accountable for any alleged acts of the government of India and intimidation at and desecration of their places of worship (and of any other place of worship) is unacceptable in a country that prides itself on “rule of law.”

Antisemitism, Hinduphobia and Islamophobia together with attacks on the respective places of worship have increased exponentially under the de facto Trudeau-Singh coalition.

This rise in religious intolerance reflects an abject failure of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s leadership.

Shashi S. Seshia

Winnipeg

Handling social media

Re: Impose rules on social media firms from the outside (Editorial, Nov. 2)

There is much to be said about the good, the bad and the ugly about social media. I would agree that rules are needed to protect all, not just from political rhetoric, inappropriate content and poor advice. One aspect of the various platforms, and of Meta in particular, that I wonder about is whether they are indirectly contributing to the ongoing petty crime wave that we are experiencing and I don’t just mean here in Winnipeg.

The question is: how much of what is being sold on Facebook for example is stolen from retailers or from local garages and backyards?

Debbie Ristimaki

Winnipeg

It is discouraging to read an editorial arguing against the concept of free speech, doubly so coming from a newspaper whose very name proclaims its independence from government control. The inevitable, albeit unintended, consequence of allowing people to express themselves fully, in public, is that some will take advantage of this liberty to lie, cheat, threaten and generally behave in a manner which most people consider unacceptable.

There are laws which prohibit certain speech, for example libel, extortion or inducement to illegal acts. These laws are well established, and can be prosecuted under current Canadian law. Full prosecution of illegal speech is what is needed to make it clear that free speech does not include breaking the law.

Censoring potentially illegal speech pre-emptively is another matter entirely. In order to assure that “bad content,” however defined — and that is a matter of some importance — is purged from a social media platform, any monitor, be it government or media company, would need to have instant access to every post from every source everywhere in the world. Not only is this unfeasible, it flies in the face of our hard-fought rights to freedom of speech and to privacy. Laws which would suppress these rights are anathema to a democracy.

Further, it defies logic to assign what is an individual’s personal responsibility to the messenger of that communication. Asking Facebook, for example, to monitor and take responsibility for its users’ malicious verbiage is analogous to asking the post office to open and read every letter to ensure that hate mail or other illegal content is stopped. Similarly, blaming the Free Press for an advertiser’s false claims is preposterous. Yet this is one consequence of what the Free Press editorial seems to propose.

Is there a solution to the problem of cyberbullying and disinformation? One small and powerful incentive to persuade people to be more moderate in their writings is to insist upon proper identification of the writer. It is easier to be rude, obnoxious or hurtful when hiding behind a pseudonym. Nobody’s rights are abrogated by a social media platform refusing to post an anonymous or falsely attributed statement.

However, free speech necessarily involves people enjoying the right to communicate in a manner which others might find offensive. In a free society, there can be no right not to be offended. As long as we have speakers and writers, we will have aggrieved listeners and readers.

Francis Newman

Winnipeg