Letters, Feb. 1

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/02/2025 (421 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Correction

Due to an editing error, the Think Tank piece headlined “Fixing health care requires more nurses” (Jan. 31) failed to include the byline of its joint author, Diane Frolick, who is a registered nurse with a BA in economics and 37 years of nursing experience, including eight years in ERs.

 

Canada must lead

As Canada readies itself to host the G7 meeting and with a federal election looming, the 2025 budget offers our country the chance to take the lead on important global issues.

These problems, together with climate change and a few other really big global issues, aren’t going away. They’re getting worse, and they’re sending poverty soaring in places all around the world. More than half of the sustainable development goals that we have committed to by the year 2030 are now considered by most observers to be off track.

Now is not the time to retreat. We can back vital efforts like worldwide immunization, education in emergencies, and nutrition programs — efforts that go straight to the heart of the crisis facing the world’s most vulnerable people — by raising the international assistance envelope to the level it really needs: $650 million more each year. Those investments do more than just stave off an immediate disaster; they help build a future in which our international partners are better equipped to look after themselves.

For a long time, Canada has been at the forefront of international development. Budget 2025 must reflect that. The time is now to budget for leadership.

Daniel Yazie

Winnipeg

 

Reductions for professionals

Re: Federal committee urges end to religious tax deductions (Jan. 25)

There is another “perk” that the standing committee on finance should review and that is the clergy residence deduction, which reduces the taxable income of clergy of any faith.

The principle that needs to be examined is whether it is appropriate to provide an income tax benefit to individuals solely on the basis of their professional status.

According to the Canada Revenue Agency, the clergy person’s annual rent, or the fair rental market value if the individual owns the home, is used in a calculation that reduces the taxable income amount.

Is there any compelling argument to support this taxable benefit for clergy? If taxation policy is to be used to support charitable and/or religious organizations because they contribute to the common good, I would argue that the policies should be set up to benefit the organizations providing the services, and not to individuals in their employ.

As someone who has served on personnel committees in my denomination, elimination of the clergy resident deduction would simplify pastoral salary administration. Specifically, the pastor’s salary could be determined without having to factor in the impact of the clergy residence deduction.

Also, if the government continues with an income tax break for a specific profession, in this case clergy, one can argue that the same break could be extended to other professionals. For example, it is difficult to recruit and retain physicians, nurses, and other health professionals to establish their careers in rural and remote communities. These professionals are already fairly well-paid so that large gross salaries may not be persuasive in encouraging them to move to rural or remote communities. What would benefit them more than a huge gross salary is a tax break that increases their after-tax income.

Providing the equivalent of the clergy residence deduction to encourage professionals, such as medical personnel, to take up careers in underserved communities would be a relatively inexpensive way of subsidizing their decision.

Ed Unrau

Winnipeg

 

Planning for an electric future

Very recently Manitoba Hydro set a peak record in hydro electricity consumption. This electrical usage record was reached even when fossil fuel powered vehicles greatly outnumber electrical vehicles (EVs).

What will happen when the majority of vehicles are EVs and their electrical demand dramatically increases, putting huge pressure on Manitoba Hydro to meet that need? Blackouts?

Manitoba could benefit by planning now and constructing more hydro-electric dams and power lines to meet this huge, future electrical demand.

Robert J. Moskal

Winnipeg

 

Alternate staffing plan

Re: Tory MLA blames NDP for empty care home beds (Jan. 29)

Can we think outside the box?

Stop trying to recruit staff to live in our rural remote communities; they do not want to live there. Create teams that live in Winnipeg (or Brandon) and they can go to these remote communities to work; one week on and one week off; or two weeks on and one week off; mining industries do this up north, as do nursing stations up north. They know they cannot have workers live there year round.

Rural communities can provide the housing so staff can share the homes and enjoy local entertainment and amenities. This would be a win-win: communities get the health-care workers they need and the health-care workers continue to live in the communities of their choice.

Anni Markmann

Ste. Anne

 

No apology necessary

Re: What it takes to apologize (Think Tank, Jan. 30)

While I found Mac Horsburgh’s article an interesting read, in the end I am uncertain as to whether he believes that Bishop Mariann Budde should apologize to Trump as the “better person.”

In my view, it is not a high threshold to be considered a better person than Donald Trump, but it’s safe to assume that the bishop likely falls into that category.

How is asking the “king” for mercy an insult? It acknowledges the king’s power to grant the mercy or not. Hardly “nasty” as indicated by Trump.

If Mr. Horsburgh believes there will ever be “an exchange of apologies” from Trump, he lives in a different world than mine, but, like him, we can all dream of such a world.

Meanwhile, we can wait to see Trump’s apology for his comment that Democrats and diversity were to blame for the fatal air collision near Ronald Reagan National Airport.

Do not hold your breath.

Just to be clear, in my view, Bishop Budde does not owe Trump an apology.

Jim Smith

Winnipeg

 

Taking a stand in the grocery aisle

A banana is a banana, until it comes from the United States. All by way of saying, my husband and I will no longer buy produce from the U.S.

When grocery shopping the other day I passed by a couple who rejected buying a carton of soup that was produced by a well known American company. Obviously having a mutual intent to express our disgust at the current political state of the U.S., we affirmed our pride in being Canadian and continued our shopping.

Because of that interaction, I decided to talk at random to other shoppers and encourage them to “buy Canadian.”

To a person, everyone I talked to was already shopping with deliberateness to make what stand they could against being bullied and threatened by Donald Trump. This may seem like a small retaliation on our part, but eventually the point can be made when 10 and then 100 and then 1,000 people take a stand, and refusing to buy U.S.

Truly, the best part of this grocery project was the continuing affirmation of our mutual pride in being Canadian.

Mary-Jane Robinson

Winnipeg