Letters, May 23

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/05/2025 (308 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Whole new hassle

Re: End of an era: city to remove street parking meters (May 22)

I had to wait for my blood pressure to come down before I wrote this letter after reading about the elimination of parking meters.

I’m an 85-year-old senior with senior wife for whom a phone is a phone and who has no idea what an app is, let alone how to use one. So now, as pensioners, we will have to spend money to purchase special booklets of some kind of passes ahead of time without knowing when, or if, we will need to pay for parking.

Maybe the city could provide us with the proper phones, apps, and aged-related classes on how to use them.

Roy Hangle

Winnipeg

It’s not just the people without cellphones that will be affected. I have an iPhone 6s, Admittedly not that new but still perfectly functional. But it is too old to handle the parking app.

I would need to upgrade my phone in order to use the app. I sometimes wonder if the app makers get a kickback from the phone manufacturers to make apps that require the latest model phone!

Art Quanbury

River Hills

I think the Winnipeg Parking Authority’s decision to remove all the downtown pay stations this summer, with absolutely no prior notice to Winnipeggers, is unconscionable.

I actually have the Pay by Phone app and have used it for several years. But I did have a good laugh when I read the quote from the WPA’s Lisa Patterson that “the app doesn’t ever go down,” which is absolutely untrue. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve gone to use the app and I get a message that Pay by Phone is out of service in this area (or something to that effect).Fortunately, I always have my credit card on hand to use at the pay station if that happens.

It’s bad enough that the huge decrease in the number of pay stations forces people who use them to walk a block or more to find one! Not only that. I personally know many people (mostly age 60-plus like me — the fastest growing demographic), who have no idea how to use apps like Pay by Phone (or who don’t have a cellphone, like the gentleman in the article). Taking away those pay stations from seniors who shop, dine and go to events downtown is not good business.

The fact that it will take $3.6 million to replace the pay stations with more up-to-date technology clearly points to a lack of foresight by the WPA, who are now looking for a quick fix to save money while doing a great disservice to the citizens of Winnipeg.

Try as you may, you can’t pull the wool over Winnipeggers’ eyes. We’re too smart for that.

Robbi Goltsman-Ferris

Winnipeg

Bad mojo

Re: Former Nygard cottage destroyed (May 22)

Two passages jumped out at me while reading Erik Pindera’s story.

“Falcon Lake, along with the rest of Whiteshell Provincial Park, was closed at the time of the blaze after provincial officials ordered everyone out May 13 owing to a wildfire along the Manitoba-Ontario border.”

Yet, real estate agent Daniel Walker, who has a camera on a dock across the lake from Nygard’s property, said “the camera captured the orange glow of the flames from a distance on Tuesday night. About two thousand people watched the property burn.”

Two thousand people? Feels a bit like The Purge, doesn’t it? Nygard sold the cabin a few years back, but maybe people just felt like the bad juju accumulated in that structure needed to be eradicated, and the new owners could use their insurance payout to build something free of the vestiges of evil lurking there.

Cheryl Moore

Winnipeg

An unspoken warning

Re: A look at our passion for the Jets (Think Tank, May 22)

Paul Moist writes passionately about the Winnipeg Jets — and he can do that, I know Paul to be a huge Jets fan. My question is: what is the moral of the history that he paints so beautifully with his words? Perhaps it is to heed an unspoken warning, not too dissimilar from what NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman put into words two years ago when our season ticket base waned with little interest or indeed anyone waiting on the season ticket waitlist.

We don’t know what we have until it’s gone, but is there a red line for that? Paul seems to think that there is — indeed, professor Jim Silver outlined it. There is a point at which individual and community support for millionaire athletes and billionaire ownership must necessarily stop, but the point at which we get to that line is left unsaid. Perhaps it was that fateful day in 1995 as Paul alludes to, or perhaps it’s not far off in the future, in these times of deep economic uncertainty and insecurity? I can’t say for certain.

What I can say is that I haven’t bought a ticket to see the Jets play in some time. It’s an expense I can afford but it’s not high on my list of priorities. I do enjoy the live game experience, but it’s just as easy to indulge my fandom at home in front of my TV or at the Yellowdog tavern, so am I part of the problem? Again, it’s hard to say.

How many people have less who are spending it on professional hockey? If I’m unwilling to, what happens when they can’t? Corporations and business interests know when to draw the line, they did it in 1995 and they will do it again, they can’t be counted on to preserve what we know to be truly special. But with everyone being squeezed, how can we have this burden placed on us? I think that is the genesis of Paul’s story.

Will Jones

Winnipeg

Frightening plan

Re: Trump wants weapons in space (May 21)

The development of space weapons jointly with U.S. as contemplated by U.S. President Donald Trump is not only scary but insane, especially if this would involve nuclear weapons.

Should such weapons ever have to be used above a city this would decimate the entire city killing millions and leaving millions in the fringe areas to suffer for the rest of their lives.

The current threat is Russia and China, who apparently have this capability. However before jumping into development of our annihilation it would be a lot better and make more sense to enter into discussions and negotiation with our supposed enemies to come to an agreement to ban the use of nuclear weapons in space. Such an agreement would be best to involve all the countries in the world through the United Nations.

William Hanuschak

Winnipeg

All-around tragedy

Re: Why did Conor Rae have to die? (May 17)

First off, the research done for this article is amazing. I can’t imagine how hard it would have been to interview the family and friends of Conor Rae while they still need answers for what happened to Conor.

It is so tragic that such a young man had so dreadful of a reaction to smoking marijuana. Whether it was his first time or 100th time the fact is that even though marijuana is legal this shows that it isn’t guaranteed to be safe.

If the RCMP officer that shot Conor did indeed fear for his life then this is the sad outcome in a scenario like this. There are no “winners” in these circumstances.

My heart goes out to all who need answers for this killing and who are suffering because of this situation and I hope that all young people realize that just because marijuana is legal it could still end in another crisis like what happened to Conor Rae.

Janice Jackson

Winnipeg