Letters, June 6

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/06/2025 (412 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Housing and drugs

Re: Replacement urged for joint housing program (June 5); Stopping drug sales: aim for the top (Think Tank, June 2)

It was extremely disheartening to read about the Manitoba-Canada Housing benefit being permanently paused. The struggles that face our disenfranchised citizenry all begin with inadequate housing, including homelessness, deadly drug use, and a whole smorgasbord of criminal activity.

I applaud Sel Borrows’ articulate assessment of strategies that law enforcement might consider to reduce illicit drug distribution, having experienced its explosion in his neighbourhood. I also applaud the harm reduction strategies that we are finally enabling to (hopefully) reduce the number of casualties and perhaps even provide avenues for drug users to regain control of their lives.

But smack in the middle of these two strategies sits the elephant in the room nobody wants to talk about — poverty. For a person who has endured misery their whole life and foresees a future that offers nothing but continued suffering, the comfort that comes from the end of a crack pipe feels like an escape hatch from Hell. At the beginning of this cycle, law-enforcement strategies have been imagined and implemented for decades with zero success, and at the end of the cycle, harm reduction is mostly an extension of the road with a seemingly inevitable end.

Until society is prepared to provide these folks with some minimal prospect of a better life, this cycle will never be successfully impacted by either of these strategies. Decent housing, food allowance, and access to the kinds of recreation and entertainment that the rest of us enjoy are not luxuries.

They are the basic building blocks of life-sustaining self-image and hope.

Steve Oetting

Winnipeg

Using what we have

Re: City points to increase in landfill waste, water treatment for higher 2024 greenhouse-gas emissions (June 3)

The article on rising city emissions points to a growing problem that’s long been ignored: the demolition of heritage buildings and the waste of perfectly reusable materials. The Gordon House mansion at 514 Wellington Crescent and the Polson House at 94 Cathedral Ave. are just two recent examples in a trend of hundreds of heritage buildings lost across Winnipeg every year. These structures contained salvageable wood, stone, and brick that could have been reused but instead were sent to the landfill.

Why? Because reuse isn’t the cheapest or convenient option for developers. But when it comes to climate change, there is no cheap or convenient option. If the city is serious about meeting its 2050 net-zero goal, it must stop allowing cost-cutting to trump sustainability.

We need policies that require or incentivize developers to salvage materials — or partner with those who will. This isn’t just an environmental issue, it’s about preserving our built heritage. These buildings are physical links to our past, and keeping parts of them alive in future construction helps us stay connected to where we’ve come from.

Heritage advocates have been ringing the alarm bell for years. It’s time their voices were taken seriously as part of the city’s climate response.

Kenneth Ingram

Winnipeg

Trouble ahead for G7

Another huge tariff increase on steel and aluminum has been imposed by the Trump administration, impacting Canada and other G7 countries. This, coming just days before the G7 summit and confirmed even after our minister of trade was just in Washington for discussions about trade with the U.S.

Why should Canada proceed with the summit and still include the U.S. president? Stronger actions are needed to stop this world economic disruption. Russian President Vladimir Putin can’t travel freely in the world because of his military and security threats. Donald Trump is an economic threat and cannot possibly be welcome in so many countries, but especially in Canada.

Russia was suspended from the G8 group of countries for the invasion of Crimea in 2014. Donald Trump has said he would like to see Russia rejoin the G8 group, even while conducting unproductive negotiations about ending the war in Ukraine.

Perhaps damage to world trade and to alliances needs to be added as reason to be excluded from the list of democratic nations with leading economies.

David Stones

Winnipeg

Problem with Pathways

Re: Premiers heap praise on Carney, but no specific projects identified (June 2)

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said, regarding the Pathways Project: “It would cost anywhere from $10 to $20 billion to get built … would generate about $20 billion a year in revenues…”

What she doesn’t mention is that it would take about a decade to build, if decarbonization is possible at all. It still hasn’t been demonstrated at scale as multiple projects worldwide are shutting down.

These statements also assume the price tag won’t balloon. And, it is also important to keep in mind that provinces are looking at about $1 billion per year — at least — on dealing with climate damages from fossil fuel use. It makes total sense to spend substantial amounts of taxpayer money on new energy projects, but the world is moving on from oil and gas and electric grid, transport and clean energy projects are cheaper, faster and don’t put money into American pockets.

S. Chris Crawley

Victoria, B.C.

Ending the war on drugs

Re: Stopping drug sales: aim for the top (Think Tank, June 2)

I read Sel Burrows’ op-ed and found his suggestions to be dated. What Mr. Burrows is advocating is the same policy that governments have employed for over 40 years and have only overseen the rise in misery at a great cost to the treasury.

If you want to get rid of drug dealers, you must legalize all drugs and in a highly controlled manner dispense them, for free. Government control will ensure a clean supply preventing deaths, remove the profit margin from the dealers, reduce petty theft done to feed habits and save money through policing, insurance claims and health care costs. It will allow the social and health departments to reach those who need and want help in finding a way out, to find a home, get clean and become a productive member of society.

A perfect reverse example is the U.K., where heroin was legally prescribed for many years. According Dr. James Mills, quoted in a BBC article from 2006, “The police had a very tight rein on what was going on. The Home Office kept a register of addicts and there was never more than 500 at one time.”

However, after U.S. pressure on governments in their war on drugs, starting in the 1970s, within 10 years or so there was an estimated 50,000 users in the U.K. The key word is estimated. Estimated because the U.K. government gave up control of the drug supply and handed it to criminals to profit from. I write this as I drink my gin and tonic, knowing it wasn’t made in someone’s bath tub.

It’s time Canada exits from the war on drugs.

Jamie Bonner

Winnipeg