Letters, June 9

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/06/2025 (309 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Canada’s role in climate change

Re: Planning for the next fires — they’re coming (Think Tank, June 5)

Norman Brandson is certainly correct to blame climate change for the catastrophic wildfires in Manitoba, and to call for increased resources for adaptation. However, his claim that Canada’s contributions to climate change are “minimal” is misleading and counterproductive.

Yes, Canada “only” emits about 1.5 per cent of global emissions. However, it is the 10th highest polluter of any country in the world, and is one of the highest per-capita emitters as well — about three times the global average. Much of this is caused by the Alberta oilsands. But Manitoba is far from blameless: the province has sizable emissions from oil and gas-intensive agriculture, transportation, space heating, and waste. A new natural gas plant would only worsen this.

There are many achievable climate solutions available to us today. However, the first step requires truthfully reckoning with Manitoba and Canada’s own contributions to the crisis — including astronomical downstream emissions from rising fossil fuel exports — and building a serious plan to a zero-emissions future.

James Wilt

Winnipeg

Legalize and tax drugs

Re: “Ending the war on drugs” (Letters, June 6)

Jamie Bonner’s response to Sel Burrows’ op-ed on drugs is bang on. Jamie wasn’t quite right in the stats that were given. Governments have been waging a war on drugs for over 125 years, not 40 years, spending billions of dollars every year on enforcement. Some Asian countries have the death penalty for drug trafficking and yet there are no shortage of dealers making billions of dollars worldwide.

Legalize them all, tax them, and for likely a fraction of what is spent on enforcement, use that money to help treat addiction.

Dealers are gone, thousands aren’t dying from overdoses, scarce resources for the police become better utilized and the whole drug subculture disappears. There will always be drugs and drug users, it’s totally naive to think that can be eliminated, so why not take the profits out of the hands of the scumbags and put it in the government’s hands.

Ken McLean

Starbuck

Renewing call to honour Fox

Several years ago, I suggested we rename the Queen Elizabeth Way to the Terry Fox Way. Adding a monument/plaque on the bridge crossings would display his determination to walk across our country to raise money for cancer research.

A monument would be especially fitting as he was born in Winnipeg.

Richard Bérubé

Winnipeg

Zelenskyy’s wit

Re: Ukraine’s drone attack on Russian warplanes was a serious blow to the Kremlin’s strategic arsenal (June 2)

You have to give Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy five stars for not telling the United States (and President Donald Trump ) in advance about Ukraine’s planned, devastating attack and destruction of Russia’s many strategic bombing airplanes deep inside Russia.

In Trump’s recent phone call to Putin, Trump emphasized that he did not know that the Ukraine was planning such an attack, thus keeping their friendship intact. Do you really think that if Trump knew in advance about this planned attack by the Ukraine that Trump would keep this secret from Putin, his friend? I think not. Zelenskyy is a very smart man.

Robert J. Moskal

Winnipeg

Safe cycling

There’s lots of hype about Bike Safety Week Winnipeg, June 8-14. Promoting the fact that e-bikes are shrinking the city and providing the opportunity to ride further in less time, is daunting and certainly not promoting safety for pedestrians and riders.

Slow down, use your bell or call out, and use the bike paths, please and thank you.

Rennie Bodi

Winnipeg

Card trouble

My husband and I recently received our new Manitoba Health Cards in the mail. The new cards cover only the individual named on the front. I have a condition that requires me to go to the emergency room approximately every six to 12 months. When my husband drives me to the ER, I don’t take my wallet and it is usually among the last things I would think about.

Previously, when asked for my health card my husband would give them his, which included myself.

I called Manitoba Health and asked what should happen in this kind of situation where I don’t have my individual health card. The solution given by Manitoba Health? Keep your purple card! I can’t help but ask, why then do we have the new ones?

Janice Jackson

Winnipeg

Take responsibility

So far, 98 of Manitoba’s 106 wildfires have been caused by people, government data show. Four occurred naturally, probably as a result of lightning, and another four are under investigation.

How can humans be responsible for more than 90 per cent of the forest fires in Manitoba this year so far? Come on people, you are making climate change seem more of a friend to us than the actual threat it is.

Year in and year out, you are causing these fires and costing the province billions of tax dollars in fighting and then rebuilding communities. Not good!

Alfred Sansregret

Winnipeg

Ableism in health care

Re: “Measles response falls short” (Letters, June 2)

As Kristen Hardy states, vaccine access is one aspect of a greater issue, which is lack of accessibility to services and systemic bias.

Many of us have experienced the types of bias to which she refers. I would add ageism to then list. I want to focus on one type in particular. Many people do not realize how pervasive ableism is. Many have never even heard the term or know what it means. It is discrimination in the form of favouritism towards able-bodied people. And it is rampant in the health system.

Attaching a sign and a logo to a regular-sized parking space is one example. Many people with mobility issues need more space to enter and exit a vehicle. A regular-sized parking space does not provide this. There is also the attitude that “disability” is an all-or-nothing status. Many people have mobility issues that are not obvious to others. They believe that for a person to claim a disability, it must be visible.

People might be able to walk but not for long distances. They might have conditions that affect the upper body and have difficulty entering buildings and room with heavy doors. This is notable with respect to washrooms designated as accessible. Accessibility means more than a bar on the wall and a sign on the door.

It is very frustrating to be unable to access a washroom with a door that is too heavy to open for a person with upper body limitations. Assigning someone with a mobility aid such as a walker to an examination room that is too small for the person to get in with the mobility aid makes it inaccessible. Leading a person down a long corridor at a walking speed that is too fast for the person to follow is a form of ableism.

Telling people who bring attention to these issues that “we are doing the best we can” is a form of ableism. When you have three big examination rooms, repeatedly putting the person with a mobility aid in the one tiny room that they are unable to access is not the best you can do. A better response would be to say thank you and to bring this concern forward so that changes can be made.

So, yes, systemic bias in its many forms limits accessibility to health care for far too many. And yes, this contributes to people being unable to get the services they need, vaccination being one such service. And yes, this contributes to a decline in health in our population.

Perhaps our esteemed health minister can make addressing systemic bias a priority. I for one would be more than willing to take part in this process.

Ariel Lee

Winnipeg