Letters, Aug. 20

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/08/2025 (220 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Renovate to make more housing

Re: Social housing improvements a must (Editorial, Aug. 19)

Thank you for this excellent editorial.

Social housing need not involve new construction. There is a large stock of rundown housing in the inner city that can be renovated for social housing.

Renovations can provide employment for people trying to re-enter the labour force, and these people could then move into the homes that they’ve saved from demolition.

In my opinion, this answer to the need for social housing is a win-win-win situation.

Rich North

Winnipeg

Being neighbourly about pollution

Years ago we visited Mount St. Helens, the state of Washington volcano that in 2008 spectacularly erupted sending a giant plume of ash and smoke to the northeast. The plume coated with ash everything on the ground in its path, including in Winnipeg and far beyond. This, though, is fake news, at least according to the visitor centre at the mountain. The map posted there plotted the trail of the plume, but the ash never did reach Canada. It distinctly showed that it stopped at the 49th parallel.

Why can’t we Canadians be as considerate as the Americans are of us and prevent our wildfire smoke from ruining our neighbours’ summer activities?

Tom Lurvey

Winnipeg

Careless statement

Re: Tory byelection candidate sorry for residential school comments (Aug. 19)

When I first read the candidate’s comments, I thought, “I’ve seen worse” and her apology seemed genuine enough. I believe she did not learn about the daily experiences (including abuse) nor the generational consequences of the residential school system. Most of us didn’t and we continue to learn more.

Here’s what I don’t get: why would she have felt the need to post the comment in the first place? Who was she trying to ally with or defend or blame? If the comment was taken out of context, then please tell us the context.

Add in her “sarcastic” comment regarding the tariffs and it comes across, at best, as a pattern of poor judgment.

Michelle Burdz

Winnipeg

Who in the year 2021 actually believed that residential schools “were just like a regular school that people moved to”?

How ignorant, uncaring or outright bigoted would one have to be to ignore all the information freely available at that time, and instead ensconce oneself in such a thoughtless bubble? And if Colleen Robbins wants to excuse her comments on “not having learned about residential schools while she was in school,” is this going to be the new reason why her PC and CPC compatriots reject other known things like the reality of vaccinations or climate change?

I do not want people in charge of the country who are so firmly and resolutely stuck in Grade 2.

Sowmya Dakshinamurti

Winnipeg

The wealth equality issue

Re: Assessing the risk of an artificial intelligence crash (Think Tank, Aug. 18)

Gwynne Dyer noted that Geoffrey Hinton, the artificial-intelligence scientist linked to the Nobel Peace Prize, gives us about 10 per cent to 20 per cent chance that AI will wipe out humanity in the next three decades.

This is similar to my assessment that the hundreds of billionaires now getting funding for AI will lead to the end of civilization before the end of this century. Of course, AI is only one of the machines of technology leading to the downfall of society. We have counted on technology to save the world and it has been successful at prolonging humanity’s survival. However, it has failed to solve such problems as war, starvation and income inequality.

The Free Press and other media have noted that leaders are not taking unacceptable people like Trump and Putin seriously enough. They got elected, therefore ought to be acknowledged as leaders. However, government by billionaires appears to be the prelude to society’s decline. Many developers of AI believe such technology will enrich them more. They are likely right as more than a million ChatGPT users will be online by 2026.

Greater equality of wealth is the first stage of reversing this decline. We ought to stop supporting billionaires. Let us focus on farmers and other craft people in Canada who produce the food and entertainment for our expanding middle class. Being close to people as municipal and provincial governments are will help to continue the sharing we saw during the evacuation from forest fires.

We ought to be aware of any ultra-rich leaders in the world. Such elites in the past have led to declines such as Easter Island and the Roman Empire.

Barry Hammond

Winnipeg

The beautiful and the bland

Re: Light posts a triumph of utility over beauty (Think Tank, Aug. 18)

Kudos to Brent Bellamy for pointing out the “utility over beauty” mindset that is pervasive in Winnipeg.

It goes beyond the installation of slick, contemporary, boring light poles in an historic district. It extends to the very unattractive infill housing that is evident everywhere in Winnipeg. Old, historic, single-family homes on 25-foot lots are torn down and replaced with tall, skinny, two-storey, (and dare I say, ugly) two-family houses. One of the first things that students studying architecture learn is something called “context.”

When designing a building, what is the context of the site? Are all of the surrounding homes or business buildings single storey? Is it an older historic area? Is it a heavily treed area? What are the traffic patterns? Many more elements come into play when determining what surrounds the new building and how well the new design will integrate or complement its surroundings. That’s where the real joy and benefits of architecture come in.

The challenge of designing something that fits within its surrounding context, and while reflecting new design concepts and technologies, still looks like it’s a member of the family. That takes time and talent and respect for the neighbourhood. Today, its about saving money and maximizing profit.

In many ways, Winnipeg is a beautiful city but it could be better. Politicians, planners, architects, engineers, developers and the tax-paying citizens need to demand that it happens. It’s all about context.

Ken Barton

Winnipeg

Political realities

Re: “What a waste” (Letters, Aug. 19)

Your Aug. 19 edition contains three letters critical of the Trump-Putin summit. They all criticize Trump for being deferential to Putin.

Why are people so naive about world politics? If you go down a list of current world leaders, you will find many who have questionable ethics … involvement in civil wars, shady business dealings and expropriation of property without compensation. If we should boycott Putin, what about Xi of China? Investigations have determined that his government is guilty of genocide in the suppression of Muslims in western China?

We have to deal with the world as it is, not the world we wish it to be. If we only deal with “nice” people we could hold meetings in a broom closet.

Kurt Clyde

Winnipeg