Letters, Oct. 22

Dumping liquor bad move

Re: U.S. booze down the drain (Oct. 21)

Is there no one with any business sense in the Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries organization?

The removal of American liquor to protest Trump tariffs was a good publicity stunt, but it should have been and now must be followed with an inventory clearance sale. We have spent over $2 million for a retail product that is now exceeding its shelf life and is being dumped.

As a Crown corporation, it effectively is taxpayer funded and the purchase/sale of U.S. liquor impacts government income or loss. The U.S. companies have already been paid, and what we do with it will not impact the U.S. companies. They don’t care. What will impact them is a purchase or not of new products.

What impacts us is the recovery of our past purchase costs and dumping or continued storage of the product costs hurts Manitoba taxpayers. We are effectively cutting off our nose to spite our face. Smarten up.

Len Lewkowich

Winnipeg

The MLCC has thrown out $29,000 worth of U.S. liquor that had spoiled. They have $3.4 million of American liquor in stock.

How does it make any sense that this product should be allowed to spoil when it could have been sold and the revenue would benefit Manitobans? And why should millions of dollars of American liquor be held in storage when it could be sold to benefit Manitobans? Sell it all and don’t order anymore, simple, case closed.

Manitobans are being punished twice, first by American tariffs and secondly by the lost revenue from products they’ve already paid for. Have a giant Christmas sale on American booze and clear it out.

Ken McLean

Starbuck

Part-time problem

Re: The right time to reflect on precarious employment (Think Tank, Oct. 20)

During a lengthy career in academia, I spent most of the 1980s depending on part-time teaching because I had to stay in my hometown for family reasons. The “part-time” label makes it clearer than “contract staff” that these positions were never meant to offer the same benefits as full-time ones, just as in most occupations.

Ignoring some misconceptions in the article (I’ve used a lot of decrepit office furniture as full-time faculty), universities do now depend excessively on part-time instructors for various reasons.

A major cause is underfunding. Manitoba, which is responsible for post-secondary education (not the federal government), has for decades limited increases in both government funding and tuition. Taxpayers and students are the primary sources of revenue for universities.

And Manitoba has encouraged costly university programs that require subsidies largely by other students. Graduate studies is one area, but many others exist, including programs just announced to protect Indigenous languages, which will require small and expensive classes.

Another inefficiency is universities have developed a silo mentality and largely abandoned an efficient liberal-arts model based on shared core courses. For example, recent changes to education degrees no longer take advantage of qualified faculty in mathematics and eliminate majors taught by existing faculty in other departments.

Inadequate funding and inefficient delivery of programs constituted a perfect storm and pretty much guaranteed that many part-time instructors would be needed, which is now the case.

Jim Clark

Winnipeg

Piecemeal approach

I drove down Cambridge Street in River Heights today and this was my first time doing this since the city had installed a number of traffic calming measures which are meant to both reduce the number of vehicles on the street and to reduce the number of cars exceeding the 50 k/h speed limit, of which there appear to be many. It strikes me that this is just a piecemeal approach that ultimately incentivizes drivers to find alternate routes where they can continue to drive faster than the speed limit. Routes on which there are no traffic calming measures and little or no enforcement to catch speeders. Furthermore these traffic calming measures make the roads less safe for cyclists.

Until the city recognizes that in many neighbourhoods such as River Heights speed limits on most roads should be reduced to 40 k/h (or less) there will be no real success at making the city safer.

Irwin Corobow

Winnipeg

Not a fan of community mailboxes

Re: An opportunity — if Canada Post chooses to take it (Think Tank, Oct. 20)

Reading Brent Bellamy’s article almost caused my to drop my coffee mug. I am one of those fortunate few who still has door to door delivery, and am not looking forward to losing it. Bellamy’s idea of dressing up thousands of community mailboxes and their environs is absurd. Canada Post is on the ropes financially, and having to design a fancy park-like setting for each community mailbox is beyond the pale.

I am fortunate in having access to almost all my vital services online, and am sure many are in the same boat, and having a community mailbox to trudge to would be a nuisance. My brother who lives down east has had community mailbox service for years, and only goes to his no more than once a week. If I need something physical, I would be happy to pay Fedex or similar to deliver it to my door.

The idea of people getting socially connected at a community mailbox doesn’t do anything for me, especially when it is -40 outside.

Michael Dowling

Winnipeg

Pleased by rally

Re: People fill streets for No Kings rally in Washington (Oct. 20)

The article on the No Kings rally in Washington mentioned that there were 2,600 rallies planned across the country for Saturday. I attended the rally in Fargo, N.D., and was surprised at the large crowd, considering that North Dakota is a Republican state and a majority voted for Trump.

The slogan “No Kings” might not appeal to Canadians who are monarchists, but it appealed to a large swath of the American public. No Kings appealed to a wide coalition of Americans that are dissatisfied with Trump’s policies and actions which push the boundaries of executive power including labour issues, people who have lost their jobs, immigration problems and environmental issues. I went with American friends and did not know in advance. Otherwise, I would have made a sign protesting Trump’s tariff policies. American television news reported a turnout of over seven million at rallies across the states and rallies in eleven other countries.

Most Americans are not familiar with the idea of a constitutional monarchy, but they understand their democratic rights and the right to protest policies they disagree with. I was pleased to see so many North Dakotans exercising their democratic rights.

Ruth Swan

Winnipeg

Tired of ground squirrels

Re: ‘Out of control’: MLA, residents fed up with holey, hazardous mess left by destructive ground squirrels (Oct. 16)

These are rodents we are talking about. They have destroyed several canopies on the swing in my back yard, chewed the seats of my neighbours lawn chairs, dig in my plants burying peanuts my other idiot neighbour feeds them.

I have no problem gassing the suckers. If we miss a few, get them next time. Enough of the goodie-two-shoes behaviour.

I want my backyard back and people should be able to enjoy public places without fear of injury.

Anyone injured in the park because of the city’s neglect should sue. Putting up a sign warning of rodent holes without an effort to correct the problem (they have ignored it for two years) is not a legal defence.

Bill Allan

Winnipeg