Letters, Oct. 29

Poor judgment

Re: Judge slams ‘insulting’ bail reform debate (Oct. 28)

So Judge Dale Harvey feels he and his peers are insulted by anyone questioning their decisions on bail reform.

Do they feel the law abiding citizens in Canada should just accept happily their decisions to grant bail to repeat offenders who just continue to commit crimes repeatedly? It’s way past time that the criminal justice system be questioned whether it hurts their feelings or not!

Such arrogance.

Don Porter

Winnipeg

Judge Dale Harvey, I believe, has the pulse of the general public wrong. Of course all people charged with a crime are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

However, what the public is concerned with is those people who are released over and over, and over again, after committing the same crimes over and over again, and then breaching bail conditions.

The ones mentioned in the media who commit crimes, but are wanted on five warrants or five breaches of conditions. Those are the people that the public want to remain locked up until trial. They obviously have several charges against them and I’m sorry, but you can’t be innocent of everything.

L. Walker

Winnipeg

I wonder, as I read this very insulting response to bail reform in Canada, what the victims of criminals feel when they became victims again to someone who continued to ignore the laws of Canada while out on bail.

There isn’t space in this letter to chronicle each and every case of criminal activities committed while the one responsible has been out on bail. No one of understanding refutes the principle of “innocent, until proven guilty.” However, any jurist evaluates the present threat of releasing on bail a known felon.

How many times have accused felons been released on bail, and have reoffended? What insult have their victims received then, and now reading Judge slams ‘insulting’ bail reform debate? Finally, when do we begin to put justice back into our laws in Canada, which clearly include the protection of innocent, and often vulnerable people in society?

Judge Harvey, you are in a minority; and your “views” are insulting to the teeming thousands of victims in Canada who have had their rights and privileges torn from them by someone out on bail.

Walter Cross

Winnipeg

Renaming the right move

Re: On renaming: a tale of two cities (Think Tank, Oct. 28)

I was absolutely gobsmacked to read Todd Pennell draw parallels between the renaming of Wolseley School with the push in Germany to rename a school that honours Anne Frank. How in the world are these two individuals the least bit comparable?

One is upheld as a prime example of perseverance in the face of evil and oppression, a child no less. The other is a known racist who sought to suppress the Métis nation and their quest for justice in Manitoba, a justice that would create space for all peoples living here. It was a horrible, shameful example to use.

Frankly, I’d be glad to see everything named after Wolseley changed, speaking as a Wolseley resident. I’d also be thrilled to see historic signage put up that outlines the history and why the change was made, because, it is true — we do not want to lose history.

We do not need to uphold his name, as though he is deserving of honours.

Jane Orion Smith

Winnipeg

Todd Pennell’s op-ed about renaming Wolseley School had some suggestions that seemed to be well thought out and should be considered by those in power.

But I feel that I have to comment on Pennell’s question “how does renaming a single public school accomplish anything but erasure of history?”

Naming a public facility after a person is a way to recognize that individual for what they have contributed to a better society. Renaming Wolseley School doesn’t erase history, it stops the recognition of an individual who doesn’t deserve to be recognized. The history of what he did still exists.

Pennell states that renaming Wolseley school is like sticking a toe in the water. All I can say to that is, it has to start somewhere, and hopefully this step will encourage others to follow.

Ken McLean

Starbuck

Bad magic

As children we all dreamed of meeting the magic genie who could grant us any three wishes. A new bike, a giant bag of candy and no more homework.

None of us met the magic genie but a great new, orange genie has recently appeared in America, promising freedom of speech, a robust economy and the punishment of left-leaning thinkers in order to Make America Great Again. His disciples cheered at every campaign threat against those fellow Americans who they viewed as the enemy.

The most important part of their discipleship was that they voted for him. He won and they eagerly awaited the fulfilment of his promises. In fulfilling his promise to shrink the size of government, he fired your sister and her husband who are now selling their house in order to survive.

In fulfilling his promise to clean up immigration, his ICE officers arrest and detain their longtime Hispanic neighbours who have been citizens for decades.

In fulfilling his promise for a better economy he has forced your farming cousins into bankruptcy because they can’t sell their grain. Your uncle, the cattle rancher, is also going bankrupt because the orange genie is importing cattle from Argentina.

In fulfilling his promise to reduce government spending he brought forward and signed off a piece of legislation which will effectively throw many of your family and friends off Medicaid and Medicare and make him and his rich friends richer.

You voted for a man who promised to punish your perceived enemies and in turn got punished yourself. There is a lot of wisdom in the advice, “Be careful what you wish for.”

Wally Barton

Winnipeg

The ‘too-muchness’ of today

Re: “What happened to awe?” (Letters, Oct. 28)

It was most refreshing to read Sabrina Yasmineh-Nawas’s letter. I was reminded of what notable sages such as C.S. Lewis have referred to as the three “transcendentals”: beauty, truth and goodness. I believe that trio well captures the oft suppressed and universal yearning for fulfilment.

As Ms. Yasmineh-Nawas suggests, our current world is not conducive to the pursuit of ultimate meaning; rather, we are pulled in so many directions by passing superficialities. We now have specialists, so-called “influencers” that seek fame and financial reward by out-trivializing competitors. It seems to me that there is a “too muchness” to society at large, yet a “not-enoughness” for those who struggle to put food on the table and find a roof over their head.

Friedrich Nietzsche, that much-admired and maligned 19th-century philosopher and social critic, put it succinctly: “Everywhere the wasteland grows; woe to him whose wasteland is within.”

Though it sounds cliché, I believe it is true that human happiness is indeed an “inside job.”

Edwin Buettner

Winnipeg