Letters, Nov. 17

Sentence an outrage

Re: Man given 5.5 years for drunken high-speed hit-and-run that killed mom of three (Nov. 13)

The sentence handed down for the death of Akuch Machuor should outrage this province. She was a 43-year-old mother of three, new to Canada, struck and killed by a driver who blew through a long red light, kept going, and then stopped to pump gas.

He received five and a half years. With credit and standard release, he’ll serve about three. Three years for taking a woman’s life and leaving her children without their mother.

What makes this even more sad is the silence. Ms. Machuor had no family here to speak for her, no one to stand outside the courthouse demanding justice. If she’d had, this case would have drawn the outrage it deserves.

Marc Robichaud

Winnipeg

Laws need update

Re: Killer’s parole ‘not justice’: Kinew (Nov. 14)

The premier of Manitoba has again criticized the justice system and how justice is administered. The premier of Ontario has done the same in the recent past. I agree with them wholeheartedly.

Most of the law-abiding public feels the same way. Wab Kinew has taken the correct first step in writing the prime minister, but he and all of the premiers need to do more to advocate for changes in existing legislation to enable meaningful change at the grass roots level. Our laws do not adequately protect society as a whole.

Because of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, changes to current practice would be difficult or impossible to implement. It seems that the solution is obvious. Although well intentioned when it was introduced, there were many critics of the Charter at the time who stated the Charter was a poor piece of legislation, fraught with loopholes that could lead to unintended consequences. Today some of these flaws have materialized and it is apparent that this legislation must be amended. The Youth Criminal Justice Act is another piece of legislation that no longer seems to address its original intent. It too needs to be amended if we are truly interested in keeping the public safe.

Don’t blame the judges who are acting within their defined legislated boundaries. Put blame on the politicians who do not proactively review, amend or repeal legislation that simply does not support the collective well being of society.

It appears that in the area of crime and justice, they have chosen not to act and continue to ignore public safety.

John Frostiak

Balmertown, Ont.

Skill erasure

Re: Vaval doubles up at CFL awards (Nov. 14)

It is very satisfying for Bomber fans that Trey Vaval earned the recognition of the league as top rookie and special teams player.

However there is an irony here. One of the abilities that helped him earn those honours was returning wide field goals out of the end zone for big yards, including two touchdowns; and a 128-yard team record.

Those skills will be erased from league play by the new rules to shorten the field and move the goal posts. One of the most exciting plays in all of football will be passed into history. What is a football fan to think?

Brian Marks

Winnipeg

Trump’s real goal

Trump’s tariffs on Canada are baffling to politicians and economists alike, because we are their second-largest trading partner and closest ally.

Trump employs tactics which defy logic. As we attempt to employ conventional wisdom to his actions, his real agenda is being missed. On the straight-up tariff question, Ontario Premier Doug Ford views the U.S. president as a bully and therefore employs an aggressive “get tough” stance with respect to tariffs.

Likewise, Prime Minister Mark Carney also views Trump as a bully and has employed a “you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar,” approach.

Sadly, they are both wrong.

Trump’s actions are not about trade at all. While he is undoubtedly a bully, he is first and foremost a real estate developer who sees things in very simplistic terms. Just a glance at the map of North America shows the most prized piece of real estate in the whole world, and it’s just next door to the U.S. Any real estate developer in the world would be salivating at the prospect of acquiring Canada into their portfolio. Impossible for a private sector developer to do, but as the autocratic leader of America, he could just “expropriate” it, in the interests of U.S. national security.

What a prize! Immense land mass, clean water, coastal ports, coast-to-coast railways and roads, critical minerals, agriculture, clean energy, massive oil reserves, manufacturing, and a population who (up till now) have been friends and allies. And all this, just for the taking. Without a real military, it would be a bloodless takeover.

A real lesson to Russian President Vladimir Putin on how to do a land-grab. Having said all this, my advice to Carney, Ford and all of the premiers is to keep working on trying to get a workable deal for Canada but be cognizant of Trump’s hidden agenda.

It will make it easier to understand his penchant for punishing Canada.

Wally Barton

Winnipeg

Return of disease

Re: “On self-righteousness” (Letters, Nov. 13)

My mother had a friend who had polio and lived in an iron lung for years and later in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank.

She was paralyzed from the neck down. I met her when I was child and still remember her showing me how she could write with a pen in her mouth. Vaccines eliminated polio, as it did the measles. Now we’re seeing the return of measles, which can cause brain damage, deafness, blindness, and death, and is highly contagious and a huge risk for pregnant women.

I would venture to say that it’s likely just a matter of time before we also see the return of polio. Forgive me for saying that it takes a very selfish parent to risk their child being permanently paralyzed, brain damaged, blind, deaf, or dying when a vaccination for the disease that caused it was available, but you chose not to vaccinate your child, while risking the lives of other children too.

How naive does one have to be to not understand that we weren’t seeing these diseases because vaccination eliminated them? Now measles are returning quite rapidly because more and more parents stopped vaccinating their children.

Do we really need history to repeat itself to learn? Up until now, those vaccine deniers had the rest of us to thank for keeping their now adult children from getting these diseases.

You’re welcome. And a proper apology from you would be for you to start vaccinating your children.

Darcia Albrechtsen

Winnipeg

Return of beefs, bouquets

Remember “Beefs & Bouquets?” A huge bouquet this week to the Beavers and Scouts, their parents, and leaders who marched to the local cenotaph on Remembrance Day and held a beautiful ceremony honouring the men and women of this country who died for our freedom.

A big beef to the businesses we passed on the way who were open and chose a morning’s profit over honouring the dead.

Sharon Tod

Winnipeg