Letters, Jan. 29

Failure of public system

Re: ‘Massive difference’: Victoria Hospital to replace decade-old equipment (Jan. 28)

I read with interest the article in the Free Press Wednesday regarding the Victoria Hospital Foundation and its efforts to raise funds for essential operating room equipment and other hospital projects. The individuals behind this initiative are to be commended for their efforts in accomplishing this.

What is troubling — and frankly difficult to understand — is why it requires the private sector to replace essential equipment in operating rooms within our public health-care system. Is our health-care system now at the point of having to rely upon private fundraising efforts? Even more concerning is why private individuals, through charitable foundations such as the Victoria Hospital Foundation, must step in to raise funds in order for these critical projects to move forward at all.

Should this not firstly be the responsibility of our governments, and should it not be done on a far more timely basis? Additionally, there are apparently many more operating rooms at Victoria requiring similar upgrades. How long do we have to wait to upgrade these essential operating rooms? I believe it is a disgrace that a private foundation has to be the funding source for such critical equipment. In the same pages of that day’s paper, one can find several instances of millions of taxpayer dollars being spent for projects that are far less important and far more dubious than maintaining basic hospital infrastructure.

Patients already endure excessive waits for surgeries, and it now appears that when those surgeries finally occur, they may be performed using equipment that is not state-of-the-art. This raises serious questions about patient outcomes, efficiency, and the long-term cost to the system, not to mention the additional impediment to attracting top talent to our health-care teams, as mentioned by Chris Andrew.

One also has to ask: how many more situations like this exist throughout our health-care system? It is little wonder that many Canadians, when faced with prolonged waits and uncertainty, feel compelled to seek care in the United States. That reality represents a significant failure of planning, funding and project prioritization at home.

It is difficult to reconcile the taxes Canadians pay with the apparent inability to adequately fund and modernize essential hospital infrastructure. Relying on charitable fundraising for core medical equipment should not be the norm in a publicly funded health-care system.

What’s happening here?

Ken Houssin

Winnipeg

Countering despair

Re: Who’s afraid of social democracy? (Think Tank, Jan. 27)

Erna Buffie has, once again, hit the ball out of the park. As someone who was a teenager in Saskatchewan when then-premier Tommy Douglas introduced North America’s first universal free single-payer medical care program, I know what it feels like to be part of a popular movement built on a belief in “social reform and social justice.”

And yes, I do share Buffie’s “wild enthusiasm” for Zohran Mamdani’s election as mayor of New York City, especially in the face of the concurrent rise of callous authoritarianism in the highest office of the United States — and indeed around the world.

Citing Baltimore as another city whose mayor puts “people and nature first and profit margins second,” Buffie’s article supports my sense that human society may be on the cusp of a profound transition: away from nearly three centuries of the technology-driven industrial growth strategy whose underlying story is more, bigger, faster … toward a caring society where we can thrive within Earth’s natural limits. From this perspective, we might interpret the mind-boggling and unprecedented disparities in wealth, along with the rise of fascistic and authoritarian regimes that support such inequalities, as the last gasps of an unsustainable economic, political and cultural system that is on the way out.

This understanding is, for me, a profound counterweight to anxiety and despair for our future. And it is a call for each of us to draw on our agency and wisdom and work towards building a caring, post-carbon society.

Rob Miller

Winnipeg

Canada’s options

Re: Carney links tariff threat to CUSMA talks (Jan. 27)

This article and other similar recent articles state that the U.S. has threatened to split the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement from a trilateral deal into separate deals between them and each of Canada and Mexico. I suppose that would leave Canada and Mexico to work out a third agreement between themselves that either supports or challenges those deals. Maybe the Americans are threatening that just as a bargaining chip, but we need to take it seriously and maybe need to play some chips of our own.

And Canada does actually have another chip. We now share a land border with a European Union member, so perhaps we could join the EU!

In the 35-kilometre-wide Nares Strait between Nunavut and Greenland lies Hans Island. Ownership of this island was disputed for decades between Canada and Denmark, but in June of 2022, Canada and Denmark agreed to split the island along its natural fault line, ending the so-called Whisky War (often considered the friendliest war in history).

It seems to me that having a land border with the EU gives us a legitimate toehold into that trading bloc, and justifies us pursuing full membership.

That might not be a bad chip to put into play!

Bob Martin

Winnipeg

Shortsighted move

Re: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada announces closure of research operations, job cuts (Jan. 24)

I know the federal government is making an effort to try and reduce the number civil servants across the country and it is something that needs to be done, but to close research stations in Saskatchewan and Alberta seems very shortsighted. I can’t speak for the station in Quebec but I do know the Prairie stations have provided invaluable research to producers throughout the prairies in the form of better crop varieties, improved animal breeding and health, better crop management to prevent diseases and better pest control, more economical usage of fertilizer by all crops and overall better agricultural practices.

These benefits are provided to producers free of charge and the more sustainable and economical production that results from this research ultimately results in cheaper food prices for consumers. By taking this service away, it will result in private, for profit, companies taking this over, if they think they can make money at it, resulting in higher costs for producers and ultimately for consumers. If the companies don’t think there’s a buck to be made, they won’t even look at certain research, something the federal research stations, which aren’t motivated by profit, would undertake and have resulted in benefits to producers that would never of happened if profits were the only goal.

This decision by the federal government is very shortsighted and could ultimately end up increasing costs for producers at a time when all their costs of production, such as fuel and fertilizer, are increasing at record levels.

Ken McLean

Starbuck