Letters, Feb. 6

Why not solar?

Re: Hydro eyes incentives to reduce power as shortage looms (Feb. 4)

Manitoba Hydro’s announcement mentions pricing variations for low use periods, gas turbine plants, a wind turbine farm 10 years in the future,and a paltry five-megawatt battery storage facility. There is no mention of solar power generation plans.

This is in spite of solar power now being the cheapest form of generation to install, and with the quickest installation time. It is a factory produced item, shipped and set up onsite. Solar produces the lowest-cost power.

Other nations the world over are installing solar and wind power in their grids, coupled with large battery arrays. This supports hydro and even gas turbines and coal plants. There are several examples such as Sweden, a northern hydroelectric country where this is in practice.

The results are in, and renewables are proving effective and economical.

Manitoba’s priority is to buy and install a $3-billion gas plant and essentially use it as a peaker plant. That’s a recipe for high costs. The plant is a stranded asset whenever it is idle. Remember, once installed, the methane gas purchases go on forever.

With solar, wind and battery, once installed, there is no fuel cost.

It is perplexing to think about who is advising Manitoba Hydro.

Brian Marks

Winnipeg

Build beds now

Re: Province had no choice but to take over care home set to close: health minister (Feb. 4)

The article mentions the need for many more long-term care beds in Manitoba. In fact, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara stated “every single personal care home bed in this province needs to be open”.

In the same article, Premier Wab Kinew was quoted saying “for Manitoba to address our health-care needs, we need more personal care home beds.”

As someone who worked in long-term care for over 35 years, I couldn’t agree more. The premier, at the start of his administration, said building PCH beds was a priority, and that Park Manor Care’s long delayed expansion was set to be built. Great news — except, since that announcement, no construction and no updates.

Waiting will not magically make it get any better or cheaper. We have seen governments of all stripes provide lip service to the plight of seniors without an appropriate place to live and existing in hospitals as “bed blockers.”

Delays will only increase construction costs and even more importantly, consign many more seniors who could live (and thrive!) in an appropriate personal care home to languish in a hospital that is not set up for the needs of a personal care home candidate and blocking access to a patient who actually requires hospital services.

Premier Kinew, let’s get the shovels in the ground and get these PCH beds built (please).

Robert Ivany

Winnipeg

Moving toward peace

Re: No nukes for Canada: defence minister (Feb. 4)

Canada is already a “nuclear power” since we generate much of our electricity using nuclear reactors. What Canada is not is a “nuclear weapons state.”

I’m proud that our country is the only one that decided not to develop such weapons, despite having the technical capability to do so. Nuclear weapons are an abhorrent technology which allows big and small countries to be bullies on the world stage.

Maintaining and strengthening the international treaty on nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, and urging the U.S. and Russia to renew their bilateral treaty (New START), are the best ways to move our world towards a more peaceful future, and to move the Doomsday Clock farther away from midnight.

Michael Attas

Pinawa

Spend defence money elsewhere

Re: No nukes for Canada: defence minister (Feb. 4); Province had no choice but to take over care home set to close: health minister (Feb. 4)

Most Canadians would support Defence Minister David McGinty’s notice that Canada has absolutely no intention of acquiring nuclear weapons as we are signatories to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. I also don’t think any Canadian would want to join the “suicidal pact” of some of the larger nations like Russia and China and North Korea. Going this route could lead to our annihilation.

The cost of producing nuclear weapons would be in the trillions and unaffordable regardless of our commitment to spend five per cent of GDP on defence by 2035. This five per cent would be much more wisely spent on more important things, such as our health care and our problems with homelessness and elderly care, as described in an article on Wednesday by Carol Sanders regarding the province taking over the Golden Door Geriatric Centre.

The world is currently in a crisis regarding trade between countries. Prime Minister Mark Carney has had good luck in meeting with major world leaders in promoting and signing trade agreements. I would urge urge Carney’s government to pursue a meeting with all the major powers of the world to agree to a free trade agreement in addition to a Non-Nuclear Armament Treaty in order to save us from the madness of someone launching a nuclear weapon that would destroy and cause suffering to so many innocent people.

We know and saw what happened at the end of the Second World War in Japan and later in Chornobyl. Carney might even be able to get U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to join him in this venture that would save the world and produce a golden age for all of us and would also be sure to generate that worthy and sought-after Nobel prize.

William Hanuschak

Sunnyside

Transit’s problems

Re: Without key GPS data, transit plan lacked direction (Feb. 4)

Winnipeg Transit seems to have an neverending list of reasons why the new improved transit system is still losing ridership.

Riders don’t understand the new system, immigration has been reduced and the latest, the GPS system was broken. They just couldn’t get reliable data to determine if the ridership actually declined and Bjorn Radstrom was surprised that ridership had dropped on the weekend when there are even fewer buses on the road.

I suppose the letters written to this paper and others, the comments on social media and letters to city council were just from people who just didn’t like change.

One doesn’t need a working GPS to know that the system is worse than it was with less service for those who use it and need it to get around. Transit got rid of key routes that people needed to get home safely in the evening, to have more buses on the so called spine. The spine system has made it so that many people are not close to a bus stop because it was removed or moved.

Of course, what do the riders know? They are not experts in transit routing, they only know that they can’t get home later in the evening and that their bus ride which was a 20 minute ride is now an hour or more.

I wonder what or who will be the next reason for people buying cars to get around rather than riding a new and improved system.

Gilles Nicolas

Winnipeg