Letters, Feb. 17

City must reject bylaw

Re: “Bylaw goes too far” (Letters, Feb. 12)

Kudos to Mr. Kohan for his convincing letter in opposition to the City of Winnipeg’s proposed “Safe Access to Vulnerable Infrastructure” bylaw.

As president of the Green Party of Manitoba, having read the draft bylaw multiple times, I’m horrified by the precedent and affront to democracy this bylaw represents. Pure and simple, this is a broad suppression of our collective right to dissent and civic engagement.

And sadly, this smacks of the repressive authoritarian regime we see to the south.

We urge all executive policy committee members and the rest of city council to immediately reject this proposed bylaw and further urge all elected officials — municipal, provincial and federal — to take note how not to make democracy work.

Dennis Bayomi

Winnipeg

Bylaw an insult to Winnipeggers

Re: Vote to crack down on ‘nuisance’ protests set for city council (Feb. 10)

It is deeply disturbing to see the Safe Access to Vulnerable Infrastructure bylaw put forward by Coun. Evan Duncan. Such a proposal exemplifies what are among the worst of the anti-democratic tendencies on the rise across the Canadian political landscape in this moment.

Misleadingly titled “Safe Access,” if adopted, this bylaw would limit both access and safety, as it is a thinly veiled and draconian manoeuvre designed to silence Winnipeggers’ rights to object, to assemble, and to speak against harmful municipal, provincial, and federal policies, police violence, corporate corruption, and all forms of neglectful, violent, racist, and otherwise destructive governmental and corporate practices.

The proposed bylaw is also built on a falsehood: the implication written into it, that protest in Winnipeg has been violent or unsafely obstructive, is patently false.

Historically, legislation that is designed to restrict peaceful protest, such as the form of protest we see in Winnipeg, appears due to a desire by the ruling class to silence the views of regular citizens who are working towards and rallying for desperately needed change.

But such a policy proposal is not only designed to shield Winnipeg’s city council from criticism. In its demonstrable effort to reduce avenues of public dissent, it would also necessarily restrict both public opposition — and importantly, the visibility of such opposition — to any of the destructive policies and practices that people routinely hit the streets to protest.

Crucially, this includes the silencing of Indigenous demands for the full and timely implementation of the TRC Calls to Action and the MWWIG2s Calls for Justice, the development of alternatives to fossil fuel and other destructive extractive industries, and the reversal of the ramping up Canada’s unprecedented mass-militarization plans.

All of these are among the reasons why people gather publicly to use their collective voice within the City of Winnipeg, and it is their legally protected right to do so. To be clear, the proposed bylaw would specifically stand in the way of Winnipeggers’ legally enshrined rights and ongoing collective efforts to speak publicly against the destruction of human life and the planet.

Duncan, with Mayor Scott Gillingham’s support, has therefore put forward an inherently unconstitutional bylaw, one that stands in the way of the right to speak against ruling powers and their catastrophic practices, and that therefore also stands in the way progressive development in Winnipeg and beyond. Both the councillor and the mayor should be ashamed, but if members of the executive policy committee fail to halt such a bylaw from adoption, this disgrace will rest on the shoulders of your office, and on all City of Winnipeg councillors.

If you do pass such a blatantly unconstitutional bylaw, it will in all likelihood be eventually overturned by public pressure of the kind you are no doubt already facing, but the damage will have been done, and history will most certainly reflect that you will have knowingly passed anti-democratic legislation that flagrantly violates the Canadian Charter rights of Winnipeg, Treaty 1, and all Manitoba residents throughout Treaties 2-5 territories.

As a Winnipeg and Treaty 1 resident myself, I have often been ashamed and angered to witness the dismantling of public social programs and services in this city, especially in recent years, alongside city leaders’ disdain for the impoverished and marginalized, for Indigenous Peoples, and for all those who advocate for a better future.

Make no mistake, the true obstruction to access here is Duncan’s brazen bylaw proposal in all of its destructively anti-democratic proportions, and not the voices of protesters who exercise their legal rights to gather and speak the truth.

It should be obvious to members of the EPC that the bylaw violates existing constitutional law, is an insult to every person living here, and that it should never have reached this level of review.

Irene Bindi

Winnipeg

Making health care function

Re: When it comes to fixing health care, province must follow doctors’ orders (Feb. 13)

Tom Brodbeck makes a strong argument in his column that Doctors Manitoba has come up with a good set of suggestions for moving Manitoba’s health-care forward to a point where access is readily available to everyone in a timely fashion.

While some momentum has been seen with respect to doctors and nurses, there are a couple of other factors that have not been considered in this equation. One of these is ensuring there are sufficient technical staff for the various tests (laboratory and imaging) that are required for effective diagnosis by physicians. Expansion of the appropriate university and college programs should be considered, equivalent to the increase in medical and nursing school placements.

A break on tuition (to get individuals into the programs) and a salary bonus (for retention) would also be helpful. This is a way for the province to direct training of specific disciplines required to promote better health care. The other important support will be the availability of staff at clinics to enable efficient patient handling. Colwood and Dawson Creek, towns in British Columbia, have bought clinics which they will operate.

The doctors that work there will receive the various administrative and clinical supports to expand the number of patients they can handle. This approach is similar to the one proposed by Dr. Jane Philpott, former federal minister of health and current dean of medicine at Queen’s University, who describes in her book Health for All (2024) a system for ensuring all Canadians have access to a family physician.

She has since been appointed to run the Primary Care Action Team in Ontario to make her idea a reality. This approach may be worthy of consideration by the province as well, and seems to be under consideration by individual clinics in Winnipeg.

Thus, while Brodbeck is correct that the suggestions by Doctors Manitoba should be made into actionable items, broader thinking needs to be included as an element of how the province sets out to make our health-care system function better so no one is left out.

Peter Zahradka

Winnipeg

Lack of quality assurance

People should be made aware that products purchased online from Amazon may not have the appropriate safety approvals required by law to be sold in Canada.

I recently purchased a smoke detector believing I was purchasing a Kidde brand (my mistake for not reading carefully). When I received the parcel it was from an unkown Chinese manufacturer and had no Canadian Standards Association (CSA) mark on it as required. In fact it had no safety marks whatsoever on the product.

There were some marks on the packaging but this is useless. Upon reading the reviews of this product there were also numerous reports that when tested it did not even work. I am returning the product, but I think it should be a warning to everyone when purchasing products online to confirm they have been through the appropriate safety testing.

Rob McConnell

Winnipeg