Letters, March 9

Buying Canadian

The phrase “voting with one’s dollars” has taken on critical meaning since our neighbours to the south chose to place both their democracy and their cooperative relationships with allies at risk.

Unpredictable tariff-mad trade changes have made the question of restructuring our Canadian economy a front-and-centre issue for Canadians.

Columnist Dan Lett (NDP’s unforeseen budget expenses legitimate; so is bloated deficit, March 4) outlines how Canadian provinces, with a focus on Manitoba, are experiencing unforeseen budget expenses, in large part due to increased, unpredictabe tariffs, which will continue to have very real impact upon quality of life for most Canadians.

I believe many of us have upped our efforts to buy local, buy Canadian and not buy from the ununited states to our south.

That said, I see three primary concerns.

One, there is only so much each of us can do, depending upon our personal circumstances and upon availability of necessary items.

Two, to what degree are we aware and informed of the impact of our spending habits?

A third question is to what degree citizens are committed to our survival as a nation and to the maintaining of social democracies in our world?

When it comes to buying groceries and other consumer items or continuing to travel to the un-U.S.A. and unecessarily supporting that economy in other ways, I suspect a very large segment of our population is seriously under-informed. What of the many in all ranges of socio-economic community who do not particularly engage in polical awareness or active responsible citizenship?

I believe an increase in dedicated public awareness and education efforts, including in all levels of public education, could have a huge positive impact.

More businesses and service providers could also contribute information in support of Buy Canadian.

Encouraging mutual respect through exercising sensitivity in how we share information and in how we speak with one another can go a long way in building and strengthening community.

That said, voting with our dollars has never been more important.

Garrett Loeppky

Winnipeg

Driver inattention

Luc Gagne (“Turn down the lights,” Letters, March 4) may be largely justified in his complaints that excessively bright headlight systems on modern vehicles cause hazardous conditions for oncoming traffic, but there is another serious problem that’s largely due to drivers being unaware of or inattentive about.

Too many seem oblivious to the fact that they’re driving around the city, both at night or often in broad daylight, with their high-beam headlights or driving/fog lights on full bore when there’s obviously no need for them.

These can be almost as big a nuisance as the LED lights on many cars, but it’ s not only because of their intensity. It’s because the drivers don’t seem to be aware that they’re on in the first place, or they haven’t figured out what their instrument panel warning lights actually mean.

Maybe if they spent less time playing around with the other gadgets inside their vehicles and focus on the task at hand — i.e. just driving safely and attentively — they wouldn’t be causing annoying or actually hazardous conditions for others who have enough to focus on given the often less-than-optimal road surfaces Winnipeg has become notorious for.

Edward Katz

Winnipeg

More to the story

Shahina Sidiqui’s calls for peace and justice are admirable, but her letter to the editor of March 4 (“Longing for peace“) presents a narrative that ignores both history and present realities.

Not every conflict involving Muslim-majority countries is a Western plot driven by greed.

Interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo, for example, were widely supported to stop ethnic cleansing directed largely against Muslims. Reducing complex conflicts to a single explanation erases the roles of local ruthless dictatorships.

The letter is also striking for what it omits. While condemning Israel and the West, it barely acknowledges the brutality of Iran’s regime.

Iranian authorities imprison dissidents, execute protesters, and violently suppress women demanding basic rights. The courage of Iranians protesting compulsory veiling, hanging homosexuals on cranes and state repression cannot be dismissed as Western propaganda.

Equally important, Iran’s government openly funds and arms terrorist groups across the Middle East while repeatedly calling for Israel’s destruction. Ignoring these realities while portraying Israel solely as an aggressor creates a deeply unbalanced picture.

Criticism of Western policy is legitimate and often necessary. But credible criticism must confront all sources of oppression, including authoritarian regimes that brutalize their own people.

Peace and justice require honesty, moral clarity, not selective outrage.

Bradley Pollock

Winnipeg

Bad precedent

Re: Kids’ book pulled from division shelves over map illustration, March 5

The Louis Riel School Division’s decision to pull the children’s book Upside-Down Iftar from its shelves following a single complaint is a deeply troubling move. By removing the book before a formal review, the division has ignored its own internal protocols, which explicitly state that access to materials should not be restricted during a reconsideration process.

The swift removal sets a dangerous precedent. If a simple challenge triggers an automatic removal, the division effectively hands a “veto” to anyone looking to bog down the system with grievances. This opens the door for bad-faith actions to steal valuable resources from students and staff in need, simply by weaponizing discomfort to bypass democratic review.

The complaint reportedly centred on an illustrated map representing a Palestinian perspective, presumably removed because it is not the internationally accepted map of the region. Maps are not just legal documents; they are artifacts and conversations. These images, not unlike maps in many Manitoba classrooms showing traditional territories of Indigenous groups of Turtle Island, are doors to discussion about displaced and oppressed peoples.

As educators, we can and do use maps as a lens to view history.

When we remove resources that cause discomfort, we remove the possibility of working through that discomfort via education. Rather than allowing challenges to function as a tool for exclusion, the division should follow its own policies to ensure that diverse perspectives remain available for all students to understand and share.

Sean Giesbrecht

Winnipeg

Time and change

It might help the time-change discussion to put the outcomes in context. With year-round daylight saving time in Winnipeg the sun would rise on the summer solstice at 5:19 a.m. and set at 9:40 p.m. On the winter solstice, sunrise would be 9:24 a.m. and sunset would be 5:29 p.m.

In contrast, with year-round standard time the sun would rise at 4:19 a.m. on the summer solstice and set at 8:40 p.m. On the winter solstice sunrise is 8:24 a.m. and sunset is 4:29 p.m.

Personally, I’m always already at work before sunrise either way on and around the winter solstice as I suspect many others are. I’d prefer to have permanent DST so that sunrise in summer isn’t quite so long before I (and most other people) arise, and keep the later sunset.

For those of you who need an earlier sunrise, there is a solution: move south. In Cancun, for example, sunrise varies conveniently between 6:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. year-round. They are on permanent Standard Time, having abolished Daylight Saving Time in 2022.

If you are unable to make the move to Mexico, I suggest moving to the final stage of grief: acceptance. No matter which we choose, sunrise is always going to be later than we’d like in Winnipeg in winter.

Kevin McGregor

Winnipeg