Letters, April 14

Preparing for a crisis

The documentary movie The Social Media Dilemma opened people’s eyes to the dangers of social media. Now, some six years later, countries around the world are creating laws to limit social media and the harms it perpetuates upon children.

Unfortunately, we won’t have six years to regulate the newest text innovation that is already adversely affecting our world. AI presents a challenge to us all. The documentary film The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist gives us all a realistic look at what our future could be like with unregulated AI.

I believe it is important for every one of us to view this documentary, make ourselves aware of the challenges presented by uncontrolled AI and be prepared to act to prevent the huge potential for harm inherent within this technology.

Ernie Nuytten

Winnipeg

Credit for Favel

Re: ‘It was all untrue’: Bear Clan founder feels vindicated after defamation settlement (April 10)

James Favel will not remember me but I remember meeting him and how the impression James Favel made on me was indelible. Here is a man who started the Bear Clan Patrol whose members patrol dangerous areas, check on people in these areas and pick up all the unwanted items left by people on drugs, etc.

James impressed me so much I invited him to come to an organization I belong to and give a talk as to who he is, what he does, and how it all started. James gave me a date and time slot of 30 minutes simply because four other organizations requested he come to their meetings and give a talk about the patrol on the same day. James came to our meeting, gave his talk, but with questions and answers and after 45 minutes James needed to excuse himself to make himself available to the other commitments he had made for that evening.

At our meeting, James admitted that as a young man he had been involved in all the wrong stuff but managed to straighten his life around and realized that the areas James knew as a young man needed to be checked to pick up used needles and help clean up these areas and generally make them safer for everyone, hence the start of the Bear Clan Patrol.

Here is a man who stands tall and deserves much, much more respect for who he his and what he did for his community. Thank you James, I wish you well in your endeavours, we need more people like you.

Ken Butchart

Winnipeg

I applaud James Favel’s recent public vindication. For me, this moment carries personal significance.

I walked with the Bear Clan when James was leading out of the Selkirk Avenue location, and I remember the strength, unity, and community spirit that defined those early days. The Bear Clan was built from the ground up — by the community, for the community — and that purpose was felt in every step we took through the North End and Turtle Island.

What I see today feels very different. The organization appears to have shifted toward personal or political interests rather than the grassroots, community‑driven mission it once embodied. The Bear Clan of today does not resemble the community‑rooted Bear Clan of years past, and the pride I once felt walking those streets no longer exists.

This is why Favel’s vindication matters. It is not only a legal resolution; it is an acknowledgment of the truth and a reminder of the original spirit that made the Bear Clan such a powerful force in our neighbourhoods. Many of us still carry that memory, and we know what the organization once stood for.

Jackie Pearse

Winnipeg

Paralysis versus mobilization

Re: Canada has a role in what’s next for climate (April 7)

Norman Brandson’s call for bold Canadian climate leadership is a goal worth defending. But his claim that the conflict in the Middle East has revealed “how little progress we’ve made over the last 30 years in reducing our dependence on fossil energy” is too pessimistic.

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, 2025 marked the highest growth on record for renewable power capacity. Renewables represented more than 85 per cent of all new power capacity added worldwide. In China, the world’s largest source of emissions, clean power generation and surging electric vehicle sales have pushed down fossil fuel use, causing the nation’s emissions to fall for the first time.

The real problem is that global electricity demand is growing faster than clean supply can displace fossil fuels driven by data centres, electrification, and economic growth in the developing world. That is a very different diagnosis than “no progress,” and it points toward very different solutions: accelerating renewables and energy storage, improving efficiency and expanding support for electric vehicles, not lamenting that three decades of effort were wasted.

A call to action should not rest on a foundation of despair the evidence doesn’t support. Telling people that decades of work have achieved little is more likely to produce paralysis than the collective mobilization Brandson rightly envisions.

Ken Klassen

Winnipeg

On governance architecture

Re: Feeding the pulse: province considers legislation to protect St. B cardiac centre (April 10)

The $22.1 million now announced for Heart Care Manitoba is welcome, as is the minister’s reference to legislation to protect it. Investment without governance architecture is dispersed rather than directed.

The history is relevant. The cardiac sciences program at St. Boniface was the subject of a judicial inquest in 2000, two independent expert reviews in 2003 and 2014, and a Canadian Institute for Health Information ranking among the best programs in Canada in 2017. Each review identified the same structural gaps. Each investment was made without the governance protections that would have made it durable. The program declined anyway.

The pattern is documented and the mechanism is clear: investment without governance is dispersed rather than directed, and programs built without structural protection are vulnerable to exactly the institutional pressures that produced the decline the government is now reversing.

The minister noted there is no timeline for the governance work. That is the one element of Friday’s announcement that requires a direct response. A legislative commitment without a timeline is an intention without accountability.

Legislation that would genuinely protect Heart Care Manitoba needs three things: a defined mandate specifying what the province owes cardiac patients, an accountability framework with mandatory public reporting against standards set before the program is announced, and structural protections that survive changes of government. Without a timeline for that work, the governance gap that has produced 30 years of recurring failure remains open.

The investment is the beginning of the answer. The governance architecture is the answer. The timeline is what converts commitment into accountability. Given the electoral cycle, the window for legislation that would genuinely protect this program is open now. Governance architecture of this complexity takes time to design well. That work should begin immediately.

Alan H. Menkis

Winnipeg