Letters, May 8

Overreach by school

Re: School ditches Mother’s Day (May 7)

Mother Ashley Dolphin is correct when she asks “Where is the line? What is next?” Diversity and inclusion do not imply bending over backwards to do away with long established traditions and practices of the country the diverse groups come to live in. On the other hand, once one chooses to make another country one’s home, adapting to and adopting the practices in place should be fair expectations.

In this instance, Mother’s Day is not a religious occasion specific to one culture or another. All cultures have mothers. The newcomer schoolchildren should take pleasure in participating in treating their mothers to handmade treats. This practice has in fact been in place for decades and there have been no complaints or disrespect.

Let’s not imply that the children of the newer, diverse generations love or respect their mothers any less. Let’s encourage them to learn and practise new and fun ways to embrace the ways of their new home.

The Sage Creek School should loosen up. Such conservative thinking and attitude are not becoming for an educational institution.

Prabha Menon

Winnipeg

I read the article this morning written by Maggie McIntosh regarding the parents disappointment with ditching Mother’s Day in the Sage Creek area. As a retired teacher, I can tell you that this started about three or four years ago.

The final year that I taught I had to hide the Mother’s Day gifts because I was told not to make them by my administrator, yet I used the funds parents paid for such activities. The reasoning was that not everybody has a mother, some have two. That was fine, that’s been the case for years so we would make two gifts if there were two mothers or if there wasn’t a mother we would ask who the child would like to give the card and gift to, a grandma or aunt?

All of that was going by the wayside — Christmas concerts, Easter celebrations, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day — and yet we’re talking about inclusivity. I think some of the administrators and superintendents have to look and see what the true meaning of inclusivity is. I am so glad that parents are speaking up and I hope they can make change because they are the taxpayers.

I know everyone wasn’t inclusive in the past and I’m glad things are changing. I look forward to things being inclusive for everybody, as it should be!

O.R. Daly

Winnipeg

What a sad world we now live in where our children are not allowed to make a Mother’s Day or Father’s Day card in school. So very sad, the powers that be need to give their heads a shake.

A very sad time when the needs of a very few are more important than the needs of the very many.

Ron Robert

Winnipeg

City falling apart

Re: Winnipeg: the crumbling city (Editorial, May 6)

Winnipeg’s city services really do seem to be crumbling at an increasingly alarming rate. Painting road lines seems to have been completely abandoned the last few years. Many main routes have become a free-for-all as drivers try to determine where their lanes are. The problem becomes even worse at night or when it rains.

If the city public works department can’t do the job properly, maybe it’s time to start looking towards privatizing the services that city employees no longer seem capable of doing. I noticed this spring that a lot of the street cleaning is being done by private contractors now. Why not line-painting and pothole repairs for starters?

Mayor Scott Gillingham and city council managed to find $21 million in the budget to open Portage and Main to pedestrians and millions more for bike lanes while our roads deteriorate to “third world” conditions.

Bill Parkes

Winnipeg

Perfect prescription

Re: The ER is not the problem, it’s just where the problem lands (Think Tank, May 7)

Dr. Alan H. Menkis has done for health care what literally hundreds of consultants and bureaucrats over the past 30 years could not do.

Despite spending millions of dollars on consultants, and millions more on solutions that have not worked, things seem to be getting worse.

Menkis has identified the problems that plague our health-care system and offered practical solutions. His prescription is concise and clear.

If you did not read Menkis’s prescription, do it now. If you are an MLA, or in cabinet, or a health-care leader, or just concerned about wait times and emergency care, read this article.

Menkis’s prescription is a rational response to our continuing health-care crisis.

Gosh, I hope someone is listening. Thank you, Dr. Menkis.

Jerry Storie

Winnipeg

At the end of Dr. Alan Menkis’s cogent piece, he alludes to the value of urgent care facilities and community supports for people to help ease the burdens on emergency departments.

We recently experienced good care at the Seven Oaks Urgent Care Centre and were appreciative of staff there.

What surprised us was the decency of the security staff at Seven Oaks and the support of folks coming to urgent care by the Downtown Community Safety Partnership. Two relatives, who likely live on the street, entered the centre and were welcomed by name by a friendly security staff woman. They were given places to rest in their wheelchair or on a recliner. All unfolded in a calm way and later, DCSP staff helped transport them to where they needed/wanted to go.

The quiet, calm, personable ways of security and Seven Oaks staff was commendable. Similarly, this week I walked alongside DCSP staff on our morning Main Street Helpers Walk and again, their help with relatives struggling is amazing. And good news … the Main Street stretch near the Main Street Project was beautifully cleaned and swept, a great feeling for all walking, sharing and talking.

Props to all the various individuals and organizations being a helpful, respectful, loving presence in the core community and in hospital waiting rooms.

Peter Krahn

Winnipeg

Helium a precious resource

Re: North-south connections — and dirigibles (Think Tank, May 6)

I enjoy articles by Dr. Barry Prentice about his obsession with blimps. It seems to me he is overlooking several important things on the subject, one being the use of helium as a lifting gas.

Helium is a precious commodity, and is vital in medicine for use in MRI machines. Using it for blimps is understandable, as it is inert, and does not burn. But it also is lost forever if released into the air. Hydrogen is a much better lifting gas, but has the unfortunate tendency to burn vigorously if it escapes, which it can do if there are leaks in the blimp’s gas bag, so it is restricted to non-passenger carrying applications.

It is also worth noting that there are no cargo carrying blimps/dirigibles anywhere in the world right now, which means Prentice would have to research and produce one from square one.

I think all-season gravel roads to lower costs, improve safety, and enhance access for over 10,000 northern residents is a far more achievable project than dirigibles, which in the best case are likely decades in the future.

Michael Dowling

Winnipeg