Letters, June 1

Funding defence

Re: “Snowbirds can wait” (Letters, May 26)

Gerald Farthing’s claim that there are greater priorities for Canadians than funding the Snowbirds is dead-on, and what’s ironic about the fuss some Canadians are making over the issue is the fact no one has seemed particularly concerned as successive governments during the past half-century continually underspent on the nation’s military in general.

Most of this neglect began when Pierre Trudeau was prime minister. He pointedly avoided service during the Second World War; then, as prime minister, he was quick to criticize American involvement in Vietnam while cynically claiming Canadian defence spending could be minimized since the U.S. would protect us regardless. Former prime minister Jean Chretien was no better, as he stated that any money designated at all for the military was too much from the outset. Other national leaders, from Brian Mulroney to Justin Trudeau, were in much the same category with the result being that, after 50-plus years of neglect, the new defence commitments might take even longer to rectify, especially as the Canadian government has the reputation of consistent foot-dragging and indecision when it comes to modernizing its armed forces and attracting new recruits.

So, funding aerial acrobats, no matter how talented, should be strictly secondary. Canada needs to follow the examples of Poland and Ukraine, countries with essentially the same population as ours but much better prepared to meet the threats of Russia or other potential aggressors. If Canada wants to support its claim of being a sovereign nation, it shouldn’t forget the adage that a country without a military of its own will soon have someone else’s.

Edward Katz

Winnipeg

Slow justice

Re: Unintended consequences of bike safety policy (Think Tank, May 29)

I sympathize with Gregory Mason’s traffic ticket woes. I received a ticket last year while going through the underpass at Plessis Road off Dugald Road (a handy place for police to sit and wait for motorists driving down the hill).

It’s a hefty fine, so I wanted to see if a judge would perhaps lessen the amount. I soon found out you can no longer simply walk into 373 Broadway to see a judge on the same day. Those days are gone. Judges have the luxury of working from home, so you have to get a phone appointment.

My appointment was scheduled five months away!

Lois Taylor

Winnipeg

Looking at the data

Re: Combat in the classroom (May 22); System to address violence in schools a no-brainer (May 26)

The recent feature article on violence in schools and Tom Brodbeck’s commentary both highlight the perennial issues related to the difficulties of accommodating students of varying needs within the educational system.

I am a retired school psychologist and I can say that these concerns were evident the first day I walked into a school in 1980. They far predated my career and remained concerns throughout my career. There is no question that the juxtaposition of accommodating the rights and needs of all children with the creation of a safe learning and teaching environment for all has been, and continues to be, an ongoing challenge for the educational system.

That said, it is important to maintain perspective and view the situation with accuracy. The feature article, Brodbeck’s commentary and the representation of Probe Research on the Manitoba Teachers’ Society website make statements suggesting that more than half of Manitoba’s teachers surveyed said violence in schools is making their jobs difficult.

A fundamental survey reporting error is being made here. All Manitoba teachers — 17,000 in total — were invited to participate in the survey. With 3,370 members responding out of the 17,000 invited, the overall response rate for the survey was approximately 19 per cent. Using these numbers, 9.1 per cent of all teachers reported that violence was a serious problem for them. The reporting fails to clarify that the interpretation of the data is based on a small percentage of all teachers and thus cannot be considered representative of all teachers.

Do I think that only about nine per cent of educators believe that violence is a problem? Not for a second. Do I think more light needs to be shed on the issue now and on an ongoing basis? Of course I do. Do I believe that increased staffing, support and training are essential elements in the addressing of these concerns? Absolutely.

Do I think that more care needs to be taken in how data is gathered and how numbers are represented lest the credibility of the conclusions be undermined and dismissed? Yup.

George Bednarczyk

Winnipeg

Hold on to YouTube

Re: Banning YouTube removes tools from schools (Editorial, May 23); “Problem with Copyright act” (Letters, May 23)

Kudos to the Free Press for continuing to insist that removal of a valuable resource would be deleterious. Thanks, also, to Armin Wiebe for providing an update about copyright.

Missing, so far, at least, is this brouhaha’s historical context; namely inquiry learning — a movement that arguably began with Edwin Fenton’s publication of The New Social Studies (1967) and 32 Problems in World History: Source Readings and Interpretations (1969). Fenton argued ardently for “inquiry learning” — a departure from the textbook-based, rote learning that most of my generation had endured in the 1940s and 1950s.

Fenton’s reification of inquiry learning entailed giving students access to source-documents and varying perspectives. The problem, though, was finding an efficient and non-laborious way of providing those suggested sources to students. In the 1960s, photocopiers were unavailable to schools, and manual transcription of sources was too laborious. Serendipitously, a clunky (but relatively cheap) device named “Thermofax” became available. It could copy source material onto an alcohol-duplicator stencil that could then provide copies for students. It could also create overhead projector transparencies. For my generation of keen young history teachers in the 1960s, Thermofax-based inquiry learning became a godsend. Other subject areas quickly joined us in implementing this then-exciting educational movement. As for copyright, any such legal issues were far in the future.

In 2026’s context, YouTube is simply an audio-visual extension of the inquiry learning Fenton advocated, and that my generation of young teachers implemented in the 1960s. If Manitoba were to ban YouTube from classrooms, any such ban would be the modern equivalent of estopping the inquiry learning method (an aspect of the critical thinking skills so prized nowadays) that Fenton pioneered six decades ago. So no, puh-leeze, Premier Wab Kinew, drop any idea of banning YouTube and we’ll forget that you ever suggested it.

Edward Keith Bricknell

Toronto, Ont.