Letters, June 2

Honouring vitality

Re: No road map for dementia’s daunting journey (May 30).

Janine LeGal’s profile of Interlake couple Paul Chorney and Carol Radway that details their personal journey through Carol’s health challenges connected to Alzheimer’s disease and Paul’s struggles in his caregiver role, is honest and insightful. I was lucky to have met Carol when volunteering at an Alzheimer’s Society art program and can remember her expressive eyes and sweet smile.

I’ve found, sadly — through working with residents in long-term care centres — that it’s often hard for workers and others to acknowledge and honour the vitality of those whose communication and cognitive abilities have been impaired by dementia.

Paul and Carol’s story is unique, but rising dementia rates are impacting more and more couples and families. The Alzheimer’s Society of Manitoba offers valuable support for individuals and families.

Andrea Geary

Selkirk

Reach out for help

Re: No road map for dementia’s daunting journey (May 30).

As I read Paul Chorney’s story of caring for his wife, Carol Radway, the tears streamed down my face.

Thank you for sharing your story.

Caregiving for a person with dementia is probably the hardest job you will ever have. The person who was once there slowly leaves, and it’s heartbreaking. I, too, cared for my mom for many years. My mother was first diagnosed in 2010 with vascular dementia.

I wish I had reached out to the Alzheimer’s Society sooner rather than later. The one time I did reach out was because I had hit an emotional breaking point. I could not understand why I was crying about my mom, and they explained that I was experiencing ambiguous loss.

Keeping a loved one in the home is extremely challenging as the dementia advances, as there are not enough support services. I, too, placed my mom in a personal care home two-and-a-half years before her passing in 2018.

I have no regrets, but my advice is to reach out and ask for help. Hopefully someone will listen.

Leslie Worthington

Winnipeg

Muffling motorcyle noise

Living in Crescentwood has always meant living with a little extra noise, as motorcycles love to blast down Stafford Street or Corydon Avenue.

Lately, some of the motorcyclists have deliberately modified their machines to be so loud that you are shocked by the volume. I am not the kind of person to spoil their fun and call the police, but I know Toronto and other big cities have a big problem with this kind of noise and we don’t want that here. Asking the police to stop it could nab a couple of people but would waste resources and probably not stop the dangerous, noisy bikers.

I have a suggestion.

Ignorant noisemakers may not listen to the police, but they may listen to each other. Collect complaints about excessive noise and publish how many there have been each week. When the number hits a certain amount, conduct traffic stops for motorcycles only, to check the bikes for modified mufflers and hand out tickets to those who are breaking the law.

Do that for a few days. Then get the message out that such traffic stops will return if complaints continue. If you are a biker and don’t like being stopped every time you go for a ride, then you will get the word out to noisemakers that they have to stop. Their antics will not impress their friends and other bikers.

Nothing like a little peer pressure to get the message out.

Tom P. Scott

Winnipeg

Patrol our city parks

May 30 was a beautiful Saturday, a great opportunity after an extended cold spring for many Winnipeggers to get out and enjoy city parks. Scores of happy people were picnicking at larger city parks, including St. Vital Park, where many families and children were strolling around the popular duck pond.

Imagine the shock and distress of park visitors when this lovely, positive setting, surrounded by flowering trees and warm sunshine, was suddenly disturbed by a deliberate hit-and-run incident involving a Canada goose, as one of the large birds ambled across a laneway and yield area leading to the duck pond pavilion and parking lot.

Our vehicle came upon this awful scene just minutes after it happened and, after speaking with a distraught parent and a family, we learned they had witnessed a vehicle driver deliberately aiming for and striking the goose as it went to graze on the strip of grass along the laneway. The vindictive driver took off before a licence plate number was captured.

Several dozen geese around the pond stood solemnly looking at their fallen comrade as the creature writhed in pain and died an ugly, totally cruel and unnecessary death.

St. Vital Park, like many other city parks in recent years, has faced cuts to park security and patrol vehicles, leading to increased reckless driving on park roads, loud booming car stereos, and now a meaningless, ugly attack on wildlife.

This sad incident should never have happened in the first place. It’s high time our city and mayor take action to bring back regular park patrol vehicles to all major city parks. It’s time the city did its best to keep city parks safe and peaceful for wildlife as well as for citizens.

What will it be next? The running down of someone’s pet or a child, a pedestrian or a jogger?

Susan Michaels

Winnipeg

Solar a better bet than biofuel

Re: Awaiting next stage in biofuels balancing act (May 30)

Laura Rance-Unger’s column accurately outlines the regulatory hurdles farmers face under Canada’s Clean Fuel Regulations (CFR). However, the heavy push for biofuels ignores basic physics, shifting global markets, and a massive modernization opportunity for rural Manitoba.

Dedicating arable land to growing crops for liquid fuel is a highly inefficient way to harvest energy.

Photosynthesis captures less than one per cent of incoming sunlight, whereas modern solar panels convert over 20 per cent. Data from the U.K. energy think tank Ember shows that bioenergy carries steep production costs and a high life-cycle carbon footprint. Solar, by comparison, is vastly more productive per acre and offers farmers a guaranteed, long-term revenue stream with zero input costs.

Furthermore, a biofuel boom relies on the long-term survival of the internal combustion engine.

While skeptics claim heavy-duty equipment and long-haul trucking will always require liquid fuel, the global market is proving otherwise. Spurred by volatile oil prices and geopolitical energy vulnerabilities, electric heavy truck sales doubled globally, capturing nine per cent of the entire commercial truck market.

Even agricultural manufacturers are rapidly transitioning to electric machinery. Because electric drivetrains are up to four times more energy-efficient than diesel, tying our agricultural sector to a fading liquid fuel supply chain is a massive long-term financial risk.

There is a beautiful historical irony here. Historically, Manitoba’s electricity was created by massive hydro dams in the north and sent down one-way transmission lines to power rural electrification. By embracing utility-scale solar on farmland, we can flip that historic flow on its head.

Instead of just consuming power sent from distant dams, rural communities can harvest clean solar energy locally and send it back the opposite direction to power the rest of the province.

Instead of propping up a high-maintenance, fading liquid biofuel market, we should empower Western Canadian farmers to become the new power generators.

It is a win for grid resilience, a shield against global oil volatility, and a far more reliable cash crop for the agricultural community.

Stuart Williams

Winnipeg