Letters, July 15

Tories miss point on gun issue

Re: Gun owners rally at city hall (July 14)

The federal Conservatives are puzzled why they can’t win enough seats to become Canada’s government. The article and the accompanying photo of Tory MP Raquel Dancho says it all.

She and the Conservative Party are protesting the federal government’s attempt to get handguns and assault-type weapons off of the street.

Opponents to Bill C-21 argue that they need the weapons to hunt or for recreational target practice. When was the last time a hunter used a handgun or an AR-15 to kill a deer or a moose?

These weapons are designed to kill only one kind of prey and that’s the human variety. When was the last time that a perpetrator of a mass shooting used a shotgun or a hunting rifle to kill their victims?

They use handguns, which are easy to conceal, or semi-automatic assault rifles which do the most damage. The Conservatives are on the wrong side of history on this issue and will continue to languish in the political desert as long as they embrace this American-style thinking.

Wally Barton, Winnipeg

Carney a charlatan

Re: Carney plays well on the road (Editorial, July 14)

Of course Carney plays well on the road; he’s gutting our social safety nets to prop up a foreign government by way of bloated military contracts for German submarines. Generally, when one country hands another country an economic lifeline (see Germany’s de-industrialization owing to a lack of cheap Russian oil as a result of the NATO proxy war in Ukraine), that arrangement is welcomed warmly. Carney may be a former central banker, but he’s now officially a dyed-in-the-wool ‘warhawk’ with his absurd commitments to NATO spending (five per cent of GDP by 2035 and four per cent by 2030 by his own claims).

I will admit that Mark Carney is a very effective salesman, but he is also a fraud. He wrote a 500-page book about his “values” and is now bludgeoning Canada’s future with it. From further enmeshing our surveillance state with the U.S., the aforementioned NATO spending, bailing out housing speculators (luxury condo developers), abandoning any pretence of environmentalism, and a litany of other betrayals to his claimed values.

Perhaps the most egregious, however, is his willingness to trample over Indigenous nations’ sovereignty in service of a dying fossil fuel industry run by foreign nationals (namely American). Alas, this is nothing new for a Canadian politician; this country was built on that particular brand of betrayal. Regardless of justification, however, the fact is that we do not need the West Coast pipeline, and the only reason Carney is forcing a project that private capital is unwilling to invest in is to placate Albertan separatists and enrich his ‘elite’ friends.

In the year 2026, when the world is correctly moving away from oil and gas amidst an escalating climate crisis, when the alternatives are the cheapest and most efficient they’ve ever been (solar/wind and battery storage), Carney is handcuffing Canada to a sinking industry in which the vast majority of profit from our resources is siphoned to multinational conglomerates in exchange for some jobs and crumbs. And he does it all while talking down to us, very sternly and smugly, as if his ‘majority’ is legitimate.

The neoliberal con that we can deregulate our way to prosperity is being dragged out yet again, but what makes Carney unique is that he is combining it with neocon warhawk spending. The Carney Liberal majority is a ‘Regressive Conservative Party’ acting on behalf of corporate interests and their shareholders.

His tactics might play well on the road, but they spell disaster for the future of everyday Canadians at home.

Evan Marnoch, Winnipeg

Illustration of a crisis

Re: An evening in the emergency room (July 10)

After reading about this truly terrible experience in the emergency room in the St. Boniface Hospital, the question that immediately came to mind was why is it that no one seems able to make it better: not the department of health, not Shared Health, not the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, not individual hospitals.

At the end of the article, Janine LeGal states that “this situation needs immediate intervention. Anything less means nothing.”

I agree, because her experience, and that of so many others, says we are in a health-care crisis. If so, those in charge might consider coming together to acknowledge that, and then commit to working together in new and intense ways to identify dramatic measures which can be taken soon to address this unacceptable situation.

A crisis demands an emergency response in which every conceivable measure that might work is put on the table regardless of cost, past practices, and organizational mandates. To do this requires that all who should be involved share a high sense of urgency and are prepared to do things they aren’t currently doing and work together in ways they aren’t now.

In any case, the response has to go much beyond the usual expressions of concern and assurances that “we’re working on it.”

Gerald Farthing, Winnipeg

Sad reminder of better days

Re: In pictures: Tornado destruction in western Manitoba (June 30)

In 2018, I was hired as a summer research assistant studying bat populations in Manitoba. For two days, my friends and co-workers, Emma and Lauren, and I stayed with Bernadine and Brian Brown, as their beautiful property had bats at the time.

I remember pulling up to Bernadine and Brian’s house and being immediately struck by their kindness. Brian built us a platform so we could set up our bat trap directly beneath the bats’ exit point. Bernadine and Brian insisted that we join them for meals and welcomed us into their home as if we were family.

Bernadine was so interested in our research that she stayed up well into the night with us and watched as we worked. This had never happened before in the two summers that I worked for the lab and never happened again.

I was fortunate to meet many wonderful people during my travels that summer, but Brian and Bernadine remain among the most memorable. I was fascinated by the restoration of their home, and they were delighted to share the story with me, even showing me the scrapbook documenting the process.

Their kindness and hospitality left a lasting impression on me as a young person. In fact, for the rest of the summer, our group chat was renamed ‘Bernadine’s Grandkids.’

I was shocked and deeply saddened to learn that their beautiful home had been destroyed by a tornado. I was watching the news and recognized both them and their home immediately.

Although I only met Brian and Bernadine for a short time, they made a lasting impression on me. I suspect I am just one of many people whose lives were touched by their extraordinary kindness and generosity.

Sarah Teillet, Winnipeg

The tragedy of impaired driving

Re: Difficult day as man pleads guilty to impaired driving (July 10)

This is a heart wrenching story. A young woman who was loved and valued in the community lost her life and the perpetrator stood alone at trial with no family behind him, possibly unloved and unvalued.

Kudos to Kellie Verwey’s mother, Meechelle Best, for advocating successfully for changes to bail legislation that should improve public safety. What we also need is sentencing for impaired driving violations that properly reflect the potentially fatal outcomes of the violation.

Tom Pearson, Victoria, B.C.