Letters, July 20

A reality check for civic leaders

Re: What happened to public service? (Think Tank, July 17)

Erna Buffie’s recent commentary was a breath of fresh air and a much-needed reality check for our city’s leadership. I strongly support her assertion that true public service requires prioritizing people, communities and the environment over an outdated, debt-fuelled model of endless expansion. Cities of the future should be planning for sustainable projects that benefit everyone, rather than catering to developers at the expense of our existing neighbourhoods.

It is incredibly frustrating to see our leaders push for outrageous projects like the Chief Peguis and Kenaston expansions. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars on more roads will do little to reduce congestion — thanks to the well-documented reality of induced demand — while simultaneously piling onto Winnipeg’s generational debt.

Instead of prioritizing concrete and sprawl, those hundreds of millions should be invested in reliable public transit and affordable housing that embraces a variety of mixed-use properties, rather than just isolated single-family homes.

Life is undeniably expensive right now and building a city that forces families to own multiple vehicles that suck their incomes dry is simply not fiscally sustainable.

As Buffie rightly points out, a truly progressive, pragmatic leadership would put that money to work fixing our broken infrastructure and building healthy, connected communities. Our future generations deserve better than to inherit a city designed only for cars. It is long past time we demand our representatives act as true public servants and build an equitable, sustainable Winnipeg.

Peter Sdrolias, Winnipeg

Not just ‘Canadian’ wildfires

Re: Heavy smoke from wildfires blankets American Midwest and Northeast, prompting evacuations (July 16)

It’s become an annual ritual. Hundreds of forest fires across Canada prompt mass evacuations and cast a literal pall over our summer. And once again, dozens of American politicians get in front of microphones and decry Canadian forest management.

When l checked (Friday) morning, there were 895 wildfires in Canada. Sources in Alaska list 417 fires in that state alone. Canada is nearly six times the size of Alaska. Do the math.

Welcome to climate change. Or as the president of the United States would have it, “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.”

The cynicism of U.S. politicians is stunning. States such as Minnesota are burning too. Some 17 fires were caused by lightning in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness alone, prompting a chaotic evacuation of thousands of people.

Greg Petzold, Winnipeg

Killing never the answer

Re: Police and mental health don’t mix: so why can’t we fix it? (July 16)

There is a recurrent theme with police officers fatally wounding people in mental-health crises.

Police officers, firefighters, and paramedics helped me through a recent mental-health crisis. However, who knows if things could have turned out different for me? I am never armed, so I posed no threat. But, even if someone is armed and has lost touch with reality, I find it morally reprehensible of the police to kill the individual.

At all costs, the proper procedure is to disarm and to detain to a mental-health facility. Doing anything otherwise should be considered an illegal act, since people in mental health crises are vulnerable and lethal force is not the answer. Rather, diagnosis and treatment are required.

In this regard, perhaps only one officer and a cadre of mental health professionals are needed to talk a person out of a mental-health crisis into a calmer state. This is not outrageous, even if a person who has mental illnesses is armed during a mental-health crisis.

Compassion rather than killing is the solution. Let us all hope that the police do better next time. Having mental illnesses and being in a mental health crisis are not crimes, yet we seem to criminalize mental illnesses (the evidence-based, typical path is prejudice, stigmatization, harassment, discrimination, lethal force or criminal justice system imprisonment).

David Albert Newman, Winnipeg

Use consultants with caution, guidelines

Re: Management consultants and the public sector (Think Tank, July 16)

I was a senior civil servant in government for many years. I now do some consulting. It is from these perspectives that I offer the following thoughts:

I agree that there can be a useful role for consultants in the public sector, but this will only be likely if the consultant knows and appreciates how the public sector is different from the private sector, particularly in terms of decision-making processes and expectations regarding accountability.

Then, with that understanding, there need to be some guidelines.

First, consultants should only be doing what employees can’t or don’t have time to do. Consultants are there to provide supplementary service, not as a substitute for what employees should do.

Second, whenever possible, employees should be learning from what the consultant does. It should be understood from the get-go that the potential transmission of knowledge and know-how is part of the arrangement.

Third, consultants should be paid only upon delivery of an expected and useful service. Ensuring that value-for-money is obtained is critical if that is the way taxpayer dollars are going to be spent.

The Think Tank piece provides a useful summary: “Governments should use consultants selectively, be clear what they want from them, monitor their performance and ensure the promised results are produced before ever using them again.”

Gerald Farthing, Winnipeg

ATV rules must be enforced

Re: ATV deaths, injuries are call for action (Editorial, July 15)

The editorial identifies that more needs to be done to educate the population on how to safely use ATVs. It also points out the ATV riders are not always using helmets and that youngsters under the age of 14 driving ATVs are not always being supervised by an adult, as the law requires.

We have a recreational property north of Gimli. The roads in our area frequently have ATVs and golf carts on them and quite often the machines only have children on them.

These machines should not be on the road, period. Yet, when I took it upon myself to call the R.M. of Gimli and the local RCMP detachment about enforcing current rules, neither wanted to act.

The RCMP officer I spoke with acknowledged the problem, but said he knew folks were having a good time on their machines and he didn’t want to ruin that for them. He also acknowledged the police don’t have time to enforce the rules.

To this day, the problem continues and there is no will to act by the authorities.

Irwin Corobow, Winnipeg