Letters, Aug. 19

Ukrainian pride

On Aug. 24, 1991, Ukraine proclaimed independence from Soviet Russia and declared itself a responsible member within the international community. Since that date, Ukraine has been fully sovereign and legally autonomous, making its 35th independence anniversary a valid national milestone, despite Russia’s ongoing invasion and occupation of parts of Ukraine’s territory.

Should Ukraine’s Independence Day be acknowledged every August even though Ukraine has been in constant conflict and turmoil over the past years?

In my opinion, celebrating liberty during wartime is an act of psychological and national resilience.

It shows that the Ukraine still exists, refuses to surrender, and honours democratic choice to be a sovereign nation, a vital act of unity and survival, commemorating freedom.

Peter John Manastyrsky, Niverville

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Recognize suffering

Re: Manitoba supports MAID delay: Asagwara (Aug. 14)

For almost a decade as a MAiD assessor and provider, I have witnessed the complexity of assessing intolerable suffering. I support MAiD for mental illness with rigorous safeguards addressing incurability, irreversibility, capacity, suicidality and structural vulnerability.

We must confront inadequate access to mental-health care, poverty, racialization and trauma. No one should receive MAiD because appropriate treatment, housing or social supports were unavailable. But failures of our health and social systems cannot become the justification for denying autonomy indefinitely to every person with mental illness.

Some capable people endure profound suffering despite decades of high-quality treatment and social intervention. Psychological suffering is no less real because its origin is psychiatric rather than physical. To categorically exclude these patients risks perpetuating the very stigma we claim to oppose.

Minister Asagwara says “so much more work” is needed. Then define the work, fund it, and set a timeline.

Indefinite delay is not a safeguard.

Kristen Creek, MD, Winnipeg

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Let’s be green

Re: Lasting legacy or pining for a pipe dream? (Think Tank, Aug. 17)

(The op-ed article) explained that the private energy companies are no longer willing to build pipelines with their own money because fossil fuels are not competitive against solar, wind, and batteries.

The market for fossil fuels will dry up because they will be too costly. The pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure will be stranded assets, no longer being used.

That is why I, as a taxpayer, don’t want the federal government building another pipeline. By the time it will be built it will likely never see a drop of oil because the fossil fuel market will of collapsed.

As Laura Cameron points out, we should be using that money to develop our green industries. Hopefully Wab Kinew and the provincial government will make Manitoba the leading green energy province in Canada.

Jim Lapp, Winnipeg

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Not the whole tale

Re: Telling a trailblazer’s story (Aug. 17)

Nellie McClung was a trailblazer as both a suffragette and an elected official.

As an advocate of eugenics, she supported the forced sterilization of women. Many Indigenous women in Alberta, where she was MLA, were sterilized. We will never know how many had their bodily autonomy stolen from them: many weren’t told they were being sterilized when they went in for surgery and the Albertan government destroyed most of their records when they put an end to their eugenics panel.

Nellie McClung was, like any of us, a flawed person.

But we have to consider how we remember her complicated legacy. We cannot call her a champion of women’s rights without ignoring the women who lost bodily autonomy due to her.

Kelsey Enns, Winnipeg

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Keep ’em separated

Re: “Our booze is better” (Letters, Aug. 18)

David Hedman said what we all should be practising. We do not have to buy their booze, as well as their paper products, cleaning products, cereal, cookies, juice, dairy, hygiene products, pasta, soup, etc.

The list is long and, with the exception of some fruit and vegetables, I have only bought Canadian products for over two years now, ever since the bully from the south started acting like a child.

The public needs to be educated on the alternatives available out there and support only Canadian.

Sherrill Greenaway, Winnipeg

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If we must concede and allow American liquor back on our Manitoba shelves, can we at least segregate the product into a designated area of our stores?

Not suggesting (or am I?) that we put it in the back of the store or surround it with black flags or anything like that, but it would certainly alert us to where it is if we to choose to continue our message of discontent by not purchasing American alcohol.

Brenda Johnston, Winnipeg

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Leading the way

Re: A message to Mark. Don’t. Back. Down. (Think Tank, Aug. 14)

Judy Waytiuk’s op-ed of Aug. 14 provides very helpful information about the benefits the Canadian economy has experienced in the past year, according to the Bloomberg analysis she cites. That analysis also indicates that the American economy has experienced declines in its GDP growth.

Therefore I believe it reasonable to offer that Prime Minister Mark Carney deserves support for his balanced and principled pragmatism, especially since the analysis to which she refers shows that international investors have poured $256 billion into Canadian stocks and bonds in the past year.

While there is a delicate balance between astute communication and pandering to another government that currently creates economic challenges for many nations, I believe our prime minister navigates that balance effectively for us, because he has considered the difference between being right and being “dead” right.

The result is that other nations have enhanced their connection with Canada in various ways because they see our government as offering a better alternative than one that bases its attempt to influence the world order on bully tactics. For Mr. Carney to act in a way that matches those tactics could actually sabotage what has been achieved under his leadership.

Linda Chernenkoff, Winnipeg

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Full speed ahead

Re: Making the right move on rail lines (Editorial, Aug. 14)

My understanding is that when the rail lines arrived in the 1880s they linked population centres but did not go through them, as that was expensive real estate. It was later that urbanization encroachment occurred … so the City of Winnipeg came to sprawl around the rails.

Hopefully regulations will ensure that the proposed rail relocation on public lands and Hydro easements will be honoured so that a future re-relocation is not required at even greater expense.

The lesson of history is that we do not learn the lesson of history, and in an age when fossil fuels are belatedly being phased out and bullet trains are the increasing norm elsewhere worldwide for efficiency and mitigating the ravages of man-made climate change we will, belatedly, protect our future.

I believe that Lloyd Axworthy and Wab Kinew are an integrated, community-minded team that have the future in mind. I hope that they save us even more money and heartache than Duff Roblin did with his grand scheme, damn the torpedoes.

Andy Maxwell, Winnipeg