Letters, April 19

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/04/2022 (1510 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The ‘historic’ blizzard that wasn’t

Re: Forecaster defends dire blizzard prediction after impact questioned (April 14)

All things considered, the forecasters did a great job. For those quick to express their frustration at not having been subjected to a repeat of 1997, I offer my deepest sympathies and my suspicion these critics likely don’t live along a river.

Thanks to the mainstream media for getting the word out ahead of time and our public officials who erred on the side of caution. For one who has experienced the wrath of an April storm and flood, it’s beyond comprehension that some people feel let down by a better-than-anticipated outcome.

Dan Donahue

Winnipeg

Please permit a curmudgeonly response to the over-the-top justification of the hyperbolic predictions of doom and disaster regarding what turned out to be a tolerable and non-life threatening spring storm. The old adage applies to meteorologists who gave awful predictions of what was to come: “Never have so many been paid so much for being so wrong so often.”

Peter Andre Globensky

Winnipeg

I, for one, am grateful for the meteorologists’ forecasts regarding the imminent storm. It’s a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Try to imagine if the decision to close highways was not made. As an Environment Canada meteorologist stated: “I’d rather we had sent the warnings out instead of not telling people and horrible things happening.”

Let’s remember, many families were to travel the highways this weekend to be with family for Easter. Let’s be thankful that Easter was not marred by countless deaths on the road.

Ken Campbell

Winnipeg

Another storm with no postal mail delivery, but guess what? On both mornings during the storm when I checked my mailbox at 8 a.m., there was my Free Press. We have had an awful winter, no doubt about it, but we have not had a missed newspaper delivery. And to think it is done in the middle of the night when hazards are twice as dangerous.

Please let the delivery people know their work is greatly appreciated.

Vi Hultin

Winnipeg

Never forget Sheegl and Katz

Re: New era of ethics at city hall (Opinion, April 16)

It is very sobering to see the photo of former City of Winnipeg CAO Phil Sheegl and former mayor Sam Katz laughing heartily during their regime at city hall.

Columnist Paul Thomas has reminded us of how important it is to elect a municipal council and mayor who truly care about our city. Not only do we need ethical standards, but we need judicial policy to charge folks when they use our public monies for their private gain.

White-collar crime at city hall puts a stain on all who are part of the public administration and all elected councillors and the mayor.

Thanks to columnist Paul Thomas for reminding us not to forget about these two rogues.

Wilma Sotas

Winnipeg

Alberta shares wild-boar threat

Re: Manitoba sounding the feral-boar alarm (Opinion, April 16)

As a professor emeritus in the faculty of veterinary medicine at the University of Calgary, I was visiting Winnipeg and read Carl DeGurse’s column about wild boar.

In Alberta, we have been aware of this wild boar problem for a time. Given that deer, coyotes and rabbits have become almost innocuous neighbours in many Alberta cities and towns, the apparent arrival of wild boar in the city of Edmonton made everyone take a breath.

Not only are our virology people concerned about the possible spread of African Swine Fever, we also wonder if wild boar could play a role in exacerbating the problem of Prions, which are an abnormal form of a normally harmless protein found in the brain that is responsible for a variety of fatal neurodegenerative diseases of animals, including humans. Chronic Wasting Disease in ungulates was introduced to the Prairies with the search for alternative species to farm.

I agree with DeGurse that it is becoming apparent that wild boar are rapidly emerging as a significant threat. Exploration into their control should be escalated and shared at all levels of government.

Eugene Janzen

Calgary, Alta.

An expert quoted in this column says wild pigs are “the single most successful invasive large mammal on the planet.” That’s not really true. We humans are the single most invasive large mammal on the planet. And let’s be honest, we do far more damage.

Lois Taylor

Winnipeg

This column mentions that “Alberta began a pilot project on April 1 that pays government-approved trappers $75 per set of wild-pig ears, with trappers encouraged to eliminate entire sounders (small herds of wild pigs).”

When I was a child, there was a large growth in the fox population, causing significant problems for farmers. To bring the fox population back down to an acceptable level, the government of the day instituted a similar program: trappers and possibly hunters were paid a certain amount per set of fox ears.

However, when the older, more experienced trappers and hunters trained the younger ones, they were apparently told to let the female foxes go. When asked why, it was so there would be “another crop next year.”

Gilles Roch

Winnipeg

Addiction services ineffectual

Re: Manitoba invested $58 million in addiction services but opioid-related deaths growing (April 16)

The government’s remedy for helping addicts get clean – the Rapid Access to Addictions Medicine (RAAM) clinics – are simply a Band-Aid solution to the opioid problem. As the article points out, there are too few RAAM clinics in Winnipeg and rural Manitoba, access is exceedingly limited and their ability to help addicts in any meaningful way is laughable.

Add to that the government’s refusal to look at harm-reduction alternatives, Manitoba’s absence of long-term programs for treatment of more than 30 days, and an absence of strategies for streamlined services for addicts, and you get a province suffering from “too little, too late.”

I thank the powers that be that my loved one, despite the odds, has been clean now for three years. My heart goes out to those individuals who are not so fortunate.

Robbi Goltsman-Ferris

Winnipeg

Heckling of speaker outrageous

Re: Speaker scolds MLAs for acting up in question period (April 14)

Kudos to Speaker Myrna Driedger for calling out the juvenile and shameful behavior of those elected representatives who incessantly heckle, shout and are otherwise disrespectful and ill behaved, rather than asking genuine insightful and needed questions. It seems question period is often given over to “look at me” attitudes.

In any other venue, whether school, business or home, this behaviour would be condemned. Why should we be expected to tolerate it in our legislature? A little decorum, please. Democracy would be better served.

Margaret Mills

Headingley

Despicable! That’s the kindest word to describe the disrespectful way in which Speaker Myrna Driedger was treated as she tried to restore order in the house.

Dale Kilfoyle

Winnipeg

The blatant disregard for order in the legislature blows my mind. This in-house fighting across the room is as childish as it gets. When the speaker calls for order and she herself gets heckled, the politicians display the intelligence of preschoolers, getting paid six figures they certainly do not deserve.

Don Liebrecht

West St. Paul