Letters, Sept. 22

You are not alone

Recent reports involving a Winnipeg firefighter with a history of criminal harassment and protection order violations, and a Winnipeg police officer charged in a physical and sexual intimate partner violence assault investigation, should prompt a broader conversation about accountability when allegations of gender-based violence involve individuals in positions of public trust.

I wrote a letter to the editor to the Free Press that was published Aug. 4 about the WFPS case, and I believe those comments are relevant to this moment as well.

Rather than reiterate those points, I would like to address those impacted by gender-based violence.

I want you to know that your reaction matters.

Some survivors see these headlines and feel validated. Others feel anger, fear, grief, or exhaustion. Many are reminded of times when they were not believed, were told to stay quiet, or watched someone in a position of trust avoid accountability.

When the person accused is someone respected in the community, it can be especially difficult. Survivors often ask themselves whether anyone will listen, whether their safety will matter, or whether the status of the person who harmed them will overshadow their experience.

I hope these conversations encourage our community to focus not only on what happens after violence occurs, but also on prevention, early intervention, and survivor-centred responses.

Most importantly, I want survivors to hear this: You are not alone. Your experiences matter. Your safety matters. Your voice matters.

As a community, we must continue building systems that earn the trust survivors desperately need to place in them rather than systems that continue to perpetuate harm.

Tammy Reimer

Executive Director

Gender-Based Violence Collective of Manitoba

Poor planning

Friday’s letter to the editor, Times are a changin’, describes a major decision made without much thought to the consequences. Firstly, the so-called time change survey was completely biased to make you choose the option of no more time changes.

It started with, and I’m paraphrasing a bit, “…knowing that a study shows that changing times increases heart attacks, strokes, accidents and obesity…do you really still want to change clocks twice a year?”

I really would like to know the exact number of heart attacks, strokes, accidents and weight gain that happens right after changing your clock. If this was the case, travellers around the world would be dropping like flies every day!

Secondly, completely contrary to what the government and studies show, going to an all-year daylight savings time actually negatively affects your health, it does not promote better health. DST throws off our circadian rhythm (which helps regulate our sleep-wake cycles, hormones and body temperature), by artificially making us wake up hours before the sun rises. This will promote a greater lack of proper sleep and effectiveness during the day and can very well lead to greater health problems and accidents.

Thirdly, with the sun rising about 9:30 a.m. in December, children will be going to school in pitch blackness up to two hours before seeing the sun. I don’t think parents are going to be happy about this. This will be dangerous for the kids, especially on cold mornings and icy roads and sidewalks.

Also, this goes against the move to have schools start later so that students, especially teenagers, are more awake for their morning classes.

Fourthly, there are economic, business, sports and social factors that are detrimental. Nearly all sports will be an hour later. Who wants to see the Jets play at 10 p.m. in Vancouver?

There was a reason we changed the clocks twice a year; it resulted in the best of both worlds of having long summer evenings and helping our bodies adjust in winter to the darkness.

Changing the time twice a year is a minor first-world inconvenience at the most. I suppose we should be happy though; according to the government, we’ll all start to magically lose weight because we don’t have to change our clocks!

Paul Doyle

Winnipeg

Losing critical resources

My husband lives with Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD). 60 Minutes has described it as “the cruellest disease you’ve never heard of,” although if you’ve heard of Bruce Willis, you have likely heard of it by now.

Losing words was my husband’s first and most persistent symptom. But so rare is FTD, and the version, Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA), which afflicts him (and also Bruce Willis), that seven years ago our family doctor did not recognize the signs but said, “You’re okay. It’s not Alzheimer’s,” before sending him on his way.

It was something more nefarious, something that would affect his judgment, executive function, motivation, inhibition, ability to plan, and to care. It will eventually take his life. In January, 2025, a neurologist told me we might have five years. He said, “They will be difficult.”

As my husband’s primary caregiver, I have found our journey easier because I have been able to count on one day of weekly respite, thanks to the Charleswood Adult Day Program (ADP). This excellent program, staffed by caring, committed workers, is a place my husband can go to socialize with peers, while I have peace of mind knowing he is being active and cared for.

This week we learned that the Lions Housing Centres Board of Directors has decided to permanently close the program, effective Oct. 31, 2026.

This loss represents one more devastation in the battle of living with an already devastating neurodegenerative disease.

Ironically, Sept. 28–Oct. 4, 2026 is World FTD Awareness Week.

But what good is awareness, when critical resources like the Charleswood ADP aren’t valued enough to be funded and kept in place by those who have the power to do so?

Patricia Paddey

Winnipeg

Guardrails needed

AI offers Manitoba genuine opportunities — in healthcare, agriculture, research, productivity and economic growth. But the risks deserve equal attention.

A Sept. 18 CNN report described an AI-assisted intelligence error that nearly triggered a U.S. military operation after a Chinese vessel was incorrectly identified as carrying nuclear-related material.

Human review caught the error before the operation proceeded.

Warnings about AI replacing human judgment, jobs and even human motivation are unsettling. Some voices may be motivated by political or business interests, including concerns about larger companies gaining advantages over smaller AI developers; others reflect genuine concern about where this technology is heading.

Manitoba should consider both the economic opportunities and these risks before approving major AI projects and associated power connections.

We need safeguards: transparency, human oversight, independent testing, privacy, cybersecurity and accountability. Manitoba’s new public-sector AI and cybersecurity framework already recognizes the importance of transparency, risk assessment and human oversight.

Think of it as CRIMBY — Conditions Required In My Backyard.

Embrace AI’s potential, but require conditions that protect Manitobans.

Wayne C. Wagner

Winnipeg