School violence deplorable

Re: Student violence surges, MGEU says (Oct. 17)

It’s heartbreaking to read and hear stories of school staff being physically and emotionally abused. Students are increasingly coming to the classroom with very complex needs. Staff hours lost to this abuse are surely increasing.

Money and resources are always scarce when it comes to funding education. Stories of para-professionals having to accommodate and work with a plethora of classroom needs are not uncommon.

Winnipeg is facing a housing and toxic drug crisis that is not going away. Every day, we see the consequences — people living without safe homes, encampments in neighbourhoods and public spaces, increasingly toxic drugs, overdoses and emergency services stretched to their limits.

These are symptoms of a deeper crisis of inter-generational trauma related to colonization of the original peoples of these lands, compounded by a crisis in housing, income security, mental health and addictions services and the availability of community based supports.

Winnipeg’s next city council must decide whether it is prepared to invest in solutions that address the root causes.

Weaving a Better Winnipeg: The Alternative Municipal Budget 2026, proposes a five-point action plan that would put housing, outreach, human rights and Indigenous leadership at the centre of Winnipeg’s response.

Democracy is on the ropes everywhere in the world as politics have become extreme, divisive, virulent — just plain toxic.

It would seem like a reasonable, visceral decision not to participate, to not be contaminated or compromised by association. However, like education, where more education is the cure to a lack, a deficit in democratic politics calls for more, not less, political engagement.

In his 1919 poem The Second Coming, W. B. Yeats wrote, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;” as a description of social and political catastrophe and the failure of usual safeguards in the aftermath of the First World War. He ends the first stanza with: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.”

I believe it’s an apt description of what’s going on today — not new but frightening, nonetheless.

Alberta can thrive within Canada

Alberta’s independence debate deserves a sober examination of the risks of national division.

Ukraine offers an important cautionary example of how separatist movements can be exploited by foreign powers to advance their own strategic interests. Russia’s intervention in eastern Ukraine in 2014 transformed separatist unrest into a prolonged armed conflict, causing civilian deaths, economic disruption and instability.

Alberta’s circumstances are very different, but the broader lesson is that separatism can create vulnerabilities to foreign interference.

Province must also retain docs

Re: Ottawa offers $6M to hire 90 new doctors (Oct. 15)

The federal government’s $6 million commitment to help Manitoba recruit up to 90 additional family doctors by 2028–29 is welcome news, but it should not be mistaken for a solution to the province’s persistent physician shortage.

The question is not simply how many doctors Manitoba can recruit, but how many it can retain —and whether patients will actually have better access to care as a result.