Adult ed can be the future — now

Re: Reimagining education in Manitoba (Think Tank, Sept. 2)

In an increasingly mad world, where decency and humanity are at risk, driven by the endless din from the leader of the free world, Canada is reimagining itself. Our federal government is expediting dozens of nation-building projects valued at a reported $192 billion.

The goal of nation building is to strengthen Canada’s economic resilience and independence. We all want peace, a good home, a secure income and hope for a stable future for our children and grandchildren. Nation-building projects are a hopeful means to this end.

Across Manitoba, we’re rapidly moving toward a more electrified future, as homes, businesses, industries, and transportation increasingly turn to electricity. This transition offers a significant opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but it also requires us to rethink how we plan for and participate in our energy future.

Manitoba Hydro’s 2025 integrated resource plan (IRP), currently under review with the Public Utilities Board, projects that our province will need significant additional capacity over the next decade to meet growing electricity demand. Much of the public discussion following the IRP has focused on how to meet that growing demand and what new generation sources may need to be built.

These are important conversations, but I believe there’s another question that deserves just as much attention.

How much of that growing demand can we address by using energy more efficiently?

On the same morning, the Free Press carried two pieces written from opposite vantage points, arriving at the same locked door.

Charles Bernstein, writing as a gastroenterologist, described a nurse-practitioner program at Health Sciences Centre that gave patients with inflammatory bowel disease somewhere to turn before their illness forced them to an emergency room. It was then not funded to continue, and it ended. A service that had been approved, put in place, and shown to work was allowed to lapse.

Tom Brodbeck, writing as a columnist, described Shared Health, an organization created eight years ago as a fourth layer of administration added to the three the system already had — Manitoba Health, the regional authorities, and hospital administrations. He asked what this layer has done for patient care that those three could not, found no one able to answer, and concluded that the province should either make the case or let the structure go.

One writer watched something that worked disappear. The other watched something no one can justify persist. Their accounts are two symptoms of one disease.