A place for garbage

Re: Spruce-up spree sweeps through downtown (April 15)

Much is being said about the garbage and dirt that is visible on Winnipeg’s streets now that the snow is gone. I am glad to see that efforts are being made to clean up what has been revealed.

However, some of that garbage would not be on the streets had there been receptacles for it.

It is a matter of chronic surprise that politicians, otherwise well-trained in saying just the right thing for the audience they are addressing, forget that whatever they say can be heard everywhere. Right away. By anybody who cares to listen, including journalists always hungry for the next story.

So it is with Kenya’s President William Ruto, who was in Italy last week talking up his country’s virtues. One of his claims was that Kenyans speak “some of the best English in the world” — and then, noticing that the audience was dozing off and in need of a joke, he went on to say that Nigerian-accented English, by contrast, was incomprehensible.

He got such a big laugh (most of the audience were Kenyans living in Italy) that he kept going. “If you listen to a Nigerian speaking, you don’t know what they are saying — you need a translator.” Another big laugh — and then social media all over Africa lit up with protests.

How dare Ruto mock fellow Africans? Why should Africans be speaking a colonial language like English anyway? And who the hell did he think he was to judge the quality of Nigerian English? He was thoroughly spanked and sent to bed without supper by the media — but it does open some interesting questions.

There is a lot to like in Budget 2026’s health-care chapter. Building and expanding emergency departments, investing in home care and increasing health workforce training positions are just a few examples. The Kinew government deserves credit for listening to the concerns of Manitobans and putting real money into a struggling health-care system.

But buried in the highlights are two lines worth examining: $223 million for more doctors and an additional $6.3 million to recruit more doctors to rural Manitoba.

There is no question, Manitoba needs more doctors. However, a question the budget doesn’t answer, and frankly, one nobody in the legislature seems to be asking is: why are we spending $229.3 million exclusively on physicians when that same investment could fund more than 1,700 physician assistants — and get patients seen faster, in more communities, starting now?

This is not a rhetorical question. The “math isn’t mathing.”