Letters, Sept. 20

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/09/2022 (1117 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CEO bonuses cause problems

Re: NDP pans potential Hydro CEO bonus (Sept. 16)

Manitoba Hydro board chairman Edward Kennedy defends the practice of rewarding CEOs with bonuses for achieving targeted goals, calling it a “best-practice pay structure for CEOs, including at Crown-owned utilities across Canada.”

As someone who has worked in the IT industry for over 25 years, I have observed that incentive-based goals are a bane to the staff responsible for delivering the associated projects.

In the IT world, completion dates are established before any meaningful sizing of the projects is performed. Staff are then pushed to meet the delivery dates so executives can claim the associated bonus.

What is delivered is most often incomplete and flawed. What follows are months of correcting all the mistakes caused by not applying the due diligence that was omitted owing to lack of time caused by the bonus-based deadline.

And, of course, fixing something that is flawed is always more expensive than building it correctly in the first place, not to mention the pain it causes to staff and inevitably the customer.

Rene Vincent

Winnipeg

In defence of spanking

Re: As child was hit, we all watched without intervening (Opinion, Sept. 17)

Columnist Carl DeGurse describes an incident in a Superstore, where a four-year-old boy was having a tantrum because his mother would not buy him a chocolate bar. She tried to calm her child, but he continued. So the mother picked the boy up and smacked his bottom once.

I see nothing wrong in the way this was handled. DeGurse says nothing about whether the child stopped having his tantrum after he was smacked. He probably did.

I received many smacks on my bottom when I was younger, which I deserved. It made me think twice about misbehaving the next time I was out in public. I didn’t turn into an abuser, a serial killer or end up with mental problems.

I’ve witnessed too many times children being coddled when they are misbehaving in public and parents trying to reason with the child, to no avail.

Please note, I don’t condone physical or verbal abuse, but perhaps if more of these kids received a smack on their bottom once in awhile, our crime rate involving young kids wouldn’t be so high.

Debbie Painter

Winnipeg Beach

This column’s summary of the academic-fuelled advice on raising children was disturbing, if not shocking. Sadly lacking in this article were words such as good manners, respect for others and discipline.

Anybody out in the modern world cannot help but notice how society has deteriorated when it comes to public behaviour since the advent of the bubble-wrapped child who can do no wrong. Schools are inundated with ill-mannered, rebellious children disturbing the education process, and people serving the general public are faced with rude, demanding customers daily.

To the mother at the grocery store who had the respect of her fellow shoppers in mind so as to not inflict her child’s bad behaviour on them, one can only say thank you.

To those academics who have led parenting down the path of treating a four-year-old child like an adult, one can only say thank you for creating a generation of pampered, spoiled adults without social graces who lack respect for anyone they come in contact with.

Gary Pryce

Winnipeg

Plain-language precedent

Re: Plain language pledge from Poilievre is populist posturing (Editorial, Sept. 15)

The editorial notes Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has not addressed the difficulties of enforcing his promise of a Plain Language Law, which he says would mandate government communication be written in “language that ordinary people speak.”

Many states in the U.S. require that insurance contracts be “readable” to be sold to the public. Those states have enacted readability legislation. That legislation provides that an insurance contract will be considered readable if it exceeds a specific readability score. Although the process varies somewhat by state, it involves applying a formula to the number of sentences, paragraphs and words that appear in the insurance contract.

So, if a Plain Language Law is introduced in Canada, I wonder if that law would pass the readability tests required for insurance contracts to be sold in various states.

Brian Fraser

Winnipeg

Reporting on coach appreciated

Re: The Kelsey McKay playbook (Sept. 17)

Thank you to Jeff Hamilton for this well-reported piece on the former high-school football coach accused of sexually assaulting students. Along with his “Stain on the Game” series about Graham James previously published in the Free Press (Dec. 11, 2020), it is a difficult but extremely important beat that Hamilton is covering.

I hope his current and future sources, both confidential and not, continue to see him as a trustworthy individual when sharing these painful stories.

Ian Scott

Winnipeg

Price carbon out of reach

Re: Manitoba should carefully consider carbon-tax options (Opinion, Sept. 16)

Columnist Robert Parsons states his students did an exercise that showed two diesel buses would achieve the same carbon reductions as a single electric or fuel-cell bus. They have managed to show that burning more fossil fuels is a solution to reducing fossil fuel emissions.

It is akin to saying smoking is a cure for cancer. These are the kind of smoke-and-mirror solutions that have got us to the point where, according to the United Nations, the world is heading into “uncharted territory of destruction.”

The climate has too much carbon in it now and the environmental ship is sinking. It is time to start bailing water, not to start adding water at a slower pace.

Carbon has to be priced out of the marketplace so that it is no longer the cheapest energy alternative. Parsons’ students should be working to find the fastest way to do this and not to simply analyze and find fault with other proposals.

Warren Martin

Flin Flon

Bombers fan ashamed

Re: Bombers defence comes up short (Sept. 18)

Where do I start? How about the secondary? It brought back memories of old when the Bombers couldn’t cover a sloth.

The Bombers made Hamilton quarterback Dane Evans look like Tom Brady. I don’t think I heard the names of Bomber defenders such as Willie Jefferson, Jackson Jeffcoat or Adam Bighill all game.

Everyone owns this loss. I’m still trying to figure out why the Bombers would run a quarterback sneak at the Ti-Cats’ 28- yard line to open the second half on a second and five. Absolutely mind-blowing.

The Bombers got spanked. Terrible effort, and they should be ashamed. I know I am.

Jim Thompson

Winnipeg

‘Demoting’ Wheeler was wrong

Re: Jets remove ‘C’ from Wheeler, will play next season without a captain (Sept. 16)

It was a mistake to take the captaincy from Blake Wheeler. While I think there was some toxicity among players last season, I can’t believe Wheeler is to blame. He is a proven leader.

Relieving him of the “C” could cause more problems. And whether he believes it or not, it will diminish his effectiveness. And that will hurt the team.

He has been with the Jets for 11 years, and has been one of their top players and leaders. As a longtime Jets fan, I think it’s pretty low, demoting him. Maybe there is strategy here, but I don’t see it.

Robert Milan

Victoria, B.C.