Letters, June 11

Long-term solutions required

Winnipeg is plagued by problems that appear to be getting worse: growing numbers of people with addictions, mental health issues, HIV and hepatitis A; open drug use; homelessness; shoplifting; petty crime; school absenteeism; overcrowded prisons, jails and remand centres.

These problems are rooted in complex poverty, the growth of which governments have paid too little attention to for the past half-century.

Those chickens have come home to roost — you can’t ignore social problems for decades and expect there to be no consequences. The only solutions are long-term solutions, requiring consistent investment year after year in strategies proven to work. Adult basic education is one of several good examples.

Being fiscally responsible is important, indeed crucial, but failing to invest consistently in solutions that work simply kicks social problems that then become fiscal problems down the road, making a bad situation steadily worse.

All levels of government need to invest consistently in meeting the needs of those being left behind in these rapidly changing times, which in turn requires a return to the progressive taxation system used in the early post-war years when the economy boomed and fewer Canadians were left behind. Those growing numbers with particularly high incomes and wealth need to be contributing more.

Jim Silver

Winnipeg

Nothing is taboo

Re: Manitoba farmer who exports horses to Japan sues animal-rights group, director, claiming defamation (June 9)

The farm suing the animal-rights group for damaging its reputation over the shipping of live horses to Japan is hoping to regain a more receptive view of its industry.

The shipping of live horses standing crammed into crates and flown thousands of miles over an entire day so Japanese connoisseurs can eat raw horse meat is disgusting and cruel. If the Japanese people want raw horse meat, they should breed and raise their own horses for slaughter.

I guess nothing is taboo as long as the price is right.

Alice French

Winnipeg

Alert system flaws

The Environment Canada weather alert system is clearly in need of a serious overhaul. On June 9, between 6 and 10 p.m., I received 11 tornado alerts on my cellphone.

Even worse, at one point I received four of these alerts within a 10-minute period.

None of the alerts after the first provided any useful updates on the changing location, direction or severity of the threat. In fact, every alert was identical except for the time it was issued. This was clearly overkill. It could also be called alert spam of the worst kind.

These alerts take over your phone with a loud alarm, no matter what you are doing, like driving or sleeping, and regardless of whether you have turned off the sound on your phone. I would like to know why so many useless and repetitive messages were sent out in such a short span of time.

The only remedy I could think of for myself was to completely turn off my phone or at least put it in airplane mode. I would suggest that future alerts from Environment Canada need to actually provide useful and relevant information, be used much more sparingly, and be capable of being turned off.

Are there any regulations around this? I understand that alerts could be useful to the public good, but current execution is beyond abysmal.

Konrad Antony

Winnipeg

Transit has lost trust

Re: City hall needs to fix transit issues — quickly (June 10)

Tom Brodbeck makes some good points about city hall needing to fix transit issues, but I think the problem goes deeper.

Residents were not properly consulted in the planning of the new system. According to Winnipeg Transit’s own website, only a woefully inadequate 1.2 per cent of Winnipeg’s population was consulted at the time, and some of those consultations were “interceptions” in a mall. Key demographic groups were only marginally included.

Most of Transit’s consultations were actually exhibits, long after decisions had already been made — not opportunities to avoid problems. When the pandemic hit, almost two years of consultation time was struck from the consultation schedule, as recent city minutes show. City hall went ahead with incomplete information, assuming it knew what was best.

The standing committee on public works ignored information from residents before and after the launch. Presentations, submissions, letters, phone calls and emails went to committees and councillors warning of problems. Instead of seriously considering the issues, Transit and city leadership embarked on a heavy-duty promotional campaign, as if concerns were coming from a small group of anti-bus Luddites.

When real-life evidence started flooding in that the new system was problematic in many preventable ways, residents had to wait months for a fix. On-bus GPS systems didn’t work. Ridership data was incomplete. Planners had not developed a proper, expedited process for making promised adjustments when they knew that people’s lives would be significantly and adversely affected. Leaders who do not take the bus were minimizing the challenges of those who did.

Residents were instead told to contact 311, a Kafka-esque process that sends feedback into some kind of data abyss. “Investigations” are promised, and thousands of incident-tracking numbers are handed out. Even now, a year later, every service representative has a different approach, responses from Transit are exceedingly rare and how some of the data is used to make decisions is a mystery.

Even when changes are made, conditions don’t improve. Monitoring seems haphazard and ineffective. Although Transit implemented speed-reduction orders on nine narrow, residential streets that have become Transit thoroughfares. Speeds did not come down despite Transit’s promises that protocols were in place to address the matter.

So, maybe residents are actually offended that they have been disrespected and dismissed for so long. Maybe they have lost trust that Transit or city hall can listen, make wise decisions or fix this.

Transit and city hall appear to have thought that proper consultation, implementation and remediation processes were not really needed for a once-in-70-years change to a vital system.

They don’t seem to have considered that their idea might not work. Why would we trust the same people who created and approved this mess to find timely solutions?

Margerit Roger

Winnipeg

Our hand-held future

Re: Time to think carefully about social media ban (May 21)

I would like to express my agreement with Dan Lett, regarding Wab Kinew’s talk of a ban of social media for children under 16.

With the advance of technology not slowing down, we need to build measures to protect children in this age of digital freedom. These new technologies have become a cornerstone to our society, and our legislation must be carefully crafted and enduring.

Early reports from Australia’s Molly Rose Foundation show that 60 to 70 per cent of children in that country still use social media, via VPNs from family members. We must learn from these shortcomings and develop a more thorough policy for Manitobans.

I’m glad that teachers and parents alike are speaking their minds, despite the fact that they may have differing views. This is a complicated topic and the voices of those most affected by this (parents, teachers and children) must be listened to.

I urge everyone who has a connection or interest in this topic to speak their minds. All voices matter and every idea counts when building a future in this new glimmering age.

Seth Ironwing

Winnipeg