5 days Ago By Winnipeg Free Press
Pay up Read this article for free: Already have an account? To continue reading, please subscribe: * Pay up Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? Opinion Pay up With reference to Dan Herzog’s letter to the editor on city owned property (“Sending a bill,” Dec. 13), I concur that we should bill the city for our time and expense for maintaining city property like boulevards, plus deduct 11 per cent from our water and waste bill as the city takes a dividend from the water bill to help pay for city services. So, how much is your annual income? The mayor makes $213,000 year and councillors make $121,500 plus expenses.
A six per cent tax increase with these salaries is no big impact. Are our elected representatives in it to serve their constituents or in it for the money? No accountability to the public! My councillor never answers my questions or emails. Harold Patterson Winnipeg Activism isn’t enough Shannon Sampert’s Dec.
12 column, comes across as condescending and elitist. She sadly attempts to paint Luigi Mangione as a wealthy brat whose tribulations with the vampiric medical industry are not pure enough to make him a political martyr. Ms.
Sampert should realize that those on the left don’t care where people come from or who their parents are, as long as they try to advance human rights and dignity. The call for socio-political activism is ignorant to our current reality. We have tried that again and again, and our rights are being stripped away while our tax money is funnelled from the most vulnerable to the most wealthy.
As oft-quoted from , “We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas!” The reason people are cheering Mr. Mangione’s actions are out of desperation and frustration. We are entering a new gilded age; people are suffering and they want real visible action against this capitalist steamroller.
Those locked in the grip of the medical industry know that murder via paperwork is far more cruel than a bullet. The liberal concept of playing by the rules and hoping your opponents are honourable people is a losing proposition against modern robber-barons. A.
Gagne Winnipeg Rights missing Re: (Think Tank, Dec. 13) Jerry Storie is correct when he ends his op-ed with “..
.more public discussion is needed.” After a quick read of the treaty, I could not find any specific guarantee of language rights.
The Franco-Métis of this province must not be impressed. Louis Riel certainly did not inspire the writers of this document. Georges Beaudry Dominion City Paying the price Re: (Dec.
12); (Dec. 12); (Dec. 13) I would like to share a few thoughts regarding the proposed City of Winnipeg property tax hike.
First, it is clear that the city needs more revenue, much more revenue, if we are to live in a reasonably well-functioning and safe place. Thus, it seems to me, Mayor Scott Gillingham is proposing doing something that obviously needs to be done, so good for him. Second, as was pointed out by the spokesperson for the Social Planning Council, any tax increase should somehow be targeted to those of us who can pay more.
Clearly, we should not be putting more financial stress on low-income people who are already struggling mightily with the cost of living. Third, the dire situation the city finds itself in is, in large part, a result of believing that public services can be properly and adequately provided as costs rise without paying proportionally more taxes. Indeed, there were no increases from 1998 to 2011.
I would respectfully ask the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and their spokespersons to give this some serious consideration. Lastly, hopefully this is an indication that we are finally going to disavow and put behind us the legacy left to us by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and their cheerleaders, and return to a more mature and balanced way of collectively taking care of ourselves. Gerald Farthing Winnipeg Threats and tariffs Credit to Premier Wab Kinew for his measured responses so far to Trump’s tariff threats.
Other premiers are reacting individually, some rather hastily to these threats. Ontario’s Doug Ford this weak suggested he’d consider cutting off hydro power to U.S.
states. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, also acting alone, has promised no oil embargo to the U.S.
under her watch. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been fairly level-headed so far and is trying to get the premiers on the same page. One cannot say the same about Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who seems to want to burn down our own democracy with his sycophantic rhetoric blaming everything on the current government, and continuing to spout his three word slogans and words of agreement with Mr.
Trump. Our politicians should know they will never get the last word in with Trump. He always has the last thing to say on any subject.
Best to cool down the overreaction. Trump is known for his bluster and often does not follow through with his stated positions. Cameron Laxdal Dugald Re: (Editorial, Dec.
14) Although taking a reactive approach is sure to garner attention, ultimately it will fail to achieve the results we need. Governments should take a reasonable business approach. Simply, whatever the percentage of tariff is introduced should be equally applied to all our exports.
Once U.S. consumers feel the pain of a 300 per cent increase in hydro, gas or other raw materials, they will quickly pressure their political leadership to find a solution.
The federal government could then redistribute these funds to the industries facing tariffs. It is then not a war over tariffs, it is simply the cost of doing business with an unrealistic partner. Harvey Wasiuta Winnipeg Lost along the Perimeter Re: “Longing for Better Signage” (Letters, Dec.
14) I recently had occasion to attempt the traverse of the Perimeter Highway at St. Mary’s Road to get to the nurseries south of the Perimeter since the new “interchange” was opened. I fully understand the dilemma these nurseries face with the convoluted maze that our province has come up with that attempts to make this interchange safer.
How to get from point A to point B? You go from what was a straight pathway ahead to a maze that includes “roundabouts” at strangely positioned points and, although it does slow you down, you end up more confused and very likely to take the wrong exit out of these roundabouts and going in the wrong direction than you intended. Going south, you end up a long distance east and south of these same nurseries and have to backtrack to get there. With very poor signage, I might add.
What would have been wrong with building a straightforward cloverleaf, which probably would have been cheaper? Cloverleafs are something that everyone is familiar with and fully understand and have been built all over the world. I don’t think I would like to peer inside the mind of the person who came up with this design. Alice French Winnipeg Advertisement Advertisement.
