Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 11, 2021, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A6 Open hair salons Re: Premier itching to ease restrictions (Jan. 7) Why is the premier setting his sights on the beginning of February to gradually open hair salons? Salons have followed strict COVID-19 pro- tocols since March of last year. They have been closed for about 33 per cent of the time in 2020. I understand the pain and frustration expe- rienced by Caitlin Bousfield and Sam Rivait of Good Fortune Barber Shop. These are two people who want to contribute to the economy and make people look and feel great. Unlike restaurants, curbside pickup and deliv- ery services are not an option in the beauty indus- try. Many hair stylists are self-employed and rely on wages and tips as their income. The place I go has not had one COVID-19 case traced to it since the beginning of the pandemic. Peo- ple can go to the dentist or have a massage — both involving close contact — yet can’t go for a haircut. I feel safer at a hair salon than shopping at Costco. Many people feel great after getting a haircut, which helps with their outlook on things, some- thing Audrey Gordon, the new minister of mental health and wellness, can think about. CINDY KELLY Winnipeg I learned something interesting. You can buy winter boots, but you can’t buy laces for them. Laces are considered non-essential. ROCHELLE LITVACK Winnipeg On a recent day, my wife and I left sleepy Killarney, where our friendly Steve the Barber has been closed for four months without income, even though not one COVID-19 case came out of his business. We needed to go to Winnipeg, for the first time since last March, for a medical ap- pointment. The first thing we saw was about 400 vehicles in the Costco parking lot on McGillivray Boulevard. Steve’s barber shop lot holds one car. Returning home from Winnipeg some five hours later, there were still 400 cars parked at Costco. I bet they weren’t the same ones that were there at noon. My daughter tells me that my seven-year-old grandson can’t cross the street in Winnipeg to play hockey on the backyard rink of his best friend. I recently watched players on the Cana- dian Junior Hockey team hug each other repeat- edly. We haven’t hugged our children or our grandsons for 10 months. My wife and I cancelled our winter vacation to Vancouver Island this winter to comply with government-suggested restrictions on travel. I live 22 kilometres from the U.S. border and can’t pass over to cross-country ski for a day. Stay- ing home reading the Free Press, I see the same government officials took the liberty denied me to travel this winter to locations where it was a lot warmer than it has been in Killarney. I’m getting a little jaded. BOB MOORE Killarney Bergen’s MAGA hat alarming Re: Manitoba MP condemns Trump-mob may- hem but silent on her photo in MAGA hat (Jan. 7) Imagine my surprise to see Manitoba MP Candice Bergen donning a Make America Great Again hat. Guess where her loyalties and political viewpoints lie? WERNER KROEGER Winnipeg Lawn sign advises premier Re: Don’t blame Ottawa for Manitoba’s problems with vaccination process (Opinion, Jan. 7) Tom Brodbeck’s column brought to mind a lawn sign I photographed on a recent walk down Canora Street. The message is QUIT.YOUR.JOB. #RESIGNBP subheading, BRIAN PALLISTER, RETIRE TO COSTA RICA. I concur. MARY MATHIAS Winnipeg Some journalists disrespectful Re: Journalists warrant respect (Letter, Jan. 7) I would point out to writer Allan Levy that re- spect is a two-way street. Many of these journal- ists show no respect to the premier. Maybe they are just getting a dose of their own medicine. With regard to the premier’s comment to one journalist for asking a “first-year journalist question,” did Levy listen to the question? It was so poorly worded and “loaded” that the so-called journalist should have known better than to even ask it. When it comes to respect, you generally get what you give. JIM ROSS Winnipeg Remember rural health staff Re: 74 per cent of Manitobans to be vaccinated by year’s end: plan (Jan. 8) Glad to see the province rolling out vaccines. As the husband of a rural home-care worker, I sincerely hope this will be handled much better than the personal protective equipment was/is being handled. They were last to get PPE and still have to reuse much of it. I hope that rural aides and home-care workers are quick to receive vaccines and not last to get it, treated like they’re at the bottom of the barrel. Please don’t forget them again. DAVID CRABB St. Clements Use my fine wisely Lowering the speed limit to 30 km/hr in Winni- peg would be a cash cow for the City of Winnipeg. Already, drivers were getting ticketed needlessly in school zones when the school children were away on Christmas break. I received a $200-plus ticket for accidentally driving too fast in a school zone on Dec. 29. I am guilty and will not contest the ticket, but I hope the money I give the city will be well spent. I hope that when city staff repair trees, sidewalks, roads and curbs, my fine money is used to buy brooms. City work crews regularly leave a mess of gravel, sand, soil and branches behind when their work is completed. ROBERT J. MOSKAL Winnipeg Series worth award Re: Life on the Strip — A year-long examination of Main Street homelessness (Dec. 31) I hope there will be some sort of a journalism award for Ryan Thorpe for his in-depth and very thought-provoking series on homelessness in Win- nipeg. What an amazing job! RUTH LEE Winnipeg Winnipeg a wonderland Today, I felt like the queen of the world! I walked out my back door, down the riverbank, and along the frozen ice all the way to work. I didn’t see a single car or step into a single piece of salt. The sun was rising and the sky was pink and purple and blue. A skier passed on my right and a dog ran ahead of two skaters. On this glorious day, I was thinking, I love this place! I love Winnipeg! Now, I know I am incredibly lucky. I live near the river and I work near the river. But I see many others on my way who walk the extra block or two just to enter this magic wonderland. While I am always sad in spring when the river is no longer accessible, I have felt like this once before in my life: in March of 2020, when Wolseley Avenue was closed to vehicular traffic, I could walk and get from A to B without car noise, pollution or safety risks. Despite COVID-19 keeping me from my dying grandfather, work being turned upside down and a fear of the unknown, I felt joy strongly. I felt I live in the most glorious city, with amazing people and beautiful streets. I know whole essays have been written on the rights and/or privileges of cars, pedestrians, cyclists, etc. But today, I just want to ask: couldn’t we ask vehicles to refrain from driving on just a few streets, so more Winnipeggers can feel like kings and queens as they cycle or walk to work, go on a stroll, or try to maintain good physical and mental health through exercise? When the river melts, can we help people fall in love with their city again? HEIDI KOOP Winnipeg To Dan, from Brian? Re: Hypocrisy in time of COVID-19 (Opinion, Jan. 4) Just wondering, did Dan Lett get a Christmas card from Brian Pallister? JIM OLSON Winnipeg LETTERS TO THE EDITOR WHAT’S YOUR TAKE? THE FREE PRESS WANTS TO HEAR FROM YOU. The Free Press is committed to publishing a diverse selection of letters from a broad cross-section of our audience. The Free Press will also consider longer submissions for inclusion on our Think Tank page, which is a platform man- dated to present a wide range of perspectives on issues of current interest. We welcome our readers’ feedback on articles and letters on these pages and in other sections of the Free Press ● Email: Letters: letters@freepress.mb.ca Think Tank submissions: opinion@freepress.mb.ca ● Post: Letters to the Editor, 1355 Mountain Ave., Winnipeg, R2X 3B6 Please include your name, address and daytime phone number. ● Follow us on Twitter @WFPEditorials OUR VIEW YOUR SAY PERSPECTIVES EDITOR: BRAD OSWALD 204-697-7269 ● BRAD.OSWALD@FREEPRESS.MB.CA ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM A6 MONDAY JANUARY 11, 2021 City archives deserve a suitable home T HE City of Winnipeg has a historic problem.Its archives include a trove of photo-graphs, artifacts and documents, such as council minutes, tax rolls and building plans that go back as far as the 1870s. It also stores similar documents from St. Boniface, Transcona and other cities and towns that had their own govern- ments prior to the Unicity amalgamation in 1972. It has records of the city’s many floods, which have given and will continue to give fore- casters valuable information regarding where to bolster shorelines when the city’s rivers and creeks begin to rise. How much material has the city archives com- piled over the years? Here’s an example: a Win- nipeg parks and recreation collection has about 7,000 photographs, slides, negatives and even Po- laroid prints from events that have taken place at parks, community centres and golf courses over the years — and that’s just one of countless photo collections the city holds for safe-keeping. These items are currently housed in a nonde- script warehouse in an industrial area on Myrtle Street. Other than a small sign on the door, there is no recognition the building holds materials that record how a 19th-century isolated settlement on the Canadian Prairies became one of the coun- try’s major cities in the 20th century. The building has no special controls for tempera- ture and humidity, two factors that threaten some of the oldest documents the city archives owns. The archives have been in this temporary home since 2013; previously, the archives were held at the Carnegie Library on William Avenue, which was built in 1903 and itself is a piece of Winni- peg’s history. The limestone building was undergoing renova- tions in 2013, which were to include temperature and humidity controls that would help preserve the archives’ materials, but a rainstorm caused damage to the structure’s roof and water dam- aged some records. A lawsuit was launched and the archival mate- rial was moved to the Myrtle Street warehouse. It hasn’t been moved back. The city archives situation was called a national embarrassment in a December 2016 opinion piece in the Free Press written by Kevin Walby, a Uni- versity of Winnipeg professor, who was reacting to an executive policy committee decision that chose not to restore the Carnegie Library for the archives, a project estimated to cost $9.2 million. So the archives remain at Myrtle Street, the Carnegie Library is vacant and in 2018 it was add- ed to the National Trust Endangered Places List. The city has hired a consultant to study a future home for the archives, but there is no word when this report will be completed and released to the public. Some of the archives’ photographs and docu- ments are available for viewing via the city’s website, but archiving experts say digitizing the full collection would take years and would be impractical. The city’s archives need a proud, new home, and time is of the essence. Winnipeg turns 150 on Nov. 8, 2023, and no doubt a celebration of the city’s past will take place. There will be a need to show off what Winnipeg looked like when it first became a city in 1873. Some will want to revisit other major events, such as scenes from the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919 or the jubilation from Blue Bombers’ fans and players during the city’s occasional Grey Cup parades. What better way to mark the occasion than to unveil a new home for the archives — one that stores the material in a secure manner and also provides easy access for historians, architects, homeowners or curious citizens who want to learn more about their city. EDITORIAL MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The city’s archives are housed in a nondescript building on Myrtle Street. Published since 1872 on Treaty 1 territory and the homeland of the Métis A_06_Jan-11-21_FP_01.indd A6 2021-01-10 1:39 PM ;