Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - March 21, 2024, Winnipeg, Manitoba Update Health Act Re: Trips to Moose jaw clinic epitomize unequal health system (March 20) Tom Brodbeck’s article is right on the mark. A rich guy, one that (if I recall correctly) previously went to Europe for another medical procedure, is able to jump the queue and get medical service that the rest of us have to languish in the queues for. Disgusting, this needs to stop, the Canada Health Act has to be updated so that this practice cannot continue to happen. Just to make it even more obscene is that the individual can then claim a medical expense on his tax return for the out of province costs, ridic- ulous! Shame, I say. BOB SALES Winnipeg After reading Tom Brodbeck’s article about the Moose Jaw clinic, perhaps the solution is right in the article. If the Canadian system allows people from outside the province to pay for diagnostic tests, what is stopping a Manitoba doctor/company from partnering with a Saskatchewan or Ontario doctor/company and opening a clinic much closer to the Manitoba border, like in Moosomin or Kenora, and offering bus or shuttle services from Winnipeg for various diagnostic tests? I for one would pay a couple hundred or even a few hundred dollars to get the test done next week rather than wait six months or a year to get the tests in Manitoba. A few hundred dollars is a small price to pay to potentially save your life if a person can afford it, but unfortunately many in the province can not afford it. Their lives are in the hands of the Manitoba health care system which nowadays is a scary thought, but in no way is the fault of the great doctors and nurses and other health-care providers we have in our province, who provide great care when given the opportunity. RON ROBERT Winnipeg Scraping for pennies Re: No panic as city fuel supply shut off (March 19) It sure didn’t take long for gas retailers to bump up the price of gas another six cents. Not satisfied to scoop up the 14 cent gas tax pause that was intended for consumers, they’re now scraping the bottom of our pockets for the few remaining pennies. RANDY CLINCH Winnipeg Am I the only one who is skeptical that this is happening now? When Premier Kinew announced the provincial gas tax holiday as part of his election pledges, I wondered whether motorists in Manitoba would truly see 14 cents/litre savings throughout the six-month period, Jan. 1 to June 30. The price of gas was just under $1.29/litre on Dec. 31. So the 14 cents/L saving brought it down to just under $1.15/ L. I suspect the oil and gas industry couldn’t let this opportunity go by without benefiting them- selves by putting part of those savings into their own pockets. So here we stand now with gas apparently going up at many gas stations and, coincidentally, an announcement that our main pipeline into the province is shut down due to repairs lasting close to the end of the tax-free period! Does that mean that if the gas tax holiday was not given, our prices would be even higher today? Don’t panic though! Just be glad that our supply will probably not be compromised. So don’t go rushing out to stock up on gas with your full tanks and your gas cans. You know what in- creased demand does — it increases prices. Perhaps the Free Press could have one of their reporters do an analysis of the price changes before and after Jan. 1, including how our pricing compared to other provinces back then and a comparison now. I would like to see whether this was an ill-ad- vised popular election pledge that didn’t really give those low-income earners the break they needed and cost the provincial treasury and us as taxpayers $165 million. GARY MCGIMPSEY Winnipeg Problems in the system Recently I have been reading in farm journals, as well as the Free Press, how Canada’s system of marketing boards are banishing competition in the marketplace, resulting in higher prices, while at the same time stiffing research, with the meager triumph of stability and sustainability. In short, our marketing boards are not capi- talistic in concept as they are designed to give a farmer, the merchant and the consumer a foundation upon which long-term planning can be done. If our farmers are given a standard of living on a par with our fellow citizens, while at the same time low-income families suffer with an inadequate food basket, this is not a problem of the farmers’ making. It is a problem of the capitalistic system that we have chosen to embrace. As for research, this used to be done by our universities, and the knowledge gained was shared with all. In today’s world most research is done by private corporations who hold back knowledge for ransom. WAYNE JAMES Beausejour No way to reach out to IIU Re: Decorum or deflection? (Editorial, March 18) I was happy to see the Free Press editorial that critiqued Markus Chambers decision to end Inez Hillel’s presentation. I think it is important to also point out that there is no avenue for a concerned citizen to reach out to the Independent Investigations Unit to share their concerns regarding the number of people that the Winnipeg Police have killed. So where then should we go to express our concerns if raising them with a police board delegation is inappropriate? Further, the validity of such investigations by the IIU can be called into question as, although it is touted as ‘Independent’, it is staffed by former police officers. I believe that Chambers should resign as it is a conflict of interest for him to hold the position of chair of the Police Board while also being a city councillor. Chambers has demonstrated, not just with this last police board meeting but with several over the last year and a half, that he is unwilling to separate his personal feelings about policing from his duties as police board chair. Finally, if these board meetings are an inappro- priate place to air grievances about lives taken by WPS, there must be a new avenue to make such complaints. As citizens we have a right to say where our taxes go, and if we don’t want to continue funding police violence, we should be able to say so. KELSEY TRUMBLA Winnipeg Pool logic Re: EPC tosses temporary life preserver to two of three city pools targeted for closure in budget (March 19) When Coun. Jeff Browaty says, “All of the pools, including the Provencher Pool, are very old assets in the St. Boniface area…”, is he suggest- ing that Provencher will be the next to be closed? I find it strange that the age of the pools in St. Boniface always comes up as justification to close them. If age is indeed the justification, why then is the Lions pool, which also was also built in 1958, not closing? What about Kildonan pool built in the two years after Windsor Park pool, does that mean Kildonan has only two more years? Age is no justification but city neglect is. Al- though they know the low attendance was due to the city’s actions, why do the mayor and Browaty still deflect from the real reason? Mayor Scott Gillingham expresses that it is cheaper to open Harvey Smith Library than to open Millennium; why not use that same rea- soning with pools? Happyland is the cheapest to operate. St. Boniface is not a gated community, Happyland is free for all residents of Winnipeg and all are welcome. By closing Happyland, opportunities for aquatic experiences are taken away from all citizens. Coun. Vivian Santos thinks that public access to the pool in her ward would still be affordable with a private owner; any charge is at a cost to the residents of her ward. Closing one pool in St. Boniface would not hurt as much if the total capacity of the pools in St. Boniface were as great as that in other wards. With a three-pool maximum of 150 and usually much less due to staffing closures, closing one pool hurts St. Boniface residents and many other Winnipeg residents looking for free aquatic experiences. TOM SCOTT 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 inclu- sion on our Think Tank page, which is a platform mandated 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@winnipegfreepress.com Think Tank submissions: opinion@winnipegfreepress.com ● 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 COMMENT EDITOR: RUSSELL WANGERSKY 204-697-7269 ● RUSSELL.WANGERSKY@WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM A8 THURSDAY MARCH 21, 2024 Pipeline situation not quite a crisis A N inconvenience, not a crisis. That’s how government officials and a va- riety of informed observers are describing the abrupt shutdown of an Imperial Oil pipeline that carries Winnipeg’s main supply of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. And they hope the public reacts accordingly. Imperial Oil announced Sunday it has tem- porarily ceased movement of fuel through the pipeline that runs between Gretna and Winnipeg, owing to necessary repairs that must be adminis- tered to a section that runs beneath the Red River about 30 kilometres south of the city. Repair work is expected to take about three months to complete. During that time, fuel that would normally move through the pipeline will be shipped to Win- nipeg by rail and truck. Exactly how much fuel will be moved via alternate modes has not been disclosed; Imperial Oil considers the volume of fuel moved through the pipeline, and the amount of fuel it supplies to Manitoba, to be proprietary information. What is known is that Imperial’s terminal sup- plies roughly 12,000 barrels of gasoline to Winni- peg and surrounding areas daily, and that at the time of the shutdown, there was about a week’s worth of fuel in the city. In response to the shut- down, some 50,000 rail cars have been dispatched to Winnipeg to assist with fuel delivery. After being briefed by Imperial representa- tives, government officials have been measured in their comments regarding the fuel-supply disruption. Both the province and the city have activated their emergency operations protocols to monitor the situation. City of Winnipeg chief ad- ministrative officer Michael Jack said a meeting with Imperial representatives left him “feeling good and confident about where we’re going.” Imperial still has access to its supply, and there are other pipelines and a Shell Oil terminal in the area. All of which is to say there is no need to overre- act. Manitobans are not currently being asked to alter their fuel usage; while that advice indicates no urgent need to reduce consumption, it also car- ries the added message that it’s both unnecessary and unwise to engage in fuel hoarding. That seems like a common-sense approach, but it doesn’t take much memory-jogging to conjure up images of stripped-bare toilet-paper shelves during the early months of the pandemic. Motivated self-interest, even when it’s decidedly misinformed, can make otherwise-rational people do highly irrational things. The hoarding of fuel is unwarranted. And it’s worth considering that while those pandem- ic-prompted stockpiles of toilet paper were un- necessary and rather silly, they created no peril. Not so for gasoline. Storing large volumes of fuel in jerrycans or other small-volume vessels is both foolish and dangerous. Don’t do it. If there’s good news to be gleaned from this un- fortunate turn of events, it’s that Imperial’s shut- down is a pre-emptive measure, taken in response to an inspection earlier this year that “identified integrity concerns” in a section of pipeline south of St. Adolphe. That’s much better than a shut- down necessitated by a breach that resulted in a leak or spill that caused environmental damage. What’s sure to ensue in the coming months, as those rail cars and an untold number of trucks wend their way to Winnipeg filled with fuel, is an intensified discussion of how things are transport- ed in this province. The added structural toll on Highway 75 — perennially criticized for its per- ilous disrepair — will need to be considered, and the recently reheated conversation about relocat- ing Winnipeg’s railyards will no doubt continue. It won’t be business as usual; there’s a chance your local service station could temporarily run short of gas as it awaits a rotating-basis fuel delivery. But remember: inconvenience is not a crisis. EDITORIAL Published since 1872 on Treaty 1 territory and the homeland of the Métis MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES The surface transport of fuel will no doubt revive the debate about how fuel is moved through the province. ;