Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 6, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba Soothing the spirit Re: Care for the soul (Jan. 2) I want to express my gratitude to John Long- hurst for bringing to light the critical importance of spiritual care in long-term care. The stories of spiritual care encounters at the end of life are truly inspiring. As I write this, I find myself on an unplanned trip to a so-called developing country in South America, to help my mother transition from her home into a long-term care facility, perhaps her last station in life. What strikes me most, in addition to the high standards of care for the body and mind, is that the spiri- tual well-being of residents and patients there is paramount. There is much to be learned about meeting the spiritual needs of those who access health-care services. As a seasoned spiritual care practi- tioner in a faith-based personal care home, I am familiar with the spiritual needs and challenges that accompany the elderly on their journey into the last stages of life, including long-term care and end-of-life care. I am also familiar with the unpleasant perennial threat to the continuation of spiritual care services if the necessary support from donors does not come in. The positive impact of trained spiritual care practitioners in terms of patient/resident experience, quality of life, length of stay and savings to the health-care system cannot be overemphasized. In some health regions, fiscal realities are such that spiritual care services can only be provided by trained volunteers in collaboration with faith community leaders and Indigenous cultural and spiritual leaders. Furthermore, in the absence of professional spiritual care practitioners, well-meaning health-care staff, doctors, nurses, housekeepers, etc. frequently scramble to ad- dress the spiritual and religious needs of patients, residents and family members, often feeling ill-equipped to respond to life’s most complex spiritual concerns. I have great respect for those who do the best they can to alleviate the spiritual pain of patients and residents in their darkest hours. However, when “the best they can do” is not enough, it takes someone who is versed and fluent in the language of spiritual distress and healing. The shelving of the provincial spiritual care strategic plan in 2017 has caused a significant setback in the efforts to integrate spiritual care into whole person health care. However, the need for competent spiritual health care in Manitoba continues to demand our full attention. I too am hopeful that spiritual health care will once again find it’s rightful place in our holistic health-care system. When I return home from my unplanned trip, I feel comforted that my mother will be in good hands physically, emotionally, socially and spiritually. I long for that feeling of confidence for all Manitobans who need to access our health-care services. FERDINAND FUNK East Selkirk The science of speed Re: The politics of traffic safety in Winnipeg (Think Tank, Dec. 30) Recently, the conversations around road safety have reached a fever pitch in Winnipeg and many other municipalities. Consider the conflict that is most in style to talk about: automobiles versus cyclists. On one hand, there are gigantic lozenges weighing 2,000 to 5,000 pounds with big blind spots and fast acceleration, capable of sustained speed. Much research has gone into their pas- sengers’ safety, and very little has gone into the safety of everyone else. On the other hand, there is a (typically much) slower machine with virtually no blind spots, capable of comparatively slow acceleration and speed sustained based on how long it’s been going. There’s recently been an opinion piece in the Free Press from Curt Pankratz, who claims the science has been discarded in favour of the emotional by the cyclist lobby here in Winnipeg. He goes on to note that this is a structural issue caused by the dissolution of a traffic safety board in 2019. He then asserts that the cycling lobby has politicized safety. Well, if the safety of a human being is political, sure. I am a cyclist, I have not owned a car since 2012 and I plan to not own one again. I guess whether I live or die is political, then. So back to the science of speed. Councillors and traffic engineers happen to be human. Humans aren’t swayed by data, generally. The cycling lob- by has presented much data from studies all over the world, supporting slower speeds and infra- structure changes, and nothing has changed. Ian Walker, a teacher and cub scout leader, has appeared multiple times in council and other city hall committees with the children he teaches. How on the nose do you have to be? This slower, safer streets business is all about the children and more vulnerable. How many families must be broken before our systems change? CYNTHIA RATELLE Winnipeg Low bridge or no bridge Re: Troubled waters (Dec. 17) My wife and I walked from Raglan and Wolse- ley to the Omand’s train/foot bridge shortly be- fore the new year. I took the long route at Portage Avenue (not cutting through the church parking lot) and it took me seven minutes. Barb took the short route over the small foot bridge and it took her three and a half minutes. Therefore the sav- ing is about three and one half minutes. Experi- ence tells me running is twice as fast as walking and biking is twice as fast as running. Therefore, a cyclist will save about a minute or less using the proposed new bridge. The current bridge does not flood every year and when it does, it is only for a few weeks or perhaps a month or two. Big deal. Coun. Jan- ice Lukes said, “It’s either a high bridge or no bridge.” I say low bridge or no bridge. Lukes and others want to spend $3 million to $5 million so a few dozen cyclists can save about a minute on their rides for about a month every other year or so when the river floods the current bridge. This is a terrible waste of money and it will seriously change the nature of the park, for the worse, not for the better. Winnipeg is in terrible financial shape and has much more pressing needs than a long, high bridge at Omand’s Creek. Think crum- bling streets, an inadequate sewer system that frequently pumps raw sewage into the rivers, a growing homeless problem and violent crime that is causing businesses to close up. Oh yes, and some people are seriously injured by the crimi- nals. Winnipeg has a history of budgets that balloon out of control, so $5 million is probably too low. Also, I’d like to see the engineer’s report that says that the current bridge is close to being unsafe. It is made of concrete slabs with steel reinforc- ing and is only about 50 years old. There are no obvious signs of it being unsafe. The Arlington and Louise bridges are made of steel and are both over 100 years old. I want the city to show us information from qualified and independent sources that the current bridge has safety issues. It appears to me this push for a high bridge is driven by dogma, not facts. RAY HIGNELL 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. OUR VIEW YOUR SAY COMMENT EDITOR: RUSSELL WANGERSKY 204-697-7269 ● RUSSELL.WANGERSKY@WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM A6 MONDAY JANUARY 6, 2025 Focus on the public good, not the paycheque T HE usual method is a carrot, not a stick. Businesses often set fiscal targets that financially reward executives who are successful at meeting the budgets and goals ap- proved by their boards of directors. Bonuses do exist, and they do get paid. Not always, but they do get paid. But it’s rarer to hear of businesses that operate what could be seen as reverse-onus compensation — docking senior executives pay they’ve already received, or which has been committed to them, for failing to meet goals set earlier in the year — goals that changes in market forces beyond their control may make unattainable. Because that puts those executives in a clear conflict of interest: it pitches their own contin- ued financial interests against the interests of the wise stewardship of the companies they’re running. A company may well have interests that are much larger than slavishly sticking to an unreachable budget made at the beginning of a single fiscal year. Bluntly, executives might wind up focusing on making budget in the short term to keep their pay, rather than on longer-term goals that are more important. It’s one thing to lose a year-end bonus — it’s something else again to find the money to pay back part of your salary. And that brings us to the concept of laws that financially punish cabinet ministers for failing to meet budget targets because they proactively choose to address new and important issues that may arise in provincial administration. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, in an op-ed in the Think Tank section of the Free Press on Dec. 31, argued for a full return to a law that penalized the cabinet personally for failing to deliver a balanced budget — and, in fact, a strengthening of it, saying, “Manitoba’s first balanced budget law was introduced 1995. Under that law, if the government failed to balance the budget, the extra pay an MLA receives for being a cabinet minister would be cut by 20 per cent. If the deficit continues into the next year, the extra pay was docked 40 per cent. “That would mean this year cabinet ministers would see their pay slashed by about $12,000. If the deficit continues to next year, ministers would lose almost $24,000 in pay. That should inspire MLAs to do some cost-cutting.” The CTF argued that the law lost its bite when a past government weakened those punishments, and said that should change. “The government needs to bring back real pun- ishments for politicians who fail to balance the budget. … If the government fails to balance the budget, all cabinet ministers, not just the finance minister, would receive a pay cut. That’s likely to make the ministers take a second look at their own budget spreadsheets,” CTF Prairie director Gage Haubrich wrote. In other words, the idea is that there should be a financial penalty to make cabinet ministers focus on their personal finances, rather than reflecting broadly on all aspects of the common good. It might well be effective, to some de- gree — but focusing on their paycheque first is probably not the way we want provincial cabinet ministers to do their jobs. Oh, and one other point, which, though smaller, is also important when it comes to penalties for failing to balance budgets. Government is not, in fact, a private business answerable to its board of directors, nor is it answerable solely to taxpayers. Governments are answerable to every one of their citizens, which is why every citizen gets a vote, whether they make enough money to pay taxes or not. Public officials should receive their pay, and shouldn’t need carrots or sticks to con- vince them to do their jobs for the public good. EDITORIAL MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS FILES Public officials should budget with the public good in mind, without fearing performance-related penalties. Published since 1872 on Treaty 1 territory and the homeland of the Métis ;