Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - September 3, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba In support of critics Re: Increasing restrictions could silence culture critics (Aug. 29) I’ve often wondered why the Free Press didn’t cover some concerts. Now thanks to Jen Zoratti’s excellent column I now understand. Long live the critic. PAUL FOREST Winnipeg Failure on health care It’s a disaster. This one statement sums up what has happened with Manitoba health care since Wab Kinew’s ascent to the premier’s office. Manitobans are tired of platitudes and ques- tionable comments from Kinew and Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara. Where are the newly hired front-line workers in the system? What categories of workers are they — doctors, nurses, aides? How many are there in each category? Where are they working? They appear to be invisible on the front lines. Not only are ER wait times a disaster, so too are the wait times for many surgeries. Wait times are not being publicly reported so we don’t even know what they are. But just ask any person who is on one of these waiting lists and you will get the picture. Some are waiting for years. Mean- while, their condition worsens while they wait. This makes the surgeries more complicated with longer recovery times. We used to have rehab beds for people who could not be discharged home safely when this happened. Those beds were changed into long-term care beds last year by the Kinew government. What progress, if any, is being made on the res- toration of emergency rooms closed by the previ- ous government? Kinew is good at spending our money on supporting the construction industry but not on actually staffing the system. Putting up more buildings is not the answer to fixing the system. Kinew is good at making excuses and shuffling services around. He is not good at mak- ing real change. He is not good at transparency. And why are union leaders the only people in the system who speak up for Manitobans? Where are the leaders within the system? Most people have no idea who the leaders managing the system are, the ones who have the power to effect change. They are silent, anony- mous, invisible. There are a lot of issues, a lot of unanswered questions. The system was a disaster before October 2023 and it is even worse now with no change in sight. ARIEL LEE Winnipeg Vigilantism not right, but understandable Re: Vigilantism and property crime in Winnipeg (Editorial, Aug. 30) Michael Prince, a criminal with a lengthy record, including 17 theft convictions, has filed a civil suit against several people who allegedly punched, kicked and hit him when he returned to the scene of a crime he had committed only a half-hour earlier — apparently with the intention of committing yet another crime. The lawsuit demonstrates among other things, an incredible amount of chutzpah on his part. (The classic exemplar of chutzpah is the son who kills his parents and then asks the court for mer- cy because he is an orphan.) Prince’s lawsuit alleges that the amount of force used was more than was necessary to detain him pending the arrival of law enforce- ment personnel. Winnipeggers know that for property crimes in particular, that arrival might occur hours or days later or in some cases, never. How exactly was that detention supposed to take place? The retailer has a business to run with customers to serve, staff to deploy and so on. He may not want to ask two or three employees to detain an apparent criminal who may become belligerent. Many Winnipeggers who have been the victims of crime suffer from “constant fear, anxiety, apprehensiveness, depression… and ongoing migraines, insomnia and panic attacks.” Interestingly, these are the same things that Prince alleges that he is experiencing. Perhaps this insight will help him to develop some empa- thy for his many victims and to express remorse for what he has inflicted upon them and other Winnipeggers who, while not crime victims, are afraid to go downtown because of criminal activity. Whether he would use some of the $1 million he claims to have stolen previously or the “signif- icant payment” he expects from his lawsuit to ameliorate the damage he has inflicted on others is unlikely. “Vigilante justice” isn’t justice. And it has little if any deterrent effect. But it is an understand- able reaction by otherwise law-abiding citizens to the failure of government to perform arguably its most fundamental role — ensuring the health and safety of its citizens and the security of their property. The more we continue to take a laissez-faire approach to crime, the more we should expect to see this kind of response by victims, bystanders and others. ROBERT PRUDEN Winnipeg How wars begin This is how it starts. First there were two very amicable neighbours. For the 70 years that I’ve been alive, Canada and the U.S. shared more than a border. Goods and services flowed both ways, travel happened in both directions, and families even spread into both countries. Our cultures were slightly different, with some clear contrasts, but we shared many similarities as well. Then along comes one man, supported by groups of very committed citizens with a plan to shake up the status quo, and suddenly hate speech begins. “Canadians are taking advantage of us and have been for years.” “They are nasty and mean.” People, and specifically young people hear this. They believe it. We don’t like the Canadians. They are trouble. Fear and hatred spread. After a while there is lots of animosity toward Canadians by those living south of the border, and in time it begins to go both ways. Some even say their Canadian government is restrictive and power hungry. The Canadian population needs to be freed from this. Pretty soon a whole nation can justify trade sanctions, hate speech and possible annexation. This is how wars begin. I hope, for the sake of my children and grand- children, that this ridiculous and vile movement is stopped. Soon. It sickens me to think of what might be coming between two formerly friendly neighbour coun- tries. All because of one man whose massive ego is fed by some wealthy and power hungry support- ers. CINDY BURKETT Winnipeg No reason to store U.S. alcohol Re: Banned booze from U.S. hasn’t spoiled in storage, MLL says (Aug. 25) I do not understand why we are storing Ameri- can booze. We’ve already paid for it. We’re sitting on $3 million worth at cost here in Manitoba and at MLL’s profit margins we could likely sell it for $6 million. We are not hurting the U.S. by storing it. We are just hurting ourselves. What is hurting the U.S. is not ordering any more of their product. In Quebec, they are con- sidering tossing some products out. It seems some products have expiry dates that are near. Why not put a sale on these goods and at least make some money? The answer, it would seem to me, would be to get the product back on the shelves and do not order any more American product until we settle the tariff situation RICK SPARLING 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 WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 3, 2025 The convoy — from dangerous to ridiculous ‘T HE wheels of justice move slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.” It’s a proverb about justice in general, and about the way that it arrives for those who break the law: it doesn’t happen quickly, but instead, carefully. The proverb has been credited to both Greek and Chinese sources, and has been around for centuries. It seems particularly apt for criminal charges. After all, years after the fact, the leaders of the 2022 Ottawa convoy and occupation are still wending their way through the just system: Pat King, one of the loudest organizers, was given a 12-month conditional sentence in February — reduced by nine months for his time spent in jail before his trial — for five charges, including mischief, counselling to commit mischief, coun- selling to obstruct a public or peace officer, and two counts of disobeying a court order. Two other central figures in the convoy, Ta- mara Lich and Chris Barber, are still awaiting their sentences after being convicted of mischief in April. They will be sentenced Oct. 7. Prose- cutors have asked for a seven-year sentence for Lich and eight years for Barbour. But the wheels of justice aren’t moving for all — at least, not now. In some ways, the reason justice has slowed for one convoy organizer is enough to make any sensible person roll their eyes. The Ottawa Citizen reported this weekend that a countrywide warrant had been issued for James Bauder, after he failed to appear for a court date in late August. Bauder is the founder of Canada Unity, which at one point in the convoy issued a memorandum of understanding calling for Canada’s Governor General to essentially oust the federal government. Bauder has been charged with mischief to ob- struct property, disobeying a lawful court order and obstructing/restricting a police officer. But he wasn’t even in Canada. Instead, he was in the United States, where, believe it or not, he’s asking the American government to grant him political asylum. On the one hand, you can understand Bauder’s actions: he has to stay in the United States to keep his attempt at an asylum status in process, and a trip to court would mean leaving the U.S. On the other, he’s arguing essentially that he can’t get a fair trial in Canada, and that he shouldn’t have to face the consequences of his own actions in a court of law and would end up a political prisoner. Really? He’s actually claiming that he faces a kind of judicial persecution for his actions? In Canada? Bauder has posted on social media asking sup- porters to contact U.S. President Donald Trump to ask for help with his asylum application. Years after the Ottawa occupation, one thing is for certain: the exceedingly slow wheels of jus- tice have helped to show that the convoy and its leadership have trundled from pathos to bathos: pathos makes you feel pity or sadness for some- one. But bathos is when things that looked serious move suddenly to the trivial or the downright ridiculous. The convoy, for a while, looked like a serious threat to Canadians, despite their hot tubs, boun- cy castles and repeated claims that it was all a giant love-in of freedom-loving citizens. While it’s years in the past now, the blockades in Ottawa, Windsor and other parts of the country — and the way many of those blockades had to be broken up by large-scale police force — left a mark on Canada. Now, despite the clear damage to the Canadian economy in 2022, the whole thing is starting to look a tragic joke that the rest of Canadians have had to put up with for far too long. EDITORIAL SEAN KILPATRICK / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES James Bauder Published since 1872 on Treaty 1 territory and the homeland of the Métis ;