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On speed and citizen advocacy

— Presented to CoW’s Executive Policy Committee — I’m a downtown resident and have used a bicycle as my primary mode of transportation year round since 2009. I’m here in support of Item No. 4 Speed Limit Reduction on Wellington Crescent . Full stop. From where it starts to where it ends. And on Kingsway. And Grosvenor. And Stella. And Flora. And Manitoba. And Magnus. And… and... and.... Many previous delegates have demonstrated how such a change is both in compliance with City of Winnipeg’s own documents, plans and policies and how, overall, making changes to both laws and infrastructure to prioritize human life over commuter convenience serves a building more livable city for all residents. Frankly, I’m offended that I need to be here. And I’m offended that all this effort is being expended over merely reducing the speed limit, not even spending money to adjust the infrastructure yet. I’m offended that all this effort is being expended over just one street in a privileged nei...
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Upside down economics of Jesus: household action and global change

--Presented at a CAWG event in Altona -- In Living More with Less , Doris Janzen Longacre shares a story about envelopes from Marie Moyer, a missionary in India, who was studying Hindi with Panditji. Marie writes: “From his philosophic mind, which probed the meaning of events and circumstances, I learned more than Hindi.” Just before her teacher’s arrival one day before Christmas, she’d received and opened a pile of Christmas cards and discarded the envelopes as he walked in the room. She writes: “He sat down soberly and studied the situation, then he solemnly scolded me: ‘the reverberation of this wasteful act will be felt around the world’.” Marie was stunned. “What do you mean?” she asked him. “Those envelopes,” he said, pointing to the wastebasket. “You could write on the inside of them.” “Chagrined”, Marie apologized and rescued the envelopes with the help of Panditji, who “caressed each one” as he pulled it out of the garbage. This forever changed Marie’s relationship to p...
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Fines without teeth

The heat is on: no more frozen bus rides, province vows From the FreeP:  "After years of headlines about frigid rides to and from Winnipeg, heat on commercial buses will be mandatory this winter, the province announced Monday." "Bus operators must examine their heat systems daily and provincial bus inspectors will conduct random stops. They will have the authority to place any vehicle that doesn’t comply out of service." I've never sat on an unheated bus from Thompson, so maybe I'm wrong and it is in fact better to have no ride than a cold ride. Just threatening operators with random inspectors and grounded buses seems like punishing the passengers, though. How about just going straight to the fine (maybe don't bench the bus unless the bus company is a repeat offender?) and making it hurt: $10,000. "If a company is caught disobeying rules, it will be fined either $174, $298 or a combined total of $472, depending on the case." “The fine...
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Rail relocation

  I can't get through a news article without wanting to react so I'm here to exorcise my need to opine.  "The NDP government has retained former federal cabinet minister Lloyd Axworthy to lead an ambitious, two-year study into the relocation of rail lines and yards that currently occupy high-value property in Winnipeg’s core, the Free Press has learned. "Sources confirmed Premier Wab Kinew will announce Axworthy’s appointment on Tuesday." It's frustrating to see projects become political footballs and thus take 10 times as long to get done as need be. Do we need endless studies? Isn't it clear that this now secondary rail yard isn't needed in the centre of the city anymore and that its presence actually harms the city? I'm shocked and frustrated that all the handwringing about replacing the Arlington Bridge has not yet to my awareness raised the subject of rail relocation! Why are we planning to build a very expensive bridge with an extremely l...
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The breakup

After a period of growing dis-ease, I broke up with my church in spring. In my experience, we fete new members of the church coming in the door and pretend we don’t even notice when the door closes behind those who walk out. When needed, we perfunctorily rubberstamp the withdrawal of membership, but there is no process beyond that. This troubled me long before I was considering being the one to leave. When it became clear to me during a time away from home that all I had for my church – not only the denomination, for which I long had a list of critiques, but also my local congregation, which I used to cherish as an antidote to the other frustrations – was anger, I decided “stay and fight” was no longer useful; it was time to leave. But I did not want to fade away like so many before. It is not fitting that a group that formally promises to love care for each other should close our eyes when a member walks away. Firstly, on the basis of purported care for each other’s souls, should w...
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All-hallowed consultants

Some headlines just make a person groan and reading the article makes it worse instead of better. That's how I felt after reading this article. So I wrote a letter to my politicians to let them know.  https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2024/09/04/province-eyes-gps-tracking-of-garbage-trucks There's several indications in the article that a fair bit of tracking is already happening. It wasn't lack of knowledge but lack of will that put such a long delay on searching the landfill. And how tragic that we should be concerned this situation might be repeated and our only steps are to make it easier to "catch the guy"! What kind of steps might be taken instead to help women avoid ending up in such vulnerable and dangerous positions in the first place? How about building a society where anyone who treats vulnerable women like garbage is made clearly aware that is not acceptable? And then there's the price tag: $200,000 just to engage a consultant t...
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Rock star at Folklorama

It's my favourite two weeks of summer and this folk dancing nerd is in her element. This year, I got to introduce some Toronto-relocated friends to the joy of the good-old hokey Winnipeg amateur-hour cultural spectacle that is Folklorama. There was a little bit of extra excitement this year. First of all, the usual at the Japanese pavilion. The feisty four-year old was inspired by the low-key armthrusts and choreographed fake fighting of the karate demonstration. (Sorry, folks, but Park's Tae kwon do academy puts on a much more impressive demonstration over at the Korean pavilion.) The eight-year-old was entranced by Hinedo Taiko's drumming, mirroring their movements on her lap. The game-store-manager young dad enthused over the connections to anim é and Pokemon. It was a successful first pavilion. It was enough culture for the littles, so we left them to go play in the park and headed off alone to the Punjabi pavilion with just enough time to catch the show. The opening so...
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