Sound Off -- April 28, 2012

Dodging the tough questions?

I would like to ask Finance Minister Stan Struthers why “20 invited guests had the chance to question Mr. Struthers about the 2012-13 provincial budget.” Is this Syria or is this Manitoba? This is a provincial budget that you are expecting all of us to pay for within this province and then you have the absolute audacity to select the individuals who are even allowed to ask you any questions about this budget? The electorate within Manitoba certainly deserves to be treated so much better than this! How absolutely insulting!

Save the Strand by doing your own fundraising

The city wants to have a casino downtown, the BFMAS wants to open the Strand as an entertainment complex. If there will be a casino, would there not be entertainment right in their building? Then where will that leave the Strand? Also, if BFMAS is committed to this project, maybe they should fundraise privately instead of stripping taxpayers pockets!

Not in favour but I could change my mind

Regarding the discussion of a casino in this area. I believe there is going to be a casino in or around Brandon. I am not in favour of a casino but for two reasons I may change my mind — if it was in the city and run by the city to get away from busloads of local people leaving the city to go to a casino elsewhere, and also that counselling is available for someone getting addicted to the serious problems that may be caused by a casino.

Keep the people spending locally — build a casino here

To the people who vote “no” to the casino — stop, sit down, have a coffee and think about something. Did you vote “yes”to have WestJet to fly in? Maybe a casino would help more for WestJet to fly in. Maybe a casino would help a lot of people who are living in poverty to get better jobs. If we brought more people into Brandon that would help businesses with money spent on food, gas, lodging, etc. Why not put one up? Winnipeg has it and people are complaining Winnipeg is taking over trying to get a centre built like our Keystone Centre. So why don’t we be like Winnipeg and have a casino?

Still willing to donate

Regarding the Sound Off, “Some Thoughts To Ponder.” Firstly, I'm glad you are a two-time cancer survivor. However, having lost a sister-in-law to cancer within the last 12 months, how can you possibly assume what money goes to salaries? If five per cent of my donation goes to research, I am still happy to give. My only hope is that people will not give less because of that Sound Off submission.

Learn the language in order to wave the flag

I am all for immigration, but I think the people who are against the “must speak one of our languages” are wrong. If we have people here with 100 different languages, eventually we will have no Canada. We must have some sort of common language and common laws, or we will become a country of nothing but smaller pockets of everything else in the world. People come here for hopefully a better life and I don’t think they really want to resort back to the laws, etc., of the country they were not happy with and left. Canada became a great country due to immigration, but our original immigrants all speak the English or French language and have accepted or helped form our present laws.

I am scared for our future

Chief Frank Brown says it’s about our people this, our people that. How does he expect “our” people to be qualified to get jobs and support our families now? Our band office is suppose to be handling education in the future. They don’t pay hydro bills on time and are in debt many millions. They are not responsible enough to handle education funds. They can’t even upgrade the kindergarten and nursery schoolyard. My child is running in weeds and playing on the same equipment I played on 20 years ago. I am scared for myself and for the community members. What are we going to do now?

Nursing program’s limited spacing is the problem

Regarding the Assiniboine RHA nursing shortage. This has now been an ongoing concern for many years. There are many bright Westman youth who are interested in the health-care field but have not been accepted into the programs due to the limited number of spaces available each year. The money spent paying for overtime, agency nurses and recruitment incentives has now become staggering.

Too busy learning to worry about study etiquette

Re: Thursday’s Sound Off “Not Correct Study Posture.” As a student at BU for five years, I have spent hundreds of hours studying at the school, in various locations. Oftentimes these long stretches required me to move into different positions, for comfort’s sake. It is unfortunate that it may not look acceptable to some, but when you are studying as long and as hard as many of us do, comfort tends to rule over any “imaginary” etiquette the older generation has for us.

Republished from the Brandon Sun print edition April 28, 2012