Brown states that former finance minister Greg Selinger is now "publicly dismissive of the need to run balanced budgets every year..." This would be a surprise given that as finance minister, Selinger has presided over 10 successive balanced budgets. If Brown is referring to the 2008 Balanced Budget, Fiscal Management and Taxpayer Accountability Act, this legislation simply allows for balancing the books over the business cycle using the average of the previous three years experience. This removes what experience has shown to be an unreasonable fiscal straight jacket and allows for longer-term planning, accounts for unanticipated events such as natural disasters, avoids program cuts that could do more harm than good and is consistent with what a number of other jurisdictions have already done.

Vita's proposed bylaw defines dangerous snakes as any constrictors or venomous snakes. As this comprises 99 per cent of snakes on the planet, including all that are common in the Winnipeg pet industry, their definition of "dangerous" is based on scare tactics and pseudo science and not facts.

Re: Blackouts don't work (Oct. 22). Kevin Rouire, the "casual fan", is the reason that the Winnipeg Jets are no longer here and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers may face this year in the red.