The more important omission is any recognition of the efforts of legal aid Manitoba to discourage private bar lawyers from taking on clients. Under Gerry McNeilly's tutelage, legal aid has instituted a policy to deny choice of counsel to clients who can be streamed into the "corroborative law" program, or, with a few exceptions, are respondents in child welfare proceedings. What this means is that, if a person wishing to obtain custody and child support, for example, contacts and wishes to retain me, and I send in an application to legal aid, the latter will hand the file to one of their own lawyers! Ditto, child welfare applications. If McNeilly is looking to reduce the number of lawyers willing to take on legal aid cases, he's going about it the right way.

Allan Fineblit, CEO of the Law Society of Manitoba, suggests lawyers here are busy making too much money to assist the disenfranchised and "middle income earners" requiring legal assistance. He then states the collaborative family law is a positive development whereby lawyers won't represent a client if the case has to be litigated in court. This statement is a paradox of untold proportions. What's the purpose of a lawyer if he or she is unwilling to represent you in a court of law?

I'm going to assume that letter writer Jack Francis has never watched a football game in a covered stadium. I've watched games at both Toronto's Rogers Centre and Vancouver's B.C. Place, and both venues are horrible. The only reason the Argos play in Rogers Centre is because their rent is pretty much free. It only cost Rogers $25 million to buy this garbage venue a few years back. Vancouver is planning on knocking down B.C. Place after the Winter Olympics.