To the Editor:
On June 7, 12-year-old Myles Porrok of Eden, Man. fell off his bicycle while performing "simple jumps" and died of head injury. It was a horrific tragedy that may have been avoidable if he was wearing a helmet.
Two days later, Bill 202 - The Highway Traffic Amendment Act (Bicycle Helmets) was presented to the legislature for the third time by Liberal MLA Kevin Lamoureux. The bill sought to make it mandatory for all cyclists to wear helmets. With school closing and the summer season amongst us, the bill would have influenced tens of thousands of Manitobans, especially Manitoba children.
Manitoba lags behind other provinces in several ways. Progressive legislation seems to be one. Six provinces in Canada have mandatory bicycle helmet laws; Ontario and New Brunswick enacted them as early as 1995, British Columbia in 1996, Nova Scotia in 1997 and Prince Edward Island in 2003. While Saskatchewan does not have a mandatory helmet bill, the town of York does.
Fourteen years after Ontario and New Brunswick, the NDP government again killed legislation to make it mandatory here in Manitoba. However the "NDP party support (similar legislation) in other provinces," noted Lamoureux.
According to. Lamoureux, "it is straightforward, to make it mandatory for people to wear helmets for bicycles." He said that he is willing to "amend it to see it apply to children under the age of 16," because the "Conservatives have implied support for an amended bill."
Another proponent for the bill was Tory MLA Larry Maguire (Arthur-Virden) who called it "preventable medicine" and "an opportunity to eliminate some head injuries."
On the other end, the NDP brought forward Minister of Healthy Living Kerri Irvin-Ross who opposed the bill because she feels the government has put forward a "comprehensive education strategy." She noted that the NDP government has to date distributed 52,000 low-cost helmets and 4,200 helmets for free. "The goal is to ensure that we are encouraging physical activity and ensuring that people have the education they need and they deserve to make the right choice"
Lamoureux noted that by making it mandatory, helmet use will be like a "behavior change, just like seat belts", and added "the minister's arguments are the same against the seat belts in the 1980s."
Hussain Guisti
Thompson
