One-liner club
Re Harper, Leaders Target Putin As Ukraine Takes Centre Stage (Nov. 17): Stephen Harper is now a member of the exclusive one-liner club with his "Get out of Ukraine" shirtfronter to Vladimir Putin. The PM has joined Ronald Reagan ("Tear down this wall"), Margaret Thatcher ("The lady's not for turning") and the grandaddy of them all, Clint Eastwood ("Go ahead, make my day").
The thing that sets them all apart (Clint Eastwood excepted), is that each one said what they meant and meant what they said.
In a world where excuses are far more common than principled stands, this is a very exclusive club indeed that our Prime Minister has just joined.
Charles Reid, Nanaimo, B.C.
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A little dog barking loudly for attention among the big dogs.
M.P. Martin, Ottawa
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Does anyone think Stephen Harper told China to get out of Tibet? I guess there wouldn't be enough political mileage in that.
Robert Hogarth, Kingsville, Ont.
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Though I'm glad that Vladimir Putin feels pressured by the international community on his unjust occupation of Ukraine, I wish that the G20 leaders had sat him down to discuss these matters. How many times do 20 of the leaders of the world's most powerful economies meet? Seldom – and then, instead of sitting a stubborn child down and talking sense to him, they ostracize him.
Maybe this will pressure him to reform, but how many children are mended through exclusion? We've done that too much, so why not try inclusion? The whole scene reminds me of a playground in elementary school.
Omar Farooq, Calgary
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Stephen Harper has made me unbelievably proud to be a Canadian.
Norman Levine, Toronto
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Paid in Canada
Re Canada's Immigration Policies Hurt Bottom Line, China Says (Nov. 17): The Chinese consul-general in Calgary laments the fact that Canada's immigration policies prevent Chinese firms from bringing their own workers to Canada to lower their costs.
What he seems not to understand is that our immigration policy does not single out China but prevents any employer from importing workers to undercut Canadian levels of wages and benefits. It is a rational policy; judging by the complaints, it seems to be working.
Raphael Girard, Ottawa
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A child's future
Re A New 'Right' Does Natives No Favours (editorial, Nov. 17): Why are chemotherapy and traditional healing practices to treat an 11-year-old's acute lymphoblastic leukemia mutually exclusive? Why have all parties in this struggle fallen prey to an "either/or" mentality?
If I were the judge, I would have ordered mediation between the hospital and the parent and girl, so that both forms of treatment could be administered simultaneously. That way, cultural practices could be respected, while allowing her a chance to benefit from modern Western medicine. If she lives, both sides could claim "victory" but who cares?
Marshall Korenblum, chief psychiatrist, Hincks-Dellcrest Centre for Children and Families, Toronto
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Isn't it unfortunate that a so-called victory for aboriginal rights comes at the expense of almost certain death for an 11-year-old who, with conventional chemotherapy, has a 90-per-cent chance of being cured of cancer?
Robert Pybus, Kingston
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I see this as a mother asserting that "life" for her and her child has to be lived according to what gives aboriginal peoples their aboriginal identity. True, the right to live according to one's values is not unconditional, but the Constitution gives aboriginal peoples that exceptional right.
Media condemnation of the judgment is inherently racist, based on a Western point of view that implies a) Western medicine alone counts and b) humanity means preserving life, regardless of conditions. Blinded by these assumptions, many now feel free to castigate the mother, and with her all aboriginal peoples.
As a non-aboriginal, I find this offensive. We need to see the aboriginal view of "humanity."
Catherine Bragg, Toronto
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Who knew? A massage therapy clinic in Florida is part of aboriginal medicine.
William O'Meara, Toronto
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My four-year-old has been in treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia since July, 2013. This is what I would say to D.H., the mother an 11-year-old with the same disease: We are the lucky ones in the world of pediatric cancer. Our girls have the "good" kind of leukemia, with an enviable prognosis. It is a long, cruel cure, no doubt. And yes, the chemotherapy is poison. It has to be, to stop the rogue cells bent on multiplying until they crowd out every healthy blood cell in their bodies. Without chemotheraphy, those rogue cells will win.
In the early months of my daughter's treatment, she could not walk because of weakness and pain in her legs. She could not eat because of nausea. Her little head ached. A year later, she runs and plays like any other kid in her junior kindergarten class.
D.H., I beg you to reconsider. Yes, chemotherapy will send you and your child to hell and back. But you'll both wake from the nightmare, and she'll have all the bright days she is meant to live.
Megan Easton, Toronto
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MPs? So what?
Re Ottawa To Address Harassment Issue Behind Closed Doors (Nov. 17): Complaining that parliamentarians have no means of dealing with harassment is nonsense. If the Criminal Code and Human Rights Act are inadequate to deal with harassment on Parliament Hill, they have to be changed. Millions of people depend on these laws for protection from abuse, which includes harassment. People on the Hill are not entitled to protection that is not available to every citizen.
John Feldsted, Winnipeg
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India's ironies
How ironic is it that poor women in India have to face being raped when going to the bathroom, while conservative Indian leaders decry the act of kissing in public as "corruption of Indian purity" (Nowhere To Go, No Relief In Sight; Pucker Up, Young Indians – Nov. 17)?
How "pure" is any society in which girls and women fear for their safety while men assault them with impunity, with blame for these criminal attacks often assigned to the victims?
How can these religious and civic elders live with themselves?
Sheila Dropkin, Toronto
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Membership has …
Re Ezra Levant And The Survival Anxiety Of The Establishment (Life & Arts, Nov. 17): I must thank John Doyle for setting me straight. Here I was thinking we had to be, or at least read, columnists like him to become part of the Canadian Establishment.
Now I learn that all we have to do is tune in to Ezra Levant's antics. I look forward to all the power and perquisites that ensue once I join this elite group.
Teri Jane Bryant, Calgary