Only an echo
On this day 50 years ago, I sat by a radio in a small Nova Scotia village and listened to the terrible news from Dallas. More than an hour passed before I thought to turn on the TV, where Walter Cronkite, in those dark-rimmed glasses, had already announced that John F. Kennedy was dead.
I was 17, untouched by world events. Nothing had yet left a scar, apart from the shadow of the Cuban missile crisis the year before. Then this – and the unrelenting reality of the days that followed, the blood-spattered widow, the coffin returning to Washington, the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald and the terrible majesty of the funeral and burial.
No event since has seared me that deeply, not the deaths of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King in 1968, not the FLQ crisis in 1970, not the Challenger explosion in 1986, not even 9/11. I now believe it is possible to be shocked that much only once in a lifetime. Everything that comes after, no matter how horrible, is only an echo.
David Blaikie, Manotick, Ont.
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Who knew what
Re RCMP Allege Wright Broke Law With Secret Cheque (Nov. 21): The sooner the Senate scandal ends up in court, where all witnesses are sworn in, the sooner this matter will be resolved. The swearing-in process tends to focus the mind and improve memory.
J.R. Kenny, Calgary
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As a member of the Conservative Party, and an informed voter, I have read, from front to back, the Information to Obtain Orders filed by the RCMP in the Wright-Duffy affair. The Globe is to be commended for its balanced and accurate reporting of what is actually contained in the Order.
The information filed by the RCMP with the courts shows three things: 1) Nigel Wright was trying to do the right thing by retrieving $90,000 in taxpayers' money to which Mr. Duffy was not entitled; 2) Mr. Duffy was no friend of the truth in what he told the Senate, the PM and the Canadian public; 3) Stephen Harper knew nothing about the affair and has ensured that the PMO has fully co-operated with the RCMP investigation. It is hard for the opposition to cry cover-up when the PMO gave the RCMP access to 260,000 e-mails.
The truly sad thing is that a misguided, possibly illegal attempt to have $90,000 dollars repaid to taxpayers is somehow a scandal, yet we are still short $40-million in taxpayers' money because of the Liberals' Adscam scandal.
Curt Shalapata, Oshawa, Ont.
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The documents filed by the RCMP alleging bribery, fraud and breach of trust by Nigel Wright and Mike Duffy certainly tighten the circle around Stephen Harper, his gormless operatives in the PMO, and the assorted and very sundry Tory bobbleheads in the Senate.
In the digital age, where information is available in many formats, be it e-mails, phone taps, tweets etc., plausible deniability and Mr. Harper's parliamentary "newspeak" are increasingly ineffective deflection tactics.
Alex Roberts, Halifax
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Satisfy so few
Re Where Is the Man of Competence? (Nov. 20): In 2008, when America's liberals swooned for the insubstantial jargon of "hope and change," they guaranteed themselves a president whose high-water mark would be the 2009 Inaugural. It's been downhill since then.
Never has a president been loved by so many as an idea, only to satisfy so few as an Oval Office reality. The question will trouble historians of the presidency for decades to come: Why did Barack Obama fail so miserably and on so many fronts?
Stu Woolley, Kingston
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Chez-nous
Re Very Clear And Clearly Wrong (editorial, Nov. 20): The Supreme Court did not say a clear majority on a clear question is required for Quebec to secede. What it did say is that a vote in a referendum "by however strong a majority, would have no legal effect on its own."
The effect of a clear majority on a clear question would be to "confer legitimacy on the efforts of the government of Quebec to initiate the Constitution's amendment process in order to secede by constitutional means." According to the court, the only constitutional route to the secession of Quebec is through an amendment to the Constitution. This would require the approval of the federal Parliament and either seven provincial legislatures representing 50 per cent of the Canadian population or all 10 provincial legislatures.
The court did not specify which amending formula would apply. It found that there is a legal obligation to negotiate such a proposed amendment; there is no legal obligation to reach an agreement.
Barbara Cameron, Department of Political Science, York University
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Re Quebec's Choice Of Immigrants (Nov. 20): Significant employment discrimination exists in Canada and Quebec, particularly against immigrants and those not of the favoured majority. Even the government has failed immigrants by not recognizing their education and professional experience. So is it any wonder immigrants experience much higher rates of unemployment and underemployment than those born locally? Is it any wonder they have such difficulty integrating into this society?
While it is important that immigrants abide by the laws of the land – and can exercise their democratic right to oppose ridiculous laws and values – it is equally important that the so-called host society give them the tools and opportunities to flourish.
Deepak Awasti, Montreal
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Wreckage in T.O.
Re Toronto? Tornado? It's Wreckage Either Way (Nov. 21): Canadians suffer from a peculiar, very unfortunate condition of always worrying about what others are thinking. It stems from our national inferiority complex.
We now have a situation where a democratically elected mayor has been removed from office because some comedians made fun of him on late night U.S. television. I know that is not the whole picture, but it is a significant part of the picture.
From where I stand, it's not very flattering to the people who are more worried about our "image" abroad than they are about safeguarding our democratic principles. And no, I don't approve of everything Rob Ford has done in his personal life. But I can easily separate that from the job I elected him to do and that he was doing well.
This whole affair has a lot more to do with his politics than anything else. The crack-smoking was just an excuse. But the day of reckoning is coming in next year's election. Ford Nation forever!
Michael Poliacik, Toronto
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The only thing I want to see now is a headline "Ford Resigns." There is nothing he can say or do to regain his position and respect in this city.
Derek Waite, Toronto
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Name that tune
Re Ford's Friendship Leaves Harper Unhurt In Polls, But Vulnerable In House (online, Nov. 20): We have a new instrument in Canada, a Harpsiford, from Hill and Hall, which sounds unaccountably baffling.
Chandra Jadav, Calgary