Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Try to keep letters to fewer than 150 words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com
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None – and not
In the last Ontario election, almost 30,000 voters declined their votes. They went to their polling stations, had their names crossed off, then said a resounding, recorded "No Thank You!"
With their Fair Elections Act, the Conservatives made sure nothing like that would happen in this election. Declined votes are no longer recorded. The government doesn't care to know how many people reject all the candidates.
So if a majority decides that neither the Reds, the Blues, the Oranges or the Greens can do the job, we're never going to know. And that doesn't sound a whole lot like democracy.
Peter Ferguson, Kimberley, Ont.
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NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair took a principled stand by voting against Bill C-51, which, as per the vision of Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, divided Canadians into two classes of citizenship.
But Mr. Mulcair wants to scrap the Trans-Pacific Partnership – a deal he has not seen, which even critics have said isn't so bad. His base is more important to him than what's good for Canada as a whole. So much for principles.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau voted for C-51, even though he thought it was a bad idea. So much for integrity. As for Mr. Harper, where to begin? A total lack of respect for Parliament (re-member when no one knew what "prorogue" meant?), for science (who needs reliable statistics?), or for freedom itself (See: Bill C-51)? Green Leader Elizabeth May's stand on the TPP is as narrow and short-sighted as Mr. Mulcair's.
Canada deserves better.
Amal Ahmed, Toronto
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More than $4-billion. For repairing roads and bridges? To build public housing or fund the arts? For our national parks or foreign aid? To promote animal welfare? Engage in scientific research?
No, no, no, no and no. It's for well-to-do dairy farmers to compensate them for a small loss of market share from the TPP; $4-billion that comes with the backing of the major political parties. This is why I am not voting.
Robert Aterman, Toronto
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You. Not you
Stephen Harper's government is focusing on accepting refugees from "ethnic and religious minorities who face serious threats of genocide" (Tories Apply Specific Criteria For Refugees – Oct. 9). A Prime Minister who intervenes to make that happen has my respect. Is there anything the left won't slam him for? Disgusting.
Frank Simpson, St. John's
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If Stephen Harper feels he must approve each refugee entering Canada, it would make him not just a micro-manager: With apologies to Nobel winner Arthur McDonald, Mr. Harper would be the world's first neutrino manager – and I don't like his style one particle.
Chris Clark, Uxbridge, Ont.
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How freedom works
In the 1920s, five Alberta women fought to have women recognized as persons. The landmark decision by the British Privy Council, the highest level for legal appeals in Canada at the time, was a milestone victory for the rights of women in Canada.
The suffragette movement struggled here, as it did in other countries; it was only because of political expediency during the First World War that a breakthrough was made. In 1919, the "Act to Confer the Electoral Franchise upon Women" was passed. The provinces followed in quick order, except Quebec, which did not give them the vote until 1940.
The election should be a celebration and a reminder of victory for women's rights to vote and to be recognized as a person. The niqab issue is overblown and an insult to women by women. It took Western society centuries for women to be considered as persons. The niqab is a symbol of the oppression of women.
Oversexualization in our society can be expressed by clothes (fashionable niqabs included) and makeup (Scheherazade/bedroom eyes). Zunera Ishaq has gone to extreme lengths to gain "popularity" and become a front-page "star," making herself look her best at any occasion. She has insulted me and the many women who had to suffer for centuries to get where we are today.
Yvonne Vermeulen, Ottawa
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Enough with letter writers' justifications over why they think niqabs should not be worn.
It comes down to one thing: They don't like it. Since that is not an appropriate reason to tell another person what to do, they trot out reasons that sound more noble – it is against Canadian values, it is sexist, or there is no basis for face covering in the Koran, so it's not a religious requirement. None of these excuses matter.
If a person wants to cover her face in public, it is nobody's business but her own. If she is being coerced, forcing her to uncover her face is not going to liberate her and the crime in such a case is the coercion, not the niqab.
Further coercion to remove that niqab only compounds the crime.
Shauna Dobbie, Toronto
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I have always been repelled by the niqab: a seeming rebuke of any shared, free and open society.
In the hands of the Conservatives however, its use as a political wedge issue is also a rebuke of such a society, only deeper.
I value our "free society" and find myself surprised to be cheering the educated, thoughtful, courage of Zunera Ishaq and her principled choice (Ishaq Says She Now Feels Unsafe In Canada – Oct. 9). I still disagree with that choice, but I totally support her right to make it. It's uncomfortable, it's taken work. I guess that's how freedom works.
Don Derksen, Winnipeg
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After death? Death
Cryobiology is an established science with many successes in the fields of medicine and agriculture (Brain Freeze: Can Putting Faith In Cryonics Deliver Life After Death? – Life & Arts, Oct. 8).
The long-term preservation at low temperatures of sperm, eggs, embryos, parasites, red blood cells, bone marrow, stem cells and many plant cells are routine in labs and hospitals throughout the world. More complex systems, such as skin, corneas, ovarian and endocrine tissue are also preservable at liquid nitrogen temperatures. These achievements are the product of careful research over many years generously supported by government funding.
Cryonics, which is largely concerned with the preservation of whole bodies, has little, if any, scientific validity, unless hope is the main justification. With current technology, the physics of heat transfer and vitrification procedures essentially exclude preservation of large masses without irreversible damage before and after freezing.
The wish to live forever for many individuals would be a fate worse than death. "Freeze, Wait and Reanimate" is a delusion.
Michael J. Ashwood-Smith, professor emeritus, biology, University of Victoria
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Face-to-face time
Re We Need to Talk (Oct. 9): On several business trips to Japan, I was surprised to see that in all the restaurants I was in, each table had a symbol that showed a cellphone in a red circle with a diagonal bar across it. It was obeyed, even though we sometimes did not have a common language.
Jørgen Christensen, Kingston