Alberta reality show
As the new leader of Alberta, Jim Prentice has promised "a commitment to integrity and acceptance of responsibility" (For Prentice, A Huge Task Ahead – Sept. 8).
Integrity and responsibility are motherhood issues and ought to be an implicit part of any Canadian government. That they need to be voiced at all is a sign of the times in Alberta, post-Redford.
Mr. Prentice will have to cling fiercely to them, and watch every nickel Alberta Conservatives spend. Otherwise, it will be Groundhog Day all over again, without the charm of fiction.
Geoff Rytell, Toronto
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A senate, because
Senate apologists claim the value of the Senate is that it provides "sober second thought" (Careful Readers Wanted, Apply Within – editorial Sept. 8). This group of political flacks passed a bill knowing that it will cost taxpayers huge sums to defend court cases that will be lost because parts of the bill are sure to be ruled unconstitutional. Remind me: Why do we have a senate?
Catherine Shaw, Victoria
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When familiar isn't
Anyone who has experienced the energy of a Spirit of the West concert will feel both sadness and gratitude for the openness with which John Mann is sharing his reality with Alzheimer's disease. At 51, he – like most of his middle-aged audience – should be reaping the rewards of the prime of life and decades of hard work. His candour reminds us that we must live fully while we can.
As a fellow 51-year-old who has noted the puzzling, albeit slow loss of memory, and laughed it off with friends and colleagues who also see the changes in themselves, the joking about early-onset Alzheimer's is suddenly not funny any more.
Strength to John Mann and wife, Jill Daum, and kudos to The Globe and Mail for a sensitive profile.
Maribeth Adams, Kamloops
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3 + 1 telcos = 0 gain
Re Nationalizing Telecom Companies Wouldn't Work. Just Look At Canada Post (Sept. 5): The current state of Canada Post is unrelated to its ownership. Technological change has sealed the fate of postal companies worldwide.
And it isn't because Sasktel must compete with the telecom giants that Sasktel is an efficient state-owned enterprise, but be-cause the giants must compete with Sasktel that the industry is more competitive in Saskatchewan than in any other province.
Had the failed federal government attempt to increase the number of significant players in the telecom industry from three to four firms succeeded, the only result would have been the division of profits among four firms instead of three – the incumbents being worse off and consumers not noticing any difference.
The solution to the lack of competition in oligopolistic sectors is not increasing the number of firms from a few to a few plus one.
It is rather through a strong government presence in the sector by either directly providing the good/service, or regulating the sector (particularly in regard to the price regime).
Gustavo Indart, department of economics, University of Toronto
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Spend it vs. stash it
Re How To End Our Nobel Drought? Invest (Sept. 8): Indira Samarasekera, president of the University of Alberta, wonders about the results of establishing a "Grand Opportunities Program" or an "International Empowerment Fund." We don't need more investments. We need to get the universities to start spending their endowment funds (some $1-billion in the case of the U of A; some $1.66-billion for the U of T).
Universities must stop their hoarding and spend more on what they are supposed to be doing: teaching and research.
John H. Pearson, Victoria
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Ukraine's potential
Re We'll Be There For The Baltics (editorial, Sept. 6): "NATO intelligence," you write, tells us that significant Russian forces are in Ukraine. This statement is a remake of the old joke about military intelligence being an oxymoron. NATO's intelligence, when actually published, consists of unverifiable cellphone snapshots or grainy, poorly annotated satellite images produced by a private company.
When you call Kiev a "nascent democracy being torn apart at the barrel of a gun," you conveniently omit the fact that the current regime exists only by virtue of a bloody uprising that deposed the previous democratically elected regime (which, admittedly, was corrupt).
And many of the 2,500 civilian deaths in eastern Ukraine are the result of indiscriminate shelling by Ukrainian forces on orders from the "nascent democracy."
Patrick Cowan, Calgary
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Cable catharsis
Re A 'Sea Change' For Canadian TV (Report on Business, Sept. 6): Critics of our TV system seem to be proposing changes that would cause channels no one wants to watch to fold, leaving consumers with more money to pay for channels they do want, thereby allowing the latter to thrive.
My, my, we have to nip this kind of thinking in the bud.
Who knows where it could lead if it caught on elsewhere in the economy?
Teri Jane Bryant, Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary
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Jobs for grads
Re Recent Grads Increasingly Jobless, Study Shows (Sept. 5): Employment rates for university grads across Canada are well on their way to pre-recession levels. In 2013, the average unemployment rates in the 25-29 age bracket were: 4.2 per cent for university grads, 7 per cent for trade graduates, 5.2 per cent for college grads, 8.2 for high school graduates.
The average income of grads with BA's from Canadian universities was $79,000 in 2010 for ages 25-64, compared to $60,000 for apprentices, $56,000 for college grads, $46,000 for other trades.
For humanities grads, average income was $64,300 in 2010 (rising quickly from $42,000 for recent grads aged 25-29). Graduates of computer and information sciences and social sciences had average earnings of more than $80,000 a year. In business and engineering, average earnings were close to $90,000 and $100,000 respectively.
The data consistently reinforces the value of a university degree in today's economy.
Paul Davidson, president, Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada
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That much safer
Re Bills Promote Backbenchers From 'Nobodies' To 'Pawns' (Sept. 8): Backbencher pawns are being kept busy as front men for PMO crime bills. I await the Respect for Fearless Leaders Act, imposing fines and a mandatory prison sentence for drawing a mustache on any image of the PM. Just think how much safer we all would be.
Jim Reynolds, Niagara on the Lake, Ont.