Money in the bank
Canada’s largest banks have asked the federal government to regulate them because they can’t trust themselves to do the right thing (Big Six Banks Urge Ottawa To Tighten Mortgage Rules – front page, Feb. 6). That makes it unanimous.
Murray Angus, Ottawa
Snow job
Re D.C. Digs Out After Paralyzing Storm (online, Feb. 6): So how long before the Republicans blame Barack Obama for Snowmageddon?
Dan Fraser, Toronto
Can we handle the truth?
Your article A Tube With A View (Focus, Feb. 6) suggests even fully censored, government-owned TV “news” channels should be given access to Canadian homes. This naive perspective puts media freedom ahead of human rights and democratic values. While I would argue that somewhat biased news services such as CNN and Al Jazeera English have a place in Canadian cable lineups (because, after all, all communication is biased), we should draw the line at state-funded and state-controlled propaganda outlets such as CCTV-4’s Mandarin service and the soon-to-emerge CCTV-9.
The knee-jerk liberal in us, opposed to censorship, says all media, provided they do not promote racism or other obvious evils, should be given a place in a free media universe. But I hope the Canadian government will decide that aiding and abetting the dissemination of propaganda from another nation is counterproductive and, in a sense, as bad as creating it in the first place. It should not be Canada’s policy to facilitate the brainwashing of Chinese-Canadian citizens by letting pure propaganda enter their homes.
If we care about a free press, we must oppose an unfree press.
Michael Craig, Toronto chair, China Rights Network
Global warming roulette
Margaret Wente (The Great Global Warming Collapse – Feb. 6) writes: “None of this is to say that global warming isn’t real, or that human activity doesn’t play a role, or that the IPCC [United Nations Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change] is entirely wrong, or that measures to curb greenhouse-gas emissions aren’t valid.” Enough said.
Bryson Brown, Lethbridge, Alta.
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If you were told there was a 10-per-cent chance that a plane you were about to board was going to crash, you probably wouldn’t get on it. You’d board another. The risk of man-made global warming is far greater than that, but we have no other planet to board. Why is Margaret Wente willing to play Russian roulette with our future?
Claudia Cornwall, North Vancouver
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In the game of life, Mother Nature bats last. Happy ninth inning.
Peter Russell, Calgary
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Margaret Wente’s message – that the global warming movement has been done in by bad science, and that we can stop worrying about it – is not true. The message from the IPCC and other scientists that we are going down a path toward dangerously changed climate is alive and well, despite minor errors by a few. Some of the changed predictions being reported as mistakes (or deliberate falsehoods) are simply the usual process of science improving its estimates as more, or more precise, data are obtained. Ms. Wente’s reference to the science scandals are typical of the “let’s kill the messenger” approach to unwanted news.
Peter F. Sale, assistant director, Institute for Water, Environment and Health, United Nations University
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Bravo to Margaret Wente for saying something sensible about “global warming.” Now let’s revisit “global cooling,” the panic of the ’70s when crops were going to perish and we were all going to die from frostbite.
Les Morrison, Burlington, Ont.
Teacher’s aid
