So sacred that …
Let me get this right: The citizenship ceremony is so sacred that the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration can, by decree, deny citizenship to a Muslim woman who meets all the legal criteria but who covers her face with a veil. But the citizenship ceremony is not so sacred that the government can’t recruit its employees to impersonate new Canadians swearing an oath of citizenship at a staged ceremony (Phony Citizenship Rite Turns Into ‘Egg On Our Face’ For Sun News – Feb. 3). So a real oath sworn behind a veil is unacceptable, but a faked oath sworn for all to see on Sun TV is a mere “logistical” problem.
Audrey Macklin, Toronto
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Bully tactics
Caterpillar is shutting its Electro-Motive plant (Caterpillar To Shut Ontario Plant Amid Labour Dispute – Feb. 3) after a month of locking its employees out, demanding they accept having their wages cut in half. The closure of this plant is much more than a statistic of lost jobs for our city. It is part of the greater story of the destruction of the middle class. Caterpillar is making record profits and instead of asking for reasonable deductions in pay and a grandfathering of wages, it used bullying tactics to force the closure of its London plant.
Some have argued these labourers were overpaid and had to accept a more reasonable wage. But to cut one’s wages in half overnight when the company is making huge profits is to ridicule the backbone of our economy; the working class.
Dave Ennett, London, Ont.
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Testy, testy
I had several good laughs at the suggestions for future male birth control (Prelude To Male ‘Pill’: Will Men Buy It? – Life, Feb. 3). This comes from being a family physician, well experienced with testicles, and the protective instincts men exhibit. Some patients won’t even allow my examining fingers near their testes, hiding their pair between tightly closed thighs. Should I finally succeed, my efforts at a proper examination are met with loud guffaws and shrieks, which have the desired effect of my retreat. Just imagine someone you know who is very ticklish – then add the possibility of physical retaliation upon yourself from all the flailing about.
Thus applying “therapeutic” ultrasound while immersing the testes in a warm saline solution is a real non-starter. Most male readers will wince from the description alone.
David Rapoport, MD, Toronto
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A few years ago, when progress toward a male oral contraceptive was also in the news, an all-female radio panel uniformly agreed they would not trust a man to be responsible for taking the pill. My response: We’ll be popping ’em like candy.
Mike Szarka, Oshawa
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Price all roads
Re Mayor’s Transit Adviser Takes Different Spin On Road Tolls (Feb. 3): Implementing a tolling system to generate funding solely for one unnecessary subway project is not helpful to the road-pricing cause. Instead, Toronto must work in partnership with Ontario municipalities and Queen’s Park to create a comprehensive vision that includes GPS-based road pricing as part of the transportation mix.
GPS technology enables all 300,000 kilometres of provincial and municipal roads to be priced – the opposite of the current situation where only 108 kilometres are priced. By dynamically pricing all vehicles by time, distance, vehicle type and then phasing out transport-related property taxes and gas taxes, while earmarking revenues to both roads and transit, the province and municipalities can eliminate income- and geographic-equity issues that polarize opinions and reduce pricing acceptance.
By putting a price on all roads (and parking spaces), motorists and transit riders will have more reliable commute times and the planet will breathe easier.
Martin Collier, founder, Transport Futures
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Tears of the familiar
