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Cool the market? Not really
Re Ontario Tackles Soaring Housing Market With Multipronged Plan (April 21): I applaud the government's 16-point plan. They seem to have found all the low-hanging fruit, agreeable items which likely will have minimal effect. The politely named and well-defined foreign tax will feed provincial coffers without perturbing the market much or for long (see Vancouver). The lost opportunity of a vacant dwelling is considerable and also should be paid for (in a well-defined context).
But a discrete and agreeable step that could actually have helped affordability and cooled the market seems only to have been hinted at. Why not forbid the blind auction-style of bidding wars that prevail in Toronto (and increasingly, outside it)?
Require that bids be accepted at any time, that formal offers be registered and the current high bid be public knowledge. This would eliminate most of the gaming and, to some extent, the premium that bidders assume and apply to their bids in order to outbid their nearest competitor. Perhaps frugality will be given a chance to prevail by allowing buyers to win by smaller margins over their nearest bidder.
Dennis Maslo, Toronto
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Ontario's proposed 15-per-cent tax on foreign buyers is a meaningless measure designed to do nothing but inflate government tax revenue. If we believe that wealthy foreigners are contributing to a dangerous economic situation here by speculating in real estate, here's an idea: Simply don't let them buy property in Canada. Why are we acting like they have some right to own property here? We have a responsibility to protect Canadians and their interests. Fifteen per cent? Please. How about 250 per cent?
Damian Kanarek, Whitby, Ont.
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Poor health-records implementation, gas-plant cancellations, exorbitant contract pricing for green electricity, debt-financed cuts in electricity bills, shady political fundraising and now rent controls. How much bad policy can Ontario survive from the Liberals? An appalling record of incompetence.
Brock Winterton, Toronto
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Malls: dead, yet they live
Re As Malls Die, So Does A Way Of Life (Life & Arts, April 21): We have heard this one before: Corner stores, neighbourhood strip malls, they were all pronounced dead, and yet they live.
Retail evolves more readily than other commercial real estate. New concepts, designs, products take the place of tired ones. The best retailers are looking for ways to replicate an experience that cannot be delivered online. The old retail model was "A Place," the new one is "An Experience."
Malls are becoming a destination that delivers shopping, entertainment, food services. Successful retailers are working through omnichannel distribution systems: bricks and mortar + online distribution. Not dead, just repurposing.
Greg Dwyer, Regina
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Standards of truth
Re Postmodernism Comes To Life (Life & Arts, April 20): Politicians have been telling Big Lies (and little lies) since long before postmodernist theorists began to dominate the left-hand corridors of the academy, and they will continue to do so long after postmodernism ceases to hold sway there.
I've always been on the left (or progressive) side of politics, and wrote my PhD dissertation during the great ascendancy of postmodern thought, but I was never a postmodernist, partly because the idea that "truth" is socially constructed never struck me as original. I hang out in the 18th century, where empirical philosophers argue that the perceiver creates the qualities of the perceived, and where writers like Jane Austen show us again and again how "language's relationship to meaning was problematic," and how local communities define their own relative and contingent "truths."
I can believe these ideas and still believe in the science of climate change. Philosophy is not science, and some of the sillier flourishes of the left, including "the identitarian excesses of social justice activists," are not necessarily the fault of postmodernism. Leftists have been attacking each other at least since the French Revolution. (In those days, the philosophes were blamed.)
Here's a truth: Even a postmodernist professor won't accept a student's claim based only on the assertion of that claim. Logic, evidence and cogent argument are still required, even on the left-hand side of the academy. Now, if only we could persuade governments to adopt those standards of truth.
Elaine Bander, Montreal
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It's President Putin. Not Putin
Re Freeland Renews Call On Russia To Withdraw Support For Syria (April 21): Note to Chrystia Freeland: When trying to affect policy change in another country, it's best to refer to its leader by his title, not dismissively by his last name. When she said "There is an opportunity for Russia, which I hope Putin will take," she was only stirring the pot. Perhaps she's putting personal feelings ahead of her responsibilities as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Courtesy is the backbone of diplomacy.
Bruce Henry, Waterloo, Ont.
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What ails the Jays
Re Jays Leave The Nest Hoping To Put Abysmal Homestand Behind Them (Sports, April 21): You say to "Take your pick at what's wrong with the Blue Jays." Simple. Rogers honcho Ed Rogers, team president Mark Shapiro, general manager Ross Atkins and manager John Gibbons. In descending order.
Bruce Hutchison, Ottawa