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Rx for pot. Filled here
Re Country's Largest Drugstore Chain Shows Budding Interest In Selling Medical Pot (Feb. 24): Could this be the same drugstore chain which so bravely resisted legislation that would preclude the sale of carcinogenic tobacco products by retailers of prescription and other health products?
Consistency is so comforting.
Ray Cadorette, St. Catharines, Ont.
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Death, conscience
Re A Charter Issue That Demands A Vote Of Conscience (Feb. 24): Margaret Somerville's argument on "conscience" is a red herring, as well as a thinly veiled plea to MPs to ignore the will of Canadians on physician-assisted dying.
Individual doctors have a right to conscience. Physicians who oppose assisted dying for moral or religious reasons can refuse to perform it. MPs' obligations are different. They have a duty to represent the wishes of their constituents and advocate for laws that pass constitutional muster.
A recent poll commissioned by Dying With Dignity Canada and conducted by Ipsos Reid suggests 85 per cent of Canadians support the Supreme Court's decision on assisted dying. If parliamentarians reject legislation that honours the wording and spirit of the ruling, as Prof. Somerville urges, they will have run afoul of the Charter and the wishes of most Canadians. That would not be a a matter of conscience: It would be unconscionable.
Shanaaz Gokool, CEO, Dying With Dignity Canada
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Made in Israel?
Re MPs Vote To Reject Israel Boycott Campaign (Feb. 24): A goal of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is a return of millions of Palestinians to Israel, with the result that they would overrun the Jewish state.
BDS does not recognize limits or negotiation on the "right" of return. Our parliamentarians understand this BDS goal, and that Canada's support for a two-state solution would be undermined by a position that seeks a separate state for the Palestinians, and an unequivocal "right" of millions of descendants of the refugees to move to Israel.
David Hager, Toronto
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Those who have opposed boycotts against states oppressing those under their control – from the swadeshi movement in India (which encouraged the boycott of British goods as a step toward home rule) to sanctions against apartheid South Africa – have invariably found themselves on the wrong side of history.
Anil Srivastava, Toronto
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Why doesn't Patrick Martin mention that Israel is the only true democracy in the Middle East, that there is an Arab Israeli sitting on the country's Supreme Court, or that gay Israelis have equal rights? Why doesn't he question the absence of a BDS movement against current regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt or China? Israel was established by the UN following the Holocaust as a homeland for Jews, the one place where they could live free of fear of discrimination and annihilation. How is calling for the destruction of the country through economic sanctions and eradication of its security measures not anti-Semitic?
Martin Chisvin, Toronto
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I expected better judgment by this government than to be seen to side with the extreme views of Jason Kenny. According to Mr. Kenny, those who support the BDS movement in opposition to the current Israeli government's treatment of the Palestinian people are not only anti-Semitic, they are also philosophically aligned with Islamists who want to destroy Israel. What hogwash.
How sad to be so thoroughly disillusioned by the Liberals, who promised real change. First, there was the justification for proceeding with the arms sale to Saudi Arabia on the basis of jobs. What is it on this issue, the Jewish vote?
Mark Finnan, Peterborough, Ont.
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What I drink
Re Why Calgary Caved To Chemo-phobes Over Fluoridation (Feb. 20): What baffles me most in the debate about adding fluoride to water for the sake of kids' teeth is that I rarely see a child drink water, let alone make it their drink of choice. Instead, rich or poor, children are drinking sugar-loaded pops and juices. Couldn't this have something to do with the rise in children's tooth decay?
If the issue is truly about children needing fluoride from water, I suggest all Calgary schools be stocked with fluoridated water dispensers. I believe a basic human right is to choose what I put in my own body, and I choose not to drink fluoride.
Lucy Houchen, Calgary
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To be Canadian
Re Liberals To Repeal Controversial Citizenship Bill, McCallum Says (Feb. 24): Potential changes to Bill C-24 have somewhat eased my worry Canada could eventually become more like the U.K. and France, which have serious social problems resulting from long-term immigration policies.
How has Canada managed thus far to avoid such difficulties? John Ralston Saul once recounted how he responded to Europeans who asked this question. A key factor, he suggested, is that every immigrant to Canada knows he or she is going to become a citizen, with access to a great public education system and all it implies.
That simple fact permeates everything, for the immigrant and the rest of us. It's like an unconscious antidote to feelings of fear and suspicion, and the need to build walls of various kinds.
But if citizenship is no longer irrevocable, something changes. There will be a built-in "difference." I want to live in a country of citizens who feel secure and equal, who remain citizens even when they break laws and end up in prison. Like the rest of us.
Kim Fraser, Edmonton
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Repealing this bill is the wrong move. "A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian" sounds good at first hearing, but is really policy explained in sound bites. It does not stand up to serious analysis.
The power to revoke was limited to dual citizens. Why not choose one country or the other? And if such a dual citizen engages in terrorism, treason or espionage, they have made their choice – and it wasn't for Canada.
Allan Petrie, Mississauga
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Seems about right
Re A Portrait Of An Ontario Premier (Feb. 24): Former premier Dalton McGuinty told the crowd at his portrait's unveiling: "First they paint you in warm and glowing tones, then they frame you and then they hang you."
Considering the about $1-billion of Ontario taxpayers' money spent on the politically motivated gas-plants scandal on his watch, that seems about right to me.
John Morrison, Burlington, Ont.
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A letter writer helpfully identifies a style epidemic in the federal Liberal cabinet – Sleeve-itis – and various mutations already in the wild, including Loose Tie Mania (It's An Epidemic – Feb. 24).
Close analysis reveals, however, that patient zero is not Trudeau the Younger but rather McGuinty of Ontario, who is pictured at his portrait-unveiling in a suit jacket – and is almost unrecognizable.
John Madill, Oshawa, Ont.