Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Try to keep letters to fewer than 150 words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com
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Need, not profit
Re Why World-Beating Tropical Drugs Are So Hard To Get In Canada (Jan. 3): Drug companies do not produce drugs to meet human need, but to make money. The article informs us that doctors say these drugs are "needed badly, but drug makers say the market is too small for them to turn a profit." Is there a more obvious case for the nationalization of the drug industry?
State-operated production could lower costs significantly; research and development of needed drugs could be assigned to the universities, where scientific objectives would replace those of greed, and funding would reflect the public good.
Albert Howard, Calgary
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It frees our hearts
Re There Is Room In Our Circle For Joseph Boyden (Jan. 3): What a profound statement Anishinaabe author Wab Kinew ends with: "There is room in our circle for everyone … we love one another as relatives because it frees our hearts from hurt and allows us to embrace the goodness in each of us." What a peaceful world we would be living in if all of us followed that theory!
Nasreen Jamal Kurji, Calgary
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Where's the sense?
Re Zuma To Be Key Player In Filling African Posts (Jan. 3): You report that Canada has provided some $89-million in direct financial support to the African Union over the past decade. This in aid of a organization accused of being largely corrupt which will now have a man accused of being one of the world's most corrupt leaders, Jacob Zuma, helping to choose the next head of the African Union. And it looks very likely that same union will opt out of the International Criminal Court, which might actually prosecute crimes against humanity.
Does this make sense?
Not to this Canadian.
Nancy Pleich, Oakville, Ont.
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Without a home
Re Don't Blame The Greenbelt For Housing Prices (Jan. 3): As a developer in the Greater Toronto Area, we don't blame the Greenbelt for high housing prices. There is no shortage of other reasons, as highlighted in the article, that constrict housing. However, in the same edition, you carried an article that reported Great Britain's decision to authorize and help fund the construction of 17 new towns and villages in an effort to address similar issues (Britain To Build 17 Towns And Villages To Help Relieve Housing Squeeze – Report on Business).
Therein lies the rub: Our governments don't see a problem and do nothing to try to alleviate excessive red-tape, bureaucracy and inaction on this file. I have been told by politicians that existing homeowners don't complain about ever-higher housing prices – but who speaks for those without a home?
Brian Johnston, chief operating officer, Mattamy Homes
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Energy. Climate
Re Canada Must Not Give Up The Fight (Jan. 2): In an otherwise finely reasoned column, Thomas Homer-Dixon goes overboard in one paragraph, saying that once Donald Trump is president, he will launch a full-scale assault on climate-change policy. Scientists will be muzzled, threatened and purged, Prof. Homer-Dixon claims, and climate data locked up or destroyed. He may be a professor in the environment faculty at the University of Waterloo, but how can he know to this level of detail what the Trump administration will do regarding climate change? At this point, some two weeks before The Donald's inauguration, who can safely predict what he will do on any file?
Jim Hickman, Bracebridge, Ont.
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Gwyn Morgan (Three Post-Truths About Global Energy And Climate Change – Report on Business) warns Canadians against an escalation of post-truth communications. He cites as a global-energy post-truth the claim that wind and solar energy can replace fossil fuels.
Admittedly, reducing the world's dependency on fossil fuels is not an overnight exercise. (Mr. Morgan notes that currently wind and solar energy sources supply only 1.5 per cent of global power.) Yet the achievements of countries such as Germany and Denmark (27 per cent and 42 per cent from renewables) demonstrate that in time renewables can supplant fossil fuels. There are other examples where renewable energy is on the rise which are not included in Mr. Morgan's commentary – an aspect of the post-truth phenomenon to which he takes such strong exception?
Peter Jones, chair, For Our Grandchildren
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The Globe and Mail featured an interesting pair of opinion pieces – Thomas Homer-Dixon, with his intellectual credentials, in a front-section op-ed piece, and Gwyn Morgan, a seasoned veteran of the business world, in Report on Business. This dichotomy of opinion nicely illustrates the ideological schism playing out around the world of late. On the one hand, the academic, abstract liberal way of seeing things, and on the other, the practical, more immediately relevant way of the hands-dirty segment of society.
The Globe might serve its readership better if it put pieces such as that of Mr. Morgan in the front section, and of Prof. Homer-Dixon in the Report on Business.
Peter Brewster, St. Catharines, Ont.
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An overarching risk
Re Saving Liberal Democracy (Dec. 31): Your editorial, which warns about the danger to liberal democracy, does not address one of the underlying causes, especially in the United States and Europe. That lets off the hook those who can make the most immediate difference, namely government, the media and opinion leaders.
Populism is nurtured by a belief that the establishment has ignored people's pressing needs, is derisive of their opinions, and frequently focuses on issues tangential to their concerns.
Furthermore, authority figures seem reluctant to honestly discuss certain important issues because of political correctness, a fear of offending those they fear, or because it goes against a prevailing narrative.
When people believe they are shunned, they may be lured to less conventional alternatives. Brexit, Donald Trump and the rise of previously marginal political parties in Europe reflect that phenomenon, for good or ill. The overarching risk is that it can lead to extremism. Those in positions of influence need to listen with an open mind, be prepared to go outside their intellectual comfort zones and have faith in the wisdom of the people.
Joe Oliver, former finance minister, Toronto
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Tested by Trump
Re Trump Victory Will Test Trudeau, Ambrose Says (Jan. 2): Rona Ambrose doesn't think Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is ready for what will happen once Donald Trump is sworn in as president. Is anybody?
Jill Armstrong, Victoria