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Protect truth-tellers
Re Agency Warns Of Bid-Rigging As Ottawa Set To Spend On Infrastructure (May 30): The Competition Bureau is right to be concerned about the potential for bid-rigging as the federal government begins to hand out billions in contracts for infrastructure.
You report that the bureau notes that such schemes are difficult to detect, and "sometimes require a whistleblower to come forward." Good luck with that strategy for protecting billions in taxpayer dollars!
Although there is no shortage of courageous Canadians prepared to speak out when they see wrongdoing, they are typically crushed and silenced.
Successive governments have promised whistleblower protection but failed to deliver, so truth-tellers are actually much worse off than they were 20 years ago. Yet a legally required independent review of the current whistleblowing law is now more than four years overdue. There seems to be no intention of addressing this sorry situation, which puts both whistleblowers and our tax dollars at risk.
David Hutton, Ottawa
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High expectations
Re Dispensing With Common Sense (editorial, May 30): The pot shop issue is really quite simple. Close them. There are 31 licensed producers in Canada under the marijuana for medical purposes regulations. They are listed on Health Canada's website. Clients, with a doctor's authorization, order their product from one of these and it is delivered by courier. This is the legal way to buy medical marijuana.
Marijuana sold in pot shops, dispensaries and compassion clubs is an illegal product. Concerns about pesticides, fungicides, mould and irradiation are valid. There are no controls in the black market.
Bill Blair, who is heading the task force that is crafting the new marijuana laws, has made it clear that storefront operations selling unregulated product will not be part of the plan. The government will work with the provinces to determine how retailing will be regulated; Premier Kathleen Wynne has said she thinks the Liquor Control Board of Ontario model makes sense.
It won't be storefront operations hiding under banners like "compassion," "dispensary" and "medical." What they're doing used to be simply called trafficking. Bravo, Toronto police. Get on it, Vancouver.
John O'Sullivan, Toronto
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According to preliminary results for a nationwide patient survey I am working on as part of my doctoral dissertation, dispensaries provide access to cannabis to many patients who cannot access it through the legal system or who prefer the quality of service and products dispensaries provide. What has been long-awaited is not a police crackdown, but regulation.
Dispensaries and the original compassion clubs have been asking to be included in the national regulatory framework for medical cannabis for decades. Many municipalities in Canada and across North America are taking the regulation route. Toronto should follow suit.
Dispensaries, recreational and medical, are willing and able to follow reasonable regulations for quality control and safety. Many medically focused dispensaries have joined the Canadian Association of Medical Cannabis Dispensaries, which has developed a rigorous certification program based on industry best practices. Just like any other business, you cannot paint all dispensaries with one brush.
As regulations for medical cannabis are being amended, and as a regulation and legalization regime is being conceived of for Canada, the preferences of patients and other consumers, as well as the small business opportunities that these dispensaries provide, should be strongly considered.
Perhaps there is room for everyone in this new legal industry. Raids are costly, completely unnecessary and decidedly not compassionate.
Rielle Capler, interdisciplinary studies graduate program, University of British Columbia
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Bathroom as frontier
Re Bathrooms: The Culture War's New Frontier (May 28): Margaret Wente has clearly never stood in a venue, staring at the Mens and Womens washrooms, wondering which would be safer.
This dilemma is so constant among my transgender friends during transition that we all have stories of verbal or physical abuse, bladder infections and near-incontinence from either making the "wrong" choice of washroom or being too intimidated to enter either one.
When Ms. Wente says that until very recently "nobody had thought" about the question of which bathroom transgender people should use, she means people like her. This underlines exactly why a "heavy handed" approach from the state is necessary – because "ordinary people" just don't get it.
Eric Haywood-Farmer, Kamloops, B.C.
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Mr. Harper's legacy
Re Harper Awaits History's Verdict (May 28): If there was one central theme in the Harperian Age, it was individual responsibility.
People were presumed to be responsible for looking after themselves, rather than the nanny state doing it. Individuals were deemed to be better able to decide how to spend their own money than were politicians. Choices had consequences and people were to be held responsible for their own actions.
As we move back to a more paternalistic, therapeutic and deterministic society, this may seem wonderfully politically incorrect, but some of us rather appreciated being treated as adults for a change.
Joseph Kenneth Malone, Charlottetown
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Medic without safety
Eric Andrew-Gee's excellent article, Emergency Responder (Focus, May 28), highlights the efforts of a Canadian, Joanne Liu, the head of Médecins sans frontières, to re-establish the inviolability of medical facilities in fields of battle. The article about MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders, comes at the same time as Amnesty International is petitioning the UN Security Council on related issues.
I hope that Canada will support the request of Dr. Liu and others in this regard and play its part by denouncing such attacks in all parts of the world.
Tina Saryeddine, Ottawa
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On her name tag …
Re 'There Were No Women' (Focus, May 28): Jennifer Ditchburn notes that Joyce Fairbairn, before working with Pierre Trudeau's PMO and having a distinguished term in the Senate, was one of the first women to work as a journalist in the Ottawa press gallery.
One of her assignments was to report on the activities of Jacqueline Kennedy during JFK's visit to Ottawa in 1961. Joyce was given a large name tag for the visit which read:
Joyce Fairbairn
Female Newspaperman.
John D. O'Leary, Toronto