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Sorry to the core
Re The Sickening Case Of Adam Capay (editorial, Oct. 25): I am embarrassed and sorry to the core when reading about the horrible prison treatment of Adam Capay, who has been held in solitary confinement for four years.
No matter how difficult this man may be, he does not deserve endless cruel punishment. Canadians must call for the severe punishment of the officials who have allowed this to take place.
Clint Forster, Victoria
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Hiding in the 'rules'
Re Liberals Shrug Off Their Own Ethical Guidelines (Oct. 24): We expect our politicians to be honest, to respect the people they represent and provide leadership, especially when it comes to the public trust. This tiresome response that we are following the "rules" only erodes the public trust.
It appears the rules only serve politicians and and those who can afford to pay to spend time with them. Very few Canadians have the money to go to events that have a $1,500 entrance fee.
Those who do pay are not there to star gaze or enjoy the food, they are there for the single-minded purposes of gaining access to the Finance Minister, hoping to gain information or influence or both. To suggest that these high-priced fundraisers are potentially "open" to all Canadians borders on insulting.
Leadership in both private and public office must always be based on doing the right thing and not hiding among the rules.
It is not complicated, yet this government continues to push the ethical boundaries.
We saw it in Ontario under Dalton McGuinty, we are living it under Premier Kathleen Wynne, and the apple is falling from the same tree in Ottawa. Enough. Have some pride and do the right thing.
T.P. (Terry) Bourne, Oakville, Ont.
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Kids as warriors
Re SickKids Campaign Forgets That We're Not Always Warriors (Oct. 25): I am the father of a five-year-old who is not likely ever to stand on a stack of broken wheelchairs, she has a degenerative genetic neuromuscular disease, spinal muscular atrophy.
I am also a scholar at the University of Toronto whose work focuses on disability in childhood. Some of my research is funded through the Hospital for Sick Children's Norman Saunders Complex Care Initiative. It's relatively easy to pick away at their new ad campaign.
One could start by dismantling the use of the term "warriors" as yet another example of cultural appropriation and an attempt to militarize disability. But as a human being in the real world, and as a father of a child with a chronic disability, when I look at her and consider the battles we fight on a weekly if not a daily basis, not focused on her disease per se, but on producing a wonderful life in the presence of disease, then ya, I'd say we are sometimes warriors, and my daughter is probably heroic.
Sometimes we are also sad, frustrated, angry, and over the moon – essentially because families with disability are, like families without disabilities, capable of a range of emotions.
I love the new campaign. It speaks to the moments in my life and my children's lives when we sometimes feel angry and powerful in the presence of spinal muscular atrophy. So, while we could spend our time worrying about what they didn't get right, I'm going to focus on the fact SickKids has taken a moment to try to cast disability and illness in childhood in a different light, with a view to raising funds to support the sometimes heroic and seemingly impossible work they do there.
Ron Buliung, Toronto
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EU's shrinking clout
If Wallonia can prevent the ratification of the Canada-EU trade deal by the European Union, what does that say about the value of the EU (Wallonia Rejection Leaves CETA Deal In Limbo – Oct. 25)? The EU will no longer have any credibility in trade negotiations anywhere. After loosing its role in trade and loosing the U.K., all that will be left is a coalition focused on the internal matters of continental Europe – not a very compelling proposition for membership.
Ken Smith, former member of the Industry Consultation Panel during CETA negotiations
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Elijah Harper saved us from giving the country to the provinces by stopping the Meech Lake Accord. Now Wallonia is saving us from giving the country to the corporations.
Somebody up there loves us.
Wayne Valleau, Calgary
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Mounties' focus
Re RCMP Shifts Focus To Fighting Terrorism (Oct. 22): RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson's approach – "We continue to transfer people out of other areas into counter-terrorism investigations" – will not solve the problem.
It's a temporary solution because the majority of RCMP personnel, not available for quick transfers, are involved in "contract policing" of provinces, cities, towns and villages.
The RCMP has taken on too many responsibilities with contract policing nationwide and cannot maintain a level of staffing required to meet current and future contract obligations. That's my opinion, backed by 15 years' experience as a recruiter with a major Canadian company in good/bad times. The force is in stiff competition with major municipal police forces that offer attractive salaries, good working conditions and benefits.
The RCMP tries to justify "contract policing" by saying it gives them "boots on the ground" all across Canada. But the RCMP boots on the ground, much of it rural, only cover 39 per cent of Canada's population; the rest is in Ontario and Quebec, where they have had their own police service for more than 100 years.
The RCMP may, in time, get out of contract policing and go back to its original status as a national police service like so many other countries have done. The mandate for national policing will change, along with recruit qualifications, but it may appeal to young men/women seeking a career with the RCMP as a national police service.
J.R. Kenny, Calgary
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City love
The assumption that most millennials want to live in a single family home is wrong (Why The Housing Market Is Rigged – Oct. 25). Millennials like myself who grew up in single-family suburban homes want nothing to do with that lifestyle. We work in, and want to live in, the city.
Most of us don't even want a car, something that was a rite of passage for boomers.
The claim that most millennials and immigrants don't want to raise kids in an apartment is also wrong. First, consolidating immigrants and millennials who grew up in middle class families and had a head start, again like myself, is ridiculous. Second, most of my friends who recently signed leases or bought condos in the city did so with the intention of raising kids there.
Whether or not we could afford a single family home is irrelevant, we don't want one.
Andrea Barone, Toronto