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
...................................................................................................
Values evolve
Some Prairie newspapers in the late 19th century carried editorials condemning the government's welcome of immigrants from Eastern Europe. These immigrants were identified by highly derogatory terminology. They certainly would not have passed any "Canadian values" test of that era. Yet, their descendants have occupied places of the highest leadership in our country – governor-general, prime minister, university leaders etc.
Nor would many other minority groups in their day have been acceptable under Kellie Leitch's proposal. Canadian values evolve, and immigrants contribute to this evolution.
Joe O'Brien, Halifax
.................................
I like Kellie Leitch's Canadian values. I would like it more if we practised them beyond our own borders, in the nations from where the immigrants originate.
Miles Tompkins, Antigonish, N.S.
.................................
Values? Complicated
There is much debate about Canadian values. It's complicated, as they say, but there is something I find puzzling as a Chinese-Canadian. That has to do with Canadians' attitudes toward immigrants, refugees, foreign money and capital.
It's laudable that Canada welcomes refugees and refrains from talking too much about the radical, sometimes dangerous ideologies a small minority bring with them. But the media, including your paper, seem to think Chinese migrants and companies who want to live, spend and invest in Canada are fair game.
Such companies are accused of threatening the country's strategic industries and intellectual property. Chinese individuals are accused of smuggling in money, buying mega homes and pushing up property prices (Cash Seizures Jump At Vancouver Airport – Sept. 9).
Many refugees eventually have much to contribute to Canadian society, but those who bring money and capital make an immediate contribution. So why the reverse discrimination? Low to negative interest rates and the collapse in value of commodity currencies like the loonie are the real causes of property bubbles.
Alex Lo, Willowdale, Ont.
.................................
It's a betrayal
Inside Friday's Globe and Mail you reported that 20 per cent of Canadian postsecondary students are depressed and anxious or battling other mental-health issues (Colleges And Universities Face Mental-Health Crisis, Study Says).
On the front page, you reported that the teachers of middle school students have involved them in a role play that is a "secret" from the students, where the teachers suddenly started to identify them by numbers and where they are "arbitrarily rewarded or demoted" (School Takes Role-Playing Exercise To The Extreme).
Not only is this numbering experience supposed to go on for four to six weeks, but parents are asked to keep this role play a "secret" from their children.
I thought children were supposed to trust their parents and teachers, that they were in essence a "known trusted quantity." Perhaps the teachers, administrators and parents in this article might want to read about the postsecondary students in the other article.
Lisa Sheinin, child psychiatrist, Toronto
.................................
The students are expected to be authentic but the educators are gaming them with role play?
This is a betrayal of the goodwill of students. What is forgotten is the role of emotion, always present in learning, and the fact that the meaning of an experience to students (ie. its emotional colouring as positive or negative) is neither controllable nor predictable.
If educators are gaming the students in unacknowledged role play, one predictable outcome is students learning to game the system back. One thing is certain: This scenario will vastly increase stress on students and have consequences undreamed of by the educators.
Carol Anne Wien, professor emerita, Faculty of Education, York University
.................................
Not-so-mad markets
Re The Free-Market Madness Of Maxime Bernier (Sept. 8): Canadians pay some of the world's highest prices for dairy, poultry, telecom and airfares. What all these commodities have in common is a legacy of strict government regulation and supply-management in the name of protecting consumers.
Does Konrad Yakabuski believe that adhering to these failed policies is going to make the affordability of these essential items better? The monopolistic approach taken by Quebec's maple syrup "cartel" has only served to prove that protectionist policies are really meant to protect producers, not consumers.
Canadians would be well served to get rid of quotas and rejoin the world market that seems to serve elsewhere quite well.
Dale Leier, Lethbridge, Alta.
.................................
Energy legitimacy
Re On Energy, PM Needs To Lead With His Head, Not Heart (Sept. 7): Any attempt by Justin Trudeau's government to bludgeon the Kinder Morgan and Energy East pipeline projects through the thickets of constitutional, legal, political, economic and environmental challenges would be both futile and politically costly. Attempts to do precisely that with Northern Gateway were significant factors in the demise of Stephen Harper's government.
The succession of pipeline projects intended to move bitumen to tidewater raise fundamental questions about Canada's future energy, economic and environmental pathways, and its ability to fulfill its international commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Until the federal government establishes a process capable of grappling with those issues, any decisions that emerge are going to fail the legitimacy test, and lead to greater, not less, legal and political conflict.
Mark S. Winfield, co-chair, Sustainable Energy Initiative, York University
.................................
After Mansbridge
Re Waiting In The Wings For CBC's Top Anchor Job (Folio, Sept. 7): As a news addict, I've been following the CBC since both Peter Mansbridge and I had hair.
I'm familiar with the contributions of the journalists mentioned – Rosemary Barton, Kim Brunhuber, David Common, Ian Hanomansing – who could be waiting in the wings to replace Mr. Mansbridge. I'm sure there are also others inside and outside the CBC, but there really is only one person who should replace Peter Mansbridge, and that's Wendy Mesley. If she's not interested, then Mark Kelly. Both are terrific in everything they do, just as Mr. Mansbridge is, and deserve the opportunity to bring change to the CBC. Why look elsewhere?
C.J. Storey, Vancouver
.................................
Hmm ...
Re CRTC Opens Hearings On Skinny Basic TV (Report on Business, Sept. 8): Wouldn't these offerings more appropriately be referred to as "skinflint" basic?
Louis Desjardins, Belleville, Ont.