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What's policy got to do with it?
Re Trump Vs. Clinton: Where They Stand On The Issues (Folio, Sept. 16): I was surprised to see you fill two pages of The Globe and Mail with something that has no relevance to the current election. You still don't get it.
Marc Grushcow, Toronto
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This U.S. election cycle might in fact be unprecedented, but The Globe and Mail's labelling of Donald Trump as a "bigoted boor" does have a precedent, sort of (Feel Free To Cough – editorial, Sept. 15).
In 1751, Benjamin Franklin, in a free-wheeling essay on immigration and population control in the American colonies, described the Pennsylvania Germans as "Palatine Boors" and accused them of "herding together." In the run-up to the election in 1764, Franklin's opponents dredged up the essay and told the Germans that the term "boors" meant hogs, and that Franklin had called them a "herd of hogs." Franklin went on to lose his his seat in the Assembly.
Here's hoping your editorial will have a similar impact on Mr. Trump's chances.
Les Bowser, Omemee, Ont.
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I agree completely with your editorialists that Hillary Clinton's "walking pneumonia" has been blown out of proportion. Moreover, with almost two months still to go before the U.S. election, journalists, commentators and opinion makers are running out of (new) ways to describe the daily craziness of this campaign – in particular, Donald Trump. Kudos for coming up with some fresh nouns and adjectives (e.g. "intemperate vulgarian," "grimmest recesses") for those of us compelled to watch this car wreck on a daily basis.
Mitchell Toker, Toronto
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To own a home. In Canada
Re Ottawa Actively Weighs Options For Housing Fix (Sept. 16): Why are non-Canadians and non-landed immigrants even allowed to own property in Canada? Where did this "right" come from?
The issue of our young people not being able to own a home in their own country has ramifications that reach beyond them alone; it also often affects elderly parents who feel they must give their children their hard-earned retirement savings in order to help them purchase a hovel. And not everybody is fortunate enough to have parents who can contribute in this manner. Shame on our shameless (home-owning) politicians!
Frank Foulkes, Toronto
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Re Vacancy Tax Will Rely On Self-Reporting (Sept. 15): Surely the money raised in fines would cover the cost of employing sufficient full-time investigators to check up on the vacant-homes situation.
If non-Canadian owners of vacant property are cheating their own governments to get money into Canada, and then cheating the B.C. government – apparently aided and abetted by Canada's banks (Incomeless Students Spent $57-Million On Vancouver Houses In Past Two Years – Sept. 15) – why would they self-report about the vacancy status of their property? This makes investigators necessary. The potential for fines appears massive. I suggest Toronto start thinking along these lines, too.
W. E. Hildreth, Toronto
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'Dead birds cannot sing'
Re Landbirds See Large Decline (Sept. 14): To those opposing industrial wind turbine installations along the Lake Ontario shores because of the projects' significant kill impact on migratory birds, bats and amphibians, particularly threatened species such as the Blandings turtle, the report by Partners in Flight regrettably comes as no surprise.
If economic arguments against pursuing electricity generation that is surplus to Ontario's requirements aren't enough to cancel turbine construction contracts, I can only hope this report wakes up gov-ernments to the massive harm to birdlife from such development in environmentally sensitive habitats. I offer an excerpt on point from my tanka poem, Spectacle:
Dead birds cannot sing,
their melodies lost to winds
that rouse high towers
to turn great blades of steel
that churn songs and soft feathers.
J.C. Sulzenko, Ottawa
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Ford era was the first salvo
Re Ford Nation Could Rise Again (Sept. 14): Marcus Gee writes about the spectre of populist movements in Canada, drawing comparisons between the Fords, The Donald, and Nigel Farage. This comparison is off base, simply by virtue of the high regard with which immigrant Torontonians hold the Fords (notwithstanding former Toronto mayor Rob Ford's drug scandal). One simply can't imagine the same for the xenophobic likes of Donald Trump and Mr. Farage.
Rob Ford's support was high in areas with significant visible-minority representation; conversely, well-to-do whites tended to be his most vocal critics. Perhaps Mr. Ford, that awkward and unpolished outsider in Toronto City Hall, resonated with minorities and immigrants, who saw in this deeply-flawed man someone they could relate to. To many of us (I grew up in Toronto, but was born in Hong Kong), city hall politics continue to be the domain of white elites, and I would posit that Mr. Ford's rejection of (and by) that same segment is part of the appeal.
His efforts to cut waste and fiscal largesse also resonated with immigrants who come from humble origins, and thus tend toward fiscal conservatism.
Mr. Gee dismissively writes that the Ford era was a brief deviation from the "generally sane and sensible world of Canadian politics," but perhaps it was merely the first salvo in a shift from the "Toronto that was" and the "Toronto to be."
Johan Lee, Toronto