Jan. 21: Canada's challenge – in or out. Plus other letters to the editor

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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In or out

Re Canada Can Be In Or Out – Not Both (editorial, Jan. 20): Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan claims the promised withdrawal of CF-18s is not the reason Canada wasn't invited to the high-level meeting of significant contributors to the fight against IS. Of course it is.

As I understand the backup plan, it goes something like this; Canadians will train Kurdish troops to fight against IS. This will take time. By then, the shifting situation will be different and the strategy to defeat IS will have changed. Meanwhile, Canada will have spent time and money. My take on this is that Canada wants to be just a bystander. Poor judgment by our new government.

John Fletcher, Toronto

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Canada, as a peaceful nation, is ready to extend a safe haven for the fallout from the significant contributors' "contributions" to the world. Study the results of "the war on terror" waged by the "significant contributors" and you will realize terrorism has increased by leaps and bounds.

Today the world is in a turmoil because there is an extreme lack of humanitarian leadership. Violence begets violence.

Najma Qayyum, Toronto

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Riot? Ka-ching

Re Final Report On Stanley Cup Riot Details Costs, Charges (Jan. 19): The 2011 riot, which resulted in about a $4-million loss to businesses and the city of Vancouver, generated an even costlier $5-million price tag to prosecute the hundreds of people charged.

It seems as though the rioters, though criminal, were job-creators: Too bad that a big portion of the investigative work was outsourced to a lab in Indiana.

Leo Eutsler, Vancouver

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Battling Ebola

Re Learning The Lessons Of The Ebola Crisis (editorial, Jan. 18): The assault on Ebola is far from over, following the resurgence in Sierra Leone. Half the countries with previous epidemics had a new outbreak within 24 months of being declared Ebola-free.

Before the epidemic, Sierra Leone had 120 doctors to serve six million people; 11 of those doctors died of Ebola.

Today, health-care services are even more dilapidated, unaffordable for 60 per cent of the population who live on less than $1 a day. In Sierra Leone, I met many Ebola survivors. They asked me why the world had abandoned them, allowing more than 11,300 Africans to perish from Ebola.

Yes, the World Health Organization needs to be strengthened to respond to public health crises. But global epidemics will increasingly threaten us all until health care in developing countries reaches even minimum standards, let alone the platinum services we often take for granted in Canada.

Not everyone in Sierra Leone was infected by the virus, but everyone was profoundly affected by it. Full economic and social recovery will take years. One hopes Canada will continue investing in health care and education in vulnerable countries to prevent future epidemics.

Karen Homer, Dakar, Senegal

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Then there were …

The decision by Postmedia to merge its newsrooms in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa highlights a serious problem in Canada: media monopolies (Postmedia Merges Competing Newsrooms, Cuts 90 Jobs In Response To Financial Woes – Jan. 20).

By virtue of owning so many major daily papers in Canada, Postmedia CEO Paul Godfrey and his U.S. hedge fund owners have the power to decide what is and isn't news, to control what opinions are published. During the last election, Mr. Godfrey ordered his papers to support Stephen Harper. Today, through concentration of ownership, he can exert unparalleled influence on how Canadians perceive refugees, IS, climate change, health care and many other issues of vital importance. That is far too much power for any one individual.

A robust democracy requires a well-informed electorate, and Canadians can no longer rely upon competing newspapers to provide the balance and fairness, the insight, in-depth reporting and the opposing points of view necessary to make good decisions.

MPs should work together to ban media monopolies of any sort, lest our democracy be overcome by PMTSD: Post-Media Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Mike Ward, Duncan, B.C.

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Don't blame Postmedia for the job losses and fewer journalists covering the news. On my commute to Toronto on Wednesday, I was the only one in my train car reading a newspaper.

Jeff Lake, Burlington, Ont.

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Patients' courage

Re If Only Our Politicians Had The Courage Of Patients (Jan. 19) André Picard writes that "a few brave souls need to come forward and become the faces of the cause" for physician-assisted death. I volunteer my brother-in-law, Alex.

But wait, he died on Friday.

From the moment he received his diagnosis of incurable stomach cancer and the prognosis that he had only a few months to live, even if he accepted chemotherapy, Alex decided he wanted to end it then. After all, he had watched his older brother die of the same disease, so he knew what to expect.

Despite his pleading, despite our advocating for him, the very sympathetic doctor in palliative care could not oblige. While the doctor did all he could, Alex still suffered terribly, knowing that no matter how horrible today was, tomorrow would be worse.

He would have readily volunteered.

Gordon Moore, Toronto

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Populism trumps

Re Palin Endorses Trump For Republican Nomination (Jan. 20): We recently learned that the 62 richest people in the world now possess the same worth as the bottom 3.5 billion. Now consider that 15 of the top 20 are from the United States.

Parallel this with the sorry state of the U.S. public school system, staggering illiteracy rates, alarming graduation numbers and we have a cultural and class divide that seems irreparable. Fertile ground for a modern-day Edward Gibbon (The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire).

So it should come as no surprise that cartoon-like buffoons such as Donald Trump and Sarah Palin, unable to express a cogent world view, are now the darlings of this lost America.

Forget about dropping oil prices and the threat of radical extremism. The greatest peril we face is the coming darkening of America and its flight from reason in favour of populism.

Steve Sanderson, Quispamsis, N.B.

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After some seven months (and counting) of Donald Trump's participation in the Republican presidential race, I still don't know whether to view the whole charade as preposterous or terrifying. And Sarah Palin's endorsement has done little to change that.

Now, if Michael Palin of Monty Python fame could endorse him, at least there would be something to laugh at.

Nigel Brachi, Edmonton