Candice Sockett, a Nurse Practitioner with the South East Toronto Family Health Team, innoculates a visitor with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at a pop-up vaccine clinic at Warden Woods Community Centre on April 22, 2021.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
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Too late
Re We’re Getting The Shots. Now Find The Arm (Editorial, April 27): A family member lost a close friend to COVID-19. He was a young man who claimed that the pandemic was a fraud and vaccines were a plot to change our DNA. He attended a mask-less gathering, fell sick soon after and died within 10 days of severe respiratory complications.
As my grandfather (who survived the pandemic of 1918) used to say: “They don’t believe they are going to get it until they get it.”
Ray Arnold Richmond, B.C.
In Ontario
Re Ontario Doctors Prepare For Worst-case Triage Calls (April 26): When the time comes, the burden of telling families should fall on provincial cabinet ministers. I believe they’re the ones who got us into this mess.
Michael Arkin Toronto
Re Ford Offers To Double Federal Sick Leave (April 27): A suggestion to the Ford government for the simplest, quickest rollout of paid sick leave in Ontario: Mandate paid sick leave. Require employers to pay same. Provide a mechanism for government reimbursement.
John Thorpe Stouffville, Ont.
Attempting to resolve the sick-leave problem by increasing pay through the underutilized federal program seems to miss the point.
The big problem for low-pay workers is a lack of resources to apply for the federal program. Many lack technology, language skills and the luxury of waiting. They need a program that will continue their pay while taking a COVID-19 test, getting a vaccination or isolating when required.
The Ford government should do better and quickly. There should be a made-in-Ontario plan.
Jo Wood Ottawa
Internationally known
Re Vaccines Shed Light On Canada’s IP Problem (Report on Business, April 23): I believe vaccine nationalism is a lose-lose proposition and the ultimate moral failure. Rich countries are racing to hoard doses of COVID-19 vaccines, leaving almost nothing for lower- and middle-income countries.
Those putting economics over morality seem not to realize that global supply chains and economies will remain disrupted if other countries fall behind in inoculation, costing billions in shrinking global trade and investments. Vaccine nationalism will likely only prolong the pandemic, as the virus knows no borders.
High-income countries should rally behind global health leaders such as the World Health Organization to roll out universal vaccination through COVAX. By vaccinating our most vulnerable globally and targeting vaccines where they are needed most, together we could put this pandemic behind us faster.
As it stands, we’re all in the same storm but not the same boat. The safe harbour is global collaboration.
Amilya Ladak Master of public health candidate; West Vancouver
Finally
Re Malaria Shot Exceeds Global Efficacy Target (April 24): This is a headline worthy of bold caps and many exclamation marks. The development of a malaria vaccine will save millions of lives and free up scarce health care resources. Imagine the global health impact of moving from 229 million cases a year to less than 53 million.
Sign me up now to donate to the mass vaccination campaign.
Vicki Nash-Moore Collingwood, Ont.
Faith and family
Re A Terrible Quebec Law, Nonetheless (Editorial, April 23): As a non-Christian, I’m all for Bill 21. Religious symbols say to me: “Look, I’m better than you are.”
Even within families, such symbols can be problematic. A close relative wears a cross on a necklace because she’s a church-going Christian. She also knows well that most of the family are non-believers. I think it would be thoughtful of her not to wear her necklace at family gatherings. If our dear father were alive, I think he’d be appalled at her practice, considering it a real putdown for him and for us.
Let religious folks wear all the symbols they want – off the job and at home.
Helen Sinfield Hansen Guelph, Ont.
Ship out
Re Arms-export Reviews ‘Not Timely’: Experts (April 27): I sincerely wish that people who work in the Canadian arms industry and its factories could find other work.
I do not think that Canada should encourage and protect an industry that produces devices that injure and kill people. I would like to see a Canada that promotes peace and saves lives, not destroys lives.
Let the makers of destruction move away. Far, far away.
Ken Pattern Vancouver
The one
Re Trudeau’s Whole Government Needs To Take Responsibility For The Vance Controversy (April 26): I might add that shared knowledge results in shared responsibility and liability, and no politician or bureaucrat ever wants that. However, it seems to me there is ultimately one person who should be held accountable for sexual misconduct in the military, and the Vance controversy in particular.
That person should be Jonathan Vance.
J.D. Beath Peterborough, Ont.
Funding forces
Re Police Increasingly Sold On Body-cam Technology (April 24): Thunder Bay police Chief Sylvie Hauth highlights the need to “build relationships and work on our accountability and transparency.” We believe body-worn cameras do neither, and change can only come with reallocation of police funding.
We should have new training courses to sensitize police to racism, sexism and not breaking the law. We should have a police system that holds its members accountable, before a third-party video makes it plain when officers are offside.
The Nova Scotia shootings showed us that we are not getting our money’s worth from police in accountability and transparency. Let’s not allow toys and technology to get in the way of fixing a lack of public trust in self-governing police forces.
Grant Bergman and Peggy Smith Halifax
Buy Canadian?
Re Canadian Spending (Letters, April 26): A letter-writer opines that Canadians should support Canada by buying Canadian and travelling in the country rather than abroad. When I can travel to European countries for half the price of travel to Moncton, and the costs of staying there are also far less, then I have to ask: Why?
My travel plans should be to my benefit and not a charitable exercise, especially seeing how the industry treats consumers with regard to fare reimbursements for cancelled flights, overbooked seats and general disregard for competition.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Rob Graham Kingston
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