Give and take
Two contradictory headlines caught my attention in last Saturday’s Report on Business: “Banks brace for tough economic times in 2024″ and “Big Six banks boosted year-end bonus payments across the board.”
So banks are cutting jobs at the same time they are raising executive bonus payments. Wait, what?
I find this appalling as both a shareholder and customer.
Brian Davis Barrie, Ont.
Harper highlights
Re “For the Liberals, ‘blame Harper’ is Rule Number One” (Editorial, Nov. 30): It’s par for the course for governments to blame predecessors for an inherited mess, just as it’s normal for the opposition to blame government for everything, even acts of God.
However, in 2009 Stephen Harper reluctantly embraced deficit spending for infrastructure as a result of pressure from opposition parties and big business. His initial reaction was to advise Canadians to invest in the stock market.
Was it prudent spending that created the 2014-15 surplus? Mr. Harper also sold $3.3-billion in General Motors shares to help balance the books.
And against the advice of many economists at the time, Mr. Harper reduced the GST by two percentage points. This decision resulted in a $14-billion loss. It should be appreciated that he inherited a $14-billion surplus from the Liberals.
Unlike Pontious Pilate, politicians cannot wash away their sometimes egregious errors and claim innocence.
Denzil Barrie Strathcona County, Alta.
In crisis
Re “The drug crisis is the greatest social ill facing Canada. As B.C. has discovered, decriminalization is not a cure-all” (Opinion, Dec. 2): Let’s take profit out of the war on drugs.
Addiction is a medical problem, often the result of trauma. When we criminalize addiction, the people who suffer from it can become more desperate and traumatized. Society suffers when they resort to crime, all the while becoming more stigmatized and less able to finance their addiction.
Every successful drug bust has the result of increasing the costs and risks of these necessities for addicts. Scarcity increases prices and profit for suppliers, whose criminality often includes violence.
Police budgets become bloated; our courts overwhelmed; our jails congested. We have created an industry invested in creating trauma.
Imagine if addiction was more often treated as a personal problem to be addressed by health professionals. Every drug-related death is a preventable death. Addiction recovery requires patience and access to treatment.
As a society, we should ask: Who profits from the status quo?
Larry Ladell Ottawa
A lot of time, effort and resources have been spent, seemingly unproductively, to get where we are today.
I know that n=1 is always dangerous to draw conclusions from, but Guy Felicella’s decision to finally stop taking drugs after a near-death experience may be all telling. It was his decision, and his alone, that finally ended his need for other adults to take responsibility for his actions.
Short of their almost dying, how do we create circumstances that, once and for all, compel drug abusers to make the same life-changing, but tough, decision Mr. Felicella made?
Perhaps this is a strategy worth investing in.
Mark Spurr Toronto
Decriminalization on its own will likely never be successful.
I find the problem is dirty drugs and consumption in unsafe places. Drugs should be pharmaceutical grade and prescribed by doctors working in addiction services. They should be provided at safe consumption sites only, staffed by nurses and social workers. This would drastically reduce deaths by overdose.
Rehab services should focus not only on recovery, but on co-ordinated jobs and education availability, as well as safe housing. This would reduce recidivism.
If people want a war on drugs, it should be directed toward further criminalizing unsafe supply coming from other countries and made available to street dealers.
But there will always be unsafe supply and individual dealers who sell it, just like with marijuana. That can never be permanently eradicated.
David Hallatt MD (retired), Winnipeg
What’s on?
Re “CBC’s president inadvertently makes the case for scrapping the public broadcaster” (Dec. 7): We’re always told that French-language broadcasting is more successful, but still the numbers in Konrad Yakabuski’s column are eye-opening.
Almost 1.9 million people watching a domestic drama? In English Canada’s larger market, a show which reached half that audience would trumpet its success. No wonder our recent heritage ministers (all from Quebec) think Canadian culture is universally popular.
By contrast, Mr. Yakabuski suggests that most English Canadians have given up on the CBC. With a network now characterized by underwritten filler, I would argue it’s the CBC that gave up on us.
David Arthur Cambridge, Ont.
The downsizing of the CBC is a threat to Canada’s democracy, but less than that is its dumbing down.
The CBC’s original mandate included nurturing high culture in Canada. It maintained symphony orchestras, broadcast concerts performed across Canada and, with the arrival of television, brought plays and ballets to people who would otherwise have had no access to them. Most of that has gone, and with it has gone a force for a healthy democratic nation.
In the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville warned that democracy tends to descend into mediocrity. A lively intellectual life is essential to the mutual respect and open discussion which underpins democracy.
Canada remains a healthy and relatively open democracy in a world increasingly dominated by despotism. But it needs all the help it can get.
Nicholas Tracy Fredericton
Art interpretation
Re “AGO loses its cool over equity, reconciliation and Israel-Palestine” (Dec. 2): So the Art Gallery of Ontario parts ways with Indigenous curator Wanda Nanibush, then has the effrontery to announce exhibitions by three male American artists in Kaws, Keith Haring and Arnold Newman.
My AGO is about great art and great conversations. As a volunteer guide at the AGO, I welcome the opportunity to enter discussions generated by the art about topics relevant to today’s visitors.
I personally believe that in art, artists come first then other identities second, be it gender, ethnicity, etc. It should not be about who we show, but how we exchange ideas around the art that brings us together.
Shelagh Barrington Toronto
Bad blood
Re “Henry Kissinger leaves behind a poisonous legacy of callous geopolitical calculus” (Dec. 2): Isn’t it strange that in most U.S. movies from the 1960s on, the villains often sounded exactly like Henry Kissinger?
Barbara Klunder Toronto
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