The death of radio is featured In today’s letters to the editor.ISTOCK
Where’s the line?
Re “Most Canadians want the right to plan ahead for an assisted death if they get dementia. So why is it so complicated?” (Feb. 18): In the report of the special joint committee on medical assistance in dying, I have an issue with recommendation No. 21: “That the Government of Canada amend the Criminal Code to allow for advance requests following a diagnosis of a serious and incurable medical condition disease, or disorder leading to incapacity.” Basically, this is too late.
It does nothing to protect an individual like my dad, who has a sudden stroke and then suffers all the negative cognitive difficulties of someone with dementia. They quite likely would not have the capacity to prepare an advanced request following their diagnosis of an incurable medical condition.
The time to prepare an advanced request is when one is fully healthy. I shouldn’t need a diagnosis first to write that.
Ed Dunnett Qualicum Beach, B.C.
I am close to 86 and in pretty good health.
However, I do know that my short-term memory has, and continues to, deteriorate. This is generally considered to be a prelude to dementia, but not necessarily. So, I am one of those whose mind wanders to the issue of medical assistance in death.
I hear the pleas of those who advocate extending legislation to include persons with incurable and devastating mental diseases. I also understand that a prime tenet of Canadian governance is that the state should not be in the business of killing people.
But the government has already modified that tenet by passing MAID legislation. It has accepted that its role should be to reduce the suffering of people rather than sticking to a rigid moral position, but always keeping in mind that this could be a slippery slope.
Hence, it would appear reasonable to further expand legislation.
Baily Seshagiri Ottawa
Discussions on legal limits to medical assistance in death feel backward. We should not be determining under what conditions MAID is permitted, but determining under what conditions MAID is denied.
The former gives government control over one of the most serious aspects of our lives. The latter asserts the rights of individuals to control (including through advance directives) their own bodies, with restrictions only when they are not competent for such decisions or when such decisions would materially harm others.
Yes, there are nuances. However, one should start at the right point.
Jim Ironside Calgary
Another one
Re “Dismissing the term ‘polycrisis’ has one inevitable consequence – reality always bites” (Opinion, Feb. 18): Our polycrisis experts have overlooked one crisis underlying all the others: the human-population explosion.
In 1804, world population exceeded one billion. By 1999, it had reached six billion. Today it stands at eight billion, on its way to 10 billion or more by 2050.
Do these experts not see it as a principal driver of climate change, the depletion of natural resources to feed world hunger, zoonotic disease outbreaks and all the other listed crises? But curbing population growth seems like a “third-rail” issue for politicians and expert advisers alike.
Until we face this issue honestly and resolutely, I believe we risk extinction as a civilized species.
James Heller Toronto
Tuned in
Re “Radio lets in the world. We shouldn’t be in a rush to phase it out” (Feb. 18): I too am a “fond old listener” of radio.
Listening to the noon-hour farm report on CKPC in Brantford, Ont., with my parents, me home from school and my dad home from the Massey Ferguson plant for lunch. Sending in a lost-dog report when our pup wandered from home; listeners phoned in tips that helped us locate him cowering beside a railway track.
Radio was a comforting presence in my dorm room when I moved by myself to Ottawa. In my retirement years, having CBC Radio as a constant background companion keeps me entertained, informed and amused.
And, yes, I listen to podcasts. But I depend on CBC Radio to give me a sampling of the newest and best ones to choose from.
Janice Snyder Ottawa
My own relationship with radio started in Poland in the early 1960s, when I was listening to English lessons called English on the Radio.
After immigrating to Canada, I followed advice given by a friend: Whatever I was doing, put the radio on and just let English fly into my brain. Later on, I passed this advice to my adult students learning the language.
It’s hard for me to imagine the end of broadcasting over the airwaves. Millions of people would lose their faithful companion and a reliable source of knowledge, not to mention entertainment.
I want to go on the list of “fond old listeners” and protest the attempts to kill broadcast radio.
Maria Barczyk Ottawa
There is nostalgia for radio reaching faraway places on an invisible delivery system of airwaves. As the proprietor of an online community radio station, our audience tunes in on phones or laptops, from WiFi signals emanating from some local, but more or less unseen, transmitter. What’s the difference?
The yearning for connection is more a function of content, not a transmitter. Community radio provides the wirecutters for the “barbed-wire fence” of the internet by producing engaging and authentic hyperlocal words and music, delivered by people one may just see in a local café or restaurant. It is very possible to recapture the essence of old-time radio embodied in a modern delivery method.
An end to radio over the airwaves should by no means spell the end of radio. We just need to be engaged and listen more.
Bill Collins Station manager, Radio Sidney; Sidney, B.C.
Spotted
Re “How fish forged my friendship with a Ukrainian doctor who fled the war” (Opinion. Feb. 18): Ukrainian culture is deeply embedded in nature. I feel it in my bones, 124 years and three generations after my Ukrainian family came to Canada.
One day, while walking to work, I spotted some mushrooms in the lawn of our fire hall. I squealed in delight and started picking.
Then I heard a voice calling out in Ukrainian. “Hi there. Aren’t you the lucky one!”
I turned around to see a young man grinning at me. I blurted out, “How did you know I’m Ukrainian?”
“You’re picking mushrooms.”
Greg Michalenko Waterloo, Ont.
Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Keep letters to 150 words or fewer. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com