A restaurant is closed as many businesses and restaurants are struggling financially along with labour shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto on Jan. 13.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
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Flagging
Re What Do We Wrap In Canada’s Flag? (Feb. 12): On Feb. 15, 1965, I was a proud fourth-grader who raised the new Canadian flag at my Ottawa school. Now I have been a family doctor in my city for 35 years.
On Feb. 15, 2022, I observed two masked retail employees being verbally abused by three unmasked customers who waved the flag I raised 57 years ago. Our flag has been taken hostage and used to threaten others.
One of the few positives emerging from the most serious health crisis in a century is the emergence of a dependable domestic industry for personal protective equipment. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if manufacturers flooded the market with masks emblazoned with the flag?
I would proudly wear them as a quiet gesture of solidarity with mask-wearers nationwide. We could, in that deliberate and dignified way, take back our flag and reconnect it with Canadian values of compassion, community and care for others.
Daniel Way Ottawa
Not done yet
Re World Is ‘Done’ With COVID-19: Ford (Feb. 16): So are the people who succumb to COVID-19. Doug Ford’s advice to “make sure we wash our hands” feels like an attempt to wash away the reality that public health measures are essential to keeping illness and death at a minimum.
Leading government means telling us how to save lives. I guess Mr. Ford doesn’t feel comfortable with that part of the job.
Stephen Nash Toronto
In mid-December, the number of COVID-19 deaths in Canada was about 30,000. Two months later, the number is more than 35,000. What is the rush to drop pandemic restrictions?
Karen Paul Toronto
What an odd policy choice: No more vaccine passports, but we must continue to mask?
The passport system works and it generate a sense of confidence in venues and places of business. At my local YMCA, I get to work out and not worry myself silly.
According to the Chief Medical Officer of Health, most Ontarians have done the right thing and had their shots. Why not reward them?
Keep the passport system and enable customers in secure venues, bars and restaurants to ditch their masks (if they so choose).
Alex MacKenzie Peterborough, Ont.
I am not sure how eliminating vaccine passports will be good for business.
There is an enhanced level of protection when only fully vaccinated individuals gather indoors. If unvaccinated individuals are allowed into the mix, everyone is put at greater risk for infection.
For me, this is a deterrent to dining out, going to the movies and visiting most other indoor venues. I have vulnerable people in my life that need to be protected from infection.
The end of vaccine passports means the end of dining out for me.
Mary Burge Toronto
Doug Ford may be done with COVID-19, but it is not yet certain that COVID-19 is done with us. Once again, he seems to be making a health decision based on politics and bowing to a vocal minority.
To quote the singer Dusty Springfield, “wishin’ and hopin’ and thinkin’ and prayin’ “ won’t get it done. Fingers crossed.
Peter Hambly Hanover, Ont.
By the numbers
Re Losing Faith (Opinion, Feb. 12): A more favourable rating of people’s satisfaction with Canada as a country may have been captured had there been a comparison with all the nations of the world.
Anyone who believes that there are better places to be a citizen than Canada would be in direct juxtaposition to the 400,000 or so immigrants seeking to get into the country each year.
Walter Petryschuk Sarnia, Ont.
Personal choice
Re Around The World Of Opioids In Six Books (Arts & Pursuits, Feb. 12): Throughout my almost 50 years, I have known hundreds of people who use illicit substances. Most do so for what they consider good reasons, whether other people agree or not.
I see no moral justification for interfering with what otherwise law-abiding citizens choose to do in their own homes. I believe government and the medical industry are no better equipped to make decisions about what is appropriate and beneficial for individuals than individuals themselves. Current platforms for dealing with pain management and addiction are not resulting in positive physical or mental health outcomes across the board.
My heart goes out to the millions of people who struggle to manage pain effectively, and who have been criminalized or stigmatized for taking their health into their own hands. To do so is something I believe to be their right and responsibility.
Gladys Huliberi Duncan, B.C.
Take responsibility?
Re The ‘Automatism’ Defence Is Not Inherently Anti-feminist (Feb. 14): Perhaps I do not fully understand the argument, or perhaps it is the law that I don’t understand. But it seems reasonable to me that if someone knowingly consumes an intoxicant (whether alcohol or another drug or medication) to the point at which they are unable to control their actions, then they should be held responsible for those actions.
The point should be that they chose to put themselves in such a condition.
Richard Harris Hamilton
Sex and mental health
Re Sexual Wellness Now A Mainstream Industry (Feb. 14): In monetizing sexual wellness, I believe we are trivializing sexual health, one of the key components of mental health that women face.
By grasping for quick solutions, we condone self-gratification and ignore the implications at our peril. The mind and heart are still the best erotic tools we have. Coupled with healthy, reality-based relationships, we can be empowered to confront loneliness and self-image issues, and to understand true happiness and fulfilment.
Like everything joyful and precious, it needs hard work, not batteries.
Marian Kingsmill Hamilton
Together, apart
Re Couples Who Sleep Apart Stay Together (Opinion, Feb. 12): In my youth, when dinosaurs still roamed, it was quietly muttered that sleeping in separate beds and even in separate rooms was a practical method of contraception. That was “B.P.” – before “the pill” – and when any form of contraception was considered by some morally dubious.
As for the aristocracy sleeping in separate rooms and even separate houses, this can be attributed to the reality that, for many of them, romantic love and reproduction are separate activities carried on with separate individuals, much like Prince Charles.
Ian Guthrie Ottawa
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