As COVID restrictions slowly lift, tourists roam the main street of Banff, Alberta on June 5, 2021.Todd Korol/The Globe and Mail
Keep your Opinions sharp and informed. Get the Opinion newsletter. Sign up today.
Political futures
Re PBO Says It Won’t Be Able To Cost All Platform Pledges If There’s A Snap Election (Report on Business, July 14): For the Liberals, it is the pre-election trifecta: child care, pharmacare and a high-speed rail link. Sound familiar? Well it darn well should. I am old enough to not be taken in by such promises.
One would have to be quite young and naïve to vote for such platforms. These hollow promises may help to explain low voter turnout, especially among our youngest voters.
Irv Salit Toronto
Re Greens’ Potential Crumbles Amid Bickering (July 12): The biggest problem for the Greens seems to be the Greens. When parties insist on ideological purity and forget fundamental politics, their electoral chances are often compromised.
Just look at the federal Liberals: I believe they have no ideology other than to gain and maintain power. The “we are Canada’s natural governing party” approach has worked, even if it means saying one thing during a campaign but doing the opposite once elected.
I have voted Green for decades. But if they cannot stop their internal pettiness and bickering, and start to focus on how to win elections, then I’m not sure I can continue my support.
Jeff Passmore Greely, Ont.
Too soon?
Re England To Lift All COVID-19 Restrictions Next Monday (July 13): Britain has a population approximately twice that of Canada. On Monday, the country had 34,471 new COVID-19 cases. (Canada had about one-third that number at the height of the virus spread.) On the same day, Canada had 577 new cases. What’s not to understand here?
Sure, the land mass of Canada helped us not to have higher cases. But most of our population dwells in large cities, putting us at similar risk for transmission. Did all the policy makers in Britain grow up with the New Math?
Everyone wants to return to normal (especially politicians for re-election purposes). But normal is being alive. This isn’t nuclear physics or rocket science.
Deborah Green Duncan, B.C.
As a physician and immunizer, I have observed widespread hesitancy in my clients toward receiving any of the offered vaccines. Most admit to only proceeding based on the conclusion that, without a declared percentage of the population being immunized, the never-ending series of lockdowns and restrictions will continue.
Their hesitancy is based on changing, and sometimes conflicting, declarations about the need for masks, changes in dosage timing, the safety of mixing vaccines etc. With infections and deaths declining, regardless of whether this is a result of immunization, there will likely be a fixed percentage of people who will opt not to receive treatment that, in their minds, has not been evaluated for long-term safety.
They do not see themselves as reactionary radicals, but merely prudent “consumers.” Adopting what they consider strong-arm tactics would convince very few.
Rick Inman Milton, Ont.
Heat of the moment
Re The Future Of Wildfires In Canada (July 12): The current heat waves and severe droughts should incline climate-change deniers to carefully consider author Caroline Schoeder’s aphorism: “Some people change their ways when they see the light, others when they feel the heat.”
Ray Arnold Richmond, B.C.
Things to come
Re Could The New GG Be More Than A Symbol? (Opinion, July 10): As an Inuk woman, Mary Simon has been affected by and confronted the colonialism of the very Crown she will represent. Unfortunately, all too often, the same federal Crown opposes Indigenous peoples in court, joining provincial Crowns and forcing Indigenous claimants to spend inordinate time and scarce resources proving their Aboriginal and treaty rights. This is wrong.
The federal Crown has constitutional responsibility for, and owes fiduciary obligations to, Indigenous peoples, and should be supporting rather than opposing them in litigation. As governor-general, Ms. Simon won’t be making litigation decisions, but hopefully she will influence the government on this and other important matters, perhaps in private talks with the Prime Minister.
Kent McNeil Emeritus professor, Osgoode Hall Law School; Toronto
It may be difficult for non-Indigenous groups to recognize the roles that Mary Simon has fulfilled in her various experiences. She has seen the value of working with the government not only of Canada, but of other nations that also deal with the problems of the Westernization of hereditary experience.
We cannot change the past. But we can learn from it, and we have the opportunity to do so in Canada. The constant emphasis placed on the injustices endured by many Indigenous peoples has been recognized by Canadians. Ms. Simon is in a position to speak to those injustices and work with government in correcting many of them.
What is required is the acceptance of that knowledge by both parties. Working together on what has been accomplished, rather than concentrating on perceived failings, should be required.
Nancy Pearce Kingston
Fuelling war
Re On Defence (Letters, July 13): A letter-writer eloquently questions encouraging investment in warfare machinery. A few pages later, an article promotes 10 stocks, of which half support the fossil fuel sector (Ten Stocks With Healthy Yields To Consider – Report on Business, July 13).
Should readers see a disconnect between urgency of global crises and urgency of the market to produce “healthy yields” at any cost?
Karl Raab Vancouver
Peaceful protest
Re Churches Should Embrace Same-sex Marriage (July 8): The most suffering my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters are forced to endure in the modern era is being corralled by activists into an LGBTQ alphabet cage. I find that the hostile attitude by the acronym crowd toward traditional religions causes more homophobia than it alleviates.
In the words of my beloved lesbian mentor, Camille Paglia: “No major world religion has ever endorsed homosexuality which can be openly practised only in peaceful, affluent and cosmopolitan times.” We should stop complaining about sincere Christians, Jews and Muslims who are merely exercising their Charter rights to free expression and whose philosophical perspectives span millennia.
We’ve already won the same-sex benefits battle, so there’s no longer concern over pensions and estates. Ceremonies of commitment are important, but the state and progressive churches can fulfill those quite adequately. For the safety of the whole community, gay activists should stop harassing conservative Christian denominations.
John McKellar Toronto
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