FLORION GOGA/Reuters
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
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Can’t have it both ways
Re Yes To Both Carbon Taxes And Pipelines (May 2):
Your claim that we can “lower greenhouse gas emissions while allowing the oil industry to grow” is irresponsible nonsense. Professor Michael Mann, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, recently wrote, “The safest (and most cost-effective) path forward is to immediately curtail fossil-fuel burning and other human activities that elevate greenhouse gas concentrations.”
The science is clear: If we expand carbon output, we invite catastrophe.
Gideon Forman, The David Suzuki Foundation, Toronto
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Judging by the title of the editorial, I was excited to read the Globe and Mail’s view on how it is possible to both expand the oilsands with new pipelines and reduce our carbon emissions. Sadly, no explanation was forthcoming.
Based on current projections, Alberta’s oilsands are on a collision course with Canada’s carbon reduction commitments under the Paris Agreement. At projected rates of expansion, the oilsands will account for 22 per cent of Canada’s total emissions by 2030 and a mind-boggling 78 per cent by 2050.
Every other sector in Canada – residential, industrial, commercial, transportation, you name it – will have to reduce emissions radically (by 80 per cent or more) just to accommodate the expansion of one sector in one province. Ask auto manufacturers, farmers, the concrete industry or homeowners if they’re all willing to pick up the additional slack so that Alberta’s oilsands can continue expanding unfettered, for this is what new pipeline projects are designed to do.
This is a basic issue of fairness, as well as simple math. We can either meet our Paris commitments or we can continue massively expanding the oilsands. We cannot do both.
Mark Brooks, Ottawa
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Your editorial seems to echo Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s quest for a “balance” in terms of economic growth and environmental protection (Kenney Pledges To Restore Balance To Alberta, May 1).
Elsewhere we learn that the collapse of yet another natural gas producer in Alberta is sticking the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) – and taxpayers, more likely – with a multimillion-dollar bill to clean up 4,700 wells it is walking away from (Trident Shuts Down Operations, Leaving Behind $329-Million Bill For Well Cleanups, May 2).
Rather than complying, the AER said, “Trident’s directors shut down the operations, terminated all the employees and contractors and then resigned.” Mr. Kenney is right; we need to restore balance. But not by keeping the oil and gas industry’s thumbs on the weigh scale.
Chris Gates, Quinte West, Ont.
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Your editorial was right on. Our future is at stake. It is time to stop debating and act.
Catherine Campbell, Chatham, Ont.
Odd oil strategy
I think we all understand that Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is really, really upset that other people are making it hard for him to sell Alberta oil and gas (B.C. Challenges Alberta’s Oil-Embargo Law, May 3). In order to get even with those people, Mr. Kenney has put in place legislation which will mean that Alberta will refuse to sell its oil and gas. I can’t be the only person who finds this strategy just a wee bit odd.
Steve Soloman, Toronto
Doctor distribution
Daryl Dillman is an orthopedic specialist who can’t find work in his home province of Nova Scotia and has been forced to take a position in Chicago (Nearly One In Five New Specialist Doctors Can’t Find A Job After Certification, Survey Shows, May 1).
Meanwhile, rural emergency departments in Nova Scotia are closed because of staffing shortages practically every weekend. In that regard, the province mirrors the national issue of a shortage of emergency physicians estimated to be currently close to 1,000.
There is obviously something very wrong with the allocation of postgraduate training positions for Canadian physicians, which highlights the greater issue. There is clearly no strategic plan for health human resources in Canada. No one has a vision, no one has a plan.
Millions of dollars are spent training specialists for whom there is no apparent need. Millions of dollars are not spent training a sufficient number of emergency physicians to keep our health care safety net intact.
Something has to change.
Alan Drummond, co-chair, public affairs, Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians, Ottawa
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So specialist doctors can’t find work right away… well, boohoo.
I have some ideas for unemployed docs. There are many provinces that need general practitioners, so brush up on your bedside manners and general medicine and examination skills you learned in school, and go to a province where they need you, such as Nova Scotia. Practise general medicine for a few years until there are openings in your specialty.
Another idea is to go north, to James Bay or the Arctic. They need good doctors and health care, too. Four to five years working where you are desperately needed will help make you better doctors.
Deborah McLean, Napanee, Ont.
Chinese-Canadian Slight?
Regarding David Mulroney’s opinion piece, I was disturbed by an argument that he seems to make near the conclusion (With Lives At Stake, Canada’s Misguided Vision Of China Demands A Careful Reboot, May 1).
About Canadians of Chinese origin playing a role in helping their fellow citizens better understand China, he writes, “This fits hand-in-glove with the Canadian penchant for diaspora politics, and opens the door to Chinese interference.”
This line of argument casts unjustified suspicion on the Chinese Canadian community and has the potential to fuel discrimination against it. Compared to the careful nuance in the rest of the column, it is broadly discriminatory and irresponsible.
While much of Mr. Mulroney’s article makes insightful contributions to the public discussion about how Canada should respond to today’s China, as written, his point about Canadians of Chinese origin is unhelpful and potentially dangerous.
Peter Chung, Saint-Laurent, Que.
The living past
Re A Commemoration Of Jewish History (May 2):
Helped onto the stage by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, 91-year-old Fay Kieffer told her harrowing story of hiding out in the Polish countryside as a 15-year-old girl to a rapt audience of more than 1,000 at Toronto’s oldest synagogue, Holy Blossom Temple.
I doubt there was a dry eye in the house, but no one will forget her closing line: “Next time you meet a Holocaust denier, tell them you heard from a Holocaust survivor.”
Ron Charach, Toronto