Alberta Premier Jason Kenney updates media on measures taken to help with COVID-19.JASON FRANSON/The Canadian Press
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State of vaccination
Re Alberta Introduces Vaccine-passport System (Sept. 16): As a (retired) political scientist, I am fully aware that any federal intervention into Alberta’s COVID-19 management would have been constitutionally problematic, even though it would have saved us from the present catastrophe. Other politicians, civil servants and the medical community outside and inside Alberta were pretty unanimously alarmed when restrictions were lifted recklessly in July.
This goes beyond mere inconvenience for the duly vaccinated and economic damage. When cancer and other non-emergency surgeries are postponed, innocent lives are lost, never mind those unvaccinated victims who succumb in high numbers to the pandemic.
While sitting on a plane to France, French COVID-19 passports in hand, we can look forward to a safer environment where we can be sure that everyone sharing an enclosed public space is vaccinated.
We feel privileged yet sad to temporarily escape the madness at home, and thank the occasional advantages of a centralized system of government.
Manuel Mertin Dean emeritus, Mount Royal University; Calgary
Re Will The Pain Of Death Be A Wake-up Call For Unvaccinated Americans? (Sept. 16): Columnist Robyn Urback uses the excellent phrase “knee-jerk contrarianism” to describe what is driving the vaccine-hesitant.
I am reminded of Marlon Brando’s reply in The Wild One to someone who asked him, “Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?” He said, “Whatcha got?”
Christopher Kelk Toronto
Time to lead
Re It’s A Big Election. We Should Be Discussing Big Issues (Opinion, Sept. 11): I was both heartened and devastated by contributor Jesse Wente’s opinion. Heartened because he so fully understands the crossroads we are at in our human existence, and devastated because I fear his hopeful appeal to rise above politics is beyond our current political system.
As he writes, one way or another, humans will have to meet this moment; the ability of our political leaders to rise above the fray and lead us could be the thing that determines our chances of success.
Cheryl Lewis Toronto
Good debt, bad debt
Re Spending Spree (Letters, Sept. 11): The privileged of our society, including a letter-writer who is a Stauffer-Dunning Fellow at Queen’s University, seem more concerned about the debt than the vulnerable people who suffer so much from lack of government funding.
Yet we spend billions to subsidize big business, and billions to clean the environment when big business depletes it and ignores its limits. We give billions for investment-friendly policies and expensive contracts that benefit the most privileged. We designed loopholes to hide wealth and to have the wealthy pay the lowest taxes possible.
It seems to me that as long as debt is being incurred to support and bail out the wealthy, it rarely raises an eyebrow from the elites. Debt seems to matter only when it is being incurred to support those who need it most.
Would the letter-writer be ready to agree that the wealthy should lead the effort to balance the debt?
Heidi Vamvalis London, Ont.
Oil’s well?
Re Our Phony Election Debate Over The Oil Sands Won’t Stop Their Growth (Opinion, Sept. 11): How many elephants fit in this net-zero 2050 room?
A Calgary investor projects for Canada to produce 25 per cent of the free world’s crude in 2030. The Liberals are vaguely alluding to unspecified production caps. The Conservatives are hoping to greatly ramp up supply. Columnist Konrad Yakabuski’s honesty is appreciated, but if he’s correct, harder times are coming – and soon.
Greta Thunberg, climate experts and those whose houses have been decimated by fires or floods are right to ask us to vote for emergency climate action in line with science.
Bob Landell Victoria
Leadership in Canada shouldn’t be “vowing to get tough on the oil industry.” It should be about creating a long-term plan that accepts the reality of climate science.
At the same time, oil and gas workers deserve the nation’s gratitude for their work in getting us to where we are. They also deserve the support that will be required in the coming decades to safeguard their livelihoods as a shift happens.
We need leadership that has a credible plan to diversify Canada’s energy portfolio to ensure we will not be left behind as the world moves forward, and to ensure that the workers who we rely upon now will be part of the solution. Oil sector jobs won’t completely disappear in the next couple of decades, but they are bound to become more precarious.
Politicians should acknowledge this with plans that start now, to be ready for later.
Anne Hogarth Toronto
Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, columnist Konrad Yakabuski assures us, “lives in the real world” because he dismissed as “La La Land fantasy” a recent International Energy Agency report warning the world needs to end new oil exploration immediately. He may well live in the real world, but with temperatures of 56 C likely to become common across the Middle East, how long he can continue to live in Saudi Arabia is a whole other question.
Murray Reiss Salt Spring Island, B.C.
Location, location, location
Re Tennis Stars Serve Up Proof Of Immigration’s Benefits (Sept. 11): I couldn’t agree more with columnist Marcus Gee on the benefits of immigration and the example of our successful tennis players on the world stage. Unfortunately, of the top stars, only Bianca Andreescu currently lists Canada as her place of residence.
The rest have residency elsewhere: Félix Auger-Aliassime in Monte Carlo, Denis Shapovalov in Nassau, Leylah Fernandez in Florida, Eugenie Bouchard in Las Vegas. As our politicians talk about wealth taxes and marginal rates going up to pay for massive deficits, the tennis example is a good reminder that individuals (immigrants or otherwise) who are successful in their areas of expertise can take their skills and wealth elsewhere.
If we don’t have a competitive tax system, Canada loses.
Shane O’Leary Victoria
Members only
Re A Grand Experiment (Arts & Pursuits, Sept. 11): Museums should welcome all visitors whether once or whenever. What Canadian director James Bradburne is doing at Milan’s Pinacoteca di Brera with a membership-only strategy takes art out of the reach of the masses and turns it into a perk for the rich.
He says that he did not want to count on visitors to measure the museum’s success, but that is precisely how it should be measured.
Phil Rantucci White Rock, B.C.
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