The Canadian border crossing during the COVID-19 pandemic in Lacolle, Que., on Feb. 12, 2021.Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press
Stand taken
Re A Call To Stand Together (Opinion, Jan. 7): Many who agree wonder, “How do we stand together?”
The essential history is short: Our governments took the land and resources and the livelihoods of Indigenous peoples. They also took the right to self-governance. There’s nothing unique about this. The British did it to about 700 million people around the world.
In the mid-20th century, the majority regained land and resources and the right to govern themselves, in part because of international pressure. But seven decades on and our governments still resist, feeling little pressure to change from those who elect them.
Our pressure should be on the Prime Minister, the premiers and the finance ministers. The focus should be on three principles: Recognize Indigenous governments under the Constitution; fairly share management of land and resources and revenues to remedy damage; provide services equivalent to those of other Canadians.
Our governments have proven for more than 150 years that they will not support national standards of public services. Give Indigenous governments the resources to do it for themselves.
Russell Banta Former chief federal land claim negotiator; Ottawa
Q&A
Re Relax: Higher Immigration Means More Demand For Goods And Services, But Also More Supply (Opinion, Jan. 7): The health care system was a mess 30 years ago? In 1993 there was no shortage of family doctors, emergency rooms were easily accessible when needed and surgery wait lists were much shorter.
The number of people in a country has nothing to do with environmental degradation? More people equals more infrastructure, services, housing, and so on, which equals more pressure on environmentally sensitive land needed for all of that.
The Canada of today with its population growth is more tolerant? Not evident to me in politics nor the crime and violence of big cities, Vancouver being a prime example.
Roger Emsley Delta, B.C.
Our health
Re Health Is A Collective Endeavour (Opinion, Jan. 7): The ecological determinants of health are the planetary systems and resources that give us clean air and water, nutritious soil, a suitable climate, food and shelter. Without these there would be no human society, indeed no humans.
We have taken these earthly gifts for granted. We used far too much for progress and economic growth. The result of our hubris is imminent planetary failure, exemplified by the catastrophic consequences of climate change and its existential threat to human society.
We must rethink our ideologies and actions, we must redefine and reduce our needs. We must work with nature, not against it.
Donald Spady MD, Edmonton
See all
Re The Internet Has Everything On You Now (Opinion, Jan. 7): Contributor Vicky Mochama made me think of a concept propagated by numerous philosophers: We don’t have freedom without privacy. But I now realize how quickly we are all prepared to give up our privacy, and likewise our freedom, for the sake of convenience and instantaneous recognition.
I agree: How nice it would be, to be anonymous again. I miss the days of being unknown and just myself.
Janek Jagiellowicz Waterloo, Ont.
Happy times
Re The Happiness Code (Opinion, Jan. 7): I tried hard to place myself somewhere along contributor Tom Rachman’s journey in search of the “happiness code.” It wasn’t easy. Impossible even.
That many people just “want to have a good story for their life” was one viewpoint that forced me to pause. True in the broadest sense perhaps, in that the bar for a “good story” can be neither high nor low, but positioned by circumstances and life’s expectations.
After reading the heartbreaking report on pending famine in Somalia (On The Brink Of Famine – Jan. 7), seeking to define a “happiness code” may seem like an exercise in trivia. But maybe lasting happiness can be found in helping rewrite the best life story we can for our neighbour or a stranger and, in doing so, for ourselves.
Jack Holland Toronto
In Post Growth – Life After Capitalism, ecological economist Tim Jackson demonstrates that today’s capitalism is a “catalogue of system errors” by insisting that more is better, undervaluing care, promoting consumerism and breeding inequality. Politicians remain wedded to material growth.
Until a strong majority desists from falling for these delusions, the good life will likely elude us.
Erwin Dreessen Ottawa
It seems that people are either looking for help to be happy, or confusing happiness with success. We ought to accept that happiness is the truest gift we can give ourselves.
Late-night host Johnny Carson had a cool quote following heart surgery, when asked if he was going to change his lifestyle. His retort: “I know a man who gave up smoking, drinking, sex and rich food. He was healthy right up to the day he killed himself.”
My preferred adage is: “Success is getting what you want, and happiness is wanting what you get.”
Ward Jones Richmond Hill, Ont.
My parents were Holocaust survivors. Happiness and happy were not words in our family vocabulary.
My mother recently passed away shortly before her 100th birthday. When she was in her 70s, I asked her what happiness meant to her. She went to her jewellery box and brought out a string of pearls.
She said, “Happiness is like a string of pearls. Each pearl represents a moment or time that I was happy. But each pearl is separated by a knot. Separately they are happy moments, but all together they are my happiness.”
Irv Kochman Thornhill, Ont.
No doubt
Re Benedict Was A Believer, But He Made A Virtue Of Doubt (Opinion, Jan. 7): In the last year of my engineering studies at the University of Manitoba in 1970, we needed two non-tech electives. For one of mine, I chose “Atheism and the Belief in God,” taught by Reverend John Hanley, a Jesuit priest from St. Paul’s College.
Father Hanley found it easy to dismiss most atheist writers because they did not seem to fully understand the Christianity that they were rejecting. On the other hand, he was challenged by Albert Camus because he thought the philosopher probably had as good a grasp of Catholic theology as he did – and yet, chose not to believe.
He wondered whether one morning he might wake up and see the world as Camus did and “lose his faith.” His personal example encouraged us to see doubt not as a weakness, but as a virtue.
Lord knows, it’s a virtue the world can use a lot more of today.
John Bachmann Mississauga
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