The soil around the abandoned gas well on Tom Edwards’ property collapsed into a sinkhole. The hydrogen sulphide and methane are leaking into the air and the creek water and damaging the trees and foliage in the area.Melissa Tait/The Globe and Mail
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Top down
Re Lucki Says There Have Been No RCMP Reforms Since Rampage (Aug. 25): Our national police should do just that: police nationally. Unfortunately, it is doing little of that.
The RCMP is mainly in the local policing business. It supplies provinces and municipalities with officers, managed by the force from Ottawa. Ontario and Quebec do this themselves.
This policing has two masters, as it also includes a province’s attorney-general. Not a common structure.
This leads to the detriment of national policing and the RCMP brand, as well as local dissatisfaction and the commissioner’s frustration.
Bernhard Buetow Ottawa
Food for thought
Re Overblown? (Letters, Aug. 25): “Yes, ammonia, the wonder fuel of the future,” a letter-writer sarcastically affirms.
In fact, ammonia has a higher energy density than even liquid hydrogen, the American Chemical Society reports. Moreover, ammonia can be transported more efficiently than liquid hydrogen, which must be kept at cryogenic temperatures.
Denis Seguin Toronto
Re German Chancellor’s Visit Failed To Address The Elephant In The Room (Report on Business, Aug. 25): Imagine Canada as a world-renowned doughnut shop and Germany, money in hand, comes to buy some doughnuts.
“We are known the world over for our doughnuts,” says Canada, “and we are making them with greater care every day. But we’d like to sell you apples. Apples are better for you. Although we don’t have apples yet, we will grow them somewhere they’ve never been grown before, and some time in the future we hope to deliver them to you.”
“You are right,” says Germany, “apples are better for us and we’ll take some when they’re ready. In the meantime, do you know a shop that wants to sells their doughnuts? Sometimes you really just need a doughnut.”
Dave McClurg Calgary
Private thoughts
Re Let’s Get Real About Our Health Care System (Aug. 24): Everybody in the top 1 per cent either knows someone or knows someone who knows someone who can expedite their health care.
Although most of these people are willing to pay extra for this service, it is not allowed in Canada. Instead they get this service for free, or the cost of a dozen doughnuts for the secretary.
Why not have them (and other interested Canadians) or their insurers pay for expedited service and use the profit to subsidize public health care? We can also welcome Americans, for whom we can provide care at a substantially lower price and still turn a profit.
Arthur Vanek MD Toronto
“Canada’s health care system is universal in name only.” True. Prescription drug plans, senior care and dental care are private already. So how does increased privatization help?
Canada’s political class has failed to deliver a health system that is effective in performance, rapid in delivery. There is much to decipher about how the system works, where it doesn’t deliver and where it can be reorganized for better results before it’s thrown out.
Protecting universal health care in Canada is what our leaders should be saying.
Carl Hager Gatineau, Que.
It is true that private health care coexists with public health care in European countries. It is also true that if private providers here were prepared to be as rigorously regulated as their European counterparts, the system would work.
However I doubt that “manacled competition,” as the German model has been described, would be palatable. An equally important question is whether governments in Canada would monitor and regulate as stringently as European governments do.
Doreen Barrie Calgary
Re The Private-public Debate Is A Distraction (Aug. 23): My eureka moment for what ails our health systems came in the 1980s as a health care researcher in Ontario.
We partnered with health managers across the province to establish the Ontario Health Care Evaluation Network. The objective was to build bridges between managers and researchers to inform evidence-based decisions.
At an annual meeting, we convened a panel to compare performance measures across health regions. None of the managers wanted their organization to rank at the bottom (questionable competence) or top (unwanted attention that might unsettle their political masters). They all preferred the quiet middle of the pack. This attitude inevitably leads to comfortable mediocrity.
I have since believed that the focus of positive change starts with the relationship between executive and political culture. Quality can be jointly prioritized and managers less likely to be intimidated by taking the risks that come with innovation.
George Browman MD Oak Bay, B.C.
Could doctors, nurses, hospitals and everyone else in the “system” please leave their silos and start talking to one another, instead of demanding more money from governments?
Judy Lindsay Vancouver
Get it together
Re Abandoned Wells: Ticking Time Bombs (Aug. 25): With more than 26,000 oil and gas wells in Ontario – mostly in the southwest, half of them abandoned, about 6,000 of unknown status – many more explosions are likely. The province’s position that municipalities should manage these risks on their own is preposterous to me.
It would cost much less for the province to assemble the expertise, do the necessary analysis and then respond as risks arise, rather than for many municipalities to do this individually. Wheatley shows that even a diligent and resourceful municipality cannot deal with these risks itself.
We drove through the town last May, detouring around downtown because of the explosion. We wondered what Doug Ford was doing. The Globe’s investigation provides an answer: nothing useful.
Don and Ann Dewees Toronto
Initial impression
Re Airport Infrastructure Should Reflect Canada’s Ambitions (Report on Business, Aug. 19): Airports “offer a first impression for tourists,” and our recent visit to Calgary left me and my wife with the impression that the city was on the bounce by its super-clean, well-managed airport.
However our return flight to Toronto could not have been worse. We were abhorred at the dirty floors and torn seats, poorly managed stations, dilapidated and filthy food areas and disgraceful washrooms. We have never been exposed to worse conditions, which made us ashamed as Canadians.
This opinion reveals the likely reasons: Non-profit ownership prevents new sources of funding for infrastructure improvement, and pandemic-deferred rent now being added to normal rent leaves no cash flow.
There should be no excuse for a top-tier country showcasing itself in such a deplorable way.
Neil McLaughlin Burlington, Ont.
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