Bag-fee doublespeak
Re Bags Of Money: WestJet Looks For Boost From New Luggage Fee (Report on Business, Sept. 16): I loved the comment by WestJet's Bob Cumming about why the airline is now charging $25 for check-ed baggage on lower-fare tickets. He said not everyone travels with a checked bag, but right now everyone pays for it. I would say to him: Not everyone who travels weighs 250 pounds, but right now everyone pays for them.
Why doesn't WestJet just come out and say it: This is yet another cash grab.
Larry Rose, Toronto
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Put teeth in medicare
As a nurse, it has never ceased to befuddle me that we do not provide basic dental-care services as part of our medical system (When Pain Bites – letters, Sept. 16).
Aside from reducing pain and suffering, there is solid medical evidence to back up the value of looking after one's teeth.
Poor dental health is associated with malnutrition, heart disease and premature labour. All these cost us money. It makes sense to prevent their occurrence. The federal government needs to take the lead and provide extra funding to the provinces to support publicly funded dental care.
Jane McCall, Delta, B.C.
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Tax cut as bait
Re Tax Cuts On Way, Harper Says (Sept. 16): After years of running up Canada's debt – it now tops $540-billion – a responsible government would be interested in paying it down. Not the Conservatives. They will use our own money to try to win the election.
Thor Kuhlmann, Vancouver
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Aging: Rethink it
Re Home Care's Where The Heart Is (Sept. 16): Canadians have a rosy view of health care, which we think is "free." We love showing off our machines and fancy public clinics. But if your health requires a walking aid, fall-alert monitor, or help with your meals or bathing, you get nickel-and-dimed on your small government pension, or your relatives are told they "must" do all the heavy lifting.
Addressing aging in Canada re-quires a rethink of our priorities.
Janet Kushner-Kow, UBC division head, geriatric medicine; Vancouver
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Canada has an aging population; hospitals are overcrowded and expensive; Canadians want to stay in their own homes as long as possible: These are universal truths we can agree on – the "all talk" that André Picard refers to.
So let's talk action. Action would mean provincial and territorial governments redistributing budgets more appropriately between hospital care and community or home-based care.
Action would mean the federal government acknowledging that uniform health transfers across the nation aren't enough, that demographic top-ups are needed for certain regions – to Atlantic Canada, for example, where 7.4 per cent of the population is 65 or older, compared with the national average of 5.3 per cent.
Anne Sutherland Boal, CEO, Canadian Nurses Association
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CBC's value, cost
Norway spends $180 per person per year for public broadcasting. Third from the bottom of the list of the per-capita amount of 18 industrialized nations' taxes going to public broadcasting is … Canada: $27 per person per year. That's less than a case of beer. Imagine what we would get for two cases of beer (Harper Backs Pick-And-Pay TV – Report on Business, Sept. 16).
As a nation, we must know more than the cost of everything, and the value of nothing.
Peter Keleghan, Toronto
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Split-class calculus
Re Full-Day Kindergarten Splits Classes – And Raises Concerns (Sept. 13): The primary class size initiative, introduced into Ontario schools in 2007, required that 90 per cent of classes from kindergarten through Grade 3 have no more than 20 pupils. The rest could have up to 23.
This meant most existing kindergarten classrooms were larger than was needed under the new rules. It also highlighted the stark reality that many schools, especially those with full or overfull enrolment, would be pressed to find the additional classrooms needed. School boards moved to build more JK/SK classrooms, but of smaller size. These changes were just beginning to be implemented when full-day kindergartens were introduced in 2010 and the rules changed again.
Now, class size can be up to 30 pupils in addition to a teacher and an early childhood educator. If there are students with special needs, an educational assistant may be required as well. If these extra adults were counted when determining class size average, perhaps the overcrowding could be partly alleviated.
Nancy Elgie, Keswick, Ont.
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Regardless of gender
Re Why Does She Stay? Wrong Question (Focus – Sept. 13): Ian Brown writes about domestic violence from the perspective of the traditional male/female "battle of the sexes" and thus makes an otherwise interesting article sexist in its own way.
I suggest that had Ray Rice been in a domestic relationship with William (The Refrigerator) Perry, he still would have abused him, but for his safety would have avoided physical strategies, the stuff that could be photographed in an elevator, assuming they could both fit into one.
All that is necessary for domestic violence to occur is that one person, regardless of gender, treats the other as an object, without rights to life, never mind liberty or happiness.
Mr. Brown and The Globe would be doing an even greater service with an article on sexism in society's views on domestic violence. Perhaps you could tell us about shelters that admit male victims.
Paul Pipher, St. Catharines, Ont.
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P(l)ay the piper
Five years after a Yes majority, here's what happens. Saddled with its share of the U.K.'s £1.3-trillion national debt, Scotland finds its North Sea oil revenue declining as that resource dwindles.
Debt soars. Swimming with the big sharks of the EU (Germany, France, England) the country finds itself outpriced and outmanoeuvred. Exports plummet.
Emigration offices in major cities are crowded with Scots eager to get out. The SNP's deposed leader Alex Salmond is living quietly in the Canary Islands. His memoir, My Fight For Freedom, is a garbled mishmash of fact and fancy and an embarrassing bust.
Gordon S. Findlay, Toronto
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You says the Yes campaign seems to believe "you can improve your marriage by getting a divorce." True, after a divorce there's no marriage – but often there's a far better relationship between ex-spouses. That would be a fine outcome for England and Scotland.
David Schatzky, Toronto
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If Scotland separates, does that mean we no longer have to listen to bagpipes played at Parliament, legislature openings, war memorials and curling classics? Can we ban kilts in public? Just asking.
John Harold, Regina