Climate consensus, indeed
Re Leaders Agree Copenhagen Will Focus On Principles, Not Concrete Goals (online, Nov. 15): Yet another example of delaying tactics, so familiar to all parents. Who are the leaders fooling?
Sudhir Jain, Calgary
Let's boycott the jumping
So Olympic events are determined by the International Olympic Committee, which is beyond the reach of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ( B.C. Court Shoots Down Women Ski Jumpers' Appeal To Compete In 2010 Games - Nov. 14), and ski jumping is the only Winter Olympic sport restricted to men. What can Canada do? For starters, the Canadian men's ski jumping team should boycott the event.
Steve Feiner, London, Ont.
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I want to thank the IOC and the Vancouver Organizing Committee for banning women ski jumpers. You've just given me one more reason to boycott the 2010 Winter Games and their sponsors.
Jerry Steinberg, Vancouver
Painkilling addiction
Re Canada, You Need An Intervention (Focus, Nov. 14): Sir William Osler said "the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine." We often reach for the pill bottle because of a lack of interest in more creative solutions, and this grasping at easy answers is ably abetted by a rapacious pharmaceutical industry trying to convince us there's a chemical solution to all of life's ills.
This is often a dangerous deception, and opiate addiction is probably the most egregious example of the harm that can be wrought by our pill-popping culture. "First do no harm" has been the cornerstone of ethical medical practices for more than two millenniums.
Paul Thiessen, MD, Vancouver
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The diversion of prescription drugs is obviously a major problem. Many patients do not receive adequate treatment, often due to narcotic neurosis or opioid phobia by the physician. Those people who pretend to be ill and go from doctor to doctor in search of drugs are responsible for most of this diversion. But the solution is so simple: If pharmacy computers were linked together with the presentation of ID, the largest gap in the system would be plugged. We don't need more committees; we need action.
Alan L. Russell, MD, Brampton, Ont.
That Irish-English thing
It intrigues me that an English society as dysfunctional as letter writer Diana Smith describes ( The Man From Ireland - Nov. 14) could have produced most of the core ingredients of our valued way of life: democracy, justice, great science, literature, incredible energy for adventure and, oh yes, the courage to shed its blood and treasure in defence of the above.
Wallace Rendell, St. John's
Royal row
Like all fans of The Globe and Mail who also believe that the Crown in Canada remains a valuable, if undervalued, institution, I am in a state of astonishment at your editorial suggesting intelligent enhancements to the constitutional arrangements that have so painfully survived for our benefit to this day ( The Way Forward With Canada's Maple Crown - Nov. 14). There has been so much misunderstanding of the positive features of our constitutional system, so much denigration of those long-suffering sitting ducks in the Royal Family, so much ignorance of the mess we would be thrown in by trampling on the decent, evolutionary nature of our executive, that many of us despaired of anything so reasonable - and obvious - as your editorial ever emerging again.
The strident contempt of those who attack the Crown in Canada always seemed to me proof that they essentially hate their country: hate its history, its compromises, its usefully confusing but workable constitutional arrangements, its lack of revolutionary fervour, its very patch-quilt essence and survival as a triumph of compromise and decency.
That's certainly true of the nationalists in Quebec who have obliterated all memory of their own history in preference for manufactured mythology. It's also true of a lot of English Canadians who haven't a useful clue how we got where we are. Your excellent editorial has scattered their knavish tricks! So thank you.
John Fraser, master, Massey College, Toronto
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Your editorial appears to be suggesting an archaic idea by replacing one half-baked one (1991) with another. I see two problems. The first is that Canada wants to be "British" when it's convenient. Check your passport, for instance; it suggests that, if you can't find a Canadian embassy in time of need, go to the British one. How quaint to suggest Mom will look after us. Don't we already have a problem with Canadians of convenience?
Second, if we're going change the way we choose our head of state, we should either go bold or go home. The only acceptable alternative to an appointed or inherited head of state is one who's elected. And if we're going to open that constitutional can of worms, let's reform the Senate, too. Otherwise, we'd just be putting lipstick on a pig.
Michael Vanner, Toronto
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Do you not see the irony in proposing that future governors-general should be chosen by people who themselves were appointed (the Chief Justice of Canada), are bureaucrats (the Clerk of the Queen's Privy Council) or were selected by interest groups (president of the Royal Society of Canada) in order to remove patronage from the appointment of the governor-general?
Dorothy Dobbie, Winnipeg
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You suggest we select the governor-general using a non-partisan body modelled on the Advisory Council of the Order of Canada. If you must persist in finding a role for unelected elites in this process, why not try a random sample of Canadians in a Tim Hortons?
John Jarrell, Calgary
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I agree with your concept of an expanded Advisory Council of the Order of Canada to decide on a list of candidates to serve as governor-general. But let's drop the archaic title. How about president of Canada?
Victor Branch, Peterborough, Ont.
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The true sovereigns of this land are the first nations, Métis and Inuit peoples. If we're going to continue with a governor-general, it's only just that the position always be filled by an aboriginal Canadian.
Mariana Valverde, Toronto
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Thank goodness for Michael Valpy, one of the few Globe journalists who has a clue about how Canada is structured and governed. His essay Offshore, But Built-In (Nov. 14) should be required reading, especially for those who write inane editorials advocating radical change to the Canadian Crown.
W. Neil Fraser, Toronto
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Michael Valpy seems to think Canadians ought to remain subjects of the British Crown because it's too difficult to change our Constitution. Your editorial echoes this defeatist sentiment. So let's have the debate. If the overwhelming majority of Canadians object to our elected representatives governing at the whim of a foreign monarch, our politicians will defy them at their peril.
J.C. Henry, Mississauga, Ont.
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Eliminating the monarchy from our Constitution might not be as difficult as Michael Valpy surmises. As it's exclusive, elitist, racist and undemocratic, the monarchy could be declared unconstitutional on the grounds that it's an affront to human rights.
Mick Scromeda, Annapolis Royal, N.S.
This just in
Jeffrey Simpson ( PM's China, India Travels Are Overdue - Nov. 14) says "Canada under Pierre Trudeau became the first large Western country to recognize 'Red China.'" Not quite. The United Kingdom recognized the People's Republic of China in 1950, and France followed in 1964. Canada didn't recognize China until 1970. But we beat the U.S. by nine years. (By the way, my father, Ralph Collins, was the first Canadian ambassador to the PRC, from 1971 to 1972.)
Mark Collins, Ottawa
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In your article Miracle Workers (Focus, Nov. 14), Donatella Tampieri is described as a "four-foot-one little bombshell." I have known this well-respected and energetic doctor for more than two decades. She is at least 4 foot 11!
Allan J. Fox, MD, professor, medical imaging, University of Toronto
It was the smell of the brisket
In his review of David Sax's Save the Deli ( The Delicate State Of The Deli - Books, Nov. 14), Jacob Richler writes: "It is clear from the outset that Sax's editors were asleep at the switch. Example: In the book's first sentence, Sax writes that his deli-loving grandfather 'Poppa' Sam Sax died two years before he was born. In only the next paragraph, Sax volunteers: 'I never met "Poppa" Sam.' Go figure."
In the third paragraph, however, Mr. Richler says: "Sax is a New York-based food writer who lives in New York." Were Mr. Richler's editors asleep at the switch? Go figure.
Mark Klein, Toronto
Feeling a draft, sir?
So Liberal Frank McKenna thinks it's a good idea for Michael Ignatieff to travel around the country ( How To Win In Politics? Stay Away From Ottawa - Nov. 14) and "expose himself to people." Won't he get arrested?
Walter Schwager, Toronto