Letters: Where are the adults in the room in Canadian politics?

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‘Like a Peanuts comic strip’

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Re: Provinces fiddle with the Constitution at their peril, Dec. 13, Chris Selley

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Think of kids sitting on the floor, colouring one large picture, agreeing amongst themselves which section each would colour. They stay within their borders, crayons by their side, colouring their portions. Then one of them begins colouring another’s. Meeting with no resistance, he feels his oats, and goes after the other’s crayons, too.

That’s Quebec’s Bill 96 and Bill 4 in a nutshell. A province attempting to insert its own provisions, marking Q for Quebec, in the Canadian constitution. And Q has even taken C’s own crayons to complete the picture.

Quebec nationalists used to want their own constitution. Today’s breed seems content to write all over the Canadian Constitution instead. Premier Moe Scott, and lately Premier Danielle Smith, have taken a page out of Quebec’s colouring book, calling Saskatchewan and Alberta, respectively, “a nation within a nation.” I guess the word “province” is hopelessly provincial for some of our premiers.

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Kids have different temperaments, and some might find the invasive attempts of others all good fun, leading to a good-natured free for all with mirth and jocularity. Or, maybe, something less good-natured. But in all cases, this scene, like a Peanuts comic strip, has no adults in the room.

Howard Greenfield, Montreal

Not priorities for Canadians

Re: Canada’s National Gallery has become a woke national disgrace, Andrew Cohen, Dec. 26; and Canada funded this assisted suicide ‘activity book’ for children, Tristin Hopper, Dec. 21

Last Saturday, Andrew Cohen wrote about troubles at the National Gallery of Canada. Earlier in the week, Tristin Hopper wrote about the Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) Activity Book that was created with a grant from the Government of Canada. Both endeavours, while possibly noble, enjoy very little support among Canadians as priorities that deserve the attention of government at this time.

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In other words, truly democratic governments have no legitimate business spending time, money and effort on these projects when our economy is as distorted as it is, our armed forces are unable to recruit soldiers, our civil service has lost control over the issuance of visas and passports, wait times for medical care have risen to intolerable levels, and Ukraine needs all the help it can muster to defeat Russia.

Our politicians think that everything is a priority and that they therefore have no duty to focus on those projects that their constituents think are most important. If we are to succeed at anything, we must know how to identify and pursue a very limited number of priorities.

Patrick Cowan, Toronto

Federal government’s EV diktat is ‘utter insanity’

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Re: Why Liberals will have to backtrack on ‘aggressive’ push to bump electric vehicle sales, John Ivison, Dec. 24

As one who’s spent his working life doing production-machine design, I continue to be appalled at the ignorance and ineptitude displayed by our federal Liberal government. There is no way the auto industry can comply with this recent diktat. John Ivison is correct: Telling auto-makers that one-fifth of their production in Canada must run on electricity by 2026 is totally ludicrous. This timeline is utter insanity.

H.K. Hocquard, King, Ont.

Let’s end the charade and stop calling electric and hydrogen vehicles “zero emission.” Until the generation and distribution of the electricity (or hydrogen) to power the vehicle, the sourcing of all of the materials from which the vehicle is made, the manufacturing process of the vehicle itself along with all of its component parts, and the end-of-life recycle/disposal processes are all zero emission, then these vehicles truly cannot be classified as zero emission. Those are all very complex technical issues whose solutions are still (far?) in the future — sadly, issues that our politicians and climate activists are conveniently ignoring. A climate plan that merely bans existing technologies and energy sources but does not address, and solve, these technological challenges is no plan at all.

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Until then, it’s all just silly word games intended to cloud the situation and fool the uninformed.

Lloyd Vinish, Kelowna, B.C.

Liberal math: 2+2=22?

Re: Trudeau has ensured ‘there is no business case’ for oil and gas, Rex Murphy, Dec. 24

Rex Murphy aptly summarizes verbally the paucity of thought given by the Canadian government to the energy needs of Europe in this time of Russia’s reticence to deliver LNG products. To illustrate his view arithmetically might suggest that the fundamental truism that 2+2=4 has been bastardized by the Liberals to mean 2+2=22 where values of reciprocal needs have been cloaked in utterances defying common sense.

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Douglas L. Martin, Hamilton, Ont.

Praise for plain speaking and Pierre Poilievre

Re: Poilievre and Anglo-Saxon words, William Watson, Dec. 27

William Watson’s splendid piece on “plain” words reminded me of my own conversion.

Keith Spicer, Canada’s first commissioner of official languages, best remembered for his contributions to national bilingualism, became my English-language guru while teaching at UBC in the late seventies.

Spicer, later a good friend, was an evangelist for clear writing, and gave me a list of rules distilled from such books as Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style,” Sir Ernest Gowers’ “Plain Words” and Gowers’ revision of H.W. Fowler’s classic “Modern English Usage.”

One of Spicer’s rules was “prefer the Saxon to the Romance.” Pierre Poilievre should be praised, not criticized, for following it.

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Msgr. Gregory Smith, West Vancouver

A New Year’s resolution for politicians

Re: Resolution for 2023: It does not have to be this way, Joe Oliver, Dec. 20

A New Year’s resolution that Canada should embrace is the recognition of the fatal flaw in idealism. Canada’s idealistic fervour in rigidly holding on to the constraints of the Canada Health Act and our medicare system to the exclusion of all other alternatives to medical care, and its tunnel vision approach to eradicating fossil fuels at an unrealistic pace instead of adhering to a pragmatic, reasonable, sustainable timetable is leading us down a self-destructive path certain to be detrimental to our future, and we should be quick to modify these policies.

Morton Doran, Fairmont, B.C.

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Lester Pearson’s successors

Re: Pearson’s legacy: Seven of his successors assess how he changed Canada, Dec. 27

I enjoyed reading the comments from the seven living prime ministers on Lester B. Pearson. Well, to be honest, I enjoyed six out of seven as Justin Trudeau just couldn’t resist taking advantage of being asked to write a few words about a former prime minister without praising his government’s (and clearly, by inference, his own) apparent achievements.

I was disappointed but not surprised. Ironically, Trudeau’s words only highlight what former prime minister Pearson was and what the current prime minister is not (and will never be).

Clark Woodland, Surrey, B.C.

Rural internet woes

Re: Inaccessible, unreliable, unaffordable: The struggle to get internet in rural Canada, Jessica Mundie, Dec. 27

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It’s time Canada recognized that internet is part of basic infrastructure, instead of being provided by private companies that don’t care about less populated areas. Then our internet service would be more like … well, you know, our medical care, our passport service, our school systems, our roads, our military, our emergency preparedness, our public transit, our Indigenous water systems …

On second thought — Elon Musk, where are you?

Tom Curran, Prince Edward County, Ont.

‘Revolving-door justice system putting all citizens at risk’

Re: ‘Outraged’: Ontario’s top cop demands bail change after officer’s killing, Dec. 29

Kudos to OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique for shining a light on our pathetically weak bail system as he lamented the tragic slaughter of one of his young officers. The man accused of killing Const. Grzegorz Pierzchala was out on bail on criminal charges, including assaulting a police officer. We deserve better than the current revolving-door justice system that is putting all citizens at risk by mollycoddling perpetrators of serious crimes.

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Larry Comeau, Ottawa

Stop playing games with health care

Re: Trudeau content to watch health-care system crumble, Rahim Mohamed, Dec. 15; and Health-care funding deadlocked as Trudeau says provinces won’t get more money without reforms, Dec. 13

With hospitals and ERs feeling the strain of flu, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and COVID-19 infections, Canadians are demanding swift action from our federal, provincial and territorial governments. The bickering must stop. The Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario agrees with the premiers that the Canada Health Transfer should be raised to 35 per cent. We also agree with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that any increase should come with strings attached that address such key issues as the nursing crisis, primary care, home care, long-term care and mental health and addiction. Swift commitments and co-operation are needed now. How many more children’s surgeries must be cancelled? Nurses say to our elected officials: stop playing games and get to work, as nurses and other health professionals do — days, nights and holidays!

Dr. Doris Grinspun, CEO, Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO)

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