Prime Minister Mark Carney responds to a question during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on April 21.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
For better or worse
Re “A post-Cold War operation kept enriched uranium out of Iran’s hands decades ago” (April 20): Donald Trump’s adventures in Iran should clarify for all that country’s ambitions for developing a nuclear weapon. Iran may not need a nuclear bomb because it has something more powerful: control of the Strait of Hormuz.
Though I never uncritically accept statements from Iran’s leadership, while the country controls the strait, I’m inclined to believe it is not actively seeking, and does not need to seek, nuclear armament.
This can change. If Iran’s collective enemies devise a way to neutralize its Hormuz advantage, the country would undoubtedly seek new leverage. That future could be far more dangerous than the present.
We must be careful what we wish for.
Geoffrey Milos Toronto
Looking back
Re “Weakest link” (Letters, April 21): It is implied that Major-General Sir Isaac Brock was not “smart enough to survive.” Survival is a poor measurement of smarts.
Donald Trump has been heard to proclaim that soldiers who die are losers. None of the soldiers whom we honour on Remembrance Day are losers, be they dead or alive.
Brock led from the front in full uniform, fully visible and, most importantly, visible to his own troops. Yes, he fell, but he did not fail.
Yes, Major-General Roger Hale Sheaffe assumed command and was thus credited somewhat. However, if one reads deeply into Sheaffe’s history, one might discover how it was that he managed to “survive.”
In my view, Mark Carney has shown that he has the same mettle exhibited by Brock. That is inspirational leadership.
Brian Williams Belleville, Ont.
A letter-writer makes a good point about Major-General Sir Isaac Brock’s death in the War of 1812. I’ve always wondered why the British chose to be so visible in battle with their red jackets.
Mark Carney might want to celebrate another War of 1812 hero: Laura Secord. Her warning to British troops that the Americans had landed at Queenston made the difference between victory and defeat at the Battle of Beaver Dams.
She was assisted near the end of her 32-kilometre trek by First Nations peoples, but they never received much acknowledgment even though she did.
Barbara Klunder Toronto
By the numbers
Re “Doug Ford gives up a gravy plane for his normal clown car” (April 21): Inferior leadership exercised by Doug Ford resulted in wasting scarce public resources in order to achieve null.
But the issue is not “to jet or not to jet.” Rather, was sound administrative practice adhered? I say not.
The Premier should have explained why jet costings via ownership can save money. Common aviation practice suggests that if one exceeds roughly 175 flight hours per year, jet ownership can demonstrate fiscal prudence.
This latest fiasco demonstrates to me the Premier’s inability to provide responsible prescriptive leadership instead of sating more basic interests favouring the few: Closing the Ontario Science Centre and the Ontario Place grounds spring to mind.
The Premier, in my judgment, represents inferior transactional leadership calibrated on the emotive instead of analytics.
Monte McMurchy Toronto
No-show
Re “A lesson in the importance of showing up” (Editorial, April 20): We cannot make assumptions that students who do not attend classes are all from “vulnerable” communities. This is not solely a socioeconomic problem, though barriers are heartbreakingly real.
The province can scaffold attendance with all kinds of well-meaning supports, acknowledging obstacles. However, without concurrent pedagogical updates dealing directly with learning diversity among 21st-century learners, students who cannot learn in the traditional classroom would still be lost, no matter how often they “show up.”
Believe me, intellectual shaming and othering are perilous demotivators, too. So let us be careful about teaching “responsibility” without being accountable for quality, resonant, experiential education once our students arrive at school.
Jennifer McIlroy Professor, Centennial College; Toronto
That 60 per cent of Ontario high-school students are missing more than 10 per cent of school days sounds bad. But without comparisons, we do not understand how massive the crisis is.
While many countries have seen increases in absenteeism since the pandemic, rates are far lower in the United States and Britain, where roughly 20 per cent of students miss more than 10 per cent of school days.
Ontario’s proposal to tie attendance to grades is being criticized from many corners of education, but this is roughly what Norway implemented by not releasing final grades for students missing more than 10 per cent of classes without documented medical reasons. The outcome was 20- to 28-per-cent decreases in absences.
It looks like Ontario must implement Norway’s policy and other steps. Without a massive course correction in short order, Ontario’s children, and the province, face a far poorer future.
Mark Wolfgram Ottawa
Attendance in school is an important part of what used to be called the “hidden curriculum.”
Coincidentally, I recently began reading Margaret Atwood’s Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts. It seems that her attendance at school was somewhat haphazard while she accompanied her parents on scientific expeditions to Ontario’s North.
Judging by her later writing, she learned much on those expeditions. But if the current powers were in charge of her schooling, would she have been penalized for absenteeism?
That would be some sort of triumph. Irony, perhaps, to use a literary term?
Ian Guthrie Ottawa
Bound together
Re “To honour my father, I have a replica of his Auschwitz tattoo inked on my own arm” (First Person, April 14) and “With courage” (Letters, April 21): A letter-writer, reflecting on my recent essay, recalled times when students were shocked and spellbound after hearing personal testimonies of Holocaust survivors.
My late father, himself a Holocaust survivor, spoke to many hundreds of students for 25 years. In private, he always worried that his presentations were making no difference.
After he died, I found a file of letters, poetry and artwork he had received from students over the years. They thanked him for his testimony and for the courage to open up to strangers.
I bound these into a hardcover book which I titled You Did Reach Me. The phrase was borrowed from one student’s beautiful letter which read, in part: “You said that if you could just reach one person, that it would make you feel that you told your story for the good. I just wanted to let you know that you did reach me.”
Gary Kapelus Toronto
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