Going for gold
Re Cross-Chequing In Calgary: Stranded Oilers End Up In Faceoff Over New Year's Tab (front page, Jan. 4): So each member of the Edmonton Oilers spent $373.25 ($16,796.39 divided by 45) on a New Year's Eve dinner. As a pensioner, here's what I did. I rented a movie, cuddled with my wife, nibbled at a box of Pot of Gold chocolates, and had a fabulous time for less than $5 each. As a bonus, we never quibbled over the money we spent.
Peter Dielissen, Fredericton
Picking the nation's best. Or not
Margaret Atwood a nation builder of the decade (Focus, Jan. 2)? The same Margaret Atwood who said she was going to vote for the Bloc Québécois - a party whose sole reason for existence is to divide the nation - in the last federal election? Some nation builder.
Jody Spark, Calgary
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I must take exception to letter writer Douglass Grant's criticism of Rick Hillier's selection as a nation builder ( Prorogation Vacation - Jan. 4). Through his efforts to reinvigorate our formerly dispirited, financially starved armed forces, the straight-talking former chief of the defence staff is an outstanding example of a nation builder as defined by The Globe and Mail.
One doesn't have to agree with what Mr. Hillier or any of the other distinguished Canadians chosen as builders have achieved in order to recognize the magnitude of their accomplishments.
Peter Stone, Burlington, Ont.
The language of politics
I strenuously object to your suggestion that the word "prorogue" ought to be retired from the Queen's English because it connotes "the misuse of government power" ( A Vow For New Year's - editorial, Jan. 4). It's a perfectly serviceable word.
But two other words should be retired in its stead - Stephen Harper!
Peter A. Lewis-Watts, Barrie, Ont.
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Your editorial is a magnificent start to 2010. It should be read by all CEOs preparing their annual reports. They need to be weaned from "going forward" with its unfounded implication of progress and revert to using "in the future."
Rodney Touche, Calgary
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Another one for the banish list: "ordinary Canadians," which implies that the nincompoop saying it is somehow extraordinary.
Sandra McCrone, Vancouver
In cheques we trust
Your editorial Endangered Paper (Jan. 2) says the Canadian Payments Association, the owner and operator of Canada's national clearing and settlement systems, has adopted as an assumption the "demise" of cheques and is expected to soon decide "on how to proceed." The CPA has not asked for any such decision from its member institutions and is not considering any initiative to phase out cheques.
The CPA's draft long-term strategy document does point out, though, that other countries have outlined "broad strategies to manage the decline and eventual demise of cheques." It also recognizes the changing landscape of payments.
With electronic payment options becoming more and more popular, cheques represent a smaller share of all the payment items entering the clearing and settlement system in Canada. This share has fallen dramatically, from 86 per cent in 1990 to 18 per cent today.
This being said, cheques remain a convenient method of payment for many Canadians, particularly for small and medium-size businesses that appreciate the remittance data the paper cheque represents in order to reconcile their accounts payable. As we point out in our document, 70 per cent to 80 per cent of all commercial payments in Canada are initiated as cheques.
Guy Legault, president and CEO, Canadian Payments Association, Ottawa
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I completely agree that Canadians' ability to use cheques should not be sacrificed on the grounds of technological improvement. It makes more sense to bring such improvement to cheque processing than it does to abandon a payment method that is cost-effective, universally deployed and understood, and with centuries of jurisprudence behind it.
We at RDM process millions of cheques electronically every week for many U.S. financial institutions; the irony that we can't do the same thing for Canadian cheques despite being a Canadian-based company is routinely pointed out to us.
Rather than research alternatives to the cheque, the Canadian banking system would be better served by embracing proven technologies that increase the efficiencies of cheque processing and let Canadians decide which payment method they prefer to use or receive.
Douglas Newman, president, RDM Corp., Waterloo, Ont.
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Here's another reason to continue paying by cheque: I can use my favourite fountain pen and practise my penmanship at the same time.
P.M. Warne, Oakville, Ont.
Let it snow
Ottawa in a political storm versus Ottawa in a snowstorm (Winning The Hearts And Minds Of Voters: It's All About Managing The Message - Jan. 2): Give me Ottawa in a snowstorm every time. Fewer flakes.
Sebastian Grunstra, Ottawa
The Hmong story
There's a little-known Canadian connection to the expulsion of ethnic Hmong from refugee camps in Thailand ( Thai Troops Evict 4,000 Hmong To Laos - Dec. 28). Traditionally, the Hmong, an indigenous mountain people, had fought any intrusion into their territories. In the late 1970s, North Vietnam and its allies initiated a program to drive the Hmong from their "hills" through an aggressive use of biological warfare techniques (the campaign became known as "yellow rain"). As a result, the Hmong were driven out of Laos and into refugee camps in Thailand.
In Ottawa, active reporting by the Canadian embassy in Bangkok had prompted Arthur Menzies, then the ambassador for disarmament at the Department of External Affairs (now Foreign Affairs), to authorize a series of studies aimed at verifying whether mycotoxins were being used against the Hmong.
In-country investigations conducted by embassy personnel included toxicology specialists from the University of Saskatchewan, epidemiologists from the Department of National Defence, and an Ottawa-based interdepartmental scientific experts group. The results were first announced in Bangkok by Canada's foreign minister in 1981 and subsequently submitted to the United Nations in New York.
One result of these Canadian-initiated activities was that this type of attack against the Hmong tribesmen ceased. Their homeland, however, had been repopulated in a project engineered by North Vietnam and its allies. The forced eviction now under way completes the tragedy.
F. Ronald Cleminson, Ottawa
Simple, not simplistic
Lysiane Gagnon reads George W. Bush-style "Manichaeism" into Cormac McCarthy's The Road ( The Road to Simplistic Moralizing - Jan. 4), alleging that it features only "two kinds of people: 'good guys' and 'bad guys.'" Those are indeed terms that the father and his child use frequently, but the book largely concerns the erosion of morality (including the morality of the "good guys") in the face of desperate circumstances.
"Are we still the good guys?" the boy asks at one point - and as the book progresses, the question is not always easy to answer. The Road tells a simple story, but it's very far from being simplistic.
Don LePan, president, Broadview Press, Calgary
Tick-tock and the rugrats
Re The Biological Clock Tolls For Grandparents (Life, Jan. 4): Perhaps the hunger for grandkids might be eased a little by keeping in mind that, as our children delay producing those little rugrats for us, our life expectancy is increasing at roughly the same rate. And despite the risks of Alzheimer's and other disorders of aging, most of us continue in good health.
In addition, there are almost limitless opportunities to be with children. Hospitals, for instance, love to have us as readers of books and for other chores to help ease the loneliness of childhood illness. I have been volunteering as a reading tutor in the elementary school system for children considered below their grade level.
"But it's just not the same," I hear you say. Actually, it's better.
Ronald Davidson, Ancaster, Ont.
Cogito ergo sum
Not mentioned in your editorial on Albert Camus ( Outside The Panthéon - Jan. 2) is that René Descartes, the founder of modern philosophy and Cartesian co-ordinates, was refused burial in the Panthéon by the National Assembly. He is buried in the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, in the heart of the Latin Quarter in Paris.
George McDonald, Toronto
I am robot, hear me clank
Peter Singer and Agata Sagan's concern for robots' rights and their possible inclusion within human society ( When Robots Want Rights - Jan. 4) is premature. The ultimate criterion of acceptability still has to be addressed: Would you want your sister to marry one?
Stan Cunningham, Windsor Ont.