Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Try to keep letters to fewer than 150 words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com
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$30,000 a year
Actually, making $30,000 a year to flip burgers isn't a bad idea (Maxing Out On The Minimum Wage – editorial, June 25).
Just imagine: A kid finishes high school and flips burgers for 30 grand a year for a couple of years. The kid learns the value of hard work, customer service, punctuality and money, but realizes there's more to life than cooking burgers.
They then go to college or university and graduate debt-free. (This assumes living with their parents, likely the case these days.) If their chosen field doesn't pan out, they can fall back to flipping burgers for a decent wage.
It's way better than the current alternative: A kid who goes straight to college or university after high school, piles up a debt of 100 grand, graduates with honours in business – and then flips burgers for 20 grand a year!
Victor Tolgyessy, Newmarket, Ont.
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The Globe sees ruin if Albertans earning $10.20 an hour get a $1.20 increase in each of the next few years for a $15 minimum wage. Did the sky fall when average top CEO pay jumped in one year from $6.6-million to $8.38-million?
It's a good bet that Albertans working at minimum wage will be spending their money – all of it – in Alberta. And if Alberta starts to tackle the infrastructure debt it has built up under past governments, there will be jobs for them.
The Notley government seems to be thinking longer term, evidenced by its pick of central banker David Dodge as an adviser.
Perhaps The Globe is getting its advice from Chicken Little?
James Russell, Ottawa
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Mothers Are/n't Us
The proposed Mother Canada statue is reaching out to her many sisters, the Maternally Themed Mega-Statues of Communist Europe (Let Mother Canada Take A Stand – June 25). The larger ones, roughly translated, include Mother of the Motherland, now in Ukraine (1981), Mother Albania (1971) and Mother Armenia (1950). The big sister, and the most poignant from Mother Canada's perspective, is The Motherland Calls (1967), in Volgograd.
Critics may argue that the lineage is a little dated; Conservatives in particular may not like the association with falling regimes.
But as I read it, the proposed statue is mainly an exercise in diplomacy, and one that goes a long way to offset the general eye-rolling set off by our more simple-minded Monument to the Victims of Communism.
Emanuel Jannasch, instructor, Dalhousie School of Architecture
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Thanks to retired major-general Lewis Mackenzie for clarifying the goals of the Mother Canada project, which are admirable.
What isn't clear to me is why this monument to Canadian war mothers came to resemble Mother Teresa, the Virgin Mary, the Statue of Liberty and/or all of the above. None of which are current or relevant to much of today's Canada.
I think the Parks Canada location is great. What is not great is how little has been communicated about this project and how boring and outdated it looks.
Patrick Camozzi, Montreal
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The proposed location for this project is a small rocky point right beside the Cabot Trail. The natural coastal scenery in this place is extraordinary: It is the reason Cape Breton Highlands National Park exists. Land just outside the park has been offered for the venture. Other locations have been suggested. All have been refused.
As for memorials in national parks, we honour and respect the "smaller scale memorials," one of which already exists in the park. Smaller scale indeed – they are stone monuments less than five feet high with a bronze plaque. Comparing them to the proposed 82-foot-high Mother Canada statue is absurd.
The opponents of this project will honour our troops and war dead by protecting the park from this development.
Cathy Weaver, Stillwater Lake, N.S.
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Lewis MacKenzie writes that Mother Canada fills a need to recognize Canada's war dead buried abroad.
We have such a memorial. It is called the National War Memorial and it is located at the heart of Canada's capital. In addition, virtually every city and town in Canada, large and small, has a war memorial where citizens honour their own soldiers, sailors and aircrew who paid the ultimate price.
I can't imagine why we need another one, especially one so bombastic and un-Canadian in its conception. And lest it be thought I am writing from an anti-military viewpoint, I served proudly in the Canadian Forces for 32 years.
Michael Paré, Gloucester, Ont.
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Aboriginal women
Re A National Inquiry Can't Solve The Problem (June 25): If it is indeed true that "more than 70 per cent the cases involved assaults by aboriginal men against aboriginal women," is this not, of itself, worthy of our national scrutiny? Does this not stand alone as a significant concern for us all?
Jeffrey Simpson's feeble "There are obvious policies and steps that governments could take to respond better to the problem of murdered and missing aboriginal women" is cold comfort to families devastated by their losses.
Patrick Quail, Calgary
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The government clearly needs to support all efforts to address and correct the tragedy of murdered aboriginal women, financially and otherwise.
However, experience shows this has no chance of working without the efforts of native leaders themselves to look inside their own communities for solutions.
A public inquiry would be nothing but a costly, symbolic affirmation of what we already know; it might simply end up as an instrument of blame and an excuse to do nothing concrete to improve the situation.
Herb Schultz, Edmonton
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TPP: Avoid being cut out
Re TPP Pact Will Put Pressure On Canadian Dairy, Poultry Industries (June 25): It's true that Canada gave little on this front in CETA, the trade and investment agreement with the European Union. But the EU's massively protected and subsidized agricultural industry gave European negotiators neither credibility nor leverage, so Canada only had to give the minor concession of more cheese imports.
Contrast the Trans-Pacific Partnership, where negotiations are in the home stretch. The United States, New Zealand and Australia, key TPP dairy players, are each snow-white lambs compared with EU black sheep.
New Zealand and Australia previously abandoned supply management. New Zealand is now a world leader in dairy exports. Australia is paying off its dairy farmers over time for the loss of their protection, while they gear up to export to China.
Canada can and should follow the lead of the Kiwis and Aussies and avoid being cut out of the world's largest new trade agreement.
Michael Robinson, Toronto
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Hmm …
Re Quebec City Bid In Focus As Governors Mull Expansion (Sports, June 25): If Quebec City gets an NHL-calibre team in the upcoming expansion, then Toronto is going to want one as well.
Peter D. Hambly, Hanover, Ont.