Prime Minister Mark Carney in Vancouver on Wednesday.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Canadian Press
Winners and losers
Re “Winning battles, losing the war: The Putin-Trump history lesson” (May 15): Of course Vladimir Putin wants his people to believe they’re winning. The same is true of Volodymyr Zelensky and many others leading their countries through difficult disputes.
The problem is that in wars such as the one in Ukraine, there are only losers. The ones we call “winners” are those who lose the least. Citizens endure years of bruising and bloody wars because they have been convinced that all alternatives to fighting are worse.
The world should build a better dispute resolution mechanism and get countries to use it.
Dave Parnas Ottawa
Late fees
Re “Alberta-Ottawa agreement both improves and hobbles Canada’s most important climate policy” (May 20): The carbon pricing agreement transfers massive costs from industry to society. By delaying the industrial carbon price increase to $130 per tonne until 2040, rather than 2030, this deal will produce an additional 230 megatonnes of carbon emissions.
Using Environment and Climate Change Canada’s methodology, these emissions represent approximately $70-billion in damages from extreme weather, health impacts, agricultural losses and ecosystem degradation borne by the public, not emitters.
The delay also undermines clean energy investment. Major decarbonization projects depend on positive carbon price signals. We’re discouraging the innovation needed for long-term prosperity.
When we delay climate action, we choose to inflict $70-billion in damages on our communities rather than requiring industry to internalize emission costs. The bill will come due, paid not by industry, but by our collective well-being.
David Heeney Toronto
This decision may rank as Mark Carney’s biggest failure, betrayal and regret, just like Justin Trudeau’s promise to fix our broken electoral system.
Mr. Carney is only a year into his tenure as Prime Minister, but the number of Liberal supporters who may turn their backs on him surely must be growing by leaps and bounds.
Tom Cullen Toronto
App for that
Re “What financial and political price will Quebec pay for its digital transformation?” (May 19): In computer science, we have a saying abbreviated as NIH: “not invented here.”
Both Quebec and Ontario want to reduce and eliminate fax machines in medicine. Each proposes to solve the problem via a brand-new, high-cost program, one they invent themselves.
Secure file transfer is already provided by several high-quality, tested programs, notably Signal, which is secure enough that China, Iran, Cuba and Russia outlaw it.
If they hate it, we should love it – and not reinvent the wheel.
David Collier-Brown Toronto
Needs teeth
Re “Ottawa puts a little Band-Aid on Canada’s white-collar crime epidemic” (Report on Business, May 15): Having worked most of my career investigating white-collar crime and government corruption cases, I concur: Whistle-blowers need protection. Unfortunately, an investigation with a high likelihood of conviction does not a whistle-blower make.
Everything must be corroborated. Colleagues, executives and organizations as a whole are much less inclined to co-operate. More often than not, concerns over privacy rights, public perception and liability win out over doing the right thing.
It can take two years or more to complete a complex white-collar investigation and still have limited evidence because of reluctant witnesses. Furthermore, Crown prosecutors face teams of the best defence lawyers money can buy.
If Canada can only afford a Band-Aid budget to combat white-collar crime, then the RCMP and other law enforcement agencies need the power to compel witnesses to sit down for interviews. They can choose to not answer, but at least give police the authority to ask questions.
Denis Desnoyers Superintendent (retired), RCMP; chief partnerships officer and associate instructor, Canadian Insider Risk Management Centre of Excellence; Ottawa
No fly
Re “Snowbirds to be grounded until early 2030s while new planes are acquired” (May 20): This is a severe blow to Canada and its culture and identity. Canada has few iconic symbols that link this nation from coast to coast to coast, yet the government is intent on removing an important one for no apparent reason I can see.
Canadian airshows, showcases of Canadian innovation and talent, will have virtually no Royal Canadian Air Force presence. Instead, Canadians will be treated to displays of American air power. Is this really what the government intends when it seeks to diversify away from the United States and show our own defence capabilities?
In a time when the government is desperately trying to spend on defence, when it has difficulty recruiting for the Canadian Armed Forces and when separation movements are active in two provinces, I find it ironic that the choice is to ground one of the key symbols of Canadian identity and unity.
Save our Snowbirds.
Ed McDonald Sturgeon, Alta.
I consider the Snowbirds providing entertainment at taxpayer expense an ill-conceived generosity, particularly in view of the 10 lives lost during its existence and on top of its annual cost approaching $10-million.
The Defence Department should stick to its knitting, rather than foolishly committing another few billion dollars for the purchase of new planes, implying that this infantile entertainment and accompanying environmental damage will be perpetuated for anther two decades or so.
C. William Lambermont Toronto
This is likely going to be an expensive and poor decision.
Anyone who knows about aerobatics, and especially formation aerobatics, will testify that these skills must be practised regularly and systematically in order to ensure they are safely and professionally executed.
Even if the Snowbirds do not do performances, the Royal Canadian Air Force should keep the nucleus of 431 Air Demonstration Squadron together and allow them to continue their training and practice to ensure that, when they finally get new planes, they are ready to safely and effectively perform.
They could lease some CT-156 Harvard IIs for this purpose.
J.A. Summerfield North Dundas, Ont.
Winners and losers
Re “Raising a quitter: When is it okay for a kid to give up on their organized sport?” (May 19): It is so frustrating that we continue to be perplexed by the decline of young people’s mental and physical health, yet as a society we continue to believe in “healthy competition.”
In 1986, and many times since, education author Alfie Kohn summarized extensive research on competition. The brief conclusion: It undermines intrinsic motivation and healthy development.
Please separate the issue of a child wanting, and needing to be, active versus their dislike for the conditional self-worth that comes from “I am winner” or “I am a loser” based on the scoreboard.
Graham Ward Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.
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