Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill on Monday.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Seen this before
Re “In Poilievre’s economics, it’s pin the tail on the Liberal donkey” (Oct. 6): With our Opposition Leader, it feels like a rerun of Back to the Future.
The recently staged political event at an Ottawa food bank and letter to the Prime Minister attribute increasing food prices and frustrating trade negotiations to him. We are being presented questionable or cherry-picked information in attempts to score political points.
We do need an Opposition Leader who takes government to task and holds it accountable, but based on solid analytics and facts and a clear agenda of what should be done differently – all, if I may add, in a statesman-like manner.
William Pascal Ottawa
One for all
Re “Alberta and Quebec find common ground in opposing Ottawa” (Oct. 6): I’m delighted to see this, and I sincerely hope they can make the Energy East pipeline a reality.
Quebec stopped the pipeline in its tracks, even though it would replace imported oil with our own and allow the easy export of excess oil to Europe. It also seems like a great nation-building proposition: Our factories in Ontario can provide the steel and our facilities in the East can refine the oil.
And given the current issues Europe faces having to purchase oil from Russia, this is our opportunity to build closer European trade relations. Let’s get the pipeline under way.
Rose Harryman Vernon, B.C.
Back to school
Re “Alberta teachers’ strike begins, affecting around 700,000 students” (Oct. 7): As a parent of three students in Alberta, I’m alarmed by the government’s continued failure to fund public education fairly.
Classrooms with more than 30 students and no educational assistants are now common, leaving many teachers overwhelmed and many students underserved. The government’s offer of $30 a day per child during the strike feels like a token gesture that neither helps families nor addresses the real crisis facing our schools.
By refusing to settle with the Alberta Teachers’ Association and underfunding classrooms compared with other provinces, the government is devaluing Alberta families and the future of our children. Worse, its combative, performative response seems to mirror the divisive tone of U.S. politics.
Albertans deserve leadership grounded in fairness, accountability and investment in teachers, not blame, distraction and neglect.
Michael Plait Medicine Hat
At your service
Re “You’ve got mail” (Letters, Oct. 7): Commentators speak about postal delivery as a business. But what business would be willing to deliver mail or, for that matter, magazines to households anywhere in Canada? And, although they may be fewer, letters are still important.
Postal delivery is a service, not a business, and should be judged as such.
Richard Harris Hamilton
Not too high
Re “Labour on” (Letters, Oct. 6): Many years ago, I worked at a large unionized manufacturing plant in London, Ont.
While most of us were on the shop floor, putting in our eight hours, a few men sat in a small glassed office, churning out daily vitriol against management. I finally asked one of them why we shouldn’t use part of our union dues to buy company shares. Despite the size of the company, in a relatively short time the union could be a major shareholder, with influence on the board.
“Don’t be foolish,” I was told. “If we did that, we’d be equally responsible, wouldn’t we?” In other words, having a say in decisions would be antithetical to the role of the union in maximizing labour income, not shareholder value.
It would be like key Conservatives holding seats in the Liberal cabinet: The ability of the Conservative Leader to disagree would be seriously compromised.
Tom Curran Prince Edward County, Ont.
Overcapacity
Re “Too many Canadians are leaving ERs before getting assessed” (Oct. 6): Increasing the number of walk-in clinics and improving access to non-urgent care would not solve the problem. This has been tried countless times and hasn’t ever worked.
Prolonged waits for care are a function of the tragic “boarding” of admitted patients on our emergency room stretchers for hours – make that days – at a time, in turn a function of crowded hospitals with no ward bed availability. With no stretchers to properly assess patients, the waiting room backs up, as does the ambulance bay.
The best solution would be to increase hospital bed capacity to meet the needs of a rapidly aging population. Anything short of that would be nothing but a vain hope and a prayer.
Alan Drummond MD, Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians; Ottawa
Don’t go back
Re “Welcome back to office life, and to reality” (Editorial, Oct. 3): The whole premise seems to be that the prepandemic “norm” of employees commuting to work five days a week to perform their duties was both normal and the most efficient use of their time and labour. At the very least, work force performances during the pandemic suggest that such assumptions are questionable.
Obviously, some employees such as health care workers, police officers and firefighters do need to work on site. But that is no reason why many thousands more should clog up commuter arteries, artificially inflate the price of downtown parking and justify the employment of managers just for the sake of some archaic principle.
David Bright St. Catharines, Ont.
Greater calling
Re “The student-as-customer model is an expensive lie that burdens Canadian universities” (Oct. 3): As a university professor, I agree. University studies offer more than specific facts or “job training,” they provide long-term life skills that are of use to the individual and which employers value.
Earlier this year, I had a short article titled “What I really teach” published in the University Affairs online magazine. I argued that what one learns in any university course is not only the basic facts of the subject, but wider abilities such as critical thinking, creativity and self-regulation, which apply in any context and throughout life.
Short-term skills that are fashionable now will be obsolete sooner rather than later. It is the “long-term returns,” the lifelong abilities, that are the important outcomes of university education and the ones which should be valued.
Anne Barnfield London, Ont.
Universities serve in many ways the needs of society. That includes making sure students get value for their investment of time and money.
But there are competing formulations of what makes a society desirable; meanwhile, Canadian universities are funded by provincial governments. A problem with the ”real customer is society” model is that governments could force universities to conform to new political formulations of society.
Universities that do not may have their funding cut and academic freedom constrained.
Reiner Jaakson Oakville, Ont.
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