Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro during a meeting with governors of the Amazon region at Planalto Palace in Brasilia on Aug. 27, 2019.MARCOS CORREA/AFP/Getty Images
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
Climate colonialism?
Re Brazil’s President Is Committing Ecocide. We Must Stop Him (Aug. 27): Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is an outlier about climate change. It is easy to pick the Amazon burning as a case for international intervention in the interest of all humanity, but to the south of us is a greater threat to global climate: Donald Trump.
Why no call for international intervention in the case of the U.S. federal government’s acts to roll back environmental policies that would help the planet mitigate climate change, and to remove support from industries that are significant climate polluters?
Is Mr. Bolsonaro, whose policies I deplore, just a little bit right when he calls the international criticism of his misguided policy a reassertion of colonialism?
Len Rosen, Toronto
Aug. 27: Photograph in The Globe and Mail – Brazilian forest denuded by fire.
Aug. 27: Photograph in The Globe and Mail – Turkish forest denuded by Canadian gold mine.
We should clean up our own act.
Dave Carson, Dundas, Ont.
Immigration is Canada
Re Third-Party Ad Group Distances Itself From Bernier Billboards (Aug. 27): Maybe Maxime Bernier has a point – just not the one he is trying to make in billboards that feature his picture and the slogan: “Say NO to mass immigration.”
Understandably, many are uncomfortable with the billboard’s message. Yet I wonder whether we would be significantly less uncomfortable with a “Say YES to mass immigration” billboard.
In fact, many Canadians would rather not talk about the subject at all. And in dodging public dialogue, we leave decisions about immigration to virtue-signalling governments, and objections to immigration to dogmatic demagogues. Those of us who believe that immigration has been and will be the quintessence of Canada should be proud to defend our position in any public forum – including billboards.
David Beattie, Chelsea, Que.
Calculus on math tests
Re Ontario Unveils Details Of Math Test For Future Teachers (Aug. 27): I’ll wager $100 that Premier Doug Ford couldn’t pass this ill-conceived test without a tutor or an advanced crib copy. Enough with these failed and costly American edu-schemes: How does it make any sense to have the same tests of knowledge mastery and pedagogical technique for Grade 1 and Grade 12? Snake oil!
Put the money into effective ideas, such as smaller class sizes, educational assistants, and other classroom supports.
Marc Spooner, professor, Faculty of Education, University of Regina
I loved math, even calculus, especially calculus. I had good math teachers I appreciated, and not-so-good ones I tolerated. Friends who were more math-averse definitely suffered at the hands of the not-so-good ones.
One of the few things the Ford government has done that I agree with is mandatory math tests for new teachers. But I would like current teachers to take the test, too, not to be punished but to be helped to teach their students more effectively – especially the students who don’t love math.
Susan Harrop, Mississauga
Who pays for roads
Re Road Tolls: Who Should Pay For The ‘Free’ Ride? (letters, Aug. 27): We pay for municipal water by meter readings that record our usage. The same for natural gas and hydro. Why not road usage?
Vehicles have a meter – an odometer. A fair way to share road costs would be to require motorists to declare mileage used, according to one’s odometer, when the annual registration fee for a vehicle is paid, with an additional per-kilometre “toll” the tax authorities would set periodically.
The random checks needed to enforce such a system would be far less costly than road-toll infrastructure. No wasted time at toll booths or billing costs either.
Rod Ferguson, Midland, Ont.
LGBTQ. And Conservative?
Re The LGBTQ Community Should Not Spurn Scheer (Aug. 26): Good for John Ibbitson, getting to marry his husband – I got to marry mine last month – but if he thinks that means the LGBTQ community does not have to fear Andrew Scheer, he should think again. Conservative governments don’t claw back human rights?
One of the Ontario Conservative government’s first acts was to roll back the sex-education curriculum to one that ignores the existence of trans individuals. Sure, it’s been largely restored, but that was only in response to a very loud public outcry.
We’ve also seen that the Conservative government in Ontario thinks nothing of trotting out the “notwithstanding clause,” so we can’t even be sure the Charter will protect our rights.
Mr. Scheer’s determination to avoid Pride is sending a clear message to a base that does not want to see pictures of him marching down the middle of the street celebrating inclusivity. For those of us who feel that our human rights are under attack, that is definitely something to be scared of.
Elliot Smith, Toronto
For the past four years, the Trudeau government has enthusiastically implemented virtually all of the recommendations of various reports and spokespersons for the LGBTQ community.
For the past four years, John Ibbitson has criticized the Liberals for their failure to move faster and further on these files. Now, with an election looming, he has the audacity to suggest that members of the LGBTQ community should seriously consider voting for Andrew Scheer and the Conservatives, even though they would never have taken these measures, and only recently have grudgingly lent support for many of them.
Why? Because – wait for it – at least they will not roll back this progress, now that it is in place. The hypocrisy is really too much.
Brooke Jeffrey, Ottawa
Bills of sale ...
Re Greenland Swap? (letters, Aug. 26): I don’t think Denmark would be interested in swapping Greenland, at least not for Puerto Rico. They’ve been down that road: In 1917, the Danish government sold the Danish West Indies to the United States for $25-million.
The U.S. then changed the islands’ name to the Virgin Islands of the United States. That deal followed decades of talks. Many street names and neighbourhoods still have Danish names.
Bill Wilson, Colborne, Ont.
Why just Texas? How about Greenland in exchange for Texas, New Mexico and Arizona? That way, Donald Trump’s perceived southern border threat would become Denmark’s problem. The only wall America would have to maintain would be the stretch at the California/ Baja border.
Plus, the folks in those annexed U.S. states might appreciate the Danish health-care system, which is universal with free access for all its citizens.
Ken DeLuca, Arnprior, Ont.
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