Photo illustration by the Globe and Mail/The Canadian Press
Man for the job
Re “Meet Tim Hodgson, the unconventional Energy Minister with a Bay Street eye for deals” (Report on Business, Dec. 20): Canada is fortunate to have a highly qualified individual such as Tim Hodgson commit his intellect and energy to improving the country’s economic situation.
The bureaucracy often forgets it is there to serve the people, not itself. That Mr. Hodgson is not fully at ease with the bureaucratic ins and outs is not important; there are many, many departmental staff who can do just that. His focus on ensuring major projects proceed with the full commitment of the private sector is all that matters.
It is the private sector which takes the risks, puts money on the table and generates precious tax revenue and jobs. If Mr. Hodgson can facilitate that, we should all be thankful.
Karin Zabel Ottawa
There was a time when politicians told the electorate they served the people, while in the background they were influenced by the business elite.
Now it appears the business elite are quite comfortable being in the forefront. We see this in the United States, and now it appears the same holds true for Canada.
Catharina Summers Kingston, Ont.
See clearly now
Re “Let 2026 be the year Canada becomes investable again” (Report on Business, Dec. 20): Thanks for pointing out Canadian business’s “chronic underinvestment” in machinery, equipment and research that is sapping our country’s prosperity.
Along with your top stock picks of 2025, of which 10 are resource extraction and related companies (“The Globe 250: Our guide to the 20 Megastars of the TSX” – Report on Business, Dec. 20), this indicates to me Canada’s entrenchment as “hewers of wood and drawers of water.” Thus, I am dismayed that one of the few examples here of turning around the economy comes from investment in the oil and gas sector.
Is this the best we can do? Building a pipeline to export heavy oil? Is there no bigger ambition to use this opportunity to grow our clean energy and value-added industries for future prosperity, rather than look to an old, dirty one contributing to the multibillion-dollar cost of climate change?
Maybe this is our problem: a lack of vision and ambition for our country.
Miriam Diamond Toronto
Show me the money
Re “Canada shouldn’t go cashless” (Opinion, Dec. 20): Marshall McLuhan’s trenchant observation is worth recalling: “Cash is the poor man’s credit card.”
Randal Marlin Ottawa
Health and prosperity
Re “‘If the numbers are right, we’re in trouble’: Behind the comeback of measles in Canada” (Dec. 20): The need for strong, co-ordinated national leadership on vaccination and its monitoring is as important as the growing leadership in economic development. We need a healthy and informed population to fully deliver on our economic potential.
All levels of government should be more aggressive in encouraging vaccination by describing the possible ramifications of Canada losing any disease-free status, and the benefits of gaining that status for other diseases.
I speak from personal experience: In the early 1950s, my family and I suffered the consequences of disease. Just 18 months before the polio vaccine became available, my mother, brother and myself became polio victims. My brother died, while my mother spent the remainder of her life in an iron lung and a wheelchair.
That epidemic affected thousands of families across Canada who, I am sure, support the importance of vaccination.
Dale Leitch Victoria
God willing
Re “Being Catholic is cool again” (Opinion, Dec. 20): I’m always startled at the amazement people display at the appointment of Pope Leo as the first American Bishop of Rome, given that the United States has only been in existence for nearly 250 years while the Catholic Church has existed for roughly 2,000 years.
Given the number, wealth and resulting global influence of American Catholics, a religious grouping ironically in both spiritual and political ascendency of late, Cardinal Robert Prevost’s elevation should come as no great surprise even after a mere 250 years.
After all, it has taken barely a year for the constitutional divide between American church and state to be shattered.
W. E. Hildreth Prince Edward County, Ont.
When I looked around my community before mass on Sunday morning, the words “cool” and “cachet” did not spring to mind.
I saw, as every week, my sisters and brothers in Christ gathered together in a deeply human, lumbering, imperfect institution, working to support each other in loving God and loving our neighbours.
If we can offer the world one headline, my choice would be from Matthew 25 when Jesus says, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
Dianne Borg Ottawa
Look at us now
Re “Lost in translation” (Letters, Dec. 20): Reading Madelaine Drohan’s recent book He Did Not Conquer: Benjamin Franklin’s Failure to Annex Canada, I realized that for decades he planned to lead an invasion of French Canada, first for British North America and then for the nascent United States.
He referred to Quebec as a Papist enemy. His invasion failed, as did Benedict Arnold’s before him. Quebec’s cold weather saved the day.
The 1867 BNA Act guaranteed religious education and so did the 1774 Quebec Act, as noted by a letter-writer. I cynically presume that our Confederation Fathers, mostly English-speaking Protestants, refused their kids to be schooled with Catholic Irish children and so separated religiously, not linguistically. Thomas D’Arcy McGee and the Québécois Fathers didn’t object.
Much 20th-century language strife was avoidable if French education had been mandated. Instead, longstanding Protestant animosity toward Catholics dominated.
Most provinces, but notably not Ontario, reversed costly and divisive Papist school segregation.
Allan Fox Toronto
Historic reveal
Re “Canadians need to tell their own stories, according to historian J.D.M. Stewart” (Arts & Books, Dec. 20): Author Michael Crichton summed up the importance of knowing history brilliantly: “If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree.“
Kevin Byrne Sarnia, Ont.
This not only provided a glimpse into J.D.M. Stewart’s history of Canada’s prime ministers, but also provided a photo of the author.
Now we know what the prolific writer of letters to the editor looks like.
T.M. Dickey Toronto
Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Keep letters to 150 words or fewer. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com