U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Prime Minister Mark Carney at the G7 summit, in Evian, France, on June 16.EVELYN HOCKSTEIN/AFP/Getty Images
Waiting game
Re “Making concessions to get a trade deal when the public’s in a fighting mood” (Aug. 10): I believe Mark Carney, a banker’s banker who has not yet made the full transition to statesman, has blundered by making concessions outside of the negotiating table.
U.S. tariffs are a bludgeon to beat us into submission. Showing Donald Trump that they work only encourages him to keep using them.
Mr. Carney may be telling himself that Canadians will lose their nerve if their standard of living is affected by a sustained trade war. We may live to see if he’s right.
In any event, he seems to be stretching things out into a waiting game. If he’s hoping the United States will come to its senses, we could be in for a prolonged period. But if he’s waiting for Mr. Trump to be emasculated by the U.S. midterms, then he may just have a winning strategy.
In the short term, stop making concessions unless the other side blinks first.
Steve Soloman Toronto
The good fight
Re “Okanagan fires offer a glimpse of a worsening wildfire crisis” (Aug. 10): Where I live in British Columbia, every dry summer brings the possibility of wildfires a little closer to home. So I find it extraordinary that Canada is funding both climate adaptation and expanded fossil fuel development.
I want my taxes paying for more firefighters, emergency preparedness, resilient infrastructure and cleaner sources of energy. I don’t want my taxes helping to make worse the problems those investments are intended to address.
Governments increasingly spend money responding to fires, floods, drought and extreme heat. Surely fiscal responsibility also includes reducing the causes of climate change.
We shouldn’t have to pay for both the fire hose and the gasoline.
Andrea Goodman Salt Spring Island, B.C.
We have a model for a federally co-ordinated agency which would make interprovincial wildfire-fighting more effective: the Canadian Coast Guard. It has a long tradition and good reputation.
There is the effective Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre linking provincial knowledge and assets. But firefighters should also be trained to a high common standard, reviewed for health and performance with common tests and insured collectively.
Federal resources are available during states of emergency, but a federal agency with wildfire responsibilities would make responses more effective.
We would be fighting fire with fire.
Robert Anderson Burnaby, B.C.
By the numbers
Re “Lack of affordable housing is bad for our health, as individuals and as a country” (Aug. 7): I am a street nurse who has worked four decades in homeless health care. The scope of this human emergency is far worse than suggested.
It is noted “there are 100,000 people on wait-lists for social housing” in Toronto, but it is actually 100,000 households, meaning the number of people could be two, three, four times more. This waitlist is 10 to 15 years long.
Meanwhile, the monthly Toronto Homeless Memorial continues to chronicle the ultimate health risk of homelessness. At my last count, there were 2,250 names on that list. The city’s own statistics mark the median age of death for homeless men as 50 and women as 36.
We rarely learn new information from housing reports, and federal housing announcements are usually repeat announcements of funding already allocated. Rather than fewer calls to action, experience tells me we need more calls for federal action to save lives.
Cathy Crowe RN, CM; Toronto
Statistics Canada reports there are nearly 250,000 households on waiting lists for public housing. Most new construction of social housing has shifted to non-profit and co-operative organizations, which often only provide a fraction of units to those in need of rent-geared-to-income housing. There is also insufficient mental-health training for outreach workers.
Street people suffering from mental-health problems can be an extremely challenging group, with their issues preventing them from accessing affordable housing. Outreach workers need more training in understanding and providing communication to this group. They must not be limited by policies which cut off communication or access owing to aggression.
Homeless services should be adjusted to the realities that such people face. Displacement doesn’t solve the problem but often exacerbates it. Displacement is another slap in the face.
When will Canada treat this problem with effective intervention strategies?
Morris Saldov Associate professor of social work, Toronto
The fix?
Re “Fixing the broken dream of $10-a-day child care” (Report on Business, Aug. 10): I believe this is the right diagnosis, but wrong prescription.
It isn’t contested that “Canada’s child-care plan has proven that affordability alone is not enough.” But child-care wait-lists aren’t new: 20 years ago, informed parents joined them before their first ultrasound.
And Quebec’s dual-track child care should be considered its least successful aspect: A former minister of families called for-profit expansion the “biggest mistake the Quebec government committed in the last 25 years.” The federal child-care expense deduction already funds unregulated care, but doesn’t necessarily translate into the care parents want, as shrinking claims show.
Economic benefits come from quality child care, not patchwork arrangements. Instead of recycling tried-and-failed solutions, a successful system needs a plan based on long-term evidence and adequate funding.
Governments should scale up what works.
Martha Friendly Toronto
Why is $10-a-day child care so sacrosanct?
In the late 1990s, we were paying $30 a day for our child in a home daycare. Today, that would be approximately $54. At one point we had two children in daycare, and we were not making a lot of money at the time.
$10-a-day child care has cost taxpayers billions of dollars with little to show for it. There are staffing shortages, low wages and long wait-lists. Getting a $10 space is like winning the lottery.
Raising the price to $20 or $25 would still be a bargain compared to non-subsidized spaces. It would fix almost all of the current problems.
Les Shinder Ottawa
Price to pay
Re “In Nova Scotia, the arts are under attack. Without them, the province is poorer in every way” (Aug. 10): Nova Scotia’s shortsighted chopping of the arts is, sadly, echoed across the country, whether in cuts to museums and galleries or, as is the case here in British Columbia, in public school and postsecondary arts programs.
As articulated, politicians need education on the holistic benefits of the arts. Not only are individual and collective well-being best served when arts and culture are promoted, so, too, is the economy.
It’s not too late for Nova Scotia to reinstate funding; if nothing else convinces Tim Houston to do so, a look at the effect on tourism’s bottom line should.
Ginny Ratsoy Kamloops
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