Danielle Smith makes a comment during the United Conservative Party of Alberta leadership candidates' debate in Medicine Hat, Alta., on July 27.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
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Careful consideration
Re To Address Our Country’s Health Care Crisis, Start By Containing COVID-19 (Aug. 16): As a senior who has been without a general practitioner for 12 years, I am grateful for the common-sense approach of this expert panel in laying out concrete, sensible next steps.
It’s clear to me that Canadians can no longer rely on political leaders to guide us through the latest phase of the pandemic; heads in the sand exacerbate problems, rather than solve them. Thanks to the contributors for reminding us of the prescription: masks indoors, improved air quality, improved testing, resumption of successful vaccination strategies and acknowledgment of the reality that COVID-19 is still with us.
Individually, Canadians should both take responsibility for what we can do and remind our leaders of what they must do.
Ginny Ratsoy Kamloops, B.C.
Canada abroad
Re Ottawa’s Directives Put Embassy Staff At Risk (Aug. 16): In most countries, foreign affairs is regarded as an important government portfolio. Not so in Canada, it seems.
The actions and policies of Global Affairs Canada under the Trudeau government over the past several years has felt like a juvenile joke. Is it not time that this government understands the importance of foreign affairs and the responsibilities that go with it?
Elevate this department to its rightful position. After that is done, clean up the dysfunctional bureaucracy with all its prejudices and red tape.
Ken Pattern Vancouver
Re Humanitarian Groups Urge Ottawa To Exempt Their Work In Afghanistan From Anti-terror Law (Aug. 17): As I look at the appalling fallout of the Western withdrawal from Afghanistan, I can only remember the old adage that we do not fight wars to make the world a better place, only to try to prevent it from becoming a far worse one.
Nigel Smith Toronto
Police position
Re Mounties Stand By Interference Allegations (Aug. 17): Canadians were horrified by the Nova Scotia mass shooting. I felt the pain of families and communities who lost dear ones in this tragedy, and wondered how this could ever have happened.
Immediately after, and through investigations including the present commission, the RCMP has appeared to be woefully wanting. What is also disturbing is that individuals with the RCMP have created a political controversy over a situation that occurred days after the shooting, thus deflecting attention from any inadequacies in their work.
Barbara Clarke St. John’s
Alberta alone
Re Alberta Is On The Verge Of The Constitutional Abyss (Aug. 17): Columnist Andrew Coyne’s otherwise excellent column about the United Conservative Party’s “leadership” contest is marred only by poor copyediting. The last paragraph begins: “Provoke a crisis, runs the theory, and the rest of Canada can be brought to heel by the sheer force of Albertan will.”
Surely that should have read: “… by the sheer force of Albertan oil.”
John Kidder Langley Township, B.C.
One only has to follow the news to see the mess in so many countries, including our southern neighbour. By comparison, I see Canada as a great country: democratic, vast, beautiful, free and much more.
So it is incomprehensible to me that the presumed new leader of the United Conservative Party has a plan for Alberta to effectively secede from Canada. Added to this, the Conservative Party is about to anoint Pierre Poilievre as its leader. Since a major portion of his support will come from Alberta, I assume he will fan the flames of the UCP.
We do have a great country. Yes, we have some problems. But I find no rational reasons for breaking Canada up. Make it better, don’t break or diminish it.
As columnist Andrew Coyne writes, “God help us all.”
Peter Belliveau Moncton
I now realize that Danielle Smith’s agenda for the United Conservative Party is intended to “make Alberta great again” – for constitutional lawyers.
Paul Atkinson LLM Peterborough, Ont.
Dire straits
Re With California Expected To Lose 10% Of Its Water By 2040, Governor Outlines New Strategy (Aug. 12) and Is Canada Ready To Help Quench The U.S.’s Freshwater Crisis? (Opinion, Aug. 1): Two decades ago, Geoffrey Bruce tried to remind the government of its lack of integrated public policies, guidelines and standards to protect and preserve our water.
The recommendations of the 2005 Transboundary Water Resources of Canada and the United States memorandum, under the aegis of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, focused on all aspects of freshwater being a political, strategic and economic resource more precious than oil, and addressed all levels of government, including Indigenous communities.
It took until this spring for the federal government to establish the Canada Water Agency; it does not as yet have a home nor adequate funding for the tasks at hand.
I trust that more attention given to this topic will lead to useful interdisciplinary and transboundary projects in collaboration with the new agency.
Geoffrey F. Bruce Fellowship in Canadian Freshwater Policy Toronto Metropolitan University
Coming up next?
Re LaFlamme’s CTV Newscast One Of Canada’s Most Popular, Data Show (Aug. 17): The public may never know the details regarding the firing of Lisa LaFlamme from CTV. Regardless, this may present a much-needed opportunity.
CTV National News ranks as one of the highest newscasts in viewership, according to the ratings service Numeris. It also reveals that CBC’s The National does not even appear in the top 30 (is anyone surprised by this?). Perhaps the CBC should make a “business decision” of its own, as there is a prime candidate on the market and they seem to desperately need the help.
Lemons to lemonade, as the saying goes.
Mark Spurr Toronto
All at once
Re Finding A Theory Of Everything (Aug. 17): Just finding one woman amongst all those men in the “most intelligent picture ever taken” was challenging enough. Thanks to Marie Curie for representing women in 1927 at the Solvay conference.
I look forward to a radically different picture from this week’s Vancouver conference.
Mary Valentich Calgary
A “theory of everything” will only be revealed when “now” is reconciled.
Just as one cannot get to the other side by halves, one is similarly limited by time in evidencing the instant of the Big Bang. And without that precise instant, we are never in the present.
Douglas Martin Hamilton
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