U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with oil executives in the White House on Jan. 9 with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.Evan Vucci/The Associated Press
Go around
Re “Mark Carney would rather bypass the public service than reform it” (Opinion, Jan. 10): Asking the private sector to subsidize salaries for senior recruits is not new. As VP of HR at the time, I was privy to what was virtually a directive to my employer to add a supplement to the salary the federal government was offering to one of our executives. The briefest of letters from the PMO made clear this “request” was necessary for the good of the country. This was 50 years ago.
Bringing in high-level private-sector expertise to public service has long been difficult around compensation, particularly as future equity is such a significant part of executive compensation. I am not so sure it is a bad idea to ask the private sector to help. Doing so as a matter of transparent due course could reduce the spectre of conflict of interest.
Carney may be right in bypassing the weight of the establishment to get things done. If we must accomplish things with great urgency, and the behemoth of the public service remains as lethargic as it is, building an alternative may well be vital to our national interests.
Peter Findlay Victoria
The rich will always be with us
Re “A better way to help out poor seniors” (Editorial, Jan. 10): I completely agree. Wealthy Canadians do not require OAS or CPP payments. The notion that I have paid in and therefore I deserve to be paid out is dated at best. An asset- and income-based means test should be developed such that triggering either reduces or stops payments of both.
Between residential real estate and financial market performance, so many seniors have benefited from just being alive over the past seven decades. Time to think about those who actually need the money.
Eric Tripp Toronto
Get it right
Re “What’s really behind Toronto’s blue bin foul-up” (Jan. 10): I disagree with Marcus Gee’s statement regarding extended producer responsibility: “Environmentalists love it. They say it makes producers pay for their wastefulness.”
In fact, recycling is nearly useless as a waste management solution. Modern recycling, which originated in the 1970s as a greenwashing tactic, is an expensive, toxic process that handles only the most profitable plastics. The remaining 90 per cent of plastic waste ends up in landfills or the environment.
Ontario’s revised curbside recycling program now permits producers to meet up to 15 per cent of their recycling obligations through “energy recovery” – a euphemism for “waste incineration.”
Our society must shift toward a true circular economy by reducing consumption and prioritizing reuse, repair and repurposing. Otherwise, producers will just continue as before and treat this “recycling” program as the cost of doing business. And yes, consumers will likely foot the bill.
Theresa Peluso Kanata, Ont.
‘Twas ever thus
Re “Why international law matters after the U.S. attack on Venezuela” (Opinion, Jan. 8): Andrew Coyne’s defence of international law is morally serious and eloquently argued. But it rests on a premise that no longer holds: that the postwar international order is still meaningfully intact – and that recent U.S. behaviour represents a shocking deviation from it rather than a late-stage symptom.
In reality, international law has already been made a mockery of – systematically and for years – by major powers and blocs with little consequence. Russia has shredded borders while cloaking aggression in legal rhetoric. China has ignored binding rulings and unilaterally redefined treaty obligations. Many Arab and Muslim states invoke international law selectively against adversaries while denying its relevance at home. These practices hollowed out the system long before Donald Trump arrived on the scene.
This does not excuse the U.S. action in Venezuela. But it does change the diagnosis. The danger is not that Trump is vandalizing a functioning moral order; it is that he has stopped pretending an already-eroded order still constrains power. International law today survives largely as language – invoked to condemn enemies, rarely to restrain allies or oneself.
The postwar settlement has not just been weakened – it has expired. The harder, more urgent question is what forms of restraint and legitimacy are possible after its disappearance. That question deserves honesty more than consolation.
Allen Zeesman Barrie, Ont.
Ours to discover?
Re “Accessibility promises unfulfilled in Ontario” (Jan. 10): Thanks for the article about Ontario’s crawl toward making our province accessible for all kinds of disabilities.
Barriers and roadblocks for people with disabilities are everywhere: for the person who can’t hear and can’t use services in person because speech is the only method of communication (think hospital emergency rooms and PA systems); for children in wheelchairs wanting to use a municipal park that is only set up for kids who can use their legs.
My county is blessed with a children’s park that is fully accessible, a beach made accessible through a partnership between Rotary and the county and a curling rink through volunteer fundraising.
But it is a slow climb for an area that should have been totally accessible by Jan. 1, 2025. Our county council passed a motion in 2024 asking the province to create an accessibility fund. This would be similar to using the gas tax to build roads. More than 100 municipalities signed on. Municipalities know what needs to be done and know how to do the work. They just need the money to do it.
Irene Harris Picton, Ont.
A thousand words
Re “Face the nation” (Opinion, Jan. 10): Sarah Lazarovic is absolutely right that Canada needs a national portrait gallery. Years ago, I took a partner, who was unversed in classical painting and was bored with the Scottish National Gallery on the Mound, to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. She was mesmerized, and we visited often in the years we lived there.
When I return to the U.K., the National Portrait galleries in London and Edinburgh are the first I visit on every trip. They provide ready access to history by showing us real people who did real things – and placing those things in context.
Penelope Hedges
Busted!
Re “York professor seeks to chronicle exam cheating” (Jan. 10): James Elwick’s research on exam cheating brought to mind a story too good not to be true.
Four law students went away for the weekend and decided to stay an extra day, missing their Monday ethics quiz. They agreed on a lie: They’d gotten a flat tire driving back that morning.
Their notoriously strict professor was surprisingly understanding and arranged for them to write a make-up test after class a few days later.
When they arrived, he seated them in separate corners of the room.
The test had one question: Which tire?
Katherine Gougeon Toronto
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