Workers unload a shipment of the Moderna COVID‑19 vaccine at the FedEx hub at Pearson International Airport in Toronto on May 20, 2021.Cole Burston/The Canadian Press
Waste not
Re Most Of The Waste In Government Is On Purpose (Dec. 9) and Ontario’s Vaccine Rollout Wasted Doses, Caused ‘Confusion’: Auditor-General (Dec. 1): Is vaccine wastage the fault of governments that sought to provide them for everyone, or do anti-vaccine Canadians bear some responsibility for not taking them? Critics can’t have it both ways.
Robert Thomas Kingston
Build out
Re Ontario Proposal Puts Wetlands At Further Risk, Auditor-General Reports (Dec. 8): Among the many questions of the day, here is one that bears some serious thought: Why would a developer buy up land that cannot be developed?
Peter Box Bowmanville, Ont.
For decades, Ontario has focused economic development on the Greater Toronto Area and Golden Horseshoe region, with the predictable result in employment concentration that is manifested as a housing affordability crisis. Meanwhile, rural and Northern Ontario have over these same years languished economically.
The current responses to the housing crisis will likely be stopgaps at best. The solution to affordable housing would be meaningful steps to expand and diversify Ontario’s manufacturing base and economy into rural and Northern Ontario.
Paul Krabbe Centre Wellington, Ont.
Re Provincial Government Agrees To Cover One-third Of City’s Budget Shortfall (Dec. 1): Cities could just say no. If cities cannot afford to pay the infrastructure costs for new development without plunging residents into economic hardship, how will Doug Ford enforce Bill 23?
Unless the Premier resorts to harsh tactics, all the power would lie with municipalities because nothing can be built without cities carrying costs. This could be a blessing in disguise.
Cities should be selective of which projects they fund and which they reject. Unsustainable, unaffordable and unhealthy development should be rejected. And then what? What would Mr. Ford do?
My suggestion is that public pressure should be equally applied to municipalities that ultimately can have power to decide the future of Bill 23.
AnnaMaria Valastro London, Ont.
Ottawa woes
Re Inquiry Report Highlights ‘Unconscionable’ LRT Woes (Dec. 1): Doug Ford preens himself for setting up an inquiry into Ottawa’s disastrous light-rail train project. The inquiry’s report reveals all kinds of shenanigans by then-mayor Jim Watson. Lying, withholding of information from council, manipulation of senior bureaucrats: It’s all there, faithfully reported and condemned by Justice William Hourigan.
One might think that Mr. Ford would conclude that big-city mayors should be more controlled by their councils. But, no, he thinks that these mayors need more power (Province Passes Law Boosting ‘Strong Mayor’ Powers In Toronto, Ottawa – Dec. 9).
It is to marvel at the Premier’s powers of self-deception.
Colin Beattie Ottawa
Canadian history
Re History Gets Short Shrift As Another Statue Heads To The Gallows (Opinion, Nov. 26) and History Repeating (Letters, Dec. 3): What struck me about responses to your column about effacing statues of Sir John A. Macdonald was a willingness to recognize the harm he caused. As letter-writers make clear, keeping faith with the past does not preclude acknowledging wrongs that need redressing.
Those who remind us of harm inflicted by Macdonald on First Nations, wittingly or not, do us a great service. But we mustn’t forget that Macdonald’s legacy also includes a country where it is possible for citizens to own up to horrors committed in their name, and to set out to make things right.
Why are some who would call Macdonald to account so unwilling to acknowledge that legacy? Do they have no respect for the need of some Canadians to honour him for giving us this great country?
Neil Macdonald Toronto
For letter-writers wrestling with balancing Sir John A. Macdonald’s legacy: Given that truth is a precursor to reconciliation, I wonder if we can start with an acceptance and understanding that the governments of Canada and the United States in the late 1800s were, at their core, white supremacist institutions. Their actions, therefore, were more or less egregiously following this twisted ethos.
The buffalo herd “collapsing” makes it sound like they just got tired and died, when they disappeared largely due to an explicit U.S. policy of hunting them to extinction. Similarly, the “marginally successful” food-aid program initiated by Macdonald in practice starved Indigenous families into complying with Canadian aims by giving half-rations, quarter-rations or none at all.
In striving for balance, let us not whitewash the past, ugly though it may be.
Conrad Sichler Hamilton
Bright side
Re Census Data On Postsecondary Education Highlights Room For Improvement (Dec. 5). One good story in the census data: the college system’s success in providing postsecondary education to Indigenous people.
In Ontario, about 30 per cent of Indigenous people have attained a college diploma or certificate, which is greater than the percentage among non-Indigenous people and is much greater than the percentage of Indigenous people in the general population.
College success in this area is an essential part of efforts to fill skills gaps, particularly as most job opportunities in the current economy are in the private sector, where there is a strong demand for college graduates.
Linda Franklin President and CEO, Colleges Ontario; Toronto
Word for word
Re Word Out (Letters, Dec. 8): One of the more tiresome and inaccurate descriptors I see used is the word “moderate,” as applied to certain U.S. Democratic senators who make life difficult for Joe Biden (Raphael Warnock’s Victory Will Be Felt Far Beyond Georgia – Dec. 8).
To support major increases in infrastructure funding and strengthened environmental safeguards is immoderate? Why not try more appropriate adjectives, such as “conservative” or “recalcitrant,” for politicians such as Joe Manchin?
John Hucker Ottawa
I nominate the word “curated.” Curation used to fall within the purview of senior staff at art galleries and museums. Now every store in the mall has a “curated collection.”
Another recent bugbear of mine in the retail sector is “guest.” If we are paying, then we are not guests. We are customers.
John Marshall Toronto
Lost in translation
Re CBC ‘Reset’ Heralds Sizzle-free Winter Season (Dec. 3): In an unforgettable episode of W1A, a British satire of the BBC, the new position of “Head of Values” is created to help navigate the Beeb’s new “relevant” image.
There is also a Twitter-obsessed communications person who has hired a hip-and-groovy public relations firm to “reposition the BBC” and design a new logo. “B-B-C: What does that really mean?”
Meetings abound in uncomfortable designer-created pods (one where staff sit on bales of hay) where those in other newly created positions offer much management-speak, which sounds eerily similar to the CBC’s executive vice-president of English-language services Barbara Williams.
Maybe CBC brass watched W1A, but missed the satire?
Heather MacAndrew and David Springbett Victoria
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