Jan. 16: ‘Doug Ford’s bluster has become repetitive and ridiculous.’ Readers react from ‘lockdown’ in Ontario, plus other letters to the editor

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Provincial politics

Re Ontario’s New Incomprehensible ‘Lockdown’ (Jan. 14): I believe the fundamental problem is that Doug Ford views the pandemic as a political crisis rather than a health issue.

We’re told to stay at home, but we can gather outside in groups of five; venture forth only for medical reasons or essential grocery shopping, yet stores of every kind may continue with curbside pickup.

Our health care system, already pressed to its utmost limit, must prepare for even worse because Mr. Ford refuses to actually shut down non-essential businesses. He won’t legislate more paid sick leave, particularly for people not lucky enough to work from home, thus forcing those who don’t feel well to continue going to work.

Listening to Mr. Ford’s bluster has become repetitive and ridiculous. His 800-pound gorilla looks to have come down hard on the end of a rake.

Steve Soloman Toronto

State of the union

Re The Divided State Of Narratives (Opinion, Jan. 9): The Gates virus, climate-change denial, widespread election fraud: These conspiracy theories sound so ridiculous that we don’t take the espousers of these narratives seriously. But they are many, they are increasing in number and they truly believe. They do not respond to logic or reason. And they now have significant political power and an internet to promote their misinformation.

As historian Yuval Noah Harari points out about the course of human civilization, there has been no shortage of consequences from strong beliefs not grounded in reality.

K.C. Sanders Hamilton

The attack on the U.S. Capitol displayed the consequences of a profound split in American society, and the world watched in horror. Now more than ever, we should fight against this uncivil war with strong but civil discourse.

That said, we can only debate and reach compromise in a safe forum; basic law and order must be maintained. For that, we should hold our politicians, law enforcement agencies and judiciaries to account.

Even then, words are not enough: They should be followed by action and long-term systemic change – huge challenges, but not impossible ones.

Gordon Yanchyshyn Toronto

One factor in the divided narratives that could be easily fixed: the toxic involvement of social media and the faceless algorithms that power them.

While it may be an unintended consequence of the simple, greedy rush for advertising revenue, these platforms have created bubbles in which the most outrageous ideas can ferment at warp speed while insulating their tribes from any disconfirming realities.

The cure: Ban Facebook, Twitter and their ilk. Let people go back to communicating and debating person to person. Yes, a few mega-billionaires would be reduced to being merely billionaires, but all in all a small price to pay for avoiding even worse eruptions.

Perry Bowker Burlington, Ont.

Re The Day The U.S. Turned Liberal, And Republicans Got Lost In The Woods (Opinion, Jan. 9): If columnist Doug Saunders believes that the United States has turned liberal, then I believe he fails to recognize that both Republicans and Democrats have created a moat around the upper-middle class, the wealthy and the corporations, making it almost impossible for the disenfranchised to breach their ranks.

This, then, is the genesis of so much anger in the U.S. today – disaffection on both the right and the left are two sides of the same coin – and it is unlikely that either party will address this in a meaningful way. Until freedom from want, discrimination, poor education, lack of access to health care and many other social ills are addressed, America will likely continue to have much in common with a feudalistic state.

Dennis Casaccio Annapolis Royal, N.S.

Re The Trump Train Reaches Its Inevitable Terminus: Violent Insurrection (Opinion, Jan. 9): Columnist Andrew Coyne says that Donald Trump has “the emotional age of a five-year-old.” I have twin five-year-old grandchildren, and I can assure Mr. Coyne that Mr. Trump is nowhere near their emotional level.

They are capable of understanding when they have done something wrong and apologize for it. They have empathy for others and comprehend the harm that insults can inflict. They understand taking turns and the need to accept defeat without having a tantrum.

Even two-year-olds would be unfairly tarnished by a comparison to Mr. Trump!

Elaine Arnusch Regina

Thanks to columnist Andrew Coyne for an outstanding exhibit of journalism of the highest order. He says it all in a forthright, pithy narrative that makes one weep. Too bad it is hindsight, not foresight.

John Green St. John’s

Overcoming opioids

Re Canada’s Other Health Crisis (Jan. 9): I have been a registered nurse looking after people with substance issues for more than 30 years. Almost without exception, my patients relate difficult and traumatic childhoods.

We should keep putting resources into treatment, safe supply and harm reduction. But more than that, we absolutely should turn our attention to early-childhood interventions: keeping children safe from abusive parents, ensuring early access to education and literacy and alleviating poverty. To do less would be to continue experiencing this addiction issue for years to come.

Jane McCall Ladner, B.C.

I am a retired physician who worked in an Ontario multidisciplinary pain clinic from 2002 to 2017. One problem that has received little attention is that the majority of patients with chronic pain do not have private insurance.

This was a source of daily frustration for me. With a new patient, I would discuss a comprehensive treatment plan addressing accompanying depression, stress and physical inactivity. Almost invariably, I would discover that most treatments were financially impossible – except strong opioids, fully covered by the Ontario Drug Benefit plan.

Physiotherapy, for example, was generally delisted from OHIP in 2005. Cognitive behavioural therapy is also not covered, except at multidisciplinary pain centres, with long wait-lists.

Pharmaceutical companies have been blamed for marketing opioids as the best solution for chronic pain. But during the years when opioid prescriptions were most common, services which would have helped to manage pain were inaccessible to most sufferers – and still are today.

Pat Morley-Forster MD; FRCPC, Pain Medicine, founder status; professor emerita, Western University, London, Ont.

It’s unusual for a Globe article to bring me to tears. But as a person skating around the edges of chronic pain, I was deeply moved – first by anger and despair, gradually nudged aside by hope – while reading reporter Ian Brown’s excellent piece. Bravo.

Helga Rausch Kingston

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