One of four giant LCD screens located around BMO Field in Toronto as part of the stadium’s upgrades ahead of hosting six FIFA World Cup 2026 matches.Eduardo Lima/The Canadian Press
Looks familiar
Re “Alberta’s flirtation with independence is a problem for all of us” (Opinion, April 25): This captures the rise of Albertan separatist sentiment, but risks reducing it to fringe mobilization. From Quebec, I see more profound and familiar forces at work.
Quebeckers have experienced a sense of structural misunderstanding in the Confederation. Western Canadians feel misrepresented and judged by Central Canadian norms, which has led to political consequences.
There are also structural dimensions: Western provinces, despite their economic weight and demographic growth, feel underrepresented in federal institutions such as the House of Commons and the Senate.
Alberta and Saskatchewan entered Confederation later and tend to approach it as a framework to be negotiated, not a legacy to be preserved. That distinction matters: When Confederation is seen as a living contract, pressures to renegotiate its terms become more intelligible.
None of this justifies secession. But if Canada is to remain cohesive, it should address not only separatist rhetoric, but the underlying perceptions of exclusion sustaining it.
Louis-Philippe Noël Montmagny, Que.
Down to the dirt
Re “Growing discontent: Why it’s time for Canada to consider a national fertilizer strategy” (Report on Business, April 25): Fifty years ago, I wrote a PhD thesis examining the economics of the “Green Revolution,” then in its initial stages.
The term referred to new agricultural technologies comprising high-yielding seeds, irrigation and chemical fertilizers, particularly those containing nitrogen, phosphorous and potash. Early results demonstrated dramatic improvements in foodgrain productivity in advanced economies, and promised an end to hunger and food insecurity throughout the developing world.
Five decades later, I agree with critics who claim the Green Revolution’s achievements are considerably more mixed. We must take into account the degradation of soils and watersheds that has led to diminished yields and other negative environmental consequences. These include substantial carbon emissions generated by the production of nitrogenous fertilizers, such as urea, that exacerbate global warming.
Rather than depending heavily on chemical fertilizers, there is growing acceptance of the need for agroecology, a holistic approach applying ecological principles to design sustainable food systems.
Roy Culpeper Ottawa
The sexes
Re “How young women are radicalized into hating men” (Opinion, April 25): Treating the “femosphere” and manosphere as mirror images collapses an important asymmetry: misogynist online communities have been empirically linked to real-world violence: incels, mass shooters, domestic abusers citing “red-pill” content. No comparable evidence exists linking “femosphere” content to equivalent harm.
Women’s wariness of men is framed as a product of online radicalization, never considering it might be a rational response to lived experience. Roughly 1 in 3 women worldwide have experienced physical or sexual violence, most often by an intimate partner. More than half of female homicide victims in the United States are killed by a current or former partner.
The real issue is deeper. Patriarchy is a created system, representing a sliver of human history, that teaches men their worth is economic and women their worth is bodily, reducing both sexes to what they can extract from one another rather than meeting as full human beings.
Katrina Macdonald Toronto
I wanted to say how much I appreciated this article.
I am a 29-year-old woman. On TikTok and Instagram, on podcasts, in YouTube videos and in comments sections everywhere, I regularly see and hear statements from women about how awful men are. Often these are lighthearted “jokes,” but when they are made widely and repeatedly, they are quite powerful in shifting collective thinking.
I’m not trying to say that gender-based discrimination isn’t real; it certainly is. But when someone is immersed in social media, extreme ways of thinking can begin to seem reasonable.
When women openly express real disrespect and hate toward men, it’s a serious problem. It can affect how teenage girls, young women and thirtysomething women think.
Jeannie Bennett Vancouver
I have four grandsons and four granddaughters, one of whom is trans.
Not one granddaughter has demonstrated “full-fledged hatred of men,” not one has been “radicalized by online content.” Not one grandson has failed to have girlfriends or hold a door open for me. Neither sex has shown a propensity for “humiliating and antagonizing the opposite sex,” in fact the reverse.
Mother Nature ensures that both sexes are born in such numbers that the human race should continue despite aberrations. My grandchildren are marrying, and I have no doubt some babies will appear.
The human race will continue.
Shirley Williams Hamilton
Up close
Re “For the rich and (occasionally) the poor, live sports has become a tale of two fanbases” (Sports, April 25): When I watch World Cup games on television, and I watch many of them, I often don’t know what city they are in, nor do I care.
TV coverage focuses on the 105-by-68-metres of grass, the players and the game itself. I suspect for this World Cup, many viewers elsewhere will assume all games are being played in the United States.
Montreal was a potential host city. I suggest it will get more benefit from hosting the world championships for bicycle road races in September. I don’t know what it will cost, but safe to say it will be less than the World Cup.
It won’t attract nearly the attention of the World Cup, but it is followed by millions of people and not just in Europe. Attendance is free.
No other prominent sport enables spectators to get so close to the action and the stars.
Ed Janicki Victoria
Just keep living
Re “Midlife isn’t a crisis, it’s a compression” (Opinion, April 25): Midlife crisis is explained beautifully and with surprising accuracy.
The intensity of this period teaches us to embrace, rather than avoid, hardship and allows us to mature more rapidly. The reward: more compassion, confidence and the ability to set an example for younger people to follow.
Happiness comes not from things, but from pride in being able to overcome obstacles. It arrives through wisdom.
This is an article all young people could turn to when times are tough.
Patricia Kammerer Toronto
Reading this wonderful, life-affirming essay illustrated by tree rings, I couldn’t help recalling one of the theories about Stradivarius violins.
The trees whose wood they were made of grew during Europe’s Little Ice Age, which hampered normal growth. The wood was denser, which affects how sound vibrations travel through it, possibly explaining the violins’ high sound quality and intense resonance.
We humans, similarly compressed, have a chance to come out on the other side and resonate as well.
Carol Lewis London, Ont.
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