A letter-writer argues that Prime Minister Mark Carney should be more focused on projects like supercomputers instead of pipelines.DAVE CHAN/AFP/Getty Images
Oil options
Re “Carney tells AFN chiefs Indigenous partnership must be part of major projects push” (Dec. 3): I have a question for the Assembly of First Nations and others fighting to stop the government’s agreement with Alberta: If every plan to develop Canada as an energy powerhouse is blocked, then where do they expect the finances to come from for all the support being called for?
Mark Carney is trying to reshape Canada and invigorate the economy. It requires all Canadians to give him the support he needs.
Roger Emsley Delta, B.C.
Re “If you build it…" (Letters, Dec. 2): I wish to echo a letter supporting the refinement of crude oil and bitumen in Canada. I can think of nothing more foolishly wasteful than sending diluted bitumen through a pipeline, separating the diluent (in what amounts to a mini-refinery) and returning it through the same or another pipeline.
We have a multifold choice (besides leaving the bitumen in the ground): Send it by pipeline to the Pacific or Churchill, Man.; if Quebec can be brought on board, send it through the proposed Canada East pipeline to be refined in perhaps New Brunswick; refine it in Alberta and sell the products profitably and mainly in Canada.
These refining choices would much reduce imports of foreign oil and gasoline.
Robert Stairs Peterborough, Ont.
Tech-forward
Re “Canada must build its own supercomputers or risk surrendering its future” (Dec. 1): This serves to further illustrate the Carney government’s preoccupation with major projects focused largely on primary resource extraction.
While the world moves quickly forward with advanced technological developments, Canada seems mired in 20th-century thinking, compounded by interprovincial turf protection. Witness the British Columbia-Alberta squabble over pipelines and Ontario’s new “Buy Ontario” legislation.
Rather than become enmeshed in a pipeline project that will likely never be built, Mark Carney should step back and actively embrace such projects as advocated for here, and more broadly demonstrate the leadership to substantially strengthen Canada’s human capital development and supporting infrastructures.
James Taggart Ottawa
If it works…
Re “Leadership races are not private parties” (Editorial, Nov. 27): The move to “one member, one vote” may have been pursued from the best motives, but party leaders soon realized how much power it bestows.
Democracy is about accountability. In the Westminster model, it comes from the accountability of MPs to constituents, governments to parliament and leaders to caucus.
It takes years to dislodge a leader elected by a dubious mass vote from a fluid and ill-defined membership. A leader elected by caucus can be replaced on Tuesday.
That’s accountability.
Lyle Clarke Whitby, Ont.
Back to basics
Re “Why Canada lost consensus on immigration – and how to get it back" (The Decibel Podcast, Nov. 27): Canada’s immigration approach began to evolve in the early 2000s, increasingly positioning international students as prime candidates for permanent residency and as valuable sources of skilled labor.
Policies were adjusted to encourage these students to remain and work after graduation, framed as an economic advantage for Canadian institutions and local communities. However, the strategy of reducing direct settlement funding for new immigrants, while relying heavily on international students, ultimately backfired. What was intended as a streamlined solution has instead contributed to significant disorder within the immigration system today.
This trajectory underscores the unintended consequences of short-term policy thinking. By prioritizing immediate economic gains over sustainable planning, Canada now faces mounting challenges in balancing labour needs, housing pressures and program integrity.
A recalibration is urgently required, one that restores order, ensures fairness and creates a system that benefits both newcomers and the communities they join.
Anas Khan Beaumont, Alta.
Blow smoke
Re “In Hong Kong, a city’s skin caught fire. Other cities may want to take note” (Dec. 3): Blaming bamboo “romance” for a mass-casualty event does not strike me as urban insight. Fires occur due to ignition sources, accelerants, failed containment and weak governance – not cultural symbolism.
There is also the political reality. After the 1996 Garley Building fire, the last British colonial government appointed a High Court judge and fire-safety experts whose findings transformed regulations. While Hong Kong will set up an independent committee to investigate the fire, today’s Chinese administration does not tolerate much scrutiny, nor do many people trust judges and experts from China to deliver fair, independent findings. Bear in mind as well that a proper commission of inquiry would have more legal powers than a committee.
If the contributor’s logic held, Canada’s own move toward tall-timber buildings would doom our cities to towering infernos. Hong Kong’s dead deserve a full investigation and not French urbanist Paul Virilio’s metaphysics of catastrophe.
Garrick Ngai Toronto
Don’t test fate
Re “More prostate cancer cases diagnosed at Stage 4 in recent years, study finds” (Dec. 2): I was one of those skeptical men not convinced of the merits of prostate-specific antigen screening due to fear of overtreatment.
I even told my doctor not to do it. He ignored me and did it anyway.
My PSA value doubled and then quadrupled over three years. Only then did I see a urologist. He felt a nodule and that triggered an MRI, a biopsy and two CT scans, all within weeks. In less than three months from the biopsy, I had my prostate removed.
The pathological report painted a dark picture: The cancer had been more aggressive than the urologist initially diagnosed. I do not have Stage 4 cancer, but any delay in the procedure would have made it incurable.
I am not hesitant to say the PSA test probably saved my life. I urge every man to at least discuss PSA screening with their health care providers.
Gerd Wengler Milton, Ont.
I read about the higher incidence of advanced prostate cancer cases with great interest, as I recently underwent treatment for this disease.
I am fortunate to have a medical background and be well able to assess my own needs and available health care resources. I also had regular prostate-specific antigen screenings which caught my high-risk cancer at an early stage.
However, many men in Canada are left to self-advocate and hope to make sense of a complicated and controversial landscape for prostate cancer testing and subsequent diagnosis and treatment. I believe PSA screenings should be encouraged and endorsed by the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care. If one doesn’t test, one won’t know.
The benefits to men’s well-being, and reductions in health care costs for treating advanced cancer, would be well worthwhile.
Peter Lindsay London, Ont.
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