Where there's a will ...
Milan Markovic's commentary What The Kosovo Ruling Means For Canada: Trouble (July 31) omits a feature that is vital to the success of all sovereigntist movements, regardless of the presumed legality of any declaration of independence: the strength of popular will that underpins them. In light of the International Court of Justice's ruling, Mr. Markovic feels that an important roadblock to Quebec separation has been removed. Even if international recognition of a unilateral declaration of independence were restrained, he suggests that separatists might think it better to go ahead anyway, and lobby for such recognition after the fait accompli.
But post-1995 developments in Quebec strongly suggest that no new referendum will be attempted by the sovereigntist camp until and unless there is some assurance that most Québécois - with "clarity" in their thinking, if not on the ballot paper - support separation.
That is the pivotal issue and the essential difference between Kosovo - where there was an overwhelming will to cut the Serbian knot - and today's (but perhaps not tomorrow's) Quebec.
John Edwards, Antigonish, N.S.
American Petroleum
Your article The Oil May Stop, But BP's Problems Have Barely Begun (Business - Aug. 3) has led me to ask much about how the whole of this story has been portrayed. BP and Amoco (formerly Standard Oil of Indiana) merged in December, 1998. About 39 per cent of this company we call British Petroleum is in fact, according to the business press, owned by American shareholders, and six Americans sit on its board of directors. President Barack Obama has portrayed BP as a foreign company that has wreaked havoc on the U.S. maritime industry in the Gulf. Talk about spin.
Ron Grossman, Ottawa
Voodoo statistics
It took Treasury Board President Stockwell Day to put the long-form census issue into perspective (Census Questions Derail Stockwell Day's Economic Performance - online, Aug. 3). Mr. Day's conviction that there really is much more crime committed than statistics tell us reveals the libertarian view that reality is just a matter of opinion, not facts. So why bother with statistics at all? We can just make it all up out of whole cloth and that's okay. This explains so much of this government's behaviour and motivations.
Claudette Claereboudt, Regina
Missing in action
Erik Waddell, Industry Minister Tony Clement's spokesman, claims that the opposition parties are not interested in compromising on the long-form census (In Census Fight, Statisticians Find Strength In Numbers - Aug. 3). But the unfortunate issue about this debate is not the position of the opposition parties, but the absence of opposition or compromise within the Conservative Party.
There are overwhelmingly compelling arguments in favour of maintaining the mandatory long-form census: its frankly undisputed relevance for municipal and provincial governance, health-care policy, businesses and NGOs, not to mention the wastefulness of spending more on a voluntary survey that will yield imprecise data, no matter how many respondents.
More than 200 municipalities, professional associations, NGOs, corporations, academic institutions and think tanks are opposed to the decision, compared with two conservative think tanks in favour. A majority of voters are opposed.
Given these points, are there no Conservative caucus members - MPs or senators - who have the integrity to speak out against their leadership's appallingly irresponsible decision to cancel it?
Michael Darroch, Windsor, Ont.
The census in action
The article Poverty Increases Chances Of Dying Of Cancer, Study Finds (Aug. 2) provides yet another striking example of how important and relevant the long-form census is for research on health care and other pressing social problems. The household income data the researchers used stem from a national representative random sample of Statistics Canada's 2001 census. The Ontario Cancer Registry provided the data on patients diagnosed from 2003 to 2007.
The newly proposed 2011 National Household Survey will use a long form with a voluntary sample of respondents, who are not representative of the Canadian population. Furthermore, studies show that poverty-stricken groups and individuals are less likely to respond to a voluntary census. The survival disparity needs further re-examination and every effort must be made to secure the continuity of representative data from the long-form census for this social problem, as well as for many other pressing health, social, business and economic issues.
It is indeed difficult to comprehend why Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his ministers fail to recognize the inherent methodological and analytical problems with the planned voluntary 2011 long-form census.
Eugen Lupri, professor emeritus of sociology, University of Calgary
Sharing the blame
While your editorial's mutual-respect stance is appreciated, bikes and cars simply sharing the road isn't the main issue (Sharing The Road - Aug. 3). Halifax has a small network of disconnected bike lanes, and yet city council recently voted down a dedicated bike lane because of misguided local business and neighbourhood concerns.
What we really need are more forward-thinking politicians, who aren't focused on getting re-elected, who will create policy that not only promotes citizen health but also reduces traffic congestion and the high cost to taxpayers for road infrastructure and environmental damage caused by the never-ending worship of car culture.
True, bikes lanes aren't easy to place everywhere. However, combining them with a simple law requiring motor-vehicle drivers to give at least one metre of clearance when passing cyclists might just help put more uncomfortable riders back in the saddle.
Mark Smith, Halifax
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Sharing the road is a delicate balance, one that is out of sync in Toronto. In the past four years, I have known two fathers who have lost their lives in horrific accidents while riding to work, hauntingly remembered by white Ghost Bikes and flowers left by cyclists and motorists alike. Late in July, Toronto's functional Jarvis Street swing lane was eliminated in favour of a north and south bike lane. Bikes now hurl down Jarvis in the morning from Bloor to Queen Streets, where, suddenly, the bike lanes end.
I shake my head. Motorists are intolerant. Cyclists are ill-equipped, many lacking helmets, gloves or functional bikes built for urban transport. This strategy is ill-conceived and poorly thought out. Cyclists are going to die. Ghost Bikes are going to be back.
Neil Macdonald, Toronto
At home and abroad
It is so heartwarming to hear the president of a Canadian university acknowledge "what a tremendous privilege it is to call this country home." That is the kind of sentiment many of us who have immigrated to Canada share and cherish (Internationalizing Canada's Student Experience - Aug. 2).
Amit Chakma's suggestion of attracting bright foreign students to make Canada their home is likewise a positive way of building a stronger Canada and assuring a bright future for our young people. Indeed, we should offer citizenship to all foreign students who achieve excellence in their studies, provided they are also of fine character.
What a productive source of outstanding immigrants our universities could become.
John Bruk, North Saanich, B.C.
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Your article on the advantages to Canada of Canadians working abroad neglects to mention one important fact: Canadians abroad invariably pay no personal income taxes (A Canadian Key Drives A Chinese Success - July 31). The Canadian diaspora you describe actually provide little if any advantages to their home country, and may even be a drain on Canada's international competitiveness.
Under current laws, Canadian non-residents pay no taxes, provided they meet a set of criteria to become non-residents that include severing most ties to Canada in a manner that suggests the move from Canada is permanent.
A fair tax regime would see non-resident Canadians paying a flat tax on worldwide income, and would vary the criteria for non-residency so that is does not include the requirement to sever ties with Canada. This tax regime would continue to provide an incentive for global mobility to professionals, and it would encourage repatriation of their knowledge gained abroad for the benefit of all Canadians.
Robert Maxwell, Doha, Qatar
By the numbers
While it is true that the venerable T-33 aircraft came into service in the early 1950s, it was retired in 2005 and was never flown by the Snowbirds (David and Goliath - letters, Aug. 3). What we spectacularly see "slipping the surly bonds of Earth" and gracing the skies in loops and whirls, entertaining North Americans from year to year, is Canadair's CT-114 Tutor.
Allan Roberts, Trenton, Ont.
Something's fishy
Re A Bigger, Richer Cast For The Life Aquatic (Aug. 3): The question that springs to mind is did the fish take part in the census voluntarily, or were they threatened with battering and deep-frying to get them to co-operate?
Rupert J. Taylor, Waterloo, Ont.