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On the up and up and up and …
Re Rising Risk Of Housing Correction In Vancouver And Toronto, Poloz Warns (June 10): Enough already with crying wolf, no one is listening. When and if the bubble bursts in Toronto and Vancouver, the blame must fall on the shoulders of our farsighted politicians who failed to put controls in place to regulate market speculation and foreign ownership, and on the Bank of Canada for its protracted, ill-conceived interest-rate policy. Let's treat the disease, not wring our hands over the symptoms.
Gregory J. Dwyer, commercial mortgages, Regina
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It's unlikely that governments can fix the excessive prices in Toronto and Vancouver. It's a case of be careful what you wish for. It's true that the fundamentals don't support the disproportionate and excessive price gains in these two cities. The cause, however, is economic-development boosterism by many, including the respective premiers and mayors (e.g. Olympics, Pan Am, Expo, TIFF).
The price you pay for the aspiration of being a world-class city is world-class house prices. This is a feature of all global cities like London, Paris, New York, Sydney and now Toronto and Vancouver. Neither government, nor the Bank of Canada can fix that issue. If you can't fix it, take advantage of these windfall price gains and tax them. Then reinvest the proceeds to address affordability issues.
Steve Pomeroy, senior fellow, Carleton University Centre for Urban Research Education
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Down, down, down the hole
Re Sinkhole Opens In Downtown Ottawa (June 9): The Ottawa sinkhole presents a timely opportunity for the Government of Canada to rid itself of warehouses full of unused royal commission reports, Auditor-General reports, senators' expense reports, etc. Dump them down the hole and forget about them. Isn't that what happens now?
Christine A. Featherstone, Port Carling, Ont.
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Rushing to judge Sharapova?
Re Game, Set, Match (June 9): I was puzzled by your editorial regarding the two-year ban imposed on Maria Sharapova. You note she has lost a number of lucrative endorsement deals and suggest she should "disappear to live off her ill-gotten gains," leaving the impression she's been evading authorities the entire time she was playing tennis and becoming, as you noted, "the richest female athlete in the world."
Lost in all of this is that her career has spanned more than a decade and that meldonium, the medication at issue, was classified as a banned substance less than a month before she tested positive in January. Any suggestion that she is a long-time cheat is, therefore, misleading. Equally misleading is your exhortation to "crack down on an entire nation," that nation being Russia. Neither the IOC nor Richard McLaren have confirmed Dick Pound's allegations of a massive Russian doping conspiracy.
You acknowledge that the results of Mr. McLaren's investigation have not yet been revealed and concede that track and field's governing body has not yet decided if action is warranted against Russia's Olympic contingent. That decision will come June 17. Aren't you rushing to judgment when you advocate cracking down "on an entire nation" before all the evidence is in? Or is this simply another echo of misplaced Cold War sentiment?
Aleks Mladenovic, Toronto
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Death ahead: course correction
The Senate got it right, amending Bill C-14 to remove the reasonable foreseeability requirement for assisted death (Senators Vote To Broaden Assisted Dying Bill – June 9). This is an opportunity for the government to course correct on this issue.
If a person is suffering deeply and there's no treatment acceptable to them to relieve this, they should be allowed to decide to die in a dignified way. How much worse to endure terrible suffering, knowing there is no end on the horizon, no ability to ask for help when enough is enough. They should not be forced to live in the Dark Ages of our law before the Carter decision.
Reasonable foreseeability is not a physician's term, it is a term applied by lawyers and judges in retrospect to judge events in the past. It will simply cause confusion for medical professionals and the average person to apply it to a current decision.
Advance directives should be tackled in the future – future, because time will be needed to deal with this in a thoughtful way. I am a wills and estates lawyer. Many clients would like the ability, if diagnosed with Alzheimer's, for a loved one to authorize assisted dying on their behalf. Now, people are forced into an inhumane decision between committing suicide while still capable, or the intolerable knowledge they may end up in an a state of severe dementia.
Monique Shebbeare, Vancouver
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You need not be an actuary (I am one) to know that death is "reasonably foreseeable." No one gets off this Earth alive: Every living person's death is inevitable, hence "foreseeable." So what does "reasonably" mean? Bravo to the Senate!
Don Gauer, Thornbury, Ont.
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Ready, aim, zing
Re PMs And The Press: Hostilities Are The Hallmark (June 7): Prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau had the most dynamic of relations with the media. One of his better quips occurred when, directed to the media from a tank gun turret, he asked, "Can I aim at the press?" The erudite Mr. Trudeau, saucy and funny, had a canon of one-liners.
Mel Simoneau, Gatineau, Que.