How Canadian was that, eh?
How fitting that the president of the IOC and the Prime Minister of Canada were both at the closing ceremonies: Mr. Rogge and Mr. Prorogue.
Paul Park, Ottawa
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A favourite Olympic moment: During the men's curling final, the cameras panned to the audience, pausing briefly on Stephen Harper chatting with the Canadian women's curling team, all proudly wearing their silver medals. Directly in front of them, seemingly oblivious to the game and the celebs, was a spectator, focused intently on her knitting.
How Canadian was that? And would a pair of knitting needles ever be permitted that close to Barack Obama or any other head of state?
Timothy Bunting, Toronto
Only the lumberjack was M.I.A.
What was VANOC thinking? They'd run a wonderful Games, we'd heard Neil Young, everyone was happy - then, dancing Mounties and inflatable beavers? Seriously? Why not just douse everyone in maple syrup and be done with it?
J. E. Mullin, Fredericton
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Everyone knows that Crosby, Stahl and Nash play better when Neil Young is in the arena.
Andrew Bernstein, Toronto
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A cute beginning to be sure but then - surely with the quality of comedians in our country, someone could have written better jokes. I was embarrassed by what passed as wit.
Jeff McLaughlin, Kamloops
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The only thing missing in the closing ceremonies was the Monty Python I'm a Lumberjack song.
Alex Kachmar, Edmonton
Hockey's gold standard
"This country achieved … a gold in our game" (The Defining Games - March 1). Don't tell the IOC - they think we won two.
Colleen Franklin, Sudbury, Ont.
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Wasn't that a game? Can you imagine: Not a single fight, just four penalties and end-to-end action (albeit with plenty of legitimate hits)? Was Gary Bettman watching?
Geoff Stevenson, Brentwood Bay, B.C.
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A collateral benefit of all that Olympic hockey is that most of us newbies now understand the game/rules better, and don't scratch our heads to figure out power play-speak.
Ajay Rao, Toronto
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When Canada Post gets around to issuing a stamp commemorating Sidney Crosby's golden goal, perhaps a few wisps of fog could obscure Ryan Miller's name and number. He was a formidable foe and deserves better than to have his personal details immortalized on the same stamp.
Michael Phillips, Dublin, Ireland
Picture it
Who had the idea for The Globe's front page yesterday? It was brilliant!
Jim Regan, Dundas, Ont.
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Best. Cover. Ever.
Barrie Abbott, Port Coquitlam, B.C.
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Canadians were at the edge of their seats watching that game. The picture truly captured the triumph of Team Canada and our fans.
Paula Jenkins, Calgary
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A newspaper with a cover. And what a cover! Whoever came up with that delightful idea deserves a gold medal. So does the photographer, who knows something about scope.
Ninian Mellamphy, London, Ont.
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I was somewhat taken back by your front page yesterday. What was so important about that hockey photograph? The three guys in blue are apparently totally disinterested in the game, and one guy in white doesn't even have his stick on the ice? God knows where the puck is.
Did I miss something yesterday?
Raymond Gilbert, Dundas, Ont.
In the grand scheme of things
Sure, it's nice to know Canada won more Winter gold medals than any other country. But, at the end of the day, being the one who goes down the hill the fastest means that you are excellent at going down a hill fast, which doesn't accomplish much. I'd prefer our country excel in medical or scientific research, or in helping countries struck by disaster.
Let's face it: Olympic athletes choose to pursue an activity that is expensive, and that, for many sports, results in little or no income. They should assume the consequences (financial or otherwise) of their choice. And if they can't practise the luge because they can't afford child care - well, many working families are struggling to afford child care.
I'd feel better if the Own The Podium money had gone to help all those families. If it means we're not the fastest at going down hills, in the grander scheme of things, it's not that consequential.
Gilles Coughlan, Ottawa
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Is it over? Are they gone? Can I come out now?
Alan Donald, Vancouver
What needs to be done
The fundamental structures that drive health-care costs need to change, and one of the most important of these is how physicians are paid ( Cure It, Or Lose It - Bit By Bit - March 1). Fee for service builds in precisely the wrong incentives: It fragments care into separate procedures, discouraging continuity; it encourages seeing more people faster than is good for quality.
Capitation models in which clinics or practices receive a global budget for their population build in incentives to keep that population healthy and support the kind of co-ordinated, multidisciplinary care and health promotion Tom Kent highlights.
Other key cost drivers are drugs and technology, both of which can be controlled far more effectively through stronger bargaining with industry and provincial and regional co-ordination.
Many of the solutions to sustainability and efficiency are already out there. A huge amount of front-line innovation is going on across Canada; the challenge is to create forums and mechanisms where lessons learned can be widely shared and the most promising initiatives can be rigorously assessed and scaled up where appropriate.
Bob Gardner, director of health-care reform and public policy, Wellesley Institute
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Thousands of Canadians, through no fault of their own, suffer from chronic, incurable autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel disease. These chronic diseases are something you live with, as best as you can, until the day you die. In addition to the physical suffering, those afflicted often have their job prospects diminished and face the costs of drugs to (one hopes) control the disease. Will giving them a statement at the end of the year telling them how much they have cost the system do anything useful? What are they expected to do to reduce costs - commit suicide?
Taxing them based on their health-care use just adds further financial injury to their suffering.
Kim Smith, Ottawa
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I agree with André Picard's five-point health-care fix and would like to suggest a sixth point: collaboration among governments, stakeholders and the public ( The Trouble With Health Care - Feb. 27). The soon-to-expire health accords, which laid out a blueprint to help rein in spending and ensure universal, high-quality care for Canadians, were a prime example of the usefulness of this type of co-operation. Now is the time for governments to recommit and engage each other, the system's many stakeholders and, of course, members of the public - all of whom have a vested interest in the future of our publicly funded health-care system.
John G. Abbott, CEO, Health Council of Canada
1848 - there was a year
It seems Neil Reynolds enjoys using historical trivia to defend Prime Minister Stephen Harper ( Our MPs Work Hard - Just Not At Their Real Job; March 1). But he omits the most important year in our parliamentary history: 1848. From then on, in much of British North America, governments required the confidence of parliaments. The role of members expanded from merely trying to reduce government spending to legitimately scrutinizing and deliberating on all government activity. Governments had to answer to the elected members. Mr. Harper's actions have taken us back to debates we thought were settled long ago.
Tom Urbaniak, Department of Political Science, Cape Breton University
A different kind of gold
What a heart-warming article by Margaret Wente about the retired couple who built a school in Guatemala ( Is There Life After Retirement? - Feb 27 ). I saw a group of retired, boomer teachers in the Toronto area form a group called the International Book Buddy Trust. They went into schools and gave presentations about life in Malawi, and invited the Canadian schoolchildren to bring in a book to send to a buddy in Malawi. They explained that most children in Malawi - one of the world's poorest countries - had never had their hands on a single book. Well, the word spread, the books poured in and they sent 22,500 books to Malawi. Now, there was a gold-medal performance.
Anthony W. Harnett, Caledon, Ont.
The fact of matter, you know, is
Sam Yurman complains, justifiably, about the abuse and overuse of "you know" (You Know, It's Like, You Know - letter, March 1). Still, joining "you know" on any podium of annoying words and phrases must surely be "in terms of," "basically" and, a favourite with politicians, "the fact of the matter is," you know.
Bill Boyd, Lakefield, Ont.