Cause of the pause
Re Climate's Big PR Problem (Sept. 24): The current claims and predictions made by the IPCC are identical to those made in 1990. Present-day modelling has shown that the impact of the La Nina cycle in the Pacific is the cause of the pause and has reinforced the dry period in the U.S. Midwest; the variability in the solar output is trivially small and irrelevant. Still, the focus on temperature is a bit of a red herring.
What is not in doubt is that: desertification is spreading, the ocean is rising and becoming more acidic, Arctic ice is melting, as are the major glaciers, and increased CO2 concentrations do not lead to more plant growth.
In other words, a selective reading of one month's worth of one journal cannot possibly be taken as a representation of the current state of the art on all these important phenomena.
The current CO2 level is the highest it has been in almost a million years. On geological time scales, this is inexorably connected to a much warmer climate.
Bruce Parsons, Portugal Cove, Nfld.
.........
Merkel's formula
Re Merkel's Final Term An Opportunity To Create A Legacy (Sept. 24): Canadians generally pay scant attention to other countries' elections, save for the U.S. perhaps. We might make an exception with the recent one in Germany in order to see why a non-photogenic Angela Merkel remained so popular after two terms in office.
Could her successful formula have something to do with convincing voters that, by and large, her overriding interest – beyond persuasive hyperbole – lies in the welfare of both Germany and the European Union, notwithstanding the formidable criticism from outside regarding her steadfast economic strategies?
A thorough review might indeed lead to some interesting conclusions from which our "homegrown talent" could benefit with regard to longevity and overall effectiveness.
Red de Witt, Ottawa
.........
Rev up auto policy
Re Harper And Co.'s Auto Policy Running On Fumes (Sept. 19): Each job in an auto-assembly plant produces $300,000 in value added per year. You may not need a degree to do the work (although many auto workers now have one), but job-specific skill requirements are high.
There are at least five factory jobs for every scientific or white-collar job in the industry. So while it's great to go after higher-tech positions, they could never replace the loss of work and income from factory closures.
Moreover, losing factories makes it even harder to win tech centres and other technology jobs, which tend to locate near the industry's manufacturing centre of gravity. Just looking around southern Ontario confirms there's no guarantee that lost factory work is automatically replaced by high-tech positions.
Germany uses a tripartite model for preserving industrial jobs with co-operative interventions by business, government and labour. Factory employment there is growing, not shrinking.
They've used the whole tool box (investment subsidies, technology supports, trade measures, even public equity ownership of auto makers) to ensure Germany's high-wage industry thrives.
If there's a critique to be made of Canada's policy, it's that we haven't followed that example.
Jerry Dias, national president, Unifor
.........
I got mine, so …
Re The Fight Over Obamacare Is Not Over (Sept. 24): As a dual U.S./Canadian citizen, I know what the status quo in U.S. health care feels like. This article perfectly sums up the American attitude, "I got mine, so screw you."
After the demise of the Defence of Marriage Act, I briefly considered moving back to the U.S. with my Canadian boyfriend. When we both considered all the blessings of Canada, we decided to stay put.
Before I became Canadian, I thought many people who lived here were pretty smug. I am now happy to be pretty smug myself.
Doug Watkins, Vancouver
.........
Prescribed values
Re Ex-Supreme Court Justice Said To Be A Charter Backer (Sept. 24): Of course former Supreme Court justice Claire L'Heureux-Dubé believes in equality. So do most, if not all, Canadians.
What is disturbing is that she, along with the other supporters of Quebec's Charter of Values, are confusing equality with sameness.
Equality is not uniformity. It is the right to be who you are both at home and in public. That's what needs to be protected.
Enforced "sameness" as a condition for being accepted as a member of society has often led to violence against minorities. A reading of 20th-century European history ought to be ringing warning bells.
France is an example of this failure, not a model to emulate. Attacks against Muslims have increased exponentially since discriminatory dress-code laws were instituted, as have attacks on others by Muslims. There is no "neutral" space when governments practise intolerance. Nor should secularism be seen as the opposite of the iron-fisted rule of premier Maurice Duplessis.
The prescribed "value" may have changed from Roman Catholicism to secularism, but the coercive form remains the same.
Erna Paris, Toronto
.........
Deadly problem
Re Dangerous Crossings: Collision Puts Spotlight On Deadly Problem (Sept. 20): All of us responsible for rail safety – government, regulators and our partners – will study the tragic bus-train accident in Ottawa and seek improvements to reduce the recurrence of events like this.
Initiatives such as the educational efforts undertaken by Operation Lifesaver have had a positive effect on improving safety. Since the creation of this program in 1980, crossing and trespassing accidents have fallen by 80 and 62 per cent, respectively, and in 2011, the rail sector achieved its lowest accident rate in 10 years while moving a record amount of goods.
More recent efforts, such as the Federation of Canadian Municipalities-Railway Association of Canada guidelines for new development near rail operations, focus on safety as it relates to railway-community relationships.
Sadly, there are still too many avoidable fatalities at crossings.
Michael Bourque, president, Railway Association of Canada
.........
Name change
Re Ottawa Football Club Agrees To Drop Redskins Name (Sept. 21): The decision by the Nepean Redskins to change their name to something less offensive and divisive inevitably raises the question of the similarity of the names of the Ottawa Senators and the Senate of Canada.
Given the recent Senate scandals, wouldn't it be fair to make that body change its name to protect the good name of the hockey team?
Anthony N. Doob, Toronto