Westridge Marine Terminal, the terminus of the government-owned Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project in Burnaby, from Cates Park in North Vancouver, on May 1.Jennifer Gauthier/Reuters
Birds of a feather
Re “Is another pandemic around the corner?” (Opinion, Apr. 30): Could bird flu be the next catastrophic pandemic? The answer lies in our ability to learn from past pandemics and embrace inclusivity within the global community.
Positioned at a crucial intersection along the East Asian flyway of bird migration, Taiwan is pivotal in the global battle against lethal viruses. Annually, an estimated 1¼ million migratory birds traverse or winter in Taiwan. This distinctive geographical location magnifies Taiwan’s significance in tracking and combatting deadly viruses. Its prompt notifications and dissemination of vital information, such as the H6N1 and H7N9 avian influenza cases in 2013 and 2017, underscore the imperative of its inclusion in global health organizations.
However, Taiwan remains excluded from the World Health Organization and its affiliated organizations, including the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System. The potential for another pandemic looms. Could treating Taiwan differently be a starting point to avert this?
Jin-Ling Chen, Director-general, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office Toronto
Pipeline for the people
Re “Trans Mountain expansion officially opens” (May 2): Conspicuously absent in this report on the start of operations at the expanded Trans Mountain pipeline is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to buy the project from Kinder Morgan after it gave up on completing it. No Trudeau buy; no increased amount of oil flowing.
Cynthia Turner Sydney, N.S.
The expanded Trans Mountain pipeline is finished and its new capacity is up to 890,000 barrels a day. Ten oil companies have signed long-term contracts to use the pipe, and the Canadian Energy Regulator has set a transport rate of $11.46 a barrel.
That works out to $10.2-million a day or $3.7-billion a year. Ottawa wants to sell this asset at 10 cents on the dollar; maybe they should keep it for 10 years and pay back taxpayers for cost overruns.
John Hayes St. Albert, Alta.
If our elected government is going to sell the Trans Mountain pipeline at a loss, it should sell it to the Canada and Quebec pension plans so we all benefit from the low price and continuing payout, as long as it doesn’t become a dangerous precedent. Our tax money bought the pipeline. Our tax money built the pipeline expansion. It’s our pipeline already. Pensions are good places for long-term utility assets.
William Watt Ottawa
Friend or foe?
Re “China’s effort to steal Canadian technology is mind-boggling: top spy” (April 30): On the one hand, the head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service cautions us about China’s threats to our cutting-edge technology and intellectual properties. On the other, Ottawa has spent $34-billion to build a pipeline that will expand exports of Canadian oil to trade partners on the Pacific Rim, one of which undoubtedly will be China. Am I the only one who finds this ironic – and more than puzzling? It’s the polar opposite of biting the proverbial hand that feeds us.
Ken Cuthbertson Kingston
Taxed doctors
Re “Could you lose your doctor over higher taxes?” (Report on Business, April 30): Tony Keller is quite right that even if all taxes due by doctors were to be eliminated, there would be little to no change in the availability of family doctors.
The errors made by public-health officials over the past 20 years, which were easily predicted, have led to our present severe physician shortage. Interestingly, the fear of the “cost of too many doctors” doesn’t apply in a capitated system where the vast majority of total payments to family doctors are based on the total population numbers and not whether a patient or doctor is abusing the system.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if we had enough family physicians that would actually compete for patients at little to no more cost to the government as opposed to the artificial rationing we see now?
David J. Barker MD, (retired) Whitby, Ont.
Many thanks to Tony Keller for pointing out the specious special pleading of the Canadian Medical Association.
According to Lobby Canada, “8,000 individual lobbyists were registered to lobby on behalf of more than 3,300 organizations or corporations, either as in-house lobbyists or as consultants.” These people spend their time pleading for government favours for their clients or strong-arming politicians with advertising campaigns.
I’d like to know who lobbies for the millions of us who trudge off to work every day, have our taxes torn from our hands with every paycheque, (as opposed to the shenanigans organized by accountants for their clients), and whose MPs either have no power within government or have long ago run out of tinkers’ damns. I suspect that this is where populist supporters come from.
What would it take to have a government that is free of this lobby-dwelling pestilence and is simply competent at running our country?
Paul White Toronto
Holy Mackinaw!
Re “Toronto crowds are boring. They can get loud, but only if the Leafs are up 10-0″ (Sports, April 27): References to the power of Toronto Maple Leafs’ radio broadcaster Joe Bowen’s voice brought back memories.
During the 1980s, I was on-air at the radio station where Joe did the morning sports. I filled in as host of the morning show one day. During a commercial break, Joe came in to do his first sportscast. We were chatting normally until it came time for me to introduce him. Suddenly, it was like sitting next to a jet engine at full throttle. The power and intensity of Joe’s voice was overwhelming. I had to put my headphones back on and turn down the volume in order to cope.
Forty years later, Joe’s voice hasn’t lost any of its power. Long may it ring out. Just, preferably, not while I’m sitting next to him.
Scott Walker Toronto
Il lance … et compte!
Re “Oh, Baby!” (Letters, April 30): The recent passing of Bob Cole has understandably prompted many to summon their list of best hockey announcers. Notably missing from the roll call has been the masterful René Lecavalier, for decades the French announcer of Montreal Canadiens games for CBC’s La Soiree du Hockey.
Mr. Lecavalier brought an elegant eloquence to the microphone, and coined many of the terms now commonly used in French play-by-play. I wasn’t the only anglophone Montrealer who learned as much French from Mr. Lecavalier as I did in the classroom.
The glory decades of the Canadiens were all the more sensational when played to the soundtrack of Mr. Lecavalier’s French or Danny Gallivan’s English broadcasts. Unless you happened to be a fan of the New York Rangers.
Myer Siemiatycki Toronto
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