Bloc Quebecois leader Yves-François Blanchet speaks at TVA studios in Montreal, on Sept. 2, 2021.MARTIN CHEVALIER/AFP/Getty Images
For real?
Re “Liberals survive confidence vote, but Bloc sets deadline for its support” (Sept. 26): Yves-François Blanchet’s deadline feels like nothing more than an empty threat, with little chance of his demands being met or resulting in the fall of the Liberal government, given the Bloc Québécois do not solely hold the balance of power.
As demonstrated over the past two years, the NDP has a preference to keep Justin Trudeau in power, noting a Conservative majority government would make Canadians worse off. Strategically, triggering an election likely nullifies any remaining parliamentary influence the NDP currently holds, as borne out by polling.
It stands to reason that so long as these elements inform the NDP’s position, an election likely will not be imminent and Canadians should interpret everything else as mere political grandstanding.
Angelo Mele Newmarket, Ont.
Mail it in
Re “Time to finally privatize the inefficient and ailing Canada Post” (Report on Business, Sept. 25): So the Fraser Institute advocates once more for privatizing our institutions. What’s next, hospitals? Prisons?
The idea that the same economies of mail delivery can be applied in our far-flung, sparsely populated territory as in small European countries should ring false, even for the Fraser Institute.
Sinclair Robinson Ottawa
I have a simpler and less controversial suggestion: Remove the mandate that requires Canada Post to make five deliveries per week. Three times would be more than sufficient.
Edwin Gibson West Vancouver
Build up
Re “Delays, municipal fees still throttling housing starts in Ontario, report says” (Sept. 25): Following six years of being given virtually everything it asks for from the Ford government, the Ontario building industry – which I believe to have crashed its own market by, among other things, overbuilding the wrong type of housing (ever taller condo towers, with ever smaller units) in the wrong places – is asking the province to double down on a policy model that undermines a rules- and evidence-based approach to planning to suit the industry.
This, along with taxpayer subsidization of infrastructure costs and weakening protections for existing rental housing, will somehow produce a better result. The reignition of the inflationary spiral of speculation and financialization that has characterized the housing market seems more likely.
Producing affordable, livable and sustainable communities would require more nuanced approaches than we have seen from the province. It should include long-overdue conversations about what pace of growth and development is actually feasible, sustainable and desirable.
Mark Winfield Co-chair, Sustainable Energy Initiative, faculty of environmental and urban change, York University Toronto
The Building Industry and Land Development Association is a lobby group acting on behalf of its 1,200-plus member companies.
It has done a fantastic job of making many of us think that it acts in the public interest and should be treated as a partner at the table. But I do not see it as a partner; it is a stakeholder, the same as the public.
BILD’s report does not seem to meaningfully address any of the issues that have led us to today’s housing crisis. I believe BILD has not proven trustworthy and is equally to blame. It should stop pointing fingers.
Why do some continue to treat BILD as an authority in framing the problem and solutions to the housing crisis? Especially when it’s clear to me that the solutions they’ve advocated for, and been granted, have made the housing crisis worse.
Irene Ford Vaughan, Ont.
The private sector is unable to build affordable for-sale or rental housing fast enough to meet demand; the speeding up of planning approvals would help a lot. But for-profit housing still means many Canadians live as rent- or mortgage-paying slaves. We should have more public-sector housing in its various forms.
Vienna ranks as a top livable city in the world. More than half of its residents, of all income groups, live in public or subsidized housing. Renting is not stigmatized. The city owns or indirectly controls about 40 per cent of the housing stock. That history goes back to the 1920s and 1930s, when there was a housing crisis.
Vienna’s housing model is culturally rooted and can’t be copied here, but the lesson for us is that we should have a better balance between public and private housing supply.
Reiner Jaakson Urban planner (retired) Oakville, Ont.
Show, don’t tell
Re “Hard to see” (Letters, Sept. 25): “We can’t always stop kids from breaking rules. But without rules, they won’t even know we tried.” Brilliant.
Many decades ago, I found a Playboy magazine under the mattress of one of my children and tossed it into the garbage without comment or reprisal. A neighbour suggested, after I shared my story, that “unfortunately they are going to get their hands on another one and find a better hiding spot.”
She was probably right. However, there was never any doubt in their mind as to what was acceptable and what was not in our household.
In hindsight, it almost seems trivial in light of what our young people are now exposed to 24/7. Our kids are smarter than we give them credit for. What we tell them is not nearly as important as what we show them.
Joan McNamee Kamloops, B.C.
Better ways
Re “If Canada forgets oil and gas, we must accept a lower standard of living” (Report on Business, Sept. 25): That is a very short-term view. The corollary to that is “if the world does not quickly transition to new forms of energy, we will all face a lower standard of living.” And we will also face crippling energy shortages.
Firstly, coal, oil and gas are the main drivers of climate change, which is slowly but surely making our world more expensive and unlivable. The daily evidence cannot be ignored. Secondly, oil and gas are finite resources that will be depleted by about the time it will take to scale up replacements. Thirdly, in all forms of progress, how we do it matters. After Saudi Arabia, Canada has the second-highest emissions per capita in the world. Oil and gas production is Canada’s biggest source of carbon emissions. Our second-biggest is burning oil for transportation. There are better ways.
Our government knows all of this and is implementing the same countermeasures as every other responsible government. Meanwhile, the Trans Mountain and Coastal GasLink pipelines will help us get a fairer price for our products while we make the long transition to clean energy.
Money people think about money. Governments must think about everything.
Hugh Holland Huntsville, Ont.
Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Keep letters to 150 words or fewer. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com