A rainbow appears behind pumpjacks near Calgary, on Sept. 18, 2023.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Old money
Re “The Bloc’s plan to pick the pockets of young families” (Editorial, Oct. 1): As a “wealthy” senior, I do not want to receive Old Age Security at all.
It does make a great deal of sense to lower household income thresholds for clawbacks, but let’s be aggressive and lower it, say, to $100,000. Yes, there will be some grousing, but fair is fair.
Start redistributing the funds to lower-income seniors. And raise the household income threshold for Canada Child Benefit clawbacks from $79,000 to a more realistic number that better helps young families.
Next up: Let’s see what we can do with seniors’ tax deductions.
Lynn Odette Toronto
As someone who is just around the corner from being able to collect Old Age Security, I find it nothing short of appalling that a senior couple aged 75 and over with a $173,000 income can receive $19,000 in government handouts.
While our children and grandchildren struggle to pay outrageous rents to live in crumbling apartments, and tens of thousands live in the streets, the government is handing out free trips to Tahiti so long as a Canadian has the correct birth year. If Justin Trudeau accepts Yves-François Blanchet’s demands, my wife and I would be eligible for this payout in just a few years. It is insane.
What about dealing with the elderly living in poverty, and the young people who can’t afford rent? Mr. Blanchet should be ashamed of himself.
A progressive tax system and clawbacks for social benefits are a fundamental part of building an equitable society.
Robert McManus Hamilton
Burning up
Re “U.K.’s coal ban is one more reason for Canada to ship natural gas to Europe” (Report on Business, Oct. 1): The argument that the transition to renewables is “going to take time” has been used for decades by the fossil fuel industry and its lobbyists to stymie and stall development in planet-saving investment and policies. Now we must stomach another opinion recommending a massive pipeline project from Alberta to the east coast, to supply Europeans with natural gas.
Instead of enabling a ruinous (and dying) industry, how about Canada does what it should have been doing faster for decades: Use that money to ramp up renewables, now. We are out of time.
Kenneth Oppel Toronto
Re “Canada’s oil companies are falling short on climate” (Editorial, Sept. 30): The No. 1 priority of any publicly traded company is to increase shareholder value. Canada’s oil companies are pursuing that priority when they abandon costly ventures outside their realm of expertise.
To expect them to spend billions of dollars on projects with little or no prospect of returns would be naïve, as is chastising them for ramping up spending on their primary focus, which is the extraction of oil and gas to serve a burgeoning demand.
Like Norway, Canada should be allowing the oil and gas sector to thrive, and leave the research and investment into technologies that compete with their raison d’être up to others. Expecting them to be complicit in their own demise feels ridiculous.
Darcy Charles Lewis Edmonton
Money in, money out
Re “Health care in Ontario needs an innovation revolution” (Opinion, Sept. 28): Anthony Dale, president and CEO of the Ontario Hospital Association, drops many health care buzzwords including “commercialization” and “innovation.” We find his argument for integrating private services into our public health care system to be without merit.
Doug Ford has withheld billions of dollars in health care funding from the public system, leaving it without the means to provide the timely and quality care that Ontarians deserve. Health care in the province does not need an innovation revolution, it should have a government that funds it properly instead of diverting public dollars into more costly private care.
Funnelling taxpayer dollars to corporate interests would make patient care worse, not better. So why do Mr. Dale and Mr. Ford want to bulldoze ahead with health care privatization?
Unfortunately, this looks like another example of the Premier and and hospital CEOs pandering to corporate interests, without regard for the rest of us.
Erin Ariss RN; provincial president, Ontario Nurses’ Association Kitchener, Ont.
Field trip
Re “Why are TDSB students being sent to rallies in the first place?” (Oct. 1): The answer, to my mind, is that political protests are an important exercise in civic engagement, an aspect of Ontario education sadly in decline.
The Globe’s pages regularly bemoan the number of people who don’t vote. Part of the cause, I would argue, is the inadequate level of history and political science education in high school.
The contributor rightly worries about teachers who “impart their convictions on students.” But the question should be which rallies can students attend, not whether all such engagements should be banned.
(Grassy Narrows yes, because of widespread consensus that Indigenous people were wronged, but no to Gaza protests which, despite the injustice suffered by Palestinians, are too divisive.)
Educators should be aware that democracy, a competition between competing ideologies and policies, is inherently confrontational. But civilized debate, respectful of all viewpoints, equips students to be engaged citizens.
Isn’t that what education is all about?
Michael Craig Trustee, Bluewater District School Board Owen Sound, Ont.
Teachers certainly can and should educate in the classroom about colonization, oppression and anti-Indigenous and other forms of racism, but experiential education should also be a part of nurturing kids to become civically engaged citizens.
It is not either-or. While there are some clueless and sometimes even harmful participants, rallies and protests play an important part in democratic societies and there are lots that can be learned by participating.
All Canadian schools should have curricula on advocacy and activism, on how to write op eds and letters to the editor, on the importance of voting – or running for office.
Madeleine Cole Iqaluit
Dress code
Re “The surprising ways hybrid work changed people’s grooming habits and notions of personal time” (Oct. 1): As a former public servant who retired during the pandemic, I did dress more casually while working from home, trading my dresses for casual trousers and tops. I always fixed my hair, showered and wore makeup and jewelry (though minimal).
I did this daily, not because I had a meeting and wanted to impress others, but because it made me feel better than if I had stayed in my pyjamas (in the name of self-care) than if I had not. I’m still doing all of those things every day, and I live alone with nobody to impress.
By the way, I don’t own sweat pants and never will.
Mary Dufton Ottawa
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