A customer buys groceries at Kensington Fruit Market in Toronto's Kensington Market, on Sept. 20, 2023.Sarah Palmer/The Globe and Mail
Go small
Re “China’s looming decline could be a threat to the world” (Jan. 18): As citizens worldwide see the wisdom of smaller families, overlooked here are the environmental benefits of declining populations and carbon emissions.
Lower consumption of fossil fuels and natural resources would provide far greater benefits than any technology in reversing global warming and preserving ecosystems essential to human life. There is also the sustained economic strength of countries with low fertility rates, such as South Korea and Taiwan, even when some economies, such as Japan’s, have stagnated in recent decades.
Learning to live with a low- or no-growth economy requires new approaches to economics and quality of life – problems that seem trivial compared to the rapid degradation of the Earth’s capacity to support our current populations.
Peter Hodson Professor emeritus, department of biology and school of environmental studies, Queen’s University Kingston
Whose responsibility?
Re “The doors to Canada’s boardrooms are (slowly) starting to open” (Editorial, Jan. 22): The Globe and Mail is right that Canadian companies are moving too slowly to diversify their boards, but putting the onus on corporations to make good on “resolutions” would let policy-makers off the hook.
Securities regulators have been resolving for years to expand corporate governance disclosure rules, but a handful of provinces want to water down proposed rules. The Ontario Securities Commission, to its credit, is among those pushing for more transparency, not because it’s “woke” or progressive, but because it makes fiscal sense; research shows that more diverse boards take fewer unnecessary risks, handle crises better and can challenge management “groupthink.”
Anthony Schein Director, shareholder advocacy, SHARE Toronto
Let’s reconsider
Re “Ontario is about to decide whether to overhaul Canada’s oldest nuclear power plant. Does it deserve a second life?” (Report on Business, Jan. 22): It doesn’t make sense to rebuild aging nuclear reactors in Pickering, Ont., if wind and solar energy can keep our lights on at less than half the cost.
In December at the COP28 climate conference, more than 100 nations, including Canada, called for the world to triple its renewable electricity. Fortunately, Ontario has a huge untapped supply of clean and low-cost wind and solar energy. Great Lakes offshore wind power alone could supply all our electricity needs.
Ontario should triple its wind and solar power by 2035 to lower its electricity costs, phase out gas power, create good jobs – and avoid the need to rebuild the high-cost Pickering Nuclear Generating Station.
Jack Gibbons Chair, Ontario Clean Air Alliance Toronto
School of life
Re “As students’ interest in social issues increases, teachers feel unequipped for civics education, survey finds” (Jan. 22): Hear, hear. Let us ensure that our educators are well-equipped with a balanced curriculum that not only includes maths and sciences – for better job prospects – but also civics, logic and liberal arts – for keeping those jobs through better communication and understanding of society.
Teaching only science, technology, engineering and maths, without liberal arts and civics, would equip our youngsters with only the how and not the why. This approach produces excellent solutions emanating from analyses stuck in time, without context and empathy. We would have wonderful bridges that do not fulfill the needs of our society that uses them.
A “STEM” without leaves and petals ends up a dead plant.
Pete Avis Kingston
Re “On the job” (Letters, Jan. 19): A letter-writer proposes that “the primary role of any university is to provide job training.” I would argue this view is too narrow an interpretation.
The main purpose of a university is education, and in teaching students to think critically, to analyze and evaluate information. The university doesn’t just teach particular facts, but skills that have lifelong application.
The American Psychological Association has a poster about success in the workplace, which lists all the abilities a student can develop that have widespread application: critical thinking, oral and written communication, adaptability, self-regulation, etc.
Specific skills or trades are useful and necessary. But I believe the university is a place for learning, exploration, research and the development of abilities that can be applied in whatever employment a student takes on.
The university really teaches skills for life.
Anne Barnfield Brescia University College, Western University London, Ont.
Have not
Re “It’s time to redefine the meaning of a cost-of-living increase” (Online, Jan. 22): At a time when my mother-in-law, a retired teacher, is starving and using food banks; when my family had a brief moment of middle-class bliss in 2021, before having to routinely choose between lentils and rice; when young working friends are living in their cars, a column about vacations and spa days feels tone-deaf.
I am happy that for a certain demographic, they only have to consider giving up spa days and international travel. But please don’t rise to the soapbox of corporate asceticism on that account.
I am a well-educated public-sector professional with a decent income. We break the bank driving to Ottawa for a few days of family vacation. We cut and cut, but still keep sinking as costs rise faster than we can keep up.
While Canadians clamour for bread, we don’t need to be told to cut a cake budget that never existed to begin with.
Charles Humphrey Sudbury, Ont.
Re “Too many Black Canadians are going hungry” (Jan. 22): “Systemic inequality is not only injurious to Black communities, but is inefficient and costly for the society as a whole.”
I find it a disgrace that, in a country with plentiful collective resources and wealth, anyone goes hungry. Such systemic inequality is not only injurious, costly and inefficient – it should shame us as a nation.
Denying it or deliberating hiding it is morally reprehensible. Our greatest resource is the people who live in Canada. We cannot afford such waste and lost potential, which leads to negative consequences we all bear, regardless of if we suffer directly, immediately or not.
Eliminating systemic disadvantage benefits us all. We can and should do better in this regard.
David Hughes Glass Saugeen Shores, Ont.
Family welcome
Re “Who gets the dog in a divorce? Changes to B.C. family law hope to help courts decide” (Jan. 16): B.C. courts have decided that pets are family members. I am thrilled about this.
Now, as with other family members, pets should go to the bathroom at home and not on sidewalks, beaches, neighbours’ lawns and in parks.
Family members can be arrested for this.
Marc Whittemore, Lawyer Kelowna, B.C.
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