A Canadian flag flies in front of the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on March 22, 2017.Chris Wattie/Reuters
Tell all
Re “The Hockey Canada scandal shows the harmful escalation of non-disclosure agreements” (Feb. 6): While I fully agree that non-disclosure agreements should never be required in sexual-abuse cases, I would go further. I see absolutely no justification for such agreements when any legal settlement involves public funds, other than if there is a legitimate case of trade secrets.
Why should our tax dollars be used by governments to pay restitution for illegal or unacceptable actions by public figures, employees or institutions, yet the very people paying these funds are kept unaware?
If there are acceptable grounds for doing so, they are not apparent to me.
John Arbuckle Ottawa
…is out there
Re “The truth should not be [redacted]” (Editorial, Feb. 6): Almost a year ago, Justin Trudeau, in response to startling and courageous revelations, assured Canadians that foreign interference did not affect the results of the 2021 federal election. No harm, no foul?
His government has been forced, extremely reluctantly, into holding a public inquiry. This is the time for answers.
If allegations of foreign interference prove true, at stake is the most valuable asset of Canadians: the right to vote in free and fair elections.
Let the chips fall where they may.
John Reilly Victoria
Transparency was promised to us by the present regime, and it seems especially necessary in regard to foreign interference.
To do anything but reveal what has happened to our electoral process would imply complicity. In this case, one only has to ask: Who benefits?
When a government persists to operate under the cloak of secrecy, we are left to assume the worst.
Leslie Martel Mississauga
Welcome mat
Re “Canada is an immigration nation” (Feb. 5): With their education ended by the Second World War and postwar poverty, followed by communist oppression, my father and mother had only hard work and devotion to their nation of refuge to qualify with when we arrived in Canada as landed immigrants in the early 1960s.
Twenty-five years later, when I was in law school and working summers as an immigration officer, I came to realize that they (and I) likely wouldn’t have qualified under the subsequent point system. Although they were suited to work only in factories, fields and abattoirs, my parents and our family flourished. The quality of their citizenship was high, their contribution to this country commensurate.
Today’s temporary foreign workers, students, labourers and refugee claimants should not be dismissed as unqualified to become Canadians. These are precisely the people who should be welcomed as permanent residents.
Ron Beram Gabriola, B.C.
Fateful decision
Re “New declassified details from report on Nazi war criminals released by Ottawa” (Feb. 2): As the descendant of Latvian Jews with more than 30 relatives murdered in Riga during the Holocaust, and as the namesake of a grandmother who hid her Judaism after emigrating to Canada, I’m sickened by Pierre Trudeau’s redacted rationale.
While the prime minister was concerned about “causing tensions,” 25,000 Jews lay in mass graves in the Rumbula forest on the outskirts of Riga, shot by Nazi death squads and Latvian collaborators in 1941. I believe Mr. Trudeau’s decision to rank his political agenda above extraditing a “suspected” firing-squad captain minimized the acts of all collaborators here and in Latvia; today, some families of guilty collaborators in Riga are trying to revise history through books, plays and interviews that cast relatives in sympathetic narratives.
Meanwhile, under the shadow of Mr. Trudeau’s decision, Jews in Canada are enduring the worst hostility since the 1930s, when my grandmother arrived.
Shelly Sanders Author, Daughters of the Occupation Oakville, Ont.
Slow down
Re “Ottawa to extend foreign homebuyers’ ban for two more years” (Feb. 5): This will likely lead to slower development and, in some cases, cancelled projects.
Developers seek at least 70 per cent of sales in a project before they can break ground and get financing. Many foreign buyers are first investors who see new construction and being a future landlord as great ways to share in the stability of Canada, while allowing developers to get projects off the drawing board.
This prohibition, as well as an elevated land transfer tax in Toronto, will likely do nothing to increase supply, but rather create the opposite result – not to mention showing the world that Canada is not open for business.
Jimmy Molloy Toronto
Drug diversion
Re “B.C.’s ‘safer supply’ program ethically justified despite potential harm to public, analysis finds” (Feb. 2): Numbers reveal the highly addictive nature of opioids: An astonishing 115,000 people, or 51 per cent of the 225,000 users of illicit substances in British Columbia, have a diagnosed opioid-use disorder.
While the B.C. Health Officer’s report finds that a safe supply program may provide benefits for individual opioid users, it would be crucial that such interventions offer a net benefit not only to individuals, but to the public at large. The report admits that opioid diversion has become a “common occurrence,” consistent with other evidence of diversion and a market flooded with inexpensive government-supplied drugs.
This is while less than 4 per cent of those with an opioid-use disorder are covered by the safe supply program. What are the risks if the program is expanded?
Constance Smith Victoria
For the record
Re “On Africville, the razing and the racism” (Feb. 1): Further to The Globe and Mail’s mea culpa on Africville and how the paper changed its reporting and viewpoint thereof, I suggest an insightful and groundbreaking book co-written by my late friend Dennis Magill, way back in 1974.
Africville: The Life and Death of a Canadian Black Community was updated in 1987 and 1999 by Mr. Magill and Donald Clairmont, sociologists at the University of Toronto and Dalhousie University, respectively. Their candid and no-holds-barred analysis revealed the gist and reality of Africville half a century ago.
Finally, The Globe acknowledges its biases and reveals a more accurate understanding of the human tragedy that went on for far too long. And unfortunately, to a large degree, it continues to this day.
Howard Levine Grimsby, Ont.
Go west
Re “Saskatchewan Arts Board is established” (Moment in Time, Feb. 3): Being a frequent visitor to Regina (for football), I’ve come to appreciate the dynamic art scene there. Galleries everywhere and art styles to suit every taste.
I would recommend Western Voices in Canadian Art (2023) by Patricia Bovey to learn more about the treasures waiting to be discovered.
Marianne Orr Brampton, Ont.
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