Try again
Re “The Prosperity Problem: How Canada can build a better future” (Editorial, Feb. 24): For 40 years, governments have tried different policies to improve productivity, but seemingly all to no avail.
We introduced and then got rid of the National Energy Program, signed free-trade deals, lowered the federal corporate tax rate to 15 per cent from 29 per cent, provided investment tax credits to encourage research and development, and pursued balanced budgets and low inflation.
We tried cutting back immigration levels during downturns, then we tried keeping immigration levels unchanged during downturns. Through all this, GDP per capita growth was unresponsive.
Economic policy requires humility, or we are not doing it correctly.
Reg Plummer Retired economist, Natural Resources Canada, Finance Canada, National Energy Board; Ottawa
Keep it civil
Re “Doug Ford says it’s his right to appoint ‘like-minded’ judges” and “Can we rescue civility in public discourse?” (Feb. 24): Doug Ford says it is his right to appoint “like-minded” judges. Meanwhile, contributor Mark Kingwell reminds us that “civility … is not politeness or good manners. It is, instead, a baseline willingness to seek justice together with others who are not like-minded.”
Working together despite different “mindedness” promotes a more civil community than does political manipulation of the judicial appointment system.
Clifford Ottaway Dysart et al, Ont.
Good life
Re “I’ve seen what a good death looks like. I hope MAID’s future looks the same” (Opinion, Feb. 24): Years ago, you published an article about the “good death” of my mother-in-law Catharina MacMillan before medical assistance in dying was legal (“Leaving a trail for the living to follow” – April 25, 2014).
“I want the people who mean the most to me to be there when I die,” she said. Although her son and husband were present, her daughter was in transit when it happened.
Six months later, I sat in the Supreme Court as a lawyer representing an intervenor in Carter v. Canada. We argued that there is no greater exercise of autonomy than deciding how and whether to end our lives.
If MAID were legal when Catharina was near death, I don’t know if she would have taken advantage of it. But the option would have been a comfort, if the pain became too great or if she no longer wanted to be alive.
And her daughter could have been there, as Judith MacLachlan’s family was for her.
Margot Finley Toronto
Pay for it
Re “Empty desks, international students and the quest for Canadian work permits” (Feb. 24): Forty years ago, I was hired by a new private college in Vancouver.
The picture on its website was impressive, as were the fees. But the library had no books, and the underpaid staff was tiny.
We valiantly tried to teach the curriculum but it was hard to do a proper job. None of us lasted.
Fast-forward to the early aughts. I was at a public high school in Ontario with many international students, some with very weak skills. A group of us protested to the ministry and school board when some students took their Grade 12 English credit at a private college.
Why? They paid a lot for high marks – one that we wouldn’t give them. Nothing was done. The problem ballooned and now we are faced with a crisis.
We should have regulations and inspections. Will the provinces finally step up? Somehow I doubt it.
Carol Town Hamilton
Oh, the humanities
Re “On the study of ‘useless’ subjects” (Opinion, Feb. 24): Contributor Daryn Lehoux‘s eloquent defence of the humanities is welcome. Sadly, I fear that the people who most need to hear his arguments may never heed them.
Despite recent articles by business leaders pointing out that the skills learned in arts and humanities education serve business well, students are often discouraged from taking those courses, and channelled toward disciplines that offer more tangible rewards than classics, history, philosophy, languages and so on appear to do. Cash-strapped universities slash investment in humanities departments, resulting in fewer professors offering a narrower range of courses, and so fewer enrolments result: a vicious circle.
It is also not in the best interests of far-right politicians to encourage a populace to have the critical tools inculcated by humanities education. If we want to have civility and sanity in politics and wider society, we desperately need graduates like those Prof. Lehoux is producing.
Lindsay Bryan Associate professor of medieval history (retired); Welland, Ont.
A welcome contrast to the marketplace babble that comes from an increasing number of our political leaders. I find the point that universities are not businesses to be absolutely true.
Over my many years working in the academy, we always had to be mindful in defending this perspective against government bureaucrats and populist politicians. However, from my perspective, this corporatist perspective no longer just resides outside the ivy walls, but is increasingly present in the leadership of these same institutions of higher learning.
That’s what I find both regrettable and disappointing.
Paul Thomson Loyalist, Ont.
Our song
Re “Just whose national anthem is O Canada, anyway?” (Opinion, Feb. 24): So many French Canadians consider the proclamation of O Canada as Canada’s national anthem to have been an act of cultural appropriation.
Ironically, Canadian-born musicologist Ross Duffin has argued that the melody was appropriated by composer Calixa Lavallée from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt and Matthias Keller (”Expat musicologist contends O Canada not an original composition” – Aug. 3, 2020). So multicultural appropriation.
R.D. Tennent Kingston
Fly out
Re “Lynx Air blames everyone but itself for its demise” (Report on Business, Feb. 26): The Canadian landscape is littered with lost low-cost airlines. Not one has survived over the decades.
There just isn’t the volume in Canada to make it work for long. In addition, there are longer distances between major cities, and therefore higher operating costs, than, say, the United States.
Some flights are offered at crazy fares. My wife flew from Vancouver to Winnipeg for $80. It costs more for two hamburgers and a beer in a pub nowadays.
My advice: Only book low-cost airlines, whenever they are around, in very short booking windows – or one might end up not going anywhere.
Hans Verbeek Qualicum Beach, B.C.
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