David Johnston, special rapporteur on foreign interference, appears at a Parliamentary Committee Meeting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on June 6.Blair Gable/The Globe and Mail
Take action
Re “Platitudes won’t roll back antisemitism” (Editorial, June 8): This addresses the real fear Jews now feel living in Canada. Homes, businesses, schools, places of worship, neighbourhoods and institutions have all been targeted in an unparalleled spike in hate crimes against Jews.
While antisemitism has always been an issue, it has reached alarming proportions since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, and Israel retaliated. Canadian Jews, like any Canadian citizens, deserve to live in peace and safety.
Beyond platitudes, indeed what are our leaders doing? I see their shocking inaction as a stain on our shared humanity.
Hayley Goodman Toronto
Re “BC Teachers’ Federation declines to fund Holocaust education group, while funding pro-Palestinian group” (June 13): Does the BC Teachers’ Federation understand that many Jews, including myself, are absolutely against a hideous war that continues to kill so many Palestinian civilians? Aren’t we also pro-Palestinian?
But while some of us are Jews who do not support Israeli government decisions in relation to the war, neither can we support organizations that do not make public their viewpoints on the history of Hamas and its tactics. With the funding of the Anti-Oppression Educators Collective, I’d like assurances that the nuances of the Israel-Hamas war are going to be taught and not simplified into polarization.
Miriam Clavir Vancouver
Foreign fears
Re “Civil-liberties groups raise alarm as Ottawa votes on foreign-interference bill” (June 13): Recently we saw thousands of people in Georgia protest against a “foreign agents” bill they saw as Putin-esque. I’m increasingly worried that Canada will pass a similar law without controversy, purely on the strength of its name.
The proposed bill would stigmatize or criminalize a wide range of activities involving a “foreign principal.” If other countries defined this term the way Canada does (see: the Security of Information Act), all Canadian universities would likely count, as well as the CBC, Environment and Climate Change Canada and our local libraries.
It would also criminalize acts which are “likely to harm Canadian interests.” What are these interests, and who defines them?
Recent actions against Canadians by several governments raise serious concerns, but surely we can’t solve that by assuming the entire world is our enemy.
David Arthur Cambridge, Ont.
Re “Elizabeth May sees no traitors around her, and at least she read the report” (June 12): Last May, David Johnston was roundly castigated for saying the same thing. Opposition politicians, especially Pierre Poilievre, who want to stay ignorant of the facts and keep criticizing, rather than read the report, should come forward with an apology.
We believe there’s no Canadian with more integrity than Mr. Johnston.
Robert and Susan Halliday Sarnia, Ont.
Fast as you can
Re “Build affordable housing on public land” (Editorial, June 13): I agree that governments at all levels can and must do everything to maximize productive use of public land for housing. But can governments “get affordable housing built cheaper than the private sector?”
Based on what evidence? The ArriveCan app? The Phoenix payroll system? The city of Ottawa’s O-Train?
By all means, governments should minimize land costs and taxes for new housing, open up zoning, provide subsidies and pass legislation to ensure that rents are affordable (and perhaps clarify “affordability”). But please don’t use government processes and procedures for procurement and construction.
Canadians can’t afford the money or the time.
Bob Rafuse Beaconsfield, Que.
One for all
Re “Federal Health Minister tables bill designed to improve patients’ access to health data” (June 7): The multitude of electronic medical record vendors in Ontario, each with their own servers, has created an impossible situation that can only be corrected by requiring a one-provider system for all physicians and hospitals.
Imagine a banking system in which we could use a debit card only at one branch. The bank would have no means to share account information with other branches. This is exactly what is happening in medical offices and hospitals in Ontario today.
Stan Teitelbaum Toronto
Power play
Re “Electricity council tells Ottawa to move more urgently toward net-zero goals, but also more flexibly” and “Two small communities are competing to receive Canada’s inventory of nuclear waste. They can’t be sure what they’ll get” (Report on Business, June 10): The connection between these two stories should not be overlooked.
Given that the review and environmental assessment processes around electricity projects have largely been eliminated or streamlined to what I consider the point of meaninglessness, calls to further expedite them seem out of touch with reality.
This also invites inadequately examined choices that may have negative economic, technological and environmental consequences for centuries, if not millennia, when there may be more effective, safer and less costly pathways to decarbonization.
The problem of nuclear waste is the product of failures to consider the downstream consequences of energy choices.
Mark Winfield Co-chair, Sustainable Energy Initiative, faculty of environmental and urban change, York University; Toronto
Human after all?
Re “For Geoffrey Hinton, the godfather of AI, machines are closer to humans than we think” (June 13): Geoffrey Hinton is alarmed at the capabilities of artificial intelligence today. I share his alarm and try to prevent my anxiety from keeping me awake at night. One way is to avoid using the same words and expressions for both humans and machines.
While we continue to learn about networks that work in similar ways for both humans and machines, human bodies are biologically more complex with hormones, gut microbiota and other functions we don’t even understand yet. It’s not necessarily a hierarchical difference between machines and humans, but these biological aspects of the human species make us vastly different from machines.
Does that mean we shouldn’t worry? Absolutely not. But let’s not conflate human and machine functions by using the same words for both.
Use “human intelligence” and “machine programming,” “human feelings” and “machine function,” or “biological neural networks” and “artificial mathematical network.”
Marlene Schellenberg Winnipeg
This brings to mind Karloffian imagery. Although shorn of the icky bits – body-snatching, grave-digging, creepy maniacal laughter amid thunder and lightning – is artificial intelligence the Creature, unloved by man and unloved by God?
Boris Karloff’s monster wasn’t particularly verbal nor obviously intellectual. It was most certainly emotional. AI, on the other hand, lurks within chips and circuitry and manifests itself incorporeally. So maybe, at least, it won’t strangle me in my sleep.
Still I wonder, as it reads this e-mailed letter, have I hurt its feelings?
Ron Beram Gabriola, B.C.
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