Prime Minister Justin Trudeau makes a housing announcement in Ajax, Ont., on Nov. 30, 2023.CARLOS OSORIO/Reuters
United we stand
Re “Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis says Canada needs to leave the United Nations” (Jan. 4): I have always thought that the United Nations was somewhat of a toothless tiger when it came to the maintenance of peace and security around the world.
However, the organization has done much that is good in the areas of gender equality, accessibility and human rights. So why would we leave?
There are 193 member states of the UN. If we were to leave, it would certainly affect our standing on the world stage.
Kaz Shikaze Mississauga
Good judgment
Re “Lasting legacy?” (Letters, Jan. 3): A letter-writer suggests that Beverley McLachlin is “selling off her good reputation to the highest bidder.” I find nothing could be farther from the truth.
Have we forgotten the strong positions she took in leading the Supreme Court of Canada against powerful political forces? Have we forgotten that it was she who first publicly uttered the powerful words “cultural genocide” in a speech to help provide legitimacy to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission?
In pursuing her role in Hong Kong, I am confident that this remarkable person is pursuing the same values that she safeguarded in Canada, and in the face of a more powerful force in the Chinese government.
Perhaps Ms. McLachlin’s work is keeping a spark of hope alive.
Sarah Jennings Ottawa
Call out
Re “Ottawa’s hiring spree is not the problem” (Editorial, Jan. 3): Your editorial prompted me to test the system and answer the question: “Are taxpayers getting value for money with improved service?”
I called the one department we all love to hate, the Canada Revenue Agency. I wondered if the only department that I really count in government, the one that collects our money to enable all other oh-so-important departments to function, would pass my test.
I’m highly conflicted in reporting that the CRA passed with flying colours. I dialled the main number and endured the usual bumpf offering the language of my choice, an array of departments I could connect to, the obligatory notice that my call is being recorded and the opportunity to speak to an agent. All in, I spoke to a real, warm, welcoming person in less than six minutes.
Justin Trudeau should keep on spending. It’s working.
Marty Cutler Toronto
Don’t tax me
Re “New tax-filing obligations await many unsuspecting Canadians in 2024″ (Report on Business, Dec. 29): Canadians who might die one day should pay attention to T3 tax returns for bare trusts.
Parents may add a child as joint titleholder on bank accounts or investment portfolios so that assets are readily available if they are incapacitated or die. Elsewhere, parents who co-sign their child’s mortgage should pause two or three times before declaring that the home is owned by a trust, and therefore ineligible for the capital gains exemption.
The government’s definition of a bare trust is so broad that it likely includes any arrangement in which one or more individuals appear on a title. I find it impossible to tell if the new rules are intended to make billable work for accountants and lawyers, catch money-laundering crooks or provide revenue for the Canada Revenue Agency.
Whatever their purpose, they seem to have been concocted without the slightest regard for well-meaning taxpayers, homeowners and senior citizens.
Patrick Cowan Toronto
Plan for it
Re “Cities need (a lot less) planning” (Editorial, Dec. 29): I find the assertion that planners love “strict” zoning to be outdated.
The belief that businesses and households should be allowed to locate in any area risks returning cities to pre-zoning days, when haphazard development negatively affected the health and safety of residents (particularly the poor). By separating incompatible land uses, zoning helps minimize conflicts and maintain high quality of life.
Planning involves preparing plans with extensive public consultation. Zoning is one tool for implementing plans. Rather than being rigid, it is always changing. Increasingly, single-family zones include other housing types such as duplexes, small-lot houses, garden suites and conversions into suites. There are also many zones that allow mixed uses.
Cities are complex human creations, and Jane Jacobs’s ideas have long been incorporated into planning practices. Planners, then, are at the forefront of managing urban change, not preventing it.
More, not less, planning should be required with rapid growth.
Brian Sikstrom, City planner (retired) Victoria
Close the gap
Re “Ottawa and the provinces need to address a growing child care gap” (Editorial, Jan. 2): Quebec was first in Canada to shift from reliance on parent fees to public funding of non-profit, licensed child-care programs. But Quebec didn’t follow the expansion model of Denmark, Sweden, France and others with well-developed systems, which didn’t rely on the market to expand service but used publicly led and planned expansion.
As a result, Quebec’s child care remains problematic: Equitable access to quality services remains elusive while a poorer-quality for-profit sector, less favoured by parents, has arisen. What we’ve learned from Quebec and international exemplars – not only “best-case” countries but also those with weaker child-care provision such as Britain, the Netherlands and New Zealand – is that publicly led and planned non-profit expansion is best to ensure more universal and equitable access to quality regulated child care.
The evidence shows that the market, using demand-side tax credits, benefits or cash, fails to deliver.
Martha Friendly Childcare Resource and Research Unit, Toronto
Get up again
Re “Falling out of the world juniors should focus minds in the hockey establishment” (Sports, Jan. 3): This sparked memories of my own experience as a young teenager representing Canada in the 1960s. The world has changed monumentally since those days, yet certain expectations imposed upon young shoulders seem frozen in time.
Where are the adults in the room? Rather than creating roadblocks through political bickering, we should lead our youth by example. Through the grace of my own journey, I learned that winning and losing is far more complicated than the colour of a medal.
Ironically, the greatest lessons in my life came not so much from the expected triumphs, but from my heartbreaking failures. But in the moment, I never realized that to fall short of expectation was not the end of my dream, but a guidepost to a better way there.
Let us stop the politics and self-interest. Let us reframe our focus to inspiring our youth to greater heights, both inside and out.
Elaine Tanner OC; triple Olympic medalist (Mexico 1968) Qualicum Beach, B.C.
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