A paramedic loads his stretcher back into the ambulance after bringing a patient to the emergency room at a hospital in Montreal, on April 14, 2022.Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press
Whose rights?
Re “Alberta to restrict access to transgender medical care for youth, require parents’ consent for name change” (Feb. 1): Danielle Smith is not a medical doctor. That she makes these decisions under the pretext of “parental rights” seems the opposite of reality for parents of trans kids.
I find that her policies take away parents’ rights to make medical decisions for their own families in consultation with their children and doctors. I wonder how many such families and their doctors did Ms. Smith consult?
Ditto with her requiring parents to “opt in” students to sex education. Educators already acknowledge that “it is already a challenge to get permission slips returned, and the proposal could further discourage instruction.” Oh, wait: She probably didn’t consult them either.
George Olds Hamilton
Private path
Re “Wanted: A CEO who can run Quebec’s health care system like a business” (Report on Business, Jan. 31): I am alarmed to see that Quebec is looking for a private-sector “top gun” to run health care.
Perhaps someone from a grocery chain who’ll bring in self-checkups instead of more doctors? Or a property developer who’ll have patients competitively bid for rooms. Or an oil big shot who’ll tell patients there is no scientific proof of cancer. Or an airline executive who won’t allow patients in wheelchairs. Or a banker who’ll lay off health staff to improve the bottom line.
Or, well, anyone who wants to push ahead with the privatization of what should be our proudest public service.
Michael Kaufman Toronto
It is difficult for me to criticize Quebec for attempting to improve its health care system. Every province should do the same.
Hospitals are standalone entities that compete for financial support; doctors are gatekeepers of the system, yet they operate independently; clinics and labs are a mish-mash of private and public ownership; record-keeping has no standard system. It’s no wonder that patients find it difficult to navigate health care, or that it is so expensive to operate.
Unfortunately, experience demonstrates that attempting to tackle every problem at once, in such a complex system, is often not the answer. Ontario has the scars to prove the point.
A better approach, even if less politically attractive, would be to start small with modest objectives before building outward. It may seem that an incremental approach is too slow. But a more aggressive approach likely will not succeed.
Ross Peebles Toronto
Pump it up
Re “Naturally” (Letters, Jan. 31): An Enbridge vice-president suggests that electricity cannot replace gas furnaces for new housing.
Enbridge could sell gas to utilities that would then be used to generate electricity. The electricity would power new heat pumps installed during home construction.
The people of Ontario would win because this would almost halve the amount of greenhouse gases produced by home heating (because of the efficiency of gas turbines and heat pumps) and would also avoid the installation of expensive infrastructure.
Enbridge, on the other hand, would sell half as much gas and lose customers locked into gas heating.
Mike Patterson Hamilton
Evaluation evolution
Re “Educators across Canada shifting their thinking around exams and assessments” (Jan. 29): While this shift in thinking about end-of-course exams and summative assessments has taken various forms at high schools, it remains interesting to me that such a shift is little seen at postsecondary institutions.
While some postsecondary educators see the value in helping students achieve the best possible results, the chasm remains between secondary and postsecondary assessment and evaluation. I find it a disservice to students who have completed high school under the best learning circumstances, only to enter a postsecondary world where assessment is rarely used and draconian evaluation methods are still the norm.
I think it is essential for the Ontario government to intervene to eliminate this dichotomy, and set the stage for contemporary and more effective postsecondary assessment and evaluation.
Barry Armstrong High-school principal (retired), Ottawa
I may be able to live with this approach for middle- and high-school students – as long as it doesn’t apply to the training of my oncologist, or the engineer who built the bridge I drive across every day.
Leo Quilty Brampton, Ont.
Good timing
Re “The day I took the dreaded senior driver’s test” (Opinion, Jan. 27): At the exciting and eligible age of 16, driving was a test of dexterity: foot on the clutch, one hand on the wheel, the other for hand signals out the window in case the trafficator (a precursor of the blinker) didn’t operate.
I failed twice: I parallel parked hitting the curb, then parallel parked too far away. The third attempt rewarded me with a licence.
Today’s skills are less demanding with all the built-in assists of technology, even driverless vehicles. But still we test the cognitive ability to tell time, which years from now may be difficult for those who have moved away from old-fashioned timepieces to digital ones.
I now have a year to sharpen my driving skills. With a perfect driving record to date, I hope my early training and good eyesight reward me with that coveted senior’s pass.
Marilyn Smith Markham, Ont.
So-so
Re “Why feeling ‘whatever’ or ‘meh’ is more widespread and more important than previously believed” (Opinion, Jan. 27): There is another important “in-between” state of mind.
Those of us in the mental-health professions recognize how important it is to be able to hold both positive and negative attitudes at the same time toward others and ourselves. This “ambivalence” is quite different than an absence of feeling (neutrality) and requires an open mind and hard work.
Sadly, it is often in short supply in this polarized world.
Gordon Yanchyshyn Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Toronto
“Interest” as an emotion, it is suggested, has a mildly pleasurable quality. Indeed it does.
Psychologists would say that it has “valency,” that, like all emotions, it is “goal-related.” What interests us is what reflects, or looks like it may lead to achieving, one or more of our goals.
I am also appalled by the polarization and emotional excesses (the fury and fanaticism) that bedevil our society today. But don’t underrate the force and fundamental importance of “interest,” and the significance and omnipresence of “feelings.”
As cognitive psychologist Gordon Bower put it: “Emotion is evolution’s way of giving meaning to our lives.”
Stephen McNamee Ottawa
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