A row of empty booths in the InSite supervised drug consumption site in the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver on Nov. 14, 2023.Jesse Winter/Reuters
Treatment and recovery
Re “Ontario to close drug-use sites in shift on addictions policy” (Aug. 21): Huge kudos to the Ford government for making the protection of children a top priority. Supervised consumption sites have sprung up like mushrooms in many major Canadian cities. The concept of providing clean needles to drug addicts so they can shoot up street drugs, often purchased with the proceeds of crime and of unknown quality, seems a seriously flawed one.
Surely governments would do better and show much more compassion by setting up treatment centres to wean addicts off their drug addictions. People enslaved to their addictions would likely live longer, more productive lives, while taking some pressure off Canada’s ailing health care system.
Larry Comeau Ottawa
Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones’s definition of health care is far more narrow than mine. What happened to the “care” part? The shift in policy by the Progressive Conservative government, which neglects a crucial part of the continuum of care (prevention/harm reduction), will leave many denied care and marginalized. Tragically, there will be more deaths owing to drug overdoses. Sure, there are problems in communities disproportionately affected by drug use. How about solving problems by bringing together local stakeholders, including residents, outreach workers and those with lived experience to sort out how to improve their communities? Leaving lives at risk, as the government meddles with current services, is not health care, especially when we are in the middle of a toxic drug crisis.
Sheila Lacroix Toronto
I am pleased to read today’s article. Safer supply has been an unmitigated disaster, in that drugs obtained at these sites are bartered/sold and the proceeds used to buy fentanyl and other potent opioids.
Transitioning to treatment hubs, where those with substance use disorder will receive access to treatment with buprenorphine or methadone, mental-health support and access to housing is just the Rx that is necessary.
Expansion of access to opioid agonist treatment saves lives, as confirmed by the literature.
The government of Ontario has finally gotten it right.
Mark A. Greenberg, MD, CCFP, CCFP(AM), FCFP, ASAM Consulting staff, department of psychiatry, addiction medicine, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre; Toronto
Keeping Alberta beautiful
Re “Alberta solar, wind to bring in $54-million in taxes” (Report on Business, Aug. 20): The geniuses at the province of Alberta are concerned about the look of the province, and I’m so glad there are new rules about “pristine landscapes” now. I assume that means they’ll be taking out all industrial blight, the oil refineries, drilling rigs and rusting steel I see wherever I drive around the province. Please move them far out of sight. Start with the Strathcona Refinery in Edmonton, a giant blot on the horizon if ever there was one. The beautiful river valley landscape there has been destroyed. But let’s face it, that isn’t going to happen because the oil business is so good-looking compared to solar panels, right?
Ronald Kelly Surrey, B.C.
Africa policy reset
Re “Joly heads to Africa as Ottawa revives strategy” (Aug. 20): I am agog that Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly’s four-day trip to two countries in Africa marks a revival of Canada’s entire strategy for the continent. The previous La Francophonie strategy was an unmitigated disaster and a waste of resources. Canadians must be delighted that the required time and energy for a continentwide reset is just four days. Robert Burns wrote, “Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!” It fits this government perfectly.
William MacLachlan Calgary
Rail strike
Re “CN Rail, Canadian Pacific Kansas City wind down operations as possible shutdown nears” (Report on Business, Aug. 19): Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne says more competition in the grocery sector would help keep prices low for consumers. Perhaps Mr. Champagne should look at competition in the railway sector, where the Teamsters is the only union providing labour services to CN and CPKC. Also, these two railways are almost the only providers of long-haul transportation in Canada.
Greater competition would mean more alternatives in long-haul shipping, fewer supply chain disruptions and smaller consumer price rises in the event of a work stoppage by two railway companies.
Constance Smith Victoria
Secret Canada
Re “How transparent is your city? Audit of access requests finds vast differences” (Aug. 19): While Canada’s freedom-of-information/access-to-information regime is undoubtedly broken, the metrics in this article are misleading. FOI/ATI legislation requires line-by-line review of records. Response packages can consist of a couple of pages or thousands of pages. They may contain structured records (for example, forms) or unstructured records (e-mails). These conditions affect the time required for a careful line-by-line review. Volume of pages actually processed, not the number of FOI requests received, would be more telling in terms of whether a public body is transparent.
Percentage of records released also isn’t necessarily revealing. FOI/ATI processes should be reserved for complex cases where competing access and privacy rights collide. Treating every single request as an FOI, even when the records could obviously be routinely disclosed, creates unnecessary barriers to access. A public body could appear transparent, while in reality being the opposite.
Alexandra Wieland North Vancouver, B.C.
A cross Jordan
Re “The (re-)education of Dr. Peterson” (Opinion, Aug. 14): I very much enjoyed the humour. Still, we should not lose sight of the fundamental importance of the Supreme Court’s decision to allow professional associations to regulate individual speech. This is the legal precedent we need to eliminate unwanted opinions. While the specific allegations in the Jordan Peterson case are unclear, it is heartening to know that professional associations can arbitrarily discipline their members based on their rigorous social-media standards. It is pathetic that Mr. Peterson has launched an entire online cut-rate university in a misguided attempt to re-educate the people trying to re-educate him, and I can only hope his ridiculous attempt to bring classical Western standards of professional competence back to the fore exposes him as the shill Andrew Coyne has so brilliantly portrayed.
Peter Gatis Barrie, Ont.
Grammar nerds
Re “Good point” (Letters to the Editor, Aug. 19): Just to add to the recent notes from letter-writers commenting on apostrophes, fellow grammar nerds would love Bethany Keeley’s The Book of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks, a compilation of photographs of actual signs. She curates a blog of the same. The cover of the book is a rural sign that reads: FRESH BROWN “EGGS.” Another hilarious compilation is Delusions of Grammar – The Worst of the Worst, also illustrated with signs. We do need a laugh in these troubling times!
Heather MacAndrew Victoria
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