Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Try to keep letters to fewer than 150 words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com
..............................................................................................................................
$10-million talks
Re Ottawa To Offer Apology To Omar Khadr (July 4): Thank you. Please send the invoice for the planned $10-million compensation package to Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party.
Richard Hawkins, Bailieboro, Ont.
.......................................................
Whatever Omar Khadr may or may not have done in the interests of perpetuating terror is not the issue.
The issue is that he was a child soldier and that the federal officials who acted in Canada's name, as the Supreme Court so bluntly put it, did not live up to "the most basic standards about the treatment of detained youth suspects."
They say money talks. Let's hope $10-million talks loudly enough to make future governments think twice about how they protect – or abuse – the rights of all Canadians, particularly children and youth.
Sandra Wilson, Calgary
.......................................................
This question was posed by Senator Linda Frum: "Has any soldier who fought FOR Canada ever received as generous a reward as this soldier who fought against us?"
Will the Prime Minister answer?
Martin Birt, Uxbridge, Ont.
.......................................................
Price of death
Re Doctors Turning Away From Assisted Dying (July 4): It's disappointing to read that the provinces still haven't figured out appropriate compensation for physician-assisted death.
It's unbelievable that two provinces don't even have a billing code yet. How hard can this be?
What's the point of having a legal option to control the manner of your passing if no one will assist? This situation is completely unacceptable.
Good thing I'm not dying (yet).
Peter D. Hambly, Hanover, Ont.
.......................................................
At a minimum
Re Is Seattle's Minimum Wage Debacle Coming To Ontario? (July 4): Margaret Wente cites the University of Washington study that concludes that raising the minimum wage in Seattle has a net negative impact.
Other studies come to the opposite conclusion, such as one by the University of California Berkley Institute for Research on Labour and Employment which states "Seattle's groundbreaking minimum wage law is raising pay for low-paid workers without hurting jobs."
Maybe media reports of these studies should be treated like the latest health research news: best ignored until a professional consensus starts to emerge.
One thing I do know, however, is that all manner of "progressive" labour laws, such as the 40-hour work week and occupational health and safety regulations, were met with exactly the same objections in their day.
Wilson Fitt, Chester, N.S.
.......................................................
Re Ontario Gets It Right With Move To Higher Minimum Wage (June 30): Keeping in mind economists are often wrong, I am happy to read alternative theories.
But in this case, I am not so sure. The authors cite Card and Krueger, who studied minimum wage jobs at fast food restaurants in New Jersey and found no causal relationship between higher minimum wages in the early 1990s and lower employment.
But something's gotta give, as the saying goes. And the give was fast food owners passing on the higher labour costs in the form of higher prices to consumers.
This is probably what will happen in Ontario. Higher minimum wages will drive up costs, small business owners will raise prices. That's the short run.
In the long run, perhaps next summer, small business owners will hire less labour and invest in more capital and machines. Higher minimum wages will make automation even more attractive.
What we can all agree on is that few people can live on ten bucks an hour. Is it wrong to ask consumers to pay higher prices? Should the bricklayer eating at McDonalds be asked to pay for the full cost of the burger-flippers' salary increase?
I leave that question for ethicists, not economists.
Richard Howard, Toronto
.......................................................
Voting matters
Re Trump, Brexit, Etc. This Is Why We Vote (editorial, July 3): Yes, voting matters. Half the time. In Toronto in 2015, 50 per cent of the voters elected 100 per cent of the MPs (Liberals).
On Vancouver Island, 54 per cent of voters elected 100 per cent of the MPs (NDP and Green). I bet a political leader could get lots of support by promising to make every vote count.
Oh, wait …
Wilfred Day, Port Hope, Ont.
.......................................................
I would argue that, rather than causing a seismic shift in the provincial political landscape in Alberta, voter apathy kept the Progressive Conservatives in power almost 20 years past their "best before" date.
Brent Pierce, Cochrane, Alta.
.......................................................
Happy, um, birthday
Our family with young children was excited to make the special trip from Toronto to Ottawa to experience Canada's 150th. As we got on the bus going downtown for Canada Day, you could feel the excitement to be Canadian and in our nation's capital.
However, once we got off the bus and made our way toward Parliament Hill, we were told the security line would take three to five hours. How could any family with children be expected to stand in a line without access to washrooms for that long? So we decided to watch the ceremonies instead on the big screens downtown. There were likely thousands who couldn't get on The Hill, and yet there appeared to be only two big screens, one of which broke down in the opening minutes of the ceremony. The other was hard to hear with an RCMP helicopter overhead.
So we gave up and walked to the Byward Market. There was still great energy, but with the thousands of people there, we stood in incredibly long lines for access to a bathroom. By this point, we decided to leave.
As our kids said as we squeezed into a bus to get home: "That wasn't much of a celebration but it was a big disappointment."
Michael Davidson, Toronto
.......................................................
Your Canada Day editorial, An Invention Worth Celebrating, is an example of why you are not invited to Grandma's birthday party: "Here's to Grandma's birthday. But before we let her blow out the candles, we have to talk about some of the bad things she's done. Sure, overall she is a good person, but to focus on the cookies and Christmas presents, and ignore her full history would be immoral.
"And what are birthdays for if not to drag the skeletons out of the closet? Granted, not all of you feel the same way, but, hey, we have the mic. So we just want to draw your attention to the times she was disrespectful to other people, the bad financial decisions she's made, that fur coat, the sheer volume of herbicides her lawn received over the years, letting her kids walk to school unsupervised, and her liberal use of corporal punishment. We've printed up copies of everything we could think of she's done wrong, but please add others if you think of them.
"Happy birthday, Grandma!"
Guy Greenaway, Calgary