1 week Ago By Letters
Re: NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh pulls out of supply and confidence agreement with Liberals — Ryan Tumilty; Jagmeet Singh’s exit from deal changes nothing — Amy Hamm, both Sept. 5; and Poilievre urges Singh to pull out of deal with Liberals and trigger fall election — Catherine Lévesque, Aug. 29 NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is not worthy of the prime ministership.
He displayed extremely poor judgment in allying his party with the Liberal train wreck and he carries much of the blame for the state of Canada today. The damage that has been done to our country cannot be undone by simply ripping up an agreement. Singh and his cohorts in the No Democracy Party deserve a sound thumping in the next election along with Justin Trudeau’s illiberal Liberals.
Gordon S. Clarry, Etobicoke, Ont. What is Jagmeet Singh’s political calculus? Singh should trigger a fall 2024 election because it would enhance the NDP’s chances of becoming the official opposition rather than the Liberals.
To delay until 2025 may lead to a rut, by the Conservatives, of both the Liberals and the NDP. A fall 2024 election would look good on Singh for bringing forward a drubbing of the Liberals, and the NDP could once again hold Official Opposition status. But hanging on for another year will confirm what Canadians already know: Singh wants power, and the NDP will support the Liberals again after a 2025 election if the Liberals win more seats than the Conservatives.
The only way to prevent another coalition is an outright majority for the Conservatives. Singh’s NDP would keep more seats in a 2024 election than one in 2025. But, of course, he’d be entitled to a pension if he waits.
Mike McCrodan, Parksville, B.C. Re: A Carney in cabinet would temper Trudeau’s climate zealotry — Raymond J.
de Souza, Aug. 28; and Trudeau Liberals still can’t catch Alberta conservatives on climate policy — Jamie Sarkonak, Aug. 30 Raymond de Souza quotes Mark Carney as saying that Net Zero “is creating the greatest commercial opportunity of our age.
” Yet a recently released Fraser Institute study by Prof. Ross McKitrick shows that it is expected to significantly dampen economic growth and fails a cost/benefit analysis. Vaclav Smil, an acknowledged expert on energy transitions, is unequivocal in his recent book, “How the World Really Works,” when he states that “non-carbon energies could completely displace fossil carbon in a matter of one to three decades only if we were willing to take substantial cuts to the standard of living in all affluent countries and deny the modernizing nations of Asia and Africa improvements in their collective lots by even a fraction of what China has done since 1980.
” These opinions raise ethical as well as economic issues. What right have we in the developed world to deny the developing world opportunity for growth? Furthermore, there are serious questions as to where the metals needed for the carbon-free world are going to come from. In summary, Carney’s rosy view needs to be looked at very carefully and probably rejected.
John Sutherland, Calgary The results of the Science study reveal the serious financial dangers of the helter-skelter carbon emissions policies foisted on Canadians by the current Liberal government. It is important for Canadians to bear in mind that every one of the disastrous climate-oriented policies imposed by the Liberal government will be gone following the next election, with more reasonable climate-mitigation measures to be implemented by a Conservative government. With the news that the NDP will no longer support the Liberals, this event may be closer than expected.
Duane Sharp, Mississauga, Ont. Re: Full drug legalization would put an end to the harm reduction calamity — Matt Bufton, Aug. 23 While I like the idea of thinking outside the box on how to handle the drug crisis we are facing, even as someone who generally prefers less government interventions, I’m inclined to disagree with Matt Bufton.
Bufton makes some false parallels and leaves out relevant aspects on the idea of legalizing hard drugs. First off, you can’t compare drugs like meth or fentanyl to substances like alcohol and caffeine. The latter two can be consumed by most of us in a responsible way, while contributing as functional members of society.
I suspect only a small percentage of hard drug users can continue to be functional, contributing members of society. This leads to an important repercussion of legalization: increased addiction and crime — the latter of course due to the need to finance the addiction. I foresee a situation similar to pre-WWII Germany, where legal hard drugs led to such a state of despair that a massive reverse course was needed.
Mike McLaine, Toronto Re: A woke takeover is coming for Canadian physician training — Leigh Revers, Sept. 3 I’ve had good, free medical care for most of my life — until now. I am now 86 years old and faced with long waits.
(Usually I hope I don’t die before a doctor can see me.) And now today’s “Ideas” Page in the National Post tells me that physicians are to be trained in social activism as well as medicine. Now if I go to see a young doctor, I will wonder if he is better trained in woke ideology than medicine, and whether I should have relied on the internet for my medical advice.
I must worry that older physicians might be out of date yet younger physicians not up to scratch. I must now look for 40- to 65-year-old physicians to get the best care. Add to that, I must worry about the possibility that the practitioner might simply think it is better for me to “voluntarily” commit suicide with MAID rather than endure the pain that I am now used to.
And if that were not enough, I have to worry that my doctor, being “woke” and socially wise, might think that Jews are evil. Will this socially aware doctor want me to receive MAID because he disagrees with my political views? So there you have it. In the future, will I have to take off my Magen David pendant, change my name, falsify my age and ask for a middle-aged doctor in order to receive good and equal treatment at my local hospital? Jonathan Usher, North York, Ont.
Re: What an irate steelworker can tell us about the hole Trudeau is in — John Ivison, Sept. 2 John Ivison’s description of how Prime Minister Justin Trudeau behaved in an uncomfortable exchange with an Algoma steelworker fails to acknowledge the admirable restraint and courtesy of the struggling taxpayer. Trudeau has had many years now to practice his technique of repeating slogans rather than answering questions seriously when they are addressed to him.
His entire cabinet uses the method, too. Is this behaviour we should admire in any way? Why flatter Trudeau with misplaced positive regard? Slick-handling of the hapless is disgusting. It is just one more example of why Trudeau is not worthy of leadership.
Canadians don’t need more Marie Antoinette moments to understand the situation. Trudeau does not care for this country or its citizens. This latest episode spoke volumes about the crisis we are in.
Barbara Okun, Scarborough, Ont. Re: Poilievre is going all-in on his pro-worker message with appeals to ‘ordinary people’ — Stuart Thomson, Sept. 2 Since when is being pro-worker anti-free-market? An open and competitive market is good for workers; when employees have choice about who they work for, they benefit from competition in working conditions, benefits and compensation.
Workers suffer when they have only one possible employer — in the same way that consumers suffer when there is a monopoly on a good or service. Scott Newson, Nanaimo, B.C.
Re: Majority of Canadians believe Liberals’ immigration targets are set too high: poll — Ryan Tumilty, Aug. 30 The real question on the immigration file is: how on Earth did the staffers and consultants tasked by Justin Trudeau to determine immigration intake needs ever arrive at 500,000 per year? That huge quota is greater — in some cases much greater — than the populations of cities like Halifax, Charlottetown, Moncton, Windsor, Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie and many others.
That decision simply ignored the fact that more than six million Canadians lack a family doctor and there is a serious lack of affordable housing in urban centres, where the majority of newcomers end up. The intake has also added a massive new carbon footprint to Trudeau‘s climate-change fight. The prime minister seems to have based his immigration and refugee policies on virtue-signalling and political needs.
They were not based on how many could be adequately accommodated and Canada’s actual economic needs. High immigration has negatively affected Canadians — likely the reason for the finding of this poll. No wonder many newcomers are now discovering Canada is not the country Trudeau promised and are fleeing for better opportunities elsewhere.
Larry Comeau, Ottawa Re: ‘We feel alone’: Jews wonder if they have a future at McGill University — Ari David Blaff, Aug. 30 The sheer cowardice of campus administrators and professors who hide behind so-called privacy policies when it comes to identifying those who bully and intimidate people who just want to go to school is lamentable. Have we learned nothing from history about where the acceptance of unabated hatred can lead to? It would likely take the Israelis less than a week to pull out of Gaza if Hamas would lay down their arms and release the remaining hostages, but not one cowardly person who works at McGill would say this to the bigots who are soiling the campus with their presence — and I’m referring not only to those who have taken part in the occupation of campus properties but the professors and administrators who celebrated the October 7 atrocities.
I truly believe that we need to start legal proceedings against those who would endanger our society and who glorify the rapists and murderers of Hamas. Ted Mead, Winchester, Ont. There’s a simple lesson here.
McGill University is not a special case. Don’t look to academia for moral clarity. Not in 1934 or 2024.
Ron Freedman, Toronto Re: Pierre Poilievre is right, the ‘experts’ aren’t worth listening to — Geoff Russ, Aug. 29 I’m old enough to remember that in the ’80s and early ’90s certain Canadian media relied on a certain set of “experts” to tell us that the proposed “free trade deal” (NAFTA) was an existential threat to our country. And they never talked to the “experts” who supported free trade.
Now that in 2024 the CUSMA/NAFTA is the holy grail, these same media now rely on “experts” to tell us that this same “free trade deal” is existential to the future of the country and must be protected. My question: what happened to their old set of “experts?” Nathaniel Stone, Ottawa Geoff Russ’s column reminds me of a Nicholas Murray Butler quote I first heard in engineering school years ago: “An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.” Have we finally reached that point? John Whittle, Calgary Re: Pizza Nation: Who makes the best Canadian pizza? I crisscrossed the country to find out — Laura Brehaut, Aug.
28 What a wonderful story of the hard work and pride of so many to make such great food. Pizza has to be my all-time favourite; the aroma of pizza cooking in the oven when opening the door of a pizza restaurant warms the soul and the stomach. Many years ago while in the army in Petawawa, Ont.
, I would go with my buddies to a pizzeria in town. It was like so many examples in Pizza Nation — warm atmosphere and delicious food. Many years later while visiting, I went to the same restaurant.
While waiting for my pizza I realized I was talking to the same people who had served me over 40 years prior. Quality most definitely stands the test of time. Thanks for a great Weekend Post.
W. Scott Paterson, Kemptville, Ont. Re: NHL announces death of Johnny Gaudreau, younger brother Matthew — Wes Gilbertson, Aug.
30 One can never know how or when God calls us home. For their final hours on that fateful day, I believe the Gaudreau brothers, Johnny and Matthew, thought only of family, good fortune and the love for those they cherished. Rest in peace gentlemen.
David Korchinski, Calgary National Post and Financial Post welcome letters to the editor (200 words or fewer). Please include your name, address and daytime phone number. Email letters@nationalpost.
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