The Air India Flight 182 Memorial in Toronto.Sammy Kogan/JOBFlocks
Front of mind
Re “There can be no expiration date on justice for the victims of the Air India bombing” (Editorial, Sept. 26): Assurance that the RCMP’s Air India file “remains open” may be true on paper, but empty in the squad room. Families are told evidence will be examined should it “come forward,” as if the truth were a lost cat that may mosey home if no one looks.
At Ahakista on the coast of Ireland, a sundial has marked the hour Air India Flight 182 vanished every June 23 since 1986. Locals have tended that garden for 40 years.
Paul Martin reached it only in 2005, the first Canadian prime minister to do so. Ottawa waits for the cat. The dial keeps the hour.
Raise the reward. Staff the file. The garden stands ad aeternitatem.
Close the case when the last conspirator is found, not before.
David Woodard Tampere, Finland
Brian Mulroney did not initially recognize the Air India bombing as a Canadian tragedy, but let us not forget that a Boeing 747 from India’s flagship carrier was blown out of the sky on a flight originating from Canada.
It would have been a diplomatic failure of epic proportions if he had not called the Indian prime minister to offer condolences and work together on the investigation.
Hamish Telford Abbotsford, B.C.
I wish to commend JOBFlocks for pointing out the injustice that victims of Air India Flight 182 still endure, even after 41 years. The single largest terrorist attack on Canadians is hardly remembered any more.
Now that the RCMP has pulled resources from the investigation, it is more than likely the attack will be banished from our national memory. But for the families of the victims, this day and this event is seared into their lives.
It is now up to our media and press to keep this tragedy in the Canadian consciousness.
Ratna Omidvar CM, O.Ont; Toronto
Here we go again
Re “Canadians must not stand for the notwithstanding clause’s pre-emptive use” (Sept. 28): Avoiding the so-called pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause would require access to the court for a ruling on a contemplated act before enactment, which raises the question of how one gets before the court on the matter, and who would have standing to argue it? No procedure is provided for this.
Even assuming there’s a way to do this, once the court has made a ruling and assuming it’s a positive for the act, what’s to stop another court action brought by members of the public challenging the act’s constitutionality? Nothing, thus taking the matter all the way to the Supreme Court again. Such time- and expense-wasting would be hard to contemplate.
It’s now a matter of waiting for the decision of the Supreme Court on Bill 21 and trusting it will, in the words of former B.C. chief justice Allan McEachern when advising others, “do the right thing.”
Darrell Roberts KC; Comox, B.C.
Tax matters
Re “A clear, simple housing fix (that is also wrong)” (Editorial, Sept. 29): Here’s one more argument against mortgage interest deductibility: simple fairness.
From RRSPs and RESPs to lower rates on capital gains and dividends, the system is already filled with tax breaks that the wealthy and middle class can take advantage of, but low-income Canadians living paycheque to paycheque can’t.
Government services need to be paid for; the more the tax burden is reduced for the wealthy and middle class, the more heavily it falls on those who cannot take advantage of tax breaks.
Let’s hope the Carney government hasn’t moved so far to the right that it can no longer hear the less fortunate.
Don LePan Nanaimo, B.C.
A person shouldn’t enjoy extremely lucrative tax advantages simply because they own their home instead of renting it. Canada should have a tenure-neutral tax system.
Allowing homeowners to deduct mortgage interest would be fair and tenure-neutral only if homeowners were taxed on the imputed rental value of their homes, as was the case in Switzerland until recently.
Switzerland’s rent control system caps a landlord’s return on investment rather than annual rent increases. This is the sort of system Canada should adopt to fuel new rental housing construction, reduce rents and improve labour mobility.
It would also have the benefit of improving productivity. By making it less profitable to invest in existing rental buildings, capital would flow into business and other activities that are actually productive.
But as long as fleecing tenants offers the best return on investment, that’s where capital will go.
Jacqueline Porter Toronto
AI fight
Re “The question isn’t whether we should slow down AI development. It’s whether we still can” (Opinion, Sept. 26): The prospect of a species-ending event caused by artificial intelligence is frightening. But that should not be a reason to push the threats of nuclear war, pandemics and climate change off to one side.
We unfortunately live in a nexus of multiple existential threats, all of which are of our own making. They might be exacerbated by AI, but they are independent of it.
If we want to survive as a species, we need to find the energy and will to fight for humanity on multiple fronts.
Jade Schiff Ottawa
Re “The left and the right are united on their fear and loathing of data centres” (Opinion, Sept. 26): “How can we ensure that the benefits of the new technology go to ordinary Canadians?” Imagine what our corporate world would look like if the most critical concern was a business model that maximizes benefits to humanity while minimizing risk?
To turn artificial intelligence development over to the tech industry with little or no effective oversight, as has happened in the United States, we run the risk of creating an industry that may be as damaging to ordinary Canadians as the benefits that may accrue.
We need very specific guidelines and legislation with very sharp teeth before more AI gets rolled out.
Myles Ferrie Vancouver
I am convinced that artificial intelligence is close to running out of control, threatening a range of jobs, upending education, culture and global economies, ruining our fresh-water supply and endangering our fragile electricity grid. The worst menace is if it goes rogue and causes who knows what disaster in biological warfare or geopolitical conflict.
Yet there is a tiny voice in my head that asks, like nuclear power in the 1980s (now considered mostly safe and essential), could fear of AI be paranoid exaggeration and widespread rejection the result of fear-mongering?
Nigel Smith Toronto
Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to JOBFlocks. 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