Prime Minister Mark Carney and Premier of Alberta Danielle Smith announce the next step to accelerate a major infrastructure project in Fort McMurray, Alta., on Oct. 1.Todd Korol/Reuters
Out with the old
Re “The PQ is back in office without a lot of people power behind the next premier” (Oct. 7): I’m not too excited by the Parti Québécois getting the most seats in Quebec.
While they campaigned on holding yet another referendum on separation from Canada, they only have a minority government with the provincial Liberals and Conservatives vowing to block any such vote in the National Assembly.
More significantly, the Coalition Avenir Québec government of the past eight years went to zero seats. I suspect voters badly wanted the CAQ gone and the PQ was the best vehicle to achieve that.
This is nothing new. Voters often cast ballots against a party, not for one.
Bryan McConachy West Vancouver
Market forces
Re “Whose interest?” and “Head in the sand” (Letters, Oct. 6): An interesting juxtaposition of commentary about energy resources highlights the dynamics of how our society views technology and the environment.
The oil industry certainly appears to be tipping the scales in favour of oil sands consolidation (“Cenovus bulks up on oil sands with $5.7-billion Athabasca buy” – Report on Business, Oct. 6). Yet we also learn that innovations will enable solar panels to convert more sunlight into usable electricity (“U.S. solar producers say they are close to breakthrough” – Report on Business, Oct. 6).
I remain optimistic that the marketplace will determine winners and losers and which energy assets end up stranded. After all, a pipeline “approved” does not necessarily translate into a pipeline built.
Chris Gates Cobourg, Ont.
Too bad that Cenovus, though headquartered in Calgary, isn’t really a Canadian company with only 18.1 per cent of shareholders located in Canada, according to available information. Shareholders located in the United States own 36.5 per cent of the company, while the rest are mostly located in other foreign countries and 11.2 per cent are of unknown geographic location.
Even Canadian Natural Resources is 59.7 per cent owned by U.S. shareholders, while Imperial Oil is 68 per cent owned by ExxonMobil.
Too much of Canada’s natural resources are foreign-owned.
Mike Priaro Calgary
On murder
Re “Does Canada punish murder too harshly? B.C.’s top court wades into the debate” (Oct. 5): In a classic episode of The Simpsons, Fat Tony explains his criminal enterprise to Bart. He resorts convincingly to a series of reasonable hypotheticals which starts by asking, “Bart, um, is it wrong to steal a loaf of bread to feed your starving family?” I laugh even now at the satirical cartoon.
But it’s less amusing when this same “logic” is inverted and advanced to persuade us that a 25-year mandatory minimum for first-degree murder is unconstitutional. This absurdity is compounded by alternative attacks: for example, that the number is arbitrary, as if the proffered 15 years somehow isn’t, or statistical comparisons to other supposedly more enlightened and invariably lenient jurisdictions. The logic is circular and, I believe, specious.
Twenty-five years at least staves off the prospect of repeated parole hearings for the surviving family of murder victims. They are real people suffering real harm. They are not hypothetical.
Ron Beram Gabriola, B.C.
I don’t think “faint hope” is the right term for the clause which gives convicted murderers the right to a parole hearing after 15 years of their 25-year sentence.
The article shows that fully 72.5 per cent of applicants were granted earlier parole.
Jim Duholke North Vancouver
Up and down
Re “As international student numbers tumble, domestic postsecondary enrolment rebounds” (Report on Business, Oct. 2): Finally some positive news in this sorry saga.
Let’s call a spade a spade: It seems many of the so-called students coming to Canada were not here for education, but for a shortcut to landed immigrant status. It has been reported on numerous occasions about schools set up to milk the system and reap tuition fees.
The only people wringing their hands now are the immigration consultants who earned income on student placement, the colleges and universities who lined their pockets with higher tuition fees and the employers who padded their profit using cheap labour instead of hiring Canadians.
Now we’re educating more of our own youth and creating a more qualified Canadian work force, instead of having to attract educated workers from other countries. It seems to me that is what our education system was supposed to do in the first place.
Graham Farrell Toronto
Lesson plan
Re “The education system’s failing report card” (The Sunday Editorial, Oct. 4): While Canadians should be concerned about academic declines on scores from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Program for International Student Assessment in reading, mathematics and science, it’s also critical to consider what the more granular results suggest: that standardized testing was never the simple answer for educational attainment.
Saskatchewan’s inconvenient truth shouldn’t be ignored as the only province without a standardized testing program in high school during the scoring period. It bucked a trend: Provincial scores went up in science and mathematics; in reading, scores dropped the least of all the provinces.
Follow the data. Rather than more failed testing, we should redirect the millions of dollars that fund testing programs back into classrooms, teachers, educational assistants, specialists and the more general fight against poverty.
Marc Spooner Regina
Thank you for shining a light on the complex headwinds facing Canadian education.
For literacy in Ontario, things are shifting with an updated curriculum and the introduction of early literacy screeners. But even when a student is screened, what happens if they are behind?
Many students, especially those who are older, continue to flounder in a system that gives them accommodations, modified grades and laptops instead of literacy assessments, appropriate interventions and progress monitoring. Added to this challenge, there is little consistency across schools within a board, let alone across boards within the province.
How do we know this? We live it every day. Our kids floundered and we had to find solutions outside the system. Not everyone can. No one should.
We need both more investment from the government and accountability from our school boards. There is no time to waste. All kids deserve to learn how to read.
Jackie Wylde VP, International Dyslexia Association Ontario; Toronto
Alison Bing Director, International Dyslexia Association Ontario; Mississauga
Feel seen
Re “I thought aging had made me invisible, when really I had become camouflaged” (First Person, Oct. 5): Invisible by 60? There is hope. In 30 years’ time, you would be 90 and not believing the attention you receive.
Nobody can believe you’re still alive, walking around unaided, talking intelligently. If I had known I was going to be this visible at 90, I would have gotten here sooner.
Elizabeth Thompson Oakville, Ont.
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