Re Light Trimming Of A Large Inflow (editorial, Feb. 17): Has it not occurred to you that preventing certain close family members of Canadians from obtaining visas to enter the country is discrimination solely on the basis of age?
The reason given is that these family members are less likely to work and more likely to draw on social service programs. These reasons are disputable.
More related to this storyMore lettersMany older people are heavily engaged in non-remunerative work, e.g., family care-giving, family and friend domestic care, in addition to other volunteer activities in the community. This is in addition to actually working for remuneration, which many of them are well able and qualified to do. Besides, having a responsible family member look after the family’s needs gives freedom to both parents of young children to work outside the home without worrying about how the children are faring in their absence.
M. Ruth Elliott, Edmonton
.......Re Canada’s Changing Immigration Checklist: Youthful Trades Workers Wanted – front page, Feb. 18): A sad day, given Canada’s history, when experts view skilled-trades and the highly educated as qualitatively different. As for the phrase “highly educated, adaptable” – does that refer to all the doctors and engineers who have adapted to driving cabs?
David Kipling, Gibsons, B.C.
.......Good for Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney for reviewing our immigration criteria. Single people will adapt better than married people, those who speak English or French will adapt better than those who don’t, the young will adapt better than the old, and the technically or reasonably educated will adapt better than the extremely well-educated. Adaptability should be given much more weight and many more points on our immigration assessment scale.
Jonathan Usher, Toronto
.......Opposition complaints
Sigh. Everything John Ibbitson says is true (While The Tories Wage War, The Opposition Picks Nit – online, Feb. 18). A good chunk of the Canadian population likes simple answers to complex questions, and the Conservatives have targeted this trait. Do these people know that the Conservatives are counting on their refusal to analyze the complexity of issues? Perhaps if they did, they would question their support for a party that counts on their blissful ignorance and be insulted enough to be driven to look behind the attraction of such facile and (in the long term) damaging platforms as “tough on crime” and “lower taxes.”
Peter Ross, Ottawa
.......Bob Rae, Jack Layton and other opposition members need to stop shouting that the sky is falling every time they spy a government memo. They definitely need a new focus before they are laughed out of town.
Jim McDonald, Dundas, Ont.
.......Travel fees
Re PM Frowns On Proposed U.S. Travel Fee (Feb. 18): I hope that if the Americans charge $5.50 to Canadians crossing by air or sea that the Canadian government will respond in kind and that the money will be filtered directly into health care. As far as hindering the Canada-U.S. economic recovery, I think the United States has that covered with subprime mortgages, the deregulation of the banking industry, outsourcing, Sarah Palin and pretty much the entire Republican Party.
Blair Boudreau, Toronto
.......U.S. duplicity
Re Clinton Sides With Bloodied Bahraini Protesters (Feb. 18): Surely it’s more than a bit disingenuous that the United States, after years of supporting the repressive royal family ruling Bahrain, is only now, with bloodied and dead protesters in the streets, calling for dialogue and restraint. Barack Obama says, “we calibrated it just about right.” I say the Americans have perfected the art of hypocrisy quite well.
Marty Cutler, Toronto
.......Censured drivers
Re Court Won’t Uphold Cabbie’s Right To Religious Knick-Knacks (Feb 18): Car owners have hung items such as dice and Disney characters from their rearview mirrors and put all sorts of items on dashboards for years. To a gambler, dice are a religion. To a Disney freak, Mickey Mouse is a god. What’s the difference?
Douglas Cornish, Ottawa
.......Changing attitudes
Re The Challenge For Arab Democracy Starts In The Home (Feb. 18): As usual, Irshad Manji came right to the point. Nothing will change unless and until Arab men start treating their girls and women as human beings, deserving of respect, and not as chattel, to be ordered around and beaten at will if they do not obey narrow-minded and soul-destroying directives. The beating and sexual attack of CBS senior correspondent Lara Logan and other women by Egyptian men supposedly demonstrating in favour of democracy is a prime example of these men’s distorted thinking.
Sheila Dropkin, Toronto
.......Returning to Haiti
Re The Return Of The Polarizing Aristide (Feb. 2). The Globe’s editorial calls deposed Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s pending return to Haiti an “unwelcome development” and urges that he “stay put in South Africa.”
He wants to come home, as a private citizen, and assist in Haiti’s enormous relief challenges. His return would be warmly greeted by the vast majority of Haitians, who elected him president by overwhelming margins in 1990 (67 per cent) and 2000 (91 per cent). Rather than “destabilizing” Haiti, Mr. Aristide’s return would energize and unite the Haitian people who look upon him as a sign of hope for their future.
Ira J. Kurzban, lawyer for Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Miami
.......Watson’s ‘win’
Re For Watson, Jeopardy! Victory Was Elementary (Feb. 16):
Hey Watson,
I saw you win by a landside on Jeopardy.
You answered “Shakespeare” before the other contestants did. Have you ever read Shakespeare? How did it make you feel?
Then you answered place names before the humans could. Have you ever visited any of those places?
Oh, I forgot, you’re only a machine filled with transmitters and an electrical chord that plugs you into the wall.
Congratulations on your “victory.”
Steve Brinder, Toronto
0 comments:
Post a Comment