LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Quebecers deserve better health care Re: “Patients ‘falling through cracks’” (Montreal Gazette, Jan. 18)
Not just patients risk falling through the cracks as Health Minister Gaétan Barrette stomps and smashes his way through the remaking of our health-care services.
Never have I witnessed a more callous disregard for the well-being of the population. Barrette should be sacked.
And Premier Philippe Couillard should be warned: He is sowing the seeds of defeat for himself and the Quebec Liberal Party in 2018. David P. Dussault, Montreal
Boost métro service on the West Island
All the talk and planning around the proposed lightrail system is totally unnecessary. For the West Island, all we need are three new métro stations: From LaSalle, add a station in Lachine, one at the airport in Dorval and one in Pointe-Claire.
Is this too much to ask? Boris Danieli, Pierrefonds
Practice is arcane and undemocratic Re: “B.C. First Nation fights 30-year ‘dictatorship’” (NP Montreal, Jan. 26)
The notion that 21st-century Canada would financially and administratively support, as well as lend any kind of legal respectability, to a self-serving family compact is beyond credulity. That an arcane practice such as “custom hereditary system” is permitted to exist flies in the face of just about every democratic custom that governs contemporary society.
We no longer permit child labour, restrictive voting credentials, gender differences in law or even differential payments for similar work. Therefore, to suggest that the government of Canada cannot act so as to rectify this clearly undemocratic situation smacks more of a desire for political correctness rather than one anchored in a philosophical grounding. Jon Bradley, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce
Canada must lead on development aid
We cannot let another year go by with another 500,000 lives lost. Canada needs to step up. A recent report by the digital publication OpenCanada estimated that based on Canada’s International Assistance funding gap, 500,000 of the world’s most vulnerable people were not reached with the health-saving interventions they needed. That equates to just less than the population of Newfoundland and Labrador.
There are 16,000 children under the age of five who die of preventable causes every day. Canada has the capacity and resources needed to prevent their deaths. It is the prime minister’s responsibility to follow through on the promises of global leadership he has made to Canadians and to people everywhere.
As I await the release of the next federal budget, I am hoping to see Canada put its money where its mouth is and show, with a significant increase to official development assistance, that we really are back on the global stage. Erika Richter, Ottawa
Trump’s wall: Who will pay in the end?
Donald Trump’s spokesman has suggested he might have Mexico pay for the wall by slapping a 20-per-cent tax on imports from Mexico. However, if that were to happen, companies importing those Mexican goods would simply pass on this significant cost increase to American consumers.
In the end, then, Americans would actually be paying for the wall, however Trump tries to spin it. Karen Schell, Pointe-Claire