Letters: 'Cancelling' the Group of Seven — talk about art theft!

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‘Will we see paintings by Lawren Harris razored to bits?

Re: National Gallery trades historical accuracy for diversity — Jamie Sarkonak, July 30

The purpose of art should be to inform, educate, and please, but for some reason, once art gets into galleries, it becomes political. Instead of art academics and people who think they know better than the artists themselves, but probably couldn’t paint their way out of a paper bag, perhaps a national gallery should be headed by a respected artist, which it was many years ago when Charles F. Comfort was director of the National Gallery of Canada.

As Leonardo da Vinci once said, “Art is never finished, only abandoned.” Sadly, once the gallery’s managerial hands come close to the art, then it clearly becomes abandoned. Talk about art theft!

Douglas Cornish, Ottawa

Is the woke crowd preparing us for more post-death executions (like Sir John A Macdonald’s, Egerton Ryerson’s, Queen Victoria’s, etc.) by its attacks on the Group of Seven at the National Gallery of Canada? Will we see paintings by Lawren Harris, Franklin Carmichael, Frederick Varley, Arthur Lismer et al razored to bits and scattered like confetti?

There is no public outcry because the general public is afraid. But who’s not afraid of thugs? Mark Twain defined courage as resistance to fear, not the absence of fear.

V.M. Antonowych, Ottawa

Health Canada failed to heed its own pandemic warnings

Re: Canadian governments guilty of ‘major pandemic failures,’ influential journal says — Sharon Kirkey, July 24

While the British Medical Journal raised valid criticisms of Canada’s response to COVID, a failure of Health Canada that needs to be addressed is that it ignored its own research.

Canada was taken by surprise by the severity of COVID-19 and the speed with which it spread. However, Health Canada’s 2006 Pandemic Plan, co-authored by Dr. Theresa Tam, warned that “The next pandemic virus will be present in Canada within three months after it emerges in another part of the world, but it could be much sooner because of the volume and speed of global air travel.” That is what happened.

Health Canada prepared a report following the 2009 H1N1 pandemic that noted that Canada’s Pandemic Plan was based on a scenario where “in the absence of a pandemic vaccine and antivirals, it is estimated that between 15 and 35 per cent of Canadians could become ill; 34,000 to 138,000 individuals may need to be hospitalized; and between 11,000 and 58,000 deaths could occur.” COVID-19 caused 53,000 deaths in Canada.

A 2015 Health Canada publication on pandemic preparedness warned that there could be no lead time before the novel virus reached Canada.

How could Health Canada have been taken by surprise by the speed and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic when Health Canada’s own publications predicted what would happen, and when one of the authors of Canada’s Pandemic Plan was the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada?

Christopher Brett, Gloucester, Ont.

Fallout over DEI tragedy

Re: Toronto principal bullied over false charge of racism dies from suicide — Jamie Sarkonak, July 21; School principal’s death is a stain on the conscience of this nation — Michael Higgins, July 25; Employee’s DEI experience a cautionary tale for companies on perils of wokeism — Howard Levitt, July 28; and Richard Bilkszto cherished merit and equality — Canada should, too — Editorial, July 30

The Post’s reports on the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) movement — including an editorial and columns by Jamie Sarkonak, Michael Higgins and Howard Levitt — bear witness to the terrible activities of pro-DEI authorities, including our prime minister. I hope all Canadians have had a chance to read them.

If a man can be driven to suicide for having his ethics derided to the extent of effective firing from a job he loves, and if a man can be fired for distributing DEI papers to a news organization, then Canada is lost from the democratic community.

Charles Hooker, East Garafraxa, Ont.

In an Instagram post dated Nov. 11, 2022, KOJO Institute director Kike Ojo-Thompson, who is alleged to have bullied Richard Bilkszto, the Toronto principal who dared to challenge her narrative that Canada was more racist than the U.S., laments about the “dominant narrative” surrounding Remembrance Day, which she says “problematizes” those who hold different perspectives about war.

In the Instagram post, Ojo-Thompson says: “There are so many perspectives, but we are taught one … There is one version of reality, one truth … We’re so intolerant of and have no room for an alternative perspective that’s actually quite viable and real.”

If the investigation into Ojo-Thompson’s treatment of Bilkszto supports the allegations against her, it will be most interesting to hear from her about why Bilkszto was not entitled to tolerance and respect.

David Steinberg, Toronto

The Good Ship Canada is headed straight for an iceberg

Re: Trudeau drops seven key ministers in biggest cabinet overhaul yet — Ryan Tumilty and Christopher Nardi, July 26

By moving cabinet ministers Anita Anand and Sean Fraser from the defence and immigration portfolios respectively, and by demoting justice minister David Lametti, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has ensured that any discussion of defence, immigration, bail reform and medical assistance in dying will be put off for another day. They will join health care as major issues for most Canadians that cannot be talked about in any serious way in public.

In keeping Chrystia Freeland in Finance, Trudeau ensures there will be no serious discussion about fiscal policy in this country, the root cause of the affordability crisis.

Far from rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, Trudeau’s cabinet shuffle succeeds only in ensuring the Canadian ship of state sails full steam ahead into the iceberg.

Paul Clarry, Aurora, Ont.

Canada’s economic performance ‘dismal’

Re: Justin Trudeau can’t escape his angry demons — Michael Higgins, July 26; and Canada’s worst decade for real economic growth since the 1930s — Philip Cross, May 9

Canadians have every reason to be angry at the Liberal government’s duplicity over the health of the economy.

We keep being told by the minister of finance how well the country is doing in terms of GDP growth, but what we are not being told is that, while GDP may indeed be growing, it is growing much more slowly than in the rest of the world.

It is high past time that we have a government that will be honest about our dismal economic performance and begin to do something about it.

John Sutherland, Calgary

‘A typical central Canada slur’ on Danielle Smith

Re: Alberta progressives supportive of RCMP, aghast by Mountie-themed maze — Colby Cosh, Aug. 1

What a typical central Canada slur to our Alberta Premier when Colby Cosh (who lives in Edmonton!) referred to her as “a shopkeeper from High River.” Something more true to form would have been former Wildrose Party leader and popular talk show host. As far as I know, Danielle Smith has never run a “shop” in High River. She and her husband own a trendy eating establishment there, currently up for sale.

Interestingly, I don’t think I’ve ever heard Cosh describe the current leader of Canada as a former teacher from B.C. That kind of put-down to the social image of the media darling wouldn’t fly to the current readership down East, would it?

David Hanneson, Black Diamond, Alta.

Canadian contributions to the A-bomb

Re: Canada’s little-known contributions to the atomic bomb — Tyler Dawson, July 24

Detailed research shows it is highly unlikely there was any uranium of Canadian origin used in the bomb production phase of the Manhattan Project. Canadian ore was difficult to process and the grade was much lower than that from ore discovered later in the Belgian Congo. As a result, Canadian material was used primarily in the early research and development phase, whereas the richer Belgian Congo ore was used for bomb production, when much uranium was required and processed as fast as possible.

The research noted above is based on records (orders, invoices, manifests, shipping routes, etc.) at Library and Archives Canada, and formed the basis for my article “Manhattan Project Redux: Canada and the first Atomic Weapons,” published in the Canadian Nuclear Society Bulletin in 2008.

James E. Arsenault, P.Eng. (Ret’d), Stittsville, Ont.

Calculating logging industry emissions

Re: Wildfires are set to double Canada’s climate emissions this year — Danielle Bochove, July 26

Greenhouse gas emissions from wildfires are indeed massive. But Canada, unlike many other countries, does not count emissions from major wildfires in the GHG totals it reports to the United Nations. This practice is arguably defensible on the grounds that reported GHG inventories should focus on directly human-caused or controlled emissions.

However, Canada’s related practice of counting — and crediting the logging industry with — some of the carbon absorbed as burned forests regrow after fires (79 million tonnes in 2021), even though the logging industry does virtually nothing to assist this regrowth, is indefensible. This biased accounting leads to the misleading portrayal of industrial logging in Canada as carbon neutral, distorting climate and forest policy decisions, and allowing the logging industry to release tens of millions of tonnes of planet-heating gas into the atmosphere for free.

Michael Polanyi, Policy and Campaign Manager, Nature Canada

Canada’s housing crisis is dire

Re: Jagmeet Singh winner of the worst housing policy of 2023 — July 21; and Liberal minister Ahmed Hussen desperate to keep housing prices high — July 14, both by Sabrina Maddeaux

Ontario’s homeowner home assessment values were frozen at 2016 levels as part of a COVID-relief effort but the freeze will expire in 2024. The Municipal Property Assessment Corporation re-evaluates property values every four years, and with higher priced homes municipal taxes inevitably will increase. Higher mortgage costs and municipal taxes will cause many to lose their homes, while renters can’t even afford apartments. We have enough homelessness in Canada, for a supposedly a modern industrial nation.

Politicians across party lines must immediately find a practical solution to the out-of-control housing market that ultimately will cause even more embarrassing homelessness for Canada.

Peter J. Middlemore Sr., Windsor, Ont.

MAID vs. health care

Re: Catholic hospitals shouldn’t be forced to kill their patients — Michael Higgins, July 24

In less than a decade, the constitutionality of the sanctity of life has been replaced by the necessity of death.

For years, Canada’s public health-care system has been found lacking when it comes to the timely treatment of routine medical needs and disability and social supports. While there is lots of talk among and between governments and health institutions, a real commitment remains elusive with one exception.

Public health policy, aided and abetted by controversial decisions made by unelected and unaccountable judges, has undergone a fundamental transformation. In practical terms, euthanasia is readily available from medical practitioners authorized to decide who lives and who dies with notional oversight. In too many cases, MAID is the only choice.

Our public health-care system denies Canadians the right to obtain private health care and to die a natural death with dignity, care and loving support.

Is this how we want history to define Canada?

Robert Teskey, Ottawa

Protecting West Coast salmon

Re: The great salmon gamble — Stewart Muir, July 20

Stewart Muir says little about where Ottawa’s push for land-based fish farming originated. It emerged from the recommendations of the Cohen Commission, which reported in 2012 on the decline of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River. Justice Cohen’s report is what precipitated removal of the open-pen industry in the Discovery Islands.

Muir’s assertions about “unsubstantiated theories about seaborne fish pathogens” are totally unsupported. Google Scholar lists hundreds of peer-reviewed articles that investigate the risks from sea lice, viruses and bacterial pathogens worldwide, including in B.C.

Atlantic Salmon may be like “cows,” as Muir suggests, but at least we separate farmed and wild cattle by establishing anthrax and brucellosis exclusion zones. That kind of risk management is not possible in pens where water and pathogens flow in and out freely in the 3D underwater world.

Dave Rolston, Port Alberni, B.C.

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