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Saudi arms deal, Canadian jobs
Re Majority Rank Human Rights Above Job Creation In Saudi Deal (Feb. 5): We are living in hard times. Young people are finding it difficult. The Saudi arms deal hangs like a carrot, tempting. Can we hold our nose and sell weaponized vehicles to a regime that beheads its own citizens, and visitors, for reasons that amount to horse feathers?
The Nanos Research poll, conducted for The Globe and Mail, has discovered that Canadians say, "No." This gives permission to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to deep six the contract, according to our own guidelines, throw down his glove, and challenge Canada to create an equal, even greater, number of jobs. It is time to build a vast interconnected economy of small businesses doing unique things. It is what a mature economy looks like.
A young, optimistic prime minister, in tune with the creative schools of business in this country, is on the threshold of an historic paradigm flip. As he said at Davos, he wants the world to know Canada not for its resources, but "Canadians for our resourcefulness."
Hugh McKechnie, Newmarket, Ont.
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Reassessing the IS mission
It is morally intolerable for Canada to be dropping bombs, and killing people, pursuant to a spent government policy (Ottawa Set To Outline Revised Role In Fight Against Islamic State, Feb. 5). It is certainly legitimate for the Prime Minister to take some time to make a decision. Given what is at stake, it is essential that he takes the necessary time to weigh the various options.
This may take a few more weeks, or even a few more months, and once the final decision is made, it will have to be carefully justified to Canadians. In the meantime, the bombing must stop. Canada's planes don't have to come home immediately. They can sit on the tarmac until a final and comprehensive IS policy is hammered out. But how can even a single death (especially a civilian death!) be justified if the eventual decision is to bring the planes home?
Such a death would be the result of a policy that the current government of Canada has, on numerous occasions, disowned.
(Alyn) James Johnson, Toronto
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UBC divestment: Bad timing
Re UBC Told To Reject Divestment Proposal, Feb. 4: Perhaps the faculty and students of the University of British Columbia should have proposed divestment of fossil-fuel investments a couple of years ago, when oil prices were high. Then it would have made investment sense, as well as ideological sense, to divest. And maybe that circumstance will return in a few years.
Ron Lyall, Victoria
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Doctors' rights and duties
Re Patient Rights Must Trump A Doctor's Discomfort (Feb. 2): Dismissing deeply held conscience convictions as mere "discomfort" is a bit like me dismissing a pneumonia as mere "sniffles." Physicians tolerate all sorts of discomfort in our daily practice without a murmur of discontent. Deeply held convictions of conscience are a totally different matter. Writer André Picard also seems to have ignored one of the Supreme Court of Canada's conditions in its judgment on suspending parts of the Criminal Code, namely, that the rights of conscience of physicians must be protected.
When you allow the state to suspend conscience rights at will, you will eventually have physicians without a conscience. Is that what you wish?
Arnold Voth, MD, Edmonton
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Mr. Picard is right to argue that physicians' religious and moral issues with their duties are trumped by patient rights. Doctors are paid out of the public purse and as such are beholden to carrying out policies approved by law, as is the nature of public service. Whether a public employee agrees with public policy is beside the point.
As public servants, firefighters and police officers are subject to the same conditions. Imagine that a police officer got to decide which laws to enforce based on personal beliefs. Doctors should either carry out the approved policy or get out of the public sector.
Jason Preston, Montreal
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Unsnapping the trap
Re Town Worries About Eagle Caught In Trap (news photograph, Feb. 4): Please pass along to the conservation officers of Clarenville, Nfld., that if they want to capture this eagle and release it from the trap snagged to its claw, there's a simple way to do this:
Affix powerful magnets to a large surface such as an old door, lay out fish scraps, and wait for the eagle to come to feast. Since the bird appears to favour the town dump, this should be simple process. The magnets wouldn't affect animals or birds, but with enough magnetism, they should be able to hold the eagle until a blanket can be thrown over it. Thirty seconds with a bolt cutter, and the bird should be free.
Nick Batistic, Vancouver