Letters to the editor: ‘Because of the oppressive and unscrupulous way in which the Ford government has acted … the municipalities are the playthings of the provincial governments.’ Ontario’s greenbelt and more, plus other letters to the editor for December 4 | Daily News Byte

Special care

Re Province To Expand Program Offering International Doctors A Pathway To Practice (Nov. 28): Canada wants more foreign medical professionals to immigrate here and wants to facilitate the ability of those professionals to quickly qualify for Canadian credentials. In other words, Canada wants to encourage the importation, at no cost to the country, of a valuable skill.

I trust that most immigrant doctors will come from countries that cannot afford the financial and social cost of emigration for zero consideration. So I suggest that Canada, a rich country, should pay others for the cost of that expensive brain drain.

Harry Sutherland Comox, BC

Re Why Is It So Hard To Get A Family Doctor In Canada? (Nov. 26): One issue is inefficiency that reduces the number of patients that family doctors can care for.

Canada ranks near the bottom of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in the number of medical specialists, CT and MRI scanners and hospital beds per million population. Because of this, family doctors spend a lot of time trying to access consultations and tests for patients. They cannot make decisions without these results and may need to see a patient multiple times while waiting.

We’re not likely to fix family medicine unless we fix the whole broken system.

David Stewart MD; professor of medicine, division of medical oncology, University of Ottawa and The Ottawa Hospital

I am a registered physiotherapist practicing in Ontario. I can’t help but notice that many anecdotes are about patients who have sustained orthopedic injuries. Greater access to physiotherapists in this province would go a long way in alleviating some of the aforementioned pressures on the primary care system.

Little has changed since I started practicing nine years ago, and it has probably gotten worse because private benefits, for those who have them, have failed to keep up with inflation. As a profession, we are largely unsuccessful in addressing these issues.

It is frustrating that family physicians and their medical associations hold their role as gatekeepers within health care. One need look no further than the Ontario Medical Association’s opposition to Bill 179, which seeks to expand the scope of practice for physiotherapists and other health care professionals.

Brian Oderkirk Ottawa

fatal end

Re From ‘Just Watch Me’ To ‘Just Trust Me’ (Editorial, Nov. 29): How can the summary of the October Crisis leave out the assassination of then Quebec deputy premier Pierre Laporte?

Helene Malvet North Saanich, BC

Re First Strike (Letters, Dec. 1): The 1919 Winnipeg General Strike for collective bargaining, better wages and amelioration of appalling working conditions, mentioned by a letter-writer, should not be compared with protest that occupied our capital and blocked our border crossing, by people who refused to be vaccinated and wear masks to protect fellow citizens.

Furthermore, around 30 strikers were seriously injured and two were killed.

Terry Campbell Saskatoon

Growing diseases

Re Immigration is Changing Canada For the Better. But The Conversation Doesn’t End There (Nov. 28): As an immigrant to Canada almost 50 years ago, I admit that it is a better place for many reasons. However, the current climate of welcoming thousands of immigrants worries me quite a bit when we are determined to stick to our pledges on climate targets.

When does one relate the effect of population to emissions? More population equals more energy use.

Tom Clarkson Pickering, Ont.

Services provided

Cleanup Bill For One Of Canada’s Top Contaminated Sites At Least $4.38-Billion (Business Report, Nov. 28): Natural resources are one of the biggest contributors to Canada’s economy – but huge -also costs taxpayers when not properly regulated.

The government should do a better job of securing larger “environmental damage deposits” from mining and energy companies before they are allowed to put shovels in the ground. With more than 20,000 contaminated sites littering our country, many of them abandoned oil wells and mines, we should have a more proactive policy in this regard.

Let’s use some of the energy producers’ recorded profits to clean up abandoned wells. Then they can also start cleaning the air.

I don’t invest in energy or mining companies, and never will. Why should my tax dollars pay for their mess?

Graham Farrell Toronto

When will we stop subsidizing contamination cleanup while, for the life of a project, the profits are high?

Certainly the answer is requirements for a company to make provisions in advance, as production begins, for the full restoration of a site when the supply of resources being extracted runs out. We do that now to provide for recycling technology, tires and, in some jurisdictions, appliances.

To do otherwise is to ensure that taxpayers often provide massive subsidies to companies, many of which conveniently cease to exist when resources are exhausted and governments leave (i.e. in us) on the hook.

It’s the same old story: Capitalize the profit and subsidize the loss. It’s time to finish that, at least in the case of resource extraction.

Tim Sale Winnipeg

Need for speed

Re Our Passenger Rail Service Is Running Out Of Time (Opinion, Nov. 26): Although Via Rail’s passenger equipment may be nearing the end of its service life, we are also running out of time to reduce global atmospheric warming. And for decades, the federal government has had on-again, off-again interest in a new high-speed passenger service between, at least, Toronto to Montreal.

Similar high-speed passenger rail links are proposed from Edmonton to Calgary and Vancouver to Seattle. With electric traction, these trains will provide fast and comfortable alternatives to greenhouse-gas emitting vehicles on major corridors.

The federal government must act to provide climate-mitigating travel alternatives to achieve our 2030 emissions reduction targets. With the advance planning that has gone into these corridors in the past, it should be possible to cut the ribbons on high-speed passenger rail routes for seven years.

Derek Wilson P.Eng (retired); Port Moody, BC

In other words

Re Doug Ford Is Bad For Democracy (Editorial, Nov. 21): According to the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Canada, “municipalities are creatures of provincial governments.”

The Ford government in Ontario treated its “creatures” in an abusive manner, including: reducing the size of Toronto’s city council during the election campaign; Bill 23’s massive encroachment on municipal powers in the areas of planning, development charges, heritage and environmental protection, among others; Bill 39 attacks municipal democracy by allowing mayors to pass laws with the support of a minority of councillors. And all these changes were made without any prior consultation with the municipalities.

Given the oppressive and unscrupulous manner in which the Ford government acted, it seems more accurate to say that the municipalities were the “playthings” of the provincial governments.

Jeffrey Levitt Toronto

Place to be

Re Ontario Place Developer Submits New Design (Nov. 29): My attitude toward Lake Ontario changed many years ago when I heard a lake biologist say this very intuitive thing: “To save the lake, we have to love the lake. And to love the lake, we have to use the lake.” Plans to put a glass-enclosed spa and waterpark on Toronto’s West Island would be completely at odds with that proposal.

Why would we put an overpriced pastime that only a few residents can afford, next to the world’s largest resource that costs nothing, is completely egalitarian and serves all Ontarians?

Bruce Van Dieten Toronto

Let’s imagine the former Ontario Place (nothing about the proposal seems to have anything to do with Ontario) 30 years from now.

Will people around the world comment on how amazing Ontario is building a spa on its Great Lakes coast? Or would the world be more impressed with a world-class park with low or no entrance fees, serving all Ontarians and protecting this Great Lakes resource for all?

When Doug Ford is at his cottage and Toronto’s estimated seven million people seek public access to Lake Ontario as a refuge from the latest heat wave, I hope he remembers that he had a chance to do the smart thing.

Norm Di Pasquale Co-chair, Ontario Place for All; Toronto

Letters to the Editor must be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Try to keep letters to fewer than 150 words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com