The grounds at 24 Sussex Drive in Ottawa.Tom Hanson/The Canadian Press
Letters to the Editor should 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
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Fixer-upper on Sussex
Re In Ottawa, Petty Politics Has An Address (editorial, July 23): The day the fall election is officially called, the National Capital Commission (NCC) should announce that it will renovate all the official properties it owns, beginning with 24 Sussex Dr. The NCC should spell out that it will ask all living former prime ministers, and party leaders who are candidates for the 2019 election, for their input, but that it will make the final decisions. Prime ministers – past and want-to-be – could choose not to suggest anything, and thus be in a blessed state of deniability.
I have to say that my suggestion sounds to me like the voice of a mother quelling conflict by arbitrating between warring siblings. A woman in charge – now there’s a thought.
Elizabeth Bigelow, Victoria
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More than $38-million to tear down 24 Sussex Dr. and build a new residence? Would that include the cost of the humane disposal of the rats in the cellar and the bats in the attic?
Reiner Jaakson, Oakville, Ont.
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Estimate to renovate 24 Sussex: $34.5-million. Estimate to tear it down and replace it: $38.5-million. Has someone slipped a decimal place?
William R. Cluett, Toronto
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Why does a prime minister need an official residence paid for by taxpayers? Canada’s prime minister earns an above-average salary, which should cover a nice house or apartment within a reasonable commute to work.
There are excellent government locations around the capital where a prime minister could meet with or entertain people in the course of performing their duties, and which could accommodate the necessary support staff as needed. Wherever a PM chooses to reside can be made secure for their family.
Choosing to pay your own way matches the ethos of choosing to serve the public interest. Canadians would be best served by politicians who live the reality of those they serve, which means living within one’s means and keeping one’s hands out of others’ pockets.
Dal Corran, Toronto
Boris and the Brits
Re Is Boris Johnson A Buffoon Or A Charismatic Leader? (July 20) Surely the increasing polarization of voter perceptions means being seen as a buffoon and a charismatic leader are no longer mutually exclusive. What is interesting is Mr. Johnson’s specifically British charisma.
Instead of the ruthless plutocrat, Mr. Johnson presents the image of the clever amateur – seemingly a buffoon, but with just enough of the school tie and Pimm’s Cup to be the Pimpernel who foils continental evil-doers.
Buffoon is also too mild, implying perhaps a harmless diversion. A more sober and destructive term will be required if, as in the case of Donald Trump’s damage to immigration, the courts, tax fairness and political discourse, an unthinking hard Brexit devastates the United Kingdom.
Chester Fedoruk, Toronto
A ‘shocking lack of understanding’
Re Being Held Not Criminally Responsible Is Not A Get Out Of Jail Free Card (July 22): Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s reference to Zhebin Cong as a “nutcase” and suggesting that these “killers” should be locked up forever, disappointing as it is, nevertheless represents a common visceral reaction. That a premier would say this highlights the great difficulty that still exists in trying to get the public to understand that the finding of not criminally responsible (NCR) signals an illness, a disease of the mind, just as cancer is a disease of the body.
This can be a teaching moment for all of us. It seems there may have been a failure in the process of monitoring that will be examined, but it is important to recognize that labels like “nutcase” are unacceptable in 2019. We should all be proud of the efforts that have been made in clearing the stigma of mental illness, but we can see that those efforts must continue.
William Trudell, chair, Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers
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Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s blanket assertion that “you can’t let guys like this loose” reveals a shocking lack of understanding of mental illness.
One in five Canadians each year experiences a mental illness. Stigma and fear create barriers to treatment and early intervention. By far, most people living with mental illness are not violent, and when they are, it is usually the result of inadequate or no treatment. Most violent crimes are committed by people with no mental illness.
The Criminal Code recognizes that it is an injustice to punish someone who has a mental illness so severe that, at the time of the crime, the person was unable to appreciate the nature or consequences of what they were doing, or to know it was wrong. People declared not criminally responsible have lower recidivism rates (17 per cent) than the general prison population (34 per cent). After three years, less than 1 per cent of NCR-accused commit a serious, violent reoffence. Persons with mental illness are more likely to be victims than perpetrators of crime.
Reducing stigma and providing help and support are the best tools to enable people with mental illness to live productive, successful lives.
Wei-Yi Song, president, Canadian Psychiatric Association
Feet on the moon
Re We Shot For The Moon, And Landed Here (editorial, July 20): Yes, a small step for man, but a giant leap for mankind? Not! The moon landing did little, if anything, to advance the plight of humanity. Poverty, wars, and the ever-increasing gap between the rich and the poor hum along as ever before – not to mention the slow suffocation of our planet. The plaque left behind, “We came in peace for all mankind,” rings hollow. It was a total disconnect with the reality on Earth then, and remains one now.
If only the kind of commitment and energy in JFK’s speech in 1962 had been directed at the problems facing humanity, a different world might have emerged. Imagine John F. Kennedy having said: “We choose in this decade to end poverty and wars and create a more equitable distribution of wealth, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win.”
Imagine.
Robert Milan, Victoria
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Most scientists agree electrical energy will eventually replace hydrocarbons for nearly all human needs (Fossil-Free Frontier – letters, July 22). Whether this will have a significant effect on climate is still debatable, but at least it will preserve a dwindling resource for the plastics and other synthetic materials that are increasingly part of our habitat.
It is to be hoped that we will also find a fossil-free way of travelling by air and, yes, putting more feet on the moon.
Norman Paterson, geophysicist, Collingwood, Ont.
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