June 15: Raptors at Rideau Hall? Plus other letters to the editor

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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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Sharing the Raps joy

Congratulations to the Toronto Raptors (Champions, June 13). Hopefully this will become an annual event.

Toronto will be holding the victory parade, a given that the Raptors are the city’s home team. This should not be diminished and is expected of any city that hosts a major-league winning team. But they are also the only Canadian NBA team and have fans across the country. They are seen as our team.

To truly show cross-Canada support, how about a new tradition – invite the Raptors to Rideau Hall (our White House). Let the country show its support.

K.R. O’Brien, Kingston

Chrétien onto something

Re Chrétien Proposes Cancelling Huawei CFO’s Extradition (June 13):

Having our Justice Minister intervene at this point is too arbitrary and self-serving. For justice to be seen to be done, the legal process must continue with a court ultimately finding, as it surely must, that the charge on which Meng Wanzhou was arrested at the behest of the United States is not a crime in Canada. And therefore, it was not a valid basis for arresting her and her extradition to the United States is consequently a nullity.

In short, she will be returned to China as a matter of Canadian law, the United States will have no basis to complain given their motives were purely political, and our relations and potential agreements with China (always to be considered a risky business with hidden consequences) can be resumed. The dragon and the beaver will be again at peace.

W. E. Hildreth, Toronto

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It is unbearably painful to continuously read how Canadian farmers are unjustly bludgeoned by the Chinese authorities and our citizens held hostage under tortuous conditions. To accept that it could drag on for years and likely worsen is frightening.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau can end the impasse and initiate high-level dialogue with the Chinese rulers by sending Ms. Meng home. To do so is not an admission that we share or support the values of a brutal Communist Chinese party. It’s just good business. If the legal opinion that the Canadian Justice Minister can end an extradition process, as reported by The Globe and Mail, is accurate, then Mr. Trudeau should act on it quickly. Or move over for a government with intestinal fortitude.

Ed Cloutier, Mississauga

Plastics solutions

Re A Food Industry With Fewer Plastics Is Doable (June 12):

In our house, we use three bags of milk a week, which results in 12 empty plastic bags – three large outer bags and nine small inside bags. Over a year, 624 plastic bags. We reuse as many as we can and put the rest out for recycling, but surely there is a way to package milk that avoids such plastic waste.

C. I. Blackledge, Cambridge, Ont.

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I’ve suddenly remembered something from my youth in the 1950s. Nobody used plastic bags to line the garbage cans in the kitchen; we used newspapers. As children, we had to fold the tops of a double page over two times so it would hold on the rim and at the end lined the bottom with a couple of pages. It was an efficient way to get rid of garbage and old newsprint. The only problem nowadays is that fewer people read actual newspapers. Though more labour intensive I’m considering reviving this system.

Viviane Hotz, Vancouver

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If 90 per cent of the ocean’s plastics comes from 10 rivers that are heavily populated by poor people who can’t afford waste disposal systems, then we must fund them to implement the systems if we are to clean up the oceans (We Can’t Save Our Oceans From Plastics If We Don’t Address The Source, June 12).

There is no other way.

We are navel-gazing to focus solely on our own programs to eliminate the use of plastic straws etc. and ignore the big picture of the eight million tonnes of plastic dumped into the ocean every year from 10 rivers in poor developing countries.

Dan Gardner points out that this critical factor is ignored politically at home because global waste disposal programs may not draw votes in Canada. But I believe that Canadians’ relatively new awareness of the criticality of waste management and the precarious situation in our oceans will make us open to the idea of taking action, now, to do whatever it takes to turn things around.

And if that means funding poor countries to stop river pollution, then we will.

Jane Bern, Toronto

Noisy offenders

Re It’s Time To Turn Down The Volume (June 10):

Your editorial that addresses noise from traffic, industry and construction speaks to part of the noise problem. Shopping malls, pharmacies, supermarkets, hairdressers, and even dentists’ offices play “background music” that is often distasteful to people who use these services and the workers who are subjected to repetitive canned music.

Perhaps most obnoxious of all is the incessant and sometimes loud music in restaurants that interferes with conversation or forces people to talk louder, increasing the overall noise level. In addition to the health problems mentioned in the editorial, the cacophony is especially troublesome for people who are even mildly hard of hearing – they have trouble focusing on language when there is background noise. Bylaws need to address the noise pollution from this music.

Judy Wiener, Toronto

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Noise pollution is a problem. The editorial mentions cars and motorcycles, but in downtown Toronto trucks are key contributors to noise pollution. And not just delivery trucks but also garbage trucks, street cleaners and, worst of all, the steady stream of cement trucks traveling back and forth from construction sites.

It’s hard to carry on a conversation on the sidewalks of Toronto. Try walking around and see. Is there a way to reduce the noise of trucks? Would electric or hybrid trucks be quieter? Weight

or load limits, speed limits, time of day limits, better roads with fewer pot holes? Toronto can do better.

Mary Attfield, Toronto

Form over function

Re Meet Canada’s Undercover Starchitect, Jamie Fobert (June 8):

Reading Katherine Ashenburg’s article on architect James Fobert, I immediately thought of Toronto’s “Crystal,” that unfortunate addition to the Royal Ontario Museum.

Truly, it is an “immoral” piece of “architecture,” as Mr. Fobert describes it, where architects create “sensational things that draw attention to themselves above how someone actually uses the space.” Perhaps Mr. Fobert could be persuaded to return to Toronto one day to dismantle the Crystal and build a “thoughtful,” unpretentious space, which exists in context with its surroundings and the ROM’s original architecture and where the inside functions properly as a welcoming, user-focused gallery.

JoAnn Breitman, Toronto

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