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Ontario Premier Doug Ford stands outside his office in Toronto after announcing the cancellation of retroactive cuts that have hit public health, child care and other municipal services, on Monday, May 27, 2019.Chris Young/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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Ready, speak … boo!

Re Doug Ford’s Mantra: Ready, Fire, Aim (editorial): I beg to differ that there are “serious and competent people in the Ford government.” If there were, they would be standing up for what is right for this great province of Ontario and its people. Instead, at every opportunity, they twist themselves into pretzels defending the deeply flawed efforts of an incompetent government.

Nancy Simpson, Mississauga

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That Doug Ford didn’t rid himself of Dean French after his chief of staff bullied one of Mr. Ford’s MPPs to the point of tears tells us more about Mr. Ford than it does about Mr. French.

Brian Caines, Ottawa

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Doug Ford expands his cabinet to to 28 seats from 21. Is this the same guy who cut Toronto City Council by half?

Tim Jeffery, Toronto

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I suppose Doug Ford can take comfort that the cancelled Canada Day celebrations on the Legislature’s lawn mean that it will be one fewer time he gets booed in public. That must have stung at the Raptors celebration.

Sarah Campbell, Halifax

Pharmacare, basic income

Re Is Basic Income Better Than Pharmacare? (June 25): In a sense, this debate is similar to the one over the usefulness of safe injection sites. The hard slog would be to quit the addiction. Injection sites, like pharmacare, would limit the damage and be a step forward. Ideally, and if possible, we should have both: basic income and pharmacare.

Juan E. Muñoz, MD, Hamilton

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André Picard is partially correct when he says a basic income might be preferable to pharmacare because income is the most important social determinant of health. Indeed, basic income’s promise was being realized in many ways, as the Signposts to Success report showed in the aftermath of its cancellation.

Here in Lindsay, we watched lives being changed for the better. Across the three pilot areas in Ontario, a full 88 per cent of respondents reported less stress and anxiety, and 73 per cent had less depression. Three-quarters of respondents to the report were able to make healthy food choices.

A generational fix for poverty is clearly within our grasp, with political will to implement basic income. But we must reject the notion that it’s a choice between basic income or national pharmacare. We spend billions of dollars in corporate welfare every year.

We don’t suffer from a GDP problem – we suffer from a priorities problem.

Roderick Benns, publisher, Lindsay Advocate; Lindsay, Ont.

World Cup exit

Re Blame Bungled Tactics And Cautious Coaching For Canada’s Exit From The World Cup (June 25): Isn’t taking penalties an essential part of match preparation, particularly at the highest levels of the sport? Since when do players ask each other who wants to take the all-important kick, while the coach looks on from the sidelines? This was a typically Canadian “you go, no you go” scenario, instead of one where the kicker was selected and rehearsed well before game time.

Canada’s soccer team.

Plus ça change …

Nigel Harris, Ottawa

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While disappointing for the fans and the players, the substandard performance of the Canadian Women’s Soccer team can be attributed to Canada Soccer and the coach it chose, Kenneth Heiner-Moller. The team has gone backward since he was appointed after their successful coach, John Herdman, was transferred to the men’s squad.

First order of business: Make the board of directors of Canada Soccer 50 per cent women, and then hire a new coach. Our women players deserve better than what they have received from Canada Soccer.

Manuel Buchwald, Toronto

Sidewalk shakeout

Re Sidewalk Reveals $1.3-Billion Waterfront Plan (June 25): Rather than seeing the Sidewalk report as the start of an informed debate, I fear that too many of Toronto’s chattering classes and competing interests will only be satisfied by prematurely killing discussion.

Sadly, if they get their way, Toronto will likely continue as an innovation laggard.

Innovation is today’s public policy obsession but when it is presented, we’re against it.

David Powell, Toronto

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Re Sidewalk Labs Could Make Toronto A World Leader In Urban Tech (June 25): It’s been 12 years since urban planning guru Richard Florida came on the scene, to much fanfare, at the University of Toronto.

His arrival coincided with a great awakening among Toronto’s chattering classes as to how “world class” the city was becoming. Toronto was hungry for what I consider the “creative class” baloney Mr. Florida was serving up.

Colour me skeptical, but isn’t his article more or less the same happy-talk we’ve heard from Mr. Florida all along? While he’s been trumpeting the pursuit of global greatness, the average home price in Toronto has more than doubled, the wait for social housing can stretch to 10 years, and “affordable” housing remains much talked about but not built.

Sidewalk Labs is planning a city for the beautiful people sitting courtside at a Raptors game, not the Uber drivers or the bicycle couriers delivering shawarma to your co-working space. Those folks will be “co-living,” at maybe four or five to a studio rental.

What’s not to like?

Dieter Neumann, Kemble, Ont.

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Regardless of the system – energy, financial or municipal planning – complex, human-based systems eventually become lethargic, inefficient and entitled. They are ripe for disruption, and the emergence of a new system that is more agile, efficient and people-centric than the last.

Sidewalk Labs wants to disrupt municipal planning in the same way fintech and distributed energy are disrupting the financial and energy sectors, respectively. Google needs to rewrite provincial and municipal legislation because it stands in the way of innovation.

Unfortunately, the pervasive defence mounted by the status quo prevents us from having an informed conversation about the right future system, and whose interests it should serve.

Karen Farbridge, Guelph, Ont.

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Leaving aside the sterile, dystopian vision of an algorithmically designed and manipulated “community” that Sidewalk Labs has in mind for Toronto’s waterfront, we should be wary of turning a large chunk of the city into a revenue stream for a private corporation.

John Reardon, Toronto

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The core flaw in the Sidewalk Labs proposal is that it is a solution in search of a problem – and often a fanciful one at that. A retractable “outdoor comfort system”? Imagine the maintenance costs on that one. What ever happened to umbrellas and coats?

Ron Freedman, Toronto

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