A woman places flowers at a makeshift memorial near the mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, Saturday, March 16, 2019, where one of the mass shootings occurred.Mark Baker/The Associated Press
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Terror, this time in Christchurch
As I sat glued to my TV after the terror attack in New Zealand, for a brief moment I contemplated whether or not to attend that day’s sermon and prayer. However, not going to my mosque would have been the greatest disservice.
It would be a victory for the terrorists who murdered my brothers and sisters. I will not allow fearmongers to deter me from worshipping and practising my faith. My body and soul ache and grieve for the fallen, but we shall rise, stand in solidarity and pray for a better tomorrow.
Qasim Choudhary, Calgary
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We know of Christchurch because of the earthquakes there. The people of Christchurch know how to survive those. They will survive this. Humans know how to rebuild bricks and mortar. We even know how to rebuild shattered lives. But how to rebuild society into a place where madness does not flower, nor violence become ordinary? That is harder.
Robert Hart, Terrace, B.C.
Click ‘Accept’?
Re What Path For Sidewalk Labs And Toronto? (March 15): I applaud your skeptical editorial on the Sidewalk Labs project in Toronto. Technology can certainly improve urban life, but giving a multinational this much discretionary power to experiment in our largest city is inadvisable.
We have all ignored a user agreement with a tech company at some point, and we are starting to learn the downsides of that ignorance. Is Toronto going to click “accept” on this project without knowing its exact parameters?
I hope not, for the sake of everybody who will be affected and the precedent it sets.
Two biases may be blinding us to potential negative consequences: an inherent love of sexy, new tech projects (the companion is a fear of being seen as “stifling innovation”) and favouritism toward the private sector as a vehicle for improvement. Many ways exist to improve our cities that don’t involve ceding control to private companies, which aren’t accountable to taxpayers. If we involve the private sector, we should know, clearly and in advance, what it is they intend to do (Google’s been strikingly vague, as you point out), and how they will be accountable to the public.
Jody Zink, Quebec City
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Sidewalk Labs was formed to pursue a mission of using technology to improve urban life. The question of how we would turn a profit is an important one but has always been one that would follow from how we were achieving our mission. We’ve been clear that we see a few ways of making money – real estate development, technology development, and infrastructure investment among them.
Data is not on the list.
When you try to fit our company and this project into conventional boxes, it doesn’t fit. We are able to invest in ways others can’t, because we are well-funded by Alphabet, allowing us to defy precedent and conventional models.
But that’s what we were asked to do. We were asked by Waterfront Toronto in its RFP to cast an ambitious vision for the eastern waterfront and create a proposal for a new neighbourhood. Over the past 18 months, we’ve put out extensive renderings and plans, hundreds of pages of detail, on our thinking as it has evolved.
We’re working hard, as quickly as possible, to develop something ambitious for Toronto. Once the proposal is released this spring, it can be judged on the merits.
Dan Doctoroff, CEO, Sidewalk Labs
Safety to the max
Your headline asks: Are The Boeing 737 Max Jets Safe? (March 15). Regulatory policy student Ashley Nunes writes that the answer depends on how you define “safe,” and that people who want “perfect safety” should just “sit on a fence and watch the birds.”
That is unreasonable; airline customers know “zero risk” is unattainable. Rather, the key question is whether the risk of flying on a certain plane is “acceptable.”
Sure, customers consider the facts – in Boeing’s case, two Max 8 crashes and 346 deaths within five months. But “safe enough” also understandably depends on several non-technical, “corporate character” issues – customer trust in the carrier, its perceived competence, its honesty, its true commitment to “safety first” – and whether it seems caring and responsive to customers’ concerns.
People must not only be safe, they must also feel secure.
Gerry Kruk, Calgary
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It is annoying, to say the least, to read comments by Ashley Nunes about airline safety suggesting that rather than fly, we sit on a fence if we are looking for absolute airline safety.
Chesley Sullenberger, the much-praised pilot in the Miracle on the Hudson landing, wrote after last week’s Boeing 737 Max crash: “It has been obvious since the Lion Air crash that a redesign of the 737 Max 8 has been urgently needed, yet has still not been done, and the announced proposed fixes do not go far enough.”
David Enns, Cornwall, Ont.
Cellphone accountability
Re Why I Won’t Confiscate Cellphones In Class (March 14): I couldn’t agree more with teacher Jamie Mitchell. As a facilitator, I work most days with leaders and teams in organizations. In addition, I teach team leadership to adult students at a U.S.-based university. In both of these environments, cellphones are a constant.
Instead of banning cellphones in today’s classrooms, and inevitably having to police those who don’t comply, I suggest Ontario’s Ford government look at how we can teach students the concept of behavioural accountability; as Mr. Mitchell has so clearly figured out, teaching students how and when to use their cellphones to enhance their knowledge is the better long-term solution.
For every meeting I facilitate, or class I teach, I have the participants design ground rules on how they want to treat cellphone usage. This process empowers the participants, while at the same time creating shared accountability. Perhaps we could consider a supportive, rather than punitive, approach with longer-term benefits?
After all, students today are our employees of tomorrow.
Janet Gilfillan, Toronto
Brexit, explained (sort of)
Re Bedevilled By The Details (letters, March 15): As I am English, many people trying to make sense of Brexit ask me, “What the hell is going on? Explain it to me.”
I will try.
Briefly, the English – I use this term advisedly, as the opinions of the Irish, Welsh and Scots have never really been considered to be of importance by Westminster – decided belatedly to join the then-Common Market, which later developed into the EU.
However, it appears no one told them it would be full of foreigners – foreigners on an equal footing, no less. So for some 40 years, they made themselves difficult and wanted out.
At last, they took the plunge. They want out, or more precisely, they want to be a little bit in and a little bit out.
I hope this Brexit primer helps. Any more questions should be addressed to Larry, the 10 Downing Street cat.
Alma Javad, Burlington, Ont.