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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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Wrong. For 14 years

Re Loblaw Admits To Bread Price-Fixing Scheme (Dec. 20): In the face of a Competition Bureau criminal probe into bread price fixing, Galen G. Weston, chairman of Loblaw, offers to co-operate with the probe, and thus avoids criminal charges involving the grocery chain.

Having decided on this approach, after more than 14 years of price fixing by Loblaw, he states with surprising frankness, "This sort of behaviour is wrong."

He might have added, "But, hey, let them eat cake. It's on now at regular price."

Lynda Lange, Toronto

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The irony of this gesture on the part of Galen G. Weston is that, while the $25 gift card makes for good PR, it will not help those people most affected by overpriced bread for the past 14 years.

Now, if everyone who has the wherewithal to claim this prize promptly donates it to their local food bank, then some good can come out of this sad example of corporate greed.

Paul F. Farley, Tottenham, Ont.

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Millennial angst

Your paper has run several articles lately about the millennials and their trials and tribulations (Making It As A Millennial – letters, Dec. 20; Anxious, Educated, Ambitious: The Millennials Are Rising – Dec. 16).

This is the generation that was raised by too many ex-flower children, a cohort which brought us the soccer team that didn't keep score and the baseball team that lost every game but still received a trophy for participating – didn't want to hurt their self-esteem.

Then there's the universities that have word police and safe spaces so that the little darlings won't be overly stressed.

And what of the postsecondary courses that do nothing to prepare students for jobs that actually need to be filled?

These youngsters are graduating with record student-loan debt so that they can earn a fine arts degree? Really? And before you say it, art is good and necessary, however, making a living from art is difficult at best. They'd be much better off at a trade school learning how to repair air conditioners or weld seamless pipe.

And once these youngsters leave their protective bubble and enter the real world, they are clueless. It's not their fault, they are victims of their cocoon-like environment.

Our society is doing them a great disservice. But there is no political will to change course.

Western civilization fiddles while the rest of the world waits for the implosion.

David Pavlich, Winnipeg

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My baby boomer generation — the business leaders, the political leaders, the thought leaders — has created the very difficult socio-economic environment with which the millennials must cope.

Whether through the unintended negative effects of globalization, the unintended negative effects of too much job-killing technology deployed within such a tiny time frame, or whether through simple, corporate greed and an unrelenting push for ever-increasing, quarter-over-quarter profit, this young generation has been handed by its elders the very short end of a nasty economic stick.

I work with young people – university and late high school – at a golf course where I volunteer my time. They are, to a person, bright, eager, informed and possessed of a sponge-like desire and willingness to listen and learn. But they are also hugely insecure about what their future may hold. What to some might appear to be an outward show of bravado very often masks a form of anxiety, even depression, because of that uncertainty. We have failed them.

My generation, now in the twilight of its authority, has reason to feel shame.

Al Coates, Cambridge, Ont.

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CBC made a bad deal

Re Rogers Media, CBC Sign New Seven-Year Agreement For HNIC (Sports, Dec. 20): The CBC has announced an extension of the contract with Rogers to provide free distribution of hockey broadcasts where Rogers keeps all the revenue and gives the CBC nothing.

This is not appropriate. The public broadcaster should not be using our resources to increase the reach and profitability of a private broadcaster.

It is true that Hockey Night in Canada became a national institution in the decades it was part of the CBC's offerings.

However, even when HNIC was a CBC property – and the advertising revenue was supporting other public broadcasting efforts – there were serious questions asked about whether professional sport was an activity that needed the public broadcaster.

It was often suggested that the private sector could do the same job and the CBC could devote the time and effort expended on HNIC in pursuit of its mandate to unite Canadians. Rogers has shown that this is in fact true – by outbidding the CBC and continuing to offer the same product to Canadians.

Michael Greason, Toronto

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Privacy and the law

Re Nfld. Premier Gave Police Tip On Murder Suspect: Court Documents (Dec. 20): Would there be any question of keeping any of this information "under wraps" if it didn't involve a high profile politician's family?

Who, caught up in this sordid mess, wouldn't want privacy? Would they get it?

Helga Simpson, St. John's

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What public interest is there in publishing this story? A man did the right thing and also sought to protect his daughter.

Show some respect.

Trish Crowe, Kingston

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Women at the helm

Letter writer John Ellis's reminisces about the Ottawa Women's Credit Union (OWCU) bring to mind some history of what's been reported to be the world's first all-women's credit union. (For, By Women – letters, Dec. 18; Le Salon – A Bank For Women – Opens; Moment in Time, Dec. 12, 1966).

In 1941, 21 women in High River, Alta., received their charter for Pioneer Savings and Credit Union. Similar to the OWCU, which opened in 1980, all its customers, directors and employees were women.

Under its first president, Elsie MacLeod, Pioneer was managed so well that it did not have any loans default, even though the Great Depression had just ended and Canada was embroiled in a world war.

In contrast, readers may appreciate the dry humour of the author of a history of Pioneer, who notes that in 1953 "after taking a year to get their loans in order, the men's Highwood Credit Union amalgamated with Pioneer."

It may also have taken them a year to swallow their pride and ask for help?

Ian Glassford, Edmonton

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