Readers discuss segregated facilities at Canadian universities, why CUPE is being condemned, the new faces of the Conservatives, and more
Re: Black-only swim times, Black-only lounges: The rise of race segregation on Canadian universities — Tristin Hopper, Jan. 31
I am aghast having just read the article by Tristin Hopper about the Black-only swim times at the University of Waterloo athletic centre.
I immigrated to Canada 56 years ago from South Africa to escape the apartheid that was foisted upon me, a person who was classified as “Indian” and “Asiatic.” Till now I have lived fearlessly in the relatively comfortable belief that I never have to go to any facility in Canada designated for specific racial groups.
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Now I see the spectre of apartheid rising in this fair land. What’s next? Separate toilets, dining areas, entrances, back-of-the bus line-ups?
I am afraid the police will stop me and ask me for my “passbook” listing my race to determine whether I am allowed to be in a certain area or not. I saw Blacks being thrown into paddy wagons 60 years ago for not carrying a passbook, and it was an ugly sight.
I now have to seriously start thinking about returning to the “Rainbow nation” of South Africa where racial segregation has been abolished.
Kanti Makan, Cambridge, Ont.
Re: The UNRWA teachers who slaughtered Jews and the Canadian profs who admire them — Jesse Kline, Jan. 30
Students and educators across many of our educational institutions are being given a false, biased narrative against Israel. They are taught to hate and support abhorrent violence against Jews. They are taught that the horrific, barbaric acts perpetrated in Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7 are to be applauded.
The individuals in our educational institutions who spout this hate should be fired from their positions. They are inculcating our future leaders with a world view that can only lead to disaster. Hatred against one group inevitably leads to hatred of others.
My suggestions to these teachers of hate — move to Gaza and see firsthand what it is like to live under the rule of Hamas. Live in poverty because money for humanitarian aide is used to be build underground tunnels to support acts of terror. Know what it is like to be used as a human shield in the current war. Most importantly, look at the vibrant country of Israel and ask why, in the same number of years since the State of Israel was declared, is Gaza not flourishing in the same way?
Then, please, stay in Gaza. Canada does not want you.
Phyllis Levin, Toronto
Re: ‘Hockey is my safe place’: Teen Israeli hockey players evacuated from their homes tour Canada — Jamie Casemore, Jan. 29
Today’s National Post, as with all media, was awash with distressing news. However, it was a line from the article about the young Israeli hockey players visiting Canada that I found most chilling. How was it that NHL alumni (apparently of the calibre to warrant championship rings) met with these young, traumatized players and then did “not want to be identified” as having done so?
Unfortunately, I know the answer: the boys are Israeli and the NHL alumni were afraid of the consequences of having their names associated with them. Shame on these players and the NHL. How about some backbone?
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Laura Bowley, Belleville, Ont.
Re: Tucker Carlson arrives just in time to exploit a humiliated Trudeau — Rahim Mohamed, Jan. 25
On behalf of a majority of Canadian conservatives, I would like to thank Conrad Black. During discussions at the Tucker Carlson event in Edmonton, his challenging of some of the headliner’s crowd-baiting hyperbole was both principled and appreciated.
By calling out Carlson’s claim that Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland is a “fascist,” Black displayed the pragmatic centre-right sensibility that will be required to remove this ideologically toxic Liberal government from power.
He tactfully described her as “quite a nice lady” despite being “politically misguided.” Now, that’s how it’s done in Canada, Mr. Carlson.
Al Willey, Edmonton
Re: It will take more than a few resignations to fix our woke universities — Gad Saad, Jan. 25
In the first half of the 1900s when churches occupied the apex of intellectual life in Canada, social norms were such that most families contributed financially to their churches as much by choice as by social imperative. Today, universities have supplanted churches at the top of the intellectual heap and universities have secured their place there with immense financial support from our governments. Universities deserved their newfound allegiance from the public because they substituted academic and scientific rigour for the assorted dogmas and religious practices that many people no longer found compelling or alluring.
Today, universities are the ones promoting ideas that are not founded on rigour and that lack public appeal. All it will take, therefore, to fix the problem is to remove all public funding from our universities. Quickly, those schools that survive will revert to promoting ideas that flow from logic, reason, common sense and the scientific method. Government financial support for universities has allowed universities to ignore growing public disenchantment with their product for far too long.
Patrick Cowan, North York, Ont.
Re: Dear children, be very, very afraid of the coming age of AI rule — John Robson, Jan. 18
I quite agree with John Robson in his disinclination to place faith in the moral rectitude of the intelligentsia and would even state that there is evidence to prove that those who believe there is a “positive correlation between IQ and virtue” are delusional and potentially dangerous.
A case in point is the career of the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. It is an historical fact that this man of steel, who many esteemed as a genius, was a voracious reader who left for posterity a library of approximately 19,500 books.
Included in his legacy, however, are graves in which rest some 20 million of his countrymen, or rather, their corpses.
Carol-Faye Petricko, Toronto
Re: Ontario is not prepared for a cap on international students — Randall Denley, Jan. 25
To radically increase the number of foreign students in recent years, the Liberal government put its foot on the gas. Now it purports to put its foot on the brakes by limiting student visa numbers, even while it leaves its heavy foot on the gas.
When applying the gas the federal government didn’t ask for provincial input but now it’s a problem; suddenly, provincial co-operation (and blame) is critical.
The victims of this policy include not just the provincial educational systems, first seduced and now jilted. The main victims are the students themselves, both those billed as international students and those among the declining number of domestic students attending Canada’s universities and colleges. And then there are the domestic students refused access entirely.
It’s shameful. This is what happens when a policy file is managed purely for political ends.
John L Riley, Mono, Ont.
Re: Canada wants to be an EV nation, but first it has to convince consumers — Marisa Coulton, Jan. 26
Manufacturers seem to believe they have a right to government subsidies as a means to encourage the general public to purchase an electric vehicle. This is likely a result of their success in extorting market-distorting subsidies for electric battery plants from our provincial and federal governments.
But wait! There is more. These same manufacturers and their dealers also believe that governments are responsible for investing in the necessary charging stations, the absence of which is a further disincentive for the general public to purchase an EV. I am pretty sure that Henry Ford did not have the benefit of the gold-plated government subsidies handed to EV manufacturers and their supply chain partners, nor the benefit of government investment in gas stations to enable internal combustion vehicles to replace horse and buggy transportation.
Moving to a government-subsidized EV-only transportation system is a pipe-dream being sold to us by a doctrinaire federal government attempting to bribe us with borrowed money. It is highly unlikely that our children and their children will inherit the promised net-zero world in 2050, but they will inherit an obscene debt load that will reduce their standard of living for many generations to come.
That will be the legacy of Justin Trudeau, Steven Guilbeault and the Liberals if Canadians are misguided enough to hand them another four years in power.
Paul Clarry, Aurora, Ont.
Re: FIRST READING: York University teaching assistants told to hijack tutorials into anti-Israel sessions — Tristin Hopper, Jan. 39
The article from Tristin Hopper on the very mediocre York University’s complicity with CUPE 3903’s allegiance with the anti-Israel movement should be another wake-up call for someone to do something about this abomination. The backers of this drivel (tool kit for TAs) should be identified and thrown out if York wants to retain or get back one iota of credibility.
Canada’s universities have become a haven for bigots to deliver their hateful diatribes and York seems to be at the forefront of it all. I for one would like to see York University shut down.
Ted Mead, Winchester, Ont.
Unions have been a bastion of fairness and protection for union members in the workplace, ensuring decent wages and safe working conditions.
By providing members with tutorial materials in support of Palestine “liberation,” CUPE 3903 was encouraging them to violate their contracts. Those members were hired to teach in their respective fields, not to indoctrinate.
CUPE 3903 has damaged the reputation of its union, put members’ jobs at risk and stolen instruction time from students who didn’t go to university for this.
In simple words: Stay in your lane, CUPE 3903.
Sharon Wiesenfeld, Toronto
CUPE giving instruction to York University teaching assistants is like a dentist receiving instructions from a carpenter — not to insult carpenters.
Allan Freedman, Toronto
Re: Liberals melt down in the face of diverse Conservative candidates — Rahim Mohamed, Jan. 30
As the legendary Bob Dylan famously wrote, “The times they are a-changin’.” And so are the Conservatives.
They are growing, very successfully, into a diverse and well-rounded, big-tent party that has a broad spectrum of very smart and thoughtful people.
Sabrina Maddeaux and Jamil Jivani are both brilliant, rising stars who are a great asset to the party and to Canada.
I cannot say the same of the Liberals, who seem to be made up of a smorgasbord of untalented, unqualified and inept people hired only for the DEI boxes they tick.
The hallmarks of the Liberals is their hubris, their incompetence and their hypocrisy. They are out of touch with Canadians and need to go.
Corey Needer, Vaughan, Ont.
Re: Court rules Liberals’ use of Emergencies Act was unjustified, unreasonable — Christopher Nardi, Jan. 23
Many civil libertarians and apostles of democracy cheered the Federal Court decision declaring that the Emergencies Act and the Constitution were violated by the Trudeau government. The Emergencies Act, a legislative overreaction to the War Measures Act, made the mistake of allowing CSIS to define what constitutes a threat justifying resort to emergency measures.
It would have been enough to require the government to consult with the intelligence service, but civil libertarians and democracy’s crybabies miss the point when they are happy leaving the last word to an unelected body other than a court, instead of to a duly elected government.
Howard Greenfield, Montreal
Re: Conservatives accuse Liberals of being ‘pathologically obsessed’ with carbon tax as House returns — Catherine Lévesque, Jan. 29
As the Liberals are openly ideological anyway, and have an aversion to individuality and common sense, it is hardly surprising that they would be inclined to pathological obsession.
Common sense requires keeping track of change in the external world, whereas an ideology can skip the facts and indulge in visions of how things are supposed to be.
The Liberals do recognize that there are certain political advantages to ideologies — as it is far easier to imagine how things are — than to figure out what’s really going on.
Still! As ideology is a phenomena of the mind and not realty, there is always pain when presumption is undone.
Gordon Watson, Rocky Mountain House, Alta.
Re: Parliament’s carbon tax drama is ripped right out of Poilievre’s script — John Ivison, Jan. 31
Three very troubling aspects of Justin Trudeau’s carbon policy mentioned by John Ivison in his column should be highlighted.
The carbon tax is itself taxed by the HST; taxing a tax must end.
Neither should we accept Quebec’s mystifying and totally unmerited lower carbon tax, or the Maritime carbon tax exemption for heating oil. A “national” tax that exempts parts of the nation divides the nation.
Finally, the Trudeau plan to arrange long-term contracts for carbon “offsets” intrigues me as I have planted a forest of carbon-sequestering trees. But I don’t benefit from sale of the carbon offset, and I’m very confident that the next federal government will not want to be tied to such a long-term commitment.
Charles Hooker, East Garafraxa, Ont.
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