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Letters To The Editor News

Letters to the Editor

Email: letters@nowtoronto.com


Transit lost in OMB hoopla

I saw the little shout-out you gave to NDP MPP Rosario Marchese’s OMB bill (NOW, March 14-20). I like the bill, and I like that you called attention to it, but there was a larger narrative in the legislature that day.

One of the bills that passed second reading on March 7, the PCs’ Bill 3, will potentially reduce the gas tax money the city of Toronto receives for transit from the province.

Basically, the rural-based PCs and most of the NDP voted for the bill. The city members who ran away from the vote were back in the legislature two minutes later to vote on another bill.

Doug Howat


Toronto


The better way to Pearson

Not really sure what point letter writer Ed Langley was trying to make about Island residents living near Billy Bishop Airport (NOW, March 14-20).

What did catch my eye was Langley’s comment that he can get to Billy Bishop by TTC or walking, but to get to Pearson means spending money on a bus ride or taxi.

Actually, Pearson is just as TTC-accessible as Billy Bishop. I’ve taken the 192 Airport Rocket from Kipling several times and have always been amazed how easy and fast it is. And it’s 100 per cent reliable, which is more than I can say for the downtown airport shuttle buses.

Kristen Schooley


Toronto


Raising social assistance rates right

A great piece by Melissa Addison-Webster on the need to raise social assistance rates (NOW, March 14-20).

Indisputably right and righteous. Thank you.

Rose Jacobson


Toronto


Men’s rights made wrong

In No Man’s Land, Jonathan Goldsbie writes, “As a phrase, ‘men’s rights’ is no less absurd than ‘straight pride’ and no less troubling than ‘white power'” (NOW, March 14-20).

As a straight white male, I had to shake my head. So the very concept of people like me having rights or pride is not only absurd, but akin to neo-Nazism?

I read NOW because usually it appears to employ bright-minded adults as journalists. Goldsbie may not have enjoyed the talk, and perhaps Janice Fiamengo failed to make her point with him, but the notion that any group can find equality or fulfill its potential by taking away from some other group the very things it claims as basic rights is wrongheaded.

I’m sure Fiamengo appreciates Goldsbie’s help in making her point.

Scott Yule


Toronto


Poop on stoop and scoop

Now that spring has sprung, I am totally disgusted to see every green space in parks and front lawns full of dog shit. It seems dog owners think the stoop-and-scoop regulation does not apply in winter.

And they want parks to be leash-free? No way. People first!

Norman Britting


Toronto


In casino gamble, no due diligence

Due diligence is expected when a company is considering acquiring a new business or entering into a merger or partnership. So why are the city of Toronto and the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation ignoring this fundamental process (NOW, February 28-March 6)?

Several of the American operators who’ve expressed an interest in building an “integrated casino resort” in downtown Toronto are broke.

MGM Resorts is burdened with debt. So is Las Vegas Strip casino giant Caesars Entertainment Corp. Caesars’ stock has been downgraded over concerns that the company may be unable to honour its crippling debt obligations in the future.

Current revenue streams simply aren’t sufficient to continue to meet the companies’ payments, let alone fund existing operations.

If casinos are touted as local or city economy boosters, why are so many in a dismal and debt-laden financial state?

David Selly


Toronto


Shining the light on fluorescents

I’d love your AltHealth writer, Elizabeth Bromstein, to ask experts about the damaging effects of pervasive fluorescent lighting. I cannot even ride on the new subways without getting a massive headache from those glaring lights. And forget shopping malls, especially the underground stores with their toxic light pouring straight into my eyes and into my nervous system. I immediately feel agitated.

The lighting manufactured these days is getting more invasive. There are natural-spectrum alternatives that are kinder to the eyes.

Barbara Sauve


Toronto


All in bed with Thomson and Ford

No one has commented on the one significant fact overlooked in the Sarah Thomson versus Rob Ford affair (NOW, March 8): that both she and the mayor were at a party for the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee (CJPAC), Canada’s version of notorious AIPAC, the powerful U.S. Israel lobby that supports attacking Iran and everything else Israel wants to do.

Most U.S. government officials are in bed with AIPAC, as Canada’s are with CJPAC, which is why the U.S. and Canada are the only countries that slavishly support Israel at the UN.

What’s so shocking, then, about one bedmate grabbing the butt of another bedmate? Looks like just a little foreplay between love-birds of a feather to me.

Lawrence Wilson


From nowtoronto.com


NOW welcomes reader mail. Address letters to: NOW, Letters to the Editor, 189 Church, Toronto, ON M5B 1Y7. Send e-mail to letters@nowtoronto.com and faxes to 416-364-1166. All correspondence must include your name, address and daytime phone number. Letters may be edited for length.

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