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Letters To The Editor News

Reader Love and Hate: Mike McCormack crosses ethical line

Mike McCormack crosses ethical line

Your article went pretty easy on Toronto Police Association president Mike McCormack (NOW, May 12-18). 

Time and again he intrudes into issues unrelated to his mandate, or makes outrageous statements like he did during the police budget debate. Occasionally he even crosses the line of proper professional ethics, as when he showed up in solidarity with Constable James Forcillo for the latter’s arraignment on a second-degree murder charge, announcing that Forcillo should never have been charged. 

It’s all right for him to represent the police union, but not an individual officer charged with a serious crime. It is for the courts to decide innocence or guilt, not the head of the police union. 

The media can play its part in taming this intemperance by not running to him for a reaction every time an incident bad for police optics occurs. Police badge or no, the job of representing the police needs a more civic-minded, less self-serving agent.

Ian Scott, Toronto

White with a cap “W”

Re Black With A Capital “B” by Septembre Anderson (NOW, May 12-18). I’d never suggest that whites in North America are oppressed, persecuted or even marginalized. Bearing that in mind, it would be nice to have an explanation of how a policy of capitalizing “Black” but not “white” is anything less than 100 per cent racist.

Glenn Tilson, Toronto

Princely treatment

Must say, for a guy who once lived in our town, Prince deserved a little more than the tiny space provided to his passing (NOW, April 28-May 4). Giving props to him via the remembrances of a sex worker who poignantly chronicled her life/vocation by Prince was fine but not exactly musicological. He deserved better than that from NOW.

Ardene Shapiro, Toronto

Will the real Michael Coren stand up?

Re Coren Comes Out For Queers (NOW, May 5-11). I sued Michael Coren and CFRB for comments the former radio host made about me. That lawsuit was settled several years later. The Mayor’s Committee on Race and Community Relations, chaired by mayor Barbara Hall, called on both Coren and CFRB to apologize to me and to the Black community of Toronto. Both CFRB and Coren ignored the mayor’s recommendation.

Today Coren asks us to see him as having had his conversion on the way to Damascus. He appears to suggest that Catholicism as an institution had replaced Jesus for him and that that was responsible for his right-wing views. 

Who, indeed, is the real Michael Coren? I must allow that as humans we have the capacity to change, but Maya Angelou’s words come to mind: When someone shows you who they are, believe them, the first time. A riff, perhaps, on that warning about the unchanging nature of a leopard’s spots.

NourbeSe Philip, Toronto

Toronto’s food insecurity crisis 

Thank you for running a story on the dire food insecurity situation in Toronto (NOW, April 25). 

One of the things we looked at in our report on food insecurity was the fact that, in Ontario in 2014, 64 per cent of households reliant on social assistance were food-insecure. This provides an encompassing look at the high rate of food insecurity among social assistance recipients.

Timmie Li, Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Toronto

The best theatre in town right now 

I have been an avid reader of NOW Magazine for many years, especially the theatre section. I rely on the reviews to direct me to the best theatre in Toronto.

The few times I’ve been to Unit 102, I’ve seen some of the most outstanding productions in this city, and find myself wondering why they are not promoted or reviewed in NOW.

It was my privilege to see Jesus Hopped The A Train and Of Mice And Men. It’s clear, based on the audience response and other reviews online, this company should be on everyone’s radar. 

Noreen Starr, Toronto

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