Letters to the editor: 'We are sitting on vast sums of untaxed wealth.' Real estate value amid the housing crisis, plus … – The Globe and Mail

Path to peace

Re “Israelis and Palestinians are both trapped by the dangerous fantasies of history” (Opinion, Jan. 6): What a compelling and thoughtful piece. This is the message that should be reverberating through the halls of academe, rather than chants and rhetoric supporting one side or the other.

I believe nobody is on the high road in this war, and everyone is suffering.

Brenda Taylor Surrey, B.C.

One of the best analyses of the conflict I have seen anywhere. I find it balanced, historically informed and sensitive to the narratives so deeply embedded in the consciousness of both sides.

It is deeply empathetic to the pain and grief imposed upon both Israelis and Palestinians. It also points to a way forward that should be taken if this tragic situation is ever to be resolved.

Required reading for all, observers and participants alike.

Conrad Brunk Waterloo, Ont.

To be determined

Re “Taiwan’s sorrow: China, the march of history and the inevitable clash” (Opinion, Jan. 6): The point that Taiwan is subject to historical and structural forces greater than itself is well taken. But I believe the historically driven fatalism at the heart of that point substitutes reality with a clear answer.

Taiwan lives in a constant state of ambiguity: on questions of identity, international engagement, its demographic future and cross-strait relations. The search for answers to a puzzle that we have not yet solved, but also not yet failed to solve, should engage with this ambiguity.

The international community, Taiwan and China will all have a say in how this develops. Nothing is foretold.

D’Arcy White New Taipei City, Taiwan

Next generation

Re “Is a bedroom for the cat a sign of Canada’s new housing aristocracy?” (Report on Business, Jan. 6): As a geriatric millennial, this Gen X-boomer beef brought to mind the classic line from Disney’s 1970 film The Aristocats: “Ladies don’t start fights, but they can finish them.” Younger Globe readers may also recognize this vigilante sentiment from a certain Taylor Swift song.

It’s pretty simple: Numbers don’t lie. Younger Canadians have got the votes. We’ll tell others how it ends.

Nathan Hume Vancouver

Many members of my generation know that we have amassed unexpected wealth simply because we bought houses when we were younger. It’s what young couples did in the 1970s and 1980s: We got married, lived in an apartment, then bought a house.

We also know that we were fortunate to be comfortably settled before the era of hyper housing inflation created an unprecedented number of millionaires amongst us. We are sitting on vast sums of untaxed wealth while the support systems upon which we rely are breaking down, because young and middle-aged workers can’t afford to live and work in our cities.

Many of us did not retire our sense of responsibility when we retired from the labour force. We should support contributor Paul Kershaw’s call to action.

Michael Pennock Victoria

Re “The harsh truth about your pensions: None of them are sustainable” (Report on Business, Jan. 6): I never wanted the Canada Pension Plan.

The CPP reduced my ability to invest in Canadian companies too small to interest pensions. Companies such as Zenon Environmental and Trojan Technologies, which did good things for humanity, were sold to U.S. multinationals because they could not raise enough capital here.

I could not opt out of the CPP, so I considered anything received from it as a bonus that could not be counted on. I do not regret that decision. Younger generations would be prudent to take the same course.

The whole rationale for pensions should be revisited. Ambitious young people need all the cash flow at their disposal to fund accommodation, education, investing, businesses or starting a family. If they are successful, they would not need pensions.

Why would Bill Gates or Taylor Swift want one? I believe compulsory pensions punish the young and dull Canada’s prospects as a nation.

John Newell Toronto

On reconciliation

Re “How reconciliation is tied up in the Ring of Fire” (Report on Business, Jan. 6): For the members of Marten Falls First Nation who support it, critical minerals exploitation in partnership with private enterprise is seen as a last resort to clamber out of poverty and social problems in a context where the federal government “robbed Indigenous peoples of almost all of their traditional territories,” didn’t deliver many of the basic services promised and did not share revenues from resource exploitation; the provincial government dammed rivers on their territory with no consultation or sharing of economic benefits, destroying traditional hunting and fishing grounds in the process.

The term “reconciliation” means many things to many people, but I’m certain that resorting to resource exploitation with private companies, as a way of trying to climb out of the poverty and underdevelopment that Canadian governments have left them in, is not one of the definitions. Not even the people quoted mention the word “reconciliation.”

Marisa Berry Méndez Montreal

History lesson

Re “How George Brown helped create Canada in spite of himself” (A Nation’s Paper, Jan. 6): Writer John Ibbitson deftly characterizes Globe founder George Brown as “solid, mutton-chopped, determined, stiff-necked, hot-tempered, principled.” He terms Brown’s political opponent John A. Macdonald “the very opposite,” which implies that Macdonald lacked not only facial hair but principles.

A further assessment would grant Macdonald his own principles, including a conviction that English and French, Protestants and Catholics, must work together as equals in governing Canada. But Brown, as is acknowledged, was virulently anti-French and anti-Catholic for many years, until his marriage to Anne Nelson Brown.

Macdonald put principle into practice through his political partnership with George-Étienne Cartier, a major reason why he became prime minister and Brown didn’t.

Roy MacSkimming Perth, Ont.

Around the time of George Brown’s ascendancy, my great-granddaddy arrived from Britain with his family. For services to the British crown, he received a grant of land near Lake Simcoe in Ontario.

He erected a large house on a clearing in the forest. He also believed “everything was newborn” as they “carved frontier farms out of forests.”

The newcomers couldn’t understand why existing residents of the land were so upset with this obstacle set plumb in the middle of an ancient trade route. Now Indigenous peoples are broadening our perspectives, though progress is sometimes slow.

Geoff Hoare Vancouver

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Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Keep letters to 150 words or fewer. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com

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