Letters to the editor: ‘I’ll bet $100 that our politicians will succumb to … the power of the gambling industry.’ Gambling ads, plus other letters to the editor for June 5

Canadian way

Re “Some parliamentarians collaborated with China and India to further their own interests, report says” (June 4): I have been a volunteer in various political parties for many years.

I have recently concluded that they exist primarily as private employment agencies for politicians, staffers, advisers, professional operatives and pollsters, and are autocratic groups which seek to govern a democracy. Now I see that some among them also seek to promote the interests of foreign countries.

Canada has been – perhaps still is, and can become again – a wonderful country, notable for its harmony, peace and good government. Let the desirable and unusual qualities of Canada prevail and be improved upon, but without making this country a mere battleground for other countries to fight on.

Glenn Brown Pickering, Ont.

Build away

Re “Could Canada’s underused public land be the key to solving the housing crisis?” (June 1): “Unlocking more cheap land can allow for co-ordinated projects on multiple sites across a city,” an EllisDon executive suggests. “The circumstance we are living through demands big ideas and new approaches,” the Housing Minister says.

These quotes translate to me as top-down planning. Doesn’t anybody remember the disastrous redevelopments, now mostly demolished, that this kind of thinking produced during the Second World War?

Elsewhere, contributor John Rapley extols the virtues of planning Tokyo-style (”What Canada can learn from Japan in solving its housing and productivity crises” – Report on Business, June 1), where there are virtually no limitations on what can be built where, no zoning bylaws like we have and the resultant NIMBY lobbies. Bottom-up development produces mixed-use, dense, vibrant, walking-oriented neighbourhoods that make mass transit feasible and cost-effective.

So yes to unlocking “cheap land,” but not to give it to developers with top-down plans. Subdivide this land into small, cheap lots designated for housing. Zone none of it.

Let 1,000 houses bloom. No, make that 100,000.

Alan Ball New Westminster, B.C.

Sooner, better

Re “Down and out” (Letters, June 3): Interesting to read a Toronto letter-writer’s view on a new hospital for Windsor, Ont.

Hospital services for the Windsor-Essex region are woefully lacking. The current proposal for a “shovel-ready” project is in place and expected to start in 2026. Infrastructure to support it is well under way.

Downtown Windsor doesn’t have the room to support this. Renovations to existing facilities would take a full generation and extraordinary cost. Our current mayor, city council and MPPs have been elected based on their support for the current plan.

Nice to have the Toronto perspective, though.

David Gorick Windsor, Ont.

New prescription

Re “B.C. drug developers get boost with government funding for new manufacturing facility” (June 1): While the university-industrial complex shows glowing enthusiasm for new drugs and vaccines, the additional benefits to most peoples’ lives have been found to be so small as to be mostly negligible. And they always involve new and unknown harms.

This is not my opinion, but that of most scientists who independently study contributions made over the past two decades of “medical innovation.” Most advances in population health come from improving conditions that afford better nutrition, sufficient exercise and social connections, which are not strong sources of patentable discoveries.

One researcher at the University of British Columbia said the lack of an on-campus manufacturing facility “was pretty embarrassing.” What I find even more embarrassing is that we graduate medical students with little understanding of the basic pharmacology, clinical evidence and safety of drugs they will prescribe every day, an education that has largely been outsourced to the pharmaceutical industry.

Embarrassing indeed.

Alan Cassels Drug policy researcher; Victoria

Ounce of prevention

Re “Women deserve better breast cancer screening – and that doesn’t just mean more of the same” (June 4): Columnist André Picard wisely suggests that “we have to use our cancer dollars wisely, especially focusing on preventing cancer in the first place rather than just finding tumours and treating them.”

Prevention of any disease, rather than treatment, is a cost-effective, common-sense strategy that has often been undervalued in medical research, education and practice. Prevention of illness is also a critical demand management strategy.

Healthy Canadians, at any age, would require fewer services from our health care system, which currently looks like a 10-tonne crane trying to lift 20 tonnes.

Chris Crapper Vancouver

Coming up short

Re “Detox beds in B.C. routinely sit empty because of staff shortages” (June 3): This is outrageous. We have lost more than 14,000 mostly younger people over the past eight years.

Is this how we respond to a public-health emergency worsening by the year? Is this how we value younger generations?

There is life after addiction. These people are not disposable, not hopeless. Many can and will recover, given timely and sufficient detox and treatment.

Alcohol and tobacco still cause far greater economic harm than opioids, yet we reserve contempt for those we label drug addicts. How is that working so far?

Detox and treatment is the hope tens of thousands of families are clinging to. Meanwhile, too many loved ones die on interminable wait lists.

Grace Golightly Duncan, B.C.

House of cards

Re “Ontario must fold on glitzy gambling ads” (Editorial, June 4): Gambling ads, with or without sports stars, should never have been allowed.

Be it tobacco, booze or gambling, human addicts generate profit for a finite time and are often, sadly, curtailed by the product itself. To attract replacement addicts, corporate pushers have aimed to get governments hooked on their cut of the cash.

With Ontario, it seems that was pretty easy.

Mike Firth Toronto

I’m not bluffing when I promise to ante up $2 for the first reading of legislation outlawing gambling ads, raise it to $5 upon passage and $10 for closing the deal.

However, at the end of the day, I’ll bet $100 that our politicians will succumb to the stacked deck: that is, the power of the gambling industry.

Ross Hollingshead Toronto

I’ve never been a sports gambler, nor a casino gambler. Zero interest. I do regularly buy lottery tickets.

Considering my heart condition (quadruple bypass) and my ever-advancing years, going to sleep at night is a gamble. If I wake up in the morning, I figure I’m a winner.

Dan Marchand Windsor, Ont.

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