If only city planners would consider seniors in their designs
Thank you so much for the heartwarming and much needed article by Katie Daubs. The seniors are portrayed as they should be — as intelligent, with it, and wise. They are people capable of high level conversations with much experience and interesting stories to tell. What they need to bring out these fine qualities is intergenerational socialization, mental stimulation and physical activity.
How much would we save in health care, long-term care, and slow deaths by loneliness if only city planners would consider seniors in their designs. We don’t want to be warehoused, not even in pretty places with great meals and a shopping bus. We need to be part of the neighbourhood; the neighbourhoods being destroyed by current provincial mandates.
Gail Rutherford, Etobicoke
Study was conducted for the building industry’s lobby group
Provincial goal of building 1.5 million homes will not be realized without adequate land supply, Dec. 16
“We now have third-party verification that this policy change (the provincial government’s decision to rescind official plans under the 2020 Growth Plan and “reset” them to lands requested by lower/single tier municipalities) will undermine land supply for new development.” Really! How is a study conducted for the building industry’s lobby group considered to be an independent study?
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And “In October the province made a unilateral decision to reverse the expanded official plans and ‘reset’ them to the lands that were only asked for by the municipalities — effectively not including the extra lands the province had added.”
But wasn’t the province’s original decision to expand the boundaries without consultation with the municipalities the original “unilateral decision?”
We need to be careful to challenge spurious claims by lobbyists when they try to rewrite history.
Geoff Kettel and Cathie Macdonald, Co-Chair Federation of North Toronto Residents Associations, Toronto
Information was missing from Israel-Hamas war editorial
While I agree with the premise of this opinion piece, in writing that “ … following the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust that Hamas terrorists carried out on Oct. 7,” should have been followed by, “and the worst case of mass murder, genocide currently being carried out by the Israeli government upon the innocent citizens of Gaza since Oct. 7.”
Ray Phipps, Markham
Being inclusive isn’t ‘splitting hairs’
My name is Lila and I’m in Grade 8. I wanted to address Jennifer Cole’s opinion piece on how we should greet each other during the holiday season.
Cole argues that it’s not important whether we say “Merry Christmas” or “happy holidays,” especially with the problems in the world right now. In my opinion, given the current circumstances, we should be more mindful than ever about how we address people this time of year.
From my own experience (as a Jew) when I am told to have a Merry Christmas I don’t feel as fully seen as when I’m told to have happy holidays. Almost as if I am invisible. This might not only happen for me, but it also might also happen for some Canadians who are Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist or other non-Christian religions. You say that over half of Canadians prefer merry Christmas. That’s not a surprise given that Canada is more than 60 per cent Christian.
This isn’t “splitting hairs.” It’s about seeing the people around you.
Lila Jaye, Hamilton
Who is the ‘extremist’?
Premier Doug Ford is succumbing to his worst instincts in doubling down on his bid to built Highway 413. He accuses environment minister Steven Guilbeault of being “extremist” because the federal government is requiring a full environmental assessment of the Highway 413 project.
The Supreme Court recently and specifically ruled that the federal government has jurisdiction to review projects to ensure that environmental impacts are avoided or mitigated.
It is the Ontario government that is using extreme arguments to justify a project that is unnecessary. Changes to how the already-built hwy. 407 operates would provide a better solution to traffic problems that the Highway 413 is supposed to solve. Building Highway 413 will exclusively benefit land speculators in Peel Region. It will weaken agriculture on some of our best farmland and will compromise the integrity of the Greenbelt.
Ford has learned nothing, apparently, from mistakes in judgment he made in 2023 and is determined to repeat them in 2024.
Andrew Stewart, Toronto
Holocaust education is not just another history course
In the late 1970s and 1980s, while teaching history for the Peel District School Board, I introduced a course entitled “Facing History and Ourselves,” created and served by a group out of Boston.
The basis of the course was to teach students to be responsible citizens by confronting their own prejudices and idiosyncrasies. We offered the course in Grade 11 and a highlight was always when a Holocaust survivor spoke to the students.
About 40 years later, long after I had retired from teaching, I was having lunch at a restaurant when I was accosted by a man in his 50s who recognized me. I didn’t recognize his face or even his name, but as he said, how could I, given that I had had so many students over the course of my career, and he had had only a few teachers. He then told me that the high school class he most clearly remembered was the course I taught him in Grade 11 and the Holocaust survivor who spoke to his class.
He told me about the impact that the man whose name he could not remember had on him and how he had become a social activist as an adult. Holocaust education is more than just teaching about a single albeit history-changing event, it is about how a person thinks about her/his role in society, what being an active participant in a democratic society means, how important it is to be aware and seek truths.
Holocaust education when done correctly can be the single most important subject a student living in a democracy can take. Teachers need to be properly trained to be able to ask and answer the hard questions that arise.
I hope that whatever course is introduced will take into account that this is not just another history course, but an important part of the education system.
Stephen Bloom, Toronto
