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Express your views on global press freedom

On May 4, as part of its ingoing coverage of World Press Freedom Day, The Globe and Mail will devote the Opinion Section to examining the state of press freedom around the globe. We invite letter writers to share your views on the role of a free press, and will publish a cross-section of responses in the Letters to the Editor section on May 4. Letters addressing the role of a free press should be submitted no later than April 29, and be kept under 200 words. Letters to the editor must include a name and city of residence. E-mail: letters@globeandmail.com

Open this photo in gallery:

A map of the proposed Trans Mountian pipeline expansion as the National Energy Board releases the board's reconsideration report on marine shipping related to the Trans Mountain expansion project, in Calgary on Feb. 22, 2019.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press

Pipeline showdown

Between countries, we have seen international conflicts, disagreements, fights and even wars over the issue of oil and its control, but provinces raging against each other within one federation?

Within hours of the UCP win in Alberta, Quebec’s Premier, while congratulating Jason Kenney, says in the same breath that “There is no social acceptability for a new oil pipeline in Quebec.”

This is one of the burning issues the UCP built its platform on to win, and the premier-designate of Alberta came back hard: “We don’t think it’s reasonable for other provinces like Quebec to take our equalization money, while opposing pipeline projects that can help us to pay the bills within the federation.”

B.C.’s Premier did not react in his usual way, even showing his willingness to talk things out with Alberta, whereas Mr. Kenney reiterated his commitment to implementing Alberta’s “turn off the tap” law to stop oil and gas shipments to British Columbia.

Canada and all its units should work together to find intraprovincial solutions in an amicable, sensible way. Extreme divisiveness and acrimony among the provinces on this or any other issue will not take us anywhere, but will contribute to weakening the forte of federation. It appears the fight will be ugly. Sanity should prevail.

Anas Khan, Beaumont, Alta.

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Who will win the pipeline debates? Alberta vs. B.C. vs. the Federal Government: Kenney vs. Horgan vs. Trudeau. Win-win-win solutions are available. Here’s one: Run a pipeline from the Alberta oil sands to the B.C. border. Build a refinery on the B.C. side, fed by the Alberta pipeline. Construct one or more pipelines on the B.C. side to reach ports and outlets.

The result? Alberta production reaches out-of-province markets; B.C. sells refined petroleum to foreign and domestic markets and creates employment.

Canada wins with jobs, refined petroleum sold at top prices, and minimized environmental risk.

Robert H. Barrigar, Victoria

Russiagate, the sequels

The Meuller report apparently found no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian forces to influence the U.S. presidential election (Forecast: Misinformation – letters, April 18). That gets Donald Trump off the hook, but it does not mean that Vladimir Putin’s hackers did not use the Internet to attempt to sway voters away from Hillary Clinton. Their success in tipping the election toward Mr. Trump, after their earlier success in influencing the Brexit vote, was another coup in destabilizing the West, and we can expect more of the same as other countries go to the polls.

Michael Moore, Toronto

Caring for caregivers

Re The Burden Of Care (April 13): Patient care has gravitated beyond family capability in contemporary society. Grandparents, as pointed out in Zosia Bielski’s excellent article last Saturday, no longer get sick and pass on in a relatively short period. Thanks to advances in medicine, they now live on for many years as an “aged/infirmed” generation with needs that require professional attention designed and delivered by patient advocates and navigators.

We live in a 21st-century health-care economy with a 19th-century “good daughter” caregiver mentality. Governments are intent on containing health-care expenditures by “guilting” family members into becoming ad hoc unpaid caregivers for “aged/infirm” parents and grandparent at considerable cost to overall family health, and the stress it places on the potential for productive careers in the workplace.

John G. Kelly, Guelph, Ont.

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Lauding efforts to recognize caregivers with massages, identification badges, and binders plays into a broad diversionary tactic.

Family caregivers need government-funded services that will significantly diminish the time and energy they spend on caregiving. The small amounts of government funding directed to non-profits that orchestrate peer support and education are insulting. Empowering and supporting family caregivers is the rhetoric; austerity is the practice.

It is not lack of know-how, or emotional support from peers, that is most urgent from the point of view of caregivers. It is a turn toward collective sharing of the burden of caring for the aging and the vulnerable.

Jennifer Henderson, Ottawa

Pointless? Imaginative

Re Hudson Yards, New York’s $25-Billion Megaproject, Proves Corporate Development Does Not Make A Great City (April 13): When the Eiffel Tower was first proposed, French intellectuals protested. The press published outraged critiques, describing it as a “useless monstrosity,” and when it was complete, Guy de Maupassant, the celebrated writer, protested by eating at the restaurant in the tower, declaring that he chose this location because it was the only place in Paris that he could not see the Tower.

What a pity that The Vessel, the newly opened icon of the Hudson Yards project in New York, does not have a restaurant at its top with a place reserved for those who agree with architecture critic Alex Bozikovic’s article. They could use it to meet to complain about “giant extravagantly pointless” objects. The Eiffel Tower, the Leaning Tower of Pisa and Bernini’s Colonnade in Rome perhaps, to mention just a few?

As they glumly sip cappuccino, they should take care to keep their gaze on the roof of the mall Mr. Bozikovic highlighted in his critique of The Vessel, because if they looked around, their mood would darken even more as they beheld an astonishing, three-dimensional, Escher-like world, with people delighting in poetry-in-motion as they explore this wonderfully imaginative structure, enjoying stunning views of midtown Manhattan and west to the Hudson River, with boats and helicopters drifting by, framed by astonishing gravity-defying stairways.

Stanis Smith, architect, Burnaby, B.C.

Epiphany in the ashes

I had an epiphany this week. When did a fire destroying part of an historic, beautiful, man-made building become more newsworthy, more lamented, more important, more talked about than the loss of ancient glaciers? Than the loss of huge forests? Than the flooding of massive areas of land? Than the erosion of coastlines, the loss of species? All of these things are linked to the climate change humans are fuelling. Why is something man-made more cherished and more valued?

What does this say about our values, priorities, and future?

Joan Rowan, Coldstream, B.C.

Red, red courage

Re Red Lipstick’s Enduring Appeal (Opinion, April 13): Your article reminded me of my aunt, who was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at 18. She taught school, rarely took a sick day, maintained her independence, and died at 85.

When she put on her red lipstick, she said that she was putting on her red badge of courage.

Vicki Lowenberger, Queenston, Ont.

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

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