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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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Tax fairness? AWOL

Re Small-Business Groups Unite To Fight Ottawa's Proposed Tax Changes (Aug. 31): The small-business community's protests about the proposed tax changes make for interesting reading. This group includes professionals, such as lawyers, doctors, dentists and farmers, as well as real small-business people, such as store owners and restaurateurs.

Clearly this group benefits from considerable tax flexibility, which can be used to significantly reduce taxable income – tax breaks that are not available to the T3 (trust income), T4 and T5 (investment income) taxpayers.

When the Trudeau government introduced tax changes in 2015, resulting in a top combined federal and provincial marginal rate of 53.5 per cent (in Ontario), there was hardly a peep. Of course, that was designed to strip extra tax revenue from the top 1 per cent of tax filers. One can only assume it did not affect the small business community? So who cares?

The broad-based protests by the so-called small business community show where the real money is. Call it tax planning if you will, but it should really be about tax fairness. It seems a little unfair that some of us are paying 53.5 per cent on the margin with nowhere to hide, compared to the material benefits of small business "tax planning."

A. Murray Eastwood, Toronto

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The Liberals rode to electoral success by stoking the fires of class warfare ("We are here for the middle class and all who want to join it"), and many people took delight in the idea that if they could just commandeer some of the money the 1 per cent were hogging, life would be easier for all.

But as the implementation of the plan takes shape, some who thought the Liberals were "here for them" are surprised to find that they are on the wrong side of the class divide.

With the reduction of tax-free savings account (TFSA) allowances, toxic new export regulations, and now the targeting of the 50-per-cent tax deferral on savings within small businesses, the real class divide is between those independent business people who take risks, build businesses, create jobs and export products – and those who are paid from the public purse.

The large and growing minority of Canadians who work for governments and publicly funded organizations are the people the Liberals really seem to be here for, with salaries higher than those in the private sector, vastly superior job security and the privilege of 100-per-cent, tax-deferred compounding of their pension investments until retirement.

It's still class warfare, but the battle lines are drawn differently than some people had imagined.

"We are here for the people who work for the government and all of its agencies" – it just doesn't have the same vote-getting ring, does it?

Philip C. Deck, Toronto

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Re The Way We Teach Math In Ontario Isn't Adding Up (Aug. 31):Fired. Then what?

Re Coach Fired In U.S. Rape Scandal Won't Join Ticats After Outrage (Aug. 29): Once again we come to a situation where a person's past behaviour and public humiliation get in the way of his being hired. What is to happen to people who have done wrong? What work can they do, or must they all go on welfare?

Reuel Amdur, Val-des-Monts, Que.

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Illegal crossings

Re Quebec Works To Find Schools For Children Of Migrants (Aug. 29): I have no issue with Canada accepting migrants who have been through the appropriate immigration channels, however, I find the current wave of illegal migrants problematic.

Canada is sending a global message that we will accept illegal migrants, albeit without a guarantee of permanency. In the meantime, the processing could take up to five years. Some $2.5-million monthly has been allotted in welfare cheques in Quebec to house and feed 4,000 migrants who have brazenly crossed the border illegally. What am I missing here: You can come to Canada illegally, all the while living off the Canadian taxpayer, potentially for the next five years?

The Liberal government must sharpen its message to circumvent the "free for all" status we currently have. We need to hire more individuals to process the daunting flow of migrants coming through Quebec and Winnipeg, and make a worldwide statement that Canada does not take kindly to illegal border crossings.

Brigitte Aston, Oakville, Ont.

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Shaky math

Re The Way We Teach Math In Ontario Isn't Adding Up (Aug. 31): Teachers choosing to teach traditional, discovery or some mix of the two methods? No textbooks?

Teachers having to create interesting problems for solving? Group problem solving in class, but individual effort for exams? Continuing research and debate on how children learn math? Exam questions assuming other knowledge children have, such as how many players there are in the starting lineup for basketball, or even that everyone by Grade 6 knows what a toothpick is?

What is going on here? I am amazed only half of Grade 6 students failed the provincial tests.

I can think of no other profession where the clients, customers or patients are treated as an experimental pool, which is what Ontario's Education Ministry is doing with students. Engineers have standards and tools they need to master before building a bridge. They don't build it, then see if it stays up. Here we have a profession – the teaching of mathematics – which is treating students as experimental subjects as the instructors fumble their way around a subject that appears to be in endless turmoil.

Children need to know basic arithmetic as a foundation for modern life. Mathematics builds on that foundation, and works for some but not others.

Our public school teaching of arithmetic and mathematics needs to get back to basics to help our children have the skills they need to function in everyday life.

David Kister, Toronto

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Half of Ontario Grade 6 students don't meet standards for math proficiency (Curriculum Overhaul Urged As Ontario's Elementary Math Scores Fall Flat, Aug. 31). Hmm. Perhaps the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario should devote its time and energy to improving teaching quality, instead of passing facile motions about school names.

Don Taylor, Mississauga

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Shoots, doesn't score

I was appalled to read that Scotiabank is spending $800-million to purchase the naming rights to the Air Canada Centre, the home of the Maple Leafs and Raptors (Scotiabank Spends $800-Million To Rename Air Canada Centre, Aug. 30). If Scotiabank wants its name to be associated with something worthwhile in Toronto and of benefit to the community, why doesn't it put the money toward building low-income housing, or renovating the social housing that so badly needs repair?

I'm sure the city of Toronto would be happy to put the bank's name on those buildings. Now that would be something to celebrate and admire: The Scotiabank Social Housing Complex!

Barbara Hepburn, Toronto

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