Letters, March 27

Opinion

Tough lessons

Re: Educator group gives old-school grading an F (March 26)

The first thing I did after reading this article was check the date at the top of the page, because I knew this had to be an April Fool’s piece, right? Apparently not.

Maybe I’m just a bit too “old school,” having gone through an education system (and parents) that actually expected measurable results, but somehow allowing students to negotiate their own grades seems — how do I say it — crazy?

The world Canadians live in today is much less friendly and forgiving than the one we knew even a few months ago. As Canadians, we need to harden ourselves to face the challenges ahead, and help our young people prepare for the world that awaits them. We need to worry less about self reflection and hurt feelings, and focus more on getting actual results.

Elbows up!

Don McPherson

St. Andrews

Examining Alberta premier’s comments

Re: Hello voters: it’s time to do your job (Editorial, March 25)

Taking the advice of the Free Press editorial, I listened to the March interview by Breitbart host Matthew Boyle with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

In relation to the trade war, Smith says: “What I fear, is that the longer this dispute goes on, politicians posture, and it seems to be benefiting the Liberals right now. And so, I would hope that we could put things on pause, is what I’ve told administration officials. Let’s just put things on pause so that we can get through an election. Let’s have the best person at the table make the argument for how they would deal with it — and I think that’s Pierre Poilievre.”

A few minutes later in the interview Smith says “On balance, the perspective that Pierre would bring would be very much in sync with, I think, with the new direction in America. And I think we’d have a really great relationship for the period of time they (Trump and Poilievre) are both in.”

Clearly, Smith’s comments, especially regarding her suggestion that the U.S. government put a pause on the tariff threats until after the election, is an attempt to promote American interference in our general election that would favour Pierre Poilievre. Her denial of these comments is at best disingenuous.

Robert Coutts

Winnipeg

No special treatment

Re: U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance to join his wife in Greenland on Friday (March 25)

The Danish government has issued a statement that no official invitation has been given to the U.S. to visit Greenland. As such the arrival of U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance and his spouse should be treated as any other tourist. No official welcome.

As a matter of fact, a complete absence of publicity would be appropriate in this instance. I believe that would send a clear message to Trump regarding Greenland’s answer to his thoughts of annexing it.

Jerome Phomin

Winnipeg

The things we need

I’m ready to vote for any party whose leader is prepared to say, “I have nothing to offer but blood and sweat and toil and tears.”

Maybe that’s a bit over the top, but you get the idea. Canada is in crisis right now, and it’s going to take crisis management and a fair bit of pain to get us out of it. We say we’re more like Europeans than Americans in our culture and social conscience, but we’re doing it on American-style taxation. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.

Those pesky Scandinavian countries who are always annoyingly on top of the happiness/satisfaction/health/education charts pay for it with double our consumption tax and 40 per cent higher income tax rates. I don’t know, but it’s likely their politicians aren’t at each other’s throats as much as ours are.

I would also vote for a party leader who would pledge to create a bipartisan cabinet upon election, much like Winston Churchill’s wartime cabinet. That way Poilievre and Carney could have their disagreements behind the cabinet room’s closed doors instead of all those childish one-liners.

Our family has a moderate family pension income which is only indexed to about two-thirds of the CPI once in a while, if we’re lucky. I’d be prepared to do without some of the things I want but don’t really need, if I got the things I really do need from government — good health care, safe streets, quality public education, etc.

I’m just waiting for a candidate to knock on my door so I can tell him all that. I’m still waiting.

Terry Dann

Winnipeg

The need for clearance

I was appointed as CEO of the Canadian Wheat Board in 1998. Due to the nature of the business as a federal government agency responsible for marketing grain to international markets, a condition of my appointment was to pass a background check and obtain security clearance.

On Sept. 11, 2001, within an hour of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, I started to receive secret security briefings on the attacks.

Of course the briefings were highly confidential and I knew they could not be discussed with anyone who did not have security clearance. What I could do however, was make decisions based on that information which were critical to our business and the health and safety of our staff. I immediately asked senior staff to report on whether any CWB employees travelling out of the country were in danger and made the decision to cease trading activities due to the potential impact on grain and currency markets.

Once this was done I was able to report back to government officials on the status of our business.

For Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to refuse to obtain security clearance because he would be unable to speak publicly about what he might learn indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of having security clearance. The purpose of a security briefing is to enable the clearance holder to make informed decisions on matters of national importance and contribute information of value to the government in assessing the current situation as it affects our country.

As a federal party leader it’s critical to make informed decisions, not hide from the truth and say I don’t want to know because I can’t talk about it.

Time for Poilievre to put on some big boy pants and accept the responsibility to get past partisan politics and act in the interest of his country.

Greg Arason

Winnipeg

Brush up on writing skills

Throughout high school, I took as many challenging courses as possible, with the idea that it would prepare me for university. Despite pursuing a STEM major and enjoying math and science courses, I did not find English and social science courses to be all that difficult throughout high school. What I came to realize, having entered my first year of engineering in the fall, was how big of an adjustment navigating written courses would be.

As I made the adjustment from high school to university, the biggest demand was not how rigorous my math and engineering courses were, but how challenging it was to perform well in written and arts courses. With often unspecific guidelines, and minimal feedback, figuring out what professors expected from my work in these written classes was difficult.

I think it is fair to say that while not easy, math and science courses are straightforward in that there is always a clear understanding of what we as students need to do to succeed; practice until you have a great enough understanding of the material to be tested on it. On the other hand, written courses are more subjective and take the focus away from specific ideas being “right.”

Ultimately, if I could make a change in the high school curriculum to better prepare students for post-secondary education, it would be putting more focus on developing strong writing skills.

Shyla Hirt

Winnipeg