A person walks past shelves of bottles of alcohol on display at an LCBO in Ottawa on March 19, 2020.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Drink up
Re “LCBO strike could herald long and nasty battle over who sells booze in Ontario” (Report on Business, July 8): “More accessible booze is hard to fight against, especially when we now have weed shops on every corner.”
“Weed shops” are licensed businesses that just sell weed. Weed is not sold at convenience stores or Walmart.
Liquor Control Board of Ontario employees do a great job of ensuring alcohol is not purchased by underage or inebriated individuals. They often endure verbal abuse by customers who are not served, or individuals who steal product.
This specialized model provides many benefits to Ontario. However, it could be improved by things such as more locations, longer hours and increased product offerings.
Ontario residents should separate the need for enhancing existing LCBO operations from Doug Ford’s desire to pad the pockets of private business. Is LCBO management working to maximize benefits to Ontario residents, or are they working for Mr. Ford?
Karen Genge Ottawa
Has anyone considered what will happen to distribution for Canadian wineries, craft beer makers and small distillers?
The LCBO gives shelf space to smaller, lesser-known Canadian brands. Convenience stores and grocers would focus on top-selling brands, virtually all of whom are foreign-owned.
Expect to see more European wines, Bud Light and Jack Daniels, and far fewer Canadian brands. Does anyone care?
Tony Hooper Toronto
Here is one Ontarian with a deep and sincere attachment to “our” LCBO stores.
They are mine, at least partly, and do help make Ontario at least slightly distinctive. When I shop there, I feel it is almost charitable as I am contributing to hospitals, schools, social welfare, highways and on it goes, to the extent that an enterprising politician should offer charitable receipts for money spent at “our” stores.
We may be told that privatization will result in efficiencies, competition and lower prices. Am I alone in believing that these objectives are not worth the external costs? I am resentful of this creeping privatization; The Beer Store is already the preserve of a foreign corporate oligarchy.
Keep me as a “shareholder” of LCBO stores. I think I am not alone, although I may be part of an endangered species
Ian Guthrie Ottawa
Bob Nixon, as what was then called the treasurer of Ontario, used to drolly respond in private whenever the issue of selling the LCBO came up. Like so: “Well, sure, I’d do that tomorrow when somebody tells me where I can find the billion dollars a year the province would lose.” This year that number will approach $3-billion.
Our liquor monopoly also makes nearly 50 cents on every dollar of revenue. Perhaps it could spare a little for its employees.
Robin Sears Ottawa
Not enough
Re “I’ve been caring for people with opioid addiction for more than a decade. Here are the lessons I’ve learned” (Opinion, July 6): Doctor Vincent Lam takes the view that some harm-reduction measures are laudable but treatment and recovery are the way forward. No one is saying that treatment and recovery are not important, but we believe they are not enough.
As harm-reduction advocate Euan Thomson recently noted in his own response to this op ed, “We are not in an ‘addiction crisis,’ we are in a mass poisoning that is not addressable through conventional treatment.” Not to mention that conventional treatment can be a Wild West of unregulated programs, with little in the way of evaluation and accountability.
Ruth Fox Moms Stop the Harm, Ottawa
Scientific method
Re “Closing Ontario Science Centre was the right decision, Ford government says” (July 12): I present my credentials as a commentator: Two graduate degrees in science communication; 40 years as an award-winning science popularizer; Globe contributor in science and technology; National Business Book Award finalist. I shall never again visit the Ontario Science Centre.
I took my children and grandchildren there. After seeing countless unrestrained classes mashing the buttons of exquisitely designed exhibits, merely to see what lights would come on and with no guidance from exhausted teachers or absent docents, I realized that the educational result of this expensive facility was net zero.
The students I observed had no idea what they were seeing, and no one was instructing them. In my experience, the science centre is a wonderful concept that has died through slovenly execution.
Bill Atkinson Edmonton
Re “In the battle over the Ontario Science Centre’s future, we must remember why it was built in the first place” (Opinion, July 6): I had been to the Deutsches Museum in Munich in the 1950s, when I was a diplomat at the Canadian embassy in Belgrade. I had come away impressed with the hordes of schoolchildren working on the museum’s interactive exhibits, and obviously preparing themselves to contribute to the dynamism of the West German economy.
Therefore, as director of economics in what was then Ontario’s department of economics and development, I was an advocate of a science, rather than a history, museum as Ontario’s centennial project.
Don Stevenson Toronto
My wife and I visited Science North, a busy science museum in Sudbury that is nestled into rock outcroppings.
During our visit there was a heavy rainstorm, and the roof began to leak in a few places. Staff quickly appeared with buckets to catch the drips, and visiting families moved deftly and understandingly around the puddles. There was no talk of closing the museum.
Is Ontario listening?
Eaton Lattman Toronto
Many recognize that the Ontario Science Centre closing is a significant loss to Canadian society. Others may have not had the experience of being exposed to these marvelous and rewarding exhibitions.
I admired the innovation and ingenuity of the concept when we took our four sons for a first visit. The architecture and creative design in a ravine is extraordinary, a harbinger of what is inside.
It is an experience of opening the mind to innovations that have created the wealth of global society. Possibly our Ontario leaders have not had this experience and resultant conclusion?
Walter Petryschuk Sarnia, Ont.
In a flash
Re “Uptake update” (Letters, July 9): I find a letter-writer’s dismissive response to hormone replacement therapy greatly lacking in compassion.
I remember my mother saying she had maybe three hot flashes, and that was it. Menopause gone and forgotten. That’s one end of the spectrum.
I also remember a friend, then in her 80s, telling me her doctor had cancelled her HRT because of the potential risk of breast cancer. She was suffering and distraught. That’s the other end of the spectrum.
In between, I remember many friends of a certain age discussing ways of coping. Their remarks and advice were comparable to (and as dismissive as) the letter-writer’s: Get a fan; make ice cubes; don’t trust Big Pharma; talk to a naturopath.
My experience? At 75, I had HRT reinstated on the condition I sign a statement saying I understood the risks. Such a relief.
Current age: Almost 79. Every day I remain so grateful.
Marion Raycheba Toronto
Meet the letter-writers
Throughout the late spring and summer, The Globe will feature personal insights and missives from some of our most frequent contributors every Sunday in Letters to the Editor. Survey responses were collected as a part of the research behind A Nation’s Paper: The Globe and Mail in the Life of Canada, a collection of history essays from Globe writers past and present, coming this fall from Signal/McClelland & Stewart.
(The following responses were received by The Globe after a call for submissions in May, 2023.)
I like the diversity of opinions, and the fact that extreme points of view are rarely seen. Even when I disagree with a letter-writer, I can understand how or why the author feels that way.
As far as my own letters are concerned, I was never surprised to see them published, since I did write them. With regard to published letters written by others, I doubt that any letter surprised me, since I understand that opinions run the full spectrum.
I have often been told by former colleagues or friends that they appreciated my writing a particular letter. This happens less frequently now, as fewer of these people are still alive.
Tony Manera Ottawa
I write letters to The Globe to object to a story at issue (for example, the expression “oil patch” should never be used – too nice – not even “oil sands”) and to broach new concerns such as solitary confinement, vaping (I am the author of the Non-smokers’ Health Act, 1988) and Egerton Ryerson.
I thank The Globe for the 2017 op ed by Donald Smith titled “Egerton Ryerson doesn’t deserve an anti-Indigenous label.” My letter about Ryerson on Aug. 30, 2021, was my first public statement on the issue – too late – but I did not then have the background on Canadian and Ontario history to know better. I then became a co-founder of the Friends of Egerton Ryerson.
Lynn McDonald CM, Toronto
I would be careful about using too many letters from subject-matter experts.
Letters should reflect the interesting responses of “ordinary” readers. Let’s look for “ordinary” wit.
Martin Birt Uxbridge, 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