Federal Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre signs a placard for a supporter during a meet and greet at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, on April 7. DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press

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Re Ex-top General Presses Ottawa To Send More Military Gear To Ukraine (April 15): In assessing Rick Hillier’s proposal, Ottawa should ask itself: How can 200 light armoured vehicles protect the international security framework? By remaining in the army inventory or supporting the fight against Vladimir Putin in Ukraine?

The answer should be obvious. Unfortunately, in accordance with what seems to be the standard Ottawa mindset, the right decision will be made after it no longer matters.

Re Poilievre Power (Letters, April 14): A letter-writer ponders joining the Conservatives to vote for Jean Charest as leader. I’ve gone one step further.

I paid $15 to become a member in order to vote for Mr. Charest, in league with several friends. As a former political journalist, I was scrupulously non-partisan for 40-plus years, and still am. I even wrote to the Conservatives and told them not to consider my membership an endorsement.

It is a means to an end: to ensure Canada has at least two viable parties ready to assume government. I want moderate and pragmatic leadership from those who take the political helm, not extreme partisanship and divisive policies.

Just like a letter-writer, I too am a non-partisan who is seriously considering Conservative membership to have a voice in the race. The only difference is that I intend to vote for Pierre Poilievre.

Re Insurers To Face New Tax Hit Around Global Accounting Rules (Report on Business, April 12): The government has found a pot of gold: banks and insurance companies. These institutions get little sympathy, but who really is bearing the cost of targeted taxes?

Be it personal savings plans or Canadian pension plans, private or public, nearly all are invested in these institutions. The more the government seizes, the less there is available for dividends to plan beneficiaries.

It doesn’t matter on whom a tax is imposed – it always seems to end up on the back of ordinary taxpayers.

Re Bank’s Bold Move A Tacit Admission It Waited Too Long To Fight Inflation (Report on Business, April 14): The follow-up question should be whether the Bank of Canada continues to go too slow, given its benchmark rate of 1 per cent.

Former governor David Dodge argues rates have to go up quickly, and that the neutral rate – where the bank’s benchmark level neither stokes inflation nor constrains economic growth – is between 2 and 2.5 per cent.

In a television interview, Mr. Dodge notes that “the worst thing that could happen is that we delay and delay and delay in getting rates up … and then we have to ramp them up very rapidly and very suddenly to very contractionary levels, and then we do risk a problem.”

Re Budget Hits Mark With Funding To Reach Record-setting Immigration Levels (April 8): The Canadian immigration system faces two dilemmas. On one hand, it aims to welcome 431,000 new immigrants in 2022. On the other, it has 1.8 million applications in backlog.

These competing solitudes create immense pressure on employees at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and clients who are waiting and waiting to realize dreams of coming to Canada. The need for workers have never been greater, yet the system is loaded with uncertainties and delays.

What is to be done? Freeze the entire intake for 12 months, deal with the backlog, then start anew.

Elie Mikhael Nasrallah Immigration consultant, Ottawa

Re In Quebec, The Only Thing Deader Than Sovereignty Is Federalism (April 14): According to columnist Konrad Yakabuski, “no party in the National Assembly stands up for Canada.” I’m not sure which National Assembly he has in mind.

At my last count, three of five parties represented in the assembly are federalists: the Liberals, Coalition Avenir Québec and Conservatives. None of these parties advocate for Quebec independence, which to me means they are federalist. That’s more than 100 MNAs out of 125. Add to that Québec Solidaire, which I find to be only nominally for sovereignty.

It’s true that the Liberals, for instance, are not staunchly advocating for federalism these days. I guess they realized that defending the interests of English Canadians over those of Quebeckers has its limits. But given the opportunity, they would quickly revert to old ways, which largely explains why they are polling at less than 20 per cent.

Federalism, then, is alive and well in the National Assembly.

It can be said that federalism is also dead, if not on life support, across Canada.

Our outdated electoral system has been worked repeatedly so that the path to victory lies in carving up the electorate through boutique tax credits and policy positions, then reassembling a voter base comprising of as little as one-third of interested electors.

Even issues like food security and innovation barely register a blip, let alone the thin, fraying thread that connects citizens in Montreal to their compatriots in Vancouver and Charlottetown.

Throwing minorities in Quebec under the bus may be the most evident consequence of our skewed parliamentary contests. When that same exclusion is applied broader, the dire consequences for Canada become clearer.

The cohesiveness every nation needs for survival is quickly replaced by private interests, which often do not align with a collective one, jeopardizing our country in the face of global challenges.

Re Menopause Is Bad Enough (First Person, April 11): In 1993, I published a 400-page, prize-winning book titled Encounters with Aging: Mythologies of Menopause in Japan and North America.

The samples of women interviewed by research assistants were large: more than 1,000 in each of Manitoba and Boston, and more than 700 in three different parts of Japan, interviewed in Japanese. The findings showed that, above all, diet influences the incidence of hot flashes, and eating phytoestrogen products such as tofu regularly protects against their incidence. In addition, fruits, vegetables and some grains contribute to a reduction.

It is indeed the case that occasionally certain women, my own daughter included, experience many hot flashes, no matter how they try to protect themselves. There is still much to be learned, but investigation of diet is key to this research.

Margaret Lock OC, OQ; Marjorie Bronfman Professor Emerita, McGill University; Montreal

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