COVID’s unlearned lessons, plus other letters May 8: ‘There has been a near-total absence of both accountability and interest in averting the next such disaster.’

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Did we learn nothing?

Re “The unlearned lessons of the pandemic” (Editorial, May 4): The absence of any public inquiry into the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic is a troubling sign. As recently as 2003, 44 Ontario deaths from the SARS pandemic sufficed to launch the comprehensive Campbell Commission, which conducted a deep review of how that pandemic was overcome and produced a solid blueprint for what was needed to better prepare for the next one.

Yet now, despite many of the nearly 60,000 COVID-related Canadian deaths having been avoidable, there has been a near-total absence of both accountability and interest in averting the next such disaster.

What has changed over the past two decades is the overwhelming concentration of power into the offices of the Prime Minister and premiers, which are staffed by unelected, unaccountable political operatives whose primary focus is their leaders’ re-election narratives. From that perspective, public inquiries with power to require testimony under oath are anathema.

Ron Hartling Kingston

Pension nomads

Re “We need a fresh consensus on the Canada Pension Plan” (Report on Business, May 7): The column states that Albertans were responsible for 14 per cent of the CPP’s contributions while collecting 10 per cent of the benefits. When these calculations are made, they leave out an important fact. My husband and I lived in Alberta for 40 of our prime earning years. We paid into the CPP from Alberta, but are receiving payments in British Columbia.

Any fresh consensus should consider whether our CPP payments should come from an Alberta pension plan, or whether our contributions should be considered to have come from B.C. The number of Albertans living in B.C. in retirement is considerable. The number of people who came from the East Coast to work in the oil industry will be more complicated to deal with, since their numbers fluctuated with the price of oil.

Alberta has a younger population, but that is because many of the older people have left the province. We need to be included in any future calculations.

Isabel Gibbins Vancouver

Capital gains kvetching

Re “For entrepreneurs, staying in Canada comes at a cost” (Report on Business, May 6): Allen Lau is the latest venture capitalist to bemoan the increased capital gains inclusion rate. All I can do is cry me a river.

Mr. Lau states: “Just 5.3 per cent of Canadian founders believe Canada is the best place to grow a company.” I guess those founders don’t care about the generally lower tech-sector salaries in Canada compared with the U.S., or that medical insurance for their employees is vastly lower thanks to the public medical system, or various other Canadian advantages such as an educated work force.

He then writes that the majority of investments in fast-growing Canadian companies come from outside of Canada. Isn’t that a good thing? It means we’re successful at attracting outside investment, which seems to belie his thesis.

Mr. Lau notes that his almost billion-dollar company had a relatively minuscule payroll. Isn’t that a bad thing? It means that the vast majority of the value of the company is being siphoned off at the low capital gains tax rate; how is this fair to Canada? Why should wealth created from equity be taxed less than wealth created by workers?

In 2000, the capital gains inclusion rate was lowered to 50 per cent from 75 per cent. I don’t recall a vast increase in productivity around then. Rather, I recall the tech bubble bursting.

Dianne Skoll Ottawa

A lot of ink has been used lately on the capital gains inclusion rate change, proposed by the current Liberal government. A few points:

In the mid-1990s, the Conservative Mulroney government changed the inclusion rate to 75 per cent. In 2000, the Liberal Martin government changed the rate back to 50 per cent.

Now, in 2024, the Liberal Trudeau government proposes changing the inclusion rate to 66 per cent. And of course the Opposition is screaming. Holders of second properties are screaming. Small-business owners, doctors and dentists, who hold securities in their small-business companies (who have a very low income tax rate), are screaming.

Maybe the Conservatives should insist that the rate be reset to the policy of Brian Mulroney, a 75-per-cent inclusion rate.

I have been an accountant since 1980. On the day before every federal budget, there was panic-selling of securities of my clients, under the possibility that the tax break on capital gains would end, and make them 100-per-cent included. As it stands, even if it goes up to a 66-per-cent inclusion rate, there is still a break. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Craig Cherrie CA (retired); Toronto

Re “How much money is too much?” (Report on Business, May 4): Finally, an article on the capital gains tax changes I could agree with.

As someone negatively affected in two ways by the recent budget’s taxation changes, I have been dismayed by the belly-aching of my fellow well-off Canadians. I have been a life-long entrepreneur, building a global business and selling to my employees using an employee ownership trust years ago. Like most true entrepreneurs, my motivation and my satisfaction were never once affected by how I was taxed.

With society’s multiple crises, the lifeboats are in the water, people. It’s time for those of us with strong arms to do the rowing, and help look after the common good rather than being focused only on our own.

Doug Miller Annan, Ont.

Elephant in the room

Re “No Sex Ed, Please” Letters, May 7): A letter-writer mentions the dismal “1950s sex education scene in schools.” At Humberside Collegiate in Toronto in the mid-1950s, the mysteries of reproduction were to be revealed during classes in physical education – for boys only. What happened with the girls, I’m not quite sure.

In the event, our teacher had prepared for the initial lesson by drawing a larger-than-life depiction of the male genitalia on the blackboard. No sooner had we taken our seats than one boy threw up his hand and laughingly said, “Sir, why is there a drawing of an elephant’s trunk on the board?”

With that, amid howls of laughter, gleeful shouts and general pandemonium, the teacher, a dignified man who always wore a blue suit, quickly erased the board. Thus ended my first – and last – class in sex education.

Lorne Hicks Keswick, Ont.

False idols

Re “Playing the victim card, the Leafs look very mortal on locker clean-out day” (Sports, May 7): During the Maple Leafs’ end-of-season press conference, Mitch Marner remarked that Toronto players are “looked upon kind of as gods.” Apparently they are the type you pray to and nothing happens.

Jonathan Taylor Lethbridge, Alta.

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