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This winter, while we idle our cars in icy gridlock, our hearts will fill with collective joy as we watch that lone cyclist zip by on a freshly cleared bike lane. Let’s also not consider the increased pollution resulting from purposeful congestion-causing measures such as poorly timed lights, double red lights during low-traffic times, and poor snow clearing.
Daniel Harder, Edmonton
Not every home is supportive
Thankfully, during my teaching career I didn’t often have to worry about communicating student information with their parents. That being said, there were a few unfortunate situations where if a student needed help with their behaviour, that information and the plan we were following stayed in the school.
Some children live in a household that is not always a safe and welcoming place. Perhaps those concerned about parents not being informed about their son’s or daughter’s questioning their sexual identity need to realize that, sadly, not all students live with a supportive family.
Mark Edwards, Edmonton
We should be Canadians first
Heritage Days is celebrating where our ancestors came from. Canadians are Canadians first. We are not French Canadians, Chinese Canadians, et cetera (although it seems that is how it seems we describe ourselves). We are Canadians whose ancestors came from somewhere else a long, long, long time ago.
Let’s not turn a celebration of our heritage into a war. We are better than that. No one condones what is going on in Europe. The point of Heritage Days is to celebrate all our ancestors who endured hardships here together, to make our country the most fantastic one in the world. We welcome everyone.
God forbid there should be another war somewhere else next year and the country we Canadians don’t support should have our Canadians of that heritage banned from our festival. It would be super great if our Canadians of Ukrainian ancestry would extend a welcome to the Canadians of Russian ancestry. I repeat: We are all Canadians.
J.M. Bemount, Edmonton
Russian community should speak out
In his column “Banning Russian Pavilion Would Set Bad Precedent, June 27, Mr. Gerein indicates that “it would be helpful to hear official statements from local [Russian-Canadian] organizations” regarding the situation in Ukraine. Indeed.
Since Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine over 16 months ago, Edmontonians have heard nothing from these organizations. To quote Plato, “Silence gives consent.”
