Colleen McCullough was born on June 1 1937 in Wellington, New South Wales, and spent much of her childhood in Sydney. Her Catholic mother was a New Zealander of Maori ancestry, while her Protestant father was an immigrant from Ulster who worked as a cane cutter.

An overweight, bookish child (she was later diagnosed with hypothyroidism, which causes weight gain), Colleen began writing almost as soon as she could wield a pen, to escape from her parents’ violent rows and in particular from her mother, “a dogmatic, volcanic woman”, who took her to the doctors and put her on endless diets. “She tried to make me into the child she wanted by dressing me up in ruffles,” Colleen McCullough recalled. “I looked like a Sherman tank with ribbons on it.”

^{Jean Simmons, Richard Chamberlain, Rachel Ward and Barbara Stanwyck in The Thorn Birds (1983) (EVERETT COLLECTION/REX)}

Although the visits to the doctor did not help, they gave her a fascination with hospitals, and after education at Holy Cross College, Woollahra, she won a place at Sydney University to study Medicine. In her first year, however, she developed an allergy to surgical soap and was advised to give up her studies. Instead she switched to Neuroscience and worked at Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney.

In 1963 she moved to Britain, where she spent four years working at hospitals in London and Birmingham. While there, she met the chairman of the neurology department at Yale University who was about to open a new neurophysiological research laboratory, and who offered her a job. Officially she became his chef de laboratoire — “which means I ran the joint” — but she was paid half the salary of her male peers and, not wanting to end up as a “70-year-old spinster in a cold-water walk-up with a 60-watt bulb”, she began writing in her spare time.

Her first novel, Tim (1974), about a middle-aged woman’s romance with a young, mentally disabled handyman, did well and in 1980 was made into a film starring Mel Gibson. The Thorn Birds, however, transformed her into a multi-millionairess.

Colleen McCullough wrote 25 novels ranging from love stories (An Indecent Obsession, The Ladies of Missalonghi) to crime fiction (a series of novels featuring small-town detective Carmine Delmonico) and from historical fiction to biography. Her 2008 sequel to Pride and Prejudice, The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet (2008), upset Austen purists with its account of how the plain Bennet sister breaks out to become a crusading socialist and feminist, while the marriage between Elizabeth and Darcy ends in tears.

^{Richard Chamberlain and Rachel Ward in The Thorn Birds (1983) (MOVIESTORE COLLECTION/REX)}

Colleen McCullough did not pick up a copy of The Thorn Birds for a quarter of a century, until Gloria Bruni, a German composer and opera singer, persuaded her to collaborate on a musical based on the book. It was given its world premiere in 2009 by Michael Bogdanov’s Wales Theatre Company to mostly unenthusiastic reviews. Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph complained that “some of the ballads are almost memorable in their syrupy excess”, while others “often backed by flavourless rock gyrations, are as soon forgotten”.

It was not until her mid-forties that Colleen McCullough found romance. In 1983, aged 46, she married Ric Robinson, a 33-year-old Norfolk islander whom she described as “a cross between Isaac Newton, a Samoan prince and a convict”, and who claimed direct descent from the Bounty mutineers Fletcher Christian, William McCoy, John Adams and Matthew Quintal.

Colleen McCullough suffered health problems for most of her life and wrote her final book, Bittersweet (2013) – the story of two sets of twin sisters growing up in provincial Australia during the Great Depression – to entertain herself after failing eyesight forced her to abandon her other passions: painting and drawing.

She is survived by her husband and two stepchildren.

Colleen McCullough, born June 1 1937, died January 29 2015

SIR – If we are talking about waste in the NHS, what about non-returnable crutches, walking frames, perching stools and all the other aids so generously provided to an accident victim?

I took mine to the tip, as apparently cleaning them for re-use is too expensive.

Joan Higgison
Preston, Lancashire

SIR – I do not recognise the NHS crisis as identified on Wednesday’s front page by Ed Miliband and Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary.

In 2011 I was diagnosed with an incurable and potentially terminal condition. Since then I have attended my hospital around 70 times a year for blood tests, consultations and chemotherapy, under the care of a very able consultant and a team of equally able and caring nurses and nursing assistants.

The important point to make is that this hospital was ranked in the bottom division of the CQC league table and has recently been taken over by a higher ranking trust. My only fear is that the usual meddling by the new broom will do irreparable damage to my clinic.

David Miller
Maidenhead, Kent

SIR – I am a senior doctor working in an emergency department in a major northern teaching hospital.

My wife’s father, who is in his mid-eighties, recently went to his GP in Surrey complaining of a fever and cough with intermittent episodes of confusion. He was not examined and was told to attend his nearest A&E department should the confusion return, even though such temporary confusion during infections is a common presentation with elderly people.

Given the well-documented pressure on A&E departments, our GP colleagues need to be more proactive in finding ways to keep such patients out of hospital.

Dr Stephen Morton
Liverpool

Housing benefit cuts

SIR – Amid the fanfare of this week’s welfare announcements by David Cameron, the proposal to remove housing benefit for those aged 18-21 on Jobseeker’s Allowance slipped by largely unnoticed.

The numbers of people affected by this cut, and therefore the savings to the public purse, are small. Yet the impact on each of those young lives affected has the potential to be devastating, as people who have had to move away from home to escape abuse, to find work or to flee domestic violence suddenly find a vital lifeline cut off.

It is very easy for those of us who have had the advantage of a comfortable upbringing to imagine that there will always be a spare room in the family home to move back to, but the reality for these young adults is likely to be somewhat less rosy: it’s a choice between returning to whatever drove them from home in the first place or finding themselves homeless.

This policy needs to be rethought or those affected will pay a heavy price.

Campbell Robb
Chief Executive, Shelter
Seyi Obakin
Chief Executive, Centrepoint
David Orr
Chief Executive, National Housing Federation
Jon Sparkes
Chief Executive, Crisis
Grainia Long
Chief Executive, CIH Shelter

Lambeth understudy

SIR – Reading about the hoax call to the Prime Minister gave me a sense of déjà vu.

A friend of mine, now sadly dead, suffered from schizophrenia and was a frequent caller to both Downing Street and Lambeth Palace. Lambeth soon rumbled him and he had regular conversations with a man he assumed was the Archbishop.

It was, in fact, the gate porter.

John Hawthorne
Devizes, Wiltshire

Tieless dedication

^{(Martin Pope)}

SIR – I wonder if the new management at Simpson’s-in-the-Strand will alter the bizarre dress code.

I once invited a Danish customer there for lunch. We were both wearing crew neck sweaters under our jackets and, on arrival, were informed of the “ties must be worn” rule. My guest tugged down his sweater to reveal that he was indeed wearing a tie. I wasn’t, so the head waiter lent me a tie to hide beneath my sweater.

After this incident my Danish friend could not bring himself to utter the word “British” without the prefix “crazy”.

Peter Le Feuvre
Funtington, West Sussex

Football geography

SIR – Here is an idle and trivial observation. The Football League Championship table is topped and tailed by two seaside towns, Blackpool at the bottom and Bournemouth at the top. I think that is probably a measure of their comparative attractions as well.

David Culm
Littleover, Derbyshire

American students could do more for Britain

SIR – I have read a lot about the decline, for social and political reasons, of the “special relationship” between America and Britain. This wasn’t helped by Fox News’s extraordinary claims about Birmingham being a “no-go zone” for non-Muslims.

However, the relationship is salvageable. British universities are world-renowned and, even with the tuition fee increase, significantly cheaper than their American counterparts. This alone should make more Americans willing to study in Britain, but Ucas and visas stand in the way.

The Ucas calendar is several months behind the usual American university admissions calendar, meaning that US students will already have been accepted and paid their deposits to American colleges before receiving responses to applications to British universities.

The British visa system – and particularly the end of the post-study work visa – means that most American students must head home soon after finishing their courses, abandoning a network they’ve spent years building, which could result in better opportunities for both them and the local economies.

Those who advance in their career should be offered the chance to stay, while those still in entry-level positions after a few years should be given a time limit on their stay.

Young Americans could contribute on both sides of the pond, raising awareness of the high standard of British education, contributing to the local economy, and bringing home an appreciation for British culture beyond Downton Abbey.

Adam Roush
Washington DC

Mature prenuptials

SIR – I welcome prenuptial agreements (report, January 3) becoming legally binding in Britain. Completing one in England is painful and expensive. Partners see separate lawyers, and this favours an adversarial approach from the outset.

This contrasts starkly with European countries that use a constitutional system based on Napoleonic law. Fortunately for my fiancée and me, in Belgium the prenuptial agreement consists of a standard, three-page document costing around 20 euros. All advice given by the solicitor is communicated in front of both partners.

I have long admired the non-adversarial, mature approach of continental legal systems and Britain should take note.

Alexander Tabor
Brussels, Belgium

Unjust punishments

^{Raif Badawi}

SIR – It is right that publicity has been given to the appalling flogging of Raif Badawi, a blogger in Saudi Arabia.

Similar attention should be given to the frequent executions occurring in Iran. More than 1,000 individuals, many under the age of 20, have been executed since “moderate” President Hassan Rouhani came to power.

Roly Harris
London N1

Speaker’s self-interest

SIR – The Speaker of the House of Commons wants to modernise voting in elections through the introduction of online voting in 2020.

With his support, the election of all the deputy speakers as well as most chairs and membership of select committees is now done by secret ballot. However, despite efforts to introduce a secret ballot for the re-election of the Commons Speaker, he has rejected and blocked this.

This suggests that his modernising zeal does not extend to matters that might affect his self-interest.

Simon Burns MP (Con)
London, SW1

No crumb left behind

SIR – I have the solution for Stuart Scholes (Letters, January 26): put the croissant on a bread board, warm it in the microwave and chop it up. Dip each piece into butter, then marmalade, then press it on to the pile of flakes on the board before eating it.

Mary Calthrop
Whitstable, Kent

SIR – Mr Scholes should coat his fingers with his preferred spread. The crumbs will stick to his figures, which are easily licked clean. Failing this, he should consume his croissant as close to his shower room as possible.

Roger Fowle
Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire

Do a little digging to unearth pothole records

^{Hole new world: potholes and plunge pools in the Blyde River Canyon reserve in South Africa (Reinhard Tiburzy / Alamy )}

SIR – Routine carriageway inspections primarily report on road surface degradation. New potholes will only be recorded following their first sighting; subsequent inspections will ignore them unless they have degraded further.

Motorists’ applications for compensation are sent to a loss adjuster who assesses any claim against the most recent inspection report and often rejects it on the grounds that a council cannot be held responsible for road damage that it was unaware of at the time of the damage.

The solution is to use the Freedom of Information Act to obtain historic inspection data for the road in question and include this with any claim submitted; chances of success will increase greatly.

Paul Owens
Tamworth, Staffordshire

SIR – Our council plans to replace perfectly adequate street lights with huge new lights – presumably so that we may enjoy a clearer sight of our many potholes.

Gay Fearn
Haywards Heath, West Sussex

Globe and Mail:

Steve Hewitt is in the department of history at the University of Birmingham. He is the author of The British War on Terror: Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism on the Home Front Since 9/11 and is currently working on a history of terrorism and counterterrorism in Canada.

Canada’s recent experience with terrorism is not unique. Nor is its government alone in seeking to introduce fresh counterterrorism laws and powers. Across the Atlantic, Britain is debating new legislation that would, among a range of changes, allow the government to block the return of Britons suspected of involvement in terrorism while abroad, require Internet providers to keep records of IP addresses so computer users could be identified, and legally require a variety of state institutions, including universities, to “prevent individuals being drawn into terrorism.”

As such, there are cautionary aspects of the British experience, both with the current legislation and with past efforts at reform, that should inform debate over the Canadian government bill being tabled Friday.

Top among the lessons is that skepticism about the need for new powers or laws should be the default reaction from parliamentarians, news media and the wider public. Over the past decade, and across seven significant counterterrorism bills introduced since Sept. 11, 2001, various British governments have preached that the counterterrorist sky would come crashing down without the introduction of new, supposedly essential measures.

Mandatory identity cards were needed to prevent terrorism, Tony Blair’s government warned. David Cameron’s government killed off this proposal in 2010.

Equally crucial, the same voices explained, was the ability to detain terrorism suspects without charge for up to 90 days in order to gather evidence. MPs, including 50 from Mr. Blair’s own party, eventually defeated the measure.

Mr. Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown, tried to bring in a 42-day detention period without charge but parliamentary opposition over its impact on civil liberties forced him into retreat. Among the opponents was Lady Eliza Manningham-Buller, a member of the House of Lords who was head of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, MI5, on the day of the July 7, 2005, bomb attacks in London, where 52 people were murdered by terrorists.

Driving the frenzy for new legislation has been a reactive impulse in which there is a continual assumption that the nature of the last terrorist attack will become the new norm. Hence, new laws became necessary to prevent the next 9/11, then the next 7/7, followed by “lone wolf” attacks and now plots involving jihadis who have gone to fight in Syria. The idea that a new type of attack automatically requires a new type of law needs to be reconsidered. There should be a principle that governments act effectively, not simply for the sake of being seen to respond in the eyes of public opinion.

Finally, and most importantly for the future, there has been an increasing acknowledgment (though still not universal) from the British state that, despite a raft of new laws and agency resources, you can’t arrest your way out of the terrorism problem. Counterterrorism needs to be holistic by nature.

In Britain, this has meant efforts to address what Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau might call “root causes”: countering extremism not through greater surveillance or longer prison sentences but by improving community relations, addressing wider issues connected to alienation (such as Islamophobia and economic deprivation) and, yes, having frank discussions about the connection between violent extremism and certain interpretations of Islam. There must equally be room – and here both Britain and Canada have far to go – for an honest conversation about the impact of Western foreign policy, past and present, as a recruiting sergeant for terrorism.

Terrorism is a scourge but it is not an existential threat to countries such as Britain and Canada, no matter what the doomsayers say. Responding thoughtfully and encouraging resiliency may lack appeal in the middle of an election cycle, but a measured approach may actually bring lasting results.

 

Read and vote: Has Canada drifted into a combat mission in Iraq?

Roland Paris and Thomas Juneau

Contributed to The Globe and Mail

Published Thursday, Jan. 29 2015, 10:07 AM EST

Last updated Thursday, Jan. 29 2015, 1:50 PM EST

Two military-operations experts debate our mission against Islamic State

The Debate

In November, the House of Commons endorsed the government’s decision to send Canadian special forces troops to Iraq to contribute to an international mission to repel the terrorist army known Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. It was to be a short-term mission to “advise and assist” Iraqi forces. In recent weeks, we’ve learned that Canadian soldiers have been laser-targeting air strikes and engaging in firefights with Islamic State fighters on the front lines. Has Canada drifted into an outright combat operation in Iraq? Or is this merely an inevitable shooting component to something that remains, at its core, the advisory mission authorized by Parliament? We have invited two military-operations experts to debate this question: Read their opinions, and vote in the box on the right.

The Debaters

Roland ParisFounding director of the Centre for International Policy Studies at the University of Ottawa. @RolandParis

Canada’s Iraq operation has turned into a combat mission

Thomas JuneauAssistant professor at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. tjuneau@uottawa.ca

There is no mission creep in Iraq

The Discussion

Roland Paris : We recently learned that Canadian troops in Iraq are spending about 20 per cent of their effort close to, or right at, the front lines, that they have been calling in air strikes from those front-line positions, and that three firefights have occurred between Canadian forces and Islamic State fighters.

The parliamentary resolution that established the mission last October indicated that Canadian forces would not engage in ground combat operations. Chief of the Defence Staff Tom Lawson and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have acknowledged that there has been a shift in the nature of the Iraq mission, but insist that Canadian forces are still performing only an “advise and assist” function, not a combat role. They also point out, correctly, that Canadian troops have a right to defend themselves if they are fired upon.

There is no universally-accepted, bright-line definition of “combat,” but common sense suggests the following: (1) If you send armed troops to front-line positions where combat can be realistically expected, and (2) if these troops are calling in airstrikes from the front lines in order to destroy enemy positions, and (3) if they are returning fire, even in self-defence, in order to kill enemy forces who are firing on them, then by any reasonable standard they are engaged in combat.

We are witnessing, in other words, “mission creep.” This is the incremental expansion of a military operation’s mandate. It may or may not also involve the deployment of more forces. A classic case is the role of American advisers in Vietnam, which gradually expanded beyond combat advice to direct ground fighting. Eventually, U.S. troops supplanted local South Vietnamese forces as the principal combatants against the North Vietnamese.

In Iraq, we are a long way from the Vietnam scenario. Western ground forces, including Canadians, still play a relatively small role. Nevertheless, it emerged last week that the terms of Canada’s operation had changed. Canada’s new front-line role – as well as our leaders’ redefinition of what counts as combat – unquestionably represent mission creep.

For some people, these changes might appear too small to worry about. After all, Canada still only has a maximum of 69 special operations forces in Iraq.

This is true, but there are two reasons to be concerned. First, our national government – regardless of the political party in power – must be forthright with Canadians about something as serious as putting Canadian soldiers into combat situations. Wars, especially long wars (as this one is likely to be), must be rooted in public trust. A lack of forthrightness erodes that trust.

Second, while much of the Canadian debate about Iraq is focused on what will happen between now and April (when the six-month deadline for Canada’s current deployment will be up for renewal), we should take a longer view, asking ourselves where the operation may be headed in the months and years to come.

Limited military operations have an inborn propensity for mission expansion, and I anticipate growing pressure on Western governments to move more of their troops into ground combat roles. Consider the fact that it only took a few months for Canadian leaders to redefine our understanding of “combat.” If we did that in such a short period of time, where might we end up in three, five, or ten years from now?

Last fall, I warned of pressures to move Western troops into the front lines. Some pooh-poohed this warning, but it has been borne out by events. My only surprise is that it was Canada, not the United States, that apparently became the first Western country to tinker with the definition of “combat” and move advisers into a front-line role. Canada now appears to be more directly involved in the ground war than even the United States, which insists that American troops in Iraq are staying away from the front lines.

Canada has a clear interest in training and equipping Iraqi forces to take back their country from the Islamic State, but we should not end up fighting this ground war for the Iraqis.

We have learned hard lessons, most recently in Iraq and Afghanistan, about the sometimes-counterproductive effects of deploying massive Western ground forces as front-line combatants in Muslim countries where there is widespread suspicion and resentment of Western power, even among our nominal allies. The deployment of hundreds of thousands of U.S. combat troops in Iraq did not solve the terrorism problem in that country; it exacerbated it.

It would be much smarter to focus on training and equipping Iraqi forces to wage this war themselves, while continuing our air combat mission. We need to be aware, however, that we will face constant temptations to provide more direct, on-the-ground combat assistance. We should resist these temptations.

This is not to say that direct combat would never be warranted in Iraq. But we must not allow our strategy to drift. A series of incremental steps, all seemingly minor, could take us to a place where we never intended to go. Canada has no interest in slipping into an open-ended ground war in the Middle East.

This article was adapted from a CIPS policy brief.

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Thomas Juneau : The government has faced mounting criticism since it announced that special forces’ soldiers deployed to the front lines alongside the Kurdish troops they are advising had exchanged fire with Islamic State fighters on a handful of occasions. Senior officers also confirmed that Canadian troops have been helping direct air strikes by Canada and other coalition nations.

It is important to distinguish between two separate debates here: one is transparency, in which the government has been at fault; and two, the mission itself, in which most criticism has been misplaced.

Had the government been transparent about the mission from its beginning last fall, the controversy of recent days would have been lessened. It is normal for military deployments to evolve, especially in a context as messy and volatile as the conflict with IS. If it is indeed true, as the government claims, that the front line advising and air strike targeting support roles are additions to the original mission, then the government should be held at fault for not having kept Canadians informed of this evolution. Operational security is not a valid excuse; if it is possible to say now that troops spend about 20 per cent of their time at the front line, this could have been stated earlier.

The second debate concerns the mission itself and here, critics, both in opposition parties and in the media, have mostly mischaracterized the objectives of the deployment.

First, let’s be clear that this is a combat mission, and it has been one since the beginning: Canada is launching air strikes alongside its coalition partners, which is undeniably a violent action. Canada has also deployed boots on the ground, through its 69 or so special forces advising and assisting Kurdish troops.

It was not – and is still not – a ground combat mission. This is not merely semantics, as some critics claim; defining what a mission is and is not is fundamental. Troops deployed on peacekeeping missions can occasionally get shot at. That does not change the fundamental peacekeeping nature of their mission. Whether on peacekeeping or advising deployments, these are soldiers operating in a war zone. Getting shot at and responding is force protection, not combat.

In the case of the Iraq mission, it would have been possible for Ottawa to decide that troops were not to go to the front lines in their advising and assisting role, and were not to direct air strikes. Had this been the case, the basic parameters of the mission would not have changed, and Canada would still have been a valuable contributing nation to the coalition confronting IS.

But that is not the issue; the current debate concerns whether the recent disclosures represent escalation or mission creep. They do not; the mission still operates within its initial parameters, to advise and assist Kurdish troops and to launch air strikes.

The criticism should be turned on its head. Constraining Canadian troops by preventing them from advising on the front lines and helping direct air strikes would be legitimate. But critics should recognize that it would limit their ability to fulfill their missions. They should also explain what the resulting benefit to Canada would be.

So what would real escalation look like? It would result from the deployment of ground forces units whose first objective would be to directly engage IS in combat. This is not the case currently, and it is highly unlikely to happen, at least as long as U.S. President Barack Obama is in power. It will not be a decision for Ottawa to make.

To deploy large numbers of ground combat troops would be a huge mistake, moreover: the U.S. experience in Iraq since 2003 shows that it would mostly pour more oil on an already burning fire. IS is a symptom, not a cause: it arose because of widespread Sunni disenfranchisement and alienation in Iraq and Syria. Militarily, Canada and its allies can and must help local actors contain and weaken it. But ultimately, its defeat will only come if or when the broken political processes in Iraq and Syria are repaired.

Paul Christie

Blame politics, not parents, for Toronto’s shrinking schools

Paul Christie

Contributed to The Globe and Mail

Published Thursday, Jan. 29 2015, 12:00 PM EST

Paul Christie is a former provincial supervisor of the Toronto District School Board

The current problems of the Toronto District School Board are not new, particularly as they relate to declining enrollment and redundant real estate. In fact, many of them are decades old and are well documented, most recently by Margaret Wilson, the provincial investigator. By comparison, the salary of the director of education is very small potatoes indeed.
I had the opportunity to act as supervisor of the TDSB for the 2002-2003 and 2003-2004 school years. Interestingly, Premier Kathleen Wynne was one of the trustees that were under supervision. Many of the issues that were identified at that time (and long before) have re-emerged in the work of Ms. Wilson, especially the need for school closures and real estate rationalization.

In my 1971 graduating year from Monarch Park Collegiate, the student population of the now amalgamated board was in excess of 400,000. Today, that population hovers around 250,000. Sadly, despite many staff recommendations, little has been accomplished in ‘cutting the cloth to fit the suit’. If any commercial endeavour was obliged to operate 100 per cent of its physical plant in a 60 per cent revenue environment for such a long time, it would long since have gone bankrupt. And yet, principally for political reasons, the situation is perpetuated.

Parents tend to believe that the school across the street is the best school, in many cases, despite results. Concurrently, there is a segment of the electorate that is nostalgic about bricks and mortar and refuses to accept the demise of their alma mater. Bruce Public School and Carleton Village Public Schools (among many others) have been candidates for decades. Cottingham Public School, also tiny, survives because it is (or was) mainly populated by out-of-district ‘optional attendees’. Some time ago, the Ministry of Education assisted in saving small schools by re-rating capacity. Rated capacity is now much smaller than many former students would realize. When built, Monarch Park was occupied by more than 2,000 students. It is now considered full at 1,350, and while I was supervisor had only 900 kids.

Tiny schools survive because each time they are recommended for closure the politicians at the board cannot withstand the withering political pressure. The strength of the ‘activist’ community leaves trustees – a dithering bunch at the best of times – in an untenable, perhaps unelectable, position. I expect that members of the legislature would rather be poked in the eye with a sharp stick than participate in school closures.

Until recently, TDSB staff did a poor job of demonstrating that a reconfigured and renovated consolidated school could do a better job of educating a child than tiny under-enrolled and understaffed facilities. In fact, there is an ideal size for a school. Something in the order of 450 kids would result in staffing that cannot be attained in a small environment. At that size, a vice-principal appears, a guidance counselor, an itinerant music teacher, et cetera, – providing the variety of programming we would all hope is available to our students. The consequence of all of this is a superior education.

In other cases, the public is justifiably jealous of the green space and recreational opportunities afforded by school properties. In my Upper Beaches neighbourhood, the only recreational space is the schoolyards. Most of these schools have joint-use agreements with the City of Toronto for green space use and after hours programming of gyms and rec spaces. In fact, the City should own many of these spaces but obviously is financially ill-equipped to buy them. But if the broader community-use is funded by the per-capita grant that a child brings to the school for the purposes of his or her education are we not doing that child a disservice by diverting money to municipal needs?

While all of this occurs, burgeoning growth areas, especially in North Scarborough and North Etobicoke, do not get the facilities they need because the province will not give capital funding to the board because of its redundant space, mostly in the inner city, and arguably in more affluent areas.

I think it’s a given that the political governance structure of the TDSB will do everything in its power to resist Ms. Wilson’s recommendations. And while Education Minister Liz Sandals recent ‘get tough’ attitude is refreshing, I anticipate that her colleagues in the government caucus will wince in the glare of hostile electors. It will be intriguing to see what former TDSB trustee Wynne does at that point.

WHAT READERS THINK

Jan. 29: Cold’s (dis)comforts – and other letters to the editor

Contributed to The Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Jan. 28 2015, 6:10 PM EST

Last updated Wednesday, Jan. 28 2015, 6:14 PM EST

Cold’s (dis)comforts

Weather forecasters often get it wrong (European Forecasting System Gets Blame For Blizzard Blunder In United States – Jan. 28). Just ask any kid who has ever been assured that tomorrow will be a snow day.

The lesson learned from this “blizzard blunder”?

Kids, grow up to be meteorologists. Not only do you get to play with cool technology, but you can make big mistakes and never get fired. Best. Job. Ever.

Jean Mills, Guelph, Ont.

………

Re Toronto, Let The Skaters Skate (Jan. 28): My grandson, who at 9 months is still too young to be civilly disobedient, will be the fifth generation of our family to skate on Grenadier Pond. When he is old enough to stand, I will buy him skates, take him to the pond and pay his bail for violating the city’s skating ban. What else are grandfathers for?

Patrick O’Neill, Toronto

………

Re Billing For Rescues Puts Skiers ‘At Risk’ (Jan. 27): Search-and-rescue leaders warn that billing irresponsible skiers would put them at risk, because those who go out of bounds would be more reluctant to seek help.

This ignores the problem of “moral hazard,” which is the idea that if there is no penalty for risk-taking, people will take more risks. More skiers take risks because they know they won’t be billed, so bailing them out could endanger them more than if they had to pay a penalty.

A prime example of moral hazard is the case of a Norwegian snowboarder who was rescued last week in Whistler’s back country. She has since said that she would again consider snowboarding out of bounds. If she’d been billed for the rescue, she might be more reluctant to contemplate taking such risks again.

Ted Cohn, Burnaby, B.C.

………

Award for hypocrisy

I propose an Academy Award for Hypocrisy and nominate outstanding performances coming out of Washington and Ottawa.

A year ago, Narendra Modi was not welcome in the U.S. after the massacre of Muslims in the 2002 Gujarat riots, which happened on his watch. This week, Barack Obama was hugging India’s new Prime Minister as the U.S. courts Mr. Modi for closer security ties.

Then we have John Kerry demanding fair elections in Nigeria as a precondition for military assistance against Boko Haram. Meanwhile, Mr. Obama and Stephen Harper were offering condolences for a deceased ruthless dictator – sorry, monarch – of Saudi Arabia (A Forceful Show Of Support – Folio, Jan. 28). And we have Washington and Ottawa’s unwavering support for electoral democracy, while at the same time embracing Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who took power in a military coup that overthrew an elected government.

Nothing beats last December’s performance when Canada and the United States voted down a UN resolution calling on Israel to open its nuclear weapons program to international inspection. In the next breath, along with Israel, they condemned Iran’s supposed failure to comply with IAEA regulation.

And the winner is …

Howard Davidson, Toronto

………

Get that flu shot

Re Are We Taking The Flu (Shot) Too Seriously? (Jan. 24): It is widely agreed that current influenza vaccines are not ideal, as they have to be constantly reformulated due to the high mutation rate of the virus. That being said, there is still strong evidence in support of influenza vaccination.

Influenza can be very serious in older people and the very young. Older persons hospitalized with influenza often emerge far more frail than prior to infection.

One of the most important impacts of widespread vaccination is the well-documented effect of herd immunity. Even a less than perfect vaccine lessens the severity and duration of influenza infection, and limits the spread of the virus.

There is also an economic argument to be made for even partial protection in terms of fewer lost-work days.

We need better influenza vaccines, but until we have them, getting vaccinated is a benefit – however small – to each one of us. By taking the vaccine we do no harm to ourselves and we protect those around us, particularly those most vulnerable to harm from influenza.

Tania Watts, Sanofi Pasteur chair in human immunology, University of Toronto;

Jeff Kwong, Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and Public Health Ontario; associate professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto;

Mark Loeb, division director, infectious diseases, McMaster University;

Janet E. McElhaney, HSN Volunteer Association Chair in Healthy Aging and medical lead for seniors care Health Sciences North and Advanced Medical Research Institute of Canada, Sudbury, Ont.;

Shelly McNeil, clinician scientist, Canadian Centre for Vaccinology, IWK Health Centre and Capital Health; professor of medicine, infectious diseases, Dalhousie University;

Allison McGeer, professor, department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology and Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto; director, infection control, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto

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Tax junk food

Considering the simple equation that leads to obesity – when energy-in exceeds energy-out – we must tip the scales back in the right direction (New Obesity Guidelines Fall Short, Experts Say – Life & Arts, Jan. 28).

As far as energy-in goes, high calorie junk food must be taxed at a much higher rate so it becomes prohibitively expensive to load the grocery cart with such food. On the energy-out front, gas has to be taxed at a far higher rate, making the decision to walk, cycle or use transit a more affordable and palatable one. With choices like these, our government could put the health and lives of Canadians ahead of pressure from food and oil industry lobbyists.

Mary Lapner, Ottawa

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Can’t force MDs

Letter writer Greta Wemekamp suggests that the issuing of billing numbers to new family MDs should be restricted, based upon regional population and the supply of doctors (Rx For MD Pay – Jan. 28). This model has been tried to no avail in another form by discounting the fees paid to new family docs who practised in urban areas.

The restriction of billing numbers runs contrary to the mobility rights in the Constitution.

You cannot force someone to move to a place they don’t want to live. Ms. Wemekamp and her family exercised their freedom of choice to live in Kingston. That freedom should be available to everyone, including doctors.

Mark A. Greenberg, MD, Toronto

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Paroled too soon

The article Tories Seek Tougher Penalties For Killers (Jan. 27) led me to reflect again on the recent passing of Francis Simard, an admitted kidnapper and murderer of Pierre Laporte in 1970. He was sentenced to life imprisonment but was paroled after only 11 years. Such an early parole can certainly be seen as a solid argument to legislate a stricter system.

While a total end to parole for capital crimes may be excessive for Canada, the family of the victim – and indeed society at large – has a right to know that convicted killers will be held to serve a term of long duration.

David Horley, Ottawa

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Just sayin’ …

Re Under Fire, Marijuana Firm Invented Employee To Dispute Claims (front page, Jan. 28): Globe dudes! Cut the bros at CEN Biotech some slack, man. Every marijuana supplier in my town uses a fake name – or so I’m told.

Just sayin’.

Bryan Caddy, Red Deer, Alta.