December 2007

Martin totally ignores the economic benefit of the upstream, or supply side, of the industry. As many as 2,200 specialized firms in 400 localities across Canada help keep the domestic industry efficient, and many of these are exporters that supply the mining industries of some 100 other countries. Mining supply is an urban industry: Toronto, through specialized finance, brokerage, accounting, legal consulting, manufacturing, and other businesses, benefits tremendously from mining. We should do all we can to maintain “Toronto’s position as a premier mining-finance centre,” as Martin put it.

I agree with Martin that, in a globalizing world where we want to be able to dig up other people’s backyards, we cannot and should not protect Canadian mining companies from foreign takeovers. Currently, of the eighty-three mining companies in the world with a market capitalization over $1 billion (US), thirty-three are Canadian. We have the resources. All we need are the policies that will encourage the formation of more Norandas, Falconbridges, and Incos.
Jon Baird
Goodwood, Ontario

Another Fish Tale
Thank you to R. M. Vaughan (“Dominick’s Fish,” October) for an enlightening essay on fish-keeping culture, until now a mystery to me.

When my sister, Caitlin, died suddenly in November of last year, she left behind three large aquariums full of fish and two bewildered cats. Despite well-intentioned assurances that fish like to be flushed down the toilet and that all adult cats deposited at the spca immediately find perfect homes, my husband and I pushed on. The cats were a no-brainer — Graham and I adopted them. And luckily, a good friend’s father is a fish guy. Henry was the lucky winner of all of it: fish, aquariums, marine plants, thermometers, bubblifiers, debubblifiers, pH testers, food, poop removers, nets, water change buckets, pumps, backup pumps, everything — all representing hours of loving dedication.

Vaughan is quite right: nothing is disposable. As the surviving sibling, I will one day be leaving my things, which now of course include many of Caitlin’s things, to be even more stuff for someone else to contend with. But no fish.
Francesca Allan
Lasqueti Island, British Columbia

Twenty Questions
Speaking on behalf of the Roma community, I am pleased that Andrew Mitrovica has drawn attention to the Immigration and Refugee Board’s Roma lead case (“No Refuge,” October) — a most vile, underhanded attempt by the irb to limit the number of Hungarian Roma admitted to Canada.

In the Federal Court of Appeal’s 2006 ruling against the decision, it chastised the irb for trying to make a policy decision about which group of refugees deserves Canada’s protection. The mandate of the irb is to assess each case on its own merit, not to make any one case into a precedent. We pursued the appeal to right a wrong done to the Roma but, even more, to ensure that no other group of refugees would be similarly ill treated. Only in the last respect have we succeeded.