Sleight-of-hand at the Supreme Court

Seldom in recent years has a constitutional decision seemed so conjured out of thin air. Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the youth-justice law's presumption that 14- to 17-year-olds who commit the most serious offences, such as murder, will receive adult penalties. Its legal justification was simply baffling. It can be understood only as a policy choice, usurping Parliament's role.

Message in spray paint

Tourism boosters in Toronto are pushing a new campaign called ''We've been expecting you,'' intended to make visitors to the city feel welcome. If they really want to drive the point home, they could use it as a ''tag'' and spray-paint it on some of the city's many public spaces blighted by graffiti.

The CFL doesn't need this

Politics and professional sports rarely make for a good mix. From American congressmen lecturing and interrogating baseball players on steroid use to U.S. Senator Arlen Spector's obsession over whether or not the New England Patriots videotaped their opponents' game signals, politicians typically wind up so far out of their element that they only serve to embarrass themselves.

Two-state solution?

Mira Khazzam 

The issue is not just a two-state solution, but what kind of two-state solution (The Pointless Proposition For A Binational Israel - May 16). The July, 2007, UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs report found that ''more than 38 per cent of the West Bank is now taken up by Israeli infrastructure. Roads linking settlements and other infrastructure to Israel - in conjunction with an extensive system of checkpoints and roadblocks - have fragmented the West Bank into a series of enclaves separating Palestinian communities from each other.''

Putin and the Super Bowl ring

B.F. Mullin 

White House insider David Gergen's revelation that Vladimir Putin pocketed the Super Bowl ring of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft at a 2005 meeting and didn't return it was disturbing on several fronts (Good Idea To Keep An Eye On Putin's Knuckles - Report on Business, May 14).

Smarts and the arts

Ken Johnston 

In 1980, I stepped off a plane in Calgary, a newly minted BA, with $150 in my jeans; 28 years later, I pulled the plug on a fascinating career and retired to Victoria, with rather more than 150 bucks in my jeans. According to Gwyn Morgan's logic, I should have learned something technical (Poor Choices In Education Can Make You A Statistic - Report on Business, May 12).

No quotas apply

Doug Caldwell 

Re Those Other Sharp, Young Minds (letters - May 7): This year, Canada's Top 40 Under 40 program attracted more than 1,600 nominations. Honorees are selected by a 27-member advisory board drawn from business, the professions, life sciences, academia and the not-for-profit sector.

Polar bear politics hurt Inuit

Mary Simon 

Your editorial on the U.S. decision to list the polar bear as threatened (Burying Our Heads In The Snow - May 15) insults the significant knowledge Inuit have about the species. Your characterization of Inuit traditional knowledge is condescending, and trivializes a central part of an indigenous culture that is thousands of years old, and that the Supreme Court of Canada has understood by virtue of the Delgamukw case.

Rights body's 'angry agenda'

Vic Hotte 

Ontario agencies are adept at accepting licence fees for all sorts of activities, including fishing, while education and enforcement are next to nil. That leads to two kinds of poaching: deliberate and inadvertent. Both might have been involved in the dispute in small-town Ontario which the Ontario Human Rights Commission deemed to be a race-based assault on Asian-Canadians. No one really knows; the OHRC did not investigate (What's That Fishy Smell? An Empire? - May 15).

Responsibility, protection

Robert McLaren 

Why should anyone be surprised at the actions - or lack of same - of the generals who govern Myanmar? Many of the people who have been affected by the cyclone are Karens (New Storm Headed For Stricken Myanmar Region - May 16). The Karen National Union (KNU), the ethnic minority's resistance movement, has been fighting the generals in a bid for independence. The Karens' struggle has been going on for most of the past 60 years since what was known as Burma obtained its independence. It is akin to a civil war. Now the generals think they can have a victory without lifting a hand: In this tragic situation, neglect can be just as effective as violence.

Polar bear politics hurt Inuit

Rachel Plotkin 

While Canada's independent science body, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife, has assessed the polar bear as being of ''special concern'' since 1991, it has not yet been added to the Species At Risk Act list. It receives no federal protection at all. Environment Minister John Baird needs not only to list the bears, but to develop more marine and terrestrial protected areas, and to work to cut Canada's greenhouse-gas emissions. Climate change is the main threat to polar bears.

Prostate test isn't a big deal

Ron Kydd 

It is one thing to write a book about having prostate cancer, but to scare the pants off men unnecessarily is dangerous (Gentlemen, Assume The Position - Life, May 15). Author Richard Bercuson describes his biopsy as, ''You sense your testicles will disintegrate and your stomach contents will explode through your throat.''

Two-state solution?

Sandra Levy 

Does the term ''ethnic cleansing'' that Rula Odeh (Birth Of A Nation In Exile - online, May 13) uses to refer to the displaced Palestinians also include the more than 800,000 Jews, expelled from Iraq, Morocco, Egypt, Yemen, Algeria, Lebanon, Tunisia and Libya? While there are at least a million Israeli Arabs in the Jewish State, only about 10,000 Jews remain in the combined Arab countries.

Roger that, over and out

Miriam Browning 

About that museum in Iceland celebrating the phallus: The long and short of it is that the museum, which is, so to speak, about the long and short of it, is long overdue (Members Only - May 16). One might say it was a long time coming. So to speak.

A violent picture

David Murrell 

Pending federal legislation to tighten up youth sentencing is directed against serious crimes - violence such as homicide, robbery and aggravated assault (Leave Young-Offenders Law Alone, Ottawa Urged - May 16). These types of crimes have risen, not fallen - something critics ignore.

Rights body's 'angry agenda'

Andre Thompson 

Perhaps the problem with human-rights commissions is their nomenclature. If they were renamed as Commissions for Human Rights, Privileges, Responsibilities and Obligations, their rulings might be more useful. Their recent reports prove they have outlived their usefulness.