HomeMy WebLinkAboutStudents taking the heat LETTER - Ottawa Citizen - 09/12/2018 - Ottawa Citizen - 09/12/20189/12/2018 Today's letters: Students taking the heat, death penalty debates I Ottawa Citizen
Today's letters: Students taking
the heat, death penalty debates
OTTAWA CITIZEN EDITORIAL BOARD (HTTPS://OTTAWACITIZEN.COM/AUTHOR/CITIZENEDBOARD)
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The school year is not getting hotter
Re: Students swelter as heat wave highlights lack of classroom air
conditioning, Sept. 5.
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9/12/2018 Today's letters: Students taking the heat, death penalty debates I Ottawa Citizen
I agree that students should not suffer from lack of air conditioning in
schools, but data from Environment Canada indicate that this is not a
problem in Ottawa.
Since 2008, Ottawa has averaged 1.4 days per year that were 30 degrees
or above in September. This year there have been two such days, and one
of those was not a school day. There is no indication the average is
increasing.
Actually, the entire school year has not got hotter in the last decade.
Including the months of April, May and June, there has been an average of
5.6 days per school year that were 30 degrees or above in Ottawa. So far
this year, there have been six such days. Again, there is no indication the
average is increasing.
Some years, Ottawa gets warm temperatures in September. Often, it does
not, the views of some Twitter users notwithstanding.
Michael Olsen, Kanata
Educate Canadians on the death penalty
Dec. 11, 2018 will mark 56 years since two men were hanged in Canada.
These last state -sanctioned executions to happen took place at Toronto's
infamous Don Jail in 1962. In 1976, Canada abolished capital punishment.
But before some Canadians take issue with Florida's use of the death
penalty — a punishment I am against — we should take note of our own
country's attitude to sanctioning state murder.
Believe it or not, most Canadians favour bringing back capital
punishment, even while Americans are slowly moving away from it.
Repeated polls reveal that a majority of Canadians to this day favour some
return of the death penalty. According to a 2016 survey by Abacus Data,
58 per cent of Canadians want their country to join the likes of China, Iraq,
Iran and Saudi Arabia in sanctioning state murder.
The ultimate punishment is wrong. Abolitionists argue the death penalty
is more expensive than imprisonment, has little effectiveness as a
deterrent and risks the execution of innocent people. In 1976, the U.S.
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