Mutts, Maternity, Stalkers, and Shooters

A History of Violence

On the same day that my letter carrier delivered the March/April issue of The Walrus with its blazing cover, “The Untold Story of the Deadliest Mass Shooting in Canadian History” by Lisa Banfield, a young woman in Tumbler Ridge in northeastern British Columbia shot her mother and half-brother, went to the nearby high school, and shot an educational assistant and five students before turning the gun on herself. Over 100 Americans are killed by bullets every day. The United States’ fascination with firearms and its normalization of gun violence, which shows little sign of abating, must not spread here.

Michael Cox Vancouver, BC

Pink Slip

Amirah El-Safty’s “Yes, You Can Be Fired While on Maternity Leave” deeply resonated with me. In 2023, I was a senior marketing executive at a tech company in Toronto when I was fired while eight months pregnant. Skip forward to today, more than two years later, I’m still in an ongoing case with the human rights commission. In many parts of the country, the human rights complaints process is deeply flawed, and some employers seem to know this and take advantage of it. They bank on women accepting severance agreements in exchange for their silence under the threat that challenging them in court would be incredibly stressful and take years. They know that’s when women are at their most vulnerable and can’t afford the time and money required to fight back.

Beth Wanner Regina, SK

Pattern Recognition

Sheima Benembarek’s “Why Don’t We Take Stalking More Seriously?” (January/February) investigates the state of criminal harassment and stalking. The failures described are not primarily those of individuals, evidence, or even intent. They are failures of system design. The legal framework for criminal harassment is built to detect episodes, while -stalking operates as patterned erosion over time. Harm accumulates through repetition, context, and disruption of normal life, yet the law requires victims to prove fear in a way that is immediate, visible, and legible to a “reasonable person.” What’s missing in our legal response is not punishment severity but pattern recognition. Until criminal harassment law is redesigned to recognize cumulative impact rather than episodic threat, the burden will remain on victims to perform fear convincingly enough for them to be protected. I hope Benembarek’s feature helps shift the conversation from “Why didn’t they report sooner?” to “Why is the system so bad at seeing harm while it’s still preventable?”

Michael Brooke Thornhill, ON

Adopt Don’t Shop

Catherine Bush begins “How Many Poodle Rescues Have I Followed? Oodles” (March/April) by highlighting the surge of unwanted and abandoned dogs post-pandemic, an important reminder of the long-term responsibility of pet ownership. But after a few heart‑tugging anecdotes about rescue dogs, Bush abruptly pivots to explaining that she did not want to adopt any of them and instead purchased a poodle from a breeder. I found myself frustrated by the disconnect between the problem she raises and the choice she ultimately makes. All dogs require “devotion and patience,” and the idea that buying an expensive, purpose‑bred poodle somehow reduces the risk of behavioural or health challenges is both naive and inaccurate. We can’t normalize the idea that it is okay to feel momentarily guilty about shelter dogs while still spending thousands on a bred puppy when, as Bush herself notes, so many dogs are in need of a home.

Rachel Kidd Calgary, AB