Correspondent D’Arcy Kennedy speaks for me as well (“Genuine solutions needed,” 20 August).

The immediate need is for media and law- yers to stop twisting Mike Duffy’s criminal trial into a political one of the Prime Minister and his office.

Next, I want to read and ponder the policies of the political parties and of their leaders. (It seems one contender is opposed to his own party’s platform.) A few weeks ago the National Post printed a table describing those policies in a way that allowed readers to compare the parties and rate them accordingly. That table should be updated to encompass the waffling of some politicians, and reprinted.

After the voting is over, the winners must put aside partisan bickering and co-operate to the extent that their intentions are adopted by Parliament. Duffy and the other charged senators, and their claims against the present government, will be quickly forgotten. Losers in both houses will have time to reflect on the claim made by one Liberal cabinet minister (“I’m entitled to my entitlements”) and conclude that such an attitude in regard to taxpayers’ contributions does not win votes.

One leader’s declaration that he would make marijuana legal obliges me to vote against his party. I do not want to encounter a drug user on a highway or anywhere else, and I wonder what the leader himself is smoking. Did he inherit a habit from his parents?

Charles Hooker East Garafraxa