Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Try to keep letters to fewer than 150 words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com
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Hello, goodbye in Washington
Our embassy in Washington is promising that its bash for Donald Trump could be its biggest inauguration party yet (Canada's Seat Is The One To Beat – Jan. 19).
And why? Because spending Canadians' devalued dollars this way, according to an embassy spokesperson, is "an excellent opportunity to … advance Canada's interests in the United States."
Meanwhile, in the continuation of a front page article right below the embassy piece, Wilbur Ross, who is likely to be the next secretary of commerce, says that a recent further decline in the Canadian dollar is "not an accident," but part of a Trump policy of "preconditioning" our country to the tough trade negotiations to come (All Aspects Of NAFTA On Table, U.S. Says).
The juxtaposition suggests to me that it's not Canada's embassy seat that runs any long-term risk of being beaten …
Erika Ritter, Toronto
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Canada's efforts to have the biggest inauguration party are well and good. It would have been much better if our Prime Minister had been there to host it.
David Platt, Toronto
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Jody Powell, the press secretary for president Jimmy Carter, described the reality of Inaugural Day for staff members leaving the White House.
In his memoir, The Other Side of the Story, Mr. Powell wrote about getting up on Inaugural Day in January, 1981, with an office suite in the White House, a staff of 30, a limo, a driver and the attention of the world's press. At 12:05 p.m. he was standing alone on a sidewalk in front of the White House, holding a suit bag and trying to flag a cab. Sic transit gloria mundi.
John D. O'Leary, Toronto
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No pride in this
Re Pride Votes To Limit Police's Role In Parade ( Jan. 19): I'm a gay man who can remember when the Toronto police were not always our friends. That's changed and Toronto is a better place for it. And I'm always pleased to see the enthusiastic participation of the police in the Pride Parade – a parade held one day in summer when our city is a beacon to the world of inclusion and congeniality.
How sad then that the parade's organizers have succumbed to, dare I say, trumped-up rhetoric, specious arguments and downright bullying, and have turned what has been until now a wonderful event into one of distrust and exclusion.
That's not our Pride Parade, and I won't be attending this summer.
For shame!
Michael Harris, Toronto
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Brexit, race
I read your editorial on Brexit three times, since I could not believe what you wrote when I read it the first two times (Team Britain's Plan: Score An Own Goal – Jan. 19). Your statement that Brexit had nothing to do with race and Muslims is flatly misleading.
Brexit was indeed fuelled by concerns over taking control from the EU over matters that will define Britain socially for decades – including who is allowed into the country and what that means for the country. Is that not in a real way about race and Muslims?
It is perfectly acceptable to have an opinion that Brexit is a bad decision; it's never fine not to properly understand what is driving a majority of Brits to these actions, and I say The Globe and Mail clearly does not.
Richard Bauly, Brampton, Ont.
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Climate culprits
Re Ignore Fonda's Foolery, Listen To Trudeau's Truth (Jan. 19): Gary Mason says he is not sure what Greenpeace and others are trying to achieve. Does he need to reread Ms. Fonda's article, Keep Your Climate Promise, Mr. Trudeau (Jan. 18)? What they're trying to do is called saving the planet.
Chris Humphrey, Ottawa
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Jane Fonda's article illustrates how most climate activists are actually climate-change enablers. They attack governments and companies, while the carbon footprint is created by everyone who drives a car, lives in a warm house, consumes beef and dairy, or flies in an airplane. By ignoring basic concepts of supply and demand, activists comfortingly turn the finger of blame away from the real climate culprit: you.
Charles Ursenbach, Calgary
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At the same time The Globe and Mail allowed Jane Fonda an opinion column to lecture Canadians on how to manage our fossil fuel resources, the global elites were in Davos, Switzerland, lecturing ordinary people on the need to reduce fossil-fuel consumption to fight climate change.
Good advice for us all – but it is understandable that, against the advice of elites, populists elected Donald Trump as president and the British voted for Brexit.
Elites are going to have to lead by example instead of advising others to do what they won't do. If their private jets, yachts, helicopters, mansions, etc. are burning hundreds of times the fossil fuels that ordinary people burn, don't expect ordinary people to change their behaviour when the elites so obviously won't change theirs.
John Pitts, London, Ont.
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How it's done in B.C.
Re B.C. Pipeline Fee Sets Dangerous Precedent (editorial Jan. 17): I agree that this fee amounts to a "tax on goods moving to market through territory" and that it is "probably unconstitutional." Does the grain industry have to pay, or offer to pay, the same? It does not.
The New York Times reported that Kinder Morgan and other oil industry supporters of the B.C. Liberal Party donated more than $718,000 to the party through March, 2016 (British Columbia: The 'Wild West' Of Canadian Political Cash – Jan. 13). B.C. is on the map as a province with major ethics problems. Time to clean things up – in court if need be.
David Ellis, Vancouver
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The point is not what we choose to call the billion dollars Kinder Morgan is willing to pay B.C. Is it a tax? Extortion? I see it as more of a bribe. The point is, it smacks of exactly the kind of deal-making lubrication which upstanding Canadians have always rightfully sneered at as a hallmark of a corrupt regime. It is merely window dressing if you say the money is ear-marked for Canadian environmental clean-up, not the pet projects of a functionary in Libya.
Canadian companies have been penalized for doing it elsewhere; no company should be allowed to do it here.
Quite simply: It is wrong.
Bryan Caddy, Red Deer, Alta.
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This O'Leary fellow
Re O'Leary Sets Sights Outside Ottawa (Jan. 19): So Kevin O'Leary thinks Canada is going down the tubes and Justin Trudeau is ruining the country. Let me get this straight: He is going to make Canada great again?
Dave Marshall, Calgary
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I'm not too sure about this O'Leary fellow. He's been a dragon, he's been a shark, and he says it's alright to marry a goat. As Dorothy might say, "Dragons and sharks and goats, oh my! Dragons and sharks and goats, oh my!"
Terry Toll, Campbell's Bay, Que.