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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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China: Who benefits?

I am a manufacturing business-development consultant in Toronto. My job is to develop the relationship between original equipment manufacturers and suppliers in Canada. I have seen this pattern over the years in which a Canadian manufacturing company, possessing a world-class technology, is bought out by a company from China, state-owned or not (you can never know for sure).

Business progresses normally, with the new management moving in. Slowly, the orders and technology are transferred to the parent company in China.

After a few years, the order books are bare, giving legitimate reason for the manufacturing arm of the company to be closed and liquidated. Then the Canadian employees are fired.

Furthermore, any Canadian company that competed against this previously Canadian entity is now competing against a Chinese company, with formerly Canadian know-how, on an uneven playing field. In the case of ITF Technologies and its fibre-laser expertise, there are also national-security concerns related to the technological edge that Western militaries hold over China (Liberals Reverse Course On Chinese Deal, March 28).

My questions are these: Where is the benefit to Canadian business in the allowing this deal? Did ITF get a financial benefit from any level of government to build its business, only to benefit The People's Republic of China?

Roman Kuczynski, Toronto

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Unaffordable cities

I know that Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, B.C. Premier Christy Clark and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have their reasons for not dealing with the housing crisis in Vancouver.

However, as part of a healthy democracy, I am writing because I want them to know how their inaction is affecting families like ours.

Our son starts kindergarten this September and we can no longer afford to buy a house in Vancouver. My wife and I have a combined income that puts us in the top 1 per cent of earners for Canadian families. If we can't afford to live here, 99 per cent of Canadians can't afford to live here. What happens to a city when no one can afford to live in it?

I don't blame the offshore money. I blame my elected officials for doing nothing and keeping interest rates artificially low.

Good-bye, Vancouver, which will soon have one less doctor.

Toby Beck, Vancouver

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Re There's Only One Way To Fix The Bubble (March 28): If investment is the problem, how can increased supply help?

Surely the answer is to prevent housing from being seen as investment. Curtail foreign investment though taxes and legislation, enact empty-home laws and enforce them, act against clients of Airbnb, VRBO and others renting out more than one accommodation and see if the market cools. The problem is spineless government at all levels.

Tony Burt, Vancouver

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Pride's reality check

Re Pulling Pride Funding Over TPS Gaffe Would Send Right Message (March 29): Marcus Gee speaks of tolerance and inclusivity, calling Pride Toronto's banning of uniformed police from the parade "silly" and "foolish." He supports pulling the city's Pride funding to send a message about "core" values.

Values, and the actions taken in their name, look very different from the viewpoint of marginalized communities. Oppressed groups have long memories. As a gay man who knew the bad old days, I can affirm that the past never goes away, in part because denials of our humanity still pop up despite all the feel-good vibes.

Pride in Toronto began as a protest against police oppression. The police no longer brutalize us, or arrest us by the hundreds. Yes, things have changed, but not so much for black people.

By dis-inviting the Toronto Police Service from Pride, the Pride board simply recognizes and supports the reality check offered by Black Lives Matter. Mr Gee might want to sit down with Desmond Cole and other black leaders and hear what inclusivity means when you're surrounded late at night by uniformed cops.

I'm not black. But I remember.

Jim Bartley, Toronto

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Partner, not observer

It is troubling that The Globe and Mail agrees that Indigenous children must receive medical and social services equal to other Canadians, but then argues that such funding should be only subject to negotiations between governments (Cheque Please – editorial, March 20).

These so-called negotiations between the provinces and federal governments have been responsible for decades of second-class health care and social services on reserves. If First Nations are going to eliminate health disparities, we must be equal partners and decision makers. So far, we've merely been involuntary observers.

It was for these very reasons that the Indigenous Health Alliance, comprising the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak and Nishnawbe Aski Nation, was formed to put together proposals to transform health services in our territories. Under this leadership we have a collaboration of more than 150 First Nations and several national medical organizations.

First Nations must go beyond witnessing negotiations between other levels of government to actively pursuing health-care transformation in our regions and ensuring that equal services are accessible to all Canadians, including Indigenous peoples, regardless of where they live.

Sheila North Wilson, Grand Chief of Keewatinowi Okimakanak, representing 30 First Nations in Northern Manitoba

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Faltering democrat

Re Trudeau – A Fine Communicator, A Faltering Democrat (March 29): The way a party governs itself is an indication of how it will govern the country.

The anti-democratic impulse of Justin Trudeau's Liberals was evident early on when he tried to amend the party's constitution at its postelection convention over the heads of the riding presidents. It showed itself again with recent attempts to override the grassroots in choosing candidates.

Now it has become more than an intramural violation of party structure. The animus has been unleashed in the House with the government's current proposals for parliamentary reform.

Democracy is by its nature a messy undertaking. We should be wary of attempts to "streamline" the operation.

Howard Greenfield, Montreal

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Hmm …

Coming just as Toronto City Council voted to proceed with its $3-billion, one-stop subway to Scarborough, British PM Theresa May triggered Brexit and Donald Trump marked the first 70 days of his presidency, the news that government is investing in artificial intelligence could not happen at a more appropriate time (Canada Counters Silicon Valley Talent Raid With Fresh Funding For AI, March 29).

Richard Longley, Toronto

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