Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre rises during Question Period, on Oct. 26, in Ottawa.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Next chapter
Re What Comes Next For Canada-China Relations? (Oct. 31): Chrystia Freeland should consider this: It is likely that if China did not have such intertwined economic ties with the United States, then it would be in China’s strategic interests to rearm Russia and prolong the war in Ukraine. If a country “friend-shores” its economy, it will lose the most effective levers to affect outcomes with adversaries.
It is accepted that punishing and impoverishing Germany after the First World War led to the even greater horror of the Second World War. Instead, the engagement and economic assistance of the U.S. Marshall Plan rectified those mistakes and brought Germany back into the fold. The European Union did not start off as an economic block, but a political solution to tie Germany into the continent.
I believe Ms. Freeland’s views fly in the face of centuries of human experience, paid for with great losses of life. They should be abandoned quickly.
Moody Talaat Thornhill, Ont.
Re The End Of History Wasn’t Quite The End (Editorial, Oct. 29): Blaming global tensions solely on Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping ignores an inconvenient but nevertheless evident truth: the roles that the United States and its military-industrial complex play in stoking conflict.
If the U.S. (and its allies) wish to demonstrate the virtues and strengths of Western liberalism and democracy, they should show the world a peaceful exit ramp to the existential crises they helped to manifest.
Randall Mang Sidney, B.C.
Inquire within
Re Dodging The Questions? (Letters, Oct. 28): Though Doug Ford has the right to challenge his appearance before the Public Order Emergency Commission, let him use his own money for lawyers – not mine.
If so, he may decide differently.
Bill Kerr Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.
It is truly discouraging for me to see the number of citizen letter-writers who believe that the Emergencies Act, meant for events threatening the existence of the nation, was properly used to remove a truck blockade that inconvenienced the denizens of Ottawa.
No surprise to me that most give their locations in the Laurentian area of high entitlement.
Laine Andrews Toronto
One thing the Emergencies Act inquiry has not addressed, and I believe should, is the degree to which police and other officials were at least sympathetic to protesters.
What sort of police response do groups representing Black Lives Matter, Land Back or “save the old growth” receive? I know the answer.
Police seem to have trouble perceiving threats from the right.
John Hopkins Vancouver
Bank on it
Re Singh’s Clueless Critique Of The Bank of Canada (Opinion, Oct. 29): Jagmeet Singh protests that Bank of Canada policy to slow the economy could lead to layoffs. However by not raising interest rates enough, the central bank risks letting inflation become entrenched.
That could mean even higher rates are eventually needed, as with the punishing interest-rate rises in the early 1980s. They ended the galloping inflation of the 1970s, but pushed the unemployment rate as high as 12 per cent.
Constance Smith Victoria
The Bank of Canada’s mandate is set by policy decisions such as the aim to keep inflation below 2 per cent. This item should be struck from its mandate.
The bank’s mandate should be exclusively to address the stability of the Canadian dollar and balance liquidity issues. Of course, setting appropriate interest rates is involved in these activities – emphasis on “appropriate.”
The bank is not entirely independent from finance: Its board is populated by banking types. Perhaps the urgency of this “crisis” is a fear that any extension of inflation would result in general wage increases (having been essentially frozen for almost 40 years). The bank believes that job vacancies illustrate an overheated economy, when they should instead prove a lack of skilled workers.
It feels like these executive are insulated from the realities of Main Street. This, if nothing else, should exclude them from positions of economic management.
Kathleen McCroskey Surrey, B.C.
In too deep?
Re The Last Barrel Of Oil Produced Should Be A Canadian One (Report on Business, Oct. 28): Scotiabank CEO Brian Porter argues that “the world will be a better, safer place” if the last barrel of oil the world produces is a Canadian one. This is a sentiment that I am sure warms the hearts of bank executives on Bay Street, who otherwise would be unable to recover the billions of dollars they have lent to some of the most costly oil and gas producers on the planet.
As oil and gas consumption inevitably declines, low-cost producers elsewhere will also inevitably undercut Canadian prices, leading to expensive stranded assets and a vast sum of non-performing loans on those banks’ books.
Unless, of course, they can persuade the world to “look to responsible producers” and pay more for oil and gas. Good luck to Mr. Porter.
Stephen Tyler Victoria
Big questions
Re Federal Infrastructure Bank Commits $970-million For Small Nuclear Reactor (Report on Business, Oct. 26): Surely the fact that only one significant investor would touch Ontario Power Generation’s reactor project should be a red, flashing warning light regarding the technological and economic risks involved.
There are better decarbonizing energy investments available for private capital to pursue. The Ontario initiative should beg questions about what is going on at the Canada Infrastructure Bank and OPG. The province has no planning framework or plan within which this project fits, and there is no regulatory process through which questions about the costs, risks and availability of alternatives can be asked.
Mark Winfield Co-chair, Sustainable Energy Initiative, faculty of environmental and urban change, York University Toronto
Here and there
Re California’s Homelessness Disaster Is A Cautionary Tale For Us All (Oct. 28): There are some similarities between California and Canada.
At the beginning of the pandemic, both Los Angeles and Toronto took unhoused residents off the streets and placed them into hotel rooms. San Francisco and Vancouver initiated direct cash payments, which helped unhoused residents obtain housing.
Unfortunately, places in California and Canada have also used brutal evictions of unhoused people in parks, including in Los Angeles and Toronto. While some unhoused people have mental-health issues, a lack of affordable housing should be seen as the main cause of homelessness.
Instead of stigmatizing unhoused people further, let’s advocate for governments to appropriate more resources to end homelessness in both countries.
B.R. Gooley Minneapolis, Minn.
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