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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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Drones' role limited

Re Can Drones Replace Fighter Planes? (March 11): Your editorial justifiably praised Canada's Chief of the Defence Staff, General Jonathan Vance, for being a creative forward thinker. He is indeed so and, as his predecessor in the position, I know that this was one of the reasons he was selected to be chief of the defence staff.

That said, I believe you have misinterpreted the comments he made to the Senate committee regarding drones. He was simply restating what the Canadian Armed Forces has been saying for over a decade now: that the RCAF needs a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles with the capability to carry armament.

Neither Gen. Vance, nor the RCAF, would suggest drones are anywhere near ready to replace fighter aircraft in the complex roles associated with protecting Canadian air and sea approaches, or in many other combat situations. Certainly, the U.S. Air Force plans to fly manned fighters in the NORAD role for coming decades. If we plan to remain a viable partner in the defence of North American aerospace, Canada will need to replace the CF-18 with a new fighter aircraft. This is why it is critical to identify a replacement, and quickly.

I am quite certain the coming defence review will confirm the need for both fighters and drones.

Tom Lawson, former chief of the defence staff, Ottawa

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Women's choices

As a first-year university student, I have made it my goal to focus on making my dream come true, whether it's ensuring my grades are top-notch, getting involved in school activities or simply experiencing life to its fullest (Work In Progress – series, March 4-11).

When I went home, I visited my former teachers; I was excited to tell them about my university experience. Imagine my surprise when the first thing one of them said to me was: "So, let's get to the most important part. How are the boys?"

This idea that our life should focus around "finding a boy" is ridiculous. From a young age, society conditions us to dress or act a certain and stereotypical way; as we get older, they want our goals and interests to change, too.

Women should be taught at a young age that they can be who and what they want, that they can choose to be a stay-at-home mom or the CEO of their own company.

Regardless, I think girls should learn to worry less about fitting into glass slippers and more about shattering the glass ceiling.

Rochelle Pereira, Whitby, Ont.

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As a new mother, for me International Women's Day is about choice. I would like to choose not to work for now, or to job share part-time, and perhaps go back to work full-time when the kids are older. But I don't have much choice: I have to return to work full-time or lose my job, pension and benefits. I can't afford to stay home, unlike 50 years ago when a family could live on one income.

I could work part-time as a cashier in a grocery or coffee shop, but professionally, no. As a woman, I don't feel that my primary duty as a mother is valued or respected in 2016. If a women decides to be a mother for more than her maternity leave, she faces being shut out of the workforce.

Jennifer Jones, Montreal

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My name is …

A letter writer suggests that Justin Trudeau might have adopted his wife's surname as proof of his commitment to gender equality (M. Trudeau-Grégoire – March 11). What she means is his wife's father's name – Grégoire. How does that further gender equality and address the "profound asymmetry" of family names?

I didn't change my "birth name" upon marriage, nor did I require my children to take on the double-barreled burden of their father's name and their grandfather's (masquerading as mine). They simply took their father's name in the interests of simplicity. As Shakespeare opined, "what's in a name" anyway?

J.E. Corser, Delta, B.C.

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Wrong model

Yes, Norway set aside a trillion dollars from its oil (Red-Ink Capture – letters, March 10). Yes, Norway has roughly the same population as Alberta. But Norway has not been sending transfer payments to 30 million other people for decades. Now, if Norway had been paying for unemployment in the Baltics, alternative energy in Denmark and daycare in the other Scandinavian countries, such a comparison might be valid. Otherwise it's toadstools and talking caterpillars.

Brett Blaikie, Dawson Creek, B.C.

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Indignation fuelled

Jeffrey Simpson is right that Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have tapped into a deep-seated conviction shared by many Americans that the common people no longer matter to those who run and/or control the government (The Common Fuel Feeding The Trump And Sanders Fires – March 10). The elephant in the room, however, is that for more than four decades Corporate America has pursued a business plan based on exporting jobs to countries with cheap labour, thereby creating virtual ghost towns out of former thriving communities.

The fatal flaw in this race to the bottom line is that Corporate America assumed its domestic market would always be there to soak up the cheap goods it was sending back. Those goods continue to pour in, but the average American has become resentful he/she can no longer afford them.

Chris Marriott, Chelsea, Que.

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A taxing proposition

Re Is More Booze The Answer In Nunavut? (March 9): Your editorial mentions some of the problems associated with alcohol abuse, and the temptation of northerners, dealing with restrictive government policy, to buy "high-proof alcohol."

Governments across Canada tend to exacerbate alcohol-related problems by deeming alcohol to be a potentially harmful substance while paradoxically taxing it by volume, not per unit of alcohol. With beer, this is especially bad public policy: Drinkers of low-alcohol beers pay more tax per unit of alcohol than drinkers of high-alcohol beer, which explicitly discourages moderate alcohol consumption.

Against this backdrop, brewers are making few low-alcohol beers, and more high-alcohol beers. I've been in pubs in England that feature 10 or 15 beers of less than 4.5 per cent alcohol by volume.

In Canada, encouraged by bad government policy, few brewers make beers of less than 4.5 per cent alc./vol. In many Canadian pubs, all of the beers on tap are 5 per cent alc./vol. or higher.

Wine is also becoming more alcoholic, in large part because of ill-thought-out public policies.

Shouldn't government policy reward – not punish – moderation in alcohol consumption?

Jamie MacKinnon, Ottawa

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Hot air …

Re Trudeau Vows To Clamp Down On Methane Emissions (March 11): I'm sure his family, and everyone close to him, will appreciate this commitment.

Peter Gardiner, Toronto

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