Letters to the editor, July 21: ‘The world should impose tariffs on the United States, as Trump policies are making his country one of the largest emitters of all’

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Blowing smoke

Re “Trump threatens new tariffs on Canada over wildfire smoke” (Online, July 17): U.S. complaints about smoke from Canada’s wildfires ring pretty hollow when one recalls that the Trump administration professes that climate science is fake science, and has called efforts to hold polluters accountable “climate extremism.”

In September, 2025, Donald Trump took this message to the United Nations General Assembly, where he told a bemused audience that climate change was the “greatest con job ever perpetuated on the world.”

He has declared war on energy-producing windmills, lifted most anti-pollution regulations, continues to call climate change a hoax and once proclaimed that global warming was created by China so as to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.

Perhaps the world should impose tariffs on the United States, as Trump policies are making his country one of the largest emitters of all.

Larry Black Barrie, Ont.

During the 1970s and 1980s, I was a volunteer firefighter living in a community on the U.S.-Canada border.

If the U.S. community next door had structural or forest fires it could not handle, we took our trucks across the border and worked with their firefighters to deal with it. Even though Donald Trump and other Republicans seem to have no concept of hands across the border, Canadians will always step up to help their U.S. neighbours.

Let’s hope in two years we can return to that kind of friendship and forget the ugliness of the Trump presidency.

Roger Emsley Delta, B.C.

Bigger story

Re “As wildfires burn across Canada, Ford government faces growing criticism over province’s response” (July 20): The story isn’t whether $150-million is the proper amount Ontario should allocate to fighting wildfires. The story isn’t that First Nations communities were failed by the province, or that Donald Trump wants to impose tariffs on wildfire smoke (whatever that means) or that day camps in Toronto closed at the last minute.

I believe the story is: Why is a pipeline still on the table when the air isn’t safe for breathing? What are we, as individuals and as a country, willing to give up so that we put less carbon in the atmosphere?

Catharine Clark London, Ont.

Debt and doubt

Re “Side deal to share Gordie Howe toll profits with U.S. doesn’t include provision for debt repayment” (July 18): The government surely owes Canadians an explanation for the inconsistency in public responses.

Pierre Poilievre insists that Canadians be allowed to “see for themselves what you negotiated away to the Americans.” That seems fair, though it’s perhaps less fair to call it a negotiation if the United States was holding a gun to Canada’s head.

Ronald Beiner Professor emeritus, political science, University of Toronto

By keeping the Gordie Howe bridge closed, Donald Trump would likely lose voters during U.S. midterm elections, especially in the swing state of Michigan. This should be the way to deal with him, not acquiescing to his demands. Now he knows we are weak and can take full advantage.

As a lifelong Liberal voter, I don’t like how secretive the Carney government is while playing fast and loose with billions of taxpayer dollars and making concessions to the United States. Our federal government is not a private corporation. We have a right to know what is going on with our own money and sovereignty.

I am tired of hearing the “Canada strong” slogan as a substitute for full disclosure. I don’t want to hear it again.

Alison Dennis Calgary

Further thought

Re “On the Hill” (Letters, July 16): A senator commissioned a poll and found that 79 per cent of Canadians want an “independent” Senate to continue.

The question should also have been asked: “Do you believe the appointment of independent senators is non-partisan?” If that answer is also 79 per cent, then what I know is that it sure was a good sell by the Trudeau government.

The Senate may be independent in name, but the criteria was created by a single party and have since only been appointed by that party. Not exactly convincing, then, that senators do not lean to a certain political ideology.

Maybe it should also have been asked: “Should Canada continue with the Prime Minister appointing mostly Liberal independent senators?” Seventy-nine per cent? I doubt it.

Jason New Foothills County, Alta.

I have read The Globe for more than 35 years and watched the Senate reform debate resurface time and again on the same premise: that it is “defective,” and an elected one would be better. Yet critics struggle to name a specific bill and explain how its outcome would differ, or improve, were the Senate elected.

Arguments premised on legitimacy should be benchmarked against actual laws. The better question, I think, is why the House of Commons so often produces majorities from a minority of votes.

Western Canadians want a fair and functional Parliament. Great, so do I.

Pete Reinecke Ottawa

A senator tells us “most Canadians know that the new Senate represents a vast improvement for this country.”

The last time I saw the chamber of “sober second thought” flex its power was to effectively stall and kill Bill C-234. This was passed through the House of Commons by the opposition parties, a true moment of democracy at work that, unfortunately, was short-lived.

The bill was to give farmers a break from the carbon tax for activities such as drying grain. This would have disproportionately helped Western farmers, but the disproportionately non-Western Senate’s amendments killed it in its original form.

This to me was clear circumvention of democracy. So, no, I do not see the “vast improvement” being claimed.

Robert McCullough Edmonton

Greater benefits

Re “Canada’s Drug Agency reverses course, now recommends public drug plans cover Alzheimer’s drug” (July 17): I am delighted that Canada’s Drug Agency has reversed its original position on lecanemab.

Now I would encourage the Canadian Drug Expert Committee to work with an appropriate health research body to also look at the potential qualitative gains for a patient’s caregivers and family members who, with the possibility of a “steady state” for five months or more, can better prepare for the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.

There is no magic here. Anyone who has had a loved one with dementia knows the uncertainty of the speed by which progression occurs, and whether there will be sufficient time to make reasonable decisions about a whole raft of things. It costs families a great deal of suffering.

Quantitative evidence is important but so, too, are the costs around qualitative issues. It is time, as a health care system, we measure them as well.

Karen Ginsberg Ottawa

Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Keep letters to 150 words or fewer. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com