Prime Minister Mark Carney delivers a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 20.Sean Kilpatrick/The Associated Press
Middle powers
Re “Carney’s speech makes Canada a threat to Trump” (Opinion, Jan. 29): Lawrence Martin rightly hails Prime Minister Mark Carney as “leading the resistance among middle powers of the world to American subjugation.” He is wrong, however, in stating that Mr. Carney’s Davos speech “will make it harder to get a good renegotiated [USMCA] deal, if a deal at all.” On the contrary, as with any bully, the only way to respond to Mr. Trump – to defend and promote Canada’s interests – is to stand firm.
Donald Hall Ottawa
Our prime minister is erudite and pragmatically tactful. He knew his elite target audience at Davos, knew to avoid finger-pointing specificity for his core message: middle powers united must challenge any central power with a domineering leader. The speech really was for this moment in (Trumpian) time.
Mel Simoneau, Gatineau, Que.
Re "What Mark Carney got right, and wrong, about Vaclav Havel’s story" (Report on Business, Jan. 27):
I, too, was thrown off by Mark Carney’s use of Vaclav Havel’s story in his admirable speech. Surely the Republicans who continue to support Donald Trump are the ones living the lie and ought to remove the pro-Trump signs from their windows. Meanwhile, the rest of us need to find Havelian courage to actually place our signs denouncing the authoritarian regime. Our Prime Minister would have been better to invoke the “bystander tragedy” of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, where early silence causes the residents of Salem to be consumed by witchcraft’s fire.
Rory McAlpine Victoria
Fallen Leafs
Re “There’s no better representation of the Leafs’ relationship with Toronto than Nylander’s finger” (Sports, Jan. 27): Cathal Kelly asks if anyone remembers when the Leafs were likeable. Many of us fossils do. It was roughly 1961 to 1967, and not just because of the Stanley Cups. This team, the last remnant of real pro hockey, featured classy gents named Mahovlich, Keon, Bower, Armstrong, Duff, Brewer etc. Then the league doubled in size. That was analogous to pouring out half a bottle of fine wine and refilling it with sludge and raising the price. Nearly 60 years later, we have a 32-team circus of minimal talent whose greedy seasons are becoming long enough to overlap. Get yourselves a good book.
W. Selby Martin Bracebridge, Ont.
Given the Maple Leafs’ woeful record of failure, it’s time for the NHL to establish a second Southern Ontario team, perhaps in Hamilton. Competition will encourage better results in Toronto, helping that self-designated world-class city to finally reward its loyal hockey fans.
Joe O’Brien Halifax
Cathal Kelly is the master of finding an original angle to stories. Most of the time it works, but not in the case of William Nylander smirking and brandishing his middle digit. When someone sticks an unwanted camera in your face, and you raise the middle finger, it’s directed toward the one with the camera. No deep meanings here. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Rudy Buller Toronto
Free trade at home
Re “The tariff threat that Canada can squelch today” (Editorial, Jan. 29): Your editorial on the cost to Canadians of interprovincial trade barriers is commendable. Perhaps the time has come to resurrect the disallowance clause that is still in the Canadian Constitution (Sections 56 and 90). If the provinces drag their feet on eliminating obstacles to free trade across Canada, the federal government should use all the available tools, no matter how rusty they are.
Tony Manera Ottawa
Poilievre’s conservatism
Re “Can Pierre Poilievre’s conservatism win in our brave new world?” (Opinion, Jan. 24): Kudos to Ben Woodfinden, whose piece on Pierre Poilievre was a gallant attempt to ascribe an underlying philosophy to what often comes across as a cringeworthy stream of snide insults and hollow slogans. Unfortunately, it overlooks some sad realities. Mr. Poilievre’s philosophy of freedom was reflected in his support for the trucker protest. What about the basic “harm principle” of John Stuart Mill’s essay On Liberty, which can be summarized as “your freedom to swing ends where my nose begins”?
Tom MacDonald Ottawa
The amount of contradictory language, along with obfuscation and justification in this article to try to explain Pierre Poilievre’s “conservatism” is really telling. It is amusing that, for a politician who can’t seem to speak in anything other than three-to-five-word slogans, such a long an article is required to explain his worldview.
Blair Faulkner Truro, N.S.
Music of the spheres
Re “To probe the cosmos, hundreds of radio dishes take root in B.C.’s Okanagan Valley” (Folio, Jan. 28): This was the first I’d heard about the Canadian Hydrogen Observatory and Radio-transient Detector (CHORD), a huge array of radio telescope dishes near Penticton, B.C. What a great article: “a single receiver that vacuums up radio waves across billions of light years of space and turns their static hiss into a symphony of cosmic revelation.”
Way to write about science! It struck a chord with me, that’s for sure.
Nigel Brachi Edmonton
Art and politics
Re "AGO trustee Judy Schulich led bid to stop Nan Goldin acquisition" (Jan. 26): Whether it’s the publicly funded Art Gallery of Ontario or religious institutions that receive government funding, neither tribal views nor politics have any place in these organizations’ decision making. Canada is a democratic country, and as we all contribute to our public institutions, rules and rights established by our elected government need to be respected, and carried out in an unbiased and equitable manner.
When artworks or the news media bring attention to actions by a government or tribe, that does not mean the artist or journalist is anti-tribe. That’s a cheap shot by people too cowardly to engage in a fair and truthful exchange.
Christine Reissmann, Ottawa
Re “AGO rocked by resignations after failed Nan Goldin acquisition” and “Does the Vancouver Art Gallery have a new controversy on its hands” (Jan. 21): The governance of some leading galleries in Canada is shameful. At the AGO, misguided anti-racism targets the artist Nan Goldin. In Vancouver, overweening ambition and poor judgment jeopardize a building project. If I was a rich donor, I’d be looking elsewhere. How about supportive accommodation for the homeless?
Richard Harris, Hamilton
Heads up
Re “You’re losing your hair. Now what?” (Pursuits, Jan. 24): Those of us who are suffering the loss of our hair along with the unavoidable comments from our full-haired friends can draw solace from the profound words of my late (bald-headed) father: “God made a lot of heads … some of them so ugly he had to cover them with hair.“
Thomas Newell Niagara Falls, Ont.
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