Prime Minister Mark Carney answers questions from reporters during at the First Ministers Meetings in Charlottetown on Thursday.Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press
Present precedent
Re “As a wartime president, Trump just declared war on his own government” (July 18) and “The Russian regime tried to kill me. What happened next was just as chilling” (Opinion, July 18): In contributor Natalia Arno’s frightening account of Russian intimidation, violence and poisoning in the service of political repression, we glimpse the future Donald Trump offers to Americans. One where, as in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, American elections are for show and dissent is silenced by the repressive apparatus of the state.
Americans should take heed before it is too late to pull their democracy back from falling into the abyss of full-blown autocracy.
Geoff Read PhD; associate professor of history, Huron University; London, Ont.
Stuck in the middle
Re “Canada has been sold a false promise of being an ‘energy superpower’ ” (Report on Business, July 18): As a practitioner in urban design and land development, I see the true drivers of Canada’s productivity crisis every day.
Our declining per capita wealth is not a failure of energy exports: I see it as the direct result of a chronic lack of business innovation, systemic government approval bottlenecks and a massive shift of national wealth into existing real estate, rather than funding the business tools, technology and commercial innovation that actually drive productivity.
The resource sector remains one of Canada’s few highly efficient, high-wage engines. Suggesting it dragged down growth, without accounting for how much worse our per capita GDP would look without trillions of dollars in energy revenues, seems to me a failure of economic logic.
Paul Fenske Principal, Placemark Design + Development; Vancouver
While talking of bold action, the government has merely resurrected strategies from decades past. But the world has changed, and much of the future opportunity resides in new technologies.
But even when considering new technologies such as artificial intelligence, Canada’s leaders seem satisfied with building brick-and-mortar data centres and leaving real innovation to foreign multinationals. It is time Canada allowed more people attuned to new technologies a seat at the table.
Rob Grant Toronto
Legal case
Re “Bill 21 brings Chief Justice Richard Wagner to the decision of a lifetime” (July 18): This provides little encouragement that any judgment of Chief Justice Richard Wagner will place restraints on the notwithstanding clause.
Sources indicated he “was reluctant to hear” the Bill 21 case, and on whether to hear the appeal, “Chief Justice Wagner voted no.” He was therefore content with the erroneous decision of the Quebec Court of Appeal on Bill 21, which held it was prevented by the notwithstanding clause from reviewing unconstitutionality and cited the Supreme Court’s 1988 Ford decision.
But in Ford, after holding the notwithstanding clause was correctly invoked, the Supreme Court also held that the Quebec language act in question was unconstitutional. But it concluded this unconstitutionality was protected from invalidity by the notwithstanding clause.
Despite the quoted reluctance of Chief Justice Wagner to hear the Bill 21 appeal, perhaps there’s still a majority of Supreme Court judges interested in setting aside the Quebec decision.
Darrell Roberts KC; Comox, B.C.
Conservative conundrum
Re “Conservatives’ performative anger is a symptom of a movement that has lost its way” (Opinion, July 18): The Conservatives undid themselves when they merged with the Reform Party.
While the Liberals can pick and choose ideas flowing from the left, incorporating the useful and dismissing the extreme, the Conservatives have admitted to their tent a host of convictions too radically right for most Canadians – and poisonous to the party itself. Let in spiders and snakes, don’t be surprised at being bitten.
Had the Conservatives fielded an old-fashioned Red Tory brand of moderate conservatism, they would likely be sitting on the government side of the House – quite possibly led by the current Liberal Prime Minister.
Reform by booting out the Reformers; this is their path to a winnable future.
Scott Gardiner Southgate, Ont.
We have a Prime Minister in Mark Carney who espouses many conservative views and is implementing policies the Conservative Party should approve of.
Why not embrace what Conservatives might otherwise see as a return to sanity and competence? This is the kind of government they wanted, at long last. Enjoy it.
Just because it’s a under different brand doesn’t make it bad. And if Conservatives think it does, maybe it’s time they review their priorities.
Claudette Claereboudt Regina
You don’t say
Re “I’m a dental surgeon but people assume I’m a hygienist. How can I correct their sexist bias without being rude?” (Pursuits, July 18): As a youthful‑sounding, racialized and female lawyer, I am often asked by opposing counsel “when were you called to the bar?” or “where is that accent from?”
My well‑honed reply is always, “I’m curious as to how my year of call or accent is relevant to the issue we are discussing.”
On countless other occasions, opposing counsel or clients would ask me to redirect them to a lawyer. I always respond enthusiastically, but without hubris, “This is your lucky day. You are already speaking with a lawyer, and an excellent one.”
Nicole W.S. Phillips Toronto
Write again
Re “Opening a forgotten chest, I unearthed my early writing – and faced the shallow ego of my youth” (Opinion, July 18): Few students become professional writers, and for those this essay holds special interest.
The withering comments of reporter Ian Brown’s English teacher will connect with anyone who remembers someone like that from their school days. Remarks like “I find your ideas … sick” would land any teacher these days with a pink slip. A good shaming, to be sure, but one that would have a student with some oomph, such as Mr. Brown, beat a hasty retreat back to their desk.
I received my fair share of these ripostes as well. One I never forgot: “Knows nothing, cares less.” A perfectly crafted sentence.
Adam de Pencier Toronto
There is something wonderfully human about unravelling old pages and cringing at the shallow, ego‑inflated younger self who wrote them. Reporter Ian Brown is lucky to have so much material. Even luckier to have the courage to revisit it.
I often wonder why I write. Perhaps it’s because I want to remember and, maybe, be remembered. When I reread all 88 volumes and 26,000 pages of my journals, I found a note from my Grade 11 English teacher in Cornwall, Ont., from 1976: “You have a unique voice, Debbie. Grammar and spelling need a lot of improvement.”
Decades later, I’m still working on both (the voice and the spelling) and still grateful for writers such as Mr. Brown who remind us that the past is worth opening, even when it winces back at us.
Debra Dolan West Vancouver
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