Alberta Premier Jason Kenney in Calgary on May 20.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
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No way
Re Ottawa To Ban Chinese Tech Giant Huawei From 5G Network (May 20): It’s about time.
Randy Sterling Chatham-Kent, Ont.
Re China Accuses Canada Of ‘Political Manipulation’ Over 5G Ban Of Huawei, ZTE (May 21): I would not want to see any bad guys getting control of a system soon to be so vital to every aspect of our daily lives. Half a cheer, then, for the Trudeau government finally taking action to prevent it.
But China, too, has a point: Not all the bad guys are Chinese, or even foreign. So a half-cheer for them, too, for demanding greater transparency about what is going on and to whose benefit.
That’s still two full cheers away from “hurrah!” Here’s hoping the free press keeps the issue in the public eye until they’re earned.
James Russell Ottawa
Russian reach
Re In Hindsight (Letters, May 16): Letter-writers should not shift attention away from the real source of the current barbarism in Europe: It is not a “Ukrainian crisis,” but another brutal invasion by imperial Russia.
I believe the invasion has indeed triggered a collective European rethink, as it has become obvious to me that Russia is not interested in pursuing collective security arrangements outlined in the 1990 Paris Charter. Vladimir Putin seems to want nothing less than reinstatement of the former Soviet empire, complete with vassal states imprisoned in Moscow’s sphere of influence. Sweden and Finland would join NATO not because of the clever connivance of Joe Biden, but the potential savagery of a Russian invasion.
To pretend that we have a choice to avoid confronting Mr. Putin – and avoid using nuclear deterrence – would be, to borrow from professor Timothy Garton Ash (Integrity For What’s Left Of Ukraine – March 19, 2014), either “criminally naive” or the fevered work of a “hardened fellow traveller.”
Walter Daschko Toronto
Alberta futures
Re Jason Kenney Is No Longer The Future (Editorial, May 20): Alberta looks ready for a leader without ambivalence.
Jason Kenney wooed the province with a right-wing vision, but he learned that the middle was safer territory. Right or wrong, I believe a wishy-washy platform – appearing to favour business and raw-material exploitation, then playing to the left with public subsidies – shows a culture of self-determined survival, with little respect for taxpayers.
Will Alberta conservatives favour a return to self-reliance, or will they hike taxes and prop up wrong-headed initiatives? We shall see. A platform of integrity got the Wildrose Party into office. There was eventually no forgiveness when they changed colours.
The United Conservative Party ignores these lessons at its peril.
Hugh McKechnie Newmarket, Ont.
Say it loud
Re Texas Abortion Law: A Preview Of What’s To Come For Racialized Communities If The U.S. Supreme Court Overturns Roe V. Wade (May 12): In Canada, we often respond to American reproductive rights challenges with a mixture of superiority and belief that abortion rights would never be in jeopardy here, predicated on the idea that we have universal access to such care. That is not true.
We are plagued with geographic, financial and social barriers, including anti-choice organizations. The effect of anti-choice messaging on those seeking abortions can be violent and impede access to care. These organizations are loud, holding signs on street corners, delivering pamphlets, purchasing ads and more.
Those of us who provide reproductive health care are often too busy offering services to engage in the same public campaigning. Now more than ever, communities should be loud and unwavering in their support for abortion.
When people choose to stay silent, we allow anti-choice voices to drown us out. We should speak proudly, loudly and often about our support for abortion.
T.K. Pritchard Executive director, SHORE Centre; Kitchener, Ont.
Personal history
Re What The Holocaust Took From Us (Opinion, May 14): My thanks to reporter and author Marsha Lederman for reminding us that history never stays in the past, that it’s always personal and always coloured by the storyteller.
The horrors of the Holocaust have been retold in fiction and non-fiction. But Ms. Lederman describes, from the present-day perspective of a family of survivors, the enduring need to know those who didn’t survive, and to acknowledge their lives as much as their deaths.
Their stories are full of gaps and uncertainties that stir the imagination, and make it all the more important to honour what remains.
Anne Learn Sharpe Essa, Ont.
Bad sports
Re Missing The Goal (First Person, May 17): Good on essay-writer Samantha Reynolds for calling out disrespectful and inexcusable behaviour by men at the hockey rink. Except that she does sort of excuse them by attributing their behaviour to “past unresolved childhood trauma.” If that’s the case, there must be thousands of traumatized men in positions of power, because this issue is not confined to the arena.
I’m reminded of recent stories about women cardiac chiefs of staff vilified by male colleagues (Sole Female Heart Surgeon Takes On Alberta – May 9); women politicians subjected to horrific online abuse and threats; women executives excluded from real decision-making; female athletes abused psychologically and physically (Gymnastics Canada Says It Takes Abuse Allegations ‘Very Seriously’ – May 13) – the list goes on.
Men seem to believe there’s a finite amount of power, status, money and recognition to be divvied up, and when women step “out of their lanes” to share in those rewards, they have to be reminded, forcibly, that they’re not welcome at the party.
D. J. Baptist Toronto
Pre-COVID-19, a friend and I volunteered as coaches for neighbourhood T-ball. The coaches were mostly men, and we were the only all-female coaching team.
We regularly had insults and frustration hurled at us by dads and grandpas who didn’t feel we were teaching their kids all the right plays and rules. They clearly had not read the league rules that were highly modified to ensure kids could swing as many times as they wanted. They also seemed unaware that 95 per cent of these kids simply could not hit, catch or throw.
T-ball, like house league hockey, is meant to be fun for everyone, including the female coaches. Why is that hard for people to understand?
Raewyn Seaberg Toronto
Royal appearance
Re Prince Charles And Camilla’s Royal Visit To Canada Is Over. Here’s What You Missed (Online, May 20): I have one question: Did Prince Charles and Camilla have their ArriveCan app filled out upon entry?
Bill Jory London, Ont.
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