Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks at the Canada Investment Summit welcome reception at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, on Sept. 13.Laura Proctor/JOBFlocks
At home
Re “Carney is pushing hard to diversify trade. But will businesses leap into foreign markets?” (Report on Business, Sept. 18): It’s nice to see Mark Carney promoting foreign investment in Canada to diversify our economic relationships.
But what about Canadians? Will we also be invited to invest as private citizens in infrastructure, green energy and other attractive opportunities in our own country?
Tom Perry Vancouver
War footing
As eloquently illustrated (Editorial Cartoon, Sept. 12), Canadians have begun (belatedly, in my view) to use the word “war” to refer to the economic conflict between Canada and the United States. But to say it is not to know it.
Mark Twain’s wife, intent on embarrassing him, once repeated a stream of swears he had uttered while shaving. He responded, “You have the words, dear, but you don’t know the tune.”
Similarly, many critical public issues come under reasoned discussion without due weight being given to our wartime environment. For example, is the growth of data centres and artificial intelligence expertise in Canada, even if unpleasant to contemplate, necessary for us to bring the war to a liveable conclusion?
I am far from knowing how many of these issues should be decided, but no doubt they would be decided more quickly and relevantly if “war” were understood in its urgency rather than as abstraction.
Eaton Lattman Toronto
I was more than a little unsettled to see the depiction of Canada-U.S. relations using ominous, dark bombs raining down between us. Alarmist, perhaps?
I would be okay with an illustration of squadrons of Canadian geese, cormorants and loons, along with a division of beaver, moose and caribou, heading south in our defence, and maybe balloons filled with maple syrup drifting across the border – the Canadian armada on the move.
Peter Murchison Toronto
Generation gap
Re “A more dangerous world requires smarter retirement spending“ (Report on Business, Sept. 5) and ”Another way" (Letters, Sept. 13): Don’t complain about Old Age Security. Seniors are not the greedy ones.
The taxes of seniors, their parents and grandparents built infrastructure – hospitals, schools, libraries, airports, ports, railroads, military bases – that this generation still uses.
Seniors are the ones on fixed taxable incomes, yet many are expected to babysit and feed their grandchildren for free. The Canada Child Benefit is non-taxable and some children get free lunches at school. And some seniors are providing downpayments on homes for their grown children from savings they’ve accumulated over the years.
We didn’t go on vacations every year, we reused items from one child to the next, we fixed broken things, we shopped for bargains, we learned to live within our means because we had to. A credit card was used only for emergencies.
It’s obvious to me that the gimme generation are the greedy ones.
Beth Wilkinson Halifax
Less is more
Re “Unifor threatens to suspend talks with Stellantis unless Ottawa blocks sale of Brampton plant” (Report on Business, Sept. 18): From a transportation point of view, there is no reason why people need a choice from hundreds of different makes and models of vehicles. Manufacturers provide them as a matter of competition, but they need a wide market for each model to achieve the necessary manufacturing scale to be profitable.
Conceivably, if Canadians bought only vehicles made in Canada, relatively few models could cover our needs and the scale could be sufficiently profitable. Gradually increasing tariffs on foreign-made vehicles could bring this about, with the tariff revenue distributed to support Canadian vehicle manufacturing.
Two can play at this game.
D. M. Harvey Ottawa
Not so fast
Re “Eby vows to scrap plan to buy ferries from China in speech laden with promises” (Sept. 19): The BC NDP did just this in the 1990s and it became known as the “fast ferry fiasco.”
Back then, three boats were built at a cost of $450-million. The boats were so bad that they only operated briefly and ended up being sold for less than $20-million.
Building large commercial ships is a low-margin commodity business. Only three countries have the scope and skills to compete globally: China, South Korea and Japan. The majority of ships built in the United States are for pleasure or the military, and they are very expensive.
I see no way B.C. shipyards could compete, and indeed none bid on the latest contracts. For the sake of B.C. taxpayers, please abandon this nonsense.
Tony Woodruff Burnaby, B.C.
Backstory
Re “Mark Carney brings John A. Macdonald back to the Canadian story” (Opinion, Sept. 12): I am reminded of comments from two Canadian historians: a caution from Margaret MacMillan against judging figures of the 19th century exclusively through the lens of contemporary 21st-century values, and a reminder from J. L. Granatstein that we do not simply exist in a contemporary world; we have a past.
I always found the removal of statues of our earlier leaders inappropriate and shortsighted. We should examine our past, learn from it, but not erase it. In Gander, Jean Chrétien said our country was built on who we have been and are today.
I live in Ottawa by the Ottawa River. There is a parkway that parallels the river that was renamed due to the push to remove the presence of our historical leaders. But it will always be in my mind the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway.
William Pascal Ottawa
Sir John A. Macdonald’s National Policy was all about a trade and tariff war in response to growing U.S. protectionism. This policy contrasted with the previous Liberal government policy of reciprocity championed by Globe founder George Brown and then-prime minister Alexander Mackenzie.
Mackenzie created Canada’s first military college and sent the North-West Mounted Police west to protect from U.S. expansionism. As a stonemason earlier in his life, he oversaw the construction of Kingston’s military fortifications including Fort Henry and the Martello Towers. He served as a major in the infantry defending Canada’s border from Fenian incursions from the United States.
If there is another phase to this conflict and the second boot is to drop, it is the elbows-up and chest-out pride of leaders such as Mackenzie that would see us through.
John Morgan Ottawa
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