The Trudeau government has launched a national consultation on racism.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
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Racism, on a spectrum
Re Just How Intolerant Are Canadians, Really? (April 3): Margaret Wente is right that Canada has been a leading example of social progress, but progress is a spectrum, not a dichotomy. The “occasional racist or sexist outburst,” which Ms. Wente minimizes as not truly harmful, is a manifestation of the most “deeply racist, sexist, and homophobic” parts of society, made visible precisely because all the low-hanging fruits of progress have been picked.
These deeply rooted attitudes are no less damaging, yet the most challenging to tackle. Discrimination is real and it continues. While Canada deserves much credit for the progress it has made, we must not declare this a job done.
Jessica Li, Toronto
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It is unfortunate that the time and effort put into creating a narrative of intolerance and victimhood in Canada cannot be captured in our annual GDP. If it could, our economy would lead the G7. As Margaret Wente alludes to in her column, it seems that the demand for racism in this country greatly exceeds the actual supply.
David Morgan, Ottawa
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Re Systemic Racism? Oh, There’s Plenty To See Here (March 31): An acquaintance spoke to me about racial sensitivity training where other workplace participants accused her of racial privilege, leaving her feeling unwelcome and disengaged.
I am the descendant of a Barnardo child (children forcibly sent to Canada alone, with nothing, to an unknown fate). My husband’s family left their homeland in the middle of the night with what they could carry to spend their first winter here under a tarp-covered wagon in Saskatchewan. Two generations of both families faced such adversities. They couldn’t have imagined the opportunities being a Canadian today provides, and I am grateful to be standing on their shoulders.
So let me ask: How does one respond to accusations of privilege on the basis of race alone?
Anita Smith Down, Elginburg, Ont.
Shamed. And not
Re Liberals, Stop Shaming Canadians If You Want Support (April 3): John Ibbitson seems to have watched a different version of Question Period than the one I saw.
He saw “calm but persistent questioning” from Evan Solomon, directed at Environment Minister Catherine McKenna. What I saw was a hectoring, bullying approach, where she was often interrupted and where she was not allowed to finish her sentences. After this onslaught, she was goaded into airing her frustration with people, politicians, and possibly ordinary folk who, while admitting the fact of climate change, are unwilling to admit the need to do something about it.
If Mr. Ibbitson sees this as a “shaming” of Canadians, perhaps we should think about that some more – and perhaps agree we should all be somewhat ashamed of ourselves. I won’t catalogue all the ways we add to the pollution of our environment every day – for example, buying larger vehicles than we really need. Suffice it to say that if we all gave a little more thought to our behaviour, and, yes, felt a little more shame, then we might get started on the road to recovery.
Bob Lillington, Toronto
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I understand that people don’t like being bundled into a basket of deplorables, and agree with John Ibbitson that Hillary Clinton may well have harmed her campaign by dismissing such a large chunk of the electorate (just as Mitt Romney did four years earlier).
But was what she said actually untrue? Is it thinkable that people could vote for someone as obviously sexist, racist and xenophobic as Donald Trump without sharing these vices? Perhaps Ms. Clinton was being too generous in limiting the deplorables to just 50 per cent of Trump voters.
Ronald Beiner, Toronto
What history is that?
Re The Problem With Canada’s Debt Addiction (editorial, March 31): You say, “It’s true that, in historic terms, left-wing governments have been the ones to run up debt and right-wing governments have been more prudent.”
What history are you talking about? Brian Mulroney ran nothing but deficits, then Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin balanced the budget, then Stephen Harper immediately made tax cuts that caused a deficit, a deficit that he then ran every year in office.
At the provincial level, in the early 1990s when provincial governments were all running deficits, the first government to balance its budget was Roy Romanow’s NDP in Saskatchewan.
Jeremiah Allen, economics professor (emeritus), University of Lethbridge
Ineffectively engaged
Re The Importance Of Canada’s Mission To Mali (Opinion Section, March 31): At least three yardsticks should be applied to our adventures abroad: Are they in the national interest? Are they within our means? Do they contribute to international peace and stability?
Much of what is failing in Africa is a consequence of Africans failing themselves, and is a byproduct of failed post-European colonialism. It is the European Union that should be pulling those Mali tongs out of the fire. Superbly trained or possibly not, our Forces are grossly under strength, weighed down with obsolescent or obsolete equipment and largely unable to respond to government’s all-too-vague notions of the effective use of the the Forces as we approach the quarter-century mark. We’re not strong; we’re not secure, we’re not focused on being effectively engaged.
W.J. McCullough, colonel (retired), Nanaimo, B.C.
Tiny percentage fallacy
Re Canada’s Carbon (letters, March 30): If your kid behaves irresponsibly, do you let her off the hook because the kid across the street messed up in a bigger way?
Why then would we think that because our country emits such a small percentage of the world’s greenhouse gases, less than 2 per cent, we’re excused? That figure is a tiny percentage only because Canadians are a tiny percentage of the world’s population.
If all emission figures were broken down into yet tinier parcels of the world’s population, each parcel producing only a minuscule percentage, then it would be hard to hold any one of them responsible. Voilà, the climate-change problem disappears. No single place is to blame. That’s the Tiny Percentage Fallacy at work.
Canada is among the world’s Top 10 regional emitters in terms of total tonnes released. And that’s before we add in the “shadow” emissions from producing all the stuff – clothing, furniture, gadgets, toys, appliances – we import from places such as China. We get the consumer goodies, they get the blame for the pollution.
Jude Carlson, Winnipeg
‘T’ is for ...
Re Trump Complicates NAFTA Efforts With Twitters Posts Threatening Mexico (April 3): Those of a certain age will remember Howdy Doody, where one of the characters was a Phineas T. Bluster. With a name like Bluster, the “T” must have stood for Trump …
Alan Jackson, Ridgetown, Ont.