U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo shakes hands with a Saudi official before leaving Riyadh on Oct. 17, 2018.LEAH MILLIS/AFP/Getty Images
Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Try to keep letters to fewer than 150 words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com
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Hypocrisy on Khashoggi
Instead of decrying U.S. President Donald Trump’s limp, evasive response to the Khashoggi murder (while lauding Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland’s earlier Twitter denouncement of Saudi human-rights abuses), your editorial sidestepped – indeed, avoided – the elephant in the room: the sale of Canadian armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia (Saudi Arabia, And The Price Of U.S. Silence – Oct. 15).
No matter the costs incurred by cancelling the deal – financial, political, or diplomatic – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau must immediately rip up the contract to sell arms to the kingdom. Otherwise, we will be forever known for kneeling to a cruel despot for the price of our collective national conscience. Any weaponry destined for Saudi Arabia would not have a benign end use.
Maribeth Adams, Kamloops, B.C.
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If we were truly concerned about human rights in Saudi Arabia, we would put through Energy East and stop buying Saudi oil.
N.J. Cameron, Vancouver
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Donald (Make America Great Again) Trump says “we need Saudi Arabia.” How great is a country that needs Saudi Arabia?
Brent Kelman, London, Ont.
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If a recording of Jamal Khashoggi’s torture and death indeed exists, it brings up the uncomfortable questions of “why” and “for whom” was it made?” A recording raises the stakes tremendously. Even a photograph would be dangerous to keep. But to make a recording of someone being tortured and killed? What kind of person/s would want to listen to such a recording after the fact?
Michael Clair, St. John’s
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Donald Trump’s view of life as nothing more than monetary deals, including the horrific killing of Jamal Khashoggi, is truly terrifying. Given Mr. Trump’s vile talk and acts toward women, minorities, other religions – the list goes on – the U.S. midterm elections will give us an indication of whether America is willing to sell its soul along with its goods.
Giselle Déziel, Cornwall, PEI
Consulted? Or informed?
Re Ottawa Still Has A Duty To Consult With Indigenous People (Oct. 15): Prof. Allan Hutchinson describes the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent decision on the limits of consultation with Indigenous groups as “controversial.”
The decision would have been far more controversial had the court ruled otherwise. The plaintiffs in this case were demanding a role in drafting legislation that would usurp the role of Parliament – in effect granting a veto which the court has already said Indigenous groups don’t possess.
Michael Kaczorowski, Ottawa
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Apparently the Supreme Court and many commentators have asserted that consulting with the First Nations does not mean they can say “no,” but that Ottawa can say “yes” or “no.” If First Nations can’t say “no,” they are being informed not consulted, and there’s no use prettifying the exercise of raw power with talk of “consultation,” adequate or inadequate.
George Clark, Kingston
Say no to Huawei
Re Canada, China Trade (letters, Oct. 16): Huawei should never be allowed to sell telecom technology infrastructure in Canada, including 5G. The security risks are too high, given that China can legally demand of its businesses and citizens that they “support, provide assistance, and co-operate in national intelligence work.”
Systems/products being tested now will not be the final versions. Once infrastructure is in place here, the cat is among the pigeons and China will have the means to subvert that technology. Recall that state-linked interests are accused of having plundered Nortel’s intellectual property and passing on the information, giving Chinese telecoms a huge and free leg up. How soon we forget.
The United States is perhaps looking after its own, but we should not let angst about Donald Trump push us in the wrong direction (Trudeau Defends Huawei Policy Amid National Security Concerns – Oct. 16). There are alternatives to both China and the United States.
Geoff Hedges, Toronto
FPTP, PR tug-of-war
Re Scare Tactics Highlight B.C.’s Electoral-Reform Debate (Oct. 13): Gary Mason is right to point out first-past-the-post doesn’t protect us from so-called extremists parties: “It is not voting systems that give rise to political parties holding ‘extreme’ views, it is most often underlying societal concerns.” Quite so.
Mr. Mason goes along with the view that PR offers voters a voice that otherwise gets lost. He admits this may result in the emergence of an extremist party, but contends that achieving at least a 5 per cent share of the provincewide vote acts as a safeguard.
This is a very slippery slope. If any threshold is passed, a poison pill situation is created, causing majority parties to shun the underlying societal concerns that gave rise to the offensive result, for fear of being tainted by other mainstream opponents, and thereby guaranteeing the political cancer will fester.
It is the politician’s challenge in a functioning democracy to deal with societal concerns. Allowing extremist parties to gain ownership of these issues risks devaluing, and therefore undermining, democracy.
Suggesting the Coalition Avenir Québec is an extremist party when it captured a majority under the FPTP system calls into question the application of the term “extremist.” Outside Quebec we may not agree with CAQ policies, but the good people of Quebec think otherwise on a political issue confined to their province. That is their right and that is democracy, and if it leads to strife, then they have to wear the consequences.
Boudewyn van Oort, Victoria
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The tug of war between FPTP and PR is a bit like the polarized left-right struggle. Why is the middle-ground solution – the ranked ballot – not taken more seriously? It ensures that any political group that is serious about governing adopts policies that appeal to the middle of the political spectrum rather than the extremes, and is as simple to implement as FPTP.
David Pattison, Calgary
Policy, not virtue
Re Nix ‘Virtue Signalling’ (Oct. 16): A letter writer says the term “virtue signalling” is used as “an insult against liberals, progressives, elites, the usual targets of politicians or commentators on the right.” This is disingenuous.
The term is a critique of the use of superficially virtuous behaviour to serve self-interest, something politicians of all stripes engage in. It is a particularly useful term in our narcissistic Instagram-Twitter-Facebook cultural moment when, in a modern variant of the old authoritarian cult of personality, political discourse is inordinately bound up in the person of the politician.
We shouldn’t elect our politicians to display their virtue but to make good policy.
Ryan Whyte, Toronto