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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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'Something truly stupid'

Re Morneau To Set Up Blind Trust But Says He Followed Rules (Oct. 20): Dumb people do dumb things; only an extremely intelligent person can do something truly stupid. How could Bill Morneau possibly have believed that retaining a million shares in a firm whose fortunes could be directly affected by his actions as Finance Minister was okay? Or that adding several numbered companies to the stew would somehow render the whole dish palatable?

It beggars the imagination.

Politics is 90 per cent perception. And the perception here is of a very wealthy minister complying with the letter of the law while flagrantly violating its spirit.

Fair or unfair, the public's verdict is in. He's done.

Jonathan Skrimshire, Pincher Creek, Alta.

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Secular, in a modern age

Re Quebec Ban On Face Coverings Is Doomed In Court (Oct. 20): Bill 62 is damning evidence that Quebec's Justice Minister sees no distinction between the reasonable accommodation of interests on the one hand – and a restriction on the exercise of fundamental rights under the Charter's reasonable-limits provision on the other.

Stéphanie Vallée should defy her own law at least once and cover her face, for shame.

Howard Greenfield, Montreal

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The Globe and Mail's condemnation of Quebec's Bill 62 seems to me to be yet another example of the most extreme political correctness, of Western relativist thinking (Quebec's Plan To Unveil Women – editorial, Oct. 19). The head and facial coverings worn by (some) Muslim women have their origins in male dictate and are a forceful symbol of female subjugation.

Quebec's refusal to tolerate hiding one's face for so-called "religious" reasons is a courageous course of action for a democratic, secular state in our modern age.

L.G. Eaglesham, Owen Sound, Ont.

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The Charter guarantees freedom of conscience and religion. Bill 62 clearly violates that right, forcing some Muslim women to choose between covering their faces and accessing government services. If they cannot use public transit, among other things, they may not be able to work, shop, pick up their children from school, visit a doctor or take books out of a library.

This is seriously discriminatory. The government should not be legislating what people can and cannot wear. My grandparents were forced to wear the Star of David. We know where that led. Bigotry has no place in Canada. Bill 62 should be repealed.

Claudia Cornwall, North Vancouver

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Oil, jets: pain/gain equations

Re Bombardier CEO Confident In Airbus Deal (Report on Business, Oct. 19): Brilliant move by Bombardier CEO Alain Bellemare to partner with Airbus and save our leading aerospace company. It's not going to be bye-bye Boeing, but competing with Boeing and Embraer on a capitalized footing, with less government support.

We can duke it out with our American friends in technology and innovation, if we make more smart global partnerships like this. Bien fait, Bombardier. Now, let's get the rails and transit up to speed.

Howard J. Feldman, Toronto

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Earlier this week, Donald Trump issued a presidential permit to allow expansion of Enbridge's Line 67 to the U.S. to 800,000 barrels of crude per day (bbl/d).

With Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain expansion, Enbridge's Line 3 rebuild and Line 67 expansion, and TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has approved the export of an additional two million bbl/d of Canadian crude to California, Midwest, and Gulf refineries.

Whatever happened to adding value domestically and encouraging homegrown petro-chemical industries in Sarnia, Montreal, Levis, and Saint John, accessing new overseas markets for Canadian crude, displacing 759,000 bbl/d of foreign crude imports, providing Canadian jobs, increasing government excise, personal and corporate tax revenues, and achieving energy security?

And now Justin Trudeau allows Bombardier to give a controlling interest in its C Series to Airbus, which will manufacture those planes for the U.S. in Alabama. How long before Airbus exercises its option to purchase the rest of the C Series division, which was the future of Bombardier? How long before Mr. Trump crows that his negotiating skill brought jobs to America?

Mr. Trudeau has rolled over and played dead on the ownership and export of some of Canada's most valuable commodities and technology, without gaining any negotiating power over NAFTA and or obtaining any trade concessions from the United States.

Mike Priaro, Calgary

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Gord Downie's immense talent

I was at Queen's University when the Hip was just getting established. One summer in Kingston, our group of "summer friends" included Gord. Even then, he always carried and wrote in a little leather notebook, even then it was evident he operated on a different creative level. We were never sure he was actually going to classes, but I do recall him showing his student card as proof. I've seen the Hip only twice. Once, a few years back at the ACC. But my favourite concert? Mid '80s, mid-afternoon in a coffee shop on Princess Street that wasn't big enough to swing a cat in. The band was crunched into a corner playing, and we had front row seats. We've lost an immense talent.

Sophie Howe, Toronto

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Clap, clap, clap. They love me!

Re Clap On And On And On: Applause App Gives China's Xi A Hand (Oct. 20): Donald Trump must be aching for one of those clap apps and kicking himself for not thinking of it first. Think of the clap numbers he could invent as a follow-up to the largest inauguration crowd ever.

Jim Reynolds, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.

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