U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, left, speaks during a rally in Harrisburg, Penn. on Oct. 30, Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, right, speaks at a campaign rally in Allentown, Penn. on Oct. 29.ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images
False alarm
Re “The Liberals are desperate, so they are raising abortion as an issue again” (Nov. 2): Justin Trudeau is once again raising the red flag of threatened abortion rights in this country as a way to garner votes. I find this ploy not only patriarchal and insulting to the intelligence of Canadian women, but actually harmful to the stability of abortion rights here by suggesting they are not strong and permanent.
Such toying with the emotions of women smacks to me of Donald Trump’s statement that “I will protect women whether they like it or not.” With respect to abortion rights, Canadian women intend to protect themselves.
We are not Mr. Trudeau’s political football.
Dorothy Speak Ottawa
Election day
Re “Whether it’s Trump or Harris, U.S. foreign policy is headed into uncharted territory” (Opinion, Nov. 2): The suggestion that U.S. allies are “not sure” whether a second Trump administration would be worse than a Harris-led one seems unconvincing.
Donald Trump has refused to say that he wants Ukraine to prevail over Russia, called into question U.S. support for Taiwan and heaped scorn on NATO. Kamala Harris, conversely, has pledged to maintain support for Ukraine, affirmed Taiwan’s right to defend itself and unambiguously endorsed NATO – positions that are surely more reassuring not only for Ukraine and Taiwan, but for other countries reliant on American backing as well.
So striking is this contrast that it recalls an observation made in 2016 about the difference in that year’s presidential contest between Mr. Trump and his Democratic opponent: The choice, it was said, wasn’t between apples and oranges – that is, a typical Democrat and typical Republican. Rather, it was between “an apple and some rancid meat.”
Denis McKim Victoria
In a U.S. election marked by more division, worry and fear than many Americans thought only possible in an episode of The Twilight Zone, those who know something about Canada are concerned about how complicated and fraught the relationship between the two countries may become.
All this American can say to Canadians, who might want to hear anything from an American, is this: If Canadians think they’re frightened about what might happen after Nov. 5, a lot of us Americans are downright terrified. This definitely applies to we who live in states highly dependent on Canadian trade and snowbirds.
As was famously chanted by anti-Vietnam War protesters at the 1968 Democratic convention, “the whole world is watching.” We only hope the election results don’t produce an unbearable, permanent vulnerability.
Mary Stanik Tucson, Ariz.
Re “Trump’s MSG rally was a horror show on its own – no Nazi comparisons necessary” (Oct. 30): This is frightening, largely because the hyperbole seems to simply be the truth.
There are no more surprises. I believe the Republicans have become dangerous.
I am terrified that the U.S. election is too close to call. Half the people south of the border are okay with Donald Trump in the Oval Office? Yikes.
Hugh McKechnie Sudbury
Re “A vote for Trump is a vote against democracy. Don’t pretend to be surprised” (Editorial, Nov. 2): Many Trump voters are likely voting in their own self-interest, which is often what they think is their economic self-interest.
Wonkiness of Donald Trump’s economic policies aside, we are warned that a vote for him may be against self-interest; his revengeful wrath may turn against his own supporters at any moment. But does a self-interest argument in defence of democracy essentially debase democracy? Would aggregation of individual self-interest suffice, economically or otherwise?
Economist Adam Smith was agnostic about our capacity for altruism. But in his revision to The Wealth of Nations, he changed his mind about invisible hand protections in postnational capitalist contexts.
Summoning up all possible altruism and evoking John F. Kennedy, we act as principled democratic citizens when we vote in the best interests of our own countries and of the world.
Ellen Anderson Summerside, PEI
Low bar
Re “Washington has Ottawa pegged as the weakest link on financial crime” (Report on Business, Nov. 1): “The only way for Ottawa to redeem itself is to close the yawning gaps between the U.S. and Canadian anti-money-laundering and anti-terrorist-financing regimes.”
In March, 2021, a report entitled “Enhancing National Security by Re-imagining FinCEN” was released by the highly respected organization Global Financial Integrity. Based on hours of in-depth conversations with anti-money laundering experts, the paper provides ideas to reform a U.S. regulatory agency that these professionals believe is “struggling … to meet the nation’s emerging money laundering challenges.”
One of these recommendations is to “establish a ‘Manhattan Project’ to identify, develop and operationalize state of the art technologies needed to fulfill the technology needs of a national anti-money laundering data center.”
Much more is needed to combat the scourge of money laundering worldwide.
Roy Cullen PC, CPA Victoria
Knock on
Re “Canada’s harm reduction legacy is under threat. We must not turn back” (Oct. 29): The steps that David Eby and Doug Ford have taken away from harm reduction do more than endanger the public health of Canadians – they also reverberate south of the border.
Elected officials in Massachusetts and their staff (I am one of the latter) have visited supervised consumption sites in Canada and shared positive impressions of them with colleagues. Those who ignore the admonition to protect this “crucial option for people with opioid dependency” would create an additional negative consequence of complicating the challenges faced by U.S. harm-reduction advocates.
Mark Sternman Somerville, Mass.
Joke’s on…
Re “Tony Hinchcliffe wasn’t just cruel at the Trump rally. He broke a cardinal rule of comedy” (Nov. 2): Columnist Adrian Lee argues that the insulting jokes Tony Hinchliffe lobbed at a Trump rally were garbage humour because the jokes didn’t land.
Usually when people are offended by jokes, they say no one laughed because the joke was bad. Mr. Lee flips that script, arguing that Mr. Hinchcliffe’s jokes were bad because no one laughed.
In the usual analysis, the cruelty of the joke is what makes it bad. Mr. Lee shifts attention to a different sort of badness: aesthetic failure. The formal skill it takes to make large audiences laugh is often overlooked.
I respect that Mr. Lee invites us to appreciate comedy as an intricately interactive art. But why did the audience who laps up Donald Trump’s racist stand-up have a problem with Mr. Hinchcliffe’s?
Danielle Bobker, Professor, English, Concordia University Montreal
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