U.S. president-elect Donald Trump, left, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talk prior to a NATO round table meeting at The Grove hotel and resort in Watford, Hertfordshire, England, on Dec. 4, 2019.Frank Augstein/The Associated Press
Red carpet
Re “Canada must take control of our relationship with Trump” (Opinion, Nov. 9): There was a long-standing tradition of a U.S. president making his first international visit to Canada. Justin Trudeau destroyed this tradition with his management of Canada-U.S. relations.
As a result, Donald Trump did not visit Canada on his first, second or even third international visit. Canada, like a choice of last resort, had to wait for his 17th trip.
Mr. Trudeau should take the unprecedented action of inviting Mr. Trump to Canada in December, before the president-elect is even sworn in. He should take a page from Brian Mulroney’s book and have a gala in Mr. Trump’s honour, featuring the very best in Canadian entertainment, like we did for Ronald Reagan.
If this is not done, Mr. Trudeau may have to wait forever for a Trump visit, if ever, or to even get the U.S. government to answer when Canada calls – unless he calls in Wayne Gretzky for an assist.
Chris Robertson Stony Plain, Alta.
Highly recommended
Re “Should doctors educated and trained in Quebec be forced to practise in Quebec?” (Nov. 12): “It’s one thing to say you have to practise in the province; quite another to say it has to be in the town of Rimouski.”
Hôpital régional de Rimouski is one of the finest hospitals in Quebec, if not Canada. It has treated my family members and many neighbours in the English summer community of Métis-sur-Mer (and all of the Gaspé) with world-class expertise and care, all in a completely bilingual environment and in a vibrant community on the banks of the St. Lawrence River.
If I was a graduating medical student and had to work in Quebec for a time, it would be the first place I would go.
Douglas Nowers Toronto
I attended medical school in Toronto from 1977 to 1981. For the last two years of my studies, I received $5,000 annually (around $20,000 in today’s dollars) for agreeing to work for two years as a GP in a Northern Underserviced Area.
I was able to afford tuition and living expenses with this program and thoroughly enjoyed practicing in Northwestern Ontario; only leaving after two years to pursue specialty training. It was a great program and I enthusiastically enjoyed it – much better than a punitive program.
A bigger question for the medical schools and the public to ask, is why tuition back then was $1,000; that is worth $4,000 today. Now, the same school charges $25,000. That has changed fundamentally who can afford to attend. And not for the better.
David Ross, MD Edmonton, Alta.
Etiquette lesson
Re “Students are ruder in class than before the pandemic, educators say” (Nov. 12): Classrooms with behaviour problems are not usually democratic classrooms. They are top-down classrooms where the knowledge and power are held by the teacher.
Education isn’t just the transmission of information and skills. In a classroom where goals, procedures and evaluation are responsibilities shared by students and staff, students have more of an investment in the smooth running of the classroom.
In some classrooms, I’m sure students play a leading part and there is no time-wasting “incivility.” If the students are the inner circle, why would they be rude to themselves?
The pandemic forced everyone to live more independently without needing to adjust behaviour for visible colleagues. But perhaps students with fewer or no memories of a co-operative learning environment need special attention when partners in education can hear, see and feel rudeness.
Kathleen Moore EdD, Toronto
Children learn what their parents may have accidentally taught them.
Three decades ago, I was for some years a subscriber to the National Arts Centre’s English theatre season. But my patience wore out when, one season, I was seated next to two women who found it inconvenient to stop their socializing, and who felt wholly comfortable discussing on-stage happenings and discourse in real time.
Even when I finally delivered a loud, “Would you two please shut up?” in the middle of a scene, I received only an annoyed look. I cancelled my subscription the next day, and the director of the theatre asked why I did that, expressing his hope that I would return. When I explained the problem, he gave up. He told me it was what they referred to as the “television crowd,” who did not understand that live theatre required and expected different conduct.
This sense of entitlement is learned. If kids are unaware of the requirement for decorum and respect for their classmates, then that sense has not been instilled in them.
Tom Curran Prince Edward County, Ont.
Blank space
Re “Don’t blame Taylor Swift for her triumphantly middlebrow march around the globe” (Nov. 9): The music of Bob Dylan and the Beatles came into my life like a tsunami when I was in high school and molded my taste in music forever. So I can easily agree that the music of Taylor Swift is a little bland.
But it is also suggested that art is not very good unless it makes us feel bad, and that a measure of the worth of a good concert is how much the venue gets vandalized. What? Say again?
Frank Burgess Edmonton
I was surprised to find a positive mention of one of my favourite artists in a commentary bemoaning the dominance of middlebrow culture, as exemplified by Taylor Swift.
So I accept the challenge to make more of an effort in the artistic and cultural pastimes we pursue. To begin, I intend to counter the coming invasion of Swifties by travelling to upstate New York later this month to witness the peerless Gillian Welch in concert.
Philip Conliffe Toronto
Taylor Swift has dragged all kinds of people into her web, not just teenagers and millennials, including Gen X and boomer fans of her boyfriend and football player Travis Kelce.
The type of music peddled by Ms. Swift is pure escapism. Our society is so politically, socially and morally corrupt that we seem to need her music to assuage our consciences.
I like the allusion to the Visigoths sacking ancient Rome. The Western Roman Empire did not collapse from without, but from the rot within. The parallel is obvious; the same fate awaits our Western society.
Thank to Ms. Swift and her Swifties for giving us some relief from the doom and gloom of our modern materialistic, amoral world.
Dan Smith Hamilton
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