Letters, April 1

Opinion

Security concern

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre refuses to get the security clearance taken by all other Canadian political party leaders seeking to be prime minister in the federal election. He says that if he gets the clearance he will be restricted from asking questions concerning foreign interference in the Canadian political system.

This is nonsense. I suggest that he is not taking the security clearance for a much simpler reason — he has something to hide. What, only he knows. You cannot be prime minister of Canada if you cannot or refuse to obtain a security clearance.

Frank A. Johnson

Winnipeg

Maladies of medical internationalism

Re: What is it with Marco Rubio and Cuba’s medical internationalism? (Think Tank, March 27)

As always with Peter McKenna’s columns dealing with Cuba, one needs to fill the blank with some critical perspective.

His column on Cuban doctors abroad program is a case in point. It has indeed been a real benefit to many patients around the world, but the dictatorial nature of the regime shines through it.

Cuban doctors are treated by their government as state property: they are never done paying back the “free” education they got on the island. No independent union exists, and doctors (or any other workers) cannot negotiate their compensation, either at home or as part of those “missions.” They pocket only 10 to 25 per cent of salary paid by the host country: the government confiscates the rest.

That is why, as McKenna meekly admits, it is a major source of hard currency. Their families are forbidden to travel with them, to discourage desertion. If the doctors chose exile anyway, their salary and savings (frozen in a bank account in Cuba) are confiscated, and they cannot return home for eight years. Few ever return anyway, for fear of reprisal. Their family try to join them abroad instead.

When arriving in the host country, doctors hand over their passports to their Cuban supervisors, who also monitor their communication with Cubans at home, and with nationals where they now work. Based on the indicators of the International Labour Organization, United Nations rapporteurs and numerous human and labour rights organizations do not hesitate to denounce the dark side of that program as “modern-day slavery.”

McKenna also mentions the “oil for doctors” deal with Venezuela. Again, allow me (as professor and chair of the political science department at St. Francis Xavier University) to fill the blank: it is oil for doctors and for Cuban intelligence officials all over the security apparatus of the Venezuelan state (intelligence and counterintelligence, army and police, administrative service of identification, immigration and more).

Basically, one dictatorship helping another to quash dissent, in the army and in the population. In sum, let’s cheer for Cuban doctors, without winking to their overlord.

Yvon Grenier

Antigonish, N.S.

Tactical errors

Your readers likely recall the efforts the Conservatives made last fall to get the NDP to agree to topple the Liberals. When the NDP proved reluctant (likely fearing a Conservative sweep), the Conservatives made the mistake of criticizing Jagmeet Singh harshly.

It seems clear that both parties handled the situation badly. By attacking Singh, the Conservatives simply cemented the NDP resolve not to co-operate and, in turn, the NDP did not realize that a brand new leader of the Liberals would make their party (the NDP) a bit player. There was open discussion at that time that Mark Carney was waiting in the wings.

The Conservatives lost their chance to battle an unpopular Trudeau and the NDP lost any attention by the public in the focus on the new kid on the block.

I suspect that the long-term success of the Liberals is not because their party is so brilliant, but because its opponents are so stupid.

Kurt Clyde

Winnipeg

Matter of respect

U.S. President Donald Trump states that “we had a very good talk, the prime minister and myself.”

Well, of course. Trump had no respect for a drama teacher as prime minister and he has publicly expressed his disdain for Pierre Poilievre.

But when speaking to Prime Minister Mark Carney, the conversation was “very cordial” and “substantive,” according to Carney. Why the sudden change in tone?

Very simply, it’s because Carney is a money man — an investment banker no less — Trump’s kind of guy.

There is no doubt that they will get along fabulously … to the benefit of the one per cent, but to the detriment of the rest of us.

Gilles Roch

Winnipeg

Election priorities

This is top of my federal election wish list.

On Dec. 5, 2024, Sen. Charles Adler spoke out in support of Bill C-355. This is the bill to end the live transport of horses for slaughter overseas (something promised by former prime minister Justin Trudeau).

But Parliament has been dissolved and Canadians are heading to the polls on April 28.

So Bill C-355 has unfortunately died on the order paper. I’m beginning to realize that it’s a formidable task, given the bureaucracy involved in bringing anything to fruition.

I’ve been to the airport in Winnipeg and I’ve seen for myself the horses being loaded into the crates for export. The times that I’ve gone have been in -30 C weather and it’s been heartbreaking and demoralizing to see these beautiful animals crammed into crates waiting on the tarmac for hours on end.

If Canadians only knew.

I know there’s other huge issues facing us as a country but is it too much to ask that somehow, someway a bill to stop this travesty can finally be passed?

Lois Taylor

Winnipeg

What real democracy looks like

Some in the United States have made declarations that the U.S. has the best and strongest democracy in the world.

Canada is now in a national election from which we will likely know within two days of election day, which political party will form government, majority or otherwise. There is debate after every election, about the disadvantages of the “first past the post” type of current voting. Nevertheless, Canada has a democracy that works, while knowing that it could be improved.

What is happening in the U.S. now is that its national elections are producing increasingly poorer results. Conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and claims of weaponization of the justice system over the last eight years are still repeated by the current president and his supporters.

The latest U.S. election has produced an administration that is breaking the rules that protect most nations from autocracy, in the form of checks and balances. This disruption is aided by blatant and hidden financial influence from billionaires, inside and outside the administration.

The economic threats and other threats and actions toward sovereign countries is not what we should expect from the U.S.

Future U.S. administrations would be wise to study how other democracies function and abandon the perpetual assumption that the U.S. has the best form of government. The current administration is probably not inclined or capable of doing so.

Canada is a real and strong democracy, despite the attacks by some of our own politicians.

David Stones

Winnipeg

Passionate performance

Re: Charismatic maestro connects (March 29)

I was fortunate to be among the “more than 1,000 intrepid music lovers” who attended the Beethoven’s Fourth conducted by Leslie Suganandarajah. It was truly a delight.

And I agree with Holly Harris’s review that he led with an “informal, down-to-earth manner” which quickly grabbed us — the audience — in a palpable manner.

Even I, not in any way a music critic, found myself caught in the intense passion he communicated in his conducting and which the whole orchestra then used to engage us in an unusual musical journey.

Bernie Wiebe

Winnipeg