Letters: ‘We knew this was coming’

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There’s a funny scene in the 1987 comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles in which John Candy and Steve Martin are driving at night in the wrong direction on a freeway. The driver of a passing car frantically screams at them, “You’re going the wrong way.” But Candy and Martin pay no heed until they are almost obliterated by two huge transports going in the right direction.

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By his “Back to Europe” pivot, Prime Minister Mark Carney is driving eastward in a world where the largest and fastest growing regional economy is westward — the Asia Pacific region. Western Canada — which looks west not east for the future — shouts, “You’re going the wrong way.” But will Mr. Carney listen? Not likely.

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Preston Manning, Calgary

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Some tips for the Tories

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If Conservatives really want to form a government there is only one change that will lead them there, and that’s a change in leadership. Losing one’s own long-held safe riding seat, losing a federal election, losing MPs to another party, losing byelections, trailing miserably in preferred leadership polls etc, yet still believing that everything is somehow going to work out in the end, is rabbit-hole thinking. Blaming Donald Trump or the EU won’t change anything.

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If the party doesn’t think a leadership change is important, just look across the aisle to what happened when a new leader arrived on the scene.

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Douglas Cornish, Ottawa

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I am fed up with the ridiculous criticism of Pierre Poilievre from within his own party. How about, for once, you show a united front for your leader? Or are all of you actually enjoying shooting yourselves in your collective foot?

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Poilievre’s critics should be concentrating on the real problem: How can we free Canada from the grip of the federal Liberals and their leader Mark Carney, who incidentally, by his non-stop foreign travelling and disdain of Parliament, shows that he truly does not have a clue about, or perhaps does not care about, trying to solve the problems that plague Canada?

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My bet is that long before the deadline date of his current contract, Carney will quit this job. But it would be far more rewarding if he could be defeated in an election. And that will only happen if the Opposition makes a united effort to pursue that aim.

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Glynis Van Steen, Burlington, Ont.

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Our Official Opposition, the Conservatives, need to stop hoping to find weaknesses in prime minister Mark Carney. Right now voters are blinded, just as they were blinded by glamorous Justin Trudeau. Conservatives also need to stop feeling like a failure because their party lost the past federal election. Never mind that political newcomer Carney was the former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England. Voters can’t help loving a person who wears a halo. Voters who had thrown their hats into the ring with the Conservatives because they hated Justin Trudeau moved over to the Liberals because the Liberals had a new glamorous person to replace him with.

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Instead of trying to dim the aura of our current prime minister, Conservatives should concentrate on the weaknesses of the Liberal government. Attention to the justice system is critical, as is the huge government bureaucracy paid for by our taxes on everything from soup to nuts. As well, the fact that our prime minister hasn’t told us the whole truth about Canada’s decision to withdraw from the tariff talks between the U.S. and Canada is a serious concern.

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Leone Wright, Surrey, B.C.

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Where is the outrage?

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As I was arriving at my synagogue on Rosh Hashanah and stood in line to be searched with metal detectors, it occurred to me that no other religious community has to undergo a search upon entering their place of worship.

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Imagine going to church on Christmas and having to first be searched with metal detectors. Or imagine attending a Hindu temple or a mosque and being asked to open your handbag before being searched with metal detectors?

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Why have we accepted this? Why have we allowed the hatred toward the Jewish community to be so great that our community members feel under threat in our own cities, in our schools and in our places of worship?