So sorry about Canada
Linda Besner might want to apologise for stereotyping Canadians as overly apologetic (25 May). Watch Canadians play hockey for five minutes. Also, Canadians are diverse peoples not easily summed up; if we’ve learned to get along by being polite: bravo.
Prime minister Justin Trudeau’s many apologies follow failures by so many others on indigenous and other matters. Rather than doing nothing, in under three years his government has dissolved the department that ran indigenous lives, launched an inquiry into missing women and set the stage for 94 “calls to action” on truth and reconciliation. The pipeline mentioned, though fiercely debated, is supported by most Canadians, including indigenous communities, some of which may soon have ownership.
Agreed, apologies are no replacement for real action, but they are (and have been) a good start. Trudeau’s apparent smugness – well, there may be an apology forthcoming on that.
Jon Midgley
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
No need for higher taxes
Higher taxes needed for NHS (1 June) is based on a fallacy – that a currency-issuing government needs to balance its books like a household, and therefore to raise taxes in order to spend. Government spending does not cause inflation if it is within the capacity of the economy to produce the goods and services being purchased.
If the government wishes to improve the NHS, it decides which services it wishes to purchase, and puts money into the accounts of its chosen service providers.
Increasing taxes – for any reason – removes wealth from the private sector, thereby reducing demand in the economy and increasing unemployment.
Any convention to keep the budget deficit below a certain percentage of GDP is a self-imposed constraint, restricting the growth of the wealth of the non-government sector, from where the wellbeing of society comes.
John Ayton
Milton Keynes, UK
Take a quiz before voting
I was struck by Helena Rosenblatt’s article Democracy is in crisis (1 June) and how Americans are becoming complacent about democracy. Is it time to introduce a qualifying quiz for voters to pass before granting them the right to vote in each election? It need not be complex or difficult and can be available to all eligible voters. The goal is to test knowledge of facts about the jurisdiction and candidates’ platforms.
This approach, combined with more stringent rules about election advertising, might reduce the influence of social media and help us return to the fundamentals of civic responsibility. If many choose not to be examined, then perhaps the choice of fewer but willingly informed citizens is more democratic than the choice of many citizens who do not bother with basic facts.
Ralph C Martin
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
A climate change paradox
This is difficult: as Guardian readers, we are supposed to be concerned about ever-accelerating climate change. Donald Trump, who is a climate sceptic, takes measures to redistribute the economy for the sake of American jobs (Trump’s trade war, who wins? 8 June). Then everyone speaks of trade war and seems discontented. We know, however, that local purchasing is a decisive way to fight climate change. How do we get out of the paradox?
Marc Jachym
Les Ulis, France
Briefly
• It’s always interesting to see the gaps in knowledge citizens of one country have about another. Case in point is Decca Aitkenhead’s piece on comedian Michelle Wolf (8 June), whom she refers to as having grown up in a “modest Pennsylvania town”. The “modest” town is Hershey, founded by Milton Hershey, the chocolate baron, and with an amusement park, chocolate museum, factory tour and botanical gardens, is a well-known tourist destination.
Referring to Hershey as if it were some generic small town is akin to an American saying “John Bull grew up in a modest English town,” and that town was Cambridge.
Lewis Beale
Raleigh, North Carolina, US
• At least Jason Burke, writing on Pakistan (Comment, 8 June) admits we might be enlightened by these “supposedly distant and irrelevant lands” that for him are evidently not Europe or the US. Yes, we are not all following “popular, nativist and nationalist” trends: isn’t New Zealand’s progressive Labour party, led by Jacinda Ardern, one particularly distant example he could mention of bucking this trend?
Elizabeth Eastmond
Auckland, New Zealand
• Grace Dent’s article on processed food was hilarious (8 June). I usually skip by food articles, but I am so glad I caught this one. I completely identified with the nostalgia. Maybe the reason a generation indulged itself in sweet things was the lack of such during the war years. The only indulgence I remember was showering my cornflakes with sugar.
Trev Jones
Stoney Creek, Ontario, Canada
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