Carney no saviour

Re: How to commit national suicide — Ron Hoffman, Letter of the Day, April 27; Conservatives say it’s ‘clear’ Carney is vying for Trudeau’s job — Catherine Lévesque, April 27; and Mark Carney’s anti-populist agenda

— Adam Pankratz, April 30

Ron Hoffman’s succinct analysis of the state of Canada’s health should be must-reading for all Canadians. Code Blue is deemed to be the most serious alarm in a hospital. Basically it means that a patient is in need of resuscitation. Sadly, due to inept, ineffectual leadership, Canada is desperately in need of resuscitation. It will surely take more than simply replacing Justin Trudeau with Mark Carney.

While Carney may be a step up from our disastrous prime minister, he will inherit a group of ministers with a history of incompetence. The Liberal ship is ablaze. The task to restore Canada to good health will be a gargantuan one.

There will be two positives if a Pierre Poilievre Conservative government takes over. First of all, Poilievre is an intelligent human being who can make speeches without reading his notes, who is not a narcissist and who truly cares about Canada. Secondly, he has a really competent, strong supporting cast from which to choose ministers. In the words of Alexander Pope, “Hope springs eternal.”

Bob Erwin, Ottawa

Mark Carney needs to note that there’s also left-wing populism. It states the falsehood that we’re “strengthening the middle class and building a strong future.”

But, as the Fraser Institute reported recently, those Canadians earning $30,000 to 60,000 have high effective marginal tax rates, sometimes higher than those earning 10 times as much. That’s because, along with paying taxes, they lose federal and provincial transfer benefits. So why’s that necessary? For one reason because, for months on end during COVID, left-wing populists shovelled $2,000 a month in CERB payments to hundreds of thousands of Canadians who didn’t have a job to lose.

Colin Alexander, Ottawa