Dear Joseph,

I wanted to thank you personally today for your courage in publishing Michael Moore’s article in your April issue. Michael Moore has expressed powerfully what I feel and what probably lots of people are thinking.
Thank you very sincerely,

Abasse Asgaraly,
Toronto

Editorial note: Michael Moore recently signed a deal with Mel Gibson’s production company for his next film, Fahrenheit 911, exploring the business relationships between Osama bin Laden’s father and George Bush Sr. It is scheduled for completion in 2004.

Canada in the European Union (read article)

Dear Editor,

What would happen if Canada joined the EU, as Stephen Bradley advocates in the March 2003 Common Ground?

The USA would put economic and possibly military pressure on Canada to reverse course, because its economic interest in Canada would be threatened and because it would not wish to share its Northern border with an emerging superpower federation whose foreign and military policy is dominated by an increasingly unfriendly France and Germany.

Caada would have to count on the EU countering US pressure by being willing and able to protect and defend its new membership in the federation, with economic aid and with military forces on the Canada-US border to deter the American military from forcibly removing Canada from the federation and putting it back into the US sphere of influence.

What Bradley advocates is a fascinating thought - similar to a counterpart, the idea of ex-Soviet Bloc Eastern European States applying to become new individual states of the USA in order to avoid being dominated by France, Germany and Russia - but quite unlikely to become a future reality.
Yours sincerely,
D.I. Solomon, Victoria

The Editor,

In her article "First Strike Nukes?... Not For Canadians" (Common Ground, March 2003) Jen Bradley makes the following proposal: "If the people of Canada are to become more relevant to this (present) US administration, we need to become part of a family of nations that is economically stronger than the United States, and militarily equal, including in nuclear weapons. In other words we need to join the European Union (EU)."

Ignoring the complete unreality of Ms. Bradley’s proposal I suggest that if it was feasible it is completely the wrong way to go about achieving a peaceful world which is her stated goal. It amounts to playing the age old game of international power politics, yet raising the stakes to even higher and more dangerous levels. Imagine the hysteria and paranoia in the US if it felt threatened by a nuclear attack by the EU with Canada as an ally, given its present level of acute delusionary hysterics over the supposed "axis of evil".

Canada has some powerful bargaining chips of its own to use against the US by the way - without considering nuclear weapons... In short, we Canadians could sit across the table from Uncle Sam in a game of show-down poker and tell him to play ball with us or we turn off the lights. That might keep the candles burning in the White House Oval office for a while.

Richard Clements,
Vancouver

Grizzly kill numbers still "suppressed" (read articles)

Editor,

Why can’t Liberal environment minister Joyce Murray just admit that her ministry’s policy on the hunt is based on ideological grounds and not science? Murray continues to refuse to comply with rulings by both the Information and Privacy Commissioner and the BC Supreme Court to provide Raincoast Conservation Society with information that is critical to grizzly bear Conservation. Raincoast is seeking site specific grizzly kill location data in order to conduct an independent scientific analysis. But information is power and Murray and her ministry’s special interest supporters (i.e. the sport hunting lobby) know this quite well.

Murray’s actions in this matter are clearly designed to keep the public in the dark. Despite Premier Gordon Campbell’s election promise to have the most open and accountable government in Canada, the Liberals continue to go to extraordinary lengths to keep this information suppressed. We ask once again, what is this Liberal government trying so desperately to hide?

Chris Genovali
Executive Director,
Raincoast Conservation Society,
Victoria