Letters: Tough for countries to spend more on defence and lower taxes

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The word from the current World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland is that NATO can’t wait for Canada to get its defence spending to at least two per cent of its annual gross domestic product

And the bar will soon be set higher by NATO, in hopes of securing a fighting chance in the face of soaring defence spending by China and Russia. But those same NATO countries are under immense pressure to attract new business investment by reducing regulation and taxes.

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This race to the bottom has to end if “free enterprise “ wants free countries in which to invest and thrive. NATO nation business leaders and investors must contribute fairly toward their government coffers, for their own defence.

Gord  Brock, Regina

Exported horses need protection

Canada is the only country in the world that breeds, raises and transports horses to Japan to fill the demand for fresh horse meat. Bill C-355 acknowledges the welfare concerns associated with 28-hour flights in cramped conditions, insufficient water, food and rest.

Many of these horses die en route. At the second reading of this bill in 2024, which aims to prohibit this practice from continuing, all Conservative MPs voted against its passage, including Andrew Scheer (Regina-Qu’Appelle) and Warren Steinley ( Regina Lewvan).

Gail Fischer, Regina

Nothing Christian about planet’s destruction

Astronauts typically express awe and even love for the beautiful Earth below while they’re in orbit.

I wonder how they feel when seeing raging, massive blazes as the firestorm viciously consuming a large swath of Los Angeles, and knowing that the air is being choked with health-damaging particulates? Or worse, the huge fires frequently ravaging the Amazonian rainforest?

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Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, recklessly allowed the rainforest to be razed by both meat farmers and wildfires. Incredibly, in the midst of yet another unprecedented wildfire during the summer of 2019, the evangelical Christian president declared that his presidency is somehow divine.

And Donald Trump has stated: “Many people have told me that God spared my life for a reason. And that reason was to save our country and to restore America to greatness.” Canada’s previous prime minister, Stephen Harper, was also unrelenting in his pro-fossil-fuel/anti-natural-environment war against science.

There also is a belief held by much of conservative ‘Christianity’ that to defend the natural environment from the planet’s greatest polluters, notably the fossil fuel industry, is to go against God’s will.

Many even credit the bone-dry-vegetation areas uncontrollably burning in California seemingly every year to some divine wrath upon that state’s collective liberal sinfulness. Perhaps there’s a serious hazard in such theologically inclined people getting into high office?

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Frank Sterle Jr., White Rock, B.C

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