INTERFERENCE CALL

Re “MP Han Dong leaving Liberal caucus, denies allegations related to conversation with Chinese diplomat” (March 22): We’ve seen this picture before with now-retired vice-admiral Mark Norman and guess what happened: He was exonerated and it cost Canadian taxpayers more than $1.4-million.

Maybe Han Dong is guilty of the allegations, but innuendo and hearsay should not be considered proof. Canadians should be demanding a fair hearing.

David Chalmers Toronto

Canadians are pitted against Canadians, and queries into Chinese influence raise the spectre of racism over our multicultural country.

Yet sovereignty derives from the people’s determination of what our country is and the policies we want our governments to adopt; if we continue to turn a blind eye to foreign political influence because we fear that redressing our policies is racist, we leave ourselves open to espionage and attacks on our sovereignty.

We have before us the opportunity to shore up Canadian sovereignty and multiculturalism by enacting policies and enforcement that provide better constraints, oversight and disclosure around politicians and their rapports with foreign governments. We can draw lessons from our multiculturalism: We are not in an either-or endgame.

Better policies that hold all politicians to account is as nonpartisan and fair as it gets. In the interim, I believe strong words of support for Chinese-Canadian citizens are overdue from our government.

Emmanuelle Deaton Ottawa

Re “Good move” (Letters, March 23): A letter-writer states that Justin Trudeau’s retreat on election interference issue took courage. On the contrary, it looks like he retreated only after denial, deflection and obfuscation failed to put the issue to bed.

Courage and proper leadership would have been to institute immediately a serious nonpartisan investigation into the foreign intrusions that threaten our precious democracy.

Kathryn Vogel Toronto