Letters to the editor — Thursday, September 17

Thank you for reminder of how friends should treat each other

The Sharon Playhouse production of Come From Away is timely not only for the 25th anniversary of September 11 but also as a reminder of the special relationship between Canadians and Americans. When Newfoundlanders welcomed thousands of stranded Americans and others headed to the United States in 2001, they were not just acting as gracious small town folk living their Rock values; they were also enacting the relationship that Canadians and Americans have built by crossing our shared border — the longest undefended border in the world. The heart of the U.S.-Canada relationship is, as the historians Marcus Lee Hansen and John Bartlet Brebner put it in 1941, the mingling of the Canadian and American peoples.

It is that relationship — not to mention the story of Gander or the shared sacrifices made by Canadian and American soldiers in both World Wars and Afghanistan — that Donald Trump is now tearing asunder. He tosses out random national insults on social media and purports to rename Great Lakes. Worse, in the name of a quixotic and pointless trade war, Trump is attacking Canadian sovereignty. He and his negotiators attempted to strong arm Canada into sacrificing its language policy, forego its sovereign right to make trade pacts with third countries without American approval, and dismantle its unionized automobile industry. Meanwhile, he leaves the very Canadians celebrated in Come From Away wondering how literally to take his repeated threats to annex their country.

Leaving the theater, I could not help but feel ashamed and embarrassed that my country is repaying the kindness of our neighbors with such ugly attacks. Thank you to the Sharon Playhouse for the reminder of how friends and neighbors should treat each other — and for a reminder of how Canadians and Americans acted before Donald Trump.

Jacob Remes

Sharon