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The Huawei booth at the CeBIT computer fair in Hanover, northern Germany, on June 12, 2018. FFOCKE STRANGMANN/EPA

Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Try to keep letters to fewer than 150 words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com

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Huawei on campus

Re U.S. Lawmakers Urge Probe Of Huawei’s Research On Campuses (June 21): You report that “The chiefs of six U.S. intelligence agencies and three former heads of Canada’s spy services recently said Huawei is one of the world’s top cyberintelligence threats.” Despite this, some letter writers urge that Canada’s government permit the relationship with the Chinese state-owned company to continue. I can understand being dubious of anything that comes out of Donald Trump’s self-serving America. But to dismiss the concerns of Canadian espionage experts? That is foolhardy.

Samantha Chen, Winnipeg

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Huawei’s investment in Canada helps drive research excellence and talent development. In this way, Canada directly benefits from having IP and knowledge developed in Canada, stay in Canada to further advance Canadian research, while spawning new Canadian companies that harness this research.

Much of the research Huawei Canada is conducting involves initiatives where IP is jointly owned with Canadian professors and universities. This is consistent with recommendations made by Canadian technology leaders, and reflects Ottawa’s objectives to have Canadian-developed IP benefit Canada.

One of the key ways we can be transparent has been to hire and build a Canadian research team, and work with Canadian academics and students who have, through their research, intimate insight into our operations and technology. We have more than 850 employees in Canada – including more than 500 R&D employees; our research engagements over the past decade have encompassed numerous professors and hundreds of students.

We expect Canadians to have questions about our operations (Hey, we read the papers, too). Huawei’s Canadian team is committed to answering these questions through openness, transparency and engagement with Canadian officials, academics and research community. We hope their experience with us over these past 10 years reflects the efforts we make every day to answer these questions.

We would also hope Canadians listen to these voices, rather than those of politicians in other countries, when determining the value Huawei is bringing to Canada.

Scott Bradley, VP Corporate Affairs, Huawei Canada

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It seems clear Chinese technology is taking the lead in the development of advanced technologies formerly dominated by U.S. companies, and American senators are upset (Ottawa Silent On Huawei Concerns Raised By U.S. Senators – June 19). So they raise the security “fake flag” and Five Eyes to justify asking Canada to avoid a connection with Huawei.

Must we be beholden to U.S. technology if we can gain by going an independent path? China is moving rapidly. The U.S., under Donald Trump, is playing the selfish game. We can only lose by rejecting this chance for a closer connection to a world leader: Regardless of what we do, China will not be stopped!

Keith Hester, North Vancouver

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How can Canadian academics “whose work is largely underwritten by taxpayers” assign intellectual property rights to Huawei? I am appalled they are doing this, but that indignation pales when measured against the fact that my taxes are helping them to do it!

Meaghan Richards, Halifax

Families. Separated

Re Trump Ends Policy Of Family Separation (June 21): Donald Trump has a problem getting migrant kids and parents back together again, a logistical issue. He missed an opportunity to make the administration of this easy. All he had to do was tatoo ID numbers on the arm of each child and adult. It has been done before.

Alan Jackson, Ridgetown, Ont.

Confidence in a border

Re Wave Of Asylum Seekers Floods Toronto’s Shelters (June 21): There are two ways to deal with the growing desire of refugee claimants to make Canada home. The first is to send immigration officials abroad to interview claimants and review their applications before authorizing entry. Planning for housing and other social services for those accepted, can begin before they arrive. More than 40,000 Syrian refugees were allowed into Canada this way.

The second way is to encourage or permit claimants to enter the country with no prior vetting, and to review their claims only after they arrive. This is what Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic government did in Germany.

More than a million claimants from Syria and other countries took advantage of the offer. Public reaction was swift. In the 2017 election, the neo-fascist party (AfD) elected members to the Bundestag (94 of 709 seats) for the first time in 50-plus years, becoming the main opposition party. Similar results have been seen elsewhere in Europe, where concern over undocumented immigration has increased dramatically. Overt racist policies are being espoused by governments in Italy, Hungary and beyond.

The major difference between the first and second way of dealing with refugees is the country’s perception of whether its government has control over who is permitted in. When the public loses confidence in government to control its borders (as in Italy and Donald Trump’s America) very bad things happen. Democracy itself is imperiled. Canadian policy-makers should take note.

Peter Love, Toronto

That Charles Taylor

Re Moment In Time News Photo Archive (June 18): Readers may be interested to know that Charles Taylor, who took the photograph of Chinese schoolchildren in June, 1964, when he was The Globe and Mail bureau chief in China, was the only son of noted Canadian industrialist and horse-breeder, Edward Plunket (E.P.) Taylor.

It was Charles Taylor, in fact, who took over the operation of his parents’ famed Windfields Farm after his father’s stroke in 1980. He wrote several books about his experiences as a foreign correspondent and was also a chairman of the Writers Union of Canada. While a complete list of his accomplishments is too long to be included here, it should be noted that the annual Canadian literary award now known as the RBC Taylor Prize was originally known as the Charles Taylor Prize, and was created by his widow, Noreen, and sister, Judith (Mappin), to honour his death-bed request for an award to encourage writers of Canadian non-fiction. Charles Plunket Bourchier Taylor died in Toronto on July 8, 1997. He was 62.

Scott Kennedy, Toronto

CEO self-appreciation

Some headlines from this week’s Globe and Mail – Why Canadian CEO Pay Has Soared Over The Past Decade; How Much Are Canada’s Top CEOs Paid? Here’s The Full Breakdown; Pay Vs. Performance: How Do Canada’s CEOs Stack Up? – bring to mind the words of Canada’s own John Kenneth Galbraith: “The salary of the chief executive of a large corporation is not a market award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself.”

Richard Seymour, Brechin, Ont.

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