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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wife Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, and children, Xavier, 10, Ella-Grace, 9, visit the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, on Feb. 21.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

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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Indian Vacation

Canadians should be outraged. Over the past few weeks, the executive branch of our Canadian government has been zipping around the world, spending our hard-earned taxes attending useless meetings that are generating basically nothing for our country.

Two weeks ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his entourage spent a week in California, resulting in the grandiose announcement of 300 jobs for Canada. This week, Mr. Trudeau, along with his family, has effectively held a taxpayer-funded family vacation in India, with almost no formal meetings, while committing befuddling errors, making inaccurate announcements, exasperating India officials and further damaging already fragile Indo/Canadian relations (Welcome To India, Sort Of, Feb. 22).

The shock, however, is not a result of the past few weeks of useless government spending and time-wasting. The shock comes from what seems to Mr. Trudeau's very early and egregious transition to arrogance and entitlement.

What will it require for our elected officials to understand that they are not leaders but managers? They have been hired to manage our collectively owned assets and are entrusted to ensure that our resources are safe, secure and effectively developed if required.

Chuck (Charles) Bean, Calgary

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It's starting to feel like Justin Trudeau's prime ministership is a vacation in itself (Trudeau Family Visits India's Golden Temple, Helps Make Roti, Feb. 22).

Spending a week in India, a trip that is most definitely costing hard-working Canadians millions of dollars, is nothing more than a vacation and an appeal to the 1.5 million people of Indian origins back in Canada.

In your photo gallery, I do not see any pictures of Mr. Trudeau with Indian corporations. All I see are pictures of Mr. Trudeau at temples, mosques and the Taj Mahal. Mr. Trudeau is taking this trip not for the average Canadian, but for himself and the Liberal party in 2019.

Rishi Shah, Ajax, Ont.

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The shame of losing

I don't like reading that there is no shame in Olympic failure (It's A Shame Canada Lost Women's Hockey Final, But There Is No Shame In It, Feb. 22).

Olympic failure brings shame. I know. I've lived it as an Olympic athlete.

After a valiant attempt at the Athens Games in 2004, my team placed fifth in men's eight rowing.

What followed? Shame. Tears. Hugs. Awkward moments with family. Depression. A feeling that nobody understands. Jealousy of the success of other athletes.

If I can add my own experience to the mix of armchair performance coaches: It's going to hurt. It's going to hurt for a long time. And that's okay. It's okay to feel like silver is the first loser.

At the Olympic level, sport is everything. I had a lot of people coming up to me after our Olympic loss saying something like, "I'm sorry. I can't imagine what you're going through."

That felt good, but it was also awkward. What worked better for me? When a good friend grabbed me and said, "Screw the Olympics. Let's go have some fun ..." And there's no shame in fun.

Adam Kreek, Victoria

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Not very neighbourly

As a Minnesotan, I'm happy to share a friendly border with Canada, and applaud the achievements of our neighbours to the north. So Cathal Kelly's bitter anti-U.S. screed, mocking everything American from politicians to fans and individual athletes, was disappointing (The Americans And Their Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Games, Feb. 20).

In view of the Canadian women's hockey team's behaviour on winning Olympic silver, his later description of Canada's athletes as "extremely righteous" is ironic, indeed. I'm proud of the U.S. women for responding to their opponents' behaviour with the sympathy and sportsmanship expected of Olympian athletes – and neighbours.

Jack Maloney, Saint Paul, Minn.

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Gun grief

U.S. President Donald Trump believes the best way to avoid future mass shootings in U.S. schools is to arm the teachers (Grief, Anger And A Growing Call For Change, Feb. 22).

If U.S. school teachers and their representative organizations do not speak up loudly and immediately against this preposterous proposal, the gun-control problem is much bigger and more complicated than we ever imagined.

Graeme Lamb, Fonthill, Ont.

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Unfortunately, the United States has a very short attention span. So I suggest the student protesters in Florida not waste their time travelling to Tallahassee to demand gun control, nor bother chanting or stomping their feet at those well-intentioned ephemeral rallies.

If they want legislative change on guns, they must grow up fast, and try to understand how government works. Money represents power and leverage in government.

I suggest these students start appealing to the companies whose burgers, fries and pizza they've been eating, the companies whose jeans and sneakers they wear, those companies whose music, movies and magazines they purchase. They must use their leverage to elect the legislators who support their position and starve those that don't.

Casimir Galas, Toronto

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If U.S. students get law makers to toughen gun laws – to include a ban on the sale and use of automatic weapons, for example – would those new laws be sufficient to withstand the legal appeals that would soon appear?

And if the new laws did stand up after appeal – an unlikely outcome given the composition of the U.S. Supreme Court – what would happen when it came time to take back the automatic weapons from their owners? How many would refuse to turn the firearms in? And then what?

Dave Shore, Richmond, B.C.

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Own the aid podium

I applaud Valerie Percival's insistence that the Trudeau government promote a global health initiative at the Group of Seven leaders' summit in Charlevoix, Que., in June (On Global Health, Canada Is Not 'Back,' Feb. 21). But, as Ms. Percival underscores, we are way behind other developed countries in providing overseas development assistance (ODA).

It is interesting to note that Canada is ranked second in the medal standings at the Winter Olympics, as of Friday, but we place 15th in ODA as part of our gross national income. Norway is again in first place, Germany in fifth, but Canada ...

The government itself has stated that Canada's 2018 G7 presidency gives us an excellent opportunity to speak strongly on the world stage. But we need to do more than speak. It is time Canada owned more of the ODA podium – we want more ODA.

Sherry Moran, Ottawa

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