Today’s cartoon…is a week late

Recent editorial cartoons by Graeme MacKay are available for viewing (most of the time) at the online site of the Hamilton Spectator. You can also get a glimpse of the most recent work by scrolling down the right side of this page to what’s been posted to his Twitter feed…

Like most newspapers, the Hamilton Spectator is ending its give-away of online content. It’s been a nice 10 year or so free run, but with it has come a reduction in ad revenue and a loss of content providers, namely, journalists, photographers, and… cartoonists. This is probably the last chance to keep traditional newspapers, like the Hamilton Spectator, from completely sinking into the abyss in the transition to subscriber supported digital media.

 Look for cartoons posted here 1 week after publication in the Hamilton Spectator, alongside contextual articles to help better understand the satire behind important issues of the day. Graeme has drawn thousands of cartoons over his lifetime, most of which have been digitized and available for viewing through mackaycartoons.net.

If you care about local news and rely on professional coverage by experienced journalists to keep you informed, please consider subscribing to your local traditional newspaper.

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Wednesday March 13, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday March 13, 2019

Ontario to ban cellphones from classrooms starting next school year

Ontario students will no longer be able to use their cellphones in the classroom next September, as Premier Doug Ford makes good on a populist campaign promise.

August 24, 2018

CTV News Toronto has confirmed that the Ministry of Education will change the code of conduct for students and teachers, implementing a ban on smartphone use during class time but allowing local school boards to decide how to enforce the new rules.

“Ontario’s students need to be able to focus on their learning – not their cellphones,” Education Minister Lisa Thompson said in a statement.

“By banning cellphone use that distracts from learning, we are helping students to focus on acquiring the foundational skills they need like reading, writing and math.”

The new student code of conduct is expected to have strict guidelines for cellphone use, including preventing students from placing their phones face-down on desks, even with the ringer set to silent.

September 3, 2013

Students would be allowed to bring their phones into the classroom, the government said, but usage would be reserved for educational and emergency situations.

“Obviously for emergency purposes, for medical purposes and for specific courses that require technological platforms – they’d be permissible,” Progressive Conservative MPP Stephen Lecce told CTV News Toronto.

The government said teachers and parents overwhelmingly supported banning cellphone use during telephone town halls and surveys conducted last fall, in which 97 per cent of the 35,000 respondents advocated for the move.

Among the feedback sent to the ministry of education, educators complained that phones were not only a distraction but that students were also using them to cheat and share unflattering photographs of teachers on social media.

September 17, 2010

Ministry of education officials, speaking on background, said students wouldn’t be expected to lock up their phones and while enforcement will be difficult, it will be left up to school boards.

“Parents deserve to know it, students deserve to know it for their own protection, and to be fair, educators want how they’re going to have that enforceability,” Lecce said.

While Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner agrees that cellphones can be a distraction, he is critical of what he describes as the government’s “top-down regulation” approach.

“The Ford government is just duplicating powers that educators already have to control cellphone use in their classrooms. Instead of empowering schools to create reasonable cell phone use policies, Ford is promising a province-wide ban that is impossible to enforce,” Schreiner said in a statement. (Source: CTV News)  

 

Tuesday March 12, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday March 12, 2019

Ontario government ponders ban on single-use plastics

Ontario is weighing a ban on single-use plastics, which include bags, water bottles and straws.

April 24, 2018

Nearly a tonne of waste per person in Ontario is generated each year, and the rate at which that waste is diverted away from landfills — through recycling and composting, for example — has stalled around 30 per cent for the past 15 years.

The government recently released a discussion paper on reducing litter and waste,  and is asking the public and stakeholders for input on how to best address the problem. One question it asks is if a ban on single-use plastics would be effective in reducing plastic waste.

Environment Minister Rod Phillips said it’s an area in which the government is very open.

January 16, 2019

“We are essentially saying, ‘How would those work and how have they worked in other jurisdictions effectively?”‘ Phillips said in an interview. “Plastics is a priority from our government’s point of view, particularly as we talk about plastics in our waterways.”

It is estimated that almost 10,000 tonnes of plastic debris enter the Great Lakes each year, the discussion paper says. Ontario’s Blue Box recycling program recovers only about 28 per cent of all plastic packaging in the province.

Ontario is also mulling a deposit return system for plastic bottles and other containers, as is used in some other provinces.

March 6, 2015

Keith Brooks, programs director at Environmental Defence, said a lot of single-use plastics are unnecessary, pointing to straws and cutlery.

“I think that a ban on some single-use plastics makes a lot of sense,” he said. “I think it’s a good conversation to have.”

But by asking such a broad question, the answer may be no, Brooks cautioned, saying he didn’t think any jurisdiction has banned all single-use plastics.

“There’s some single-use plastics that are probably going to continue to be used…for food safety reasons and things like that,” he said, though he would push for them to be standardized and recyclable. (Source: CBC) 

 

Saturday March 9, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday March 9, 2019

Trudeau expresses regret over scandal, but does not apologise

Justin Trudeau has expressed regret for his handling of a political scandal that has cost him two cabinet ministers and a close adviser – but stopped short of apologising, insisting no laws had been broken and that neither he nor his staff had taken any unethical actions.

October 31, 2018

“This has been a tough few weeks,” the Canadian prime minister said on Thursday. “Canadians expect and deserve to have faith in their institutions and the people who act within them … I have taken – and will continue to take – many lessons from these recent days and few weeks.”

Trudeau and his close aides are accused of improperly pressuring the country’s former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to abandon the prosecution of the engineering company SNC-Lavalin, which is alleged to have bribed the Libyan government to secure lucrative construction contracts. He said: “There are conversations that were experienced differently. I regret that.”

March 8, 2019

The firm, which employs 9,000 people in Canada, is based in the province of Québec, where Trudeau’s Liberals need to pick up seats to win a federal election set for October. The scandal has cast a shadow over Trudeau’s domestic image as someone who is committed to transparent government.

His conciliatory remarks in front of reporters on Thursday were an attempt to shift public attention away from the scandal.

Justin Trudeau has expressed regret for his handling of a political scandal that has cost him two cabinet ministers and a close adviser – but stopped short of apologising, insisting no laws had been broken and that neither he nor his staff had taken any unethical actions.

“This has been a tough few weeks,” the Canadian prime minister said on Thursday. “Canadians expect and deserve to have faith in their institutions and the people who act within them … I have taken – and will continue to take – many lessons from these recent days and few weeks.”

January 12, 2019

Trudeau and his close aides are accused of improperly pressuring the country’s former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to abandon the prosecution of the engineering company SNC-Lavalin, which is alleged to have bribed the Libyan government to secure lucrative construction contracts. He said: “There are conversations that were experienced differently. I regret that.”

The firm, which employs 9,000 people in Canada, is based in the province of Québec, where Trudeau’s Liberals need to pick up seats to win a federal election set for October. The scandal has cast a shadow over Trudeau’s domestic image as someone who is committed to transparent government.

His conciliatory remarks in front of reporters on Thursday were an attempt to shift public attention away from the scandal. (Source: The Guardian, UK) 

 

Friday March 8, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday March 8, 2019

Tories won’t rule out another friend of Premier Doug Ford as OPP head

An unrepentant Community Safety Minister Sylvia Jones is refusing to rule out hiring another pal of Premier Doug Ford as head of the Ontario Provincial Police despite the controversy that derailed the Ron Taverner appointment.

March 6, 2019

Her comments came Thursday as the lawyer for former deputy OPP commissioner Brad Blair — who was fired after blowing the whistle over possible conflicts in the Taverner appointment and a customized van sought by Ford — threatened to sue the province for wrongful dismissal.

An unrepentant Community Safety Minister Sylvia Jones is refusing to rule out hiring another pal of Premier Doug Ford as head of the Ontario Provincial Police despite the controversy that derailed the Ron Taverner appointment.

February 28, 2019

Her comments came Thursday as the lawyer for former deputy OPP commissioner Brad Blair — who was fired after blowing the whistle over possible conflicts in the Taverner appointment and a customized van sought by Ford — threatened to sue the province for wrongful dismissal.

“If the government hasn’t learned that yet then we are in big trouble. That’s why a public inquiry is necessary,” Horwath said of her push for Wake to broaden his probe, which has seen Ford and others interviewed privately.

Wake’s report is due in the “near future” and will be posted on the integrity commissioner’s website, said spokeswoman Cathryn Motherwell.

December 5, 2018

Ford, who showed up in the legislature’s question period for the first time this week, has been “tone deaf” to the concerns about police independence, charged Green Leader Mike Schreiner.

“Twenty seven people applied for the job,” Schreiner said. “Surely we can find an OPP commissioner who’s qualified to do the job who’s not friends with the premier, creating an unacceptable conflict of interest.” (Source: Toronto Star) 

 

Thursday March 7, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 7, 2019

Gerald Butts’ testimony couldn’t save Trudeau’s skin, but the rest of us will be fine

The flag is still flying on government buildings. There are no troops in the streets. The CBC is still broadcasting and the House of Commons committees are still functioning. Mail is still being delivered, and all those other little things Canadians take for granted are still being attended to. They carry on in their delightfully banal ways despite an Ipsos-Reid poll’s troubling finding that two-thirds of Canadians say Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has lost the moral authority to govern.

February 28, 2019

That Canadian democracy is still functioning is worth pointing out, given the lightning strikes and the rolling thunder accompanying the SNC-Lavalin bribery-case revelations. It is more than worrisome that despite their loudest protests to the contrary, the bigshots in Trudeau’s inner circle do not hold the foundational democratic principle of the rule of law to be especially sacrosanct after all. With all the cabinet resignations and committee-hearing drama, and the public astonishment with the creepiness of the whole thing, 73 per cent of Liberal voters, even, say the RCMP should be brought in to sort things out.

Blame the mainstream media generally, or even specifically The Globe and Mail, which broke the story a month ago, all you like. Recite as accurately and loudly as you please from the Liberal party handbook’s provisions on “jobs for the middle class and people working hard to join it.” The slightest hint that this thematic talking point is being deployed as a justification for monkeying around with judicial independence will be seen by reasonable people as fatally self-incriminating. But go right ahead.

March 2, 2019

These prevarications were not what the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights heard on Wednesday morning from Gerald Butts, the principal secretary to Justin Trudeau, and Trudeau’s dear friend for three decades, who resigned three weeks ago after having found himself a central character in the whole drama. In his long-awaited testimony, Butts insisted there was no improper pressure applied to attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould, at least not intentionally, and that all that was being asked of her was that a “second opinion” might be sought on the propriety of a remediation agreement with SNC-Lavalin, instead of a criminal prosecution. An eminent jurist might be consulted. Or perhaps a panel of jurists.

When Butts talked about the 9,000 SNC-Lavalin jobs that may or may not be at stake in the case, he spoke as a Cape Bretoner, from a family of miners. He spoke with his heart and his guts. As for his account of his interactions with Wilson-Raybould, and his take on the various communications and encounters the Prime Minister’s Office had with Wilson-Raybould on the SNC-Lavalin file, the most generous reading would be that it’s all been one big horrible misunderstanding.

August 20, 2016

Whether this repairs any of the damage done to Team Trudeau cannot yet be known, but that Ipsos-Reid poll was concluded even before Treasury Board president Jane Philpott resigned from cabinet on Monday. Her explanation: “Sadly, I have lost confidence in how the government has dealt with this matter and in how it has responded to the issues raised.” Set your hair on fire if you must, but Philpott’s view is in complete agreement with the opinion Ipsos-Reid attributes to the overwhelming majority of Canadians. (Continued: National Post)