Author: Graeme MacKay

Thursday July 22, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday July 22, 2021

U.S. border to remain closed until at least Aug. 21

The U.S. land border will remain closed to non-essential travel until at least Aug. 21, according to a renewal order issued by the American government Wednesday.

June 23, 2021

In a notice pre-published in the U.S. Federal Register, the U.S. government says that while vaccination rates have improved, opening the land border to non-essential travel still poses too great a risk.

“Given the outbreak and continued transmission and spread of COVID-19 within the United States and globally, the Secretary has determined that the risk of continued transmission and spread of the virus associated with COVID-19 between the United States and Canada poses an ongoing specific threat to human life or national interests,” says the U.S. government notice.

The new order expires one minute before midnight on Aug. 21.

The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement that offered little additional explanation.

April 18, 2020

“To decrease the spread of COVID-19, including the Delta variant, the United States is extending restrictions on non-essential travel at our land and ferry crossings with Canada and Mexico through August 21, while ensuring the continued flow of essential trade and travel,” wrote DHS spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández.

“DHS is in constant contact with Canadian and Mexican counterparts to identify the conditions under which restrictions may be eased safely and sustainably.”

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was also tight-lipped.

“We rely on the guidance of our health and medical experts, not on the actions of other countries,” Psaki told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Cincinnati.

“We created these working groups so we can have an open line of communication, discussion on what the criteria look like, what measures needed to be met. Those are ongoing and of course, we continue to be briefed internally as well.”

June 27, 2015

The American order comes only a few days after the Canadian government announced its land border would open to fully vaccinated U.S. citizens on Aug. 9 and to fully vaccinated travellers from other countries on Sept. 7.

Speaking to reporters today, Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said he has been working closely with U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, who informed him of the U.S. government’s plan to keep its land border closed to non-essential travel.

“There are a number of considerations that I know that the American government is currently undertaking with respect to their borders and that work will continue,” he said.

Blair said the U.S. policy doesn’t affect Canada’s decision to open its border next month.

“Our responsibility, of course, is to look after the best interests of Canadians and to follow the advice of our public health officials,” he said. “That’s precisely what we have done.” (CBC) 

 

Wednesday July 21, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday July 21, 2021

Ford outright rejects vaccine passports on eve of Step 3 of COVID-19 reopening

Ontario Premier Doug Ford firmly rejected the possibility of implementing vaccine passports on Thursday.

June 4, 2021

Ford spoke at a news conference announcing a new long-term care home in Toronto, the Runnymede Long-Term Care Home, expected to open in the summer of 2023. The centre is expected to provide 200 new long-term care spaces.

“No, we aren’t doing it,” he said. “We’re not going to have a split society.”

As for whether it will be mandatory for health-care workers to get a vaccine, Ford said while they’re encouraged to do so, no one should be forced to be immunized.

“I’m not in favour of a mandatory certification and neither, by the way, is the chief medical officer,” said Ford. “Folks, just please go get vaccinated.”

Fords comments follow similar ones by Solicitor General Sylvia Jones a day before, who shut down the possibility of any sort of proof-of-vaccination system being introduced in the province.

April 8, 2021

If needed, Jones said, Ontarians  who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 can rely on the receipt printed or emailed to them after their second shot.

Some businesses in the province have said that when Ontario enters Step 3 of its reopening plan, patrons will need to show proof of vaccination upon arrival. 

Toronto Mayor John Tory has called on the provincial government to create a voluntary system that would help individual businesses or organizations determine the vaccination status of patrons, employees and members. The Toronto Region Board of Trade has also endorsed such an initiative.

Ford said Thursday he will be addressing the question of a federal vaccination card with the prime minister later in the day.

Ontario reported 143 new cases of COVID-19 and 10 more deaths linked to the illness on Thursday, while total vaccinations fell by more than 100,000 from the same day last week.

Public health units collectively administered another 166,201 doses of COVID-19 vaccines yesterday, of which roughly 88 per cent were second shots. Last Wednesday saw more than 268,000 shots given out provincewide.

More than 57 per cent of Ontarians aged 12 and older have now had two doses of vaccines. (CBC) 

 

Tuesday July 20, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday July 20, 2021

“I’m Getting the Word Out”: Inside the Feverish Mind of Donald Trump

March 26, 2019

Seventy days had passed since Donald Trump left Washington against his will. On March 31, 2021, we ventured to Mar-a-Lago, where he still reigned as king of Republican politics. We arrived late that afternoon for our audience with the man who used to be president and were ushered into an ornate sixty-foot-long room that functioned as a kind of lobby leading to the club’s patio. A model of Air Force One painted in Trump’s proposed redesign—a flat red stripe across the middle, a navy belly, a white top, and a giant American flag on the tail—was proudly displayed on the coffee table facing the entrance. It was a prop disconnected from reality.  Trump’s vision never came to be; the fleet now in use by President Biden still bears the iconic baby blue-and-white livery designed by Jacqueline Kennedy.

“Used to be” is not a phrase anyone dares use to describe the president inside his Palm Beach castle. Here, beneath the gold-leaf ceiling of winged griffins and crystal chandeliers, Trump still rules, surrounded day and night by applauding fans, obsequious courtiers, and dutiful servants. At the perfectly manicured Mar-a-Lago, none of the disgrace that marked the end of his presidency pierces Trump’s reality. Here, he and his aides work to maintain the gospel according to Trump, with the most important revelations being that Donald Trump was the greatest president of all time and was unjustly denied a second term.

January 22, 2019

Trump had invited us to Mar-a-Lago to interview him for this book. He had declined an interview for our first book about his presidency, and when A Very Stable Genius was published in January 2020, attacked us personally and branded our reporting a work of fiction. But Trump was quick to agree to our request this time. He sought to curate history.

As we sat for the interview, the former president’s press secretary presented us copies of a bound volume: 1,000 Accomplishments of President Donald J. Trump: Highlights of the First Term. On the back cover is an American flag, the presidential seal, and Trump’s thick, jagged signature. The book totals 92 pages and is organized with chapters dedicated to the economy, tax cuts, deregulation, trade, and so on.

January 24, 2017

Trump walked into the room flanked by a couple of plainclothed Secret Service agents, a much smaller detail than he once had as president. He wore his customary dark suit and tie, his face covered with bronze makeup. He sat in his preferred position, a plush armchair of ivory brocade facing the entrance where guests arrive, with us on a sofa to his right. Behind him was a huge window looking out to the Atlantic Ocean; in front of him, the patio facing Lake Worth.

“This is the biggest, the best, the most acreage, the most everything—the ocean, the lake, it fronts both,” the ever-boasting Trump said. “Mar-a-Lago is ocean-to-lake. Did you know that? Mar-a-Lago, ocean to lake. It’s the only place. See that window? That window, when that was built, is the largest pane of glass in the world, okay?”

June 23, 2021

Trump started the interview by pointing out his enduring and unrivaled power within the Republican Party. He explained that he didn’t intend to follow the path of former presidents, who largely bowed out of the nitty-gritty of party politics. He was proud to say he genuinely enjoys this sport he found so late in life, and believes he plays it better than anyone else. The parade of Republican politicians flocking to Mar-a-Lago all spring to kiss his ring had both energized him, he said, and proved the value of his stock.

“We have had so many, and so many are coming in,” Trump said. “It’s been pretty amazing. You see the numbers. They need the endorsement. I don’t say this in a braggadocious way, but if they don’t get the endorsement, they don’t win.” 

But future elections were not front and center in his mind. A past election was. Trump was fixated on his loss in 2020, returning to this wound repeatedly throughout the interview. 

April 29, 2020

“In a certain way, I had two presidencies,” he said. In the first, when the economy was roaring, Trump argued that he had been unbeatable, never mind that his approval rating was never higher than 46 percent in the Gallup poll during his first three years as president.

“I think it would be hard if George Washington came back from the dead and he chose Abraham Lincoln as his vice president, I think it would have been very hard for them to beat me,” Trump said.

Then, he lamented, came his second presidency: the pandemic killed his chances.

Trump seemed determined as well to convince us that he actually had won, and handily, had it not been for the many people who had wronged him—the “evil people” who conspired to deny him his rightful second term.

“The greatest fraud ever perpetrated in this country was this last election,” Trump said. “It was rigged and it was stolen. It was both. It was a combination, and Bill Barr didn’t do anything about it.”

Trump faulted not only his attorney general, but Vice President Pence for lacking the bravery to do what was right. (Continued: Vanity Fair)

The Journey of a Hero to the Island of Elba

A satirical depiction of the exile of the French Emperor Napoleon to the island of Elba in 1814. This was Napoleon’s first defeat by the Allied nations of the Sixth Coalition, including Britain, Prussia, and Russia. Less than a year after Napoleon was overthrown, he escaped from Elba and returned to France, forcing the Sixth Coalition to reform. The Allied armies marched against him, and Napoleon was finally and conclusively defeated at the Battle of Waterloo. Pub’d by J. Phillips, No. 32 Charles Street Hampstead road, May 1814. (Source: Age of Revolution) 

Saturday July 17, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday July 17, 2021

Is the former town of Dundas next to be renamed?

Dundas Street West and Dundas, Ont., both named after Henry Dundas, who delayed British abolition of slavery

July 10, 2021

Toronto will rename Dundas Street West because of its ties to a racist from centuries past, but what about Hamilton’s suburb with the same name?

Toronto City Council voted in favour of a motion of changing the name of the west-east traffic artery. While there are no public calls to have the town of Dundas renamed, the downtown Toronto street and community in Hamilton have the same namesake.

Both were named in honour of Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville — an 18th-century politician from Scotland who used his power to delay the freedom of slaves in Britain. He entered politics in the late 1700s, gaining status and influence as home secretary and secretary at war.

He later became known as “The Great Tyrant” for tweaking an anti-slavery bill that would delay the abolition of the slave trade by roughly 15 years. His actions froze the freedom of roughly 630,000 slaves. He still has a monument in Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital and it has been the target of vandalism and a source of controversy.

September 1, 1999

Dundas no longer formally exists as a town, since Hamilton, its surrounding suburbs and the region of Hamilton Wentworth were amalgamated in 2000, so it’s not clear what a campaign to remove the name would mean.

But signs are still up identifying it as Dundas, the name is still in common everday use, it exists as a postal address and is still part of the riding name for the area – Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas.

Ontario’s NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, who grew up in Hamilton, supported the idea of renaming the Toronto street on Twitter.

“Henry Dundas blocked the abolition of slavery in the UK by years, a delay that cost tens of thousands of lives. Removing his name to reflect our values isn’t about rewriting shameful history — we can’t do that,” she wrote.

“It’s about rewriting our present day. Rename Dundas Street.”

It’s unclear if she supports renaming Dundas, as her office did not respond for comment.

August 15, 2015

Ward 13 Councillor, Arlene VanderBeek, who represents the Dundas area, did not return calls for comment.

Ameil Joseph, a McMaster University associate professor who studies critical race theory, told CBC News it’s important to think about the “how” and “why” of naming and renaming.

“If we’re thinking of Dundas, you would have to think about what it was before — Cootes Paradise. Thomas Coote was a British officer, also involved in a colonial project. Are we going to rename Bathurst, Jarvis — Jarvis who is a slave trader? Yonge? It’s all around us,” he said.

“When we think about removing statues and street signs, we have to think about how we do it differently, how we can tell the story in a way that’s more comprehensive rather than more erasure.”

Joseph said it is important to remove monuments that only tell one side of the various ethnic atrocities in Canada’s history, but the emphasis needs to be on replacing them with full context of past events, instead of only portraying the view of powerful.

You Might Be From Hamilton If…

“We’re in a historical moment where we can unpractice that, but it’s all about how. If we’re talking about our histories of Hamilton and Dundas, what’s beneath that? Beneath that is what’s always been here, these are traditional nations of the Mississauga and Haudenosaunee nations,” Joseph explained.

“A renaming would have to be something that speaks to Black communities who have been here since before Hamilton was Hamilton … these things are deeply implicated all around us. I don’t think pulling things down is just the answer.” (CBC)