International

Thursday January 5, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday January 5, 2023

Ottawa is passing the buck on this holiday season’s air travel chaos

December 23, 2022

Over the past couple of weeks, air travellers have experienced what will likely be remembered as the most difficult Christmas travel peak in recent memory. For Canadians, it was a sad repeat of the challenges they faced last summer. While much of the chaos air travellers experienced this Christmas can be chalked up to bad weather, those travelling with Southwest Airlines and Sunwing, in particular, saw their plans upended by challenging recoveries in the days that followed.

Both airlines saw their operations turned upside down, leaving thousands of customers affected. But that is where the similarities end. The response of the respective airlines, as well as that of the senior-most transportation official in each country, couldn’t have been more different.

Southwest made the difficult but ultimately correct decision to reset their severely disrupted operations by cancelling upwards of two-thirds of their flights for much of the week following Dec. 23 to get aircraft and crew back in place. By Dec. 30, Southwest resumed near normal operations and started its recovery.

April 23, 2014

Sunwing, on the other hand, correctly, however belatedly, leased aircraft from other carriers to deal with their stranded customers but also was forced to cancel flights until February, including all its flights out of Saskatchewan. While the airline confirms that most stranded travellers have now returned to Canada, the longer-term cancellations make it clear that the airline marketed and sold flights which they did not have enough resources to operate. Where Southwest took the “short-term pain for long-term gain” approach, Sunwing decided that extending and spreading the pain well into the winter season made more sense.

While U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg appeared on virtually every major network news program, Canadian Transport Minister Omar Alghabra took to Twitter to voice his concern.

Against this backdrop of air travel chaos, several key lessons can be drawn. The first and most important lesson is to be pro-active.

Many of the issues faced by travellers were not only predictable, they were predicted. The problems travellers encountered during the summer peak became self-evident by spring yet nothing was done. With its sprawling bureaucracy, it should not be too much to expect Transport Canada to better monitor operational performance so that trends can be more easily identified and appropriately addressed. 

May 25, 2022

Mr. Alghabra spent 2022 playing catch-up rather than leading. He should be the last person in Canada surprised by anything happening at airports during his watch, yet feigning surprise or being firmly in denial, was his and his department’s modus operandi. By being pro-active, he could have helped alleviate some of the long lines at airport security and customs that plagued airports last summer and could have been in a stronger position to encourage Sunwing to repatriate its stranded customers in a more timely fashion. (Continued: The Globe and Mail) 

 

Graeme Gallery 2022 – The World

Friday December 30, 2022. My publisher is showcasing 4 pages of my cartoons from the past year, 2022. Here they all are, plus a few extras. Click on any of the cartoons to link back to the original dates they were posted:

December 24, 2021
January 15, 2022
January 18, 2022
January 19, 2022
January 6, 2022
March 9, 2022
April 12, 2022
May 6, 2022
June 18, 2022
September 7, 2022
September 14, 2022
October 18, 2022
November 12, 2022
December 22, 2022

Last Year 2021 | OntarioGG22 | CanadaGG22 | 25th Anniversary

Friday December 23, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday December 23, 2022

Winter storm in US and Canada causes power outages for over a million

The storm has brought damaging winds and freezing temperatures that can quickly lead to frostbite.

December 24, 2013

Much of Canada and the US are under winter weather alerts that stretch from coast-to-coast and as far south as the US-Mexico border.

Major airports have cancelled thousands of flights as the storm intensifies.

As of Friday morning, more than 1,130,000 people from Texas to Maine were left in the dark, as the intense winds brought damage to power lines across the eastern US.

Power outages have also been reported in Canada, affecting 260,000 people in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario.

January 31, 2019

The US National Weather Service said that over 200 million people – or roughly 60% of the US population – are under some form of winter weather advisory.

Much of Canada, from British Columbia to Newfoundland, is also under extreme cold and winter storm warnings.

Several school boards in Ontario, including Toronto, have cancelled classes. The airline WestJet has also cancelled flights on Friday due to “prolonged and extreme weather events” across Canada.

This storm is set to bring the iciest Christmas in decades, say forecasters, even affecting the sunshine state of Florida. (BBC) 

From sketch to finish, in 30 seconds, see the current way Graeme completes an editorial cartoon using an iPencil, the Procreate app, and a couple of cheats on an iPad Pro … These sped up clips are posted to encourage others to be creative, to take advantage of the technology many of us already have and to use it to produce satire. Comfort the afflicted. Afflict the comforted.

 

Thursday December 22, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday December 22, 2022

Putin Finally Says the Quiet Part Out Loud

September 22, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin made a significant statement this week as he called the conflict in Ukraine a “war” for the first time since he ordered a full-scale invasion into the neighboring country.

On Thursday, Putin advocated for an end to the “war,” a word he has avoided using to describe what he and the Kremlin have otherwise insisted to be a “special military operation” for the last 10 months.

“Our aim is not to fan the flames of this military conflict, on the contrary, it is to end this war,” Putin told reporters.

Up until now, the Russian president has repeatedly asserted that the ongoing escalation in Ukraine is not a “war” but a “special military operation” that Russia had “no choice” but to conduct to protect Russians living in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Just earlier this month, Putin said the “special military operation” was taking longer than expected as he acknowledged that the battle was taking a toll on his army. Speaking with members of his Human Rights Council, Putin vowed to “consistently fight for our interests” despite it being a “lengthy process.”

September 1, 2022

But Thursday’s comment marks a departure from the narrative Putin has sought to maintain throughout Russia’s invasion, and revealed how fraught the conflict remains just days before Christmas. Calculations from Newsweek estimate that Russia’s death toll is expected to pass 100,000 troop losses on Thursday.

On Thursday, Russia reiterated that it is open to negotiations—a claim that has been met with much skepticism from Ukraine and the West.

“I have said many times: The intensification of hostilities leads to unjustified losses,” Putin said. “All armed conflicts end one way or another with some kind of negotiations on the diplomatic track.”

“Sooner or later, any parties in a state of conflict sit down and make an agreement. The sooner this realization comes to those who oppose us, the better. We have never given up on this,” the Russian president added.

December 24, 2018

His comments come a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made an in-person address to Congress during his first trip outside of Ukraine since the conflict began on February 24.

“Russia could stop its aggression…but you can speed up our victory,” Zelensky told American lawmakers on Wednesday night.

Asking for continued assistance from the U.S., the Ukrainian president said, “Your money is not charity, it’s an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way.”

During the visit, President Joe Biden announced an additional $1.8 billion in military aid for Ukraine, saying, “I think it’s important for [Zelensky] to know we are going to do everything in our power to see that he succeeds.” (Newsweek) 

 

Tuesday December 20, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday December 20, 2022

Happy Winter solstice 2022 – Good riddance to a dreary past year

December 21, 2012

For most of us in the northern hemisphere, the drop in temperature over the last few weeks has become apparent; frosty mornings and cold air is the order of the day. Marking the first day of astronomical winter, the winter solstice lays claim to the shortest day of the year, but it’s also the date after which the Sun starts to make a welcome return.

The winter solstice is one of the oldest known winter celebrations. Not only does it mark the changing of the seasons, but it marks an end to the long winter nights.

Although Stonehenge is one of the world’s most famous prehistoric monuments, remarkably little is known about these ancient standing stones. They have, however, become synonymous with the solstices, and it’s difficult to avoid news of throngs of people flocking to the monument in mid-winter and mid-summer. But they have good reason, and have done so for millennia.

October 21, 2021

Most archaeologists believe that Stonehenge was erected as a giant astronomical calendar, as the standing stones are oriented towards the rising and setting Sun at the solstices. However, there is some debate as to whether they were originally built for a specific solstice, or both.

At the winter solstice, the Sun would have set between two uprights, however the effect is somewhat lost today as one of these stones has since fallen down. Laser analysis of these stones has revealed that they were carefully shaped using hammerstones, creating vertical sides that perfectly framed the movement of the Sun.

This year, because the precise time of the solstice occurs at 9:48pm on 21 December (i.e., after the Sun has set), the winter solstice will be celebrated at sunrise on 22 December. But, if you don’t fancy heading out into the brisk winter morning, you can livestream the event over at English Heritage. (BBC)