Ontario

September 8, 2006

Ontario’s Premier, Dalton McGuinty, goes to work everyday wearing a uniform. Dark pants, a white shirt (usually), and a red tie…(always Liberal red and always loosened). Sleeves always rolled up. It proclaims to the people, “hey, I’m in charge, but I’m going to be comfortable while I work very hard at this job.” It may also declare, “hey, yeah, I’m Premier, you don’t have to be scared of me, I’m not Mike Harris afterall.”

Accordingly, I depict him with his Premier’s costume in editorial cartoons. The transformation is chronicled in my Dalton McGuinty Gallery.

The forefather of Ontario’s jacketless, loosened red tie, rolled-up-sleeves appearance was the last Liberal Party Premier of the province (1985-1990), David Peterson, shown here in this official Queen’s Park portrait:

Here is the former Premier of Ontario in a recent photograph:

August 28, 2006

Does it look too wierd? From time to time I like to focus on subject matter from different angles. Todays was from directly above. I don’t know how effective it comes across but it took a lot of work and self doubt before it was finally done.

It shows Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty swimming in surplus cash. While green money is distinctive of American dollars it still makes sense, to me at least, to represent Canadian money as green as well, despite in reality it’s multicoloured. For those who thought I painstakingly drew each and every bill you’ll be disappointed to find out that it’s simply a multitude of the same image, cut and copied, slightly rotated, and pasted:

…with a few individual bills applied randomly. Here’s a smaller scale of the tile pattern:

The tragedy in all this is that I forgot to send it into the image archives of the Spectator before leaving work last Friday. A free lance cartoon ran instead.

Comments

Because you (thankfully) did not depict Dalton’s gitch on the pool-deck, you have wisely left it ambiguous whether or not he is going “commando” under those cut-and-pasted images of cash. We, the taxpayers, would rather not know.

On the topic of “image recycling”, I look forward to a future cartoon where you depict Bashar Assad doing the backstroke. I hope that world events conspire to give you an excuse to do so, but I cannot currently imagine what they may be.  – Commuting Hamiltonian, Sept 3, 2006

 

Friday October 21, 2005

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Friday October 21, 2005 Ontario ombudsman to probe MPAC Ontario's ombudsman is investigating the corporation that assigns values to private property for the purposes of municipal taxation. Andre Marin says there is a lack of transparency in how the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, or MPAC, arrives at its decisions. Marin says the complaints meter in his office has moved into the red-zone over MPAC's ways and there is deep-rooted dissatisfaction over property assessments. He calls the corporation aloof and mysterious and says citizens are dazed and confused over their inability to get the corporation to reveal basic criteria on how values are set. Marin says he knows something is wrong when the mayor of Sarnia refers to MPAC's methods as Monty Python-like. The ombudsman says he'll investigate a number of areas, including MPAC's refusal to adhere to a successful appeal of a property's valuation in subsequent assessments. The investigation is expected to last four to six months. (Source: Ottawa Citizen) Ontario, MPAC, property, assessment, tax, iceberg, hudson bay, tax, housing

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Friday October 21, 2005

Ontario ombudsman to probe MPAC

Ontario’s ombudsman is investigating the corporation that assigns values to private property for the purposes of municipal taxation. Andre Marin says there is a lack of transparency in how the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation, or MPAC, arrives at its decisions.

Marin says the complaints meter in his office has moved into the red-zone over MPAC’s ways and there is deep-rooted dissatisfaction over property assessments.

He calls the corporation aloof and mysterious and says citizens are dazed and confused over their inability to get the corporation to reveal basic criteria on how values are set.

Marin says he knows something is wrong when the mayor of Sarnia refers to MPAC’s methods as Monty Python-like.

The ombudsman says he’ll investigate a number of areas, including MPAC’s refusal to adhere to a successful appeal of a property’s valuation in subsequent assessments.

The investigation is expected to last four to six months. (Source: Ottawa Citizen)

 

Thursday July 14, 2005

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday July 14, 2005

‘Redneck’ Harris irked OPP inspector

Former Ontario premier Mike Harris was a “redneck” who wanted speedy action to remove native protesters from Ipperwash Provincial Park, but was resigned to proceeding through the courts, a judicial inquiry was told yesterday. 

OPP Insp. Ron Fox testified yesterday he was paged to a noon-hour meeting at Queen’s Park on Sept. 6, 1995, the same day Dudley George was killed during a skirmish between police and protesters who’d moved into the park two days earlier. 

At the meeting was the-then Conservative premier, his attorney general, solicitor general, natural resources minister and their deputy ministers. 

In a subsequent call to the police commander at the Ipperwash standoff, John Carson, Fox warned police were dealing “with a real redneck government.” 

“They are f . . . barrel suckers. They just are in love with guns. There’s no question they don’t give a sh . . less about Indians,” he said in the recorded call played yesterday at the Ipperwash inquiry. 

During the meeting, Harris criticized police for not taking immediate action when the natives moved into the park and suggested it would be raised at a later inquiry, Fox said. (Hamilton Spectator)

 

Wednesday March 9, 2005

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday March 9, 2005

McGuinty Brushes off Developer’s Accusation

A developer who says he got favourable treatment when Ontario was drawing up conservation boundaries is provoking trouble because so much of his land was placed inside the so-called greenbelt, Premier Dalton McGuinty suggested Tuesday.

The allegation by developer Silvio De Gasperis that he had land excluded from the conservation plan after pleading his case with Municipal Affairs Minister John Gerretsen threw the province’s Opposition into a ferment Monday.

Their attacks forced Mr. Gerretsen to backpedal on earlier statements that he had avoided any talks with landowners about the proposed boundaries.

But Mr. McGuinty sought Tuesday to deflect attention by noting that lots of other land owned by Mr. De Gasperis does fall inside the greenbelt boundaries, putting it at the mercy of strict development rules and reducing its value. (Globe & Mail)