Saturday November 2, 2019

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday November 2, 2019

Impeach Trump. Then Move On.

Is it possible that more than 20 Republican senators will vote to convict Donald Trump of articles of impeachment? When you hang around Washington you get the sense that it could happen.

September 27, 2019

The evidence against Trump is overwhelming. This Ukraine quid pro quo wasn’t just a single reckless phone call. It was a multiprong several-month campaign to use the levers of American power to destroy a political rival.

Republican legislators are being bludgeoned with this truth in testimony after testimony. They know in their hearts that Trump is guilty of impeachable offenses. It’s evident in the way they stare glumly at their desks during hearings; the way they flee reporters seeking comment; the way they slag the White House off the record. It’ll be hard for them to vote to acquit if they can’t even come up with a non-ludicrous rationale.

And yet when you get outside Washington it’s hard to imagine more than one or two G.O.P. senators voting to convict.

In the first place, Democrats have not won widespread public support. Nancy Pelosi always said impeachment works only if there’s a bipartisan groundswell, and so far there is not. Trump’s job approval numbers have been largely unaffected by the impeachment inquiry. Support for impeachment breaks down on conventional pro-Trump/anti-Trump lines. Roughly 90 percent of Republican voters oppose it. Republican senators will never vote to convict in the face of that.

August 23, 2018

Second, Democrats have not won over the most important voters — moderates in swing states. A New York Times/Siena College survey of voters in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin found that just 43 percent want to impeach and remove Trump from office, while 53 percent do not. Pushing impeachment makes Democrats vulnerable in precisely the states they cannot afford to lose in 2020.

Third, there is little prospect these numbers will turn around, even after a series of high-profile hearings.

I’ve been traveling pretty constantly since this impeachment thing got going. I’ve been to a bunch of blue states and a bunch of red states (including Kansas, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah). In coastal blue states, impeachment comes up in conversation all the time. In red states, it never comes up; ask people in red states if they’ve been talking about it with their friends, they shrug and reply no, not really. 

Prof. Paul Sracic of Youngstown State University in Ohio told Ken Stern from Vanity Fair that when he asked his class of 80 students if they’d heard any conversation about impeachment, only two said they had. When he asked if impeachment interested them, all 80 said it did not.

Fourth, it’s a lot harder to do impeachment in an age of cynicism, exhaustion and distrust. During Watergate, voters trusted federal institutions and granted the impeachment process a measure of legitimacy. Today’s voters do not share that trust and will not regard an intra-Washington process as legitimate.

Many Americans don’t care about impeachment because they take it as a given that this is the kind of corruption that politicians of all stripes have been doing all along. Many don’t care because it looks like the same partisan warfare that’s been going on forever, just with a different name.

Fifth, it’s harder to do impeachment when politics is seen as an existential war for the future of the country. Many Republicans know Trump is guilty, but they can’t afford to hand power to Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders.

March 31, 2017

Progressives, let me ask you a question: If Trump-style Republicans were trying to impeach a President Biden, Warren or Sanders, and there was evidence of guilt, would you vote to convict? Answer honestly.

I get that Democrats feel they have to proceed with impeachment to protect the Constitution and the rule of law. But there is little chance they will come close to ousting the president. So I hope they set a Thanksgiving deadline. Play the impeachment card through November, have the House vote and then move on to other things. The Senate can quickly dispose of the matter and Democratic candidates can make their best pitches for denying Trump re-election.

Elizabeth Bruenig of The Washington Post put her finger on something important in a recent essay on Trump’s evangelical voters: the assumption of decline. Many Trump voters take it as a matter of course that for the rest of their lives things are going to get worse for them — economically, spiritually, politically and culturally. They are not the only voters who think this way. Many young voters in their OK Boomer T-shirts feel exactly the same, except about climate change, employment prospects and debt.

This sense of elite negligence in the face of national decline is the core issue right now. Impeachment is a distraction from that. As quickly as possible, it’s time to move on. (David Brooks, NYTimes)  

 

Friday November 1, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday November 1, 2019

Can Doug Ford learn from his mistakes?

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has ended the longest legislative break in a quarter century and his own political exile. He admits his government has made mistakes and vows to find a new “tone” going forward.

May 29, 2019

“Governing is always hard,” says Ford. “We all mature in the role that we’re in and you just try not to make the same mistakes.”

Far be it for this page to disagree with Ford on any of that. Or his stated desire to “learn by your mistakes.”

His government has been a disaster, and the way Ontario voters cast their ballots in last week’s federal election strongly suggests they also know it.

But putting the wrecking ball that has been the hallmark of the Ford government’s first 16 months down to exuberance is far too simplistic.

The early autism cuts and cronyism scandal, for example, were mistakes. But much of the chaos in everything from education to social services is not the result of haste or blundering. It flows from purposeful policy decisions to cut costs.

October 29, 2019

So as Ford seeks to reset his government the real question is what exactly he thinks are his “mistakes.” That his policies proved to be more unpopular with the people of Ontario than expected, or that they were the wrong direction in the first place?

If it’s the former, Ontarians can expect to see a slower pace of change with more effort put into finding support for the government’s cuts. If it’s the latter, and we hope it is, it might mean more than that.

Monday’s Question Period, though, didn’t bode well for the idea that the new and improved Ford government is about substance and not just style.

Ford welcomed back NDP Leader Andrea Horwath and thanked her for her questions. Then he launched into the same half-truths he’s always peddled.

On education, Ford said, the government is investing “more money than any government in the history of Ontario.” But per student funding — the primary means of funding schools — is down; some high school students are struggling to get the classes they need for university; and teachers’ unions, furious about job reductions, are set to take strike votes.

May 14, 2019

On Ford’s appalling taxpayer-funded court battle over the federal carbon pricing plan, he continued to claim people “just can’t afford it.” He ignored, as usual, the fact that most people will get back more than they pay because of the rebates that come with it.

It’s obvious that Ford needs to reset his government’s agenda.

At this point, no one, not even his own Progressive Conservative colleagues, can possibly know even what it is, given all the U-turns and waffles over the last few months.

Ford happily blew up Toronto city council mid-election, supposedly to create better and more efficient municipal government and vowed to extend such thinking to other regions. Then, on Friday, after months of consultation and study the government abandoned that idea; instead, it offered municipalities more money to find efficiencies and improve services.

May 4, 2019

The province has finally moved to enact legislation passed by the former Liberal government to ban the promotion of vaping products in convenience stores but hasn’t done the same thing on labour reforms needed to protect temporary workers. It has reduced its deep cuts to child care, but not for legal aid. On carbon pricing Ford changed his mind two months ago, only to change it back again last week.

How is anyone to know what this government stands for now?

At the top of the Ford government’s list of legislative priorities is “restoring trust and accountability in government.”

After promising efficiencies but delivering devastating cuts that will be a long road.

And if Ford really wants to avoid repeating his mistakes, this legislative session needs to be about more than softer words. (Toronto Star) 

 

Wednesday October 31, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday October 31, 2019

Scheer faces more criticism as Conservative caucus reminded of new rules that could trigger a leadership review

On a day when three prominent conservatives publicly criticized Andrew Scheer’s leadership, a note went out to the Conservative caucus reminding them of new parliamentary rules that could allow a leadership review to be held as early as next week.

Peter MacKay Gallery

Peter MacKay, one of the co-founders of the modern Conservative party, told a Washington audience Wednesday that in the face of Justin Trudeau’s stumbles, the Conservative leader’s failure to win the Oct. 21 election was “like having a breakaway on an open net” and missing the chance to put the puck in.

Appearing on a panel at the Wilson Centre’s Canada Institute, MacKay — who up to now has said he supports Scheer — nevertheless took his own shots at the Conservative leader and the campaign he ran.

“People didn’t want to talk about women’s reproductive rights, or revisiting same-sex marriage,” said MacKay, but it was “thrust onto the agenda” and “hung around Andrew Scheer’s neck like a stinking albatross, quite frankly, and he wasn’t able to deftly deal with those issues when the opportunities arose.”

MacKay said it “created a nervousness” among women who might have considered voting Conservative.

October 16, 2019

But MacKay, who left politics in 2015, may not be as big an immediate threat to Scheer as those sitting inside Scheer’s Conservative caucus.

Le Devoir has reported Quebec Conservative senators Jean-Guy Dagenais, and Josée Verner, a former Conservative cabinet minister who sits in the Senate as an independent, are publicly calling for Scheer to step aside. Dagenais told the paper that Scheer’s social conservative beliefs hurt the party in Quebec, and suggested it might be better for Scheer to bow out. Verner said it was time for the party to “change the recipe.”

As the political pressure continued to build Wednesday, the Conservative caucus was reminded of new parliamentary rules that could conceivably enable a vote on Scheer’s leadership as early as next week.

In an email sent to all MPs and obtained by the Star on Wednesday, Conservative MP Michael Chong reminded his parliamentary colleagues of the “legal obligations” of each caucus to vote at its first meeting on a number of questions of protocol, including what powers it has for ousting its leader. The first Conservative caucus meeting will be held Nov. 6 in Ottawa.

Chong spearheaded parliamentary reforms in 2015 that allow every caucus to, among other things, empower itself to oust the party leader. If Conservatives decide to do so, a leadership review could be triggered if 20 per cent of all Conservative MPs and senators call for it. In other words, should the caucus choose to adopt the new rules and then 30 members vote for a leadership review, a secret ballot vote would be held on whether Scheer can continue as leader. (Toronto Star) 

 

Tuesday October 29, 2019

October 29, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday October 29, 2019

Ontario will champion a united Canada: Premier Doug Ford

November 20, 2018

Ontario needs to “step up” and help heal a country fractured after a federal election campaign, Premier Doug Ford says.

“I’ve never seen the country this divided,” Ford said in a one-on-one interview Thursday with the Toronto Sun. “I think it’s time that Ontario steps up and unites this country. We’re so much stronger when we’re united.”

Ford said he gets along well with several other premiers, including those in Alberta and Quebec, and strongly believes that the provinces should be competing against the world, not each other.

Ontario does well in a strong Canada, and Canada does well with a strong Ontario, he said.

“I understand their concerns out west; they’re putting $20 billion into the federal government’s pockets and they’re frustrated,” he said. “(Albertans are) upset; they’re really upset, actually.”

March 24, 2009

The same is true for folks he spoke to in Saskatchewan, he Ford.

One of the issues dividing some provinces and the federal government is carbon taxes.

The federal government’s lead voice in favour of carbon taxes, Liberal MP Catherine McKenna, found the windows of her constituency office spray-painted with a vulgar, sexist message Thursday.

Ford said he continues to oppose carbon taxes, believes that they put the province at an international economic disadvantage, but called for political points of views to be expressed peacefully.

“That’s totally unacceptable what they spray-painted,” he said. “I don’t care what political stripe you are.”

His own constituency office was occupied by protesters recently, terrifying his staff, he said.

February 1, 2018

Ford and his government head back to the legislature Monday for the first time since June.

Many have suggested that Ford was keeping out of the public eye for fear of hurting Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer’s chances of winning Monday’s federal election.

Ford said he told Scheer at the start of the campaign that he hoped the Conservative leader won but he was staying out of it, focusing on pressing provincial matters.

Asked if he minded that his name kept popping up in the campaign — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau repeatedly told Canadians they could expect Ford-like cuts from Scheer — the premier said it didn’t bother him.

However, in a phone call with Trudeau the day after the election, he touched on the topic, Ford said.

“I told the prime minister that ‘enough of the politicking now, people expect us to work together and make sure that we build on infrastructure and other areas,’” Ford said. (Toronto Sun) https://torontosun.com/news/provincial/ontario-will-champion-a-united-canada-premier-doug-ford

 

Tuesday November 5, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday November 5, 2019

Is there lead in your tap water? Canada-wide investigation exposes dangerous levels of toxic metal

Hundreds of thousands of Canadians are consuming tap water laced with high levels of lead leaching from aging and deteriorating infrastructure.

A year-long investigation by more than 120 journalists from nine universities and 10 media organizations, including the Toronto Star and the Institute for Investigative Journalism, collected test results that properly measure exposure to lead in 11 cities across Canada. Out of 12,000 tests since 2014, one third — 33 per cent —exceeded the national safety guideline of 5 parts per billion.

Reporters also fanned out to 32 cities and towns across the country — from Victoria, B.C., to Grand Pre, N.S. — to knock on doors in neighborhoods with older homes. With the help of residents who volunteered to take part, the teams conducted 260 water tests using accepted standards and submitted samples to accredited labs. The results showed 39 per cent of samples exceeded the current federal guideline.

Experts call threats from lead exposure a simmering public health crisis. But many Canadians remain unaware of serious long-term health consequences because government oversight is often lax and secretive.

Canada is blessed with the world’s third largest renewable freshwater supply covering about 12 per cent of the country’s surface area. But while Canada may be a global water superpower with a reputation for snow-capped mountains, crystal clear lakes and free flowing rivers, lead exceedances in tap water are chronic and sometimes extreme, the investigation found.

Test results from samples taken in cities including Prince Rupert, B.C., Regina, Moose Jaw, Saskatoon and Montreal showed lead levels comparable to — and in some cases beyond — those of U.S. cities that have made international headlines for their tainted water. (Toronto Star)