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Friday August 15, 1997

August 15, 1997 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday August 15, 1997

Jolting Hydro into action

The real danger at Ontario Hydro isn’t Candu reactors. The greater risk is in accepting at face value what the provincial government and the Crown corporation’s board of directors say about the troubled utility.The government and board of directors seem to want Ontarions to believe that the problems at Hydro’s nuclear division are in hand. President Alan Kupcis has sacrificed himself, which is appropriate under the circumstances. Managers have been let go, and more heads will roll in the days to come, says Hydro board chair William Farlinger. Seven reactors are being closed and Hydro will improve its performance beginning right away. The inference seems to be: Carl Andognini’s explosive report has exposed the rot in Hydro management, and we can rest assured problems in the nuclear power generating system are being dealt with.

But the truth is that some of the most difficult, sensitive questions about Hydro’s abysmal performance have yet to be answered or, in some cases, even asked.

– Where was Hydro’s board of directors during the years nuclear division management was growing more isolated and ineffective?

To date, the only board member to acknowledge responsibility is Kupcis, who was also chief operating officer. What about the remainder of the board? Were they unaware of the growing problem? Did directors know of the situation, and fail to act? Some of what was uncovered in the scathing review of Hydro’s nuclear operations is new, but other problems are longstanding and have been aired publicly.

Either the board of directors knew about the problems and didn’t act, or it was asleep at the wheel. Either way it’s remarkable and disturbing that this board is being allowed to continue operating the public utility. As corporate governance analyst Richard Finlay says: “The board has to assume responsibility for the enormity of the disaster that has occurred on their watch.”

At the same time as the Harris government oversees the rebuilding of management, it should put in place a capable board of directors. Traditionally, many Hydro board seats have been patronage appointments. Clearly it’s time that changed.

– Should Ontario Hydro reduce or eliminate its nuclear component over time?

When it comes to things nuclear, there are few objective opinions. Thanks to Hydro’s mismanagement, the anti-nuclear lobby has ammunition

for the foreseeable future in its quest to shut down the nuclear industry, but much of what we’ll hear from both camps in the months to come is nothing more than propaganda. Yes, there is reason to question the extent to which Ontario relies on nuclear power. Waste disposal costs, environmental threats, and lingering questions about effective long-term mainten ance on Candu reactors combine to throw a long shadow over the future of nuclear power. That said, most of the evidence points toward the Candu reactors being safe and efficient if properly maintained. Contrary to what some environmental groups claim, there is no immediate danger from nuclear operations if they are properly managed.

The government and private sectors should use this occasion to launch a research and development campaign to test alternate power generation methods with an eye to reducing Ontario’s reliance on nuclear power. Fossil fuels are not an alternative.

– Should Ontario Hydro be privatized?

No. We’re not confident that the private sector will regulate nuclear power properly, and there’s no evidence that the Harris government has the political will to insist on effective regulation. In any case, it’s unlikely a private sector investor would be interested in the financial swamp that is Hydro’s nuclear division.

That said, it’s obvious the time has come to end Ontario Hydro’s monopoly. The government should plan now to allow private sector power generating companies to compete with Hydro. (Source: Hamilton Spectator Editorial)

Wednesday July 12, 1997

July 12, 1997 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday July 12, 1997

BURNING DESIRE TO WATCH

Everyone’s an armchair fire chief. As the plastic recycling plant burned to a shell, heaving an Apocalyptic cloud of smoke skyward, it seemed half of Hamilton gathered Wednesday night to gawk — and offer their firefighting expertise to anyone within earshot.

Hamilton Spectator photo

“What nimrod would put a hose right there? The smoke’s coming from over there, ” said one man, pointing agitatedly to where he felt Hamilton’s smoke-eaters should be paying attention.

“Why aren’t there any hoses along that wall? They should be hosing down the walls near that smokestack, ” said another, as he settled into a comfy patch of grass off of Ferguson Avenue North with his family.

But along with the complainers came an enthusiastic crowd of onlookers who were treated to one of the biggest and most spectacular fires in the city’s history as free entertainment.

Children played, families sat on blankets, others brought coolers and lawn chairs to sit and watch along the railway tracks and grassy knolls around the Wellington Street North Plastimet Inc. plant.

It seemed more like Victoria Day fireworks than a fire disaster.

People Ooooooh’ed and Ahhhhh’ed when walls started to collapse, or when the thick smoke coming from the fire scene temporarily changed from black to light grey and then back to black.

Area residents spilled on to their porches and tugged on beer and cola.

An enterprising ice cream vendor peddled into the area.

Dogs caught Frisbees. People laughed. Some children cried.

Driving was a nightmare as rubberneckers spent more time gazing at the plume of smoke than on the road, and the streets and sidewalks were jammed by people following the towering inferno to find the source of the fire.

A threesome of young pedestrians, picking their way along Barton Street towards the fire, were excitedly guessing the cause of the blaze.

“Maybe it’s a bomb! Or a plane crash!” offered one.

“Maybe the Mars probe crashed!” enthused another.

And with officials keeping mum on what might have sparked the fire causing all this commotion — who can argue with the Mars probe theory?

(Source: By Adrian Humphreys, Reporter Hamilton Spectator)

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Wednesday May 7, 1997

May 7, 1997 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday May 7, 1997

NDP’s ideas may be old, but they’re not stale

The last time I recall my morning paper giving heartfelt advice to Alexa McDonough, the NDP leader, was on the occasion of the federal by-election in Hamilton East. The vacancy in Hamilton East was what is nowadays called a “virtual” vacancy in that it was created by the virtual resignation of the sitting member, Sheila Copps, who is the ritual deputy prime minister, mock minister of t he environment, and the government’s let’s-pretend-friend of the CBC. She was resigning her seat in order to seek official atonement for being unable to persuade, as promised earlier, to eliminate the GST by increasing mothers’ allowances and ridding the Great Lakes of conger eels.

Attired in the most fashionable of sackcloth haut couture, the first female deputy prime minister in Canadian history fell weeping upon the shoulders of the good voters of Hamilton East, beseeching their forgiveness for nothing, after all, more than an excess of zeal. And it was midst this thick mist of Liberal lachrymation that my morning paper proposed that the NDP leader test her voter appeal; kamikaze pilots have had better advice from their chaplains. McDonough chose not to run, but filed instead for the seat in her hometown and native province on the occasion of the next grand assize.

All this came to mind when, after the NDP met in Regina to produce its election manifesto, my morning paper filed an editorial complaint under the heading of “New Democrats, old ideas.” This suggested to me that relations between the NDP leader and the editorial board had further deteriorated since her abandonment of Hamilton East. Once into the text, this indeed proved true.

To begin with, the NDP leader has expressed the opinion her party was unlikely to form the next government. It would, however, like to win enough seats in the coming election to be a presence in the next Parliament – anything from a dozen to 40 would be nice, any more than that unlikely but welcome. Unaccustomed to the lack of puffery, critics of McDonough have come unnerved, my morning paper amon g them: “The problem is as long as the New Democrats aspire to Opposition, the longer they will remain there. . . Opposition demands a different calculation and generates a different expectation than government. It allows a less ambitious, less rigorous view of the world, unchallenged by the discipline of power.”

None of this is so, even in the most rudimentary sense. It is like saying the Liberals, in 1993, promised to eliminate the GST, revise the free trade pact with the Great Neighbor, stabilize the funding for the CBC, and do an incredibly better job of creating jobs for Canadians of all ages, and all this implausible promising which all turned out to be impossible of delivery was made because the Liberals had “a less rigorous view of the world” and secretly hoped to remain in Opposition. The NDP might not be able to do half what they say they would do, if elected to govern, but they would likely try harder than the Liberals to keep their word.

Indeed, the rap on the NDP platform is that it promises to make good on some broken Liberal promises. Old stuff, according to my morning paper, and its boardroom constituents. What’s new – as compared to what’s old – in the world of ideas is “reduced unemployment benefits, however imperfect” and reduced “abuses.” This latter is a reference to reform of benefits for the poor, which has been a new idea for the privileged since the Poor Law Amendments of 1834.

Back then – 163 years ago – public assistance to the poor was made conditional on their being put to work. Strong argument was made, by the intellectual forbears of today’s neo-conservatives, against the provision of meals for hungry school children. In the words of one of the neo-cons of that day, “To feed a child is to give relief to its parents – to undermine their independence and self-reliance.”

The difference between the Bleak House of Charles Dickens and the Common Sense Revolution of Mike Harris is that the latter has the endorsement of my morning paper, and three of the four principal political parties running candidates in the federal election to come. The Liberals, from fiscal 1996 to 1999, will cut almost $28 billion from the Canada Assistance Plan. As a result, the poor will be poorer still and their children at greater risk.

The NDP begins its campaign by admitting it is not likely to win it. This must be compared to the predictions of Preston Manning who has promised to win a majority of the seats, including a good handful in Quebec. Manning is my morning paper’s kind of politician, the familiar windbag. But he is as likely to become the next prime minister of Canada as, well, the Reverend Al Sharpton.

It seems to me the NDP’s value to the debate is that the party represents ideas about politics and government that have been absent since the electoral aberrations of 1993 and have been sorely missed. Some of the ideas are old, but as the Conservatives once believed, such was a good part of their virtue. Even so, for those who like their ideas old – as in cheese – some of those being retailed by other parties in today’s contest predate the Industrial Revolution and the invention of income tax. (F3, 4/20/1997, Toronto Star by Dalton Camp, political commentator and broadcaster.)

Monday January 27, 1997

January 27, 1997 by Graeme MacKay

Monday January 27, 1997 – By Graeme MacKay

Team Canada versus the Rest of the World

Canadians have once again witnessed the passing of another “Team Canada” Asian trade mission. It’s an event that was initiated a couple of years ago by Prime Minister Jean Chretien in an effort to get out of the dismal city of Ottawa and appear as though some sort of concerted effort was being made to drum up business for Canada. It was also an obvious attempt by Chretien to draw attention to other parts of the world rather than relying solely on the benefits of a young and wide reaching trade agreement with a friendly and rather powerful neighbour to our south. While the intentions are good in these non-NAFTA nations, the amusement in the whole event is knowing that the delegation of provincial premiers and Jean Chretien is officially called “Team Canada.” This has to be one of the most divided periods of federal-provincial relations. The idea of Canadian politicians getting together like a united hockey team is a joke. Having Premiers from three different political persuasions is difficult, but not unusual, however having a committed separatist premier accompanying the delegation is nothing short of bizarre, (but indeed, uniquely Canadian.)

This recent trade mission included stops to South Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand. Lucien Bouchard surprisingly accepted the invitation to join the other provincial premiers and we all waited for the Quebec Separatist leader to blurt something out that would piss everyone off except for a collection of Canada-bashers in a much anticipated republic of Quebec. But, after two weeks of hanging around a bunch of notorious guys like Ralph Klein, Mike Harris, and Brian Tobin, nothing rude was uttered, no feet were stepped on, in fact, the whole lot of these politicians looked like they were having a great time together, and even Lucien Bouchard was cracking smiles.

If any feet were stepped on it was brought about by Chretien, who, while in Manila waded into a constitutional debate concerning the length of time a Philippine President is allowed to keep. Chretien, a veteran career politician himself for some 30 odd years, questioned the injustice that Fidel Ramos can only serve 2 terms. By now our PM should well understand that it is not a good idea to mess with any country’s constitutional affairs, judging by his own sloppiness in past dealings with our own.

Frank McKenna, the long serving Premier of New Brunswick stepped on toes by pawning off provincially produced peanut butter. He was being anything but a team player when tried to compete against other provinces to get contracts of course this isn’t the first time McKenna has treated other provinces like business foes. His excuses for his actions resemble closely with those of a particular fictional character out of Sherwood Forest.

These trade missions are great for photo opportunities as well. We’ve seen the leaders walking along the Great Wall of China, stand and gawk in front of the Taj Mahal, and mill about stern faced soldiers carrying machine guns in Korean no mans land. Jean Chretien wobbles along on a bicycle in Beijing, and goofs around with the architect of the Tiannamen Square massacre following a treaty signing. We’ve all become used to these sort of things, and in all honesty, it allows us news buffs to escape the regular on-goings in the legislatures, and committee rooms where these people usually hang out. Maybe Mr. Chretien is on to something when it comes to national unity…because here in Canada, Canadians are its biggest critics. When we step outside and see just how messed up other countries are we tend to pay a little more respect for our own land. I’m sure the premiers get this sense.

As for Craig Keilburger, the 13 year old child rights activist who goes on about child labour injustices in these trade nations, someone ought to put him over their knee for good hard spanking. (Posted to thinkfastech.com)

Asia Pacific Trade Mission. Graphite rendering by Graeme MacKay (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada). Illustrated in 1997.

Wednesday February 28, 1996

February 28, 1996 by Graeme MacKay

Pen & Ink caricature by Graeme MacKay – The Toronto Star, Wednesday February 28, 1996

Toronto Day of Action

(Story: Union and Harris repeat mistakes of the past, published: The Toronto Star, February 28, 1996) Can you believe or trust union leaders who have called a strike to save their members’ jobs right after having helped defeat a New Democrat premier who had tried to protect their members’ jobs by “Rae Days” that kept them all working by taking back a bit of their salaries?But can you either believe or trust a Premier who is making exactly the same blunder that his predecessor did when new in office?

Toronto Star – Feb 28, 1996

For about the first half of his term, Bob Rae governed almost entirely on behalf of those who had put him there, organized labor and the various special interest groups. Later, Rae changed radically, although far too late to save him politically. His “Rae Days” were part of an attempt to deal with a budget deficit for which all Ontarians were – and still are – paying a ruinous price.

What Rae once did, Mike Harris is now doing.

Any yielding to union demands would be “appeasement, ” says Harris. Triumphantly, almost boastfully, Harris has declared that the strike – more exactly, its eventual, inevitable, defeat – will send out a signal to potential investors that Ontario now offers “a better business climate.”

Beyond question, the condition of the province’s business climate matters a great deal. So equally, though, does the state of social cohesion among all its citizens. By ignoring this factor, by trying to depict public servants as enemies of Ontario’s collective interests, Harris is fracturing the province exactly as Rae did initially.

It’s neither here nor that Harris is repeating Rae’s original miscalculation from a different social-economic perspective – the neo-conservative one that whatever may be good for corporations has to be good for everyone.

Although he’s not much given to reading, you’d have though that by now Harris would have taken note of the speeches of Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan – his economic ones, not his cultural ones – and have wondered why Buchanan should be soaring in the primaries at the same time as he himself is tumbling in the polls.

Pen & Ink caricature by Graeme MacKay (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada). Illustrated in February 1996.

As for the union leaders, their calling of a strike on the basis of a modest 66 per cent vote and without having shown their members the government’s counter-offer to their own call for $1.5 billion in new payouts, confirms that they have learned nothing about contemporary reality.

That reality, for public workers as well as for all workers, is harsh and disagreeable. But it’s an unavoidable one, for at least the foreseeable future. All kinds of labels have been stuck on it, from Alvin Toffler’s “third wave” to “global post-capitalism.”

Perhaps the best comment about our present economic condition, most particularly so in the context of a strike by public workers to protect jobs that hundreds of thousands of others would dearly love to have, no matter with or without job security, is contained in American economic commentator Robert Samuelson’s recently published book, The Good Life And Its Discontents.

Samuelson’s theme is that we have entered the age of “the end of entitlements.”

It’s an excruciatingly painful change of life. Vast numbers of workers have had to accept downsizing and restructuring as the new norm. For many of the young, the new norm is unemployment (close to one in five), and after that an endless cycle of part-time jobs, short-term jobs, self-employment. For all, the new norm is shrinking social programs, longer queues for medical treatment, shrunken pensions.

Hamilton Spectator – Feb. 2, 1996

We are all angry and stressed out by these different forms of a loss of entitlements, that is of the abrupt loss of all that we all once took for granted.

Among all workers, only the publicly paid ones still are behaving as if the past was the present. The past, that is, not just of tenure but of barricaded tenure. To lay off Ontario Hydro employees required severance settlements averaging $100,000 – the highest in Canadian industrial history. To lay off all but the most junior of provincial civil servant takes, typically, two years.

Ontarians simply can no longer afford these kinds of entitlements by the few. As Management Board Chair Dave Johnson has observed, “The deficit does not go on strike. The debt does not go on strike.”

One half of the way this strike will unfold thus will be determined by how and when union leaders at last learn to cope with reality.

The other half will be determined by how, and when, Harris learns from Rae that to govern is to govern for all.

At a guess, it’s going to take each side a long time to learn what their job is.

Richard Gwyn’s column normally appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. (Source: Toronto Star)