Thursday February 19, 1998

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday February 19, 1998

$20.5m makeover eyed for city hall

The “jewel” of downtown Hamilton may get a $20.5-million multi-year polishing.

Glorious architecture gallery

A nine-year retrofit of city hall, proposed in this year’s capital budget, would beautify and upgrade the nine-storey marble-sided building on Main Street West at Bay Street.

It’s a makeover that’s long overdue, says Alderman Dave Wilson.

“We’ve been to every council chamber in the region, and ours is the worst.” It’s embarrassing, he added.

Lieutenant-Governor Hilary Weston saw more torn carpet than red carpet when she visited on Monday.

The threadbare carpet in the council chamber is patched with duct tape, and city staff rented new blinds last fall to replace the chambers’ tattered curtains.

The project, which must be approved by city council, includes major upgrades of the building’s electrical and mechanical infrastructure.

Bob Desnoyers, assistant manager of building operations and maintenance, said the city has no money set aside to pay for the retrofit. He said the $20.5-million price tag is based on staff estimates. If the project gets a green light, a consultant will be hired, and the cost “refined, ” Desnoyers said.

Wilson said that once the city budget is hammered out, council will know how much it can afford to spend, but an upgrade is clearly needed.

“The electrical capacity isn’t up to it, ” he said. “No one had personal computers back when they built city hall, and now we have 700, ” while the upper floors are a “rabbit warren” of cramped offices and narrow, twisting hallways.

Part of the problem is city hall has too many people in it, and some departments and staff may have to be moved into new quarters elsewhere.

Desnoyers said city hall is bulging with around 550 people. Even the basement, originally a storage area, is fitted with offices.

The cramped conditions will be further strained as Regional Chairman Terry Cooke, chief administrative officer Michael Fenn and clerk Robert Prowse and their staffs prepare to move out of regional headquarters in the Ellen Fairclough Building at 119 King St. W. and into new offices at city hall in April.

Details of the refit include new elevators, renovation of the council chamber and the public spaces on the first and second floor, a new entrance for the mayor’s office, and a permanent committee meeting room big enough to handle private meetings of the full city and regional councils.

Additional office space for regional councillors from the suburbs must be found, and the building’s major heating, cooling and water systems need to be replaced.

Wilson said work could begin this summer.

Cultural and recreation manager Ross Fair wrote to council’s finance and administration committee: “When constructed in 1958 and opened in 1961, it was the jewel of the downtown. Sadly, it is difficult to say that today.” (Hamilton Spectator, A3, 2/18/1998)

 

Thursday November 6, 1997

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday November 6, 1997

Cleaner Lakes merit priority

There is a risk that Canada and the United States are treading water, and at risk of losing ground, in cleaning up the Great Lakes . The world’s largest freshwater ecosystem is cleaner and healthier 25 years after the signing of a landmark pollution control agreement in 1972. But much of the progress that’s been achieved could be squandered. Governments are cutting environmental budgets, weakening pollution laws and enforcement, and there’s reason to worry that politicians will become indifferent to a problem that defies easy solution. 

Marvellous Maps

The apathy that often relegates the Great Lakes to the bottom of the political totem pole is hard to understand. Some 37 million people live on either side of the Great Lakes . They draw heavily on Great Lakes water for their drinking water, recreation, fishing, manufacturing and many other uses. The stakes are extremely high. The economy and quality of life in the Great Lakes Basin hinges on the condition of this irreplaceable resource. 

There can be no complacency about past achievements — a fact that was driven home to government officials who gathered in Niagara Falls last weekend for the 25th anniversary of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. Three environmental groups issued a joint report which criticized governments on both sides of the border for allowing massive amounts of toxic substances to be released into the ecosystem every day. 

The watchdogs found that while a few successes have been achieved in reducing the threat posed by DDT, PCBs and some other toxic chemicals, governments are moving too slowly in accomplishing the goal of zero discharge in the agreement. Progress has been especially slow in phasing out chemicals that result in the generation and release of dioxins and furans, which pose some of the most serious threats to life. The risks to human health remain ominous. An American scientist reported on one study showing that children of women who ate Lake Ontario fish before they were born stand a chance of having lower IQs and other learning and behavioural problems later in life. Lakewide management strategies and remedial action plans for pollution hotspots are generally proceeding at what the environmentalists describe as a glacial pace. Only one of 43 areas of concern, Collingwood Harbour, has been delisted in the past 10 years. 

To be sure, there are encouraging signs. The Double-crested Cormorant, a large fish-eating bird, has made an incredible recovery after being devastated by toxic chemicals. There are now more cormorants on the Great Lakes than at any time in recorded history. But the threats to the Lakes are daunting. Dangerous levels of pollution which harm humans, fish and wildlife should never be accepted as the price of progress and prosperity. 

Governments must show leadership by making a renewed commitment to the ingredients of past success: cleanup plans supported with the necessary funding, an insistence on strong laws with strict enforcement, and timetables to phase out the use and production of toxic chemicals that put everyone at risk. The disturbing fact is that many politicians are, of late, going in the opposite direction. They are making short-sighted decisions which will come back to haunt this generation, and the next. Political and business leaders must accept their responsibility and mobilize an effort in which we all do our fair share to protect the Great Lakes. (Source: Hamilton Spectator editorial)

 

Thursday October 9, 1997

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday October 9, 1997

McKenna’s decade

Retiring New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna will be missed. He was a formidable presence in the premier’s office and at the first minister’s conference table. The fact that his absence from the Canadian political arena may only be temporary is a good thing.

He leaves his province a better place in many ways than when he took office a decade ago. He was a tireless champion of New Brunswick; his efforts are in no small part responsible for the measurable improvement in the province’s moribund economy. Yet, New Brunswick’s unemployment rate remains a depressing 12.5 per cent and its economy still too dependent on the volatile natural resources sector. The fact that New Brunswick remains an economic have-not member of the Confederation doesn’t diminish McKenna’s laudable efforts through the years.

McKenna is the first to insist he’s through with politics, at least in a formal way. Maybe, but it’s a safe bet that his earnest, understated statesmanship makes him an appealing commodity, particularly to a certain national party of the centre that is in the market for leadership candidates.

Regardless of his political affiliation in the future, McKenna is sure to play a role in the ongoing unity melodrama, like Alberta’s Peter Lougheed and others have done. The fact that he cares deeply about a united Canada means he will answer the federalist call when it comes, and will continue to be a passionate, pragmatic fighter in the battle against separatism. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial, A12, 10/9/1997)

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John Snobelen Meets With the Board of Trustees

Pen & Ink caricature by Graeme MacKay (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada). Illustrated in 1997.

Why Ontario teachers went on a province-wide strike in 1997

Back in October 1997, a strike kept teachers and students out of the classroom for two weeks.

The 1997 strike was not about wages. It was about the Mike Harris-led PC government’s proposed overhaul to education.

On Oct. 7 that year, a crowd of 20,000 teachers gathered inside and outside Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens for a rally opposing Bill 160, which introduced legislation for Progressive Conservative Premier Mike Harris’s changes to education.

“If he does not move off his legislative agenda, every school in this province will be shut down,” Eileen Lennon of the Ontario Teachers’ Federation told the rally. “We will not back down.” 

Reporter Steve Erwin outlined some details of the bill.

A Meeting of the School Trustees – By Robert Harris

It would give the province control over the levying of school taxes, the ability to dictate school funding, set class sizes and teacher prep time, and allow non-certified teachers to instruct.

Erwin said the government’s stated purpose was to “improve the performance of Ontario schoolchildren.”

But teachers saw it as a pretext to cut $1 billion from the system and lay off up to 10,000 teachers.

Education Minister John Snobelen, himself a high school dropout, dismissed the “union bluster,” according to the reporter.

“I wasn’t surprised by the turnout or the rhetoric from last night,” he said. “I think that was all pretty predictable.” 

Snobelen would be replaced as education minister in a cabinet shuffle two days later. (Continued: CBC News) 

 

Saturday, September 6, 1997

Meet the Spec's new cartoonistMeet the Spec’s new cartoonist

The Hamilton Spectator — Saturday, September 6, 1997

“Great drawings — and he’s local.” That was our first reaction when freelance artist Graeme MacKay, then of Ancaster, started sending his caricatures to The Spectator in early 1995. Their use became more frequent until this summer, MacKay was brought on staff as editorial cartoonist to brighten our Opinion Page with his fine, funny, often biting cartoons.

It’s been a long apprenticeship. Born in 1968, MacKay grew up in Dundas, he was always something of a “news geek” and he was the kid who never stopped doodling. He would draw his teachers and classmates, a sure way to win a chuckle or two. In Grade 4, he drew the whole class, and ran off photocopies for them all, on demand. He also attended junior art classes at the Dundas Valley School of Art in the late 1970s.

Perhaps fitting for a future editorial cartoonist, Graeme went to work as a butcher, at the University Plaza Miracle Mart. But he was cut out for a different future.

At the University of Ottawa from 1987 to 1991, he submitted cartoons to the student newspaper, The Fulcrum, and went on to become the graphics editor. In 1992 he went to Europe with sketchbook in hand and honed his skills. But he also put in time as a bacon butcher at luxurious Harrod’s department store in London.

After returning to Canada in 1994, he worked for the Ancaster News and began submitting cartoons to other newspapers, with growing success. A close call with a sawblade in 1996 convinced him to abandon butchery and devote all his time to cartooning, moving to Toronto to do it. He has since been published in major daily newspapers across Canada plus the Chicago Tribune and Denver Post.

As The Spectator’s full-time editorial cartoonist, MacKay hopes “Hamilton is mature enough to laugh at itself.” He intends to provoke and make a point, but mainly, he hopes to be funny.

He’s also convinced that if he’s done his job well as a cartoonist, he won’t ever have to explain his work.

“I prefer to keep my mouth shut and let my pen do the talking.”