2022-42

Saturday December 17, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday December 17, 2022

Why is COP15 important?

The definition of “biodiversity” is: “The variety of life in the world or in a particular habitat or ecosystem.” Biodiversity encompasses all aspects of life — genes, species and ecosystems — and it is currently in imminent danger. That means we are too.

December 10, 2022

The COP15 UN biodiversity conference runs from Dec. 7 to 19 in Montreal with 196 counties trying to agree on a plan to stop biodiversity loss and help restore nature because our fate as the human race is inextricably linked to the rest of nature. The plan is to protect at least 30 per cent of our lands and oceans by 2030 and the biodiversity that we depend on to survive.

Elizabeth Mrema, UN biodiversity head, has described the conference as “calling for ambitious outcomes.”

“Clearly the world is crying out for change, watching our governments seek to heal our relationships with nature,” she says.

The 2022 WWF Living Planet Report warned that global wildlife populations declined by 70 per cent from 1970 to 2022. This accelerating loss of nature has already impacted human well-being and economies. Healthy ecosystems also play indispensable roles in tackling climate change, and the loss of biodiversity weakens our resilience to that change. We are stripping our planet so aggressively and unsustainably that the resources we depend on will soon be extinct.

The 2022 Global Biodiversity Framework’s four goals focus on conservation, sustainable use of biodiversity, fair benefit-sharing, and “resource mobilization” (more funding). The targets cover expanding protected areas (like the Greenbelt that Premier Ford will destroy with his outdated Bill 23 legislation), reducing pollution to ensure food production is healthy and sustainable and phasing out billions of dollars of public subsidies that harm nature. That’s why Bill 23 is a direct contradiction to COP15 and needs to be repealed.

November 23, 2022

Bill 23 will harm the Greenbelt, create more biodiversity loss, increase urban sprawl and emissions that will also affect Peterborough. It will also pollute prime agricultural land that was protected for growing local food and poison the soil and crops that grows there.

So, when Dave Smith says that Bill 23 will not affect Peterborough, he is wrong because this legislation will harm our environment and human health by allowing municipalities to move away from environmental protection and build big carbon footprint housing developments on protected land near protected waterways, wetlands and forests.

It’s hard work to balance the environment with the economy. That’s why we need politicians and governments who can do both because they are both connected to each other. By passing Bill 23, the Ford government has shown it doesn’t know how to make this connection work for the common good. It’s a fine balance, but a balance crucial to the health and survival of our biodiverse human race. (The Peterborough Examiner) 

From sketch to finish, 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.

 

Friday December 16, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday December 16, 2022

‘Stand on the side of the common people,’ Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre tells caucus

In a speech to his caucus ahead of the holidays, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said it is his party’s job to “stand on the side of the common people.”

Ahead of a closed-door meeting, Poilievre spoke to Conservative parliamentarians in front of the media, telling his MPs and senators that it is their job as the Official Opposition “always to stand on the side of the common people.”

“Their paycheques, their savings, their homes, their country,” Poilievre said, asking his caucus to spend some time during the break reflecting on how Conservatives can do that in the new year.

“I hope you have a wonderful break with your families, a time to renew and rebuild your energy to come back in fighting form on behalf of Canadians,” Poilievre said. “But it’s also a time over Christmas to think of the less fortunate, those who have less, those who are struggling more. Unfortunately, those people are more numerous than ever before.”

September 3, 2021

During his remarks, delivered first in French and then in English, the Conservative leader capped off his first fall sitting at the helm of the party by delivering a laundry list of ways he thinks Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the federal Liberals are failing.

From the cost-of-living crunch prompting some Canadians to turn to food banks, to young Canadians “stuck in their parents’ basements” because of housing unaffordability, Poilievre called for “legal limits” on federal spending to try to bring down inflation.

“The cost of government is driving up the cost of living,” he said, repeating one of his most-used talking points since becoming party leader.

Poilievre also spoke about public safety concerns, from the growing number of drug overdoses in Canada, to the ongoing contention over the Liberals’ gun control legislation Bill C-21 and their push to considerably expand the number of firearms that would be prohibited.

September 5, 2019

“So instead of putting time, money, and resources into attacking Indigenous people, hunters and farmers, Conservatives will protect those people’s rights and go after the real criminals to keep Canadians safe,” said Poilievre.

The Conservative leader also spoke about his concerns over the state of the Canadian health-care system, which he said was coming apart “at the seams.”

“It boils my blood to sit in a waiting room with my daughter, who’s got from time to time a migraine headache, while she waits and waits along with the other little children because of doctor shortages,” he said. Poilievre vowed that if his party was in power he’d work with the provinces to allow more qualified immigrants to practice medicine, more quickly.

“It is true that Canadians are hurting, but it is our job as the Official Opposition to turn that hurt into hope. To inspire people that a real improvement in their lives is possible, that the dream that brought them here as immigrants or the dream with which they were raised when they were born here, can be rekindled,” Poilievre said. “That is our purpose my friends.” (CTV) 

 

Thursday December 15, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday December 15, 2022

Household debt levels could cripple economy, economist warns

November 3, 2022

Canadian household debt levels have increased enough to spark a recession when combined with interest rate hikes, says one economist, after Statistics Canada released its latest report Monday.

Jim Stanford, the director of the Centre for Future Work, said the debt levels are high enough that, as interest rates rise, disposable income ordinarily spent on consumer goods is being used to pay debt.

“Chances are you’re going to see an increased interest bite from household budgets equal to about two or three per cent of GDP,” he said. “That alone is enough to put the economy into a recession, let alone the other impacts on business investment, for example.”

The standard definition of a recession is when the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) contracts for at least two quarters.

Household consumption accounts for more than 50 per cent of Canada’s GDP, Stanford said, making it the biggest single contributor to economic growth.

Stanford said $16 billion in additional interest payments made over three months is worth more than half of a percentage point of Canada’s GDP.

Statistics Canada’s new figures show for every dollar of disposable income in the third quarter of 2022 there was $1.83 in credit market debt. The figure is a slight increase from the previous quarter and up from $1.77 last year.

Thursday September 8, 2022

The figures come as the Bank of Canada has continued to raise its key policy rate. Last week it hiked the key policy rate another 50 basis points to 4.25 per cent in an effort to fight inflation.

Mortgage payments also hit Canadians hard with interest payments expanding by more than 16 per cent, which is the largest increase on record, according to the StatsCan report.

“It’s certainly hard evidence that the rising interest rates are wreaking havoc with household finances,” Stanford said. “We’ve never seen an interest shock like that to Canadian households before.”

He said he expects the situation to worsen in the coming months.

On Monday, Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem defended the interest rate hikes in Vancouver in front of the Business Council of British Columbia. He said they are working and the country needs to stay the course.

“If we under-tighten, inflation is going to stay too high. Canadians are going to have to continue to endure the hardship of higher inflation,” Macklem said.

He said the bank was surprised at how international events, like the Russian invasion of Ukraine and supply chain issues powered inflation.

He said such trends will make it more difficult to bring inflation down than it has been in the past. (The Toronto Star) From sketch to finish, 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.

 

Wednesday December 14, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday December 14, 2022

By-elections don’t matter, except when they do

August 1, 2013

Do by-elections, which usually have notoriously low turnout, matter?

We get told general campaigns do, all the time. But what about by-elections? Should we care — and should we care that no one seems to, you know, care about them?

That legendary political muse, Dan Quayle, had the best take on it all. Said the former U.S. vice-president: “A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls.”

Well, yes. Hard to quibble with that one. Good insight, Dan.

Fewer folks went to the polls in this weeks by-election in Mississauga Lakeshore — only around 30%. But, before some political scientist starts writing wordy op-eds about the need for compulsory voting, remember: by-elections are beloved by hacks and flaks, but rarely ever regular folks. And they’re the bosses.

June 9, 2022

For instance: Toronto Centre had a byelection in October 2020. More than 80,000 people were entitled to vote. Slightly over 16,000 did. York Centre had a byelection in the same month, with about the same result: more than 70,000 were eligible to cast a ballot. Only 11,000 bothered. Democracy survived.

So, before academia gets its tenured knickers in a knot, remember: by-elections don’t ever attract as much attention ruin as general elections do. That’s normal. And it’s unlikely to change.

Mississauga-Lakeshore therefore had the standard byelection turnout, but a notable result. The result tells us a few things, participation rate notwithstanding. Here they are.

December 18, 2013

One, the Conservative Party got clobbered. The Liberal candidate — a former Kathleen Wynne government minister, and therefore not without blemish — basically massacred his Tory opponent, by thousands of votes. He took 51% to the Conservative’s 37%.

That’s notable, as noted, because that’s a worse showing than what the much-derided Erin O’Toole got when he was running things. In that race, O’Toole’s chosen candidate did better than Pierre Poilievre’s.

Wasn’t Poilievre supposed to sweep the ‘burbs and all that? Wasn’t he supposed to be the thing that cured all that ailed Team Tory?

September 13, 2022

Well, Pierre has represented an Ottawa suburb for years, winning in seven elections. But he didn’t in Mississauga-Lakeshore. How come?

His spinners, all coincidentally anonymous, insist it was because the aforementioned riding is all-Liberal, all the time.

Well, no. That’s false. Sure, Liberal Svend Spengemann represented the riding in the Trudeau era — but before that, Mississauga-Lakeshore was federal Conservative territory for a number of years.

And, oh yes, this: provincially, the riding is still Conservative territory. Just a few months ago, in June, a provincial Conservative candidate won there — by many thousands of votes. And four years before that, same result: the Tories won it, by a lot.

So, that’s all you need to know about the excuse that Mississauga-Lakeshore is a Liberal fortress and Conservatives will never win there: it’s an excuse. It’s bollocks, in fact.

June 24, 2022

What about Team Poilievre’s other excuse — duly reprinted, without attribution in the pages of the Toronto Star, because it serves both their interests — that it’s all Doug Ford’s fault? You know, that the Ontario Premier sank his federal cousins in the by-election because he’s unpopular? Guilt by association and all that.

Except, that one doesn’t wash either. When he’s been running things, in good times and bad, Ford has taken that riding handily. Twice.

Did Ford’s misadventure with the notwithstanding clause, and the general strike it would have caused, hurt Poilievre’s chances?

Again, no. Ford ultimately never used the notwithstanding clause to win a fight with an education union — and there was no general strike, either. And, besides: both those things were controversies many weeks before the by-election even got underway.

So, what was it? Who is to blame for the first real-world test of Pierre Poilievre’s leadership since he became leader?

November 5, 2022

Well, that would be what Poilievre and his caucus see in the bathroom mirror every morning: themselves. The convoy crap, the crypto-currency craziness, the whackadoodle WEF weirdos. All of that, and more, has persuaded many Canadians that, under Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative Party of Canada has abandoned the political center. And is, you know, chasing the People’s Party vote.

Which, by the by, got 286 votes in Mississauga-Lakeshore.

About which, our muse Dan Quayle might say: “Not winning enough of the popular vote? It means you are not popular.” (Warren Kinsella, Toronto Sun) 

 

Tuesday December 13, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday December 13, 2022

Premiers demand meeting with Justin Trudeau over health-care funding

Canada’s premiers are demanding more federal money from Ottawa for health care and they want a face-to-face meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to make their case.

August 24, 2022

The provincial and territorial leaders appealed to Trudeau on Friday for a first ministers’ meeting early in the new year to tackle the funding crisis in a pandemic-battered system.

While the federal government is willing to increase the Canada Health Transfer — the money Ottawa sends to the provinces on a per-capita basis for health care — it has repeatedly stated any commitment would come with strings attached to ensure the additional dollars go toward measurable, improved health outcomes for Canadians instead of flowing into provinces’ general revenues.

Responding to the premiers, federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos declined to say whether Trudeau would agree to convening the meeting.

December 21, 2016

“The prime minister will obviously do what he wants to do. What he has asked me to do is to work with my colleagues — health ministers — to agree on the results and (put) therefore the ends before the means,” Duclos told reporters in Ottawa.

But he said there are conditions that must be met to achieve that goal, such as supporting health-care workers and patients; investing in home care, mental health care and long-term care; and implementing a modern health data collection system.

Duclos said his provincial and territorial counterparts have agreed to those conditions “in private,” and that it is now up to “premiers to let us do our job and express publicly the type of outcomes and results that we need to achieve together.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford insisted provinces want the “flexibility to be able to move those funds around where they’re needed” since they deliver the front-line health services.

July 27, 2019

“We have no problem with accountability, transparency,” Ford said at the virtual meeting chaired by Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson.

“Well, we need a funding partner. We need that funding for long-term care, we need it for home care, we need it for mental health and addiction, we need it for HHR, health human resources, infrastructure,” he said.

Discussions on boosting health-care funding fell apart when Ottawa said it was open to the increase if provinces and territories promised to build a national data collection system and expand the use of common health indicators — measures that show how well a health-care system is performing.

The provinces said they didn’t expect those conditions to be tied to a funding boost, and never saw concrete details on what such an increase would look like.

Stefanson said Friday that Ottawa has yet to present a proposal since that meeting.

Duclos, meanwhile, continued to insist that specific outcomes from the additional money must be clearly determined before any dollar figures are discussed.

“The premiers refuse to speak about those results. Everyone else wants to, but not the premiers,” he said.

Beyond Ottawa’s insistence on tying additional money to improvements in the system, the federal-provincial impasse also hinges upon differing views on current funding.

The premiers say their jurisdictions pay 78 per cent of health-care costs, with the federal government ponying up the remaining 22 per cent. They want Ottawa’s cash contribution to jump to 35 per cent. (The Toronto Star)