architecture

Saturday February 3, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday February 3, 2023

Ottawa contracts comprise up to 10 per cent of McKinsey Canadian revenue

Global management consulting giant McKinsey and Company says its contracts with the federal government make up as much as 10 per cent of its gross revenue in Canada.

June 17, 2017

The Canadian revenue figures for McKinsey’s Canadian operations, contained in a U.S. court filing, show how integral federal government contracts are to the New York-based firm, which has offices in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver.

McKinsey’s contracts with Ottawa are being investigated by the House of Commons committee on government operations and estimates, because of the company’s ties to the Liberal government and the many international controversies in which it has been involved.

The Globe and Mail has reported that the total value of federal contracts awarded to McKinsey since 2015 is at least $116.8-million, up from a previous estimate of $101.4-million provided by the government earlier this month.

The filing was made in May, as part of a court case in Puerto Rico. The document lists many of McKinsey’s significant clients in different countries.

January 15, 2013

The court documents also say that private-sector clients – such as Montreal-based Bombardier, Toronto Dominion Bank, Mastercard, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Canadian Tire, Shell PLC and State Street Corporation – each accounted for 1.01 per cent to 5 per cent of McKinsey Canada’s revenue during the same period.

The filing mentions individual United States government departments. For instance, the U.S. Department of Defence is listed as accounting for 20.01 per cent to 25 per cent of the gross revenue for McKinsey’s Washington branch during the period from March 1, 2021 through Feb. 28, 2022.

Alley Adams, head of external relations at McKinsey Canada, said contracts awarded to the firm represent a small share of the Canadian government’s outsourcing compared to other consulting firms. Deloitte, Ernst and Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers were paid a combined total of about $338-million in 2020-21 and $354-million in 2021-22, according to a Carleton University analysis.

Jennifer Carr, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service, told MPs the growth in outsourcing ends up costing taxpayers and is hurting morale among federal workers. (The Globe & Mail) 

 

Saturday October 15, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday October 15, 2022

New Hamilton council must grow political will to tackle complex and polarizing issues

Of the myriad issues and challenges facing Hamilton’s new city council, few are as complex and polarizing as homelessness and the drug epidemic that continues to take a horrific toll.

Glorious architecture gallery

Mental health, poverty, addictions, safe and secure housing — all are at play in one big tangled Gordian knot. But if the new council just begins with a sense of urgency and addresses some of the pieces, it will already have achieved what the current council has not.

To begin, we need a broad and official acknowledgment that what is happening now isn’t working. While no one wants to see tent encampments in the lower city or elsewhere, the solution cannot simply be to tear them down and displace the residents. All that does is move the problem from one place to another, making it more difficult to serve this challenged population.

We have empathy for residents who feel less safe and inconvenienced by the presence of encampments, but there is no sweeping this under the rug.

What we need is more stable and secure housing options. The current council hasn’t done nearly enough. A part of the solution could be the HATS initiative which would see homeless people accommodated in purpose-built small shelters, clustered together for optimal service delivery. Tiny shelter communities are working in many other places in Canada and the U.S., including as close as Kitchener.

Some Hamilton councillors have expressed support for HATS, but that support is typically accompanied by a list of locations where they don’t want the settlement to be. Everyone can agree the idea should help, but no one wants to see in their ward. That’s not real support. In other cases local government has actually become actively involved in the project, but here council has been hands off. The private group driving the pilot project is seeking a site, and if they find one on private property, HATS could come to life. But it will be in spite of city council, not because of it.

Similarly, consider the opioid epidemic. Three years ago, city hall recognized the need for more supervised consumption and treatment services sites (CTS) that are proven to save lives by having resources on hand to help overdose victims. The limited services running now are literally saving lives, but the supply of CTS sites is far from adequate.

October 1, 2022

We know the city needs more. Community groups are actively working on plans for more, but they are facing opposition from residents, in particular in the lower city. Their argument goes something like: Inner city wards already house an above average number of services and shelters, so the needed CTS capacity should be in some other part of the city. The problem with that is that the population that needs the service isn’t someplace else, and it doesn’t make much sense to open a CTS site where drug users won’t use it.

It is worth noting here that city staff are not the issue. They are already working with others on the ground with community partners. What’s missing is political will. It is our fervent hope that a new council and mayor will change that. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial)

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 …

 

Wednesday August 3, 2022

‘People are suffering’: ICU nurse says staffing shortages at hospitals are getting worse

September 15, 2021

Nearly two-and-a-half years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, one front-line nurse says emergency rooms are stretched thin amid constant staffing shortages.

“Things are worse now. And I don’t think the general public understands how difficult it is to be a patient or a nurse right now,” Birgit Umaigba, an intensive care unit nurse based in Toronto, told CTV News Channel on Monday.

Several hospitals across Ontario announced this weekend they’d be closing temporarily closing or reducing services in their emergency rooms and ICUs due to the ongoing staffing crunch.

Thursday January 27, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday January 27, 2022

Despite record high inflation, Bank of Canada holds interest rate steady — for now

May 2, 2020

The Bank of Canada has decided not to raise its benchmark interest rate just yet.

Like many other central banks around the world, the bank slashed its core lending rate — known as the target for the overnight rate — at the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, to ensure that consumers and businesses had access to cheap lending in order to keep the economy afloat.

But two years of rock-bottom lending rates have been a major contributor to inflation, which rose to almost five per cent in Canada last month — its highest level in more than 30 years.