austerity

Wednesday November 28, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday November 28, 2018

Doug Ford is becoming a liability for Andrew Scheer

Ever since he took office, Premier Doug Ford has gone out of his way to cast himself in the role of federal kingmaker.

August 24, 2018

From day one he has made no secret of the fact that he is making it a priority to see Justin Trudeau voted out of government next fall.

But as Ford is currently learning at his own expense, the undeniable national influence that attends the role of Ontario premier cuts both ways.

His ambition to play kingmaker in next fall’s federal vote is really the first casualty of his mishandling of the Franco-Ontarian file.

Notwithstanding the premier’s damage-control efforts, the dust is unlikely to settle on the backlash he has engineered when he reneged on his promise to Ontario’s francophone community to pursue the project of a French-language university.

November 20, 2018

The decision to eliminate the post of commissioner of French-language services — a move devoid of a fiscal rationale as the money saved, if any, amounts to a drop in an ocean of spending — only added insult to injury.

Late Friday, Ford’s office announced it was restoring a full-fledged portfolio for francophone affairs within the cabinet and adding a senior adviser on Franco-Ontarian affairs to the premier’s staff.

But it will take more than the closing of the barn door after the horse has bolted to turn Ford’s status back from liability to his federal cousins to major asset in next fall’s campaign. (Continued: Hamilton Spectator) 

 

Tuesday May 10, 2016

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator Ð Tuesday May 10, 2016 Ontario Health Coalition holding unofficial referendum on healthcare funding Healthcare workers and community activists are hoping an Ontario-wide unofficial referendum will raise awareness of the concerns they have about provincial funding. The Ontario Health Coalition, a group of activists working to improve the public healthcare system, is launching their campaign in communities such as Toronto, Ottawa, Windsor, Sudbury and Guelph on Monday. "The cuts have been severe in OntarioÉ we're doing a referendum because this has pretty much happened by stealth or by talk of not enough resources to go around," said Albert Dupuis, co-chair of the local Ottawa coalition organizing the campaign in that city. The group will be distributing ballot boxes to businesses, workplaces and community centres across the province. The unofficial referendum will ask people if they're for or against the idea "Ontario's government must stop the cuts to our community hospitals and restore services, funding and staff to meet our communities' needs for care.Ó The group says healthcare in Ontario has been under-funded for years and is below the Canadian per capita average by about $350 per person. The Liberals ended a four-year hospital base funding freeze in its latest budget promising to spend $60 million on hospital budgets along with $75 million for palliative care and $130 million for cancer care, but the Ontario Health Coalition has said that isn't enough.(Source: CBC News)Êhttp://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ontario-health-coalition-funding-referendum-1.3551852 Ontario, health, cuts, austerity, budget, Eric Hoskins, Kathleen Wynne, doctor

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday May 10, 2016

Ontario Health Coalition holding unofficial referendum on healthcare funding

Healthcare workers and community activists are hoping an Ontario-wide unofficial referendum will raise awareness of the concerns they have about provincial funding.

The Ontario Health Coalition, a group of activists working to improve the public healthcare system, is launching their campaign in communities such as Toronto, Ottawa, Windsor, Sudbury and Guelph on Monday.

“The cuts have been severe in Ontario… we’re doing a referendum because this has pretty much happened by stealth or by talk of not enough resources to go around,” said Albert Dupuis, co-chair of the local Ottawa coalition organizing the campaign in that city.

The group will be distributing ballot boxes to businesses, workplaces and community centres across the province.

The unofficial referendum will ask people if they’re for or against the idea “Ontario’s government must stop the cuts to our community hospitals and restore services, funding and staff to meet our communities’ needs for care.”

The group says healthcare in Ontario has been under-funded for years and is below the Canadian per capita average by about $350 per person.

The Liberals ended a four-year hospital base funding freeze in its latest budget promising to spend $60 million on hospital budgets along with $75 million for palliative care and $130 million for cancer care, but the Ontario Health Coalition has said that isn’t enough.(Source: CBC News)

 

Wednesday November 11, 2015

 

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator - Wednesday November 11, 2015 Some have been forgotten On Remembrance Day, Canadians will remember those who fell in service to their country. Their names are etched on war graves, on memorial walls and in family scrapbooks. Every name of the war dead is accounted for. In the case of the two world wars, it doesnÕt matter where or how they died. If they served in uniform, they are remembered officially. An investigation by the Globe and Mail, however, has discovered gaps in the recent record. Some names are missing from the Afghan conflict. Military psychiatrist Dr. Greg Passey calls them "the unknown fallen," or, as the Globe says, "the unremembered." They include 59 veterans of the Afghanistan war who committed suicide. ThatÕs more than one-third of the 158 soldiers killed in the 13-year war. They are war dead, victims of wounds to their minds, yet their names are not engraved on the Afghan Memorial Vigil because they werenÕt killed by gunfire, or blown up by a roadside bomb. The high number of suicides and soldiers with mental illness and post-traumatic stress disorder should have been a bugle call for emergency repairs to a system that has failed to help the walking wounded. Some 14,000 serving members are still receiving benefits for mental-health issues. Veterans have long been fighting a losing battle for improved addictions treatment and other mental-health services, as well as better benefits and programs to help them transition out of the military. The former Harper government talked a good game about wanting to ensure veterans and serving soldiers were looked after, but deeds never quite matched their lofty words. Former senator and general Romeo Dallaire has frequently complained about "penny-pinching" by Veterans Affairs. He has called on the government to introduce a social covenant similar to one in Britain, where "a duty of care" to soldiers and veterans is recognized in law. Prime Minister Justin Tru

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday November 11, 2015

 

Some have been forgotten

On Remembrance Day, Canadians will remember those who fell in service to their country. Their names are etched on war graves, on memorial walls and in family scrapbooks.

Every name of the war dead is accounted for. In the case of the two world wars, it doesn’t matter where or how they died. If they served in uniform, they are remembered officially.

An investigation by the Globe and Mail, however, has discovered gaps in the recent record. Some names are missing from the Afghan conflict. Military psychiatrist Dr. Greg Passey calls them “the unknown fallen,” or, as the Globe says, “the unremembered.”

They include 59 veterans of the Afghanistan war who committed suicide. That’s more than one-third of the 158 soldiers killed in the 13-year war. They are war dead, victims of wounds to their minds, yet their names are not engraved on the Afghan Memorial Vigil because they weren’t killed by gunfire, or blown up by a roadside bomb.

The high number of suicides and soldiers with mental illness and post-traumatic stress disorder should have been a bugle call for emergency repairs to a system that has failed to help the walking wounded. Some 14,000 serving members are still receiving benefits for mental-health issues.

Friday December 5, 2014Veterans have long been fighting a losing battle for improved addictions treatment and other mental-health services, as well as better benefits and programs to help them transition out of the military.

The former Harper government talked a good game about wanting to ensure veterans and serving soldiers were looked after, but deeds never quite matched their lofty words.

Former senator and general Romeo Dallaire has frequently complained about “penny-pinching” by Veterans Affairs. He has called on the government to introduce a social covenant similar to one in Britain, where “a duty of care” to soldiers and veterans is recognized in law.

Friday November 21, 2014Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to spend an extra $100 million on family support, as well as re-establishing lifelong pensions for disabled veterans, which had disappeared in 2006. He has also promised to improve other benefits and to make it easier for injured veterans to move to civilian from military life.

These are grounds for optimism, assuming the Liberals follow through. (Continued: Winnipeg Free Press)

Commentary: Saturday November 14, 2015, Hamilton Spectator, Paul Berton, Editor-in-Chief

BERTON: Was Remembrance Day cartoon a cheap shot or needed comment?

A Remembrance Day cartoon drew criticism and compliments

We had more complaints than usual about an editorial cartoon that appeared in the newspaper on Remembrance Day this week.

Cheap political shot, cried one letter writer. Extremely offensive, said another. Sick political joke, said a third. Some thought it disrespectful to veterans.

On the other hand, Hamilton Spectator editorial cartoonist Graeme MacKay also received many accolades.

On Twitter and Facebook, the social media sites, he says he received more positive feedback than he has for any other cartoon this year.

Nailed it, said one on Twitter. TRUE, wrote another. “This was one of our longest and hard won battles,” said a third on Facebook.

The cartoon depicted two veterans at a cenotaph listing the many wars in which Canada had fought — First World War, 1914-1918, etc. — and added another: Harper Government, 2006-2015.

It is, of course, a cheap political shot, as are so many editorial cartoons. And many feel such humour on Remembrance Day is inappropriate.

And to be fair, the former Conservative government spent more on veterans than previous governments.

But it is also true the Harper government had a notoriously difficult relationship with veterans’ advocates and others, and that it was criticized roundly for lack of action on this particular file.

And without action and real change, all those words and remembering on Remembrance Day seem hollow.

In 2014, for example, it was reported that Veterans Affairs Canada returned $1.13 billion in unspent funds to the federal treasury between 2011 and 2013.

In other words, the government did not spend what it had itself decided was necessary. There’s nothing wrong with being budget conscious and trying to save the taxpayers’ money, but given the controversies surrounding the former minister, Julian Fantino, it did not seem right to many Canadians.

Fantino had a strained relationship — at best — with veterans’ groups.

In 2013, the veterans’ ombudsman said cuts to pensions and benefits would put some vets near the poverty line. Also that year, the department said it would close eight local offices serving veterans.

In January 2014, after arriving late for a meeting to talk about the closures, Fantino got into an argument with one of the veterans. It was one of several public missteps that some said made him seem inept, rude and insensitive.

Meanwhile, his department was under fire for shortcomings in delivering help and benefits to veterans — and for $4 million spent to advertise the government’s position.

In January 2015, he was finally removed from the post following much criticism.

Would MacKay have done the cartoon if the Liberals had been in power? Of course he would. An examination of all his cartoons would reveal he is equally critical of all parties, and won’t change.

Should we be making political statements on Remembrance Day? Shouldn’t we just silently mark the sacrifices made? Shouldn’t we leave the criticism for another day?

They are good questions, but these are serious issues. Many would say if we can’t talk about these things on Remembrance Day, when can we?

The cartoon wasn’t meant to disrespect veterans but to remind us we cannot forget them beyond Remembrance Day.

Paul Berton is editor-in-chief of The Hamilton Spectator and thespec.com. You can reach him at 905-526-3482 or pberton@thespec.com .

 

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Remember the veterans who’ve battled their own governments to get proper recognition

Posted by The Hamilton Spectator on Wednesday, November 11, 2015

 

Tuesday March 31, 2015

Tuesday March 31, 2015Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday March 31, 2015

Austerity budgets of provinces will offset 75% of Ottawa’s tax cuts: BMO

About three-quarters of the billions in federal tax cuts and increases in benefits promised to Canadians this year will be offset by provincial tax hikes and cutbacks, the Bank of Montreal says.

In a research note early Monday, BMO economist Robert Kavcic calculates that the provincial budgets unveiled in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Quebec have announced a collective $2 billion in new tax hikes on citizens, or cuts to services, to balance the books — part of a new age of austerity prompted by lower oil prices.

By Kavcic’s reckoning, Ottawa has promised a combination of tax cuts and benefit hikes that add up to about $4.5 billion back to Canadians in its current fiscal year.

“It looks like the provinces will take back about three-quarters of it,” he said.

Finance Minister Joe Oliver has delayed releasing the federal government’s budget to give it more time to gauge the impact of oil prices, but a few election-year tax cuts have already been telegraphed. While it’s uncertain what Ottawa has in store, Kavcic says, “most of what Ottawa will be returning to one taxpayer’s pocket, the provinces will take out of the other.”

With debt-laden governments in Ontario and Atlantic Canada yet to telegraph their spending plans, it’s a good bet the theme of austerity will continue, which means even more ways that top-level tax relief will be clawed back in one way or another. (Source: CBC News)

Posted to Yahoo Canada News.

 

Wednesday, February 12, 2015

Wednesday, February 12, 2015Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday, February 12, 2015

Deb Matthews rules out ‘across-the-board cuts’ in Ontario

Cuts are coming, but it’s too soon to say where or how deep.

That was the underlying message from Treasury Board President Deb Matthews as she launched the cash-strapped provincial government’s austerity push.

Thursday, November 20 2014“We’re not going to do it by making across-the-board cuts,” Matthews said Monday in a speech to the Economic Club of Toronto at the Hilton Hotel.

“That approach assumes that every dollar we spend is equally effective — and that’s a false assumption,” she said, mindful Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals face a $12.5-billion deficit.

“We are going to do it by doing government differently. By focusing on outcomes and rigorous evidence, by enabling transformation, by streamlining access to services and by using technology to drive better value.”

But Matthews warned that “some of what we have to do will be very difficult both for people within government and for many of service-delivery partners.”

Friday, December 13, 2013“I know there will be noise about some of the transformations we undertake.”

Her comments came as a smattering of Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union protesters rallied outside the Hilton.

Matthews again signalled to public servants that “there is no new funding for any compensation increases.

“That doesn’t mean no modest wage increases, but it does mean that any wage increase must be offset. What we call a ‘net zero,’” she said.

Speaking with the media afterward, Matthews repeatedly ducked questions over how many public-service jobs would be cut as the government tightens its belt.

“It’s not a simple question,” she said as reporters reminded her Wynne’s Liberals won last June’s election largely by demonizing former Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak’s pledge to eliminate 100,000 public-service positions. (Source: Toronto Star)