byelection – mackaycartoons

Tuesday September 12, 2017

September 11, 2017 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday September 12, 2017

Liberals enduring two scandal trials

Two Ontario Liberals went to trial last Thursday on Election Act bribery charges stemming from a 2015 byelection in Sudbury, but the stakes are also high for Premier Kathleen Wynne herself.

December 18, 2015

The Sudbury trial happens nearly simultaneously with another Liberal trial – related to the cancellation of two gas plants – which makes for terrible optics for the party. But while that second trial involves staffers for former premier Dalton McGuinty, the Sudbury scandal is one forged entirely under Wynne’s tenure.

The premier herself is set to testify on Sept. 13.

“Politically, it’s not good,” said Nadia Verrelli, an assistant political science professor at Sudbury’s Laurentian University.

Regardless of the outcome, it may focus the provincial election campaign – with a vote nine months away – on questions about the Liberals’ integrity rather than their policies, she said.

Pat Sorbara, at the time the Ontario Liberal Party CEO, faces two charges and Gerry Lougheed, a Sudbury Liberal fundraiser, faces one charge. They both deny wrongdoing.

September 29, 2015

In late 2014, the Sudbury riding became vacant when the New Democrat who won it five months earlier stepped down for health reasons. The Liberals had their eye on winning back a riding that until 2014 they held for about two decades.

Andrew Olivier, who was the Liberals’ candidate in the riding in the general election, wanted to run again, but Wynne had other ideas. She ended up successfully luring the riding’s NDP MP – Glenn Thibeault – to run for the provincial Liberals.

One of Sorbara’s charges relates to an allegation she promised to get Thibeault “an office or employment” to induce him to become a candidate, which both deny.

Sorbara and Lougheed are alleged to have offered Olivier a job or appointment in exchange for stepping aside for Thibeault, who was ultimately given the post of energy minister last year.

Wynne has said that she had already decided Olivier would not be the byelection candidate by the time Sorbara and Lougheed spoke to him, therefore anything offered was not in exchange for stepping aside. Rather, Wynne says, she was trying to keep him in the party fold. (Source: Global News)

Saturday November 18, 2016

November 18, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday November 18, 2016

PC candidate Sam Oosterhoff, 19, wins Niagara West-Glanbrook

A 19-year-old Smithville man has made Ontario history by winning the Niagara West-Glanbrook byelection.

Progressive Conservative candidate Sam Oosterhoff has become the youngest person elected to the Ontario legislature.

His victory was hailed Thursday night by PC Leader Patrick Brown, who attended Oosterhoff’s election night party at the Casablanca Inn, a hotel just off the Queen Elizabeth Way in Grimsby.

Oosterhoff, who brought controversy to the contest because of his social conservative views, thanked his supporters just before 10 p.m. The mood was buoyant at the well-attended party, which brought out Milton MP Lisa Raitt, a federal Conservative leadership candidate.

The riding became vacant because of the departure of former PC leader Tim Hudak. It was always said to be a safe conservative seat, but Oosterhoff’s opposition to abortion and questioning the new sex-ed curriculum was thought to raise some doubt.

In the end, it didn’t matter. With 130 of 236 polls reporting just after 10 p.m., the first-year-political science student at Brock University had about 52 per cent of vote.

The New Democrat candidate and former Hamilton police officer Mike Thomas of Binbrook was in second with about 26 per cent of the vote. Oosterhoff had more than 4,300 votes than Thomas. Liberal candidate and Hamilton lawyer Vicky Ringuette, also of Binbrook, was in third with about 15 per cent of the vote. She trailed Oosterhoff by more than 6,000 votes.

Oosterhoff said people were angry about their hydro bills and industrial wind turbines but Ringuette said she wasn’t hearing complaints from voters about electricity rates.

The Liberals held on to Ottawa-Vanier with lawyer Nathalie Des Rosiers. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Saturday February 13, 2016

February 12, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday February 13, 2016

Here are your Ward 7 byelection candidates

A crowded Ward 7 byelection race is officially underway and residents have no lack of would-be councillors to choose from.

Twenty-two candidates — the most in any one ward race since amalgamation — are vying to replace Scott Duvall, who vacated his city council seat after becoming the new NDP federal representative for Hamilton Mountain.

Nearly 40,000 ward residents are to cast votes on March 21 — or at advance polls slated for March 10 and 12.

The Spectator asked all candidates to provide information about themselves, their campaigns and a short pitch for why they deserve your vote. They all have a lot more to say — and it’s worth noting most are easily found on Twitter or Facebook, too. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Meanwhile, scientific detection of gravitational waves marks new era in astronomy (Source: CBC News)

Friday, August 16, 2013

August 16, 2013 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday, August 16, 2013

Tory MPPs scrap over Hudak leadership

Controversy over whether Progressive Conservative members should be allowed to debate Tim Hudak’s leadership at next month’s party convention has triggered a war of words among Tory MPPs.

House Leader Jim Wilson blasted two of his caucus colleagues for wanting to permit party activists to table a motion on a leadership review at the Sept. 21-22 conference in London, Ont.

Wilson accused MPPs Frank Klees and Randy Hillier, runners-up to Hudak in the 2009 leadership, of putting their own ambitions ahead of the party’s fortunes.

“They can’t accept the fact that they lost the leadership — one of them lost twice — and just keep running that old film over again,” he said, referring to Klees’ 2004 defeat at the hands of previous leader John Tory.

“If anyone thinks they’re helping the PC Party of Ontario … or helping to defeat the corrupt governing Liberals by calling for a leadership review, then they need to have their heads examined.” Asked if the two MPPs should be turfed from caucus, Wilson shook his head.
“I don’t think so, really. They’re good people. They’re just a little misguided on this,” he said, adding “this is just a distraction.”

Since the Aug. 1 byelections — in which the Tories won one seat while the governing Liberals and the New Democrats each took two — Hudak has faced questions about why he didn’t gain more of the five former Grit ridings. (Source: The Toronto Star)
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Saturday, August 3, 2013

August 3, 2013 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, August 3, 2013

Hudak blows another election

Thursday’s five by-elections in Ontario were another blow to Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak. This constitutes a real crisis of confidence.

The results need to be analyzed based on the expectations created by the polls and the media’s belief that ex-premier Dalton McGuinty had fatally undermined the Liberal party. On that basis, it was perfectly reasonable to expect the Liberals to lose every one of their seats, maybe just squeaking by in Scarborough-Guildwood; the Tories to win three or four of the five; and the NDP to win only Windsor-Tecumseh. From that perspective, a single Liberal win would have been a real godsend, allowing them to boast they were still contenders. That’s in fact what the Liberals expected and how they were prepared to spin it publicly. But that didn’t happen.

The Tory and NDP responses would have been equally predictable. Given the Conservative shut-out in Toronto for so many years, any victory would unleash delirium, while winning both Toronto seats, which they expected, would have been heaven. With three, or, as they quietly believed, four wins – everything but Windsor – they’d have been celebrating their unstoppable ascent to government. And they would have been right. But none of that happened.

Similarly, the NDP would have crowed about an easy Windsor win – an amazing 61 per cent in a former Liberal stronghold – but one victory was rightly not considered enough. They needed London West as well, although polls showed them running behind the Hudak candidate. Had they won only one of five, and had star candidate Adam Giambrone received only 21 per cent in Scarborough-Guildwood, as polls forecast, Thursday would have been a bad day in NDP circles. That Giambrone had won the nomination in dubious circumstances with unseemly backing by the party brass would have meant much salt in raw wounds. But none of that happened either. (Source: The Globe & Mail)