Tuesday August 1, 2017

July 31, 2017 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday August 1, 2017

Murray quitting as environment minister signalling a climate change at Queen’s Park

Premier Kathleen Wynne is suffering the loss of a key member of her cabinet with the surprise departure of Environment and Climate Change Minister Glen Murray, the Star has learned.

March 2, 2017

Murray, 59, who has been out of the country and was unavailable for comment, will announce Monday at Queen’s Park that he is set to resign from provincial politics.

The Toronto Centre MPP, also a former mayor of Winnipeg and one-time Star columnist, has been Wynne’s point person on climate change.

He will step down immediately from cabinet, forcing the premier to do a minor shuffle of her executive council on Monday morning, but will remain as an MPP for a few more weeks to wind down some local constituency business.

Internationally respected on environmental issues, he was first elected in a February 2010 byelection after then-deputy premier George Smitherman left to run for mayor of Toronto and lost to Rob Ford.

Former premier Dalton McGuinty elevated Murray to cabinet just six months later where he served as minister of research and innovation. After the 2011 election, he was promoted to minister of training, colleges, and universities.

After McGuinty stepped down in October 2012, he launched a Liberal leadership bid, but dropped out to support Wynne shortly before the party’s convention in January 2013.

The new premier rewarded him for his timely endorsement, which gave her campaign momentum, by making him transportation and infrastructure minister in February 2013.

Following her majority victory in June 2014, Wynne moved him to the Ministry of the Environment and added “Climate Change” to his title to underscore its importance as Ontario was joining Quebec and California in a cap-and-trade system.

In a move some Liberals felt demonstrated petulance, Murray responded to being shuffled by taking to Twitter that June 25 and saying: “Today it sunk in the last election was my last.”

“Promised that if I couldn’t make a difference in 8 or 10 years I couldn’t make a difference,” the minister tweeted more than three years ago.

“First openly gay person elected in Canada. I have to thank Winnipeggers for electing me councillor and mayor and TO for electing me MPP and minister,” he continued.

“Minister of Environment in Ontario is the best political position I have ever had the privilege to hold. I was not demoted. Kathleen Wynne put me in a position where I can fight to ensure we can survive climate change.”

While his prophecy turned out to be true, Murray had indicated to allies more recently that he planned to run again next year, so his exit is blindsiding the governing Liberals.

A strong performer in the legislature, where he usually deflects opposition questions skilfully, he has emerged as one of Wynne’s better known ministers. (Source: Toronto Star)

SaveSave

Saturday December 17, 2016

December 16, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday December 17, 2016

Donald Trump’s Denial About Russia

No matter how divided our politics and our times, Americans can agree that our status as a strong, democratic nation rests on the bedrock of free and fair elections. That confidence is what was targeted when Russia, one of our oldest, most determined foreign adversaries, invaded American computer networks and released thousands of pages of documents to undermine the legitimacy of the 2016 election.

Reminiscent of the Cold War days – the Soviet politburo, powerful, stern, disciplined, shrouded in mystery. Downright scary.

This news emerged last summer. Last month, the Central Intelligence Agency shared a further conclusion, based on months of analysis, that the Russian hacking was intended to favor Donald Trump.

“There shouldn’t be any doubt in anybody’s mind,” Adm. Michael Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency and commander of United States Cyber Command, said recently. “This was not something that was done casually, this was not something that was done by chance, this was not a target that was selected purely arbitrarily,” he said. “This was a conscious effort by a nation-state to attempt to achieve a specific effect.”

Extrapolating motive from evidence is always tricky. But after the C.I.A. provided classified briefings for Congress and the White House, members of both political parties were convinced.

But not President-elect Trump.

Mr. Trump’s instant rejection of the C.I.A. findings as “ridiculous,” based on no review of its work, echoed Moscow’s. “This tale of ‘hacks’ resembles a banal brawl between American security officials over spheres of influence,” Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, wrote on Facebook. Mr. Trump said of American security officials, “They’re fighting among themselves.” (Continued: New York Times)

[slideshow_deploy id=’8949’]

Wednesday June 8, 2016

June 7, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday June 8, 2016

Ted McMeekin stepping aside in advance of gender equity cabinet shuffle

Ted McMeekin Gallery

Hamilton MPP Ted McMeekin says he will give up his spot at the Liberal cabinet table to make room for more women.

The municipal affairs and housing minister said in an interview Monday his decision was spurred by a looming cabinet shuffle and a desire to help Premier Kathleen Wynne shoot for gender parity.

“Sometimes timing is everything. The premier and I talked about it and she thinks it’s important to move toward more of a gender balance,” he said. “I happen to agree with her.”

Cause without a rebel 2002

The 68-year-old, who beat prostate cancer in 2008, said he feels great and is not leaving cabinet over health concerns. McMeekin (who will turn 69 in December) said he’ll continue as MPP for Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale, but declined to say if he’ll run in 2018. He has been at Queen’s Park since a 2000 byelection in the former riding of Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Aldershot.

In an online statement, McMeekin said he thought about his three daughters and a day when gender parity “would just be taken for granted.”

“Sometimes the best way for a man to advance the equality of women may be to step back and make room at the table,” he said in the statement.

October 29, 2015

McMeekin later added he felt more comfortable stepping away from cabinet because legislative action is “well underway” on many of his top priorities, including homelessness, poverty reduction and reviews of the Municipal Act and Greenbelt.

“I’m going to keep up my interest on those items,” he said. “And if my colleagues (in cabinet) need advice, well, they can come to me. I’m full of advice.”

Mayor Fred Eisenberger praised the “classy” decision even as he mourned the loss of Hamilton’s only provincial cabinet minister. “Not having that voice at the table is going to be a considerable loss. Those are important, powerful portfolios,” he said, also pointing to McMeekin’s past posts, including agriculture and community services.

“His legacy in Hamilton is enormous, from LRT to housing and homelessness.”

McMaster University political science professor Henry Jacek said he’s not surprised to see McMeekin “be the loyal soldier” for Wynne, whom he supported in the Liberal leadership race to replace Dalton McGuinty. (Continued: Hamilton Spectator)

Thursday November 5, 2015

November 4, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday November 5, 2015

No more selfies, but way more drama

(James Mennie column) When you consider we’ve just come through a federal election campaign where the selfie proved itself a legitimate and highly effective political tool, it wasn’t surprising this weekend to see Justin Trudeau, the undisputed winner of that campaign, proving once again he is the most photogenic prime minister designate in recent Canadian history.

If you missed it, the Trudeau family’s trick or treat theme on Saturday night was rather eclectic, Mom and Dad going with a generic Star Wars look while the two older children opted for your standard Disney princess and sword toting bird ensemble while the youngest (the choice presumably made for him) was led from door to camera-crew-surrounded door as a Ninja Turtle.

Given that Trudeau had already tweeted a Happy Halloween message and family portrait to his 932,000 followers, the images flooded social media and the comments seemed for the most part to be positive, many of them expressing delight at the country’s being led by so down to earth and happy looking a family. And when you consider that even the crustiest, most hard bitten political analysts have acknowledged that Trudeau’s message of hope and positiveness pretty much cut Stephen Harper’s campaign to ribbons, it’s a pretty safe bet the optimistic glow engendered by the Liberal victory on Oct. 19 will continue beyond the swearing-in ceremony for Trudeau and his first cabinet scheduled for Wednesday.

That said, I’m not entirely sure that glow will still be around by, say, Christmas. And the reason I suspect Trudeau’s national honeymoon won’t survive 2015 is that the selfie taking, Star Wars loving, YouTube dancing, drama teaching, musketeer mustachioed candidate- the guy who actually won this thing – will, by sheer political necessity, cease to exist once the words “So help me God” have left his lips on Wednesday.

The transformation won’t be due to pressure from any opposition in the House of Commons. The Tories are far too busy trying to figure out how to re-invent themselves and disinfect their party of the political agenda they spent 11 weeks defending during the campaign to effectively hound the new government any time soon. And the NDP is (I suspect) still preoccupied doing a slow burn over how they managed to let a principled stand on a wedge politics issue like the niqab sink their shot at governing while the same stand had no effect whatsoever on the Trudeau Liberals.

No, in the end, I think that Trudeau the prime minister will say good-bye to Justin the candidate because, just like anyone else who’s trained in drama, Trudeau knows when it’s time to change roles. And it’s becoming clear that the role of Justin the candidate has served its purpose. (Continued: Montreal Gazette)

Letter to the Editor

Spec’s Trudeau endorsement seems suspect

RE: Editorial cartoon (Nov. 5)

I find this cartoon disrespectful and lacking in humour. Especially two days before our new government is sworn in.

Considerable effort is already underway to live up to the promise of getting 25,000 refugees in by the end of the year. Numerous groups across Canada are hard at work, our armed forces are looking at ways to implement the plan and other initiatives are under evaluation.

It might be mentioned that the actual number of Syrian refugees taken into Canada, after a few years, is shockingly less than 5,000.

We did not honour our initial promise to take in 1,300 by the end of 2014.

Just another reminder that the Spectator’s endorsement of Justin Trudeau continuous to seem suspect.

Richard Ring, Grimsby

Tuesday November 3, 2015

November 2, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday November 3, 2015

How Justin Trudeau picked his new cabinet

Memo to Liberal MPs: If you’re still waiting for Justin Trudeau to call and offer you a cabinet post, you can stop the wait.

That’s because Trudeau has already selected his new cabinet and made his last telephone calls to the lucky incoming ministers several days ago.

All of the ministers now know their new portfolio and all have been sworn to the utmost secrecy until Nov. 4 when Trudeau is formally sworn in as prime minister and unveils the full cabinet.

And despite all the post-election speculation about how difficult it would be for Trudeau to pick the cabinet from the “abundance of riches” that he was handed when the Liberals won a majority government and 184 seats in the Oct. 19 election, the job turned out to be surprisingly easy.

When Trudeau got down to work on the cabinet in the days immediately after the Liberals’ victory celebrations, he made his choices based on several key factors, according to Liberal insiders familiar with the selection process.

These factors include the size of the cabinet, gender equality, ethnic diversity, regional distribution and a balance of new and veteran MPs, but leaning to young and new versus old and experienced.

Some critics have suggested Trudeau is putting gender and regional concerns ahead of talent as the top priority in selecting the ministers.

In reality, though, any cabinet, regardless of whether it is Liberal or Conservative, “is never a pure and simple meritocracy,” says a key Trudeau adviser. “Obviously there are expectations if you are elected, such as every province gets a cabinet minister, and you look at regional balance, gender, and diversity as well as competence.”

On size, the new cabinet is expected to have 28 members. Trudeau wanted to keep the number below 30 to show he intended to run a leaner, more efficient cabinet team than did Stephen Harper. The last Conservative cabinet had 39 ministers, including 26 senior ministers and 12 junior ministers of state for such areas as sports, seniors and multiculturalism.

On gender, the new cabinet will be evenly split, with 14 women and 14 men, including Trudeau. A total of 50 Liberal women were elected on Oct. 19. (Continued: Toronto Star)

Published in the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, November 4, 2015