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Wednesday June 5, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday June 5, 2019

Cabinet must stop enabling Ford’s incompetence

An enabler, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is “a person or thing that makes something possible.”

August 9, 2018

In light of the Ontario government’s obsession with alcohol, it’s also instructive to turn to literature on the psychology of addiction, which further defines an enabler as someone who “passively permits or unwittingly encourages” destructive behaviour and often “feels powerless to prevent it.”

And that brings us to the 20 men and women who were elected by Ontario voters a year ago this Friday and subsequently named to Premier Doug Ford’s cabinet.

When a series of unlikely circumstances collided to make Ford leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, those who had experienced the Ford brand of governing by chaos rather than consensus at Toronto City Hall were incredulous.

If he can’t be trusted to run a city, how can he run the entire province?

March 13, 2018

Don’t worry, his supporters said, Ford will shake things up a bit but he won’t do anything too reckless because Queen’s Park isn’t anything like city hall and the seasoned politicians who will join him at the cabinet table will temper the worst of his tendencies.

In short, they’ll keep him in check.

But, as we’ve seen, it’s been the other way around.

The City of Toronto, for all the seeming messiness of its council meetings, is full of independent thinkers.

It’s under the party system that Ford’s brand of reckless governing has been able to spread like measles through an unvaccinated community.

September 14, 2018

With the help of his chief of staff, Dean French, Ford has brought all those experienced and capable politicians who were supposed to lift him up, down to his level. A level that surely the likes of Caroline Mulroney and Christine Elliott, who had ambitions to lead the party, could scarcely have imagined.

As attorney general, Mulroney acquiesced to Ford’s rush to hit the nuclear button with the “notwithstanding” clause of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in his vindictive move to cut Toronto city council in half with the municipal election already underway. And the government has churned out legislation to shield itself from the financial liabilities that go with its desire to tear up contracts.

Ford may want to use powers that are rarely used for good reason, as though they’re free candy for the taking, but the adults in the building are supposed to know better.

While everything may begin with Ford and his unelected advisers, it can’t come to pass without the attorney general and the rest of the cabinet.

One of them, Environment Minister Rod Phillips, once said he was running for the Ontario PCs to be part of a “positive, inclusive” team.

November 17, 2018

How is that going?

Finance Minister Vic Fedeli happily adds and subtracts billions from the provincial deficit depending, it seems, on the day of the week and whether Ford is in a mood to attack the past Liberal government or tout his success as a leader and general good guy.

Under Ford, cabinet ministers jump up like trained seals, clap wildly and support the unsupportable with canned lines that don’t pass even a cursory sniff test.

Did they all agree to check their brains and backbones at the door to cabinet?

Health Minister Christine Elliott, Education Minister Lisa Thompson, Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark, and Children and Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod all lurch from one half-baked policy to the next depending on which way Ford Nation winds blow.

January 12, 2019

Some of these cabinet ministers may want to tell themselves they’re powerless to stop this and that’s par for the course with enablers. But it’s not true. As Oxford tells us, enablers make things possible.

Some of Ford’s cabinet might also still be imagining a future for themselves where memoirs are written about their time in politics. They should start thinking about how they want the 2018-2022 chapter to read.

While Ontarians are gasping at how Year One under the Ford government has gone, and holding their breath for what’s to come in Year Two, his cabinet ministers can — and should — do more than that.

Those 20 men and women can ask themselves whether they want to continue to be enablers or whether they want to relocate their spines and try for something more. (Hamilton SpectatorEditorial) https://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/9408338-editorial-cabinet-must-stop-enabling-ford-s-incompetence/

 

Thursday December 20, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday December 20, 2018

Ottawa’s Gift to Alberta

December 13, 2018

The $1.6-billion aid package Justin Trudeau just handed Alberta’s wounded oilpatch is little more than a handkerchief for drying the province’s bitter tears.

It shows the federal government is aware of Alberta’s plight. It permits the prime minister to parade his capacious empathy. And it proves Ottawa is willing to act on behalf of that province’s oil and gas sector, though only in a limited way.

But it will accomplish almost nothing meaningful. It won’t staunch the bleeding in Alberta’s economy or ease the pain of its people because it does nothing to cure what really ails them — the oil pipeline bottleneck. Only a new pipeline or pipelines will fix this. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

November 15, 2005

Meanwhile, traditional Christmas pudding is dying out, new figures show, as under 35s are shunning the traditional dessert.

Decked with a sprig of holly, brandy and flickering blue flames, it has been considered the pinnacle of Christmas dinner since Victorian times.  

December 20, 2007

Changing tastes down the generations mean sales of Christmas pudding are in slow but steady decline, falling at around 1 percent year on year, Tesco’s 2018 Christmas report has revealed.

It found that less than half of Brits now eat it on Christmas Day.

Just over one in five (23 per cent) people aged between 18 and 35 eat Christmas pudding, it said, with younger consumers favouring alternatives like chocolate pudding and pannetone.  

However Christmas pudding is still the most popular Christmas day dessert among over 55s, six in ten (59 per cent) of whom eat it on Christmas Day. (Source: Telegraph) 

 

Tuesday June 26, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday June 26, 2018

Trudeau to visit three cities on Canada Day, skip Parliament Hill festivities

Justin Trudeau will skip Canada Day festivities on Parliament Hill this year.

March 28, 2017

Instead, the prime minister will be on the road, celebrating Canada’s 151st birthday in three cities in three different regions.

Trudeau is scheduled to visit Leamington, Ont., Regina and Dawson City, Yukon — all on July 1.

He will still put in an appearance on Parliament Hill but it will be via video from Leamington.

Spokesman Cameron Ahmad says Trudeau wants to spend Canada day with “Canadians and their families” in parts of the country he doesn’t often get a chance to visit.

June 1, 2018

But in at least two of the three cities, the tour seems designed to reflect the looming trade war between Canada and the United States.

Trudeau will meet steelworkers in Regina, who’ve been hard-hit by President Donald Trump’s imposition of crippling tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

And in Leamington, he’ll be meeting workers at the French’s ketchup factory.

Ketchup is one of many U. S. goods upon which the Trudeau government intends to slap $16.6 billions worth of retaliatory tariffs, starting on July 1. The Leamington visit appears aimed at reminding Canadians they can still get made-in-Canada ketchup, on which no tariff will apply. (Source: CTV) 

 

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Wednesday January 24, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday January 24, 2018

How the TPP deal injects a new dynamic at NAFTA talks

Canada’s decision to sign onto a major multinational trade agreement without the United States added a dramatic new wrinkle to the NAFTA process Tuesday just as negotiators gathered for a crucial bargaining round.

January 12, 2018

The new Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement brings Canada into a new, sprawling trading bloc with standards not always obviously compatible with the goals of its superpower next-door neighbour.

It allows more content into automobiles from non-free-trade partners like China — at the very moment that the United States is trying to achieve the exact opposite in NAFTA, with tougher rules to keep out Chinese and other Asian parts.

Both supporters and detractors of the TPP pact predicted that this major liberalization of trade in auto parts with Asia will wind up at the NAFTA table somehow.

A Canadian auto-parts lobby group delivered a scathing reaction.

November 14, 2017

Flavio Volpe of Canada’s Auto Parts Manufacturers’ Association said the TPP agreement paves the way for more Chinese content in Canadian cars, at the moment Canada’s most important customer, the U.S., has made clear its goal of reducing Chinese imports.

He said it’s especially problematic in the midst of sensitive NAFTA negotiations.

“This could not be a dumber move at a more important time,” Volpe said in an interview. (Source: CTV) 

 

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Tuesday April 25, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday April 25, 2017

Trump struggled to keep promises in his first 100 days — and it may not get easier

President Donald Trump declared last week that “no administration has accomplished more” in its first 90 days than his.

But Trump has a lot more work to do in just a few days if he wants to meet the goals he set out for his first 100 days in office. Day 100 is Saturday.

Trump stormed into office promising a quick overhaul of the American government: repealing and replacing Obamacare, reforming the tax system, refreshing U.S. infrastructure, cracking down on illegal immigration and ridding Washington of corruption. He promised to eradicate bad trade deals, roll back regulations and hit back at China for its lopsided trade policies.

Trump on Friday tweeted that the 100-days standard “ridiculous,” he has accomplished “a lot” during his short time as president. But the president himself set goals for that exact timeline before he took office.

Trump set out a “contract with the American voter” that included a “100-day action plan.”

Voters who wish to hold Trump to the contract would do well to read the fine print. Rather than achieving his promises, the contract calls for his administration “to immediately pursue” three, multipoint action items intended to “clean up corruption,” protect American workers and “restore security.”

The White House has proven effective in selling Trump’s executive orders — which are often largely symbolic or only direct agencies to review policies — as policy victories, said John Hudak, senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. But he believes Trump will ultimately get judged on the “big-ticket” pledges that require congressional action — namely tax reform, health-care changes and infrastructure funding. The president promised those policies would help to boost economic growth and improve Americans’ well-being.

“What people are focused on are jobs — beyond the executive orders — health care, the broader economy, taxes,” Hudak said. “He can sell as many orders as he wants, but it’s still going to come back to these big, flashy policy failures. It’s hard to hang a presidential legacy on executive orders.” (Source: CNBC)