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Friday February 24, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday February 24, 2023

Total number of civilian casualties in Putin’s invasion

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is precisely one year old, Vladimir Putin having announced his “special military operation” on 24 February 2022.

January 26, 2023

Western nations have ramped up military suport for Kyiv since the near year, with Germany and the US both announcing in January that they would send battle tanks to Ukraine.

Berlin will provide 14 Leopard 2 tanks from military stocks as a first step. The training of Ukrainian troops in their use will begin in Germany soon, with logistics support and ammunition part of the package.

The US will meanwhile send 31 M1 Abram tanks in the coming months.

German chancellor Olaf Scholz came under huge international pressure to approve the use of the Leopard 2 models, with nations requiring permission from Germany to re-export those in their own armies. The eventual decision to go ahead paves the way for other countries such as Poland, Spain and Norway to supply their stocks of Leopard 2 tanks too.

December 22, 2022

Between the war’s commencement on 24 February 2022 and 21 February 2023, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has recorded 21,293 civilian casualties in the country: 8,006 killed and 13,287 injured.

According to the UN OHCHR, of the adult civilian casualties whose sex is known, men accounted for 61.1 per cent of civilian casualties and women for 39.9 per cent.

At least 487 children were killed and 954 injured.

An estimated 90.3 per cent of civilian casualties were caused by explosive weapons with wide area effects, including artillery shells, cruise and ballistic missiles, and air strikes. Most occurred in populated areas.

The OHCHR has also recorded 632 civilian casualties – 219 killed and 413 injured – caused by mines and explosive remnants of war.

September 14, 2022

The UN understands the actual number of civilian deaths are considerably higher than reported, as the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration.

According to Ukraine’s leading war crimes prosecutor, more than 100,000 Ukrainian civilians are believed to have been killed over the course of the last year, more than 10 times the current official death toll.

The horrific tally illustrates the scale of devastation in the country, which has fought a relentless onslaught from Vladimir Putin’s forces since their invasion on 24 February last year.

Speaking to The Independent, prosecutor Yuriy Belousov revealed his fears about the human cost on the civilian population.

“There could be 100,000 civilians killed across Ukraine, whose bodies will have to be found and identified once occupied territory is liberated,” Mr Belousov said. The current official death toll published by the UN this week puts the official death toll at 8,000.

March 1, 2022

Meanwhile, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has branded Mr Putin a “nobody” and suggested it is too late for face-to-face peace talks with the Russian leader to make any difference.

In an interview, Mr Zelensky described the Russian president as a “man who said one thing and then did another” as he said he was not interested in meeting him.

Speaking in English, he said: “It is not interesting for me. Not interesting to meet, not interesting to speak. Why? Because we had meeting with him in Normandy Format, it was before full-scale invasion.

“I saw the man who said one thing and then did another. So for me, I can’t understand – is it his decisions or somebody else? So to meet what – to shake hands? Not interesting. To speak? I really don’t understand who makes decisions in Russia.”

He also accused Russia’s president of having a disregard for his troops and throwing them “into the meat grinder”, ahead of an anticipated new offensive. (The Independent)

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 …

 

Thursday February 16, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday February 16, 2023

Ford won’t say who sent invites to daughter’s $150 stag-and-doe event

January 28, 2023

Ontario Premier Doug Ford did not divulge details of who sent invitations – including to developers – for his daughter’s $150-a-ticket stag-and-doe party last summer, saying only “the boys” took care of the money that was raised. 

His office later said “the boys” was a reference to the premier’s son-in-law and the man’s friends. 

The integrity commissioner has cleared Ford over the stag and doe, which is typically a fundraiser for a couple before they get married. 

Ford bristled at journalists’ questions Wednesday about the pre-wedding event that had an unknown number of developers in attendance. 

January 17, 2023

“In my opinion, it’s absolutely ridiculous about a $150 stag, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Ford said Friday at a funding announcement for auto parts maker Magna in Brampton, Ont. 

Based on information provided by Ford, the integrity commissioner said the premier had no knowledge of gifts given to his daughter and son-in-law. The commissioner said there was no discussion of government business at the event, but confirmed developers who are longtime friends of the Ford family were there.

When asked how much money was raised at the stag and doe from developers and who the money went to, Ford said “the boys took care of that.” 

The premier said he and his family know “tens of thousands of people.”

December 10, 2022

“No one can influence the Fords,” the premier said. 

Several months after the stag and doe, the province announced it was opening up the protected Greenbelt to build 50,000 homes as part of its plan to build 1.5 million homes in 10 years.

Ontario’s integrity commissioner and auditor general are conducting separate investigations into the government’s decision to open the Greenbelt to development – both Ford and Housing Minister Steve Clark have denied any wrongdoing. (CBC) 

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 …

 

Thursday March 10, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 10, 2022

Ontario to drop most mask mandates on March 21, remaining pandemic rules to lift by end of April

August 25, 2021

Ontario will scrap most mask mandates — including in schools, restaurants, gyms and stores — across the province on March 21, with remaining COVID-19 regulations also set to drop by the end of April. 

The province says improving health indicators, such as a stable COVID-19 test positivity rate and declining hospitalizations, as well as Ontario’s high vaccination rate and the availability of antiviral treatments, allow for these steps.

The province’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Kieran Moore, announced the new changes Wednesday. 

“We are now learning to live with and manage COVID-19 for the long term,” Moore said. “This necessitates a shift to a more balanced response to the pandemic.”

However, Moore said removing the mask mandate “does not mean the risk is gone” or the pandemic is over.

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)