Canada – Page 342 – mackaycartoons

Thursday April 18, 2002

April 18, 2002 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday April 18, 2002

Chretien to stay put for another year

In the face of growing speculation over his retirement, Jean Chretien said yesterday he plans to remain Prime Minister for at least another year and will put his leadership to the test at a party convention next February.When he was asked after a cabinet meeting yesterday whether he would face the scheduled leadership review, Mr. Chretien said: “Of course.”

Asked whether that was for sure, he replied: “Yes. I said earlier that I will be the Prime Minister in April, 2003. So to be the Prime Minister in 2003, you have to conclude I will be the leader in February.”

Under the terms of the Liberal Party constitution, party members are given the opportunity to vote after every election about whether they approve of the leader’s performance. If he receives approval at the review next February, Mr. Chretien would be able to use that as a mandate for running for a fourth term in office. Liberal sources say Mr. Chretien is seriously considering running again, though he is a long way from making a final decision. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Tuesday April 9, 2002

April 9, 2002 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday April 9, 2002

A Queen for Canada

A snap of history’s thread, a chunk of Canada’s past cut adrift. It will get harder now, with Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon gone, to remember who we were and what our national problems were six decades ago when she first came here as a queen. To remember what her importance was to Canada’s story of the day.

The British Monarchy

To view the country as it was in May, 1939 — when the CPR’s Empress of Australia and four accompanying naval ships sailed up the St. Lawrence River, bringing Elizabeth and her emperor-husband, King George VI, to Canada for a four-week visit — is to look at a quaint curiosity. Like a photograph of one’s parents, much younger, sweetly smiling, dressed in old-fashioned clothes.

The king’s assistant private secretary, Alan (Tommy) Lascelles, saw Canadians thus: “They sing ‘God Save the King’ as if it really was a prayer.”

Our prime minister’s behaviour, as always, was interesting.

William Lyon Mackenzie King recorded in his diary that the late king, George V, had visited him in spirit form to tell him the reason George VI and Elizabeth were coming to Canada was “due to their affection for you.”

Most engaging of all was how Mr. King, for whom the adjective “wily” eternally seems appropriate, so skilfully used the presence of the king and queen in Canada — especially the media-savvy, charismatic queen — to address Canada’s perpetual difficulties around national unity, French-English fissures and, above all, recognition by others of Canada’s sovereignty. (CP)

Saturday February 23, 2002

February 23, 2002 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday February 23, 2002

Asymptotic Analysis with CBC’s Brian Williams

If you have been watching the Olympics in the evenings these last few weeks — or if you have ever watched CBC’s telecast in your entire life — then you have probably become well acquainted with Brian Williams, master of the time zone, Mr. TimeAndDate himself. After spending quite some time practicing analyzing the runtime of algorithms while listening to Brian Williams relate the time in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Greenwich and Turin I was feeling a little timed out and last night finally went over the edge:

The nightmares came all last night in anticipation of today’s midterm, Brian Williams teaching algorithm runtime analysis. For every question, not only having to compute the runtime in Waterloo, but then translating that into Pacific, Central Standard, Greenwich Mean, and Mountain Standard times. Now, I know what you must be asking, what should be of more worry: dreaming about algorithmic analysis or about Brian Williams. Now, I’ll tell you my opinion. Given the choice, I’d want to dream about big-Oh over old Brian every day of the week. My peaceful night sleep can do without him telling me “there’s more to come”, and that he’ll have the runtime for me in a minute. Then giving me a disapproving look, while he leans forward and taps his pencil on the paper, telling me that in fact if the runtime is O(n) in Waterloo, then in Sydney it’s O(n-14h).

Can you imagine if after years with CBC sports Brian Williams deciding that he was in dire need of a career change and going into teaching. Although he would be good at consoling you after a failed test — having had much experience interviewing athletes after bitter defeat, asking uncomfortable questions and forcing them to relive the entire ordeal in detail — having to memorize the time conversions for every time zone and how they related to each asymptotic order would be worse than dreaming of nothing but Brian Williams for a year. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Saturday, January 5, 2002

January 5, 2002 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, January 5, 2002

Road hockey: A proud Canadian sporting tradition or a dangerous nuisance?

A Hamilton court will weigh in Monday on a father’s fate after he played hockey with his kids on their street, infuriating a neighbour while breaking a bylaw that divides neighbourhoods nationwide. “The bylaw says we stay off the street,” said Nadia Ciuriak, whose garden has been invaded by countless stray hockey balls from Gary Kotar’s kids over the years.

“If people want street hockey, the proper way of dealing with that is to go to city council and insist that the bylaw gets removed.”

While Kotar’s kids haven’t caused any damage to their neighbour’s property, it’s the principle of breaking the bylaw and trespassing to retrieve errant balls that bothers Ciuriak.

“Initially I retrieved the balls from my garden, but then I decided I had other things to do, and I didn’t want them going into my garden,” said Ciuriak, who has lived with her mother and sister at the house for 40 years.

Ciuriak also objects to the behaviour of some of the players on her street. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Wednesday September 26, 2001

September 26, 2001 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday September 26, 2001

Canada’s war is already over

If Canada applied to participate in joint military operations, it would be turned down — which is why John Manley’s belated promise of ground troops is less manly than it sounds. He knows full well they won’t be required. His generous offer is as laughable as me offering to play in the Wimbledon men’s final. The reality is that what’s left of Canada’s forces is too poorly equipped to share a battlefield with the Americans, the British, the Australians or any reasonably funded army. Even New Zealand, which isn’t exactly a famous military power, is in a position to make a more useful contribution through its SAS, the kind of elite special forces that will be especially prized in this most modern of wars. Canada’s equivalent, the secrecy-shrouded JTF2, have no international reputation except as an ill-disciplined rabble. Intelligence? CSIS is underfunded and politically irrelevant: When they report that 50 global terrorist groups are actively operating in Canada, the Prime Minister files it in the bottom drawer under his golf club bill-of-sale napkins and, if anyone brings it up, flatly denies its conclusions. Canada is the only G7 country whose government is involved in covert sabotage of its own intelligence gathering.

Yet, confronted with an obvious truth, we persist in hunting for ludicrous alternatives. Is it that Bush personally dislikes Chrétien? You can’t blame the guy. In his speeches, our Prime Minister has a half-dozen jokes about what a dummy Dubya is: “I explained to him that Alberta is in Canada,” etc. In person, he’s boorishly patronizing: Chrétien welcoming Bush to the Summit of the Americas in Quebec: “Bienvenue.” Bush: “Thank you, sir.” Chrétien: “That means welcome.” (Source: Mark Steyn, National Post)