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Wednesday March 3, 2021

March 10, 2021 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday March 3, 2021

Biden retreats from vow to make pariah of Saudis

October 25, 2018

As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden promised to make a pariah out of Saudi Arabia over the 2018 killing of dissident Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi. But when it came time to actually punish Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Biden’s perception of America’s strategic interests prevailed.

The Biden administration made clear Friday it would forgo sanctions or any other major penalty against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Khashoggi killing, even after a U.S. intelligence report concluded the prince ordered it.

The decision highlights how the real-time decisions of diplomacy often collide with the righteousness of the moral high ground. And nowhere is this conundrum more stark than in the United States’ complicated relationship with Saudi Arabia — the world’s oil giant, a U.S. arms customer and a counterbalance to Iran in the Middle East.

“It is undeniable that Saudi Arabia is a hugely influential country in the Arab world,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said Monday when asked about Biden’s retreat from his promise to isolate the Saudis over the killing.

Ultimately, Biden administration officials said, U.S. interests in maintaining relations with Saudi Arabia forbid making a pariah of a young prince who may go on to rule the kingdom for decades. That stands in stark contrast to Biden’s campaign promise to make the kingdom “pay the price” for human rights abuses and “make them in fact the pariah that they are.”

“We’ve talked about this in terms of a recalibration. It’s not a rupture,” Price said of the U.S.-Saudi relationship.

October 12, 2018

But what the Biden administration is calling a “recalibration” of former President Donald Trump’s warm relationship with Saudi royals looks a lot like the normal U.S. stand before Trump: chiding on human rights abuses in the kingdom, but not allowing those concerns to interfere with relations with Saudi Arabia.

In recent days, Biden officials have responded to intense criticism of the administration’s failure to sanction the prince by pointing to U.S. measures targeting his lower-ranking associates.

Those include steps against the prince’s “Tiger squad,” which allegedly has sought out dissidents abroad, and sanctions and visa restrictions upon Saudi officials who directly participated in Khashoggi’s slaying and dismemberment.

The language itself has softened, with Biden officials referring to Saudi Arabia as a strategic partner rather than pariah.

Watching it all, Trump suggested over the weekend that Biden’s stand on Saudi Arabia’s prince wasn’t so different from his after all. Khashoggi’s killing by Mohammed bin Salman’s security and intelligence officials was bad, Trump told Fox News, “but we have to look at it as an overall” situation. Biden seems to be “viewing it maybe in a similar fashion, very interesting, actually.”

August 8, 2018

Mohammed bin Salman, 35, has consolidated power in Saudi Arabia since his father, Salman, now 85 and ailing, became king in 2015. The prince soon after launched a war in neighboring Yemen that has deepened hunger and poverty in that country; opened an economic blockade of Qatar that only recently ended; and invited the leader of another Arab country, Lebanon, for a visit and without warning detained him.

The prince has silenced civil society at home, imprisoning writers, clerics, businesspeople and women’s rights advocates, detaining and allegedly torturing fellow royals, and allegedly forming a squad charged with abducting or luring exiles back to the kingdom to face further punishment.

Khashoggi had fled Saudi Arabia and was deepening his criticism of the prince in columns written for The Washington Post. When Khashoggi scheduled an Oct. 2, 2018, appointment at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to pick up paperwork needed for his wedding, Saudi security and intelligence officials were waiting for him there. So was Saudi security’s forensics chief, known for his techniques for rapid dissections. Khashoggi’s remains have never been found. (AP)

Tuesday October 27, 2020

November 3, 2020 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday October 27, 2020

New Doug Ford vs. Old Doug Ford: Which one is Premier of Ontario?

Since his election as Ontario Premier in 2018, Doug Ford has been available in two versions.

March 27, 2020

There’s the empathetic, uniting leader who works across political boundaries. He first appeared during the COVID-19 pandemic.

And there’s the original Doug Ford – the angry partisan who sows divisions and does favours for friends.

You may recall version 1.0 from such moves as Mr. Ford’s attempt to name an underqualified old crony, Ron Taverner, as commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police in 2018. It reeked so badly of conflict of interest that Mr. Taverner ultimately withdrew his name from consideration.

November 9, 2019

Doug Ford v. 1.0 was also infamous for unilaterally cutting the size of Toronto City Council from 44 members to 25 in 2018, in the middle of a municipal election. There was no justification for it, but Mr. Ford rammed it through for nakedly partisan reasons.

It was thus a pleasant surprise to see the Premier reboot himself as a less demagogic, more empathetic leader when the pandemic struck.

During the crisis, Doug Ford v. 2.0 has shown an openness to working with the federal Liberal government of Justin Trudeau, and an understanding of the difficulties facing Ontarians. He has spent months praising traditional targets. His government’s actual results leave much to be desired, but his work ethic and lack of partisanship have won him the respect of former critics.

November 17, 2018

And then last week he reverted to prepandemic form, slipping two self-serving measures into omnibus legislation meant to help businesses get through the pandemic.

One measure was a ban on municipalities using ranked ballots in elections, removing an option given to them in 2016 by the former Liberal government.

Ranked ballots let voters choose a first, second and third choice for a council seat or the mayor’s seat; if none of the candidates wins a majority off the bat, the voters’ second and third choices are redistributed until one candidate reaches the 50-per-cent threshold.

His other self-serving measure was to include a school run by a political ally among three Christian schools that are either being given university status or having their right to hand out degrees expanded.

Canada Christian College and School of Graduate Theological Studies in Whitby, Ont., is run by Charles McVety – a polarizing figure who opposes gay marriage and espouses hateful views about LGBTQ people, Islam and other targets. (Continued: Globe & Mail)

Saturday October 28, 2018

November 2, 2018 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday October 28, 2018

‘Difficult contract’ binds Canada to Saudi LAV deal, Trudeau says

October 12, 2018

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says it’s difficult to break Canada’s deal to supply light armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia because of the way the contract was negotiated by the previous Conservative government.

“The contract signed by the previous government, by Stephen Harper, makes it very difficult to suspend or leave that contract,” Trudeau told host Matt Galloway on CBC Radio’s Metro Morning on Tuesday. “We are looking at a number of things, but it is a difficult contract.

“I actually can’t go into it, because part of the deal on this contract is not talking about this contract, and it’s one of the binds that we are left in because of the way that the contract was negotiated.”

August 10, 2018

Saudi Arabia faces possible international repercussions over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Trudeau, in Toronto today to announce how Canada will go about implementing the carbon tax, was asked in the Metro Morning interview what Canada could do.

Canada and many of its allies are trying to figure out what kind of diplomatic and economic pressure can be applied to Saudi Arabia to make it clear that the killing of the dissident journalist inside the Saudi Consulate in Turkey is unacceptable.

Germany, for example, has stopped its arms sales to the kingdom in light of this incident.

May 13, 2016

But Canada continues to fulfil its contract to supply the kingdom with LAVs built by General Dynamic Land Systems Canada, a military supplier in London, Ont.

Even before Khashoggi’s death, human rights advocates said Canada should not be supplying the Saudis with military vehicles that could assist in its ongoing military intervention in Yemen, where civilians have been brutally targeted.

Trudeau said he understands this situation “very well,” calling it “incredibly frustrating.” (Source: CBC News)

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Tuesday June 9, 2015

June 8, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday June 9, 2015

Senate to forward expense files of nine Senators to the RCMP

The Senate handed the expense records of nine of its own to the Mounties on Friday as part of the fallout from the two-year examination of its books by auditor general Michael Ferguson.

“We’ve committed to not question any element of the report,” Senate Speaker Leo Housakos told the Star in an interview, adding that he would have preferred that Ferguson be the one to refer his own findings to the RCMP.

The Canadian Press reported retired Liberal senator Rod Zimmer, one of the nine whose expenses were referred to the police, led the pack when it came to the amounts Ferguson said should be repaid. He had disputed expense claims totalling $176,014 in travel expenses for non-parliamentary business and a housing allowance he should not have claimed.

The Star has confirmed the audit to be formally released June 9 identifies a total of $976,627 in inappropriately claimed expenses, and that more than half that amount — about $546,000 — is linked to just five senators.

That is the amount Ferguson found issues with following arduous, line-by-line reviews of 80,000 transactions worth about $180 million involving 117 senators from April 1, 2011 to March 31, 2013. (Source: Toronto Star)

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Published in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, The Brandon Sun, and the Gull Lake Advance

Tuesday March 31, 2015

March 30, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday March 31, 2015

Austerity budgets of provinces will offset 75% of Ottawa’s tax cuts: BMO

About three-quarters of the billions in federal tax cuts and increases in benefits promised to Canadians this year will be offset by provincial tax hikes and cutbacks, the Bank of Montreal says.

In a research note early Monday, BMO economist Robert Kavcic calculates that the provincial budgets unveiled in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Quebec have announced a collective $2 billion in new tax hikes on citizens, or cuts to services, to balance the books — part of a new age of austerity prompted by lower oil prices.

By Kavcic’s reckoning, Ottawa has promised a combination of tax cuts and benefit hikes that add up to about $4.5 billion back to Canadians in its current fiscal year.

“It looks like the provinces will take back about three-quarters of it,” he said.

Finance Minister Joe Oliver has delayed releasing the federal government’s budget to give it more time to gauge the impact of oil prices, but a few election-year tax cuts have already been telegraphed. While it’s uncertain what Ottawa has in store, Kavcic says, “most of what Ottawa will be returning to one taxpayer’s pocket, the provinces will take out of the other.”

With debt-laden governments in Ontario and Atlantic Canada yet to telegraph their spending plans, it’s a good bet the theme of austerity will continue, which means even more ways that top-level tax relief will be clawed back in one way or another. (Source: CBC News)

Posted to Yahoo Canada News.