fight

Saturday October 3, 2015

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator - Saturday October 3, 2015 Justin Trudeau and Tom Mulcair battle each other as Stephen Harper pulls ahead In this election campaign, Justin Trudeau and Tom Mulcair have nothing kind to say about each other. New Democratic Party leader Mulcair dismisses Trudeau as a callow youth. Echoing Conservative attack ads, his New Democrats say the 43-year-old Liberal leader just isnÕt ready to become prime minister. From time to time, and again echoing the Conservatives, Mulcair dismissively refers to his Liberal rival as ÒJustin.Ó Trudeau is no less harsh. He accuses Mulcair of duplicity Ñ of saying one thing in French and another in English. He says the NDP, by pandering to Quebec separatists, threatens national unity. He dredges up old charges that Mulcair, a former Quebec Liberal cabinet minister, once contemplated the idea of exporting fresh water in bulk. All of this occurs at a time when Prime Minister Stephen HarperÕs Conservatives are quietly edging up in the polls. For the Liberals and New Democrats, the back and forth attacks make sense. Each hopes to present itself as the unique alternative to the governing Conservatives. That in turn, they calculate, requires them to tear each other down. But to a wide array of Liberal and NDP voters, the two opposition parties appear to be engaging in a game of mutually assured destruction. These so-called progressive voters desperately want Harper gone. And they are horrified by the real possibility that this war to the death between Liberals and New Democrats will split the anti-Harper vote, thus allowing the Conservatives to win power again. Recent polls have underscored those fears. On Tuesday, Forum Research released a poll putting the Conservatives in first place among decided voters, with 34 per cent support. The NDP and the Liberals were significantly behind at 28 and 27 per cent respectively. That follows an earlier Ekos poll that shows the Cons

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday October 3, 2015

Justin Trudeau and Tom Mulcair battle each other as Stephen Harper pulls ahead

In this election campaign, Justin Trudeau and Tom Mulcair have nothing kind to say about each other.

Thursday March 19, 2015New Democratic Party leader Mulcair dismisses Trudeau as a callow youth. Echoing Conservative attack ads, his New Democrats say the 43-year-old Liberal leader just isn’t ready to become prime minister.

From time to time, and again echoing the Conservatives, Mulcair dismissively refers to his Liberal rival as “Justin.”

Trudeau is no less harsh. He accuses Mulcair of duplicity — of saying one thing in French and another in English. He says the NDP, by pandering to Quebec separatists, threatens national unity.

Saturday November 8, 2014He dredges up old charges that Mulcair, a former Quebec Liberal cabinet minister, once contemplated the idea of exporting fresh water in bulk.

All of this occurs at a time when Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are quietly edging up in the polls.

For the Liberals and New Democrats, the back and forth attacks make sense. Each hopes to present itself as the unique alternative to the governing Conservatives.

That in turn, they calculate, requires them to tear each other down.

But to a wide array of Liberal and NDP voters, the two opposition parties appear to be engaging in a game of mutually assured destruction.

These so-called progressive voters desperately want Harper gone. And they are horrified by the real possibility that this war to the death between Liberals and New Democrats will split the anti-Harper vote, thus allowing the Conservatives to win power again.

Recent polls have underscored those fears.

On Tuesday, Forum Research released a poll putting the Conservatives in first place among decided voters, with 34 per cent support. The NDP and the Liberals were significantly behind at 28 and 27 per cent respectively.

That follows an earlier Ekos poll that shows the Conservatives leading with 35 per cent support.

In fact, the possibility of a Conservative win has never been out of the question. Harper’s claim to be a good economic manager has always had resonance. (Continued: Toronto Star)

2015-10-03tearsheet

The Telegram, St. John’s, Newfoundland

 

 

Thursday June 21, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Thursday June 21, 2012

Hudak got off too easy during budget crisis

As Ontario teetered on the brink of its second election in less than a year, attention was squarely focused on the public spat between Dalton McGuinty and Andrea Horwath.

But to understand why the province’s minority legislature is still very much on borrowed time, even after a summer campaign appears to have been narrowly avoided, there’s no getting past the role of the party leader who actively avoided the spotlight during the past week.

For all that Mr. McGuinty’s Liberals and Ms. Horwath’s New Democrats have at various points been guilty of bluster and false bravado and overplaying their respective hands, it’s Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives who are most responsible for this legislature’s dysfunction.

Faced with a $15-billion deficit, Mr. McGuinty has decided that he needs to adopt a relatively fiscally conservative agenda. That should leave him looking to find common ground with the right-of-centre Tories. But because they’ve shown very little interest in engaging, he instead has to keep tilting left to appease the NDP. And the more that becomes obvious to the New Democrats, the more they keep pushing him away from what he wants to do, and toward impasses.

This situation began to play itself out around the tabling of Finance Minister Dwight Duncan’s budget this spring. Although the Tories now insist otherwise, it was obvious to most anyone around Queen’s Park that they had no intention of voting for it, no matter what was in it. That meant the Liberals had to table a document the NDP could conceivably be willing to support, then add various concessions – most notably a tax increase on the highest income earners – in order to get the budget motion passed in April. (Source: Globe & Mail)