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Thursday November 3, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday November 3, 2022

Freeland to release mini-budget today as economists warn a recession is coming

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland will table her fall economic statement today — a roadmap of what’s to come from the federal government as the economy stands on the brink of a recession.

July 9, 2020

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faced some heat when he told reporters during the 2021 election campaign that he doesn’t pay much attention to monetary policy and the Bank of Canada’s mandate to keep inflation at manageable levels.

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t think about monetary policy. You’ll understand, I think about families,” Trudeau said at a Vancouver campaign stop.

But now, with inflation at levels not seen in decades, monetary policy is something virtually everyone in government is seized with as the central bank hikes rates to push down sky-high prices.

Under Canada’s system, monetary policy (interest rates) is set by the Bank of Canada, while fiscal policy (spending) is up to the elected government.

Ontario Liberal MP Marcus Powlowski said that with interest rates so high, “times are changing.”

“I think there’s more of an opportunity to be frugal,” he said. “Any debt we incur is going to grow.”

MP Rachel Bendayan, the associate minister of finance, said the government has been “extremely fiscally responsible” and is “planning on continuing on that track.”

May 13, 2022

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has made it clear what he wants: no new spending unless there are cuts elsewhere.

Anything else would be “pouring inflationary fuel on the fire,” Poiliere said in question period Wednesday.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said he wants Freeland to address what he calls corporate greed and reform the employment insurance (EI) program.

Freeland has signalled already the government is expecting tough times ahead.

The era of cheap cash is over — rising rates will make it more difficult for businesses to borrow money, which could lead to downsizing and job losses.

The sizeable jump in the Bank of Canada’s policy interest rate — it’s gone from just 0.25 per cent in January to 3.75 per cent today — has also forced the government to rethink how much it will spend.

The cost to service the federal debt is relatively low right now, but it’s poised to increase in the short and medium term.

April 8, 2022

There are early signals suggesting that Ottawa’s fiscal health in the short term could be much better than predicted, thanks to higher oil prices and the growth in personal and corporate taxes in this era of high inflation.

According to figures released last week through the Public Accounts of Canada, the government’s fiscal ledger, the budget deficit for the 2021-22 fiscal year came in at $90.2 billion — substantially less than the $113.8-billion deficit Freeland projected in her April budget.

In an economic and fiscal outlook published last month, the PBO forecast a budget deficit of $25.8 billion — about 0.9 per cent of GDP — for the 2022-23 fiscal year if the government pursues “status quo policy” — meaning no major new spending on programs. That is significantly smaller than the April budget’s forecast of $52.8 billion. (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 …

Friday October 14, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday October 14, 2022

The high cost of pandering to extremists

It didn’t take long for new Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to do a swan dive into the murky waters of delusion and political pandering.

May 20, 2022

Shortly after being sworn in Tuesday to replace Jason Kenney, Smith called those who refused vaccination against COVID-19 “the most discriminated against group that I’ve ever witnessed in my lifetime.”

That she could say so demonstrated to everyone who has faced true discrimination either a profound ignorance of both history and current realities or a bottomless capacity for pandering to the misplaced sense of victimhood in her right-wing base.

On Wednesday, Smith issued a statement saying she had wanted to highlight the “mistreatment” of those who chose not to get vaccinated and that she had not intended to “trivialize” the discrimination faced by minority communities.

Still, words have consequences. Words can console or wound, inspire or enrage. They can bring out what’s best in us, or what’s worst.

Hate-mongering and character assassination in Canada — however much we fancy our political discourse more civil than in the United States — has already seen in Ontario communities stones being flung at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh assaulted with hatred and racism.

Those with political pulpits and media soap boxes must remember that along with that power and influence they assume great responsibility.

September 13, 2022

Kenney acknowledged in his final words as premier that the conservative movement in Canada is giving succour to disturbing elements. He warned federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre about keeping company with extremists whose chief interest is in “tearing things down and blowing things up.

“I think a Conservative party that is focused on a campaign of recrimination over COVID, politicizing science, entertaining conspiracy theories and campaigning with QAnon is a party that can’t form a government and shouldn’t,” he told Global News’ “The West Block.”

Former prime minister Brian Mulroney agreed, telling CTV’s “Question Period” after a private dinner with Poilievre “that you can’t get elected with that kind of stuff.”

Among other things, it was recently found that YouTube videos produced for Poilievre contained a hidden tag appealing to an online anti-women movement — #mgtow, Men Going Their Own Way — that Canadian security agencies view as a danger.

Trudeau told Poilievre in the Commons that “in reaching out to extremist online groups and pulling in anti-women, misogynistic groups for his own political gain” is something for which he will have to answer to Canadian women.

But it should not be left just to women to object. All rational citizens should be on guard against the kind of rhetoric and messaging aimed at courting the tear-things-down and blow-things-up elements in Canada.

September 24, 2022

As has been seen around the world, there is political opportunity for leaders cynical and self-interested enough to tap into pools of rage. It is not as if Canadians, living where we do, lack for horrifying recent evidence of the damage recklessness leaders can incite. There is a direct line from “some very fine people on both sides” and “stand back and stand by” to the deadly attack on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

American scholar Larry Diamond wrote in his 2019 book “Ill Winds” that “a culture of democracy is also a culture of moderation.

“Democracy can’t function when politics is dominated by opposing camps of ‘true believers’ who view compromise as betrayal and dismiss discordant evidence as fake,” Diamond wrote.

Premier Smith seems not to have read his book.

What we need from our leaders is the serious work to understand the social fragmentation and political polarization that got us here and a resolve to mend these rifts, not to exploit them for political gain.

Complicity by political leaders with the extreme fringes will provide fuel for social conflict and chaos. But it is complacency on the part of a moderate majority that will provide the opportunity. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

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 July 21, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday July 21, 2022

Climate change deniers will need to face facts

4 Waves Cartoon

Taking to Twitter midday Tuesday, the U.K.’s national weather service didn’t need any scorching phrases to define the heat wave wreaking havoc on a nation more familiar with soggy summer picnics.

A simple graphic flashing 40 C did the job, plainly acknowledging the highest recorded temperature at London Heathrow. Ever.

Melting tarmac. Closed airports. Reduced transit services. Residents of the village of Wennington, just east of London, fleeing because their homes were on fire. “This is like the apocalypse,” said one resident.

And this is a scene already familiar this summer in France and Portugal and Spain and Italy and Croatia and Greece, and now green, temperate England.

Wednesday May 25, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday May 25, 2022

Airport madness must be fixed now

Had Dante Alighieri experienced the special torments of 21st-century passenger flight, there would surely have been another ring of Hell in his depictions.

January 9, 2021

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, air travel had become a relentless accumulation of aggravations, from the time of parking (at exorbitant cost) on arrival at one airport until (unless it was lost) the claiming of baggage at another.

But the current state of affairs — as travel gradually returns to normal while COVID-19 protocols remain in place and understaffing prevails — has upped the misery index to unacceptable levels.

Near-endless lines for check-in and security. Passengers imprisoned in planes on the tarmac for hours after landing because of crowding inside terminals. More hours in jam-packed arrival lineups at customs caused by staffing shortages.

In all, what’s going on in Canadian airports at present is a recipe for chaos and anger, not to mention the abuse of flight attendants and frazzled, overburdened ground staff. And with the high-travel summer season only weeks away this dispiriting situation needs to be resolved fast.

The Canada Airports Council is calling on the federal government to scrap random COVID-19 tests and public-health questions at customs in order to ease the congestion travellers are being greeted with in Canada.

Such measures mean it takes four times longer to process passengers than it did before the pandemic, the council has said.

July 17, 2019

That was just barely tolerable when travel was down, but it’s become a serious problem now that people are starting to fly again in numbers.

The council said it makes little sense to retain such stringent testing measures in airports — facilities never designed for procedures that halt the flow of travellers into and out of the precincts — when they are no longer in place in the community.

The situation has been particularly bad at Pearson International Airport, Canada’s largest.

Before the pandemic it took an average of 15 to 30 seconds for a Canada Border Services Agency officer to clear an international passenger, the airport said. Now, “due to the Government of Canada’s COVID-19 health screening questions, this has increased the processing time at Canada’s borders by two to four times.”

Pearson blames the understaffed Canadian Air Transport Security Authority. The Canadian Airport Council blames the over-rigid COVID-19 safety regime. Federal Transport Minister Omar Alghabra even blamed travellers for being out of practice.

“Taking out the laptops, taking out the fluids — all that adds 10 seconds here, 15 seconds there,” he told reporters.

April 23, 2014

That sort of thing is likely to inflame rather than calm regular flyers — who have long since mastered the hassle-filled procedures of travel. It does raise the matter of fluids and whether the current security fixation on them is justified. State-of-the-art technology exists, and has already been installed at Shannon Airport in Ireland, that would allow the inspection of fluids, carried in normal amounts, and of laptops while still in cases, backpacks and computer bags.

For travellers in this country, bringing in such advanced techniques could not come too soon.

Alghabra also points to an increase in last-minute bookings as well as flight schedules that see too many planes arriving around the same time. His department says it’s trying to address the delays and hopes more screening personnel will be added by CATSA to speed up procedures.

Among those monitoring that progress will be the union representing flight attendants, who have effectively been asked to work for free since they are typically paid for time in the air, not for trying to control and placate ticked-off travellers on the ground.

There was a time — though you’d have to be rather long in the tooth to recall it — when airports were exciting, exotic, efficient. The charm of those quaint days has long passed. The experience has slipped from taxing, to miserable, to unendurable.

Exasperated travellers aren’t much interested in excuses, explanations and vague assurances. They just want the current hellishness fixed, and soon. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Friday August 13, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday August 13, 2021

Climate change report a ‘code red’ for humanity

This week’s report from the United Nations climate panel makes for arresting, frightening and depressing reading. 

September 16, 2020

It comes in a summer of record-breaking heat waves that scorched Canada and Europe. It comes after deadly floods ravaged China, Germany and Belgium and as drought threatens 400,000 people in Madagascar with starvation. And it falls with an ominous thud on the world’s doorstep after wildfires incinerated large swaths of the planet, around the Mediterranean Sea, throughout Siberia and right here in North America.

Lest any climate-change deniers still delude themselves into thinking such extreme weather has no connection to what humans are doing, the report from the UN International Panel on Climate Change — it’s the sixth such assessment since 1988 and took eight years to prepare — sets the record straight. What they’ve written isn’t science fiction; it’s science fact that draws on the work of 234 experts.

Human activity is “unequivocally” changing the Earth’s climate in ways “unprecedented” in thousands, even hundreds of thousands of years and is directly linked to these and other extreme weather events. Period. Many of these changes, including higher sea levels, are now “irreversible” the climate scientists said.

September 24, 2019

As a result, after the decade from 2011 to 2020 proved the hottest ever recorded, temperatures are likely to rise in the next 20 years by more than 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels. If that happens, not only will it blow away the climate-change goals set by the 2015 Paris Agreement, it will usher in even more extreme weather and devastation.

Yes, this makes for a depressing read. But rather than make people despair and feel like giving up, the message of this report also includes hope. There’s the hope of humans working together as never before to limit the damage they’re inflicting on the planet. There’s the hope that, while not escaping unscathed, humankind will be able to avoid the absolute worst-case scenarios for climate change. And, aside from the report itself, there are hopeful signs more and more people are finally ready to do what is necessary. 

American President Joe Biden is far more committed than his predecessor, Donald Trump, ever was in marshalling the energies of the world’s biggest economy and second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions against global warming. That alone could be a game-changer. In October, the United Kingdom will host the governments of 197 countries at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. This week’s IPCC report should spur them to come together by acting together for everyone’s sake.

4 Waves Cartoon

And if Canadians, as expected, go to the polls in a general election this fall, they have a timely opportunity to elect a government that will redouble the nation’s efforts to keep the planet from overheating. As a rich country, we have a moral responsibility to do this, and accept our role in shepherding the world to a sustainable future, even as we realize we will have to alter our lifestyles and an economy heavily reliant on the petroleum industry.

In the words of UN secretary general Antonio Guterres, this week’s landmark IPCC study amounts to a “code red for humanity.” Now it’s up to Canadians and the rest of humankind to decide if they’ll answer or ignore the alarm. To be sure, we’ll have to live with many of the terrible, wrenching changes we have wrought. But if humanity grabs the nettle in front of it, it could mitigate the impact of climate change and even avoid a world where entire regions become uninhabitable for us. 

We have a decade or so to do this, the UN scientists warn. There probably won’t be another report from the International Panel on Climate Change before the time for effective change runs out. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial)