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Saturday January 4, 2025

January 4, 2025 by Graeme MacKay

As Canada faces the challenges posed by Trump's second presidency, the nation must assert its sovereignty and strategically address economic, immigration, and military concerns to safeguard its future.

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday January 4, 2025

Standing Strong: Canada’s Path in the Trump Era

Trump’s second-term picks reveal a Cabinet stacked with loyalists, media personalities, and ultra-wealthy allies, sparking concern over the erosion of apolitical governance.

November 14, 2024

As Canadians, we find ourselves at a pivotal moment, facing an existential threat with the inauguration of Donald Trump for a second term as President of the United States. The looming Trump presidency raises pressing concerns about our economy, immigration, military, and the very future of Canada as an independent nation. Are we ready to confront these challenges? The answer is uncertain, but we must prepare swiftly and strategically.

One of the most immediate threats is economic. Trump’s proposed 25% tariffs on Canadian goods could disrupt our deeply integrated trade relationship with the U.S. The so-called “Trump tax” would not only inflate prices for American consumers but also jeopardize the stability of Canadian industries reliant on cross-border trade. Canada must leverage its economic strengths, such as its energy exports, to negotiate favourable terms and mitigate potential damage. We must communicate clearly to the American public about the adverse effects of the “Trump tax,” framing it as a burden that will lead to increased consumer costs and inflation.

News: Canada’s fight with Trump isn’t just economic, it’s existential

Canada Post’s holiday strike highlights the absurdity of outdated labor tactics in a world where private alternatives thrive, pushing Canadians to move on permanently from a once-vital service.

December 12, 2024

Immigration and border security are also in the spotlight. Trump’s rhetoric has focused on perceived threats from Canada, including the fictional narrative of fentanyl trafficking. Rather than capitulating to these unfounded claims, Canada should highlight reciprocal issues, such as the influx of firearms from the U.S. into Canada, which poses a genuine threat to our safety and security. Collaborative solutions that address mutual concerns are essential, rather than unilateral demands that only serve to strain our relationship.

On the military front, Trump’s presidency may pressure Canada to increase defence spending and align more closely with U.S. military objectives. While collaboration is important, we must ensure that our military policies reflect Canadian values and priorities. Maintaining our sovereignty means making independent decisions that serve our national interests, not merely acquiescing to external pressures.
As we face these challenges, Canada must decide whether to “suck up” or “stand up” to the Trump administration. History has shown that appeasement often leads to subservience, while standing firm can earn respect and preserve sovereignty. We should take a page from past leaders like Jean Chrétien, who stood up to U.S. pressure when necessary. Our strategy should embrace diplomacy backed by strength, ensuring that we are ready to assert our interests and protect our values.

Opinion: Canada must start talking about the Trump tax

The convergence of Elon Musk’s influence over U.S. elections, Donald Trump’s authoritarian ambitions, and Vladimir Putin’s geopolitical agenda feels eerily like the unfolding of a real-life James Bond thriller, with democracy and global security hanging in the balance.

October 26, 2024

Internally, Canada must foster national unity and preparedness. Our leaders, both federal and provincial, need to coordinate a cohesive response that reflects the will of Canadians. Public support is crucial, and engaging citizens in understanding the stakes can empower our government to take decisive actions.

The looming Trump presidency presents significant challenges, but it also offers an opportunity for Canada to reaffirm its independence and resilience. By strategically addressing economic, immigration, and military concerns, and by standing firm in diplomatic dealings, Canada can emerge from this uncertain period with confidence, maintaining its status as a sovereign nation. The country needs to act decisively, drawing on our history, values, and collective strength, to ensure that Canada emerges stronger and more united than ever. (AI)

 

Posted in: Canada, USA Tagged: 2025-01, Border, Canada, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, fireworks, igloo, tariffs, Trump 2.0, USA

Friday June 25, 2021

July 2, 2021 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday June 25, 2021

Prime Minister Trudeau must expand residential school investigations

Like a nightmare Canada can’t wake up from, the real-life horror stories about the country’s Indigenous residential schools won’t go away.

June 1, 2021

On Thursday the Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan announced it had located as many as 751 unmarked graves in a cemetery located beside the community’s former residential school. 

This mind-boggling discovery, which the band’s chief, Cadmus Delorme, believes is evidence of criminal acts, comes less than a month after the remains of 215 Indigenous children, some as young as three years old, were found in unmarked graves near a former residential school outside Kamloops, B.C.

That first, grisly finding stunned the country. It also led to a national outpouring of grief and solemn commitments from our political leaders to help discover the truth about what happened to Indigenous children who died or went missing at these hellish, misguided institutions.

Now more than ever, as the shock waves from the Cowessess First Nation reverberate across Canada, the federal government needs to ensure the money and expertise will be there to achieve this.

After all, the 2006 Indian residential School Settlement Agreement covered 138 schools across the country. So far, investigators using ground-penetrating radar technology are looking at unmarked, nameless gravesites at just two of them. We have but scratched the surface of what might lie buried across this land.

By now, everyone in Canada should have a basic awareness of the dreadful things that happened at institutions supposedly created to educate Indigenous children but which were, in reality, diabolical machines for forced assimilation, a practice the Truth and Reconciliation Commission called “cultural genocide.”

June 3, 2015

From the late 19th century to the late 20th century, about 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were torn from their families and compelled to live in appalling conditions in these institutions which, while instituted and funded by Ottawa, were operated by the Roman Catholic, Anglican, United and Presbyterian churches.

The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation register counts 1,420 children as having died of disease or accidents while attending residential schools across the country. But Murray Sinclair, the former head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, has long maintained as many as 6,000 children died. The discoveries from the past month have led to speculation the final death toll could be even higher. 

That’s why the $27 million Ottawa has freed up to help Indigenous communities with their own searches is nowhere near enough when it comes to addressing the scale of the challenges ahead. It’s also worth remembering this isn’t new money. The Liberals set it aside in their 2019 federal budget and simply hadn’t spent it.

June 27, 2017

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should consider that money a mere down-payment on what this country still owes to its Indigenous peoples. We all need to find out if crimes occurred at these schools and if coverups took place. Investigators — who should be chosen by Indigenous communities — will need the power to subpoena records from governments and churches that ran the schools, as well as access to the locations.

We need as much information as possible to know what happened, what might remain to be done and if anyone alive today should and can be held accountable.

The path ahead will not be a straight one. The Cowessess cemetery was used by the community both before and after the residential school operated there. There are likely adults buried there, too. Only a much broader investigation will take us to the truth. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Posted in: Canada Tagged: 2021-23, Canada, Canada Day, fireworks, First Nations, history, indigenous, patriotism, residential schools, truth, truth and reconciliation

Saturday May 22, 2021

May 29, 2021 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday May 22, 2021

Ontario to provide 2nd dose of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine after temporary suspension

Ontario’s top doctor says the province will now allow second doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to be administered.

May 20, 2021

Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, said the second dose administration will begin with those who received their first dose between March 10 and 19.

“Nothing is more important than the health of Ontarians, and for the best protection against COVID-19 it is vital that everyone who received the AstraZeneca vaccine for their first dose receives a second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine,” said Williams.

Shots will begin to the week of May 24, with informed consent. Williams said those who are eligible should contact the provider who administered their first dose to book their appointment.

The announcement immediately applies to those who received their first dose during Ontario’s initial pharmacy rollout at locations in Toronto, Windsor and Kingston.

Williams was joined at Friday’s update by Dr. Dirk Huyer, the co-ordinator of the provincial outbreak response.

For those who received their first dose after March 19, they will be able to get their second shot within the recommended interval of 12 weeks. Williams said more info will be made available soon.

March 25, 2021

“The province is working with primary care providers and pharmacies to ensure second dose appointments are scheduled in advance of the 12-week interval,” Williams said.

Several provinces have stopped giving the shot because of concerns about rare, fatal blood clots. However, Williams said the health risks posed by the vaccine are low.

He said new data indicated the benefits far outweigh the risk with second doses.

“Data from the UK strongly suggests a much-reduced risk of VITT in second doses of AstraZeneca — one in 600,000,” a release said Friday.

Ontario had paused the use of the vaccine but still had tens of thousands of doses in storage. Huyer said there are 55,000 doses set to expire by May 31.

Nearly one million Ontario residents got the AstraZeneca vaccine as their first shot between March 10 and May 11.

Health authorities were trying to decide whether to resume using the AstraZeneca shot or if a different vaccine should be substituted for second doses.

Ontario said it is still waiting on a recommendation on mixing doses from the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI).

More than 7.5 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Ontario, with formulations from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and AstraZeneca. (Global News) 

 

Posted in: Ontario Tagged: 2021-19, AstraZeneca, covid-19, fireworks, immunization, Long weekend, Ontario, pandemic, Pandemic Times, Vaccine, Victoria Day

Friday July 10, 2020

July 17, 2020 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday July 10, 2020

Fauci says he hasn’t briefed Trump in two months as Covid-19 cases rise

June 3, 2020

Donald Trump says Dr Anthony Fauci is “a nice man, but he’s made a lot of mistakes”. Fauci says he last saw Trump on 2 June and has not briefed him in two months.

The president was speaking to the Fox News host Sean Hannity. The most senior non-political member of the White House coronavirus taskforce and America’s top public health expert was having lunch with the Financial Times.

Meanwhile, nearly 3.2 million coronavirus cases have been recorded in the US and almost 133,000 people have died. More than 60,000 new cases were confirmed on Thursday, the latest in a succession of unwelcome records.

April 29, 2020

States which reopened early, Arizona, Texas and Florida prominent among them, are facing steep rises in cases and crushing pressure on testing and hospital beds. Early hotspots, such as California, New York and New Jersey, are pausing or modifying reopening, or considering re-entering lockdown.

“I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say we have a serious ongoing problem, right now, as we speak,” Fauci said. “What worries me is the slope of the curve. It still looks like it’s exponential.”

He continued: “I think we have to realise that some states jumped ahead of themselves. Other states did it correctly. But the citizenry didn’t listen to the guidelines and they decided they were going to stay in bars and go to congregations of crowds and celebrations.”

March 26, 2020

Fauci put that down, in part, to a very American problem with authority. It is one the president seems to share.

“A lot of them said don’t wear a mask, don’t wear a mask,” Trump told Hannity about advisers including Fauci. “Now they are saying wear a mask. A lot of mistakes were made, a lot of mistakes.”

Many observers charge that Trump has made them, by refusing to wear a mask or consider a national mandate and by declining to “listen to my experts” in general. The president told Fox News he would probably wear a mask to visit Walter Reed hospital on Saturday. But he also mocked Joe Biden, his presumptive opponent in November, for wearing a “massive” mask in public.

COVID-19 Cartoons

Before bad weather intervened, Trump had been due to stage a rally in New Hampshire this weekend, although in the open air rather than in an indoor arena as in Tulsa, Oklahoma last month. Public health authorities said that event contributed to a surge in cases.

To Hannity, Trump said: “We have cases all over the place. Most of the cases immediately get better, they are people, young people, they have sniffles and two days later they are fine and they are not sick to start.”

That was an echo of his claim last week that 99% of Covid-19 cases are “totally harmless”. (The Guardian) 

 

Posted in: USA Tagged: 2020-23, chart, Coronavirus, covid-19, Donald Trump, fireworks, graph, pandemic, statistics, USA

Saturday May 18, 2019

May 25, 2019 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday May 18, 2019

It’s time to dump cold water on backyard fireworks

This weekend, and again in a little more than a month, it will be firecracker season in our neighbourhoods.

Yes, there will be the community gatherings. But if you don’t choose to go to those events, you won’t hear the fireworks set off there.

You will, however, hear the ones you don’t choose to hear. The ones in your neighbour’s backyard. Or down the street. Or in community parks. Or anyplace where fireworks fans — often, but not always, young people — gather to make big noise.

Your pets, especially dogs, will hear them. In many cases, they’ll be traumatized.

If you’re in a dense urban neighbourhood, they’ll sound like they are right outside your window.

Why do we continue to put up with this? The traumatized pets? The interrupted sleep? The risk of personal injury or property damage?

Does setting off fireworks in residential neighbourhoods represent some greater value — like freedom and liberty? Is lighting off a cherry bomb some cherished human right?

How about this — just don’t. If you feel compelled to explode fireworks, take them to a place well removed from residential neighbourhoods. If loud noises and sparks are your thing, at least don’t impose them on neighbours and others — including little children and pets who have no choice in the matter.

Fireworks are not intrinsically bad at appropriate times and places, with adequate safety and supervision in place. But they don’t belong in residential neighbourhoods where we share air space and, hopefully, a sense of civility and mutual respect. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Posted in: Hamilton, International, Lifestyle Tagged: 2019-18, backyard, Canada, civility, fire crackers, fireworks, Hamilton, knob, May two-four, noise, Ontario, USA, Victoria Day
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This website contains satirical commentaries of current events going back several decades. Some readers may not share this sense of humour nor the opinions expressed by the artist. To understand editorial cartoons it is important to understand their effectiveness as a counterweight to power. It is presumed readers approach satire with a broad minded foundation and healthy knowledge of objective facts of the subjects depicted.

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