Thursday March 14, 2019

March 21, 2019 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 14, 2019

‘Trudeau? Scandal? I don’t believe it’: As controversy rocks Canada’s PM, the world winces — then shrugs

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s political crisis has shaken Ottawa — and now, the tremors are starting to register abroad.

December 21, 2017

Outside the white-marble Newseum building in Washington on Thursday, the morning’s copy of the Globe and Mail sat behind glass, displayed alongside the front pages of newspapers from all 50 U.S. states, plus the District of Columbia.

Janet McCarty, a retired civil servant living in Washington, perused the headlines. Only one publication — the Globe — led with the latest on the SNC-Lavalin scandal, in which the Prime Minister’s Office stands accused of meddling in a criminal prosecution case against the Quebec engineering giant.

McCarty grimaced. Like many others on the political left, she’s always considered Trudeau an unimpeachable moral authority and darling of the international left.

“If this is true, then Justin is not the person that we thought he was,” she said.

McCarty lamented that another world leader with a global outlook, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, has decided not to seek re-election. Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Theresa May, a Conservative, has faced at least eight cabinet resignations in less than two years over her controversial Brexit deal.

January 18, 2019

“Justin. I mean, they’re all — Angela Merkel, Theresa May — everybody’s going down the toilet,” McCarty said.

Trudeau’s brand as a global liberal icon is strong in some parts of the U.S., which might explain why Manuel Macias, 36, was so shocked to hear about the SNC-Lavalin affair when he stopped to scan the Newseum headlines this week.

“Trudeau? A scandal? I don’t believe it.

“In this day and age, we don’t really have a lot of shining light all across the world,” said Macias, who identifies as a liberal. “Unless something really comes out that’s proven facts, why throw dirt on him when we’ve got such a good positive role model?”

March 2, 2019

If the SNC-Lavalin debacle has been slow to gain traction outside of Canada, it may also have to do with domestic-scandal fatigue, at least in Britain and the U.S.

In London, John Prideaux, the U.S. editor for The Economist, cited Washington’s woes, as well as Britain’s mismanagement of a plan to withdraw from the European Union, as reasons why some Britons and Americans might not be tuning in.

“What’s happening in Canada looks to me like a more conventional political scandal that you get in a healthy political culture, where people are really held accountable for what they’ve done,” Prideaux said.

That said, the SNC-Lavalin affair has “broken through” the British press — no easy feat. (Continued: CBC)

Thursday June 16, 2016

June 15, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday June 16, 2016

Orlando Alligator Disney Death Is The Third Tragedy To Strike Florida City In Less Than A Week

The day after the massacre at the Pulse gay nightclub, Mayor Buddy Dyer, called the tragedy “the worst day in history of Orlando.” But the Pulse shooting is not the only misfortune Orlando has had to endure in the past few days.

On Tuesday night, a 2-year-old boy was dragged away by an alligator at a Walt Disney World resort in the Central Florida city. The toddler, whose body was still being searched for more than 15 hours later, is believed to be dead. The incident is the latest in a spate of tragedies that has hit Orlando in one of the darkest weeks in the city’s history, following the killing of singer Christine Grimmie Friday and the Pulse attack, the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. History.

Grimmie, who finished in third-place on Season 6 of NBC’s “The Voice,” was shot to death Friday night while giving autographs after her concert at the Plaza Live theater. Police have identified 27-year old Kevin James Loibl of St. Petersburg, Florida, as the gunman. Loibl, who was armed with two handguns and a large hunting knife, shot himself after opening fire on Grimmie.

News of Grimmie’s death sparked a national discussion about gun control, a conversation that was only amplified when the news of the Pulse attack hit less than 48 hours later. The attack on the gay nightclub occurred early Sunday morning when a lone gunman, identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, started firing at club patrons with an assault rifle and took hostages before SWAT teams stormed the building and gunned him down. (Source: International Business Times)

Published in The Western Star, Cornerbrook, Newfoundland

Wednesday August 2, 2006

August 2, 2006 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday August 2, 2006

U.S. government offers restrained reaction to events in Cuba

From Uncle Sam’s point of view, one Cuban dictator replaced another on Tuesday.

Fidel Castro’s handover of power to his brother Raul shook up Cuban-Americans and stirred Congress, but barely registered with the Bush administration.

Members of Florida’s Congressional delegation and Cuban-Americans have long dreamed about the day Castro would die or step down, yet his transfer of power, while raising hopes, offered no immediate prospect for ending the 47-year-old standoff between the United States and Cuba. It left the hard-line U.S. policy rigidly in place.

Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., the only Cuban-American in the Senate, called for a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba and urged Cubans not to risk their lives by taking to the sea on a mass migration for Florida.

“It would cause a tremendous loss of life,” Martinez said, “plus be a disorderly thing that at this moment in history the United States just cannot tolerate.”

While guarding against a rafter crisis, the main role for the United States, he said, is to block other nations, particularly Venezuela, from intervening to bolster another Castro government. (Source: Florida Sun-Sentinel)

Marvellous Maps

Tuesday September 28, 2004

September 28, 2004 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday September 28, 2004

The Year of Hurricanes

Jeanne likely will be remembered as Frances’ evil twin sister.

In an eerie tropical two-step, both hurricanes hit almost the exact same spot on the Treasure Coast, with their cores making landfall less than five miles apart – Frances hit Sewall’s Point while Jeanne hit the southern end of Hutchinson Island, just east of Stuart.

For two hurricanes to strike that close in a decade is remarkable, let alone in less than three weeks, hurricane experts say. Frances arrived on Sept. 5 and Jeanne 20 days later, on Saturday.

Such coincidences have happened before: In 1928, before hurricanes were given names, two systems struck near the Palm Beach-Martin County line 40 days apart, with the second of those being the infamous storm that killed about 2,500 people around Lake Okeechobee.

In all, Hurricanes Charley, Ivan, Jeanne and Frances teamed up to slam the Florida coast a record four times this year. And there are still more than two months left in the season. (Source: Sun Sentinel)