freeze

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Tuesday, January 7, 2014Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Add polar vortex — or ‘polar pig’ — to our winter lexicon

The so-called “polar vortex,” a pipeline of cold Arctic air pummeling the central part of the continent, is dominating headlines as it plunges various areas into record-low temperatures.

The vortex is a whirlpool of cold air making its way from Nunavut down through Manitoba and Saskatchewan and into the United States, setting many record temperatures along the way. States as far south as Georgia and Florida are being hit.

It’s also affecting Ontario, where there are widespread wind chill warnings in effect. Powerful snow squall activity around Georgian Bay and Lake Huron has resulted in blizzard warnings.

“With the depth of cold air that we’re looking at, it is a possibility that a number of cold-temperature records could be broken in southwestern Ontario,” said Geoff Coulson, meteorologist with Environment Canada.
“In Toronto, we’re going to be in the depth of cold through until Wednesday . . . The polar vortex will no longer be an issue as we head into the weekend.”

Although Canadians are not strangers to these blasts of frigid air and rapid temperature drops, the term polar vortex isn’t commonly used here, said Coulson. Rather, it’s being used in earnest by Americans to explain the cold Canadian air that’s currently invading the U.S.
The vortex has even garnered the nickname “polar pig” after the term was used to describe a bulge of cold air, during an interview last week.
“It definitely looks like one heck of a ‘polar pig’ shot,” Kyle Cooper, director of research with IAF Advisors in Houston, told Bloomberg News on Friday.

Other wacky terms being coined include “Chiberia,” to describe record-low temperatures in Chicago. (On Monday morning, temperatures there dropped to a record -27C. The wind chill makes it feel like -50C.) (Source: Toronto Star)

Cartoon inspired by the reverse of the one drawn last July:

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Wednesday December 5, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Wednesday December 5, 2012

Dwight Duncan has warning for next Ontario Liberal leader

Tim Hudak asks Santa ‘Dwight Duncan’ to keep labor restrictions

A confidential report says Dwight Duncan has always been admirably frank as finance minister. His finger-wagging, however, is usually aimed at Tory and NDP rivals across the floor.

Now fellow Liberals are bearing the brunt of his bluntness.

In the race to replace Dalton McGuinty as premier, Duncan is watching warily from the sidelines, preparing his own exit strategy from provincial politics. And fussing over his fiscal legacy:

Après Dwight, le deluge?

“I don’t intend to go silently into the night,” he told the Toronto Board of Trade during a PowerPoint show outlining doomsday scenarios for Ontario’s fiscal future:

Tory tax cuts would add billions to the budget deficit and undermine government programs. NDP tax and wage hikes would imperil the economy.

But Duncan was also sending a clear message to the seven candidates vying for the Liberal leadership. The winner of the January convention will automatically inherit the premier’s office and dictate the terms of the next budget.

A few are straying from the party line by second-guessing the teachers’ dispute. Some candidates are hinting they would have handled the unions differently, deftly avoiding any imposed deals.

While they waver, Duncan disdains pussyfooting. He stressed Monday that the controversial Bill 115 must be deployed to ensure total payroll costs do not increase. (Source: Toronto Star) 

 

Thursday October 5, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday October 5, 2012

Civil Service Wage Freeze in Ontario

Premier Dalton McGuinty refused to say Thursday if the public-sector wage freeze legislation opposed by the Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats will be a confidence vote in his minority Liberal government.

“Without speaking to that particular issue…an integral part of our plan to attack the deficit is to put in place a freeze on public-sector compensation,” McGuinty told the media after his annual agri-food summit.

When reporters pointed out he hadn’t answered the question about whether he would declare the bill a confidence motion, McGuinty admitted he was ducking the issue.

“Yeah I know,” he said. “That was deliberate. Why is this a surprise?”

The Liberals unveiled a draft version of the bill last week to get opposition input on the plan to freeze wages of 481,000 workers in hospitals, colleges, universities, nursing homes and the civil service to help eliminate a deficit projected at $14.8 billion.

The Tories want the government to open labour contracts to impose an immediate pay freeze, and said they can’t vote for a “weak” bill that exempts municipalities, which means police, firefighters and public transit workers will not be covered.

McGuinty rejected the Tory demand to open existing contracts as “a constitutional non-starter,” and said he won’t extend the wage freeze legislation to cover municipalities, who directly employ police and firefighters.

“We have enough challenges with our own fiscal problems,” he said. (Source: CBC News)