Thursday March 10, 2016

March 9, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 10, 2016

Canadian woman will be on next series of bank notes, Trudeau announces

The image of an iconic Canadian woman will appear on the next issue of bank notes, Prime Minister Trudeau announced today.

“A Canadian woman will be featured on the very first of the next series of bills expected in 2018,” Trudeau said.

“Today, on International Women’s Day, the Bank of Canada is taking the first step by launching public consultations to select an iconic Canadian woman to be featured on this new bill.”

The government and the Bank of Canada did not indicate which denomination would showcase the iconic female Canadian.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau, who stood alongside the prime minister with other members of the Liberal caucus and former Mississauga, Ont., mayor Hazel McCallion during the announcement, noted that it is “high time to change.”

Kim Campbell

“One of the very first things I had the honour of doing as the new finance minister was asking the governor of the Bank of Canada, Stephen Poloz, and his colleagues at the bank whether it’s in fact possible to put a woman on the bank note,” said Morneau.

The finance minister said he was told the central bank had been looking into the possibility for some time and was keen to support the initiative.

From now until April 15, Canadians can visit the Bank of Canada’s website to submit nominations for the woman they think should appear on the bill.

My short list

The nominees can be any Canadian woman, either by birth or naturalization, who has demonstrated outstanding leadership, achievement or distinction in any field, said a release from the central bank.

The nominees cannot be a fictional character and must have died prior to April 15, 1991.

Once the nomination period is over, an independent advisory council made up of academics and cultural leaders will review the submissions and present a short list to Morneau for his consideration. (Source: CBC News)

Wednesday January 13, 2016

January 12, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday January 13, 2016

The Blair roach project has won a powerful supporter.

Premier Kathleen Wynne said she is pleased Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has asked former Toronto police chief Bill Blair, now Scarborough Southwest MP, to lead the marijuana legalization efforts.

“I have a lot of respect for Bill Blair. I think that he’ll do a great job and his taking on of that role is the beginning of that national conversation that I said we have to have,” Wynne told reporters Monday at Queen’s Park.

The premier added that she was heartened that Blair is embracing her proposal to have cannabis sold through government-owned Liquor Control Board of Ontario outlets.

“I’m encouraged that he had, as a preliminary approach, that he thinks that it might make sense to use a distribution network that’s in place, . . . (although that’s) not a foregone conclusion,” she said.

“He’s got a lot of people to talk to and he’s got a lot of questions to ask and a lot of decisions to make over the coming months, so I look forward to that conversation.”

Blair, a rookie MP who is parliamentary secretary to Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, will work with a three-member cabinet team and a soon-to-be-named federal-provincial-territorial task force to develop the policy for legalizing marijuana.

On Friday, Blair said Ottawa will look to Colorado and other jurisdictions that have legalized marijuana sales.

“We have pretty robust systems of regulation for other intoxicants in this country, mostly overseen by the provinces, and so we’ve already got a model, a framework we can build on here,” he said.

“I think there are certain modifications or adjustments that we may have to make for cannabis as opposed to alcohol, but I think there is already a strong system in place for the control and regulation” of marijuana sales here.

The police veteran, who himself has never smoked marijuana, pointed out that it is “very difficult” for under-aged Ontarians to buy booze at the LCBO.

“You’re going to come up against a government employee who’s got regulations to enforce and is going to ask for identification and if a person’s under age, they’re not going to be able to buy that,” said Blair. (Source: Toronto Star)

Wednesday August 12, 2015

August 11, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday August 12, 2015

Justin Trudeau and the pregnant candidate: Too hands-on?

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is known for his family name, his youth and his well-coiffed hair, but he may have cemented his reputation Monday as a touchy-feely politician when he touched the pregnant belly of one of his candidates at a Montreal campaign event.

The mom-to-be in this case, Liberal candidate Christine Poirier, said she had no problem with Trudeau’s friendly gesture, one that occurs several times a day with strangers as she canvasses her Montreal riding for votes.

Justin Trudeau places his hand on pregnant candidate Christine Poirier’s belly as he arrives at a Liberal campaign event in Montreal on Monday. RYAN REMIORZ / THE CANADIAN PRESS

“It was a perfectly natural, normal gesture and I really don’t mind having my belly touched,” she said.

The news that Poirier will be delivering her second child just seven weeks ahead of the Oct. 19 election day is something that no candidate can prepare for. But the 35-year-old has learned there can be a strategic advantage in her growing belly.

“It doesn’t make me any more approachable. But it certainly makes a nice subject of conversation and it allows me to introduce the party policies on child benefits and makes me talk about it and makes me sound more genuine,” she said.

The entrepreneur and breastfeeding advocate, who co-founded a clothing line for new mothers, is running against Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe in the riding of Laurier—Sainte-Marie, currently held by the NDP’s Hélène Laverdière.

While the competition is tough, it’s nothing compared to the personal circumstances the Liberal candidate is managing with a campaign team that handles phone calls and posting signs as well as child-care duties when the need arises.

“One of the volunteering opportunities that I give to my volunteers is to babysit my 8-year-old daughter,” she said. “So during the campaign, my mom is going to be my main volunteer, following me around everywhere (with the newborn) and helping me out.” (Source: Toronto Star)

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Thursday April 30, 2015

April 29, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday April 30, 2015

McMaster to boost all female faculty members’ salaries

McMaster University will add $3,515 to the base salaries of all full-time female faculty members to help correct what it calls “a systematic bias” in favour of male professors.

University officials announced Monday it will spend more than $1 million each year to ensure pay equity among its male and female faculty. The change will affect roughly 340 women — about a third of the university’s 1,000 full-time academic staff.

“It’s an equity issue we felt we simply had to address,” said David Wilkinson, McMaster provost and vice-president (academic). “How can we afford not to do it?”

The average salary of a full-time, permanent faculty member at the school (not including clinicians and clinical faculty) was $139,900 in 2013.

Michelle Dion, incoming president of the McMaster University Faculty Association, was part of the joint committee of faculty and administration members that endorsed the change.

“It would have been nicer to not find a gender pay gap,” she said. “The most surprising thing, I think, for most people, is that McMaster is doing something about it.”

The changes come out of a two-year study of Mac’s wages that found a gap between the salaries of men and women. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Saturday August 31, 2013 (Labour Day Weekend)

August 31, 2013 by Graeme MacKay

Graeme MacKay Illustration for Saturday, August 31, 2013 in The Hamilton Spectator

Is Labour Day still every day for women at home?

“Ask of me anything but doing the laundry.” – Napoleon

True, history suggests the diminutive dictator said to ask of him anything but time, but surely that was code for housework.

Times have changed from the days when men left all the chores to women while they brought home the bacon and conquered nations.

Isn’t it true that the division of labour in the home is no longer so imbalanced?

As a sociologist might put it, the answer is yes and no.

A Statistics Canada study says that between 1998 and 2010 men increased the time they spent on home chores by an hour in a given day, while women’s housework time remained constant.

And yet it found that Canadian women still do at least an hour more chores per day then men.

Moreover, women working full time spend nearly twice as much time caring for their children.

So is the egalitarian glass half-full or half-empty? Or should we measure using a smaller glass?

It bears noting that housework for both genders has decreased overall compared to the 1960s, in part due to such things as affordable home appliances, easier to prepare meals and paid home cleaners.

But chores continue to be mostly handled by women. Friction over the imbalance can doom a couple.

“The division of labour in and of itself can torpedo a marriage,” said Gary Direnfield, a Hamilton social worker and author of Marriage Rescue.

“And it’s not necessarily who is doing the laundry but how we feel about who is doing it. We take that as a statement on the relationship, attach meaning to these chores and fight over what we believe it means.”

Women’s lives have been transformed in the past 50 years, McMaster University sociologist Melanie Heath wrote in an email from Paris where she is conducting research. (Continued… Source: The Hamilton Spectator)