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International

Friday January 20, 2023

January 20, 2023 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday January 20, 2023

Jacinda Ardern enjoys ‘good night’s sleep’ after decision to quit

August 30, 2022

Jacinda Ardern said today that she had no regrets about standing down as New Zealand’s prime minister, after an announcement that shocked both her supporters and critics.

A day after revealing she would not stand for re-election because she had no more “in the tank”, she said she was feeling a range of emotions from sadness to a “sense of relief”.

Ardern, who will leave office within weeks, said she would not openly back any of the likely candidates to replace her. Her governing Labour Party is trailing in the polls and predicted to lose the next election due in October.

Speaking outside an airport in the North Island city of Napier, where the Labour Party caucus had gathered for a retreat, Ardern, 42, said she had “slept well for the first time in a long time”.

In response to questions by reporters, she rejected suggestions by some commentators that experiences of misogyny had played a role in her decision.

June 28, 2021

Ardern said she had a “message for women in leadership and girls who are considering leadership in the future” that “you can have a family and be in these roles”, adding “you can lead in your own style”.

Ardern was the youngest female head of government when she became prime minister in 2017 at 37. She achieved a global profile as she led the country through its worst terrorist attack, a deadly volcanic eruption and the Covid-19 pandemic. She won a landslide second term in 2020 but her popularity waned as she battled declining trust in government, a worsening economic situation and a resurgent conservative opposition.

“You cannot and should not do the job unless you have a full tank, plus a bit in reserve for those unplanned and unexpected challenges,” she said. “I no longer have enough in the tank to do the job justice.”

Trying to head off speculation about hidden motives for her decision, she added: “The only interesting angle you will find is that after going on six years of some big challenges, that I am human. Politicians are human. We give all that we can, for as long as we can, and then it’s time. And for me, it’s time.” (The Times) 

September 10, 2022

Meanwhile in a survey made public in Canada recently, fifty-four per cent of those polled said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should step down as the leader of the Liberal Party in 2023, though just 27 per cent said they believe he’ll do so. (Global News) 

 

Posted in: Canada, International Tagged: 2023-02, Canada, International, Jacinda Arhern, Justin Trudeau, King, leadership, New Zealand, politics, resignation, throne

Tuesday January 10, 2023

January 10, 2023 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday January 10, 2023

Three Amigos Summit 2023

February 23, 2017

Mexico draws millions of international tourists each year with its sandy beaches, mountains, rainforests and rich culture.

But travelling anywhere can come with safety risks, as Canadians in the Mexican state of Sinaloa experienced last week following the Jan. 5 arrest of alleged drug trafficker Ovidio Guzman. Guzman is a son of former cartel boss Joaquin Guzman, also known as El Chapo. His capture resulted in explosions of violence in cities across the state, led by members of the Sinaloa cartel.

As a result of the violence in Sinaloa, the Canadian government has issued an advisory warning travellers to avoid non-essential travel to several states in northern, western and central Mexico and to exercise a “high degree of caution” in other parts of the country. (CTV News) 

November 18, 2021

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is hoping to champion North America free trade while settling trade irritants at the “Three Amigos” summit in Mexico City, but his priorities might be drowned out by more pressing border issues between the United States and Mexico.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is hoping to champion North America free trade while settling trade irritants at the “Three Amigos” summit in Mexico City, but his priorities might be drowned out by more pressing border issues between the United States and Mexico.

“I think as it’s currently framed, the North American Summit is a lot about Mexico,” said Maryscott Greenwood, CEO of the Canadian American Business Council, who noted that Biden preceded his visit to Mexico by inspecting a busy port of entry for migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

In that context, Trudeau’s main challenge as he steps foot in Mexico City will be “to be relevant and to be heard,” added Greenwood.

March 23, 2005

“For Canada to be really heard and noticed, it has to have one priority and it has to be really aggressive about it. And I realize that’s sort of un-Canadian,” she said. “But that’s the way it goes with trying to capture the attention and the imagination of the United States, which has a lot going on.”

Speaking from Mexico City, Louise Blais, a former diplomat and now senior special adviser to the Business Council of Canada, said that while the border issues will be “distracting,” she thinks the Canadian delegation will manage to carve out time for the files it feels are important.

“So that’s a challenge, but that’s not to say that it won’t happen,” said Blais.

Trudeau arrived in Mexico City on Monday for a three-day visit, which will include bilateral meetings Tuesday with Biden and Lopez Obrador as well as meetings with business leaders. (The National Post) 

 

Posted in: Canada, International, USA Tagged: 2023-01, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Border, Canada, diplomacy, gangs, International, Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau, Mexico, migrants, summit, Three amigos, USA, violence

Saturday January 7, 2023

January 7, 2023 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday January 7, 2023

The enduring anguish of being the royal ‘spare

September 30, 2022

“Wonderful. Now you’ve given me an heir and a spare, my work is done.” That was the conversation that Prince Harry claims marked the day of his own birth, with the then Prince Charles joking to the Princess of Wales about the arrival of their second son.

The story is told in Harry’s memoir, called Spare, and he says the term was often used to describe him, within his own family.

“They would say it without a spirit of judgement, but straight out. I was the shadow, the supporting actor, the plan B,” he writes, in a translation of the book’s Spanish edition.

“I was brought into this world in case something happened to Willy,” he writes, using the nicknames that saw Prince William as “Willy” and Prince Harry as “Harold”.

The saying “an heir and a spare” refers to aristocratic families needing an heir to inherit a title or an estate, and the “spare” as the younger sibling who could be the replacement if anything happened to the heir before he or she has their own children.

It clearly annoyed Prince Harry enough to use it as a title for his book, and it taps into the longstanding difficulty of this uncertain royal understudy role, where there’s wealth and privilege but no obvious sense of purpose.

March 9, 2021

“It’s a non-position,” says royal expert Professor Pauline Maclaran, from the Centre for the Study of Modern Monarchy, Royal Holloway, University of London.

“There’s no clear role apart from shaking hands and being pleasant to people,” says Prof Maclaran.

A life of pointless luxury might have its decadent charms, but it also carries a heavy risk of unfulfillment and lack of direction.

So much so that Prof Maclaran says that a modern, slimmed-down monarchy should either find better defined roles for such individuals, or else release them from any royal expectations, once they’ve slipped down the pecking order of succession.

Royal historian Ed Owens says Sweden and Denmark are examples of where such an approach has been taken, “downsizing” the royal families, so that individuals who might have been marginal “spares” can have their own private lives “unfettered by royal responsibilities”.

Mr Owens says that Princess Margaret, younger sister to the late Queen Elizabeth II, is an example of the pressures put upon such siblings, in a way that remains relevant to the problems raised by Prince Harry.

January 15, 2022

Prince Andrew is another whose attempts at finding a role have not exactly ended well. Even before the scandal involving sex assault claims, which he denied, he had gained the nickname of Air Miles Andy for his many overseas trips.

But there have been positive outcomes. George VI, a shy and initially reluctant monarch, had been Edward VIII’s younger sibling but stepped up to the plate as King after his childless brother abdicated, and proved to be a leader in wartime.

Letter to the Editor, The Hamilton Spectator

His father, George V, had been another second son who came to the throne. His older brother had died at the age of 28 in an outbreak of flu in 1892.

There are also historical templates for the younger royal being cast in a negative light, accused of dissolute and disreputable behaviour or as a rival threatening to undermine the authority of the elder.

Think of Bad King John versus Good King Richard, in the 12th Century power struggle between brothers, that was depicted in a 1970s Disney movie. (BBC News) 

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 …

https://mackaycartoons.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2023-0107-NATshort.mp4

 

Posted in: International Tagged: 2023-01, Feedback, Great Britain, history, International, letter, Monarchy, Prince Andrew, Prince Harry, Princess Margaret, royalty, spare, succession, United Kingdom, zoo

Thursday January 5, 2023

January 5, 2023 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday January 5, 2023

Ottawa is passing the buck on this holiday season’s air travel chaos

December 23, 2022

Over the past couple of weeks, air travellers have experienced what will likely be remembered as the most difficult Christmas travel peak in recent memory. For Canadians, it was a sad repeat of the challenges they faced last summer. While much of the chaos air travellers experienced this Christmas can be chalked up to bad weather, those travelling with Southwest Airlines and Sunwing, in particular, saw their plans upended by challenging recoveries in the days that followed.

Both airlines saw their operations turned upside down, leaving thousands of customers affected. But that is where the similarities end. The response of the respective airlines, as well as that of the senior-most transportation official in each country, couldn’t have been more different.

Southwest made the difficult but ultimately correct decision to reset their severely disrupted operations by cancelling upwards of two-thirds of their flights for much of the week following Dec. 23 to get aircraft and crew back in place. By Dec. 30, Southwest resumed near normal operations and started its recovery.

April 23, 2014

Sunwing, on the other hand, correctly, however belatedly, leased aircraft from other carriers to deal with their stranded customers but also was forced to cancel flights until February, including all its flights out of Saskatchewan. While the airline confirms that most stranded travellers have now returned to Canada, the longer-term cancellations make it clear that the airline marketed and sold flights which they did not have enough resources to operate. Where Southwest took the “short-term pain for long-term gain” approach, Sunwing decided that extending and spreading the pain well into the winter season made more sense.

While U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg appeared on virtually every major network news program, Canadian Transport Minister Omar Alghabra took to Twitter to voice his concern.

Against this backdrop of air travel chaos, several key lessons can be drawn. The first and most important lesson is to be pro-active.

Many of the issues faced by travellers were not only predictable, they were predicted. The problems travellers encountered during the summer peak became self-evident by spring yet nothing was done. With its sprawling bureaucracy, it should not be too much to expect Transport Canada to better monitor operational performance so that trends can be more easily identified and appropriately addressed. 

May 25, 2022

Mr. Alghabra spent 2022 playing catch-up rather than leading. He should be the last person in Canada surprised by anything happening at airports during his watch, yet feigning surprise or being firmly in denial, was his and his department’s modus operandi. By being pro-active, he could have helped alleviate some of the long lines at airport security and customs that plagued airports last summer and could have been in a stronger position to encourage Sunwing to repatriate its stranded customers in a more timely fashion. (Continued: The Globe and Mail) 

 

Posted in: International Tagged: 2023-01, airline, airport, baggage, Canada, Family, Flying, hell, International, travel, tunnel

Graeme Gallery 2022 – The World

December 30, 2022 by Graeme MacKay

Friday December 30, 2022. My publisher is showcasing 4 pages of my cartoons from the past year, 2022. Here they all are, plus a few extras. Click on any of the cartoons to link back to the original dates they were posted:

December 24, 2021
December 24, 2021
January 15, 2022
January 15, 2022
January 18, 2022
January 18, 2022
January 19, 2022
January 19, 2022
January 6, 2022
January 6, 2022
March 9, 2022
March 9, 2022
April 12, 2022
April 12, 2022
May 6, 2022
May 6, 2022
June 18, 2022
June 18, 2022
September 7, 2022
September 7, 2022
September 14, 2022
September 14, 2022
October 18, 2022
October 18, 2022
November 12, 2022
November 12, 2022
December 22, 2022
December 22, 2022

Last Year 2021 | OntarioGG22 | CanadaGG22 | 25th Anniversary

Posted in: International Tagged: 2022, 2022-44, gallery, Graeme Gallery, GraemeGalleries2022, International, world, Year in review
1 2 … 28 Next »

Click on dates to expand

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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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