Justin Trudeau

Friday May 10, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday May 10, 2019

Trudeau says Norman case unfolded ‘completely independent’ of government

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the proceedings in Vice-Admiral Mark Norman’s breach-of-trust case unfolded independent of government, despite criticism from the senior naval officer’s defence team.

March 1, 2019

Mr. Trudeau avoided questions from reporters on Friday about whether he will call an inquiry into Vice-Adm. Norman’s case and why his government withheld documents the defence had requested.

“Canadians understand that judicial processes, police investigations and court proceedings are all entirely independent of the government of the day, certainly of the Prime Minister’s Office. That is the way it should be,” Mr. Trudeau said in Edmonton.

“The processes in this case have unfolded in a proper manner, completely independent of government, as they should have.”

Crown prosecutor Barbara Mercier stayed the charge against Vice-Adm. Norman on Wednesday. She said new documents the prosecution had received from the defence revealed his actions in relation to a shipbuilding contract were “inappropriate,” but that does not mean they were criminal.

February 15, 2019

Vice-Adm. Norman was suspended as the military’s second-in-command on Jan. 16, 2017, and charged with breach of trust last year for allegedly leaking government secrets in an attempt to influence cabinet’s decision in a review of a $668-million contract with Quebec’s Davie shipyard for a supply vessel. He denied any wrongdoing.

Lawyer Marie Henein said the government prevented her team from accessing thousands of government documents she needed to defend her client, including communications by e-mail and text message between senior staff in Mr. Trudeau’s government.

“There are times you agree with what happens in a court, there are times you don’t and that’s fine. But what you don’t do is you don’t put your finger and try to weigh in on the scales of justice, that is not what should be happening,” Ms. Henein said at a news conference earlier this week.

The RCMP defended their handling of the case in a statement on Friday, saying: “Throughout the course of this criminal investigation, investigators from the RCMP National Division Sensitive and International Investigations section have conducted a thorough, independent and highly professional investigation.” (Globe & Mail) 

 

Saturday May 4, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday May 4, 2019

Province’s funding cuts jeopardize 6,166 subsidized child care spaces in Toronto, staff says

Provincial funding cuts and policy changes could result in 6,166 fewer subsidized child care spaces in Toronto and cost the city more than $80-million this year alone, according to city staff.

In a memo to the mayor and council obtained by CBC Toronto on Thursday, City Manager Chris Murray detailed the potential impacts of a reduction in child care funding that was outlined in the province’s recent 2019 budget. The fallout will be compounded by considerable changes to existing child care-related cost-sharing models, the memo says.

“As with recent changes to the provincial/municipal cost-sharing arrangements for public health, the City was not consulted or provided with any advance warning of these changes,” the memo says.

Murray cautions that city staff are still awaiting precise numbers from the province, but they estimate that, cumulatively, the changes will cost Toronto $84.8 million this year. That figure includes a $28.6-million reduction in direct provincial funding and $56.2-million due to cost-sharing changes, the memo explains. 

“This represents a direct pressure on the 2019 Children’s Services Operating Budget, which city council has already approved and for which the municipal levy bylaw has been passed,” it continues.

The result is the potential loss of 6,166 subsidized child care spaces in Toronto, the memo estimates.

The overall number of child care spaces is not expected to change, but a smaller number will be filled by children who have access to the subsidy, the city says. (Source: CBC News) 

 

Thursday May 2, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday May 2, 2019

Where is your climate change plan? Liberal ministers ask Scheer

The House of Commons resumed sitting on Monday for what’s set to be an intense session before Parliament adjourns for the last time before the federal election will be called, and the governing Liberals came out swinging bright and early against Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer.

April 2, 2019

Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna and Finance Minister Bill Morneau began their day criticizing their main opponent for his lack of a climate plan. Meanwhile, Scheer was elsewhere on the Hill doing the same over the government’s approach to current trade tensions with China.

At issue specifically for the Liberal ministers: Scheer’s lack of a climate change plan, despite his consistent attacks on the government’s imposition of a federal price on carbon — up to $50 per excess tonne by 2022 — in provinces who don’t implement their own. The federal Conservatives say the government’s plan is little more than a “tax grab.”

It was exactly a year ago, on April 29, 2018 during a sit-down interview on CTV’s Question Period, Scheer said that he would be unveiling a climate plan ahead of the 2019 election that will meet the Paris targets without a carbon tax.

September 20, 2016

Asked whether the plan will meet the UN targets for combating climate change, otherwise known as Paris Agreement, Scheer said “of course.”

The Paris agreement sets out an international plan to limit global warming to below two degrees.

“I will unveil a plan that reaches the targets that we have already voted in favour of,” Scheer said at the time.

In June 2017, Scheer and his caucus voted in support of the Canadian government implementing the Paris Agreement, stating it was in the best interest of Canadians and recognizing that climate change is a global issue.

Though, eight months later it was on CTV’s Question Period again where he walked back that promise. He could not commit that his plan would mean the targets, instead he said his plan would have “meaningful reductions.” (Source: CTV News) 

 

Wednesday April 24, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday April 24, 2019

D’Oh Canada! Canadian journalist voicing Trudeau on The Simpsons

Canadian journalist Lucas Meyer is putting the hours he’s spent listening to politicians to good use, lending his imitation of Justin Trudeau to The Simpsons.

March 24, 2017

Sunday’s upcoming episode, “D’Oh Canada,” will feature a subplot involving Lisa being granted asylum in Canada during a family trip to Niagara Falls.

Meyer, a lifelong fan of the show, said he was thrilled and a bit stunned to receive an email from a Simpsons producer last September. He auditioned a few hours later and found out he got the part the next day.

“I just couldn’t believe it, I sent it to my wife and she was losing her mind,” he said.

“A, it was unexpected. B, it’s not just a show it’s The Simpsons, one that I grew up with. And C, it’s not just a guest voice. It’s guest-voicing the prime minister.”

Meyer, who grew up in Montreal and Antigonish, N.S., has been honing his impersonation skills for years. He said Trudeau is one of his favourites to mimic, along with Don Cherry, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and his mother-in-law, Esther.

August 15, 1997

While working as a reporter in Calgary in 2017, Meyer relented to urgings from friends and posted a compilation of his impressions on YouTube. The video has garnered about 32,000 views and caught the attention of The Simpsons producers.

Meyer kept the news secret for more than six months and finally shared it Monday on social media.  

“I never would have anticipated this,” he told CBC News with a laugh.

Tim Long, a Canadian-born consulting producer on The Simpsons, hinted the episode featuring Trudeau would touch on a “current scandal,” perhaps the SNC-Lavalin controversy.

“That may be one of those things that nobody in America is going to get,” Long, who was born in Brandon, Man., and grew up in Exeter, Ont., said in a recent phone interview with The Canadian Press.

“It’s funny, though, because of course America got used to the idea that, ‘Well, Trudeau is great’ — at least the liberal part of America has sort of got it in their head that, ‘Oh, he’s amazing and Canadians must love him’ — and I think they’re shocked to learn that he’s in a little bit of trouble right now.”

Meyer currently works as a reporter with Newstalk 1010 in Toronto and has had his own professional dealings with Trudeau on the scandal. (Source: CBC) 

Meme-able illustrations

Saturday April 20, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday April 20, 2019

Justin Trudeau finally got some good news this week. Courtesy of Jason Kenney.

The election of the old Harperite and his band of right-wing friends of the oil industry has suddenly made it clearer than ever the divide over the future direction of the country.

October 16, 2015

It’s clear where Kenney and the majority of Albertans who voted for him stand. Forget climate change and the catastrophe facing the planet. Albertans’ choice is a pipeline in every garden and a couple of pickup trucks in every driveway.

We now know that the NDP’s victory in 2015 was a fluke. Rachel Notley was an able politician but her attempt at a balanced approach to the issue of how a province hooked on carbon could make a reasonable effort at reducing the damage caused by its coal-fired power plants and GHG-producing oil sands was never going to win over voters long-term.

Like Philippe Couillard, who bravely and successfully tackled Quebec’s fiscal deficit and was rewarded for his efforts by being tossed out of office, Rachel Notley learned that voters don’t want politicians to take hard choices. They want to hear nonsense from their leaders, provided it doesn’t cost them a cent.

May 15, 2018

It’s the same idiocy that got Doug Ford elected. Remember him promising how easy it would be to balance the Ontario budget by simply getting rid of inefficiencies and cutting spending on “pencils and foolscap.”

I know Alberta is going through a tough time but that’s what happens when you live in a commodity-dependent economy. Prices go up and they go down, and you’re particularly vulnerable when prices sink and you’re a high cost producer.

Yet when times are good, Albertans convince themselves they’re rich because they’re so smart. And when boom inevitably turns to bust, they’re suddenly surprised. Who would have thought oil prices couldn’t tank? And of course, Justin Trudeau, not the world market, is responsible for oil prices.

All of this is made worse by Albertans approach to government finances. Alberta has made its own bed, deciding it wasn’t going to be Norway, which forces its citizens to pay their own way through taxes and squirrels away its petroleum windfalls for a rainy day. Instead, Alberta has modelled itself on a Mideastern petro-state. (Continued: iPolitics)