Maple Leaf

Wednesday March 4, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday March 4, 2020

Ex-PM Joe Clark campaigns for Security Council seat in Africa, Persian Gulf

Former prime minister and foreign minister Joe Clark faces a tough slog during his travels to the Persian Gulf and Africa to campaign for Canada’s bid for the United Nations Security Council, analysts said Monday.

Joe Clark

Clark began a one-week trip Monday as “special envoy” to Algeria, Bahrain, Qatar and Egypt to campaign for Canada’s bid for a temporary two-year seat on the UN’s most powerful body.

If elected, the Trudeau government says Canada will continue to work to strengthen multilateralism, foster peace, address climate change, promote economic security and advance gender equality.

Bessma Momani, an expert in Middle East affairs at the University of Waterloo, says Clark may not get a very receptive audience to Canada’s push for women’s rights among some of the government representatives he will be meeting.

“The people certainly hold Canada in high regard, regardless of what the governments may think,” Momani said. “People are still queuing to immigrate here so clearly we are still doing something right.”

“Certainly our recent emphasis on human rights and women’s rights is probably not received that favourably in that part of the world, which tends to have more conservative values and are part of the global autocratic turn.”

February 8, 2020

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Ethiopia and Senegal in February as part of his government’s campaign for the council seat. Several cabinet ministers have also been visiting countries across Africa in recent months.

The secret ballot at the UN General Assembly takes place in June for a two-year term starting next year.

Africa, with its 54 voting countries, is a key voting bloc in the tough fight that pits Canada against Norway and Ireland for two available seats. Both countries spend more per capita than Canada on foreign aid, which is seen by many analysts as an impediment to Canada’s chances to winning the competition.

December 10, 2003

Clark is an appropriate choice to campaign in the region, but he will have his work cut out for him, said Fen Hampson, a Carleton University expert who wrote a recent book on the foreign policy of the ex-prime minister Brian Mulroney. Clark served as Mulroney’s minister of external affairs.

“African leaders with long memories will recall the important role Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney played in the Commonwealth in helping to bring an end to apartheid in South Africa and also stepping up to the plate in the Ethiopian famine crisis,” said Hampson. (CTV News) 

 

Friday January 10, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday January 10, 2020

As Iran and US take step back from the brink, Canada grieves

The worst had passed, it seemed, and the United States and Iran no longer appeared poised at the edge of war.

April 13, 2018

“All is well!” President Donald Trump tweeted Tuesday night, days after a U.S. drone strike killed Iran’s most powerful general, and Iran, after a barrage of missiles, had signaled it was stepping back from further escalation.

But 27 seconds before Trump’s tweet, commercial flight trackers had lost contact with a Ukrainian International Airlines jet that had just taken off from Tehran’s main airport. On board were 176 people, including 138 passengers on their way to Canada and at least 63 Canadian citizens and 11 Ukrainians. The plane, which never made a mayday call, slammed moments later into the ground.

Everyone on board died. They were students, newlyweds, doctors and parents. The youngest was a 1-year-old girl, Kurdia Molani, who was flying back home with her parents to the Toronto suburb of Ajax.

January 6, 2016

By late Thursday, Western leaders said that Iran had most likely shot down the jetliner with a surface-to-air missile — probably by accident. The loss of so many lives transformed the U.S.-Iran confrontation, which had seemed to conclude with limited bloodshed.

Instead, what had begun with a drone attack on Gen. Qassem Soleimani’s motorcade at the Baghdad airport had suddenly rippled outward until dozens of Iranian-Canadians, dozens of Iranian students studying in Canada, were dead.

“The community is overwhelmed with mourning and sadness,” said Payman Parseyan, a prominent Iranian-Canadian in western Canada, counting through the names of the friends he had lost. There was Pedram Mousavi and his wife Mojgan Daneshmand, both of them engineering professors, and their two daughters, Daria and Dorina Mousavi. There was Dr. Shekoufeh Choupannejad, an obstetrician-gynecologist, and her two daughters, Saba and Sara Saadat. It seemed impossible.

January 8, 2020

Some in Canada quickly blamed Trump for the disaster.

“This is insane. Sickening. Imagine having a family member on that plane,” said Rob Kent, a 42-year-old Toronto resident. “One man, and only one, is responsible for those deaths. And he will never face consequences for them.”

But Parseyan wasn’t so sure.

“It takes two to tango,” he said. “It’s not hard to see the downing as a result of the escalation between the two countries. However, Iran is responsible for its own military defense equipment. While it has the right to defend itself, as it should to protect its own people, it should also have the responsibility with that right to make sure their defensive systems aren’t targeting civilian aircraft.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has at times had a rocky relationship with Trump, was careful not to say the U.S. strike was responsible for what happened. (Associated Press) 

 

Wednesday September 19, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Wednesday September 19, 2012

Flag back in storage as Parti Québécois era begin

Before premier-designate Pauline Marois was again sworn in as an MNA Monday, the Parti Québécois stripped the Canadian flag from the upper chamber of the National Assembly.

And the sovereigntist party removed the Maple Leaf that adorned outgoing premier Jean Charest’s office for the past nine years. This is not the first time a PQ government has put the flag in storage. While the move may inflame passions among Quebec federalists and across the country, this time the symbolic gesture may be a particularly hollow one.

Ms. Marois led the PQ to a minority victory earlier this month with barely a third of the popular vote. She made no mention of sovereignty in her brief swearing-in speech. Nor did her election campaign place great emphasis on sovereignty, desire for which is at historic lows among Quebeckers.

Ms. Marois, who will be sworn in as premier Wednesday, said nothing about the flag removal in her remarks after the swearing-in ceremony. “Quebeckers chose change and they chose to do it with a Parti Québécois government,” Ms. Marois said.

“One of the changes is to put an end to the politics of division. What I wish is for Quebec to get back on course and reclaim its pride and confidence. When a people reclaims its pride and confidence, nothing, absolutely nothing, becomes impossible.”

Asked to respond to the removal of the Maple Leaf by the PQ government, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office responded with a blunt “no comment.”

The swearing-in ceremony has always been an awkward affair for PQ members. They must pledge allegiance to the Queen as part of the mandatory official ritual of taking office. (Source: Globe & Mail) 

 

August 9, 2005

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator Ð August 9, 2005 Hamilton Hogtown The public relations campaign launched by Maple Leaf Foods over the last few weeks seems particularly intense especially since the giant processing company hasn't signed a deal with Hamilton to relocate its controversial Burlington facility. Hamilton is the preferred location for the $250 million facility.The offer by Maple Leaf Foods to politicians and media to tour its state-of-the-art processing facility in Brandon, Manitoba, and the whirlwind editorial interviews with area media is to counter negative opinions that have grown within the community that Maple Leaf Foods isn't the proper fit for what is an agricultural area. (Ancaster News) MeanwhileÉ Former federal revenue minister Stan Keyes has joined Canada's diplomatic corps. He was appointed consul general to Boston last week. He represented the riding of Hamilton-West in Parliament from 1988 until his defeat in the 2004 election. (Source: Hamilton Spectator) Canada, Hamilton, patronage, diplomacy, consul, Stan Keyes, Maple Leaf, pork processing, cured meats

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – August 9, 2005

Hamilton Hogtown

The public relations campaign launched by Maple Leaf Foods over the last few weeks seems particularly intense especially since the giant processing company hasn’t signed a deal with Hamilton to relocate its controversial Burlington facility. Hamilton is the preferred location for the $250 million facility.The offer by Maple Leaf Foods to politicians and media to tour its state-of-the-art processing facility in Brandon, Manitoba, and the whirlwind editorial interviews with area media is to counter negative opinions that have grown within the community that Maple Leaf Foods isn’t the proper fit for what is an agricultural area. (Ancaster News)

Meanwhile…

Former federal revenue minister Stan Keyes has joined Canada’s diplomatic corps. He was appointed consul general to Boston last week.

He represented the riding of Hamilton-West in Parliament from 1988 until his defeat in the 2004 election. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

 

Saturday May 5, 2000

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday May 5, 2000

Known only to God, a soldier comes home

Who was he? Was he a child of 16, big for his age who had “borrowed” someone else’s birth certificate? Was he a battle-hardened veteran of 25, scarred in mind if not in body? Was he a farm boy? A bank clerk? Was he white or native? Was he an only child or a beloved brother? Was he married? Did he leave children to mourn him? Did he die in an obliterating shellburst? Did he lie bleeding and alone in a muddy crater in No Man’s Land as his life ebbed away?

The Unknown Soldier: Anyone and everyone

We know but this: Once upon a time, someone loved this Canadian. And he died while serving his country.

He is our Unknown Soldier and while it is true he could be any of these things, it is more important to realize that he is all of them. Canada’s soldat inconnu will be laid to his final rest tomorrow beneath the triumphal arch of the National War Memorial in Ottawa. As he has come home, so have all his comrades; as he is recognized, so are they all. He is honoured not for the mystery of who he is, but for the infinite possibility of who he was.

The concept of the Unknown Soldier is rapidly becoming obsolete, at least in this part of the world. Advances in DNA matching means that even the most brutally damaged remains can be identified today. In fact, Canada had to promise the Commonwealth War Graves Commission it would not try to identify these Canadian remains; an American Unknown Soldier was recently identified through testing.

Our Unknown Soldier died somewhere near Vimy Ridge, the crest of land where Canadian soldiers first fought as a national force on Easter Monday 1917. He is one of more than 116,000 Canadians who died in battle in the past century’s wars; one of almost 28,000 of them whose remains were never found or identified. He is one of them; he is all of them.

In the past few years, there has been a resurgence of interest in, and honouring of, the sacrifices of the Canadian men and women who served in the our armed forces. Remembrance Day was marked in this country last November in a more solemn and meaningful way than this country has seen in decades.

There is a remarkable synchronicity in the coming home this week of our Unknown Soldier and the full-honours burial in France a day earlier of David John Carlson, a soldier from Mannville, Alta., who died in the Battle of the Somme. Listed for 80 years as missing in action, his remains recently surfaced in a French farmer’s field. There is no one left alive who knew Private Carlson. Two grand-nieces attended his funeral but could only say they thought he was one of two men in a faded photo. They don’t know which one.

But just as a family tried to remember David Carlson, so Canada can try to remember all those who sacrificed everything — their hopes, their dreams, their futures — for their country.

And tomorrow, as the bones of a young man are interred in a granite sarcophagus in Ottawa, his maple coffin atop soil from each of the provinces and territories and from France where he gave his life, we can honour all those who are known only to God. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial, D6, 5/27/2000)