mayor

Thursday March 27, 2008

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 27, 2008

Red Hill Parkway legal fight still on, says council

Councillors have voted to continue a controversial lawsuit against Ottawa involving the building of the Red Hill Valley Parkway.

It has also removed a cap on legal costs plus decided to keep the costs from public view until the suit’s end.

Councillors voted 8-6 yesterday to support a staff recommendation to keep the lawsuit going after a two-hour closed door meeting. The decision must be ratified by council tonight.

Hamilton launched a $75-million lawsuit against Ottawa and 70 bureaucrats in September 2004, alleging they conspired to delay building the $225-million expressway by using the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act to block it. Ottawa filed a defence in 2006 denying the allegations. The highway opened last November.

Council also backed recommendations to lift the $450,000 cap for the legal costs; cease public reporting of ongoing costs by citing solicitor-client privilege until the action is over; renew efforts to mediate a settlement with the federal government; and reject Ottawa’s Jan. 30 offer to end the lawsuit and have both sides pay their own costs.

Mayor Fred Eisenberger, who came into office promising to kill the lawsuit because he did not believe it was in Hamilton’s best interests, was disappointed. He had a motion to end the lawsuit, but it never made it to the floor. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

 

October 26, 2006

From time to time I’m asked to draw little graphics in the paper to illustrate articles and features. It didn’t take long for an innocent graphic to inspire some Spectator readers to react, shocked and appalled.

The above graphic is the same ‘shoulders’ illustration the letter writer speaks of, but the head is of someone else other than the female (Teresa Cascioli) spotlighted for the “If I were Mayor” feature. Just a fun and entertaining typical local election thingy. You get the point.

It seems, in order to be fair, I should’ve drawn a female head and shoulders with maybe, a nice fluffy feminine scarf. But lets not stop at gender, the hands should be coloured to illustrate the diversity which makes up Hamilton’s population. I might want to consider representing physically challenged people running for mayor… come on… it’s a cartoon. Besides, ties are not only worn by men.

Friday August 18, 2000

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday August 18, 2000

Coyote Ugly Meets Hamilton Mayoral Race

We live in a time when Hollywood shyly ejects weekly remakes of dependable plots, terrified to include anything that might confuse the dullest audience member. The new studio guidelines prefer PG cuts from directors, so we get movies like Coyote Ugly that start out with no brains and now don’t have any sex, either. Into this wilderness comes a movie like The Cell, which is challenging, wildly ambitious and technically superb, and I dunno: I guess it just overloads the circuits for some people. – Roger Ebert (Hamilton Spectator, D9, 8/18/2000)