memorial

Wednesday November 20, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday November 20, 2019

Why affordability is (was) dominating Canada’s election campaign

(Article published 6 weeks before editorial cartoon was printed)

September 19, 2019

Canada’s political party leaders are making affordability the central talking point of their election campaigns, rolling out targeted measures to alleviate the financial strain besetting voters.

Though broad economic data show the nation’s economy is humming along, Canadians are still feeling tight on cash. The worsening global outlook and unprecedented policy uncertainty are adding to the apprehension.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, along with the leaders of smaller parties are seeking to parlay that stress into votes as the clock winds down on the Oct. 21 election, by promising a slew of tax cuts and other measures to make life more affordable.

“Politicians are putting their finger on something, some form of financial anxiety about rising costs, or concerns about future rising costs, or future standard of living,” said Jennifer Robson, associate professor of political management at Carleton University in Ottawa.

Here’s why consumers are feeling pinched.

It’s old news that owning a home in Canada’s biggest cities has become an almost impossible goal for much of the middle class. Skyrocketing prices in recent years pushed potential buyers to the sidelines. New mortgage lending rules, so-called stress tests introduced by federal regulators in 2017, put ownership even further out of reach for many.

September 12, 2019

Toronto and Vancouver are easily Canada’s two main cities where residents are struggling to find an affordable place to live. The average selling price for a single-family home in Vancouver was $1.51 million in September, and $1.1 million in Toronto. Renting in those cities is no easy feat, either, as low vacancy rates have pushed up prices for accommodation.

Elevated real estate prices are the main driver of the country’s record household debt ratios, now the highest in the Group of Seven. Buyers took out larger and larger mortgages as the housing market heated up, even as incomes failed to keep pace. As a result, household savings rates are hovering near the lowest in decades, and the debt service ratio — which measures the share of disposable income paid toward principal and interest — climbed to a record in the second quarter.

While overall price inflation in Canada has been relatively benign, shoppers have experienced sticker shock on many basics. Prices for fruits and vegetables jumped as much as 60 per cent in the past decade, according to Statistics Canada. Child-care and tuition costs rose upwards of 35 per cent, and public transit prices ballooned by 50 per cent.

To top it all off, wages after accounting for inflation have remained relatively flat, even as costs for rent and basic goods increased. A puzzle for many economists and policy-makers is why unemployment is hovering near record lows, yet incomes are struggling to pick up. (Hamilton Spectator) 

 

Friday September 6, 2019

September 6, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday September 6, 2019

No one thought a UK Prime Minister could be worse than Theresa May. Until now

January 18, 2019

Could someone be worse than Theresa May, the UK Prime Minister widely panned as “the Maybot”? 

By the end of her inglorious three-year stint in Downing Street, even her most loyal supporters admitted that the robotic May would never be regarded as one of the greatest British leaders.

By comparison, Boris Johnson’s off-the-cuff, sunny disposition made him a darling of Conservative Party members who chose him for the top job when May finally resigned, defeated by her inability to get a Brexit deal through Parliament.

July 24, 2019

On his first day as Prime Minister, Johnson promised a bold new Brexit deal, bashing the “doubters, doomsters, gloomsters” and the political class who he said had forgotten about the British people they serve. It was as if an upbeat attitude alone could be enough to overcome any adversity on the United Kingdom’s path to exiting the European Union.

For a moment, it seemed he would breathe new life and, in his words, “positive energy,” into the Brexit process. Some thought, just maybe, he could manage to do what May did not.

How quickly it all went wrong.

Johnson has lost every one of his first votes in parliament, an unprecedented record in the modern era. Undeterred, the Prime Minister purged 21 members of his parliamentary party who voted against him, blowing apart his majority.

June 22, 2016

Then, his efforts to secure a snap general election — with the goal of replacing the sacked lawmakers with a new slate of candidates more aligned with his hard-Brexit views — were scuppered when opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn refused to play along.

Now, he is effectively trapped in Downing Street, with Corbyn holding the keys. The government plans to propose new elections again on Monday, but the opposition leader says his party will only support the move when its efforts to prevent a no-deal Brexit are locked down.

“Certainly his biggest tactical mistake so far was not to realize that it was Corbyn, as leader of the opposition, who effectively had veto power over when a general election could be held,” said Professor Tony Travers, director of the Institute of Public Affairs at the London School of Economics.

July 13, 2018

“It looks as if the Conservatives and their advisers thought that if they offered a general election to the Labour Party it would jump at the opportunity, but the way things have turned out — the coming together of the no-deal bill and the possibility that the opposition can frustrate a general election — creates the possibility of keeping the Prime Minister trapped in government, unable to fulfill his commitment to leave the EU come what may.”

Now the newly minted PM finds himself in a position that May never was — on his knees, begging the opposition for a general election.

How did it come to this? (Continued: CNN) 

 

Wednesday November 7, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday November 7, 2018

Feds promise $165 million in compensation after shortchanging 270,000 veterans

November 11, 2015

Repaying hundreds of thousands of veterans with disabilities and their survivors for a calculating error that deprived them of some of their pensions for seven years will cost $165 million, the federal government said.

Veterans Affairs Minister Seamus O’Regan revealed the error and compensation package Monday even as the federal NDP called on the government to ensure all money earmarked for veterans’ benefits is actually spent.

O’Regan’s department miscalculated adjustments to the disability pensions of 270,000 veterans, RCMP members and their survivors between 2003 and 2010 because it didn’t properly account for a change in personal tax exemptions, he said.

June 17, 2016

“Most individuals will receive a few hundred dollars, while the maximum amount to be paid would be a couple of thousand dollars,” he said.

The miscalculation was identified last year by veterans’ ombudsman Guy Parent, who told the Canadian Press his team stumbled upon the problem while looking at another issue and subsequently flagged it to the government.

While O’Regan promised all veterans would be compensated, payments aren’t expected to begin until 2020, which the minister blamed on the sheer number of Canadians affected by the problem.

December 5, 2014

Matters are complicated as many as 120,000 of the affected veterans, notably those who served in the Second World War and in Korea, have died. O’Regan’s spokesperson, Alex Wellstead, said their survivors and estates will still be eligible.

Parent said the error would have had a disproportionate impact on low-income veterans from the Second World War and Korea who relied on their pensions, and while he couldn’t say exactly how it happened, he hoped the government will ensure it is not repeated.

News of the error and compensation came as the New Democrats tabled a motion on Monday designed to pressure the Liberals to spend $372 million that’s been earmarked for veterans’ benefits in recent years but wasn’t spent.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said veterans have received inadequate assistance and faced barriers when it comes to accessing services and support for far too long because money approved by Parliament ends up going unused and being returned to the treasury. (Source: Hamilton Spectator) 

Tuesday November 11, 2014

Tuesday November 11, 2014Illustration by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday November 11, 2014

This Remembrance Day will be different: Cpl. Cirillo has made it real

(Written by Richard Foot) This year, at cenotaphs across Canada, Remembrance Day will be different. For the first time in many years, the ceremonies will feel relevant and raw to most of the gathered pilgrims. Corporal Nathan Cirillo’s killing has made sure of that.

Canadians first started communing around military cenotaphs in 1902, at the end of the Boer War, when the nation indulged in a great, patriotic burst of memorial-building. Monuments to Canada’s first foreign war were erected in city parks and town squares from Victoria to Halifax. Over the next decade, huge crowds would gather around them to celebrate – yes, celebrate – the imperial victory in South Africa.

By 1918 the mood had changed dramatically. The trauma and slaughter of the First World War meant that new memorials would be built, but this time they were mostly sombre creations – like the National War Memorial where Cpl. Cirillo was gunned down on Oct. 22 – designed not to celebrate military achievement but simply to honour the dead. The hour of annual remembrance was fixed at 11 a.m. on 11 November, the time and date of the Armistice in Europe.

Over the century that followed, through the Second World War, the Korean War and Afghanistan, Canadians have faithfully gathered around memorials each November to remember the legions left dead or wounded in these conflicts. When memories were still fresh – especially in the aftermath of the Second World War, with its huge number of returning warriors – Remembrance ceremonies were undoubtedly more relevant occasions. Many Canadians would have personally known the pain and heartache of war in their lifetime.

The war in Afghanistan certainly made real the risks and consequences of war. Suddenly, there were families in our own communities with sons and husbands killed and injured overseas. These families were evidence of real loss and real pain. This was the first taste, for many Canadians, of military sacrifice in our own lifetime.

Yet somehow, the war in Afghanistan was so complex – the causes and solutions too hard to figure, the battlefields too unconventional, the enemy too hard to identify – that this counter-insurgency campaign and its veterans failed to transform Remembrance Day from an exercise of historical memory, into something most of us could instinctively feel in our hearts.

But now that transformation has occurred.

Nathan Cirillo is just one soldier, and not even a war veteran at that. Yet his shocking murder as he stood on sentry duty at the National War Memorial – the unforgettable image of him lying on the granite, directly alongside his First World War comrade inside the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier – has vividly linked the past with the present.

The Unknown Soldier’s remains were brought to Ottawa in May, 2000 from an unmarked Canadian grave at Cabaret-Rouge military cemetery, not far from Vimy, France. Which means the soldier in the tomb in Ottawa very likely fought and died in the famous Canadian attack on Vimy Ridge in 1917.

Thursday October 23, 2014Two fallen soldiers lying side-by-side at the National War Memorial – one from a heralded battle in history, one from our time, taking his last breaths beside the other.

Nathan Cirillo’s death is a tragedy. But Cpl. Cirillo now speaks to Canadians in a way the Unknown Soldier can’t – by allowing those of us with little or no connection to war to know, if only fleetingly, what the killing of a Canadian soldier feels like; how it sucked the air from our very lungs, upon hearing the awful news.

This year the crowds at cenotaphs across the country will surely be larger. The ceremonies will be more poignant. And our understanding of loss – and the need for memory – will be more real. (Source: The Globe & Mail)

 

LETTER to the EDITOR

Hamilton Spectator, Wednesday November 12, 2014

Thanks to The Spectator for posting and to cartoonist Graeme MacKay for drawing the poignant picture in Tuesday’s paper. We will forever remember the sacrifice of Hamilton’s own Corporal Nathan Cirillo on that infamous day in Ottawa.

This picture will serve as a sad (but also proud) reminder for his family to always treasure. And also act as a reminder to all Canadians that we lost our innocence on that day. Remember also all our service men and woman who place themselves in harm’s way to keep us and the rest of the world a safer place to live in.

“Lest we forget,” not only on the 11th of November at the 11th hour, but every day.

David Porter, Burlington

 

SOCIAL MEDIA

Post by Yahoo Canada News.

Post by The Hamilton Spectator.

 

November 11, 2007

Occasionally I get my cartoons to run in the Toronto Star, which naturally increases the exposure of my work quite significantly. Here’s some analysis of the above cartoon from a snotty* 26 year old Toronto based blogger who describes herself this way: “Remember that weird kid in school who never talked? This is what’s going through her head…”

I’m trying to figure out if I’m reading today’s Toronto Star editorial cartoon right. (Yes, that’s the Hamilton Spectator cartoonist – that’s what the Star printed today.)

I’m seeing in that cartoon the passing the torch symbolism from In Flanders Fields, but it seems to be endorsing that passing of the torch. The characters might be smiling, and at any rate they certainly don’t look particularly grim about it. Because they’re all soldiers and only soldiers, and because they’re all labelled as wars, it really looks to me like the poppy is symbolizing warfare itself. But then he passes it on to a child? With what looks like a smile on his face? Without hesitating or questioning why he’s doing so? So they’re essentially declaring warfare inevitable without questioning that declaration, or even bothering to look grim while they do it? I don’t think that’s what my great-grandfathers had in mind when they were sitting in muddy shitty rat-infested holes shooting at each other.*

The text to the right doesn’t give a clear interpretation (I think it’s a newspaper article, not the artist’s own commentary), but it certainly doesn’t do anything to make me think my interpretation is wrong.

(On a purely artistic note, the transition from sepia to b&w to colour is particularly good.)

Well, at least I’m glad the sepia to b&w to colour effect was easy to figure out.

* I call her snotty based on a previous posts where she exposes some typically ignorant Toronto-is-the-centre-of-the-universe comments, such as: I’ve decided the answer to “Why don’t you just buy a small house in Hamilton?” (or some other place with cheap housing and a huge-ass commute) is going to be “For the same reason you aren’t buying a dairy farm in Kazakhstan.”

FEEDBACK

Actually, what happened was I used to live in a house in Hamilton, then came to realize that I’m far happier in an apartment and I’m far happier with a negligible commute. But a few very loud people in my life keep asking me why I don’t buy a house in Hamilton instead, and I’ve been trying for years to figure out a way to get them to understand that it would just be extra work and inconvenience without making me any happier. The Kazakhstan analogy is my latest attempt.

My regular readers (all five of them) already know this whole story so I didn’t bother to recap. It never occurred to me that random passers-by would care.

But anyway, since we’re now cross-linked and you’ve gone to all the trouble of making a post just for this cartoon, I don’t suppose I could prevail upon you to explain it? Those were serious questions – I’m afraid I just don’t see the thesis. Why the child? Why the smiles?

impudent strumpet
November 14, 2007
Hello Impudent Strumpet,

(I can’t post on your blog — for some reason it crashes my machine.)

Through my web statistics I get a rundown of any site that uses my cartoons or link backs, so naturally, I was interested in your comments whether you were just blogging to yourself, 5 others, or 500,000 others.

I don’t know what’s so confusing about the cartoon. But if you’re stuck on the notion that Remembrance day is just about depression, death and war then perhaps I can see where you’re coming from.

My interpretation of what this day is all about, based on my own experience of attending countless Remembrance day ceremonies as a kid and now as an adult, is the notion of “Lest we Forget” or “we remember”, along with the assurance that that will continue as it seems to have in the past.

The cartoon illustrates the passing on of remembrance from one Canadian war generation to next from WWI to the current conflict in Afghanistan. The child is there to represent the next generation with the assurance that remembrance of wars past and the veterans who fought for Canada continue to be honoured in the future. The smiles on all in the cartoon symbolize the faith that remembrance will go on.

I really don’t know what you’re connections to Hamilton were or are, but I guess any Hamiltonian’s knee jerk reaction to anything uttered by a Torontionian against this city is going to be some kind of slur. I sensed that in your one comment.

– Graeme MacKay