Minority – mackaycartoons

Saturday October 3, 2015

October 2, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday October 3, 2015

Justin Trudeau and Tom Mulcair battle each other as Stephen Harper pulls ahead

In this election campaign, Justin Trudeau and Tom Mulcair have nothing kind to say about each other.

New Democratic Party leader Mulcair dismisses Trudeau as a callow youth. Echoing Conservative attack ads, his New Democrats say the 43-year-old Liberal leader just isn’t ready to become prime minister.

From time to time, and again echoing the Conservatives, Mulcair dismissively refers to his Liberal rival as “Justin.”

Trudeau is no less harsh. He accuses Mulcair of duplicity — of saying one thing in French and another in English. He says the NDP, by pandering to Quebec separatists, threatens national unity.

He dredges up old charges that Mulcair, a former Quebec Liberal cabinet minister, once contemplated the idea of exporting fresh water in bulk.

All of this occurs at a time when Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are quietly edging up in the polls.

For the Liberals and New Democrats, the back and forth attacks make sense. Each hopes to present itself as the unique alternative to the governing Conservatives.

That in turn, they calculate, requires them to tear each other down.

But to a wide array of Liberal and NDP voters, the two opposition parties appear to be engaging in a game of mutually assured destruction.

These so-called progressive voters desperately want Harper gone. And they are horrified by the real possibility that this war to the death between Liberals and New Democrats will split the anti-Harper vote, thus allowing the Conservatives to win power again.

Recent polls have underscored those fears.

On Tuesday, Forum Research released a poll putting the Conservatives in first place among decided voters, with 34 per cent support. The NDP and the Liberals were significantly behind at 28 and 27 per cent respectively.

That follows an earlier Ekos poll that shows the Conservatives leading with 35 per cent support.

In fact, the possibility of a Conservative win has never been out of the question. Harper’s claim to be a good economic manager has always had resonance. (Continued: Toronto Star)

The Telegram, St. John’s, Newfoundland

Thursday April 16, 2015

April 15, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday April 16, 2015

Trudeau might be open to forming coalition with NDP, but not with Mulcair as leader

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau says he would “maybe” be more open to the idea of forming a coalition with the NDP if Tom Mulcair was not running the party.

Asked on Tuesday whether having someone other than Mulcair as leader would change the dynamic in terms of a coalition between the two parties, Trudeau replied: “I don’t know…. Honestly, I don’t want to get into hypotheses. Maybe, but maybe not.

“There are no problems in terms of personality,” he told The Canadian Press in an interview from Oakville, Ont. “Mr. Mulcair is a veteran politician who has proven himself.

“His style is anchored in the old way of practising politics. Politics needs to be about rallying. And we have very different perspectives on how politics should be practised.”

Some recent polls have suggested the possibility of a minority government in Ottawa after this fall’s election.

Mulcair reiterated his openness last month to a possible coalition with the Liberals if it is necessary to topple Stephen Harper’s Conservatives.

The Opposition leader accused Trudeau at the time of putting personal interests ahead of those of Canadians because the Liberal leader had repeatedly expressed his lack of interest in discussing coalitions.

“Whenever we have opened that door, Justin Trudeau slams it shut,” Mulcair said. “My first priority is to get rid of Stephen Harper. The first priority of Justin Trudeau is Justin Trudeau.” (Source: CBC News)

Wednesday May 22, 2013

May 22, 2013 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday May 22, 2013

NDP will support Ontario Liberal budget

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says the party will support the ruling Liberals’ budget, avoiding a spring election.

Horwath made the comment Tuesday while speaking at a news conference at Queen’s Park. She said although the NDP did not get everything it wanted, it was enough to offer its support to the Liberal Party.

“We are prepared to support this budget within a process that ensures the financial accountability office legislation is passed into law early this fall,” Horwath said. “We will pass this budget based on the commitments this government has made and we will remain vigilant to ensure their promises are kept.”
On Friday, Premier Kathleen Wynne agreed to the NDP’s call for an independent financial accountability officer and new accountability measures in the health-care system.

Earlier this month, Horwath demanded that a financial accountability office be created to keep tabs on government spending. She has continually referred to Ornge, eHealth Ontario and the two cancelled gas plants as the type of scandals that can be avoided with an accountability office.

“People are upset that their hard-earned dollars have been wasted in the past by the Liberals,” said Horwath during a May 8 news conference.

Wynne also agreed to lowering auto insurance premiums, but did not agree to cancel plans for new high occupancy toll lanes or what the NDP has dubbed “Lexus lanes.” The premier also stopped short of the New Democrats’ demand to give the ombudsman oversight of hospitals. (Source: CBC News)

Thursday, May 16, 2013

May 16, 2013 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday, May 16, 2013

Examining the B.C. election outcome

No New Democrat anywhere in the country can afford to brush off Tuesday’s upset defeat in British Columbia. That starts with those who toil at Queen’s Park and on Parliament Hill.

Ontario’s Andrea Horwath and Thomas Mulcair really needed British Columbians to lead by example by handing the reins of their province to the NDP.

B.C. leader Adrian Dix’s campaign was supposed to provide the template for Howarth and Mulcair’s own bids for government. Once in power, it was hoped that he would showcase the NDP’s ability to manage a major provincial economy.

Like his Ontario and federal counterparts, Dix had spent the pre-writ period smoothing the edges of his party and it seemed that it would pay off.

Few NDP leaders have ever entered an election campaign with as big a lead as Dix had when the B.C. writ was dropped last month. His strategy borrowed heavily from Jack Layton’s 2011 recipe.

As an aside, it makes matters worse for the New Democrats that the masterminds in charge of the B.C. campaign were the same people who had earned bragging rights by bringing the party to the major role of official opposition in the House of Commons in the last federal election.

Instead of mapping out a safe path to power for 21st-century New-Democrats, Layton’s former chief-strategist Brian Topp and his acolytes ended up highlighting the daunting roadblocks that stand in their way.

Like Layton in 2011, Dix spent the campaign on the high road. There he was exposed to relentless Liberal attacks on the economic competence of his party. (Source: The Record)
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Thursday September 6, 2012

September 6, 2012 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Thursday September 6, 2012

NDP hope to block Liberals from getting majority

Premier Dalton McGuinty’s bid to win the majority government he was denied last October will be decided by the voters of Kitchener-Waterloo in one of two provincial byelections Thursday that could dramatically alter Ontario’s political landscape.

“I don’t know of a parallel situation in Ontario’s history…where one byelection could make the difference between a majority and a minority government,” said Barry Kay, a political-science professor at Wilfrid Laurier University.

The governing Liberals are expected to easily win the other byelection in Vaughan, retaining the seat vacated by Greg Sorbara, the veteran cabinet minister and strategist who quit to devote more time to his other job as chair of the party’s re-election campaign.

After falling just one seat short of a majority in the Oct. 6 general election, McGuinty engineered the Kitchener-Waterloo byelection by convincing veteran Progressive Conservative Elizabeth Witmer to give up the seat she’d held for 22 years to take on a $188,000-a-year job as chair of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.

“It’s always a little bit easier when you have a majority to act on a mandate, whether you’re trying to introduce a budget or move ahead with a ‘Putting Students First’ act,” McGuinty said this week.

Voters in Kitchener-Waterloo appear to have been turned off by McGuinty’s attempts to get a majority, said Kay.

“I thought that would play better than it has,” he said. “I think they are disinclined to give the party a majority. It’s not just a neutral factor. I think it’s a negative factor.” (Source: CTV News)