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Thursday March 24, 2022

March 24, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 24, 2022

Patrick Brown and Jean Charest have a deal that could make one of them the next Conservative leader

November 28, 2017

Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown — who is expected to announce his bid Sunday — and former Quebec premier Jean Charest — who launches his candidacy Thursday — have forged a pact, sources familiar with the strategy tell the Star. Opinion by althiaraj

Brampton’s mayor and the former Quebec premier have forged a pact in the federal Conservative leadership race, sources say.

Brown and Charest — who launches his candidacy Thursday — have forged a pact, sources familiar with the strategy tell the Star. Could it lead the party to elect a more moderate leader?The men have been friends for more than 25 years. Brown credits his involvement with the Conservatives to Charest, whom he met as a teenager while visiting his aunt, Charest’s next-door neighbour in North Hatley, Que.

The two have spoken at length about the leadership race. I’m told to expect neither will say a bad word about the other — a non-aggression pact, if you will — and that they will “publicly” help one another.Their goals are similarly aligned: a united but more inclusive party that represents the country. Each anticipates the other’s supporters will mark him as their second choice on the party’s ranked ballots, and they may make that expectation clear when members start receiving their ballots this summer.

Thursday February 3, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday February 3, 2022

Did the truckers get Erin O’Toole fired?

August 25, 2020

Only days ago, O’Toole could have expected that he was safe until a scheduled leadership review in mid-2023. But in a surprise Wednesday morning caucus vote, he was turfed out by a margin of 73 to 45. Just like another former Tory leader, Andrew Scheer, he’s going to stick around as an MP.

O’Toole’s ouster marks the first time since the Second World War that Tories have elected two consecutive party leaders who have failed to become prime minister. The only comparable episode came in the waning days of the Progressive Conservative party, when members chewed through three leaders until eventually disbanding to merge with the Canadian Alliance. Conservatives have traditionally been more patient with their leaders; Progressive Conservative Leader Robert Stanfield was notably allowed to lose three elections in a row (1968, 1972 and 1974) without any kind of caucus revolt.

Wednesday September 8, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday September 8, 2021

Canada’s Trudeau struggles, two weeks before election

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – who has slipped in the polls and faced angry protesters on the campaign trail, with one even throwing stones at him – is struggling with less than two weeks to go before snap elections. When he called the September 20 elections a few weeks ago, the 49-year-old Liberal Party leader was in a far better position.

September 1, 2021

At that point, Trudeau was ahead of Conservative leader Erin O’Toole in opinion surveys and hoped to ride his handling of the coronavirus pandemic to a third term. But since that August 15 announcement, his campaign has stagnated and his hopes of returning at the head of a majority government seem difficult to fulfil. On Monday, Trudeau suffered a fresh indignity – as he was leaving an event in London, a city southwest of Toronto in Ontario province, he faced a crowd of protesters angry over proposed mandatory coronavirus vaccines and other crisis measures.

Someone threw what appeared to be a handful of gravel at him, television footage showed. No one was injured. 

“Yes, I felt some of that gravel,” Trudeau confirmed yesterday. 

July 9, 2021

Some protesters “were practically foaming at the mouth, they were so mad at me,” he said, adding: “It is absolutely unacceptable that people (would) be throwing things and endangering others at a political rally.” The incident – which comes during a crucial campaign week with two scheduled debates that could tip the election scales – drew condemnation from Trudeau’s rivals, O’Toole and New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh.

“Political violence is never justified,” O’Toole tweeted late Monday, while Singh said: “It is not acceptable to throw objects at anyone. Ever. No matter how angry you are. And, it’s never ok to try to intimidate people who don’t agree with you – or the media.” Trudeau is now in a statistical dead heat with O’Toole, with 34% support for the Liberals and 32% for the Tories, according to a Nanos survey released Tuesday – a difference that is within the poll’s margin of error. 

The prime minister has faced off on several recent occasions with what he described as “anti-vaxxer mobs” and “a small fringe element in this country that is angry, that doesn’t believe in science.” 

Protesters have shouted racial and misogynist slurs at his entourage. Demonstrations also targeted hospitals across Canada that are struggling with a sudden spike in Covid cases, and candidate lawn signs have been defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti.

In late August, Trudeau was forced to cancel an event over security concerns. 

So far, Trudeau has pledged not to allow so-called “fringe” groups “to dictate how this country gets through this pandemic.”

August 17, 2021

And Felix Mathieu, a politics professor at the University of Winnipeg, said the angry protests and Trudeau’s pushback might actually benefit the Liberals, who stumbled in the early days of the campaign. Although O’Toole has promoted the use of vaccines, “his party remains widely associated with those who vehemently oppose vaccines and Covid containment measures,” Mathieu told AFP.

That allows Trudeau to present himself as a defender of public safety, especially as he steps up criticisms of the Tories’ rejection of mandatory vaccines, Mathieu explained. 

More than 83 percent of those Canadians eligible to get a coronavirus vaccine (12 years or older) have received one dose and 76% are fully vaccinated, according to government data.

October 16, 2019

The Liberal plank proposes mandatory jabs for public servants and travellers on trains, planes and buses. It also earmarks C$1bn (US$800mn) to stitch together a patchwork of provincial vaccine passports.

Pollster and former political strategist Tim Powers said the violent protests are “concerning.” “The pandemic has intensified people’s manner of anger and the way they express anger,” Powers told AFP. “There are a lot of people who are very frayed and beaten down by the pandemic, and campaign events provide an opportunity for some people to showcase their discontent,” he said, adding a warning: “Who knows what can happen in these sorts of circumstances.”

But Powers said he agrees that the protests are “providing the Liberals with a useful political prop,” allowing Trudeau to be seen fighting against anti-vaccine groups who might threaten a quick post-pandemic return to normalcy – just as Canadians are heading back to classes and offices. (Gulf Times)

Other editions from the “Boy Who Cried…” Series…
     

Tuesday March 23, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday March 23, 2021

O’Toole’s pitch to get Conservatives to embrace ‘change’ may be off to a shaky start

Erin O’Toole told Conservatives this weekend that their party must change — because if it doesn’t, he said, it won’t be able to win the votes necessary to defeat Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in the next election.

May 2, 2019

And if the Liberals do win, he added, they’ll be able to implement their own changes — changes that O’Toole cast as frightening and potentially ruinous.

But O’Toole didn’t tell Conservatives exactly how they need to change. And then delegates delivered a potentially damaging vote on climate change policy that suggests his party base might not be ready to move very far.

O’Toole is on solid ground when he says the Conservative Party needs to try something different. His own polling numbers make that obvious. But so did the last federal election.

In 2019, Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives ran on an implicit promise to return to the policy agenda of Stephen Harper’s government. Scheer promised to smile more than his predecessor did but stopped short of offering a new approach — particularly on climate change.

June 23, 2020

The Conservatives won 34 per cent of the popular vote in that election. That was two points better than the party’s performance under Harper in 2015, but its national result in 2019 was inflated by the massive Conservative turnout in Alberta and Saskatchewan. In Ontario and Quebec — where 199 of the country’s 338 ridings are located — the Conservatives actually lost ground under Scheer.

A year and a half later, O’Toole’s Conservatives are sitting at 30 per cent nationally. And O’Toole’s personal approval rating might be even more of a problem.

August 25, 2020

According to survey results released by Abacus Data last week, 23 per cent of Canadians are committed to voting Conservative in the next election and another 23 per cent would consider voting Conservative.

But as the Abacus numbers point out, the differences between those two groups are substantial. Compared to those who have decided already to vote for O’Toole’s party, those potential Conservative voters are younger, more diverse, much more concerned about climate change and much less angry about Justin Trudeau.

September 1, 2020

O’Toole said his party must have a “serious” and “comprehensive” plan for climate change. But he doubled down on his criticism of the current federal carbon price and fell back on a framing that casts “the environment” as a discrete issue — as opposed to a broader view that sees climate policy as intertwined with almost all other areas of public policy.

“As important as climate change is, getting our economy back on track is more important,” he said.

In his prepared remarks, he said he wanted to defeat the “lie” that the Conservative Party is a party of “climate change deniers.” On Friday night and then again during a question-and-answer session with party members on Saturday afternoon, O’Toole declared that the “debate” over climate change is over.

But in between those two pronouncements came the news that Conservative delegates had rejected a resolution that would have declared that “climate change is real” and “the Conservative party is willing to act” — while committing the party to targeting high emitters and supporting innovation.

The headlines generated by that vote might be a serious setback to O’Toole’s goal of rebranding his party. Liberals will no doubt be happy to remind him of that vote at every opportunity in the weeks and months ahead. (CBC)

Sketch of being pulled back from the big kids’ pool

 

Friday February 7, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday February 7, 2020

Is Donald Trump America’s new normal?

November 16, 2019

The political fates are fickle. This was supposed to be Donald Trump’s worst week as America’s president, but it’s turned into his best.

This was supposed to be the week his impeachment trial exposed him as unfit to hold the highest office in the land, the week his abysmal record in the Oval office came back to haunt him and the week his Democratic opponents proved they’re ready to take him on in November’s presidential election.

None of it happened. The Democrats, who invested so much political capital into impeaching Trump, need to come up with Plan B. Their Plan A was a flop and the Democrats are stumbling just when they should be hitting their stride.

If you think Trump’s presidency has been an unmitigated disaster for the planet — and we know the vast majority of Canadians do — you should be worried by all this. Very worried.

October 10, 2019

Instead of signalling the death of his erratic presidency, Trump’s impeachment trial breathed new life into it. There was clear proof he pressured a foreign country — Ukraine — to discredit one of his potential political rivals — Joe Biden. We know he called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last July. We know Trump was withholding $391 million (U.S.) in military aid to Ukraine, too.

Despite the damning evidence against him, it was always going to be an uphill struggle to convince two-thirds of the Senate, which is dominated by Trump’s own Republicans, to convict him. Trump’s acquittal was predicted. But because the Republicans blocked the testimony of key witnesses, the trial was a sham that discredited a once noble house of Congress.

As for the great American public, it largely tuned out from the televised tedium. No wonder Trump gloated. The latest Gallup poll gives him a 49 per cent approval rating from Americans, his highest score since being elected. And on Tuesday, the day before his Senate acquittal, Trump had the opportunity to sing his own praises in his annual State of the Union address, claiming undeserved responsibility for what he calls the “Great American comeback.”

November 2, 2019

Clearly the prevailing winds are at Trump’s back. What’s more troubling is they’re blowing in the faces of the Democrats. They were thoroughly embarrassed by the technical glitches that delayed the results from their Iowa caucuses Monday.

Far more seriously, the party is badly split, uncertain whether its path to victory runs through the moderate centre or the progressive left of the U.S. political spectrum. Nor would we recommend betting your house on an election win for any of the Democrats’ current crop of candidates, including the self-proclaimed democratic socialist Bernie Sanders or the leaden, former vice-president Biden.

As we look at an America and cherished American institutions that increasingly seem unrecognizable, we wonder if three years of Trump have succeeded in deadening the nation’s senses to the divisions and disruptions he has sewn at home and around the world. If you live with a clown long enough, maybe you’re comfortable in a circus.

Of course, we’re commenting partly on the events of one week. The election remains nine months away and Trump’s presidency could still end in a train-wreck. But Trump became president in 2016 with less than half of the popular vote and could do so again.

It will be up to American voters to rid their country and the world of this president. It will be up to the Democrats to choose a candidate who can convince the country to do this. Today, sadly, neither of these things is at all certain. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial)