mountain – mackaycartoons

Saturday May 30, 2020

June 6, 2020 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday May 30, 2020

SoBi decision a symptom of a deeper problem

If the SoBi bike share debate that has polarized Hamilton city council, and many citizens as well, was just about money, it would be a one-sided affair.

May 23, 2020

Uber violates its contract and pulls out. Annual operating cost is about $700,000. City Hall is staring down a pandemic-driven deficit of about $60 million. It’s clear city council won’t support that. A compromise plan worth about $400,000 would have bought some time while the city looks for a new partner. Council delivers a tied vote, which technically amounts to a defeat for the compromise motion.

City council has killed the bikeshare program, at least for this season. Instead, it will pay $140,000 to store the 900 bikes. If that holds true, the gross savings for this season will be about $260,000.

This relatively trivial savings — the total annual operating costs amount to 0.02 of the city’s annual budget — is at least defensible, if this was all about money. That is, if this goes hand in hand with an ironclad decision to kill all discretionary spending until the municipal deficit is dealt with. But is it that?

Is council saying, for example, that under these circumstances not one red cent will go to supporting the 2026 Commonwealth Games bid? If so, they might want to make that public declaration so the organizing committee knows where it stands. The compromise proposal would have been financed from area rating budgets from downtown wards, so would not have impacted the general levy. Does this decision mean other projects that have area rating fund commitments — say the new Ancaster Arts Centre, for example — can expect their area rating funding to be withdrawn?

The answer to these and other related questions, is no, not necessarily. That’s because this decision isn’t just about money. It’s also about the suburban/rural-urban divide that has rendered this city council, on all too many occasions, dysfunctional and incompetent.

July 25, 2007

Among city councillors from suburban and rural wards, projects that directly benefit urban wards and citizens don’t get the same support as those that benefit suburban and rural ridings. And, to be fair, the reverse is probably also true. It’s a form of parochialism all too familiar to Hamilton political observers. And it doesn’t serve the city overall well.

In truth, especially at times like these, these people shouldn’t be called city councillors at all. They should be called ward councillors, because their own wards are really all they care about.

Don’t believe that? Consider this. City council agreed not that long ago to declare a climate emergency in Hamilton, in recognition of the climate crisis and its growing local impact. That’s a good, strong and progressive message.

But the very same councillors just voted to kill the bikeshare program, which by any measure was successful. Those 900-odd bikes served 26,000 active members, who took 350,000 trips last year. Those are trips that don’t pollute like cars and diesel buses do. They are trips that improved physical and mental health of the users. They are a feature of a pedestrian-friendly, environmentally conscious city, the kind that is more likely to attract young families and professionals.

This is what eight members of council — Merulla, Collins, Jackson, Pauls, Johnson, Ferguson, Partridge and Whitehead — killed for the sake of gross savings of around $260,000.

All may not be lost. Perhaps a new viable partner can be found to revive public bikeshare infrastructure. But that won’t solve what’s wrong with Hamilton city council. For that, we will have to wait until the next election in 2022. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial)

Letter to the Editor, The Hamilton Spectator, June 10, 2020

I’m very impressed with the sensitive, sensible, and informative political cartoons created by The Spec’s Graeme MacKay. His cartoons are one of the reasons why I continue to subscribe to the print edition. MacKay’s cartoons of the death of SoBi (May 30) and CAF’s report on Ontario’s nursing homes (May 28) were heart wrenching. We are fortunate to have him.

Catherine Marks, Dundas

Saturday January 25, 2020

February 3, 2020 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday January 25, 2020

Could Hamilton’s Lime Ridge arena rejection cost city nearly $1 billion?

When city council voted 11-3 last week to kill the idea of any further consideration of a 6,000-seat arena at Lime Ridge Mall, it leaned heavily on a staff report urging such a decision.

Not to worry, the report implied. Having a rink downtown is way better. Besides, it won’t affect Cadillac Fairview’s plans to spend $890 million redeveloping the Mountain property. Might delay it a bit but that’s it. So go ahead and vote against it. All is well.

Not so fast, the executive vice president of Cadillac Fairview says.

“I think the short answer to that is, yes, it is at risk,” Wayne Barwise says.

Not just short term. Completely. As in, potentially no 1,250-unit residential development, no hotel, no expanded office space, no new jobs. None of it. Because what would lure people there?

“People have not traditionally chosen to live at a shopping centre,” he says. “We’re trying to transform the shopping centre into more than a shopping centre so it’s a mixed use community. So you need other things. You need catalysts.”

This should be concerning to everyone in Hamilton.

For the better part of a decade, this town has turned itself into a pretzel over the LRT because of the billion dollars of someone else’s money it could bring into the community that would transform part of the city. Supporters — including many at city hall — say it’s essential. Politicians and bureaucrats have spent thousands of hours working to make sure that desperately needed cash infusion comes here.

Yet when a company says it wants to invest nearly an equal amount elsewhere in the city, there seems to be a whole lot less urgency.

This is troubling. Even more so when one of that company’s top executives argues the numbers the city is relying on to make its decision are “plain nonsense.” He says the real amount the proposal would cost the city wouldn’t be well over $100 million but closer to $27 million.

Without the arena — or something like it — nothing will happen at the site in the next three to five years, Barwise says. Doing it at any point will require “substantial positive market growth.” A sports and entertainment complex would lure people to the area and create that, he says.

Ironically, that’s pretty much exactly the city’s reasoning for wanting the entertainment district downtown.

“I think they made the wrong decision,” he says. “I think the decision lacks vision and I think it’s short sighted.”

Of course he’d say that, some will say. He’s got an interest in this. Which he does, of course. Even so, this seems rather too large a potential investment to be something we’d take for granted.

That LRT billion? City changing. This $890 million? We’ll get back to you. (Continued: Hamilton Spectator)

Wednesday October 19, 2016

October 18, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday October 19, 2016

Nearly two-thirds of Canadians approve of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government: Ipsos

One year since the Liberals won the federal election, two-thirds of Canadians approve of the job Justin Trudeau’s government has done, according to a new Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News.

“He’s very popular. If you look at leaders in the rest of the world, he’s got numbers that any of them would envy,” said Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs. “We’re finding 64 per cent of Canadians saying that they basically approve of his performance and the government’s performance.”

March 29, 2016

But although Trudeau is popular, his numbers aren’t that different from the last time Canada elected a new government at the federal level.

“People might say that Justin Trudeau is at an unprecedented level of public support, but we did the same poll with Stephen Harper in 2006 after one year of him being in power and he was at 62, so the difference is only two points, pretty much within the margin of error,” said Bricker.

“So I think when big change happens, after 10 years somebody’s in power, somebody new comes in and they deliver something different, people generally respond well to it. That’s what we saw in the first year of Harper and it’s what we’re seeing in the first year of Justin Trudeau.”

If Trudeau’s government follows the same kind of public opinion trajectory, they’re in for a slow, steady drop: by the 2015 election, the Conservative approval rating had fallen to 41 per cent. (Source: Global News)

Friday April 1, 2016

March 31, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday April 1, 2016

Downbound lanes of Sherman Access East closed

City crews expect to reopen the downbound lane of the Sherman Access east Thursday morning that has been closed most of today because of a rock slide.

Brian Hughes, manager of capital rehabilitation and technical operations with the City of Hamilton, said rocks began falling from the side of the escarpment late morning Wednesday onto the eastern portion of the downbound lane.

The lane was closed as crews removed the rocks and overnight tonight they are planning to put in place concrete barriers to keep any further falling rocks from making it onto the road.

No one was injured and no vehicles were damaged, he said. Most of the falling rock ended up in the ditch.

The section of escarpment had been scheduled for scaling – the removal of loose rocks – later this year, said Hughes. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Saturday February 13, 2016

February 12, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday February 13, 2016

Here are your Ward 7 byelection candidates

A crowded Ward 7 byelection race is officially underway and residents have no lack of would-be councillors to choose from.

Twenty-two candidates — the most in any one ward race since amalgamation — are vying to replace Scott Duvall, who vacated his city council seat after becoming the new NDP federal representative for Hamilton Mountain.

Nearly 40,000 ward residents are to cast votes on March 21 — or at advance polls slated for March 10 and 12.

The Spectator asked all candidates to provide information about themselves, their campaigns and a short pitch for why they deserve your vote. They all have a lot more to say — and it’s worth noting most are easily found on Twitter or Facebook, too. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Meanwhile, scientific detection of gravitational waves marks new era in astronomy (Source: CBC News)