Ontario

Thursday January 12, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday January 12, 2023

Provincial law threatens to strip development protection from Hamilton wetlands

Nearly three-quarters of Hamilton’s most significant wetlands are at risk of losing provincial protection from development under new legislation that has spurred ongoing protests across the city and Ontario.

December 17, 2022

Last November, Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government passed a new law designed to speed up home building amid Ontario’s housing crisis. The omnibus bill proposed — among other contentious changes — an overhaul of how “provincially significant” wetlands are evaluated.

Development is prohibited on a wetland that is deemed provincially significant.

Right now, that protected status applies to the “vast majority” of local wetlands — marshy areas covering 8,138 acres — in the watershed overseen by the Hamilton Conservation Authority, said deputy chief administrative officer Scott Peck.

But the proposed changes suggest nearly 75 per cent of Hamilton’s provincially significant wetlands could be re-evaluated — and potentially lose default development protection. “Certainly in our minds, it would result in a reduction,” said Peck, who outlined the agency’s concerns in a letter to the province.

November 13, 2020

Public criticism of the proposal has come from many conservation authorities, advocacy groups and the auditor general, Bonnie Lysyk, who has noted the evaluation changes would give less weight to habitat for at-risk species.

In November, The Spectator reported the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority warned “it is highly likely that there will no longer be any wetlands left” within that watershed, which includes part of Glanbrook and Stoney Creek.

The provincial Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, however, said in an email the proposed changes should have a “net positive impact” on wetlands by removing “duplicative requirements” and streamlining evaluations. It also noted the government is providing $30 million to “create and restore” wetlands across Ontario.

Wetlands are considered important for flood control, groundwater recharge and filtration of pollutants. They’re also essential habitat for plants and animals, including many at-risk species. (The Hamilton Spectator) 

 

Graeme Gallery 2022 – Ontario

Wednesday December 28, 2022. My publisher is showcasing 4 pages of my cartoons from the past year, 2022. Here they all are, plus a few extras. Click on any of the cartoons to link back to the original dates they were posted:

February 16, 2022
March 10, 2022
April 7, 2022
April 16, 2022
April 27, 2022
May 12, 2022
May 21, 2022
June 1, 2022
June 9, 2022
August 3, 2022
October 27, 2022
November 9, 2022
December 1, 2022

Last Year 2021 | CanadaGG22 | The WorldGG22 | 25th Anniversary

Saturday December 24, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday December 24, 2022

Angry about Doug Ford or inflation? You’re not alone, ‘rage index’ poll finds

Series: Young Doug Ford

Inflation is fuelling anger among Canadians even though gasoline prices have dropped and most are not worried about their personal finances, a new poll suggests.

Pollara Strategic Insights’ monthly “rage index” survey found people were even more angry about rising prices than they were during the summer.

“People are not in a good mood as the year comes to a close,” Dan Arnold, chief strategy officer at Pollara, said in an interview.

“They’re more upset now about inflation (than in previous rage index polls) and it could be because these things build over time,” said Arnold, noting prices at the gas pumps have actually plunged in recent months.

“It could also be that more people are going out to restaurants and bars for holiday parties and are buying gifts so maybe they are feeling the pinch more than before — that’s probably driving it,” he said.

The firm surveyed 3,834 people across the country from Dec. 8 until last Thursday.

It is an online panel poll, but for comparison purposes, a random sample of this size would have a margin of error of plus or minus 1.6 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The survey found 60 per cent have negative feelings about the economy — with 10 per cent happy and about 31 per cent neutral — but when it came to personal finances, responses were less pessimistic.

Here in Ontario, those surveyed expressed anger toward Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives for opening up the Greenbelt of environmentally sensitive land to housing development.

Some 62 per cent said they were angry about the surprise move — which allows 7,400 acres to be developed in exchange for all 9,400 acres of farm fields and wetlands elsewhere — while just eight per cent were happy and 30 per cent neutral.

December 10, 2022

“The Greenbelt move is damaging for him; his negatives appear to be on the rise,” Arnold said of Ford, whose party was re-elected June 2 with an expanded majority.

“One-third of Tory voters (33 per cent) are angry about it,” he said, adding only 19 per cent of PC voters approved.

Among self-identified New Democrats, 90 per cent disapproved of building on the Greenbelt, while 69 per cent of Liberal voters panned the scheme.

June 16, 2021

Ford was also criticized for his abandoned plan to use the Constitution’s “notwithstanding clause” to impose a contract on unionized education workers earlier this fall.

The poll suggests that invocation was a provocation with 61 per cent angry about it and 15 per cent happy and 25 per cent neutral.

“There was a lot of anger over this,” said Arnold, pointing out that 26 per cent of Tories were angry, although 37 per cent were happy.

Three-quarters of NDP voters — 76 per cent — were angry with the overriding of workers’ Charter rights with only one per cent happy; 72 per cent of Liberals were angry and eight per cent were happy. (The Toronto Star) 

From sketch to finish, in 30 seconds, see the current way Graeme completes an editorial cartoon using an iPencil, the Procreate app, and a couple of cheats on an iPad Pro … These sped up clips are posted to encourage others to be creative, to take advantage of the technology many of us already have and to use it to produce satire. Comfort the afflicted. Afflict the comforted.

This clip shows the concept to sketch process. An uncoloured rough will be sent to an editor for approval. It shows the subject matter, the characters and setting, whatever text is in mind – in other words the general gist of what will be served up to readers the next morning. When accepted, you’ll note the sketch fades to a light grey and will serve as a guide on a new layer where lines will be refined and details added:

 

The second part involves colouring, patterning, shading and highlighting to create a three dimensional effect. This is when the cartoon takes on life: 

 

There are many many bells and whistles through the Procreate app that remain elusive to me but can potentially add more effects. It’s a never ending journey to discover new capabilities to look forward to in the coming years of cartooning.

Saturday December 17, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday December 17, 2022

Why is COP15 important?

The definition of “biodiversity” is: “The variety of life in the world or in a particular habitat or ecosystem.” Biodiversity encompasses all aspects of life — genes, species and ecosystems — and it is currently in imminent danger. That means we are too.

December 10, 2022

The COP15 UN biodiversity conference runs from Dec. 7 to 19 in Montreal with 196 counties trying to agree on a plan to stop biodiversity loss and help restore nature because our fate as the human race is inextricably linked to the rest of nature. The plan is to protect at least 30 per cent of our lands and oceans by 2030 and the biodiversity that we depend on to survive.

Elizabeth Mrema, UN biodiversity head, has described the conference as “calling for ambitious outcomes.”

“Clearly the world is crying out for change, watching our governments seek to heal our relationships with nature,” she says.

The 2022 WWF Living Planet Report warned that global wildlife populations declined by 70 per cent from 1970 to 2022. This accelerating loss of nature has already impacted human well-being and economies. Healthy ecosystems also play indispensable roles in tackling climate change, and the loss of biodiversity weakens our resilience to that change. We are stripping our planet so aggressively and unsustainably that the resources we depend on will soon be extinct.

The 2022 Global Biodiversity Framework’s four goals focus on conservation, sustainable use of biodiversity, fair benefit-sharing, and “resource mobilization” (more funding). The targets cover expanding protected areas (like the Greenbelt that Premier Ford will destroy with his outdated Bill 23 legislation), reducing pollution to ensure food production is healthy and sustainable and phasing out billions of dollars of public subsidies that harm nature. That’s why Bill 23 is a direct contradiction to COP15 and needs to be repealed.

November 23, 2022

Bill 23 will harm the Greenbelt, create more biodiversity loss, increase urban sprawl and emissions that will also affect Peterborough. It will also pollute prime agricultural land that was protected for growing local food and poison the soil and crops that grows there.

So, when Dave Smith says that Bill 23 will not affect Peterborough, he is wrong because this legislation will harm our environment and human health by allowing municipalities to move away from environmental protection and build big carbon footprint housing developments on protected land near protected waterways, wetlands and forests.

It’s hard work to balance the environment with the economy. That’s why we need politicians and governments who can do both because they are both connected to each other. By passing Bill 23, the Ford government has shown it doesn’t know how to make this connection work for the common good. It’s a fine balance, but a balance crucial to the health and survival of our biodiverse human race. (The Peterborough Examiner) 

From sketch to finish, see the current way Graeme completes an editorial cartoon using an iPencil, the Procreate app, and a couple of cheats on an iPad Pro … These sped up clips are posted to encourage others to be creative, to take advantage of the technology many of us already have and to use it to produce satire. Comfort the afflicted. Afflict the comforted.

 

Wednesday December 14, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday December 14, 2022

By-elections don’t matter, except when they do

August 1, 2013

Do by-elections, which usually have notoriously low turnout, matter?

We get told general campaigns do, all the time. But what about by-elections? Should we care — and should we care that no one seems to, you know, care about them?

That legendary political muse, Dan Quayle, had the best take on it all. Said the former U.S. vice-president: “A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls.”

Well, yes. Hard to quibble with that one. Good insight, Dan.

Fewer folks went to the polls in this weeks by-election in Mississauga Lakeshore — only around 30%. But, before some political scientist starts writing wordy op-eds about the need for compulsory voting, remember: by-elections are beloved by hacks and flaks, but rarely ever regular folks. And they’re the bosses.

June 9, 2022

For instance: Toronto Centre had a byelection in October 2020. More than 80,000 people were entitled to vote. Slightly over 16,000 did. York Centre had a byelection in the same month, with about the same result: more than 70,000 were eligible to cast a ballot. Only 11,000 bothered. Democracy survived.

So, before academia gets its tenured knickers in a knot, remember: by-elections don’t ever attract as much attention ruin as general elections do. That’s normal. And it’s unlikely to change.

Mississauga-Lakeshore therefore had the standard byelection turnout, but a notable result. The result tells us a few things, participation rate notwithstanding. Here they are.

December 18, 2013

One, the Conservative Party got clobbered. The Liberal candidate — a former Kathleen Wynne government minister, and therefore not without blemish — basically massacred his Tory opponent, by thousands of votes. He took 51% to the Conservative’s 37%.

That’s notable, as noted, because that’s a worse showing than what the much-derided Erin O’Toole got when he was running things. In that race, O’Toole’s chosen candidate did better than Pierre Poilievre’s.

Wasn’t Poilievre supposed to sweep the ‘burbs and all that? Wasn’t he supposed to be the thing that cured all that ailed Team Tory?

September 13, 2022

Well, Pierre has represented an Ottawa suburb for years, winning in seven elections. But he didn’t in Mississauga-Lakeshore. How come?

His spinners, all coincidentally anonymous, insist it was because the aforementioned riding is all-Liberal, all the time.

Well, no. That’s false. Sure, Liberal Svend Spengemann represented the riding in the Trudeau era — but before that, Mississauga-Lakeshore was federal Conservative territory for a number of years.

And, oh yes, this: provincially, the riding is still Conservative territory. Just a few months ago, in June, a provincial Conservative candidate won there — by many thousands of votes. And four years before that, same result: the Tories won it, by a lot.

So, that’s all you need to know about the excuse that Mississauga-Lakeshore is a Liberal fortress and Conservatives will never win there: it’s an excuse. It’s bollocks, in fact.

June 24, 2022

What about Team Poilievre’s other excuse — duly reprinted, without attribution in the pages of the Toronto Star, because it serves both their interests — that it’s all Doug Ford’s fault? You know, that the Ontario Premier sank his federal cousins in the by-election because he’s unpopular? Guilt by association and all that.

Except, that one doesn’t wash either. When he’s been running things, in good times and bad, Ford has taken that riding handily. Twice.

Did Ford’s misadventure with the notwithstanding clause, and the general strike it would have caused, hurt Poilievre’s chances?

Again, no. Ford ultimately never used the notwithstanding clause to win a fight with an education union — and there was no general strike, either. And, besides: both those things were controversies many weeks before the by-election even got underway.

So, what was it? Who is to blame for the first real-world test of Pierre Poilievre’s leadership since he became leader?

November 5, 2022

Well, that would be what Poilievre and his caucus see in the bathroom mirror every morning: themselves. The convoy crap, the crypto-currency craziness, the whackadoodle WEF weirdos. All of that, and more, has persuaded many Canadians that, under Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative Party of Canada has abandoned the political center. And is, you know, chasing the People’s Party vote.

Which, by the by, got 286 votes in Mississauga-Lakeshore.

About which, our muse Dan Quayle might say: “Not winning enough of the popular vote? It means you are not popular.” (Warren Kinsella, Toronto Sun)