pandering

Tuesday June 11, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday June 11, 2019

The politics of basketball

The country is roaring for the Raptors as they take on the Golden State Warriors in the NBA finals, and politicians are capitalizing on the buzz.

October 16, 2015

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh both attended previous playoff games, and former U.S. president Barack Obama also made a surprise appearance at a game in Toronto.

Former high-level staff members to two prime ministers say there’s all kinds of political and personal reasons for politicians to try to tap into the Raptors’ crowd.

“It’s young, it’s urban, it’s hip, it’s diverse. And so if you’re Justin Trudeau, you dig being around that because you think that’s on brand for you. If you’re Andrew Scheer, being around that demonstrates ‘see I’m not not those things,'” Scott Reid, director of communications to former prime minister Paul Martin, told The House.

But he also cautioned it’s not just about the politics.

“Let’s not lose sight of the possibility that people are fans and occasionally politicians are also people.”

Aside from potential fan-motivations, Dennis Matthews, who served as head of advertising for former prime minister Stephen Harper, said it’s never a bad thing to be connected to a success.

“Politicians like to be associated with things that are winning,” he said.

When asked whether they thought Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would be making an appearance at a finals game, they both thought it’s a possibility — though it would have to be calculated.

Both men said you don’t want a politician at a deciding game (lest a loss result in the notion they somehow cursed the game), and you don’t want them courtside (or seeming out of touch with Canadians).

The diversity of the team and Toronto has factored in to the political appearances at the games, Reid and Matthews agreed.

The team is situated in an election battleground, and the demographics represent votes to be snapped up.

“I’d be looking at that audience base and I’d be saying ‘hey I want these people to to vote for me,'” Matthews said,

Reid agreed, adding how he’d look at those votes for political strategy.

“How do I get those? Because if I do, I am bringing in new votes into the column and I’m bringing them for me.” (CBC) 

 

Tuesday February 26, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday February 26, 2019

PM waives attorney-client privilege in SNC-Lavalin affair

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has waived attorney-client privilege and cabinet confidence to allow Jody Wilson-Raybould to speak openly when she appears before the House Justice Committee as part of its study into the SNC-Lavalin affair.

February 15, 2019

The government made the directive in an Order in Council posted Monday evening. The order authorizes her, as well as “any person who directly participated in discussions with her,” to speak to the committee and ethics commissioner, about the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin.  

“We obviously take very seriously the right of everyone to share their perspectives in various ways,” Trudeau told reporters on his way to the Commons Monday, before first signalling that Wilson-Raybould would be able to “address relevant matters at the committee while ensuring that the two active court cases are not jeopardized.”

The order relates to any information or communications that have to do with Wilson-Raybould’s time as the attorney general and exercising her authority under the Director of Public Prosecutions Act, and only in regards to the two ongoing probes of the matter, and not a blanket permission for Wilson-Raybould to speak.

February 13, 2019

As well, the order states that Director of Public Prosecutions Kathleen Roussel is exempted from this waiving of privilege and any information or conversations between Wilson-Raybould and Roussel cannot be disclosed, “in order to uphold the integrity of any criminal or civil proceedings,” the prime minister’s office states in the Order in Council.

The prime minister has faced calls to waive solicitor-client privilege in the matter to allow Wilson-Raybould to speak publicly about allegations of political pressure being placed on her by members of the PMO in regards to an ongoing criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin.

Citing unnamed sources, The Globe and Mail reported on Feb. 7 that Trudeau’s office pressed Wilson-Raybould to drop a criminal prosecution against SNC-Lavalin when she was attorney general. It was alleged that the PMO wanted Wilson-Raybould to instruct federal prosecutors to change course and pursue a remediation agreement rather than criminal prosecution in the corruption and fraud case against the Quebec engineering and construction giant. CTV News has not independently verified the story.

Animated!

When she was attorney general, Wilson-Raybould had the ability to direct federal prosecutors to take a different route with the charges against SNC-Lavalin but she did not, despite several meetings and conversations on the matter before and after federal prosecutors decided to carry on with the criminal case in the fall.

In January, Wilson-Raybould was shuffled into the veterans affairs portfolio, and was replaced as attorney general and justice minister by David Lametti, a Quebec MP. Wilson-Raybould accepted her new position, but then resigned from cabinet days after the Globe story broke. So far, she’s maintained solicitor-client privilege as the reason she’s yet to speak out publicly about the allegations, though she’s signaled a desire to “speak my truth,” and reportedly told cabinet members when she met with them last week at her request, that the pressure was improper. (Source: CTV News) 

 

Tuesday February 13, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday February 13, 2018

Conservatives accuse Trudeau of ‘political interference’ for comments on Stanley acquittal

The federal Conservatives are accusing Justin Trudeau of “political interference” after the prime minister responded to the acquittal of a white farmer in the death of a young Indigenous man by saying the criminal justice system has to “do better.”

Trudeau made the comments after a jury in Battleford, Sask., Friday found Gerald Stanley not guilty  of second-degree murder in the 2016 death of 22-year-old Colten Boushie, a resident of the Red Pheasant First Nation.

“I’m not going to comment on the process that led to this point today, but I am going to say we have come to this point as a country far too many times,” Trudeau said in California, where he was wrapping up a four-day trip to the U.S. “I know Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians alike know that we have to do better.”

Trudeau’s comments appeared to reflect concerns expressed by hundreds of Indigenous people who took to different sites across Canada on Saturday to protest what they described as injustice and a lack of fairness within the court system.

Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and Indigenous Services Minister Jane Philpott, meanwhile, took to Twitter to express their support for Boushie’s family and assert the need for improvements.

“My thoughts are with the family of Colten Boushie tonight,” Wilson-Raybould wrote Friday. “I truly feel your pain and I hear all of your voices. As a country we can and must do better — I am committed to working every day to ensure justice for all Canadians.”

Many concerns have been raised about discrimination toward Indigenous People in the criminal justice system; retired Supreme Court judge Frank Iacobucci, for example, raised flags about a lack of Indigenous representation on juries in Ontario in 2013.

Iacobucci’s probe was launched after an inquest into the 2007 drowning death of a high school student in Thunder Bay, Ont., was stopped because of a lack of Indigenous people on the jury. (Source: Toronto Star)

Wednesday March 11, 2015

Wednesday March 11, 2015Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday March 11, 2015

Stephen Harper deliberately sowing fear against Muslims: Justin Trudeau

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau has accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper of deliberately sowing fear and prejudice against Muslims in Canada.

The charge came in a strongly worded speech Mr. Trudeau delivered in Toronto Monday night to highlight his views on the importance of liberty in Canadian society.

“These are troubling times,” the Liberal leader told a gathering organized by the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. “Across Canada, and especially in my home province, Canadians are being encouraged by their government to be fearful of one another.

“Fear is a dangerous thing. Once it is sanctioned by the state, there is no telling where it might lead. It is always a short path to walk from being suspicious of our fellow citizens to taking actions to restrict their liberty.”

In his speech, Mr. Trudeau castigated the prime minister for his comments last month in the wake of a court ruling that struck down the government’s policy that forbid Muslim women to wear the niqab, a religious garment, over the face during citizenship ceremonies.

At the time, Mr. Harper said his government would appeal the ruling because wearing a niqab during the ceremony is “offensive” and it’s “not how we do things here.”

In subsequent days, the Conservative party reinforced that message to its supporters and financial donors, as the Tories gear up for an election campaign.

“We all know what is going on here,” Mr. Trudeau said of Mr. Harper and the Tories. “It is nothing less than an attempt to play on people’s fears and foster prejudice, directly toward the Muslim faith.”

Mr. Trudeau said people can dislike the niqab and refer to it as a symbol of oppression.

“This is a free country. Those are your rights. But those who would use the state’s power to restrict women’s religious freedom and freedom of expression indulge the very same repressive impulse that they profess to condemn.

“It is a cruel joke to claim you are liberating people from oppression by dictating in law what they can and cannot choose to wear.” (Source: National Post)

Letters to the Editor

Muslim radicals a worldwide threat Editorial cartoon

Excellent editorial cartoon of Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s blatant, juvenile sucking up to curry voter turn out.

What are not humorous however, are his recent comments equating a real fear of extremism to Canada’s past “dark days.” Unless he, and as an extension, his party, have their heads in the ground and/or stuck up a certain body part, Muslim radicals are a worldwide cancer, and a threat, not dissimilar to any and all past savage regimes — Hitler, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Papa Doc etc., the list is long and documented. IS and Boko Haram are indeed terrorist organizations bent on world domination through the use of violence. I read a quote somewhere “the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists, however, the vast majority of terrorists are Muslim.” I believe Trudeau is in over his head, and I fear for Canada should he, God forbid, become prime minister.

Lloyd Moning, Mount Hope