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Friday July 29, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday July 29, 2022

Education minister says Ontario students will stay in class for in-person learning this school year

January 31, 2020

Education Minister Stephen Lecce on Monday committed to keeping Ontario’s two million students in class for in-person learning this school year, as the province continues to face uncertainty from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is so consequential to children’s mental and physical health,” Lecce said at a news conference in Ajax, where he announced his ministry’s “plan to catch up” for students who fell behind during pandemic-related school closures.

Ontario students were, cumulatively, out of in-person classes longer than children and youth in any other jurisdiction in North America after the pandemic began in March 2020.

Lecce’s commitment comes amid a backdrop of ongoing negotiations with the province’s education unions whose contracts are set to expire at the end of August.

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

 

Wednesday January 6, 2020

January 6, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday January 6, 2020

Don’t lump all politicians in with scofflaws

Reading Spectator journalist Katrina Clarke’s report surveying local politicians about their activities over Christmas, you may have been struck first by the fact that one Hamilton-area politician did indeed travel.

Veteran Conservative Flamborough-Glanbrook MP David Sweet acknowledged to his leader’s office that he travelled to the U.S., first on business to deal with a “property issue,” and then later “for leisure.” But Erin O’Toole’s office didn’t know about the “leisure” part. Sweet “resigned” from chairing — of all things — the House of Commons Ethics Committee, the leader’s office reported Monday. And he has said he will not run again in the next federal election. Sweet remains in the U.S. at this point. 

O’Toole had requested, explicitly, that caucus members not take part in international travel over the Christmas holidays, so it’s little wonder Sweet’s career as a Conservative MP was quickly declared dead in the water. It’s an ignominious way to end a 15-year-career in politics. Twitter lit up with reaction, much of it lauding Sweet for his work but even more of it bitterly critical, such as John P. Soleas, who Tweeted: “Why are you still out of the country? You should’ve been flying back yesterday! Your constituents are staying home and abiding by public health guidance. If you can’t stay in the country when it counts why not resign today and relieve yourself of this heavy burden?”

Sweet and other politicians caught up in this angry storm are learning the hard way: This is no minor bit of bad behaviour. Travelling while the rest of Canada is locked down and suffering has tapped a vein of outrage and hurt. Read the letters from Spec readers and others across the country. Read about broken-hearted families who wanted desperately to see each other but couldn’t due to the travel guidelines. Parents of adult children who always see their kids and grandkids at Christmas, but couldn’t this year. People who lost loved ones before or during the pandemic and could not be with relatives for comfort and consolation. People who are used to gathering with families who had to settle for the Zoom equivalent this holiday season.

The collective reaction is not annoyance at the display, yet again, of a double standard between “them” and the rest of us. It’s more like the reaction of people who feel they have been attacked and wounded. Is it entirely reasonable? You can argue either way, but it is what it is. Public reaction on this issue is like a force of nature, and it won’t be dismissed or managed, as so many Canadian politicians have learned.

But here is something else worth considering. For the story mentioned earlier Clarke got responses from something like 20 area politicians, local, provincial and federal. (Several others have yet to respond.) But if they’re all being honest — and they would be very foolish at this point to be anything but forthright — the rest of them spent their holidays season the same way the majority of us did.

They spent Christmas and New Year’s alone, or Zoomed with friends and family. They hosted small outdoor gatherings, masked and distanced. Some had “garage gatherings” which in our view is questionable, but for the most part these elected officials are living with the same public health guidelines we all are.

As we survive this latest pandemic outrage, it is important that we make it entirely clear we expect those elected to represent and serve us to abide by the same rules they levy upon us. And to use common sense. But we should also be careful not to lump all politicians together with those who have abused the public trust. Most are playing by the rules, and the few who are not are paying the price. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Thursday November 22, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Thursday November 22, 2012

McGuinty laments Harper’s refusal to attend premiers’ meeting

Lame duck Dalton McGuinty quacks about Harper’s summit absence

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and other premiers are criticizing Prime Minister Stephen Harper for passing up a chance to co-operate on a national economic strategy with provincial leaders this week.

“I think we’re all disappointed that we couldn’t get an opportunity to meet with the prime minister and to build a strong plan for economic growth together,” McGuinty said in Toronto on Tuesday.

“We will do our very best,” he said of the premiers’ meeting. “We’ll see what it is we might be able to do by way of a concerted effort.”

Provincial premiers and territorial leaders gather in Halifax on Thursday and Friday at a time when the struggling economy is threatened by deteriorating business conditions in Europe and a potential U.S. economic meltdown.

But Harper’s office confirmed Tuesday he won’t accept the premiers’ invitation to attend.

McGuinty suggested Harper is missing an opportunity to follow up on a deal reached during the last recession in which federal and provincial governments agreed to invest in economic stimulus.

“We’ve now entered into a period of prolonged slow growth and I think we could do better by developing some broader policies, acting in concert with the federal government, whether that’s by way of stimulus or, I think, particularly investing in innovation and higher levels of skills and education would be very helpful to all of us.”Source (Source: Toronto Star) 

 

Thursday August 23, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Thursday August 23, 2012

Prince Harry’s latest on-camera escapade

Prince Harry has been caught on camera doing something embarrassing — again.

British Monarchy Merch

Celebrity gossip website TMZ on Tuesday posted photos of the 27-year-old royal cavorting nude with an unidentified woman in a VIP suite in Las Vegas. It’s hardly the first time the prince — who allegedly disrobed as part of a game of strip pool — has been filmed misbehaving. The third-in-line to the throne was famously photographed wearing a Nazi uniform for a costume party, and in another photo-gaffe he was seen cupping the breast of a female TV presenter. Some would argue footage in which he was heard to utter a racial slur while teasing a fellow army cadet from Pakistan was more serious.

If the reaction of Britons to Harry’s Las Vegas adventure was anything to go by, the nude photos will do little to tarnish his generally positive, party-prince image. The Associated Press asked an assortment of royal watchers and British subjects about what they thought about the prince’s naked romp.

The blurry, low-resolution photographs appear to have been snapped from inside a hotel suite, and it isn’t clear that the prince was aware that they were being taken.

That could be a violation of the royal’s privacy. It might also explain why Britain’s scandal-hungry tabloids – normally avid consumers of titillating photos – were steering clear of the images. Shirley Ashard, a caregiver, said the only outrage she could muster was against the photographer.

“That’s out of order,” she said. “How would you like it if someone took pictures of you in your hotel room?” (Source: CTV News)