popularity

Friday April 23, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday April 23, 2021

Ford apologizes after public backlash to enhanced police powers, playground closures

Ontario Premier Doug Ford apologized to Ontarians Thursday morning, days after his government faced intense backlash for introducing a number of additional COVID-19 restrictions that were not recommended by health experts and then nixed earlier this week.

April 8, 2021

Ford, who is isolating at his late mother’s home in Etobicoke after a staff member tested positive for COVID-19, said at a news conference he wanted to “address the events of this past week” after his government put in new measures in response to “extremely troubling modelling.”

The province was trying to curb mobility in Ontario, he said.

“But we moved too fast,” Ford said, with some measures going too far.

“Simply put, we got it wrong. We made a mistake. These decisions, they left a lot of people really concerned,” Ford said.

“For that I am sorry, and I sincerely apologize.”

The premier and some of his top cabinet ministers have been under fire after announcing last Friday that the province would close playgrounds and hand police arbitrary powers, among other additional measures, in a bid to curb the third wave of the pandemic. 

November 12, 2020

The public outcry to both moves was so swift and fierce that the government reversed course on both within days of the announcement. Members of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table also disavowed the decisions, making clear in interviews with media that they were not based on their own recommendations to cabinet. 

Various sources close to the government told CBC News the decisions came amid panic over the latest modelling for the pandemic and fears that Ford’s approval among voters would suffer badly if he was not seen to be taking action.

At one point during Thursday’s news conference, Ford appeared to cry while talking about the pandemic and how hard it has been for businesses, health-care workers and families.

June 9, 2020

“I understand your frustration,” he said. “This experience, this pandemic, it’s something that has affected every single person.”

Ford said Thursday it is “not lost on him” that he is able to isolate and continue working.

“For too many people right now, that’s not the case,” Ford said.

Throughout the pandemic, Ford and his ministers have shut down calls to create a system for paid sick days in Ontario by saying the province didn’t want to double up on the federal program, which until recently, they repeatedly said was sufficient.

Provincial officials have rejected calls from GTHA (Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area) mayors, the province’s science table, local medical officers of health, Opposition parties and countless citizens to do more. The City of Toronto called on the province to institute paid sick leave last May, but to no avail. (CBC) 

 

Saturday June 8, 2019

June 8, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday June 8, 2019

Andrew Scheer has an Ontario problem — and it could be Doug Ford

October 2, 2004

Andrew Scheer’s Conservative Party is struggling to make inroads in Ontario, the battleground province that’s likely to decide October’s federal election. He might have Ontario Premier Doug Ford to thank for that.

Multiple polls suggest Ford and his Progressive Conservative government are deeply unpopular, just one year after ousting Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals from office.

While those polls undoubtedly aren’t being welcomed by provincial Progressive Conservatives — and may have been the motive behind Monday’s about-face on cuts to municipal funding — they don’t necessarily represent a pressing problem for Ford. He still has another three years to go before the next provincial election.

But the Ford government’s dismal poll numbers could present a big problem for Scheer, who needs Ontario if he’s to win the federal vote that’s now less than five months away.

The Conservatives continue to hold a six-point lead over the Liberals nationwide in the CBC’s Canada Poll Tracker, an aggregation of all publicly available polling data. The Conservatives have led ever since the SNC-Lavalin affair sent Liberal support tumbling.

June 5, 2019

The party has seen some significant gains in certain parts of the country. Compared to where the Poll Tracker pegged Conservative support in January and early February (before the SNC-Lavalin story broke), the party has gained up to five points in Quebec and the Prairies and between five and nine points in Atlantic Canada.

The Conservatives are also holding their support in British Columbia and Alberta. The drop in Liberal support has increased the Conservatives’ lead by about four points in B.C., five points in Alberta and nine points in the Prairies, while shrinking the Liberal lead in Quebec and Atlantic Canada by about 11 and 22 points, respectively.

But the dial has not moved as dramatically in Ontario.

The Conservatives hold a slight edge over the Liberals in the province, with 37 to 34 per cent support. While that represents a big drop for the Liberals, who won 45 per cent of the vote in Ontario in the 2015 election, it shows Scheer’s party up only two points over the result that cost Stephen Harper his job — and down as much as five points from where the Conservatives were in the province at the beginning of the year. (Toronto Star) 

 

Thursday May 24, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday May 24, 2018

Almost half of NDP voters just want to stop Liberals, Tories from winning: Ipsos poll

According to recent data from an Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News, 46 per cent of NDP voters intend to vote for the party to stop the Liberals or the Ontario Progressive Conservatives from winning.

“All eyes are on Andrea Horwath right now because her support is the most tenuous,” said Ipsos’ Sean Simpson. “There’ll be more scrutiny paid to Ms. Horwath during the campaign.”

Sixty-four per cent of Ontarians responded that they’re voting for a particular party because they prefer it over all the others, though Ipsos’ Darrell Bricker commented that the number of voters casting ballots to strategically oust another party is “extremely high” during this election.

Simpson agrees that these figures show a large portion of the population “voting against something rather than voting for something.”

A slim majority of NDP voters, 54 per cent, claimed to be voting for the party because they prefer the party. Among PC voters, 64 per cent of respondents said they’re voting for the party because they prefer it over the others, while 36 per cent want to stop another party from winning.

Liberal voters on the other hand, while still maintaining the lowest support, have the highest percentage of voters (at 74 per cent) supporting them because they genuinely like their policies, while 26 per cent want to stop another party from forming a government. (Source: Global 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)

Friday September 15, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday September 15, 2017

Bill Morneau pushes back on ‘misinformation’ coming out about proposed tax changes

With Parliament due to resume sitting next week, Finance Minister Bill Morneau is digging in on his proposed tax changes and mounting a campaign against what he calls misinformation about it.

March 23, 2017

The tax changes have been the hot topic of discussion at the Sheraton Hotel Newfoundland, where cabinet ministers met for three days this week to prepare for the fall sitting.

It’s not just business groups and opposition Conservatives who’ve been blasting the government in the media; Liberal MPs are increasingly speaking up about their concerns with the proposed changes, including finance committee chair Wayne Easter, who told the Globe and Mail the communication strategy around the reforms was “god-awful.”

Meanwhile, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Dwight Ball told cabinet ministers on Tuesday that there’s a “disconnect” between what the government intends and what the public believes about the changes.

In an interview with the National Post, Morneau said he knows people need more information, and he’s working on getting it out ahead of the Oct. 2 deadline on the consultation process.

November 2, 2016

He said once the consultations are done, the government will consider tweaks to prevent “administrative problems” or other unintended impacts down the road.

Asked if he’s worried that the furor over the changes will put a chill on people thinking about starting a business, Morneau said his emphasis is on protecting investments in active business operations.

“Anything we hear that will discourage people from making investments in their active business will absolutely be taken into consideration,” he said. “Again, our goal is to make sure that people have the opportunity to invest and the incentive to invest in their business.”

He said his government is constantly looking at options for small business incentives. “I don’t have anything to announce right now, but that’s something we are always looking at,” he said. (Source: National Post) 

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