Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday January 11, 2022
Novak Djokovic and trying to understand the divisive tennis-Jesus
Why try to explain the anti-vaccine creed of the world’s most-reviled refusenik? I guess because the most radical thing you can currently do is try to see both sides.
December 29, 2021
“A global shift will occur when each individual finds the courage to awaken from the mass amnesia.” Yes, I read the personal manifesto of Novak Djokovic’s wellness guru so you don’t have to.
It is no secret that the world’s No 1 celebrity Covid outlaw, currently awaiting his fate in an agreeably everyday Melbourne hotel, is a long-term student of somebody called Chervin Jafarieh, described, on his own website, as “one of the most respected and influential health experts in the world”. Jafarieh is a familiar type, the magnetic personality, the handsome and piercing spirit guide who accepts all major credit cards and looks like he might smell of musk and whale-song and concentrated human-power while he stands slightly too close to you in the lift.
The manifesto is lush and persuasive and, frankly, bang on about lots of stuff. Novak’s guy is worried about pollution and climate change, also “militarism, urbanization, carbon combustion, mining of metals and toxic materials, manufacturing of chemicals and biological poisons”. Mainly he’s obsessed with intake and the body, and this seems to be the thing about Djokovic’s vaccine hesitancy, at least in public. Djokovic has staged his own super-spreader event, has provided an anti-science role model, but he has also bought ventilators for hospitals, set up a Covid fund and done generous, charitable, believer-type things.
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday April 28, 2021
A tale of immuno-privilege
March 20, 2021
We are immuno-privileged. You might think this adjective is a neologism applicable to bodies vaccinated against Covid-19, but that is not quite it. We were already immuno-privileged before, when we started working from home and did not sink into poverty from losing our income, when we were not frontline workers providing care during the pandemic, or simply when we did not catch the coronavirus because we were living in the halfway world of social isolation. And now that we are vaccinated, we have added another layer of privilege to the term. As documented Latin American women living in the United States, we received the vaccine before our elderly parents in Argentina and Brazil.
February 2, 2021
We feel a dual sense of unease and relief because we are bodies rendered immuno-privileged by life’s inequalities. While it is true that every privilege is a form of immunization, not every immunization comes in the form of a vaccine. Being a man in a patriarchal society is a form of immunization for misogyny, just as being a white body offers immunization against police violence. The vaccine merely makes a product out of what our bodies had already experienced as privilege, naturalized by the policies of life. And like all products, there are disputes over access, control, and distribution. While 26% of the US population has already been fully vaccinated (that is, received all required doses), Argentina has only immunized about 2% of its population and Brazil has reached only 4%. Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas and the Caribbean, has not even begun its vaccination drive. To date, less than 2% of all Covid-19 vaccines administered worldwide have been distributed on the African continent, which is home to 16% of the world’s population.
It is obvious that unequal vaccine distribution has global consequences since it allows new variants to emerge and thus means even the vaccinated may be infected.
January 28, 2021
Here are the geopolitics of immuno-privilege: by early April, 87% of administered vaccines had gone to inhabitants of high- or middle-income countries, whereas only 0.2% had been administered in low-income countries. If global vaccination rates remain at these levels, it will take four to five yearsto reach herd immunity – that is, full vaccination of 70% to 85% of the population. It is readily obvious that unequal vaccine distribution has immediate global consequences since it allows new variants to emerge and thus means even the vaccinated may be infected. But from the other ways we experience privilege, we know that addressing inequality does not mesh well with distributive policies, and countries will begin disputing these products. Hoarding becomes a way to exercise control, and selfish nationalism takes the reins in negotiations between countries.
Wealthy countries have secured vaccine reserves well beyond what is needed to vaccinate their populations. Vaccine development was contingent on this surplus because no vaccine could have been developed this quickly without government investment. But rather than negotiating intellectual property agreements to facilitate equitable vaccine access for middle-income countries with production capability, the governments of rich nations have opted to guarantee their own surplus, under the mattress. Save your own people first, and then think about others. In keeping with this logic, the United States has donated doses to Mexico and Canada, while China is negotiating with Brazil.
Pandemic Times
Countries are concerned about their own borders or their own trade agendas – about folks whose access to this immuno-privilege matters not because of the genteel values of dignity or right to life, but rather because they are trade partners or political allies. From this twisted perspective of who gets immunized and who is left to die, we find ourselves as privileged bodies not because of who we are, but as the lawful inhabitants of a territory that is not our homeland. Sad to say, there is no way we can distribute our immuno-privilege; it becomes inalienable individual property. This is yet another piece of property for bodies who have survived thanks to privilege and are now privileged because of something we had not seen as property: legitimately and temporarily inhabiting a country that hoards vaccines. (El Pais)
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday July 24, 2020
Is the WE Charity affair Justin Trudeau’s sponsorship scandal?
With each new revelation in the rapidly snowballing scandal surrounding Ottawa’s aborted plan to contract out a multimillion-dollar student volunteer program to WE Charity, it gets harder to know whether to be more outraged, disgusted or flabbergasted – or some measure of all three.
July 9, 2020
Outraged that, in the middle of a pandemic that has left millions of Canadians out of work and Ottawa digging a deficit hole for the ages, our federal government somehow thought it urgent and appropriate to spend nearly $1-billion on a program that appeared to serve no one’s interest more than its own and those of the organization chosen to run it.
Disgusted that, as average Canadians struggle to set aside a few dollars every month to donate to their local church or food bank, the federal government would reward a charity that defiles the notion of do-gooding by offering “complimentary” trips across the globe to their rich donor friends in high places, absorbing funds that might otherwise have gone to actually doing good rather than just generating good PR.
December 14, 2016
Flabbergasted that, after already twice being entangled in ethics investigations due to his own disregard for the basic rules of conduct, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau finds himself at the centre of yet another such inquiry owing to what can only be described as his own hubris and gall for having the nerve to think that no one would notice.
We knew before this scandal erupted that Mr. Trudeau and WE Charity had for years formed a sort of mutual-admiration society. No other major political leader has appeared at more WE Day events or been greeted with more ebullient praise by the organization’s co-founders, Craig and Marc Kielburger. It had become hard to distinguish between WE Charity’s stated goal of “inspiring a generation of leaders and change-makers” and the blatant politics and campaign-style atmosphere that such forums provided Mr. Trudeau.
July 11, 2020
We learned a bit more about the incestuousness of this relationship when Mr. Trudeau’s wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, tested positive for COVID-19 shortly after participating in a WE Day event in London alongside Formula One superstar Lewis Hamilton and actor Idris Elba. A picture posted on her Instagram account shows the trio with their arms around each other, along with Ms. Grégoire Trudeau’s mother-in-law, Margaret Trudeau, and sister-in-law Alicia Kemper. WE Days had become a family affair for the Trudeau clan.
September 22, 2017
We have since learned that Margaret Trudeau was paid more than $300,000 to speak at several WE Day events, which, no matter how much you admire her, should strike you as unsettling. Ms. Trudeau may be her own person, but nothing she does now can be considered separate from her son’s political career. That can be a double-edged sword for Mr. Trudeau, but not in the context of a WE Day event.
Now it appears that much of the apparatus of government jumped through hoops between April and June to drum up a program, the Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG), that – go figure – not a single federal department or agency or private-sector organization had the wherewithal to administer. None, that is, except for WE Charity, which just happens to have been facing financial disaster as the pandemic dragged on.
April 8, 2004
The closer you look, the more this situation resembles the sponsorship scandal of the late 1990s that tarnished the Liberal brand for more than a decade until Mr. Trudeau revived it.
The sponsorship program, concocted by then-prime minister Jean Chrétien’s government, involved doling out bogus contracts to Liberal-friendly advertising companies under the auspices of promoting federalism after the 1995 Quebec referendum. Then-auditor-general Sheila Fraser concluded that Ottawa “broke just about every rule in the book” in awarding such contracts, which lined the pockets of Liberal donors.
February 9, 2005
That scandal, which eventually spawned a public inquiry, led to criminal charges. And though there is no evidence of criminal activity in the awarding of the CSSG contract to WE Charity, there is a certain similarity in the absence of checks and balances in the procedures followed in outsourcing the grant program. The proposal appeared to sail through cabinet. If any ministers raised red flags about the appearance of conflicts of interest or lack of due diligence regarding WE Charity, we have yet to hear about it.
The sponsorship scandal started off small. The entire program did not involve large sums of money, given the overall size of the government. The program was peripheral to Ottawa’s primary missions, which made it seem kind of innocuous at first.
The WE Charity scandal is starting to look eerily similar. It’s an afterthought in the context of the current crisis Canada faces – yet it’s too rotten-smelling to ignore. (Konrad Yakabuski – The Globe & Mail)
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday November 1, 2018
Two Former GGs on the hot seat for their lavish ways
Canada’s governors general deserve continued financial support once they retire but they need to be more transparent and accountable for their expenses, Justin Trudeau said Wednesday.
February 20, 2004
The prime minister made the comment after a Postmedia report revealed that Adrienne Clarkson, who was governor general from 1999 to 2005, has billed more than $1 million in expenses since leaving the viceregal job.
Besides their pensions, former governors general get lifetime public funding for office and travel expenses through a program that has existed since 1979, on the premise that governors general never truly retire.
Trudeau said the federal government will review the program to determine “best practices” for supporting former governors general.
September 27, 2005
“These are people who’ve stepped up and offered tremendous service to this country but Canadians expect a certain level of transparency and accountability and we’re going to make sure we’re moving forward in a thoughtful way,” Trudeau said on his way into the Liberals’ weekly caucus meeting.
Clarkson has billed more than $100,000 to the government nine times in the 12 years since she left Rideau Hall.
That’s the threshold for reporting the billings separately, including identifying the claimant, in the federal government’s annual Public Accounts. The Public Accounts disclose no detail about the nature of the expenses.
Expenses of less than $100,000 billed by former governors general are lumped together in a general “temporary help services” category and do not identify who claimed them. (Source: Toronto Star)
May 27, 2009
Earlier in October, another former Governor-General, Michaelle Jean failed, in her bid for a second term as secretary general of la Francophonie Friday as members chose Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo.
Three days after his government withdrew its support for Jean, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau insisted the move was not part of a deal to advance Canada’s bid for a United Nations Security Council seat in 2020.
Jean had been dogged by stories of excessive spending and questionable expenses during her mandate.
After a four-year term marked by controversy, the former governor general was considered a long shot for a second stint, but she refused to withdraw her candidacy even as support dwindled. (Source: CTV News)
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday May 16, 2017
Cultural appropriation: at its base, it’s all about money
The debate over cultural appropriation is complicated. At one level it is about the legitimacy of telling the stories of others. At base, it is about money.
It became front-page recently when the editor of a little-known literary magazine created a firestorm by daring to support the idea.
“Anyone anywhere should be encouraged to imagine other peoples, other cultures, other identities,” Hal Niedzviecki said in Write, the journal of the Writers’ Union of Canada. He went on to suggest, tongue-in-cheek, that an “appropriation prize” be created for writers who managed to accomplish this task.
For that, he was denounced by his employer and a number of authors. He quickly resigned.
Those living happily outside the hothouse of Canadian literature might be surprised that this is even an issue. By definition, fiction writers write fiction. In that sense, everything is borrowed. (Continued: Hamilton Spectator)
