prize

Wednesday September 22, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday September 22, 2021

Trudeau stays in power but Liberals fall short of majority

August 14, 2021

This is Mr Trudeau’s third federal election win, but his critics say the poll was a waste of time.

The Liberals are projected to win 158 seats, short of the 170 seats needed for the majority Mr Trudeau was seeking with his early election call.

The Conservatives have held onto their main opposition status and are expected to win about 122 seats.

“There are still votes to be counted but what we’ve seen tonight is millions of Canadians have chosen a progressive plan,” Mr Trudeau told supporters in Montreal in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

“You elected a government that will fight for you and deliver for you,” he said.

The election, which took place during a fourth pandemic wave in Canada, was the most expensive in the country’s history, costing some C$600m ($470m; £344m).

The projected results suggest a parliament strikingly similar to the one elected just two years ago in 2019.

Federal Election 2021

The snap election call, sending Canadians to the polls for the second time in two years, was widely seen as a bid by Mr Trudeau to secure a majority government and he struggled to explain why a campaign was necessary. Conservative leader Erin O’Toole suggested it was a waste of time and money.

“Canadians sent him back with another minority at a cost of $600m and deeper divisions in our great country”, he told reporters.

Mr Trudeau maintained that the election gave the incoming government a clear mandate in moving forward.

But over the course of the campaign, he struggled to convince voters of the need for an election, which also coincided with rising Covid-19 case loads due to the Delta variant.

Separately he was also heckled by anti-vaccine protesters on the campaign trail, with some shouting they would refuse the Covid jab. (Continued: BBC) 

 

Tuesday May 1, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday May 1, 2018

A Trump Nobel Peace Prize? South Korea’s Leader Likes the Idea

Several months ago, South Koreans considered President Trump as dangerous as North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, as the two traded threats of nuclear annihilation.

January 16, 2018

Now, commentators and others in Seoul think Mr. Trump deserves a Nobel Prize for helping start the unexpected peace process  unfolding on the divided Korean Peninsula. On Monday, South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, said he felt the same.

Mr. Moon’s endorsement of a Nobel for Mr. Trump, who has faced one ethical scandal after another at home, came as the South Korean leader presided over a meeting of his senior presidential staff on Monday. During the meeting, Mr. Moon received a telegram from Lee Hee-ho, a former first lady of South Korea, congratulating him for a successful summit meeting with Mr. Kim on Friday and wishing him a Nobel Peace Prize.

“It’s really President Trump who should receive it; we can just take peace,” Mr. Moon was quoted by his office as saying.

April 15, 2013

In recent months, Mr. Moon and his senior aides have repeatedly thanked Mr. Trump for making a rapprochement between the Koreas possible. Mr. Trump’s “maximum pressure” approach of tightening the noose around the North with economic sanctions and military threats was largely responsible for forcing Mr. Kim to the negotiating table, they said.

If they were genuinely grateful to Mr. Trump, they were also seen as stoking the ego of the impulsive American leader so that he would continue to support South Korea’s efforts to resolve the North Korean crisis through dialogue. (Source: NYT) 

 

Saturday October 13, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Saturday October 13, 2012

EU Nobel peace prize: No minor achievement

Europe’s officials could scarcely believe their good fortune today. Unexpectedly, the EU was given the Nobel Peace Prize. The citation praised the EU for “over six decades” contributing to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.

Europe’s leaders fell upon this rare piece of good news with an almost desperate embrace. If there is a core justification for the European project, it is to make war impossible again on the continent. That has been the EU’s outstanding achievement. When under attack, Europe’s leaders fall back upon 60 years of peace in Europe. It is no minor achievement.

Secondly, after and just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the EU acted as a beacon for democracy, for human rights and a civil society. Many Eastern European countries rejected communism because they had before them a clear example of an alternative. Young people wanted to be part of a normal European society. Eastern Europe today is testimony to the spread of democracy.

It is also true that the existence of the EU enabled countries like Spain, Portugal and Greece to make the transition from dictatorship to democracy. Even today, in the midst of hardship and austerity, there is a deep attachment to belonging to Europe. That is the legacy of history.

But the Nobel committee’s decision will puzzle many. Despite the EU’s successes, it failed in the Balkans. It lacked the will and determination to intervene and save lives. The massacre at Srebrenica happened in Europe’s backyard.

And the prize comes at a moment of violence and tension on the streets of many European capitals as a young generation endures years of hardship and high unemployment. For them the European dream has not delivered. (Source: BBC News)