Progressive Conservative • mackaycartoons

Thursday May 28, 2022

May 26, 2022 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday May 28, 2022

All parties fall short on housing crisis

December 1, 2021

When it comes to tackling the crisis of housing affordability in Ontario, pretty much everyone agrees on what must be done: build a lot more houses.

The trouble is, none of the parties asking for your vote on June 2 have a convincing plan to achieve the ambitious goals they’ve set out.

We got our hopes up earlier this year when a task force appointed by the Ford government produced an admirably clear and compact report on how to tackle the issue of supply lagging behind demand.

The panel put its finger on a key reason for the problem: the fact that municipalities typically put most of their land off-limits for anything but single-family homes.

So in too many communities, you can’t build duplexes or small apartment buildings, the so-called “missing middle” that would make cities denser by allowing a lot more units to be built.

But that would mean leaning heavily on municipalities whose councils usually speak for existing homeowners — the ones who want to preserve the “neighbourhood character” of their cities by keeping things just as they are. It’s called “exclusionary zoning.”

April 2, 2020

It was no big surprise, therefore, that when the Ford government produced a housing plan in March it conspicuously failed to address this issue head-on.

The plan made no mention of the ambitious goal the task force set out: building 1.5 million new housing units over the next decade. And it had nothing to say about exclusionary zoning.

At least the municipal affairs minister was frank about why he didn’t follow through with the task force’s key recommendation: he didn’t want to upset towns and cities. “They’re just not there yet,” he said.

He may be right. But we need to get there given how serious the national housing crisis is. Canada has the lowest average housing supply per capita among G7 nations, with 424 units per 1,000 people. That’s behind the United States and the United Kingdom. France, by comparison, leads the G7 at 540 units per 1,000. The pandemic, which allowed households to accrue record savings and saw unprecedented stimulus measures, stoked the country’s hot housing market and pushed it into utterly unaffordable territory.

August 26, 2021

Voters who want to make up their minds based at least partly on which party would best tackle the crisis of housing affordability will find more to chew on in the platforms put forward by the New Democrats, Liberals and Greens. But, on this same crucial point, the opposition parties also fall short.

On the positive side, both the NDP and Liberals include the goal of building 1.5 million new homes over the next 10 years. But that won’t be achievable unless cities allow denser housing across much more of their area; the time is long gone when just building endless suburbs on empty land could be justified.

The opposition parties actually have quite a bit to say about exclusionary zoning. They clearly recognize that it’s a problem. But when it comes to actually acting on this, they’re awfully vague.

The NDP’s housing platform promises to end exclusionary zoning. How? It says it would “work with municipalities to reform land-use planning rules.” The Liberals say almost the same. They would “work with municipalities to expand zoning options.”

July 13, 2016

Clearly, none of the parties want to anger municipalities or residents who already own single-family homes in low-rise, low density neighbourhoods. It’s understandable politically, but it puts a big question mark over whether they’d be able to meet their big targets for new homebuilding.

There’s much more to housing policy, of course. The opposition parties promise to build a lot more affordable housing for those completely shut out of the market. And there’s a big difference in what they would do for renters.

The Liberals would reinstitute rent control for units built after 2018 (the PC government excluded them). The NDP would go much further and bring in rent control for all units, even if a tenant voluntarily moves.

But the key to loosening up the housing market is more houses. And right now none of the parties are really stepping up. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial)

Tuesday November 28, 2017

November 27, 2017 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday November 28, 2017

The Progressive Conservatives have found their voice.

And Patrick Brown, the little-known Opposition leader who would be premier, is making himself heard. Just in time for the coming provincial election.

May 13, 2015

Who is Patrick Brown? Why should he be premier? What would he do in power?

He will cut income taxes. Reduce hydro rates. Impose a carbon tax. Issue refund cheques for child care. Take over our subways and build more of them. Boost health-care funding.

And step down if he doesn’t deliver on his key promises in four years.

His proclamation of a “People’s Guarantee” — signed onstage with a dramatic flourish — had the ring of a Marxist people’s manifesto as 1,500 loyal convention delegates cheered him on. Brown is no Bolshevik, but on Saturday he purged the party of the ghost of Mike Harris — and the Common Sense Revolution that has haunted PCs for decades, culminating with the defeat of Tim Hudak in 2014.

August 31, 2016

Now, Brown is remaking the party in his own emerging image — a mirror image of the Bill Davis era that tried harder to be all things (or more things) to all people. Not just right-wing people.

It is a focused, focus-group-tested campaign platform with a twist — more heft and left than hard right, offering more political lift than trickle-down:

September 21, 2017

Surprisingly progressive income tax cuts are targeted at lower-income people, not high rollers (including a sales tax credit). The child-care credits offer more to poor people with less, and rebate actual expenses (unlike the no-strings-attached “baby bonus” that Stephen Harper’s Tories conjured up to buy votes federally).

This election platform is not just a U-turn from the Harris years but an off-ramp from the Harper hothouse where Brown and many of his staff got their start. Instead of the provocative “chain gangs” that Tories proposed to punish prisoners in 2011, Brown offers “anti-gang” money to combat human trafficking of women. (Continued: Toronto Star)

Friday April 15, 2016

April 14, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday April 15, 2016

Patrick Brown admits he’s ‘upset’ with Jack MacLaren

Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown insists he has done enough to punish rogue MPP Jack MacLaren.

“Obviously, I was upset,” Brown said of MacLaren, who in the past week has been forced to apologize for making a sexist joke about a female Liberal MP in front of 350 people and for posting testimonials from fake constituents on his official website.

Tuesday March 8, 2016

“It was the totality of events, not one single (thing),” said the Tory leader, who removed the Carleton-Mississippi MPP from his largely ceremonial post as chair of the Tories’ Eastern Ontario caucus.

“This is a post just like a regional minister would be. It’s speaking to the riding associations. It’s a leadership position in the party,” said Brown, who has handed the symbolic title to MPP Jim McDonell (Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry).

“It was important to express that I wasn’t happy and there’s consequences and that’s why he was demoted from that position. The demotion speaks for itself,” he said.

MacLaren, who brushed past reporters Wednesday after uttering a terse apology for the website ruse, wasn’t seen at Queen’s Park on Thursday and could not be reached for comment.

But, privately, his caucus colleagues are fuming that he hasn’t been sanctioned more severely.

“This is basically meaningless,” said one senior Tory, noting MacLaren never once chaired a meeting of the Eastern Ontario caucus.

“Jack made Patrick look bad and he made all of us look bad,” said the insider.

The Tory caucus got a much-needed morale boost Thursday afternoon when former prime minister Brian Mulroney dropped by Queen’s Park to give them a pep talk.

“I’m in town to do an event tonight and Patrick, who’s an old friend of mine, asked me to come by and say hello to the caucus. We had a great meeting,” Mulroney told the Star. (Source: Toronto Star)

ROGUES GALLERY

: Peter Shurman

: Patrick Brazeau

: Paul Miller

: Monte McNaughton

: Mac Harb

: Dean del Mastro

Tuesday March 8, 2016

March 7, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday March 8, 2016

Patrick Brown sees a new, inclusive Ontario PC party

Taking aim at climate change, Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown is signalling his party will propose a “sensible” price on carbon emissions.

“We have to do something about it,” he told about 1,700 delegates Saturday evening at the first PC annual meeting since taking the party’s helm in May.

“Sensible carbon pricing doesn’t have to be a contribution in terms. But it cannot be a cash grab,” he added in a reference to Premier Kathleen Wynne’s cap and trade plan, which will add an average 4.3 cents to a litre of gasoline and $5 to homeowners’ monthly natural gas bills.

The line drew lukewarm applause and a shout of “no” from one vocal skeptic and some groans in a crowd that came to its feet several times during the 26-minute address.

“I spoke from the heart,” Brown told reporters later, noting he had briefed his MPPs about the stance and got “practically universal” support.

“We have a grassroots party. People are entitled to have divergent opinions. … It’s healthy.”

Although Brown did not detail how his plan would work as the party begins deliberations on an election platform for 2018 and freshens its face with a new logo, he promised a carbon tax that is “revenue neutral” to the government and will come with “corresponding tax cuts for individuals and businesses.”

Promoting himself as a “pragmatic” Progressive Conservative, Brown said the Liberals, who have trounced his party in four elections since 2003, are not expecting a more nimble and canny rival than in years past, when Tory campaigns were scuppered by ideas that flopped.

“There is one thing that Kathleen Wynne fears more than anything else: a Progressive Conservative Party that has the courage to change,” he said to a standing ovation at a downtown convention centre.

In a reference to the ill-fated Tim Hudak PC election promise in 2014 to cut 100,000 public sector jobs, Brown said, “The public sector should be seen as a partner, not an adversary” and insisted that “never again” would candidates have to defend a promise like former leader John Tory’s 2007 push to fund faith-based schools.‎

The first PC leader to lead an official delegation of his party in Toronto’s Pride parade also sent a message of inclusivity.

“It doesn’t matter who you are … it doesn’t matter who you love, it doesn’t matter if you belong to a union … it doesn’t matter where you worship, you have a home in the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.”

But voters eager to see where Brown stands on a wider variety of issues will have to wait until a policy convention next spring. (Source: Toronto Star)

Tuesday September 15, 2015

September 14, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

by Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday September 15, 2015

Patrick Brown is headed for his biggest face-off away from the rink.

When MPPs return from their summer break Monday, the hockey-playing politico takes a seat in the legislature across from Premier Kathleen Wynne for the first time since being elected Progressive Conservative leader May 9.

Brown’s performance will be carefully scrutinized and the more experienced Wynne will get a flurry of questions on the $9 billion sell-off of Hydro One, her Ontario Retirement Pension Plan and the economy.

With the issues spilling over to the Oct. 19 federal campaign trail, rival party leaders are as eager to score points as Wynne is to stand her ground, with polls suggesting the Hydro One sale is not as popular as she would like.

“We will very clearly point out how we should take a different approach,” Brown said, dubbing the hydro deal a “fire sale” and the pension premiums that employees and employers would have to pay a “job killer.”

He also pledged to set a different tone by not being “blindly partisan.”

New Democrats said Hydro One, in which Wynne plans to sell a 60 per cent stake to raise money for transit and debt reduction, is their “big push” because they fear it will lead to higher electricity prices.

“Hydro bills are through the roof,” said NDP House Leader Gilles Bisson.

In an interview Friday in Quebec City, where she was attending a joint cabinet meeting with Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard, Wynne said she is will not “back down” on Hydro One.

She defended eventual proceeds from the sale as crucial to improving public transit and reducing gridlock that is costing the economy billions in lost productivity.

“The building of infrastructure is a high priority for us…and so I am going to be talking to the people of Ontario through the legislature about the work that we’re doing on that front,” said Wynne.

While the government plans to sell off 60 per cent of Hydro One – recently the subject of scathing attacks from ombudsman André Marin over billing snafus — Wynne said the province will retain control because no single shareholder will be able to own more than 10 per cent.

She expressed surprised that Brown will serve as his own education critic, ‎suggesting the new sex-education curriculum will remain a hot topic in the house.

“I was interested in that,” the premier said, adding she will continue to highlight Brown’s social conservative voting record as an MP under Conservative Leader Stephen Harper, where he opposed same-sex marriage and abortion — stances he has since changed. (Source: Toronto Star)