propaganda – mackaycartoons

Wednesday June 26, 2019

June 26, 2019 by Graeme MacKay

June 26, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday June 26, 2019

Get ready for disinformation in election season

Were you among the Ontarians who received a text this weekend asking if you agree the federal carbon tax needs to be scrapped?

September 17, 2015

If so, you’re in good company. We don’t know how many got the text, purporting to be from Sue with a group called Ontario Strong. Could be a few hundred, could be thousands.

If you responded, chances are you were used. Indications are this was an attempt to identify anti-carbon tax voters so they can be lobbied in the coming election.

What’s wrong with that? For one thing that declaration wasn’t made. There was no attributing information on the text other than Ontario Strong. The group is little known and no credible political or lobbying group wants to be identified as being involved. There is no contact information. No information as to what Ontario Strong is about.

Speculation is that it is tied somehow to conservative interests that want to see the Trudeau Liberals defeated. But the usual suspects deny involvement.

August 1, 2013

Welcome to the summer election campaign. It may not be official yet, but it’s real nonetheless. And there is every reason to believe fake news and trickery like this will become more and more common in the weeks and months leading up to the formal campaign.

There are rules regulating this sort of shady political advocacy. After June 30 anyone spending more than $500 is supposed to register with Elections Canada as a third party lobbyist, adhere to stated spending limits and disclose who they are, what they stand for and, eventually, where they get their money.

Well established lobby groups — Shaping Canada’s Future is one on the conservative side while Engage Canada is on the other side — will follow the rules. But many others, some little more than a zealot in his basement and others with more sophisticated infrastructure, probably won’t. And their messages will be out there. On social media. On quickly assembled websites. In texts and emails.

June 12, 2019

CBC journalists and researchers at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab recently reported on how a disinformation campaign, which is believed to have originated in Iran, tried to get Canadian media outlets to amplify fake news. It worked in at least one case.

Reuters reported a fake story which said that six Arab countries had asked FIFA to prevent Qatar from hosting the 2022 World Cup. Global News picked up the story and gave it new legs with a national audience. Global later corrected the story.

The Iranian scammers also tried to drum up attention for a fake story claiming the CIA had backed a failed coup in Turkey.

Canadians, including thousands of Twitter users, were among the targets of this disinformation. While the subjects involved may not be relevant to average citizens, they will become more so as the election campaigns ramps up.

Politically motivated misinformation and fake news are not some distant threat. Like climate change, they’re happening right here and now. Just as we’re seeing first hand what damage climate change can bring, we’re seeing fake news in action. Our only protection is education and awareness. (Hamilton Spectator)

Thursday April 18, 2019

April 25, 2019 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday April 18, 2019

Ontario gas stations could be fined $10,000 a day for missing anti-carbon-tax stickers

Buried in Ontario’s budget bill are fines of up to $10,000 per day for gas station operators who don’t display government-mandated stickers about the price of the carbon tax.

August 17, 2016

The budget contains a new piece of legislation called the Federal Carbon Tax Transparency Act that would require gas stations to display the sticker on each pump. The sticker shows the federal carbon tax adding 4.4 cents per litre to the price of gas now, rising to 11 cents a litre in 2022.

The legislation lets the government send inspectors to see if gas stations are properly displaying the stickers and sets out penalties for non-compliance.

Individuals could be fined up to $500 each day, or up to $1,000 a day for subsequent offences. Corporations could be fined up to $5,000 a day, or up to $10,000 a day for subsequent offences.

Obstructing an inspector would carry a fine of at least $500 and up to $10,000.

December 1, 2018

“This is a new low, even for (Premier) Doug Ford,” NDP energy critic Peter Tabuns said in a statement. “It’s bad enough that he’s wasting public money on partisan promotion, but now he’s threatening private business owners with massive fines for failing to post [Progressive] Conservative Party advertisement.”

Similar critiques came from federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna, who denounced the fines as “ridiculous.”

“Not only is this a violation of freedom of speech, it will cost small business owners across the province who don’t want to take part in this government propaganda campaign,” McKenna said in a statement.

“This should be denounced by all political parties as a new low for our political discourse.”

Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said Ford is wasting tax dollars and abusing legal tools to bolster his anti-carbon tax campaign.

“This has nothing to do with transparency and everything to do with helping his federal cousins win the election,” Schreiner said in a statement. (CBC News)

Tuesday August 21, 2018

August 20, 2018 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday August 21, 2018

Provincial government’s assault on democracy deserves jeers not cheers

You’ve got to hand it to Premier Doug Ford, and even if you don’t, he’ll provide the hand — as in a round of applause — himself.

April 1, 2017

Not content with arbitrarily slashing the size of Toronto council and cancelling regional chair elections already underway in York, Peel, Niagara and Muskoka, Ford recently took another broadside against democracy by limiting the number of questions he and his ministers will take during Queen’s Park news conferences to five and drowning out any additional media queries with loud clapping from dozens of government staffers.

At Ford’s announcement of $25 million to help Toronto combat gun violence on Aug. 9, journalists present noted that 50 provincial employees milled about for an hour or so until it was time to provide the premier and Attorney General Caroline Mulroney with an unhindered exit.

For some reporters it may have felt like déjà vu as similar shenanigans had been employed a week prior when Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod announced plans to end the province’s Basic Income Pilot program.

According to Cynthia Mulligan of CityNews, after Ford and Mulroney left following the Aug. 9 news conference, most of the staffers scurried away themselves and showed little interest in answering questions about their reasons for being there. One of them did, however, let slip they were there on the taxpayer’s dime, which raises all sorts of questions, chief among them: how does permitting 50 government employees to stand around for an hour to clap like trained seals on cue fit with the pledge to reduce waste and make life more affordable for Ontarians?

While we’re at it, how does employing a “journalist” to rhyme off a collection of government-approved highlights in a series of taxpayer-funded videos via the Ontario News Now online channel square with the election promise of greater accountability and to be “the government for the people”?

Although both the Ontario News Now and “clap out” tactics began during the election, the fact the government seems intent on keeping them — and using our money to fund them — is deeply disappointing. Even Deputy Premier Christine Elliott seemed vexed by the clap out, and said she’d discuss it with Ford.

Someone should and remind him democracy isn’t a nuisance that rears its head every few years when the election writ drops. Democracy is about being accountable to the citizenry, and part of that entails answering questions from journalists who are there as proxies for the voting public.

Here’s hoping the government hits the “pause button” it’s so fond of on the clap out and other similar strategies. After all, open and transparent government is something we can all cheer for. (Source: Newmarket Era)

Friday September 2, 2016

September 1, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday September 2, 2016

Trudeau and Chinese premier explore possible free trade deal

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has brought Canada closer to China after agreeing with the Chinese premier to deepen the countries’ relationships — and explore a possible free trade deal.

After meeting with Trudeau, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told reporters through a translator that Canada and China will launch a feasibility study on an eventual free-trade deal.

A senior Canadian official later said the two countries have ongoing technical discussions on free trade, but stressed that there are no negotiations under way at this point.

“This year marks 45 years of diplomatic relations between Canada and China,” Trudeau said as he stood beside Li in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, which overlooks Tiananmen Square.

“My father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, played an important role in establishing a partnership between our two countries when he was prime minister. So, I’m very happy to be extending that effort now.”

The countries also agreed to hold annual meetings between the Chinese premier and the Canadian prime minister on a range of issues, including national security and the rule of law. (Source: Toronto Star)

Wednesday April 15, 2015

April 14, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday April 15, 2015

Like a carbon tax, but much worse

If you want to put a tax on greenhouse gas emissions, there’s an easy way to do it. You implement a carbon tax, like British Columbia did, and add it to the price of gasoline and other fossil fuels. The higher the emissions, the more tax people pay. Anyone can understand how it works.

Then there’s a second way, which is much more complicated and expensive. It requires a big bureaucracy to administer and is highly vulnerable to special interests. Lots can go wrong. In Europe, where they’ve been trying to get it right for a decade, it’s been an abject failure. This system is called cap and trade, and nobody but the experts can understand how it works.

Kathleen Wynne’s Ontario has chosen the second way. The fact that cap-and-trade schemes are incredibly opaque is considered a feature, not a bug. The government can swear it’s not a tax, even though the taxpayers will wind up paying for it anyway as industry passes on the extra cost.

Cap-and-trade schemes are supposed to encourage companies to find cleaner forms of energy. A cap is set on the amount of pollution each industry is allowed to emit. Individual businesses are then granted (or sold) permits to pollute. They can then buy or sell these permits on the open market. If they want to emit more pollution, they have to buy more permits, and vice versa. Finance people love carbon markets because there’s good money in it for them. (Source: Margaret Wente, Globe & Mail)