provincial • mackaycartoons

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 July 17, 2018

July 23, 2018 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday July 17, 2018

Premiers’ much-hyped internal trade deal hasn’t amounted to much

June 28, 2018

On the day they released the Canadian Free Trade Agreement in 2017, all the provincial and territorial trade ministers were given a symbolic pair of golden scissors to remind them to start cutting interprovincial trade barriers.

The trouble is, they aren’t using them.

The scissors were gifts from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, a relentless advocacy group for whom harmonizing — and ideally, cutting — government regulations is a mantra.

Its president and CEO, Dan Kelly, said he’s seen his snippy trophies proudly displayed in ministers’ offices across Canada. But one year after the trade deal took effect on Canada’s 150th birthday, July 1, 2017, has any tangible progress been made?

Well …

August 5, 2010

“It’s slow-going,” he said. The process lacks concrete timelines. He’s still waiting for the interprovincial trade committee to set priorities, let alone roll back barriers.

“I don’t think there’s anything that has changed, other than a commitment to start some work,” he said, laughing a bit when asked to identify which specific irritants have been settled between provinces in the deal’s first year of operations.

It’s easier to point to reasons things stalled.

There’s the pipeline debate in British Columbia and Alberta’s threat to retaliate, for starters, which risks “undermining the whole spirit of this agreement,” Kelly said. (Saskatchewan, another energy exporter, jumped into this fight too.)

It’s also hard to maintain momentum across 13 governments. During its time as chair of Canada’s internal trade committee, Ontario’s Liberal government (and specifically minister Brad Duguid) was a driving force in finalizing CFTA, which was announced at the premiers conference in Yukon in 2016 but not actually unveiled until the following spring in Toronto.

The chair has changed hands twice since then. First it swung to New Brunswick — home of the much-discussed Comeau case, in which that province’s right to stop its citizens from stocking their personal beer fridges across a provincial boundary was upheld by the Supreme Court. Now it’s Quebec’s turn.

Ontario’s recent change of government also delayed the distribution of a working group report on alcoholic beverages that was due by July 1 (more on that later). (Continued: CBC)

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Wednesday December 21, 2016

December 20, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday December 21, 2016

Ottawa, provinces fail to reach a deal on health spending

Ottawa and the provinces have failed to reach a deal on health-care funding, despite a $11.5-billion pledge by the federal government to boost targeted spending on home care and mental health.

The federal government has now taken that offer off the table, Finance Minister Bill Morneau said Monday, and the Canada Health Transfer (CHT) spending increase will revert to 3 per cent a year as of April 1, 2017.

Morneau had told the provinces he was willing to grow that key federal transfer by 3.5 per cent each year over the next five years — at a value of roughly $20 billion — but the provinces balked.

“We came to the provinces with a significant offer of funds … We’re disappointed we weren’t successful,” Morneau told reporters.

Jane Philpott, Canada’s health minister, said the federal government’s money could have made a real difference in the lives of many Canadians.

“I woke up this morning feeling very hopeful, thinking about half a million kids that are waiting for care for mental health services and hoping to be able to give them good news today,” she said.

“We’re disappointed that the provinces and territories did not feel like they could accept this offer and that they couldn’t find ways to use these resources immediately, to be able to get care out to Canadians.”

Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa said while the provinces rejected the federal funding plan, it was Morneau who was responsible for ending the meeting early.

“There was an urgency to close the meeting off. We’re here, we desire an agreement, we need to come to a conclusion. Why have anybody attend if there’s nothing to negotiate or discuss?” Sousa said, adding Ottawa wasn’t willing to listen to evidence that its proposed funding plan would imperil the country’s health-care system. (Source: CBC News)

Friday November 16, 2012

November 16, 2012 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Friday November 16, 2012

15 Candidates and Growing

The battle lines are now clearer in the Ontario Liberal leadership race, and women are included in the top tier of candidates.

Sandra Pupatello and Kathleen Wynne could end up fighting this one out at Ryerson University’s new athletic centre in the old Maple Leaf Gardens in downtown Toronto during the leadership convention in late January.

They’ll be facing off against the likes of erstwhile cabinet ministers Charles Sousa, Eric Hoskins, Gerard Kennedy and Glen Murray — and perhaps Minister of Government Services Harinder Takhar — all who may well end up using the race to set themselves up for an improved cabinet spot in a Pupatello or Wynne administration.

The fact that two women are in the running for that corner office on the second floor at Queen’s Park currently occupied by departing Premier Dalton McGuinty should not be an issue in 2012 or 2013. Source

Meanwhile, lots of people have declared their intentions, many with stellar credentials. Few have the political experience that would make them an obvious choice to lead a federal political party.

The list of those who have stated their intention to run, as of Wednesday, included Ottawa lawyer David Bertschi, Vancouver lawyer Alex Burton, Toronto lawyer Deborah Coyne, Toronto lawyer Martha Hall Findlay, Victoria lawyer David Merner, Toronto economist Jonathan Mousley, and Quebec MP Justin Trudeau. (Source: Globe & Mail)

Thursday May 31, 2012

May 31, 2012 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Thursday May 31, 2012

McGuinty tells Catholic church he’s in charge of schools

The provincial government — not the Catholic church — is the higher power when it comes to running Ontario schools, says Premier Dalton McGuinty.

The reminder came a day after Cardinal Thomas Collins, archbishop of Toronto, accused the minority Liberal government of making “religious freedom . . . a second-class right” with a controversial amendment to an anti-bullying bill.

McGuinty, a Catholic whose wife Terri teaches in the separate school system that gets $7 billion annually in taxpayer funding, acknowledged Collins has responsibilities to exercise in his position.

“I have a different set of responsibilities,” McGuinty said Tuesday at the Bombardier factory in Downsview.

“I’m accountable to all faiths, I’m accountable to people of no faith. I’m accountable to all parents.”

Under the amendment supported by the New Democrats and the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association, Catholic schools must let students call anti-homophobia support groups “gay” clubs or words to that effect if teens so desire.

That means all children “will be accepted and respected for who they are,” the premier said, arguing it is one of Ontario’s “fundamental values that transcend any one faith.”

Collins questioned why the government would be “rigid” in giving students more power than school principals and trustees in naming clubs.

“Any student apparently can sort of override the people who have a serious responsibility to care for all the kids in the school,” Collins, also president of the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario, told Newstalk 1010. (Source: Toronto Star)