Queen Elizabeth

Thursday June 23, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday June 23, 2022

Rwanda is a brutal, repressive regime. Holding the Commonwealth summit there is a sham

Back when I was a reporter based in Africa in the 1990s, there were two organisations whose meetings regularly took place amid widespread media indifference: the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the Commonwealth.

August 12, 2005

There were solid reasons for our lack of enthusiasm. Such get-togethers were strong on pomp and rigmarole, but the interesting decisions usually took place behind closed doors. Both organisations were widely seen as little more than dictators’ clubs, attuned to the interests of ruling elites while aloof from the millions of citizens they nominally represented.

The Commonwealth heads of government meeting (Chogm) in Kigali, Rwanda this week will do nothing to challenge those assumptions.

Held in a country primed to receive Britain’s unwanted migrants – a deal that even Prince Charles, who will be chairing for the first time, apparently regards as “appalling” – the meeting will highlight the weaknesses of the organisation on which Britain is pinning its hopes of future global relevance.

In the run-up to the EU referendum, Brexiters talked up the benefits of ditching the EU in favour of a market that – thanks to the vastness of Britain’s defunct empire – holds 2.5 billion consumers, a third of the global population. And, since Brexit, it is true that free-trade agreements have been signed with Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, while a host of other deals are being negotiated with members of the 54-nation association.

Tuesday June 15, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday June 15, 2021

The Wreckage Donald Trump Left Behind

January 16, 2020

Somewhere in China, a company recently received an order for boxes and boxes of reusable face masks with g7 uk 2021 embroidered on them. Over the weekend in Cornwall, in southwest England, these little bits of protective cloth were handed to journalists covering the 2021 summit of some of the world’s most powerful industrial economies—so they could write in safety about these leaders’ efforts to contain China.

August 24, 2019

The irony of the situation neatly summed up the trouble with this year’s G7 summit. The gathering was supposed to mark a turning point, a physical meeting symbolizing not only the beginning of the end of the coronavirus pandemic but also a return to something approaching normalcy after the years of Donald Trump and Brexit. And in certain senses it was. With Joe Biden—the walking embodiment of the traditional American paterfamilias that Trump was not—no one feared a sudden explosion or American walkout as before. Biden is not the sort of person to hurl Starbursts at another leader in a fit of pique. And yet, the reality was that the leaders in attendance were playing their diplomatic games within tram lines graffitied on the floor largely by the former U.S. president, not the incumbent one.

January 12, 2021

Emerging from a weekend of summitry last night, it was hard to avoid the reality that the great questions hanging over the gathering were ones shaped either by Trump or by the years of Trump: Europe’s frustration with American vaccine protectionism (which began under Trump but has been maintained by Biden), ongoing disputes over Brexit, the future of NATO, worries over Russian interference, and, ultimately, China, the great other at this event. As German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in her closing remarks: “Look, the election of Joe Biden as U.S. president doesn’t mean that the world no longer has problems.”

June 9, 2018

Everywhere you looked—whether in the communiqué itself, or the press conferences and summaries of leaders’ meetings—you could see the unresolved questions of the past few years, as presidents and prime ministers reacted to the problems thrown up, exacerbated, or actively caused by Trump. All agreed that they wanted to move on from the instability of his tenure, but they seemed divided and unclear about how, never mind what the new era should look like. With Biden’s congressional majority in doubt and Trump’s future intentions uncertain, Europe retains a latent fear that the U.S. is merely between eruptions, not recovering from one.

May 24, 2017

The leaders seemed to embody this sense of time being paused. Merkel has been chancellor so long, she attended her first G7 summit with George W. Bush and Tony Blair. Italy’s Mario Draghi might be a new prime minister, but he is no stranger to the world’s global establishment—a representative of the old order if ever there was one. Even Biden himself, hailed as a “breath of fresh air” by the summit’s host, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, is hardly a new face on the world stage.

Ultimately, this G7 summit seemed to be stuck somewhere between the past and the future—between the era of Trump and the world some of these politicians hope to create. (The Atlantic) 

Saturday April 10, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday April 10, 2021

Prince Philip loved Canada, and knew this country in good times and bad

Prince Philip, in personal encounters, had a special ability to put you immediately at ease at the same time as he kept you on edge. It was his style: he loved to demystify the monarchy so you didn’t sound like a blithering idiot when you were addressed by a member of the family. But at the same time, he also brought to conversation a degree of forthright questioning that sometimes could turn you into … well, a blithering idiot.

October 3, 2002

He loved Canada and probably visited this country more than any other on the planet, both officially with the Queen he served so dutifully and lovingly all those years, and privately on many more occasions, especially in connection with the Duke of Edinburgh Awards or the World Wildlife Fund.

In a life spread throughout most of the 20th century and well into the 21st, he met thousands of people and graced hundreds of institutions. When he made one of several visits to Massey College in the University of Toronto during the Golden Jubilee Year (2002) to become the college’s first Honorary Senior Fellow he was asked — inevitably — to unveil a plaque honouring the visit. The college flag was draped somewhat ornately over the plaque and he went up to it with a certain degree of familiarity:

June 11, 2016

“You about to see the handiwork of a master unveiler of plaques,“ he said with a wry smile. Then he took one corner of the flag and with a few twists of the wrist made it twirl in the air which made everyone laugh.

He wrote later that he had “a soft spot” for Massey College. He had laid its cornerstone in a previous visit in 1962 and he was a particular friend of the college’s founder, Vincent Massey, the first Canadian-born governor general. It was part of a much larger soft spot for Canada as a whole.

January 23, 2021

And he knew the country in good times and bad. Famously, during the troubled visit of 1964 during the height of the Quiet Revolution Quebeckers backs were turned on him and the Queen as their official car headed for the provincial legislature. Later at a press reception, he pointed out that if Canada was tired of being a monarchy perhaps we could try to end it with a bit of civility. “We don’t come here for our health,” he pointed out. “We can think of other ways of spending our time.”

Although a deeply intelligent and inherently kind man with an extraordinary sense of duty, it was his testiness that was a big part of his appeal, and also what got him into trouble. Depending on your views of the monarchy, his off-the-cuff quips were either a sign of the blatant ridiculousness of the Crown or proof of its enduring power. It was usually a matter of perspective.

April 9, 2002

He certainly understood the often murky deal between the Crown and the media that both sides played. On the one hand, there was deep resentment within the Royal Family and those officials who served them at the brutal way the media could often push into their lives during troubled periods. At the same time, the media has for some time now been the leading handmaiden in securing the Crown’s hold over people’s imagination, to the equal irritation for their own reasons of republicans and royalists alike.

He was a man marked for life by his earliest experience of being poor but royal, impoverished but often in the presence of vast wealth, alone in the world but determined to survive and make his mark. And it was all done with a sense of duty that has few parallels in our own time. (National Post) 

 

Saturday January 23, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday January 23, 2021

Payette stepping down as governor general after blistering report on Rideau Hall work environment

August 8, 2020

Gov.-Gen. Julie Payette and her secretary, Assunta di Lorenzo, are resigning after an outside workplace review of Rideau Hall found that the pair presided over a toxic work environment.

Last year, an independent consulting firm was hired by the Privy Council Office (PCO) to review reports that Payette was responsible for workplace harassment at Rideau Hall.

Sources who were briefed on the consulting firm’s report told CBC News that its conclusions were damning.

President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada Dominic LeBlanc told CBC’s Vassy Kapelos the federal government received the final report late last week, which he said offered some “disturbing” and “worrisome” conclusions.

September 23, 2020

LeBlanc said Payette indicated her intention to resign during a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last night, where they discussed the report’s contents.

In a media statement announcing her departure, Payette apologized for what she called the “tensions” at Rideau Hall in recent months, saying that everyone has “a right to a healthy and safe work environment.”

“While no formal complaints or official grievances were made during my tenure, which would have immediately triggered a detailed investigation as prescribed by law and the collective agreements in place, I still take these allegations very seriously,” she said in the statement. 

“We all experience things differently, but we should always strive to do better and be attentive to one another’s perceptions.”

In a media statement announcing her departure, Payette apologized for what she called the “tensions” at Rideau Hall in recent months, saying that everyone has “a right to a healthy and safe work environment.”

“While no formal complaints or official grievances were made during my tenure, which would have immediately triggered a detailed investigation as prescribed by law and the collective agreements in place, I still take these allegations very seriously,” she said in the statement. 

“We all experience things differently, but we should always strive to do better and be attentive to one another’s perceptions.”

November 1, 2018

Payette joins a very short list of governors general who have left the post early — but she is the first to do so mired in controversy.

Lord Alexander left for England a month before Vincent Massey was sworn in as his replacement in 1952. John Buchan, also known as Lord Tweedsmuir, and Georges Vanier both died while serving, in 1940 and 1967, respectively. In those cases, the Supreme Court chief justice of the day stepped in to fill the role temporarily.

Romeo LeBlanc, Dominic’s father, stepped down in 1999 before the end of his term due to health issues. The office was not left vacant; LeBlanc continued until Adrienne Clarkson was ready to succeed him.

Governors general have resigned under pressure — and have been asked to resign by prime ministers — in Commonwealth countries in the past. In 2003, Australian Gov. Gen. Peter Hollingworth resigned after controversy erupted over the way he had handled sexual abuse claims while he was archbishop of Brisbane. (CBC) 

 

Wednesday July 24, 2019

July 24, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday July 24, 2019

Boris Johnson prepares to take the reins of power as U.K.’s next PM

June 27, 2016

Boris Johnson takes office on Wednesday as U.K. prime minister, and will unveil the names of the team he has tasked with delivering Brexit by the end of October, with or without a deal.

Johnson enters Downing Street at one of the most perilous junctures in post-World War British history — the United Kingdom is divided over Brexit and weakened by a three-year political crisis since the Brexit referendum.

His pledge to energize the country and deliver Brexit — do or die — on Oct. 31 sets the United Kingdom up for a showdown with the European Union and thrusts it towards a potential constitutional crisis, or election, at home.

June 22, 2016

“Like some slumbering giant we are going to rise and ping off the guy-ropes of self-doubt and negativity,” Johnson, 55, said on Tuesday after he was elected by Conservative Party members.

“We are going to energize the country. We are going to get Brexit done on Oct. 31 and we are going to take advantage of all the opportunities it will bring in a new spirit of can do.”

Wednesday will combine arcane British political choreography with the realpolitik of appointing a new government — likely to be heavy on Brexit supporters.

January 18, 2019

Prime Minister Theresa May will leave Downing Street after a three-year premiership that was mired by crises over Brexit. She will travel to Buckingham Palace to formally tender her resignation to the Queen.

Johnson will then have an audience with the Queen, who will request he form an administration. His formal title will be prime minister and first lord of the Treasury.”

He will enter Downing Street in the afternoon and is expected to give a speech before appointing key members of the government — names that could give a hint of how he will handle Brexit, the U.K.’s most significant decision in decades.

June 25, 2016

“Boris will build a cabinet showcasing all the talents within the party that truly reflect modern Britain,” a source close to Johnson said.

But Johnson — known for his ambition, mop of blonde hair, flowery oratory and a cursory command of detail — must solve a series of riddles if he is to succeed where May failed.

The 2016 Brexit referendum showed a United Kingdom divided about much more than the European Union, and has fuelled soul-searching about everything from secession and immigration to capitalism, empire and modern Britishness.

The pound is weak, the economy is at risk of recession, allies are in despair at the Brexit crisis and foes are testing the the U.K.’s vulnerability.

March 30, 2017

His party has no majority in Parliament, so the Conservatives only govern with the support of 10 lawmakers from the Brexit-backing Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland.

While Johnson said he does not want an early election, some lawmakers have vowed to thwart any attempt to leave the EU without a divorce deal. Brexit Party Leader Nigel Farage said he was open to an electoral pact with Johnson.

Investors are braced to see who will be handed the top jobs such as finance minister, foreign secretary and Brexit minister. (CBC)