retreat

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday January 25, 2023

Bad Government – Worse Alternative

Trudeau is already into his eighth year in power and he has enough collective wisdom advising him to have understood that his political “biological clock” is ticking.

He has outstanding ministers like Anita Anand, Marc Miller and François-Philippe Champagne who would like their chance. The exceptional Chrystia Freeland is tired of just drumming her fingers on the table and may bolt if Trudeau sticks around.

If he does, there are items on his balance sheet that stand out for hard-pressed Canadians. Although plagiarized from the NDP, Trudeau has negotiated and put in place a plan to provide quality affordable daycare. Quite a feat.

At the same time, the chronic underperformers in key files such as Justice, Immigration, Transport and Public safety have been allowed to muddle along, accumulating errors until they become a crisis. Since when has it become a Herculean task to deliver a passport?

An impression of overall incompetence is beginning to stick to Trudeau. He needs a new broom to sweep clean in the PCO (Privy Council Office).

Trudeau’s worst mark on the progressive report card is in the environment.

When Guilbault wanders into a meeting of environmentalists today, those who once admired him now start analyzing their shoelaces.

Trudeau bought a pipeline to boost oil sands production but, ever eager to please, Guilbeault surpassed his master by going along with the mindless offshore oil extraction project at Bay du Nord.

Guilbeault has the temerity to try to sell it as”net zero,” by referring only to the extraction process. It’s embarrassing that he thinks he can con people into forgetting that the petroleum is going to get burned somewhere on the planet, contributing of course to global warming and climate change.

At the UN Biodiversity Conference in Montreal, Guilbeault has just promised to restore 19 million hectares of land. That lofty undertaking, without the slightest hint of a plan (or a deal with the provinces) only served to remind Canadians of another vapid promise Trudeau made during a previous election: plant a billion trees. The actual number of trees planted was adjacent to zero. Make the announcement and disappear, sums up the Liberal strategy on sustainable development.

Brace yourselves because the new year, 2023, will likely be an election year. Should he choose to stick around, Trudeau will be in his fourth contest since first winning in 2015, a prospect as tiring for his troops as it is for Canadians.

The eternal Liberal rallying cry of “don’t split the vote” will also have more resonance than ever. Sure the Liberals successfully portrayed Andrew Scheer as a scary anti-choice relic and Erin O’Toole as (implausibly) an anti-vaxer! They won’t have anything of the kind to throw at the ultra-woke Singh. They will just have to point to Poilievre and, like a scary tale around the campfire, tell folks that Pierre the evil troll is coming for them unless they re-elect Justin the good. (CTV News) 

From sketch to finish, see the current way Graeme completes an editorial cartoon using an iPencil, the Procreate app, and a couple of cheats on an iPad Pro …