rules – mackaycartoons

Wednesday May 20, 2015

May 19, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

Wednesday May 13, 2015

Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday May 20, 2015

Employment minister Pierre Poilievre won’t say sorry for ‘vanity videos’

Employment Minister Pierre Poilievre won’t apologize for using taxpayer dollars to produce YouTube videos of himself promoting the universal child care benefit.

Poilievre insisted Friday he’s simply using innovative ways to inform Canadians about the newly enriched and expanded child benefit.

But opposition MPs denounced the “vanity videos” as a new low for a government that has a penchant for producing partisan advertising on the public dime.

And the Canadian Taxpayers Federation agreed.

“The bottom line is that taxpayers should not be forced to pay for partisan advertising masquerading as information-based government advertising,” said Aaron Wudrick, the federation’s federal director.

The latest examples “highlight the need for an independent third party” to vet all government advertising, he added.

One of the videos shows Poilievre explaining the child benefit to shoppers at a children’s consignment clothing sale in his Ottawa riding. It was filmed on a Sunday by two members of the Employment department’s in-house creative production team, which has an annual operating budget of about $50,000.

A departmental spokesman said the Sunday shoot took two hours, which was paid overtime for the two videographers involved. Editing was done in-house during regular work hours. (Source: Toronto Star)

Published in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, National Newswatch, The Regina Leader-Post, NUPGE drawing conclusions, and The Woodstock Sentinel Review

Friday July 27, 2012

July 27, 2012 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Friday July 27, 2012

Olympic brand enforcers out in full force

As almost everyone in the world must know by now, there may not be enough guards to provide security for the 2012 London Olympics because of a planning and hiring fiasco.

Alas, there are no such concerns about the number of enforcement officers and lawyers charged with checking for violations of the Games’ oppressive brand protection regulations.

The Orwellian-sounding Olympic Deliverance Authority has 280 Olympic brand enforcers authorized by the government fanning across Britain this week to ensure nobody uses the five hallowed rings for any purpose unless they have paid a fortune to Olympic organizers to do so.

The London Organizing Committee (LOCOG) has a second team of zealots doing similar work on behalf of the rich and powerful.

Among the offences these sleuths are ferreting out under the Olympic Games Act (2006) are putting two of the words “games” “2012” “Twenty Twelve,” “gold,” “bronze” or “medal” in the same sentence.

Offenders could be on the hook for fines of more than $30,000.

Heck, there is even said to be a legal ban on spectators uploading personal photos of the London Games onto social networking sites such as Facebook.

The roundup by the authorities has so far implicated an 81-year-old grandmother of six from Norfolk who made a tiny sweater with the Olympics rings for a child’s doll that her knitting circle intended to sell through a church charity for $1.63. (Source: National Post)