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Tuesday January 19, 2021

January 19, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday January 19, 2021

Canadian politicians have been scared straight by Donald Trump’s raging exit. Will it last?

Racism is definitely not a good trait for a politician. Nor is an inability to read the room. 

October 3, 2019

Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet has been accused of both after his drive-by smear of new federal Transport Minister Omar Alghabra. 

The most harsh condemnation came from Justin Trudeau on Friday, pronouncing himself incredulous that a party leader would wade into “insinuations” about Alghabra, who is a Muslim, after what everyone witnessed in Washington last week.

Blanchet, the prime minister said, was “playing dangerous games around intolerance and hate” when purporting to be asking mere questions about Alghabra and Islamic political activism.

Trudeau’s link to events in Washington reflects a larger phenomenon rattling through Canadian politics since the Jan. 6 siege of Capitol Hill.

How long it lasts is anyone’s guess, but that mob scene south of the border has prompted some soul-searching among political types in Canada too. 

Many of the ingredients of Donald Trump’s toxic political brand are now being vigorously disowned in Canada — almost at the same speed with which many Republicans are turning their back on the president in the U.S.

June 23, 2020

Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole has revived a policy of refusal to deal with the Rebel News outlet, which traffics in the same kind of far-right disinformation that feeds Trump’s angry base in the United States. The reassertion of this rule came after a dust-up over O’Toole’s office emailing answers to Rebel questions, which were touted as an exclusive interview. 

Two prominent Calgary women, meanwhile, both from the right of the political spectrum, have publicly denounced Twitter this week — slightly after Trump was banned from the medium, mind you, but in protest against the mob mentality it helps create. 

Danielle Smith, the former leader of Alberta’s Wild Rose party, declared she was walking away from her radio-host job and Twitter, saying: “I’ve had enough of the mob.” 

Meanwhile, Calgary MP Michelle Rempel Garner penned her own takedown of Twitter, describing it as the “biggest culprit of weaponized misinformation, hate, and the death of rational argument.” Rempel’s piece appeared in an online publication called The Line. 

November 12, 2018

Two other MPs, in that exact cross-partisan spirit, also wrote bluntly this week about how the poisonous politics around the Capitol Hill assault required active resistance in Canada. Liberal MP Anthony Housefather and Conservative MP Scott Aitchison collaborated on a National Post article headlined: “As Canadian MPs, we know our opponents are not our enemies. Let’s not become the U.S.” 

Now, it should be pointed out that a week is a long time in politics and the road to partisan hell is paved with good intentions to be collegial. All of these resolutions to absorb the lessons of Jan. 6 in the U.S. capital could vanish like other New Year’s resolutions — most likely within the first five minutes of Question Period when Parliament resumes later this month.

Right now, it looks like some Canadian politicians have been scared straight by Trump’s fiery exit in the U.S. But it’s not enough to denounce their rivals or Twitter or even Trump — the test of any new resolve will be in whether they’re willing to call out toxic politics when it happens in their own ranks. (Toronto Star) 

 

Friday March 31, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday March 31, 2017

US President Donald Trump keeps getting tripped by checks & balances

Will Donald Trump transform the US in his first 100 days through executive orders and new laws? Will he wreak protectionist, anti-immigrant and anti-minority havoc? Relax. The US Constitution is designed to hobble presidents. It divides power between the president, US Congress and the judiciary, giving no branch an overriding authority. Each is subject to checks and balances.

Neither legislators not judges feel inferior to or obliged to kowtow to the president. He has to negotiate with even minor Congressmen for legislative support. If instead he tries to bludgeon his way forward, he suffers humiliating setbacks. Trump has proved that repeatedly. Again and again he has charged forward with high-volume rhetoric and been tripped up. With every trip, he looks less fearsome, and sometimes comical.

His latest humiliation has been the forced postponement of his Bill repealing Obama’s healthcare scheme, something central to his platform. His own Republican Party’s right wing refused to go along, saying Trump’s changes were not radical enough. Trump says Obamacare will implode anyway. But the world now knows that the Republican majority in Congress has a mind of its own — as was true of Democratic majorities when Democratic presidents were in power. Trump will have to wheedle and cajole, not bludgeon. He may have to dilute or abandon many proposals. (Source: Times of India) 

 

Tuesday September 29, 2015

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator - Tuesday September 29, 2015 Furor over Sudbury bribery scandal continues Ontario's New Democrats demanded Premier Kathleen Wynne "come clean" Friday about her role -- if any -- in the Sudbury byelection scandal that led to criminal charges against a senior Liberal operative. OPP charged prominent Sudbury Liberal Gerry Lougheed on Thursday after an investigation into allegations he offered former candidate Andrew Olivier a job to step aside for a Feb. 5 byelection. Wynne refused to answer when asked directly who had instructed Lougheed to make the job offer, insisting she couldn't comment because the case is now before the courts. All the premier has to do is say "No," said NDP house Leader Gilles Bisson. "If she didn't do it she should at least say so," he said. "And I don't see the courts as having anything to do with her ability to be able to deny that in fact she had anything to do with it." The Progressive Conservatives said they too want to know if Wynne ordered Lougheed to offer Olivier an incentive to step aside, and called on the premier to step down until the charges are dealt with. Wynne maintains the Liberals were just trying to keep Olivier in the party fold, and there was no need to offer him anything to step aside because she had already decided he would not be the byelection candidate. Wynne had convinced federal New Democrat MP Glenn Thibeault to be the Liberal candidate in the byelection, and Lougheed said the premier wanted Olivier to step down and agree to nominate his replacement. Olivier released recordings of his conversations with Lougheed and with Wynne's deputy chief of staff, Pat Sorbara, but he did not record his conversation with the premier. "I come to you on behalf of the premier," Lougheed said. "The premier wants to talk to you. They would like to present to you options in terms of appointments, jobs or whatever that you and her and Pat Sorbara can talk about."

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday September 29, 2015

Furor over Sudbury bribery scandal continues

Ontario’s New Democrats demanded Premier Kathleen Wynne “come clean” Friday about her role — if any — in the Sudbury byelection scandal that led to criminal charges against a senior Liberal operative.

OPP charged prominent Sudbury Liberal Gerry Lougheed on Thursday after an investigation into allegations he offered former candidate Andrew Olivier a job to step aside for a Feb. 5 byelection.

Wynne refused to answer when asked directly who had instructed Lougheed to make the job offer, insisting she couldn’t comment because the case is now before the courts.

All the premier has to do is say “No,” said NDP house Leader Gilles Bisson.

“If she didn’t do it she should at least say so,” he said. “And I don’t see the courts as having anything to do with her ability to be able to deny that in fact she had anything to do with it.”

The Progressive Conservatives said they too want to know if Wynne ordered Lougheed to offer Olivier an incentive to step aside, and called on the premier to step down until the charges are dealt with.

Wynne maintains the Liberals were just trying to keep Olivier in the party fold, and there was no need to offer him anything to step aside because she had already decided he would not be the byelection candidate.

Wynne had convinced federal New Democrat MP Glenn Thibeault to be the Liberal candidate in the byelection, and Lougheed said the premier wanted Olivier to step down and agree to nominate his replacement.

Olivier released recordings of his conversations with Lougheed and with Wynne’s deputy chief of staff, Pat Sorbara, but he did not record his conversation with the premier.

“I come to you on behalf of the premier,” Lougheed said. “The premier wants to talk to you. They would like to present to you options in terms of appointments, jobs or whatever that you and her and Pat Sorbara can talk about.”

The recording is pretty damning, said Bisson.

“It is clear somebody in the premier’s office said: ‘go and offer Mr. Olivier a bribe not to run in the provincial byelection.’ The tapes are clear,” he said. “The premier has a responsibility to the people of Ontario to say I did or I did not order this particular thing to happen.” (Source: Toronto Sun)

 

Saturday August 31, 2013 (Labour Day Weekend)

Graeme MacKay Illustration for Saturday, August 31, 2013 in The Hamilton Spectator

Is Labour Day still every day for women at home?

“Ask of me anything but doing the laundry.” – Napoleon

True, history suggests the diminutive dictator said to ask of him anything but time, but surely that was code for housework.

Times have changed from the days when men left all the chores to women while they brought home the bacon and conquered nations.

Isn’t it true that the division of labour in the home is no longer so imbalanced?

As a sociologist might put it, the answer is yes and no.

A Statistics Canada study says that between 1998 and 2010 men increased the time they spent on home chores by an hour in a given day, while women’s housework time remained constant.

And yet it found that Canadian women still do at least an hour more chores per day then men.

Moreover, women working full time spend nearly twice as much time caring for their children.

So is the egalitarian glass half-full or half-empty? Or should we measure using a smaller glass?

It bears noting that housework for both genders has decreased overall compared to the 1960s, in part due to such things as affordable home appliances, easier to prepare meals and paid home cleaners.

But chores continue to be mostly handled by women. Friction over the imbalance can doom a couple.

“The division of labour in and of itself can torpedo a marriage,” said Gary Direnfield, a Hamilton social worker and author of Marriage Rescue.

“And it’s not necessarily who is doing the laundry but how we feel about who is doing it. We take that as a statement on the relationship, attach meaning to these chores and fight over what we believe it means.”

Women’s lives have been transformed in the past 50 years, McMaster University sociologist Melanie Heath wrote in an email from Paris where she is conducting research. (Continued… Source: The Hamilton Spectator)

Saturday December 1, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Saturday December 1, 2012

Canada opposes Palestinian statehood bid at UN

Canada part of minority opposing Palestine’s observer state status

A confidential report says Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Canada will vote against the bid of the Palestinian Authority to raise its status at the United Nations.

While Harper said he favours a two-state solution in the Middle East, his government wants to see Israel and the Palestine Authority return to the bargaining table before supporting Palestine’s statehood. 

Speaking in the House of Commons Wednesday, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said he’s disappointed with the actions of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who plans to ask the UN General Assembly on Thursday to recognize Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem — areas Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

“It’s obvious that this will affect our relationship,” said Baird, who plans to travel to New York where he’ll speak on the issue at the UN. “This government makes no apologies for standing with the Jewish State. This government makes no apologies from standing with Israel at the UN.”

Canada will vote with the United States on Thursday against accepting Palestine as a non-member observer state. However, it’s expected that some two-thirds of the General Assembly’s 193 members will support the bid.

Currently the Palestinians hold observer status at the UN.

France, Spain, Norway, Denmark and Switzerland have pledged support while Germany said it would not support the initiative and Britain would only vote in favour if the Palestinians softened some of their language. (Source: CTV News)