superhero – mackaycartoons

Thursday May 16, 2019

May 23, 2019 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday May 16, 2019

Freeland renews push to remove steel, aluminum tariffs during Washington trip

July 27, 2018

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland is bound for Washington to meet with Trump trade czar Robert Lighthizer in a renewed push to get punitive steel and aluminum tariffs lifted.

The meeting at the United States trade representative’s Washington office is to take place on Wednesday but Freeland will also venture to Capitol Hill for a meeting with the influential Republican chair of the Senate finance committee, Chuck Grassley.

“We continue to lobby very assertively for the lifting of the tariffs. We’re at a point where we need to do everything we can and talk to everyone we can about why we see these as unjust,” a senior government source said Tuesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the ongoing dispute.

June 1, 2018

The meetings come after a pair of telephone calls on consecutive days late last week between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in which the controversial 25-per-cent duty on Canadian steel and 10-per-cent levy on aluminum was a major subject of conversation.

On Tuesday, Grassley suggested to reporters in a conference call that an end to the tariffs might be close. Last month, Grassley tweeted that Trump must remove the tariffs before the new North American trade deal can be ratified.

Trump imposed them in the first place using a section of U.S. trade law that gives the president powers to put duties on imports on national-security grounds.

Freeland, Trudeau and others in Canadian government have derided the tariffs as absurd, illegal and insulting.

But Freeland has said she’s heartened by the recent comments of both Republican and Democratic American lawmakers who say the new North American trade agreement that includes Mexico can’t be ratified with the “Section 232” tariffs in place. (Global)

Thursday February 1, 2018

January 31, 2018 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday February 1, 2018

With Doug Ford joining PC leadership race, all bets are off

Your mom’s basement is a rather inauspicious venue to announce your ambition to become premier of Ontario, but anybody who underestimates Doug Ford’s chances to win the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leadership does so at their peril.

October 30, 2014

Ford declared his candidacy on Monday to lead a party in deep turmoil following the resignation of leader Patrick Brown over allegations of sexual misconduct.

Ford is quickly trying to position himself as the populist choice in the race, the outsider, railing against the elites.

“Folks, make no mistake about it,” he said in his short statement from the basement of his mother’s Etobicoke house. “The elites of this party, the ones who have shut out the grassroots, do not want me in this race. But I’m here to give a voice to the hard-working taxpayers of this province, people who have been ignored for far too long.”

Ford’s message might just resonate with a good chunk of the PC membership. And don’t forget Ford’s message already has proven popular with no small number of people in Toronto.

When he stepped into the shoes of his better-known brother Rob Ford to run for mayor in 2014, he came second but won 20 of the city’s 44 wards. He trounced John Tory in Etobicoke, Scarborough and North York, the key parts of Toronto that the PCs must swing their way to form a majority provincial government. It`s not a stretch to think he could replicate that success in the 905, the crucial battleground of Ontario politics, and of course in traditional Tory strongholds too. (Continued: CBC)

Here’s Doug Ford viewing the cartoon during an interview with Cynthia Mulligan, political reporter with CityNews Toronto on March 12, 2018, the Monday after the weekend vote which declared him leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party:

Saturday August 24, 2015

August 21, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday August 24, 2015

“I am very sorry:” They smoked, he sprayed Glade

Ed Steel says, quite simply, that he couldn’t take it anymore.

After what he says was weeks of having to wheel his common-law spouse through a constant crowd of smokers every time he went in or out of Dundurn Place, and after complaining to everyone he could think of — the long-term care home’s administration, the police, the health department, even a city councillor — nothing had changed.

“It’s illegal — there are signs right there. But it all just goes into a dead ear. Nothing happened.”

His frustration arises, he says, not just from the disregard for the law, or the health of those who have to pass through the smoke, but because of his first wife, who he says died from a smoking-related illness.

So on Monday, Steel brought a can of aerosol air freshener with him from home and as he passed through the smokers gathered by the front door in their wheelchairs and scooters, he let off blasts from his air freshener “to show them that I deserved some fresh air.”

On his way out, one of the smokers challenged him, he says, told him “he’d better not spray that again.”

So out came the Glade.

“I sprayed it at the ground, not at anybody’s face … if the wind blew it her way, I am very sorry.”

Police tell a different story and unfortunately for him their witness Ingrid Boiago, the centre’s director of clinical nursing, was until very recently a Hamilton police officer.

Steel was charged the next day with two counts of assault with a weapon; in their press release police allege Steel sprayed the women in the face. In an interview Boiago declined to go into specifics of what she saw.

Kevin McDonald, a manager at Hamilton’s Public Health Services, says Dundurn Place “is a challenging location” for the department partly because some of the long-term care residents have a diminished capacity “and it’s a challenge for them to understand the requirements.”

Enforcement staff have issued 11 tickets (minimum fines start at $365) and these have yielded some convictions, but also some charges have been withdrawn because of diminished capacity. McDonald said staff have met with Dundurn Place staff this week in light of the incident.

Ironically, the Mary Street facility is the only long-term care home in the whole city to have a legal, indoor smoking area, a specially ventilated room that meets provincial requirements and is inspected annually. It also has a rear patio that can be used for smoking.

But many residents, McDonald says, prefer the front entrance because that’s where all the action is.

Leslie Watson, Dundurn Place’s administrator, acknowledges smoking at the entrance “is an ongoing issue. We continue to go out and ask the residents to go down the ramps (away from the front door). I take it extremely seriously and we work very hard to get the residents to understand the requirements.”

For his part Steel, 67, hopes the attention this incident has generated will lead to a more permanent solution and in the meantime he’s looking to move his spouse to a different facility to finish her rehabilitation so she can come home.

“If this is all for nothing, then I’m going to be really upset.” (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Saturday October 4, 2014

October 3, 2014 by Graeme MacKay

Saturday October 4, 2014

Comic Con Meet the Council of Canadians

“My parents weren’t your biggest fans.”

That’s what Lou Ferrigno followers tell him when they meet him at comic conventions.

It’s nothing personal, but it has to do with the number of shirts they ripped as kids, imitating his Incredible Hulk.

If you can relate, Ferrigno is in town Saturday for the second annual Hamilton Comic Con. The event features Ferrigno, who played the Hulk on TV during the ’70s and ’80s, the original TV Catwoman Julie Newmar, Ken Osmond who played Eddie Haskell on Leave it to Beaver, and many more.

We don’t just have him for the weekend though. On Friday, Ferrigno, who lives in Santa Monica where he works in show business and acts as a Los Angeles Deputy Sherriff, was to be sworn in as an honourary Hamilton Police Constable. It’s part of Crime Stoppers’ ‘Be a Hero’ anti-bullying campaign, a cause close to his heart. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Growing up, Ferrigno had partial permanent hearing loss and a resulting speech impediment. He says he read Hulk comics from a young age because he identified with the superhero.

Meanwhile, More than 300 Council of Canadians supporters from coast to coast are gathered in Hamilton this week as they begin a one-year countdown to the next federal election.

Representatives from environmental, health, youth, Indigenous and labour groups are all in town to share ideas and prepare for what the group is a calling a “crucial year.”

“This is exactly what we need with our uninspiring Conservative government one year before the next federal election,” said Maude Barlow, the council’s national chairperson.

The group plans to hold discussions on topics such as the Harper government’s fiscal policies, the elimination of door-to-door delivery by Canada Post, and mining and pipeline projects they say threaten the environment.

A “Rally For Good Jobs” will be held on Friday beginning at the Sheraton Hotel on King Street at 5 p.m. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

LETTER to the EDITOR

Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday October 7, 2014

Saturday’s editorial cartoon would seem to suggest that only people who are not part of the mainstream would attend either a Council of Canadians conference or a ComicCon.

The values espoused by the Council of Canadians at its recent conference in Hamilton — good jobs, strong public services and renewed democracy — are much closer to the values held by a majority of Canadians than are the values held by the Harper Conservatives. These values — precarious, low-wage jobs for Canadians; reduced or eliminated public services; a democratic process compromised by robocall-style election fraud — are the reason the Council of Canadians calls for the removal, via democratic means, of the Harper-led Conservative government in Ottawa.

Similarly, while it may be news to your editorial staff, ComicCons have gone mainstream in the last few years, offering an opportunity for those who share a passion for comics, graphic novels, science fiction and fantasy a chance to meet with others who share similar interests.

It comes as no surprise that The Hamilton Spectator would offer up such an editorial slant on the Council of Canadians, given its long-standing support for the Conservative Party. It is, however, surprising that your editorial cartoonist, Graeme MacKay, an accomplished comic artist himself, would portray ComicCon attendees in such an unflattering light.

Edward Reece, Hamilton Chapter, Council of Canadians