Trudeau • mackaycartoons

Wednesday December 2, 2015

December 1, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday December 2, 2015

Trudeau children’s nannies being paid for by taxpayers

Canadian taxpayers are paying the wages of two nannies hired to care for the children of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau, according to cabinet orders posted online.

Friday January 12, 2007

The hirings were approved late last week, with cabinet authorizing the appointment of the two women under the Official Residences Act as “special assistants at the prime minister’s residence.”

They will be paid between $15 and $20 an hour during the day and $11 to $13 an hour for night shifts effective Nov. 4 — the day Trudeau and his cabinet were sworn in.

The disclosure comes after an election campaign where Trudeau repeatedly attacked the Conservatives’ enhanced universal child care benefit, or UCCB, and income splitting for families, arguing rich families like his and former prime minister Stephen Harper’s didn’t need taxpayers’ help.

“In these times, Mr. Harper’s top priority is to give wealthy families like his and mine $2,000,” Trudeau said in reference to the Conservatives’ income-splitting tax credit. “Let me tell you something: We don’t need it. And Canada can’t afford it.”

Trudeau is also entitled to collect annual UCCB payments of about $3,400 for his three children.

He promised to give the money to charity.

April 25, 2012

One of the women hired was with the Trudeaus this past week on the prime minister’s foreign trip that wrapped up Monday at the UN climate change conference in Paris. She posted photos online of the couple’s two children who came on the trip.

There were also shots of her with the Trudeaus’ youngest child on Facebook visiting museums and at the hotel where they stayed in Paris.

The prime minister’s director of communications, Kate Purchase, said in an email that the two women who have been hired are doing more than childcare.

“Like all families of prime ministers, a small number of staff provide assistance. Given the nature of the prime minister’s responsibilities and his young family, the Trudeaus employ two household employees who, in addition to performing other duties around the house, act as secondary caregivers to the three children,” Purchase said. (Source: CBC News)

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#nannygate Canadian style: https://t.co/lYrhdqLCK2 #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/Nz4TwdOupS

— Graeme MacKay (@mackaycartoons) December 1, 2015

Regina Leader-Post, December 3, 2015

Thursday August 29, 2013

August 29, 2013 by Graeme MacKay

Trudeau defends pot revelation

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has defended his recent admission about smoking marijuana in a speech before hundreds of local supporters at his party’s summer caucus in Prince Edward Island.

In a Wednesday evening speech, Trudeau acknowledged the controversy he set off last week. He disclosed in an interview that he smoked marijuana about three years ago, while he was an MP, at a dinner party he was hosting and that he’s done that about five or six times in his life.

Earlier in the summer, Trudeau said he wants to see pot legalized, not just decriminalized. The Liberal party voted for that position at its last policy convention.

Trudeau told the huge crowd at the outdoor party held at local Liberal MP Lawrence MacAulay’s home that the debate he set off “blew my mind.”

“Only in Stephen Harper’s Canada could people actually argue that being honest was a calculated risk,” said Trudeau. He said he didn’t talk about his past marijuana use because he wants to disclose “every little last detail, the public sphere is not supposed to be Oprah,” but rather because of the position he backs when it comes to legalization.

“But I do believe that since I am taking a strong policy position on what is a mistake in our policy and in Stephen Harper’s Canada that criminalizes hundreds of thousands of people needlessly and costs us hundreds of millions of dollars every year, I think its time to be able to be forthright and honest about the kinds of changes we need to bring,” he said.

Meanwhile, the desk from the late Pierre E. Trudeau’s Montreal law office will be sold in an online auction by the Heffel Fine Art Auction House, with bids being accepted between Sept. 5 and Sept. 26. (Source: CBC News)

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Friday January 12, 2007

January 12, 2007 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday January 12, 2007

Is Justin Trudeau set to run as MP?

Justin Trudeau is about to enter federal politics—well, according to everyone but him, that is.

While the 35-year-old school teacher and academic is remaining coy about his intentions, a report published in Montréal’s French-language daily La Presse on Tue, Jan 9, claims that the eldest son of former Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau is planning on running as a Liberal candidate in the next federal election in Outremont, a riding located in the centre of the Island of Montréal that is home to wealthy Francophone families and a sizeable Jewish community.

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Outremont is considered to be an extremely “safe” riding for the party—since its creation in 1933, the Liberals have failed to win the seat only once, in 1988—and the area’s current MP, former Transport Minister Jean Lapierre, has indicated that he does not plan to run in the next election.

Despite his denials and deflections (“I have no comment to make at this time,” Trudeau wrote in an email to the Montréal Gazette), the increasing likelihood of Trudeau’s entrance into the House of Commons has set political pundits and journalists abuzz. A recent article in Maclean’s magazine headlined “His Secret’s Out” claims that Trudeau hinted in an interview that he would make an announcement regarding his future in politics sometime after Christmas, while a close friend of the supposed star candidate reportedly told the magazine “Off the record, I think he’s pretty much there.” (Source: Vue)