trust – mackaycartoons

Saturday October 31, 2020

November 1, 2020 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday October 31, 2020

Biden’s Call for ‘National Mask Mandate’ Gains Traction in Public Health Circles

October 10, 2020

As the nation heads into what public health experts are calling a “dark winter” of coronavirus illness and death, public health experts are coalescing around Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s call for a “national mask mandate,” even as they concede such an effort would require much more than the stroke of a presidential pen.

Over the past week, a string of prominent public health experts — notably Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease specialist, and Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration under President Trump — have said it is time to seriously consider a national mandate to curb the spread of the virus.

Overseas this week, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia became the latest foreign leader to impose a national mandate for citizens to wear masks. Mr. Trump is opposed to a mandate, and Mr. Biden has conceded that a presidential order for all Americans to wear masks would almost certainly face — and most likely fall to — a legal challenge.

March 6, 2020

Mr. Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, echoed the “dark winter” language during the most recent presidential debate, and he is already using his bully pulpit to promote and reinforce a culture of mask wearing. If elected, he will almost certainly do more.

Mr. Biden has already said that, as president, he would mandate masks on all federal property, an executive order that could have wide reach. He could use his authority under federal transit law to require masks on public transportation. He could also prod governors who are resisting mask mandates to at least require masks in public buildings in their states.

But that is delicate terrain in the United States, where Mr. Trump has turned the act of wearing or not wearing a mask into a political statement. Public health and legal experts say it would be far better for Mr. Biden — or Mr. Trump, for that matter — to use his powers of persuasion to convince Americans that covering one’s face to curb the spread of the virus is a patriotic or civic-minded action.

“Instead of making it about the president’s coercive authority under law it should be about whether the president can support a norm that supports public health, which is in people’s self interest,” said Harold Hongju Koh, a law professor at Yale University and an expert in national security and human rights.

Mr. Trump, however, has shown little interest in supporting such norms. At a rally on Wednesday in Arizona, he mocked California’s mask mandate, saying, “You have to eat through the mask.” (New York Times)

Saturday July 29, 2017

July 28, 2017 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday July 29, 2017

Waterfront Trust owes City of Hamilton $325,000 in taxes

The Hamilton Waterfront Trust owes the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes.

The arms-length agency — whose mandate is helping Hamiltonians connect with their waterfront — has unpaid arrears of $325,000 from 2016 and 2017, city tax director Maria Di Santo confirmed Tuesday.

The money owed stems from two properties — $280,000 for 57 Discovery Dr., the home of waterfront restaurant Sarcoa; and $45,000 for 17-47 Discovery Dr., which includes Williams Fresh Café.

According to the city’s property inquiry tool, 2017 taxes for 57 Discovery Dr. are $176,790; and $20,670 for 17-147 Discovery Dr.

In May 2017, the trust owed an additional $164,665 in taxes and interest on 57 Discovery Dr. from 2015. That was paid by July, according to a tax certificate.

HWT executive director Werner Plessl declined comment and referred all questions to board member and Ward 2 Coun. Jason Farr.

Farr said the board directed a tax payment be made of about $175,000 about six weeks ago.

“This wouldn’t even be an issue if certain people paid their rent,” he said Tuesday.

He said the board is trying to manage its priorities, which include legal fees, maintaining their services and paying taxes.

“We are not ignoring any of them,” he said. “As a responsible councillor and board member, I feel we are living up to our fiduciary responsibility.”

The trust has racked up “many, many thousands of dollars” in “unaccounted for” legal fees, Farr said.

HWT has been locked in a $15-million legal battle that waterfront eatery Sarcoa launched against the trust and the city in late 2015 for preventing it from throwing patio parties with amplified music.

The trust began its life with a $6.3-million endowment to settle a lawsuit by the City of Hamilton that contended it hadn’t been properly compensated by the former Hamilton Harbour Commission for its share of port profits dating back decades.

But the seed money has run out and the trust’s revenues now come from capital project funding from other levels of government and sales from the various businesses that the trust operates around the western end of the harbour front.

In the past, the trust has struggled to stay out of the red. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Tuesday November 13, 2012

November 13, 2012 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday November 13, 2012

Some Light Reading

Canadians are slowly losing trust in Parliament and political parties, and share some of the toughest views in the American hemisphere about their national leader, according to a new 26-country survey.

The survey by The Environics Institute, part of an investigation into political attitudes in 26 countries in the Americas, found that Canadians have been shedding some of their optimistic and positive views on politics and government

The survey found only 16 per cent of Canadians place “a lot of trust” in their Prime Minister, putting Stephen Harper near the bottom among all leaders in the Americas.

“In an international context, Harper has a lower level of trust than almost every other national leader in the hemisphere,” Mr. Neuman said.

The levels of trust are also low for the Canadian Parliament (17 per cent), political parties (10 per cent) and mass media (6 per cent). The findings come after Canada lived under a series of minority governments from 2004 to 2011, fuelling a sense of growing partisan bickering in Ottawa. (Source: Globe & Mail)

Meanwhile, less than two years after lovelorn fans were first forced to accept that young pop superstars Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez were a romantic couple, their followers are reeling at news the pair are no more.

After weeks of rumours the couple was on the outs, E! News reported Friday that the teen pop stars broke up in recent days. The Associated Press confirmed the split on Saturday, citing an anonymous source not officially authorized to speak about the couple’s relationship status.(Source: CTV News)