Ontario's Premier, Dalton McGuinty, goes to work everyday wearing a uniform. Dark pants, a white shirt (usually), and a red tie...(always Liberal red and always loosened). Sleeves always rolled up. It proclaims to the people, "hey, I'm in charge, but I'm going to be comfortable while I work very hard at this job." It may also declare, "hey, yeah, I'm Premier, you don't have to be scared of me, I'm not Mike Harris afterall."

Accordingly, I depict him with his Premier's costume in editorial cartoons. The transformation is chronicled in my Dalton McGuinty Gallery.

The forefather of Ontario's jacketless, loosened red tie, rolled-up-sleeves appearance was the last Liberal Party Premier of the province (1985-1990), David Peterson, shown here in this official Queen's Park portrait:

Here is the former Premier of Ontario in a recent photograph:

Letter:

Re: Editorial cartoon (Sept. 7)

I was disgusted with the depiction by your editorial cartoonist of Joanna Chapman. To reduce this woman's valiant efforts at demanding honesty and fairness in the public arena to a monkey on the mayor's back is ludicrous and a travesty of justice.

Graeme Mackay should visit Chapman's book shop in Dundas to discover how far off the mark is his caricature of a beautiful and elegant lady, whose innate shyness and modesty belie the strength of purpose within.

If Chapman was an axe murderer, perhaps one could excuse the lack of artistic talent displayed by the perpetrator of her portrait. But do we really want our culture heroes, especially those who show more sheer guts and integrity and purposeful action than the rest of the 99.999 per cent of us, to be so brutally misrepresented? Shame.

— Robert Nielsen, Stoney Creek

* * * * * Update November 27, 2006 * * * * *

More commentary on Joanna Chapman vs. Larry DiIanni including a letter from Ms. Chapman herself.

R.I.P.

Steve Irwin -- The Crocodile Hunter

Everyone knew who he was, and everyone is as equally shocked to know that the Crocodile Hunter is now dead after becoming the victim of a stingray's zap to his heart during a filming session over the weekend. And yeah, the photo above is from that time when Steve Irwin decided to introduce his baby son to a crocodile.

Having seen the grief expressed by the Australian Prime Minister and the rumors that a state funeral is being planned I was curious to see how the editorial cartoonists down-under are covering this event. Here's what I found:

Peter Nicholson - The Australian

Jon Kudelka

Paul Zanetti

Paul Zanetti

Sean Leahy -- Courier Mail (Brisbane)

...and finally a pearly gates cartoon which isn't drawn by an American:

...expect to see lots more crocodile tear cartoons here.

I was in the awkward situation of commenting on Steve Irwin's death or marking the passing of Mark Graham, a Canadian soldier who was killed while serving in Afghanistan, and who happens to be Hamilton's first casualty of the war. I chose to draw on the latter.

Saturday's appearance of the above editorial cartoon coincided on a particularly brutal weekend which saw the deaths of 5 Canadian soldiers fighting alongside NATO troops in Afghanistan. Predictably, calls are again being made to get our troops out of the war and bring them back home. The loudest voice comes from Jack Layton who has seized the political opportunity to play the peace dove in this debate. You'd think following the overwhelming condemnation of his position in weekend editorials, columns, military circles, and even within his own caucus, Layton would refine his opposition and (while the word is still flying around) 'nuance' his words a little more keeping in mind Canada's international obligations and long term strategy for defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan. The debate about Canada's role in Afghanistan was settled months ago when Parliament voted to extend our mission there. And do we really need to be reminded on a daily basis why we're in Afghanistan in the first place? Does Layton seriously see Canada sitting down and discussing a peace settlement with the Taliban over a cup of tea? Maybe...as I suggested back in April:

Today's cartoon was the amalgamation of two previous cartoons. One is of the former Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, portrayed as a SeaKing helicopter, and another of Jack Layton who mixed politics and the deaths of homeless people during the 2004 federal election by blaming Paul Martin. Layton seems to have a good track record of twisting any sort of tragedy or misfortune just to make he and his party look good.

 

I like to act the role of a futurist and speculate on what cities will look like years from now. Last month I drew on the subject of the Lister Block and suggested there'd still be no answer on what to do about the crumbling downtown eyesore even 500 years from now:

I was hoping to cheat by borrowing sections of a earlier cartoon I had drawn but I couldn't track it down in my archives. I finally found it, well after the time I drew the above cartoon:

Back in 2000 I did another futuristic cartoon which had similarities: