Starting as a young adult, I paid regular attention to the brilliant Len Norris and other cartoonists featured in newspapers and magazines. Ten years ago, Ian Holliday wrote an article for The Tyee that gave examples of work by BC artist Adrian Raeside. The article described the value of editorial cartoons, but Raeside admitted to being part of an endangered species.
The extinction process has not slowed in recent years.
A lot has changed since Adrian Raeside took up his craft more than 35 years ago. In those days, editorial cartoonists fiercely stalked the land, sustained by flourishing newsprint.
Now Raeside considers himself one of an endangered species. “I think, statistically, there are more panda bears that can juggle running chainsaws than there are editorial cartoonists,” he said. “Unfortunately our habitat, which of course is mostly bars and strip clubs, is not being protected by the government, which I find appalling.”
Adrian Raeside’s latest is published by the Times Colonist. He notes that while municipal property taxes and utility costs rise to uncomfortable levels, surplus funds held by many local governments are sitting at unprecedented levels.
Political cartoons can provoke controversies but can lead to better understandings of public affairs. Theo Moudakis is an effective commentator on issues that affect us all. It is worth subscribing to the Toronto Star just to see his’ work.
Moudakis invited people to share this image. While many of us disagree with the policies of Canada’s governments and large corporations, the fact we can offer criticisms without fear of reprisals means Canada ranks well above the average country for individual freedoms.
A few others published by the Toronto Star:
Categories: Journalism
in-sights.ca 
Back a couple of decades, I took a real shine to stuff that Clay Bennett was doing. It’s exclusively US stuff, but I find him clever, clear and pretty much always on point as well as on the right side of history. Of late, I’ve revelled in the spankings handed out by Michael deAdder (this also goes back deep into the Harper Years). Sadly, I also recall how cartoonists expressed sadness over the departure of “W”, but it seems that the occupants of high authority of whatever political stripe, will gladly supply all the needed fodder for lampooning. Monte Wolverton and Patrick Chapatte often do a fine job of underlining the absurdities of political life.
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Studying the clever Raeside editorial cartoon “In BC we mine coal . . .” at the top of this Editorial Cartoons posting, reminded me of a Canadian Federal Government “Forests 2020” contract I worked on in 2004.
“In 2005, the federal government planted trees on close to 6,000 hectares of underused farm fields across Canada under a program called Forest 2020, an experiment to measure the forests’ effectiveness at capturing carbon. The program required landowners to protect the trees for 15 years, hence the name.“
https://canadiangeographic.ca/articles/they-turned-their-farm-into-a-forest-fifteen-years-later-its-thriving/
My job in 2004 was to collect soil and vegetation data at candidate farm properties, to ensure the locations were suitable for tree plantations. One sleepless night in my camper at one of the farms near Fort Steele in the southern Rocky Mountain Trench, I had to endure one coal train after another . . . with diesel generator engines roaring, spewing fumes, and ground-shaking from endlessly long trains thundering by every 20 minutes. These filthy coal trains were heading northward and westward via Rogers Pass, another 1,040 km (646 miles) to the Point Roberts Coal Terminal (now Westshore Terminals, in Delta, BC).
Lying in my camper thinking about the greenhouse gas emissions from the many diesel engines driving these massive, heavily laden coal trains was distressing and shocking; let alone the emissions that would eventually be dumped into Earth’s atmosphere after the coal was shipped through the burning of bunker oil ~8,500+ km across the Pacific Ocean and onward to Asian coal-burning destinations.
It was painfully obvious that I was involved in a pointless Federal Government greenwashing initiative, given the behemoth industrial scale of the carbon emissions from even this one of countless Canadian carbon pollution sources; in the form of BC coal from the Crowsnest and Elk River coalfields.
Since 1898, more than 830,000 million tonnes (as of 2019), most of it coking coal, has been produced from the Crowsnest and Elk River coalfields.
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/industry/mineral-exploration-mining/british-columbia-geological-survey/geology/coalfields/eastkootenay
B.C.’s dirty little secret: it is ramping up thermal coal exports (Aug. 14, 2023)
https://ricochet.media/en/3979/bcs-dirty-little-secret-ramping-up-thermal-coal-exports
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Alex, given your experience I expect this BBC article I noticed this morning will be of interest.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68381160
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An additional panel could be added to the Raeside coal cartoon depicting a scene I witness daily from my home in Tsawwassen. I refer to the seemingly endless coal trains carrying outbound cargo on one track, and the equally lengthy trains carrying inbound sea containers on another.
A large percentage GHG emissions from the overseas factories creating the products that fill those containers should be added to BC’s total if a proper accounting is the goal. We fuel the factories and use the end product, after all.
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How many wheel barrows to unnecessarily fill a valley to 160 feet?
https://scontent-den2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/155495926_10223271985540898_4924895633284574399_n.jpg?_nc_cat=103&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=7f8c78&_nc_ohc=IA4Y1oECmH0AX_QWL_8&_nc_ht=scontent-den2-1.xx&oh=00_AfD_z_xLQNp5hpvXTP-XuE3fS3uL4Syw4XIG6XFL2rbrFg&oe=66070525
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