Portfoolio 12: The Year's Best Canadian Editorial Cartoons

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

This 12th collection of Canada’s “best” editorial cartoons,
selected from the portfolios of 50 Canadian artists, is a terrific read
for anyone who needs a good laugh or wants to remember why most
Canadians do not trust their politicians. Thanks to Badeaux’s
wide-ranging selection, readers can relive the ups and downs of 1995, a
year that included the Quebec referendum, Parizeau’s resignation, the
Balkan civil war, Jean Chrétien’s home invasion, Sheila Copps’s GST
troubles, the Somalia cover-up, and former prime minister Brian
Mulroney’s $50 million lawsuit against the Canadian government. With
material like that, no wonder it was a banner year for cartoonists.

The reader’s memory is refreshed with occasional text by Ken
MacQueen. MacQueen’s prose is sharp and funny but mostly unnecessary.
The sight of Sheila Copps with her mouth boarded shut or of Mike Harris
calling Attila the Hun a pansy will not likely need explaining for at
least a generation.

The only disappointment is the promise to shock. The front cover
tantalizes with the word “uncensored.” The back cover promises a
peek into the world of “the unpublishables—drawings so nasty,
naughty or tasteless that newspaper editors across the country declined
to print them.” But the highlights of this section consist of one
caricature of Brian Mulroney with a condom pulled over his head (10
years after comedian Howie Mandel parlayed this gag into a comedy
career) and four cartoons about Bouchard’s amputated leg.