Portfoolio 17: The Year's Best Canadian Editorial Cartoon

John H. Gryfe is an oral and maxillofacial surgeon practising in
Toronto.

Edited by Le Droit editorial cartoonist Guy Badeaux, with accompanying
commentary from Ottawa Citizen movie critic Jay Stone, this collection
of editorial cartoons marks one event that likely will endure long after
all the other events of 2000 have faded from the collective memory. That
event was the passing of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. “Just watch me,”
the embattled prime minister said to an enquiring reporter; as the
haunting cartoon penned by Fred Sebastian reminds us, we did watch.
Beyond Trudeau’s death, the year 2000 had its share of triumphs and
tragedies, buffoonery and brilliance. The agony of right-wing political
disaster in Ottawa and its “Florida-flavoured” triumph in
Washington, the pie in the face of the “Small Guy from Shawinigan,”
and numerous other vignettes of government grief proved to be inviting
targets. Whether the topic is domestic or dictatorial, international or
industrial, Middle East or Midwest, 39 of Canada’s cartooning elite
entertain and inform us as they tread the fine line between satire and
slander.