Advertisement

Who’d make the best prime minister – if you’re an editorial cartoonist?

Editorial cartoon by Aislin (supplied by Aislin)

This long federal election campaign is rife with opinion polls that may or may not predict who will come out on top on Oct. 19, the only poll that counts.

Every major news organization seems to be tracking the electorate’s every burp and fart trying to detect the pivotal shift that could swing the vote.

Yahoo Canada didn’t want to be left out but decided to take a different approach, by conducting a very small, completely unscientific poll of well-informed, politically engaged Canadians – editorial cartoonists.

We asked one question: From the standpoint of a professional needler, which leader would you most like to see win the election? Who offers potentially the deepest vein of cartooning gold if he becomes prime minister, incumbent Conservative Stephen Harper, Liberal Justin Trudeau, or New Democrat Thomas Mulcair?

Yes, we know we should include the Greens’ Elizabeth May and maybe Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Quebecois, but neither of them will move into 24 Sussex Drive.

“This is an age-old dilemma,” says Dan Murphy, former cartoonist for tabloid Vancouver Province, who resigned when the paper yanked a video he’d created spoofing a commercial promoting the Northern Gateway oil sands pipeline from its web site. “It’s kind of like asking an oncologist what’s good for business.”

Cartoonists often are of two minds, said Montreal Gazette cartoonist Terry Mosher, better known as Aislin. The leader they’d rather skewer in pen and ink may not be the one they’d check off in the polling booth.

“Most cartoonists understand this, that who you want is not necessarily who you really want,” said Mosher, an officer of the Order of Canada who’s been targeting the high and mighty since Lester Pearson was prime minister.


Related content:

Vancouver Province pulls cartoonist’s Enbridge parody, triggering charges of censorship

Canadian cartoonist Roy Peterson remembered: Cartoonists share their memories

Nine questions with Canadian political cartoonist Terry Mosher (aka Aislin)


Editorial cartoons have a rich history in Canada. For a more in-depth look at that history, it’s worth getting your hands on a copy of The Hecklers (McClelland and Stewart, 1979), produced by Mosher and political commentator Peter Desbarats.

The profession has suffered with the rest of the traditional newspaper business, with cartoonists joining reporters in the unemployment line as papers downsize to cope with declining revenues. Fewer papers employ staff cartoonists, preferring to use one or two who supply their newspaper group or to buy cartoons from syndicates.

But cartoonists can still have an impact on readers in helping form impressions of their subjects. If a good news photo is worth a thousand printed words, then a well-done editorial cartoon is certainly worth a chin-stroking editorial column.

They often get under their targets’ skin, too. Victoria Times cartoonist Bob Bierman was sued in 1978 by B.C.‘s then-municipal affairs minister Bill Vander Zalm after drawing the future premier pulling the wings off flies.

Court upholds right of cartoonist to satirize politicians

A court initially awarded Vander Zalm $3,500, saying the cartoon was not fair comment, but the ruling was overturned on appeal, the judges deciding a cartoonist has a right to engage in satire.

There’s no doubt Harper has handed cartoonists plenty of ammunition in almost 10 years in power. So it’s no surprise two of the four Yahoo Canada spoke with wouldn’t mind – at least professionally – if his Conservatives returned to power.

“Harper is the Caligula we know,” said Murphy. “You’re sure that if he got back in it wouldn’t be too long he’d try to be getting an aerial view of the tar sands on a 20-dollar bill.

“He’d be deputizing people to round up burka-wearers. So I have to sadly go with Harper as the best thing for this miserable profession.

“He’s Canada’s Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon was a heyday for cartoonists. We still hark back to it, any of us who were around.”

Mosher agreed that of the three contenders, “Stephen Harper is the far more sinister of the three.

“So in sliding order in terms of physiognomy and policy and that sort of thing, Harper is clearly the most interesting,” said Mosher.

“Mulcair has possibilities in terms of there’s a craftiness there that sort of comes across in his eyes and his body movements, that sort of thing. Trudeau is the least interesting for the moment but he’s going to grow into the role.”

An outlier in our little survey is Vance Rodewalt, who was laid off in 2010 as the Calgary Herald’s longtime cartoonist. He rates Mulcair No. 1.

“I think he could potentially come completely unglued in a Basil Fawlty kind of way, and I love the beard,” he said. “He could be a great cartoon! Trudeau’s too cute. And we’re all tired of Harper.”

Mulcair has a reputation for having a temper. His handlers have reportedly spent so much time suppressing “Angry Tom” that a lot of the passion has been squeezed out of his delivery on the stump. But Rodewalt detects some seething underneath the studied calm, perhaps a prelude to a Fawlty Towers-style explosion if he ever gains power.

Justin Trudeau gets Wes Tyrell’s vote.

“Out of the bunch of them Trudeau would probably be the most fun because he’s got an interesting face,” said Tyrell, a freelancer and president of the Association of Canadian Cartoonists.

“Handsome guy, but he’s got a very theatrical kind of Roman statue sort of look to him. He is prone to saying the most unexpected thing at any time and that itself will make for great cartoon fodder for sure.”

Even after nine years in power, Harper still inspires cartoonists

But Tyrell would not be disappointed if Harper is back.

“Nine years is a long time to be drawing the same guy,” he said. “It’s not the case that I don’t enjoy drawing him because he is particularly fun to draw. He’s got those crazy little beady wolf eyes and his very red lips and his helmet hair.”

Yes, the hair. Conservatives hit that hard in their anti-Trudeau attack ads.

“It’s odd that he [Harper] would poke fun at Justin Trudeau’s hair when they’re so careful with his hair in grooming it, not a hair out of place,” said Mosher.

Cartoonists are keen observers of their subjects’ physical characteristics but they also have to consider the news of the day and meld the two elements into a pointed image.

It’s not easy, sometimes. When Paul Martin succeeded Jean Chretien as Liberal leader and prime minister, Mosher admitted he thought his face was so bland that at first he drew him without one. Martin noticed.

“’You tell that Aislin that I really am interesting,’” Martin told a Gazette reporter, Mosher recalled. “So I got to him. Of course with time I got to know the Martin face and the eyes and how he used them, that sort of thing.”

Brian Mulroney, on the other hand, was a “gift from heaven,” Mosher said. His lantern jaw became the defining element in almost any cartoon, lengthening with his term in office.

The late Roy Peterson, an award-winning cartoonist for the Vancouver Sun until he was laid off in 2009, had a sharp line about Mulroney, Mosher said.

“He said it’s not that Mulroney has such a large chin, he has no neck,” Mosher said, laughing.

The longer political leaders are around the more their visual characteristics in cartoons get reduced essential elements, to the point they really don’t look like themselves, Rodewalt observed.

That’s true of Harper, who in many depictions is distilled down to reptilian eyes and helmet hair. It was true of Justin’s father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who was often depicted as evil-looking.

“He almost looked demonic in some of the caricatures,” said Rodewalt. “It really didn’t look like him anymore but everybody knew who it was.”

The elder Trudeau also offered the best opportunity to riff on his behaviour, he added.

“He became an unpredictable, emotional guy and you could have him doing all kinds of crazy things that just didn’t seem that far out of character,” said Rodewalt.

Mosher saw potential commonalities between the younger Trudeau and his father in some photos.

“He had a hat on so your attention’s deflected away from the hair,” he said. “In his eyes I saw his dad.”

Whoever wins this election, you can be sure Canada’s cartoonists will be studying their moves closely.

“The Japanese have a wonderful expression: Just sit and watch and something will happen,” said Mosher. “And something always does.”