Silly Season Dispatch: Cartoons from August’s Lull

The Reflecting Pool “vandalism” about-face, the $400 million White House ballroom battle, Fauci’s “scorched-earth” contempt vote, and Donald Trump’s new hairdo. Ahhh… the dog days of Summer are officially overlapping with the summer silly season. I’m risking trouble just admitting the slow news cycle exists. In normal times, silly replaces serious. Nowadays, silly just replaces silly. There. I confirmed it. A slightly subversive editorial cartoonist shouldn’t surprise anyone, but I very much look forward to this season. It’s a great excuse to spotlight topics I normally don’t cover, this week being linguistics, the Green Party, and mmm… gravy. It’s a major step up from my old habit of using August to rage against first-world problems like icicle lights. Let’s review what I tackled...

Wednesday August 5, 2026 — Patriotic Spelling

Canada’s use of British spelling in official documents now signals cultural independence. What might once have been a minor editorial choice has become part of a broader conversation about how Canada sets itself apart from the United States. Small choices, like writing “colour” instead of “color,” using a double “l,” or keeping “re” at the end of a word, are often read as quiet claims of autonomy. A concrete example is the continued use of “centre” in many federal publications, which to some readers feels like a deliberate nod to a distinct Canadian English. Long may our maple leaf fly, our toques keep us warm, and our speech, full of ‘ehs’, neighbourly politeness and proudly British-spelt words like colour and centre, mark us as unmistakably Canadian.

Thursday August 6, 2026 — It ain’t easy…

…Drawing climate-change cartoons while the Green Party drifts feels oddly quiet. Internal leadership fights and shifting public priorities have left the party short on energy, and Elizabeth May’s continued influence raises questions about how open the process is. Did you know they’re having a leadership race? Me neither. With affordability and everyday worries overtaking climate urgency, the Greens need clearer leadership, more openness to new voices, and a way to show that climate action can help people’s finances. If there were ever a time for a viable, functional Green Party, the time is now, ‘for Pete’s sakes! After a bit of gentle ribbing, I got one of the weakest reactions to the cartoon above, though I can still check the box for drawing the occasional Elizabeth May cartoon (I’ve been doing that for 20 years). For anyone asking “why no Green Party cartoons?” here you go, now shudd-up!

Friday August 7, 2026 — Doug Ford’s Gravy Boat

The Premier of Ontario faces a credibility crisis after an expenses scandal over questionable hotel claims by GTA MPPs. That undercuts his image as a defender of taxpayers and follows criticism of his handling of wildfires and federal disputes. With snap by-elections coming during the legislative recess, the opposition can use this to their advantage, so he needs quick, clear damage control to stop further erosion of public trust. Then again, voter apathy in Ontario has in recent years has essentially become enshrined in the provincial motto.

Saturday August 8, 2026 — Patriotic Nastiness

“The Fear is passing into the Mockery of Trump,” I heard Michael Wolff say on the Daily Beast Thursday podcast after a clip showed Mark Carney laughing about a teleprompter glitch and Donald Trump accusing the U.N. of a conspiracy when a teleprompter (and an escalator) broke down before delivering a speech to the General Assembly late last year. Tensions have turned nasty. After a long list of mostly women (Judge Jennine Pirro’s name pending inclusion) being labelled “nasty,” Canada has now joined the club. Ottawa is choosing patience and steady resilience. With the November 3, 2026 midterms approaching, voters should notice the gap between hot rhetoric and effective leadership and demand politics rooted in respect and integrity. The side jab is the new fluffy hairdo Trump is now sporting after a wind triggered a hair malfunction.

Tuesday August 8, 2006 — The Silly Season Classic

To close this week’s showcase, here’s a play on a cartoon I drew exactly twenty years ago today. The original showed clocks for Baghdad, Kandahar and Havana. The 2026 revision above replaces Baghdad with Tehran, swaps Havana and Mar-a-Lago, and Kiev replaces Kandahar for obvious reasons. Newsrooms are smaller and the tech has changed, but the cartoon still targets the late-summer “silly season” when legislatures and courts recess and hard news slows. In Ontario our Parliament has been on recess since early June and won’t return until Halloween. Newspapers often fill the gap with frivolous or sensational pieces, which can make real events look like pranks or blow trivial stories into headlines. That is not to diminish real suffering from war, wildfires, or migration. It’s just that shortening days send journalists searching for seasonal respite.

Not to worry, there are a couple of weeks before I head off for some R&R, so there is still plenty of silly left and room to dig up buried subjects. The news cycle offered no shortage of filler, yet by the later hours of the first week of August a bit of momentum in U.S.–Canada trade was being reported. Dominic LeBlanc, briefcase and smiles in tow, was headed to Washington to meet his sour-faced counterpart Jamieson Greer. During his Senate confirmation hearing, Greer said his father lost his job when factories closed, an experience that clearly shaped his view of trade policy. His America First instincts and his party’s pressure probably influenced the original NAFTA renegotiations from behind the scenes and seem likely to push him further toward a hard line now, especially with the encouragement of figures close to Trump such as Lutnick, Bessant, and Hoekstra. This high-stakes standoff means the looming August 19 deadline could bring Canada’s political silly season to an abrupt halt. The official statement going into this weekend from Canada reads: “negotiations progressing well”, as if printed back in Ottawa weeks ago and carried along by smiley Dominic. Whatever happens on that day, and however the United States chooses to act, may permanently shape economic and diplomatic relations between the two countries.

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