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Matthew Snodgrass

Dr. Hyson

Introduction to Canadian Politics

18 Sept 2009

Jack Layton: Contradiction

The biggest thing on the CBC news, and many other stations and media sources, is the

unwanted anticipation of the rumoured election. A simple way to put it is that the opposition

parties, New Democratic Party of Canada (NDP), Bloc Québécois (Bloc), and Liberal Party of

Canada (Liberal), are willing to join forces to take down the Conservative Party of Canada

(Conservative), and start a election. This very topic leads us to a Political Cartoonist, Tim

Dolighan. His cartoon, which can be found at http://www.dolighan.com/image-view.php?

image=sep1509.jpg, depicts just how the decision of such an election was given to Jack Layton,

NDP's leader, to decide.

After the three political parties where set on the goal of taking down our Prime Minister,

Stephen Harper, there was a problem. The public did not like the idea of another election to be so

soon. This lead to the Bloc to go over to the Conservatives side for their budget plan. This left

only the NDP, as the Liberals where obviously not going to side with the Conservatives. The

cartoon, in which case, shows that the public did not want the NDP, with the Liberals, to start

another election, as they would not win.

Along with the story of the cartoon comes its satire. With the shirt being a symbol and the

dialog showing Jack Layton's Conservative support, it leads the reader to enjoy the chuckle of

Layton's contradiction. Layton has been mocking the Liberal party for quite awhile for co-
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operating with the Conservatives, and now, just for the survival of his party, he is now giving his

support to the Conservative party.

This message becomes apparent because of how well Dolighan displays it. The use of the

cheerleader outfit in combination with the symbol, piece of paper on the ground, indicating that

the numbers are low for NDP displays Dolighan's two main cartoon tools, Satire and Clarity.

With getting the reader to share a laugh at the cartoon, Dolighan is able to display the message of

Layton's contradiction quite well, not only by the message itself, but by grabbing the attention of

the reader. It is also good to point that the cartoonist had no bias in his political cartoon. Since

this is a thought that is showed in majority because of the fact of Layton's morale switch, the

cartoon is just to put reader's own thoughts into an image they can see.

With the main story, the satire that was used to strengthen it, the use of symbols and

dialog to add to clarity, and the clear message without bias, Tim Dolighan has made a very

humours cartoon that shares one message: Jack Layton needs to check his integrity.