I’m old enough to remember the fuss around a political cartoon by Robert Bierman that appeared in the Victoria Times in February 1978, which depicted Bill Vander Zalm of the Social Credit Party appearing to delight in pulling the wings off flies.
Vander Zalm was then the Minister of Human Resources, and over the course of two years his department had made several cuts to social programs. Vander Zalm had also made derogatory comments about different groups of vulnerable or disadvantaged people, including (immediately prior to the cartoon’s creation) First Nations People.
Vander Zalm filed a lawsuit against the Times in which he sued for damages, claiming that he had been libelled. The defendants argued that the cartoon was not defamatory, and was fair comment.
The judge found for the plaintiff (Vander Zalm), who was awarded damages of $3,500. However, then-chief justice Nathan Nemetz overturned the trial court’s finding that the cartoon was libelous. Bierman argued that “I tried to say with [the cartoon] that the Minister of Human Resources had a cruel attitude to the underprivileged position and defenceless people under his ministry where, in particular, I was referring to the Indians.”
In his decision, Nemetz wrote that “Ordinary and reasonable persons in this country are well acquainted with the allegorical nature of political cartoons and, in my opinion, would have little difficulty in recognizing this cartoon as a comment upon such facts; a comment, indeed, of the very sort which Mr. Bierman testified he intended to make. Nor can it be doubted that the facts commented upon were matters of considerable public interest.”
Political cartoons have a long history of provoking controversy, as they tend to poke at wasps’ nests that others might be tempted to tiptoe around. The French publication Charlie Hebdo was the target of terrorist attacks in 2011, 2015, and 2020, all presumed to be because of cartoons it published which depicted Muhammad (12 people were killed in the 2015 attack).
Political cartoons are once again in the news, following the resignation of Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes from the Washington Post. She resigned after the draft of a cartoon which she submitted was spiked (killed) because of its content: the first time in her long career that this had happened to her.
The cartoon depicted Jeff Bezos, alongside other media and tech billionaires, genuflecting before president-elect Donald Trump and offering up bags of cash. Bezos — who founded Amazon and whose net worth is estimated at US237 billion — had recently announced that he would be donating (via Amazon) US$1 million towards Trump’s inauguration. He also just happens to own the Washington Post.
The Post is arguing that the cartoon was spiked because it was a duplication of other items the paper was running. That is not, however, the view of most “ordinary and reasonable persons,” to quote from Nemetz’s 1980 ruling. The Post’s decision — along with the paper’s controversial decision to not endorse a candidate in advance of the US election in November 2024 — is being widely decried as the deliberate stifling of legitimate criticism, to placate its owner.
Just as Bierman argued that his Vander Zalm cartoon was fair because it drew on public statements and actions of the man himself, Belnaes argues that there have been multiple articles about all of the men depicted in her cartoon — who have lucrative government contracts and/or an interest in eliminating regulations and/or don’t want to get on Trump’s hit-list — making their way to his Florida home and offering him money, so she was simply depicting the truth as she (and many others) see it.
“As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable,” said Belnaes, who has also called political cartoonists the “canary in the coal mine” when it comes to a robust free press. “If you see a country without editorial cartoonists or one where they are not creating tough, pointed satire against politicians and policies, be aware. A silenced cartoonist is an indicator of an unhealthy environment for freedom of expression.”
