In the cartoon, an apprehensive expectant mother is sitting in a doctor’s office.
“You’re due in August,” the doctor says, “however, since that part of the hospital will be closed down that month, let’s make it September.”
It could be a comment on the current staff shortages that have caused repeated shutdown of maternity wards in the Lower Mainland, except for one thing.
It was published almost exactly 50 years ago, on Feb. 14, 1976, in the Vancouver Sun newspaper, back when the late editorial cartoonist Len Norris occupied the opinion page.
Norris, for those who may not know, was a popular political cartoonist known for a gentle, satirical approach that often remarked on issues of the day from the standpoint of ordinary people.
A look through any book of his cartoons, often on sale in second-hand book and thrift stores, shows how history has a habit of repeating itself.
Another Norris cartoon, from 1975, is about friction between Canada and the U.S.
It shows a British Columbian at the U.S. customs and immigration land crossing trying to placate some stern-faced American customs guards, one of who is holding a newspaper that quotes the U.S. ambassador saying the U.S. was “irked by Canada” and how that drew an “angry rebuke” from then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau.
“Would it help if I told you we have two years to go on our subscriptions to Time and Readers Digest and a basement full of National Geographics?” she asks.
Comments on service cuts at B.C. Ferries, cost of living pressures, and BC Hydro rates have also aged well.
Norris liked to call the provincial utility “BC Hydra” and showed unhappy consumers struggling with rate increases.
“In the event you don’t like it, we have prepared this handy little instruction booklet on lumping it” a smug Hydra cashier informs a couple.
A riff on taxes shows a couple sorting through bills while one observes “our little household has now achieved the status of a federal monetary policy… big deficit financing.”
That would resonate right now, when stats show most Canadians are grappling with significant debt, with more than half struggling to pay bills.
Norris was working at a time when Canadian newspapers had some of the most gifted editorial cartoonists in the world, a list includes the late Roy Peterson, also at the Sun, who combined breath-taking technical facility with a genius for memorable zingers, and Terry Mosher, a savagely funny cartoonist who still produces work under the name of Aislin for the Montreal Gazette.
Based on what Norris was commenting on, while some things haven’t changed that much, there are some issues that no longer bedevil Canadians.
Margarine, for instance.
Norris drew two women with well-developed arms in evening gowns while a third remarked, “You girls still colouring your margarine, I see.”
When that was posted online, one commenter asked their mom, who explained that back then, margarine had a white colour, and was sold with an included capsule of yellow food colouring that could be blended in to make it look more butter-like.
– Dan Ferguson is a multi-media journalist with the Langley Advance Times