Fonds comprises original editorial cartoons by David Anderson dating 1990-2005 and published in the Toronto Star and through syndication in other national and international papers.
The cartoonist covers primarily national issues, personalities, scandals and events. Federal politicians of note include Prime Ministers Brian Mulroney, Kim Campbell, Jean Chrétien and their caucuses, as well as opposition leaders Preston Manning, Audrey McLaughlin and Alexa MacDonough. Some of the prominent Ministers depicted are Sheila Copps, Paul Martin, Don Mazankowski, Allan Rock, and Michael Wilson. On the provincial arena, Anderson satirizes most First Ministers in power during the 1990s. These include Lucien Bouchard, Robert Bourassa, Mike Harcourt, Mike Harris, Frank McKenna, Jacques Parizeau, David Peterson, Bob Rae, and Clyde Wells. National subjects of note are gun control, health care, the economy, environmental concerns, an aging population, job creation and unemployment, and trade and taxes.
On the provincial front, issues such as western alienation, federal-provincial and inter-provincial relations, transfer payments, and language and Constitutional issues are frequently investigated.
Internationally, Anderson targets racism and repression as seen in South Africa, Haïti, the Balkan States and other third world nations. International subjects to note include peacekeeping missions, nuclear weapons, G-7 summits, armed conflicts, international stock exchanges, global terrorism, space exploration, moral issues such as human rights, cloning and child pornography, and global warming. Leaders protrayed include Yasser Arafat, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Mobutu Sese Seko, Ariel Sharon, and Boris Yeltsin.
In 1998, the cartoonist also completed nine coloured ink caricature portraits of the Justices of the Supreme Court. The Justices represented are the Rt. Hon. Beverley McLaughlin, Chief Justice of Canada, and the Honourable Justices Charles Doherty Gonthier, Frank Iacobucci, John C. Major, Michel Bastarache, William Ian Corneil Binnie, Louise Arbour, Louis LeBel and Claire L'Heureux-Dubé.
Anderson, David, 1952- : David Anderson was born in 1952 in South Africa. He joined the Pretoria News in 1979 as an editorial cartoonist and later worked at the Sunday Times and at the anti-apartheid paper the Rand Daily Mail until it closed in 1985. His cartoons were then published in the Sunday Star and the Johannesburg Star, South Africa's largest daily newspaper. After moving to Toronto in 1990, he continued covering South African politics through cartoons which were sent back to Johannesburg for publication until 2002. Anderson now works as a freelance illustrator and cartoonist. His work frequently appears in Toronto major dailies and papers across Canada.
In 2003, he was the subject of a one-person show, entitled "20 Years of South African Political Cartoons", held at Toronto's Harbourfront Centre.
