Eminent Canadian cartoonist Michael de Adder on Monday said his contract was terminated by four dailies after his cartoon criticising US President Donald Trump over the Mexico border wall crisis went viral.
The 52-year-old had drawn multiple cartoons featuring Trump over the past two weeks. However, it was de Adder's portrayal of the US President along with the dead bodies of Oscar Alberto Martínez and his 23-month-old daughter Angie Valeria, that quickly caught people's attention across Canada and the United States.
A photo of Martínez and young Valeria lying face down in water surrounded by reeds after drowning while attempting to cross the Rio Grande River to get into the US had earlier gone viral on social media platforms.
Trump was seen near a golf cart with a stick in his hand, and asking the dead father and child “Do you mind if I play through?” Michael had shared the same on his Twitter handle on June 26 along with the hashtag "#TrumpConcentrationCamps."
On June 29, the cartoonist revealed on Twitter that he was “let go” from all the newspapers owned by Brunswick News, namely the Moncton Times Transcript, Fredericton Daily Gleaner, Telegraph-Journal and Telegraph Journal Saint John.
The cartoonist, who has been contributing to multiple establishments for over two decades, in a series of tweets on Monday added that he has the right to "defend his perspective."
"But in the past 2 weeks I drew 3 Trump cartoons. 2 went viral and the third went supernova and a day later I was let go. And not only let go, the cartoons they already had in the can were not used. Overnight it was like I never worked for the paper. Make your own conclusions," he wrote.
According to a Brunswick News statement that was released on Sunday morning, de Adder’s freelance contract was cancelled in order to bring in another cartoonist, and they had started the procedures for the same has been “ongoing for weeks.”
In February 2019, Trump declared a national emergency to unlock billions of dollars of federal money to construct the wall along the US-Mexico border, saying the move was essential to prevent America from the invasion of illegal immigrants.
The Pentagon notified the US Congress in April 2019 that it had transferred USD one billion to begin new wall construction at the US-Mexico border at the behest of the US President.
The border wall is one of the long-standing promises that the US President had made during his 2016 presidential campaign.