The Black Rod

A year ago, just as an exercise, we started asking people "who would you like to see run for mayor?" We hoped to compile a list of potential candidates to encourage a debate in advance of the 2010 civic election over what makes a good mayor. We never expected the response we got, i.e. we never saw so many blank faces in our lives. How many legitimate names did we collect? Try ZERO. What was funny then isn't so funny now. Incumbent Sam Katz is facing off against one high-profile and several low-profile candidates. The high-profile contender is so unqualified that it's scary. And one of the low-profile candidates deserves to be a legitimate contender but isn't because the mainstream media won't treat him seriously. They leave us no choice. We have to step in and draft someone to run for mayor. After much searching we have a candidate: He's a businessman. He's a sportsman. He's a married father. He overcame the odds to succeed th...

Splat. Splat. That's the sound of crime-fighting initiatives landing with the impact of wet dishrags. Mayoral candidate Judy Wasylycia-Leis, who wants to be called JustJudy, demonstrated this week how completely she lacks an understanding of a crucial civic issue such as crime in the city. She detailed how she would address the severe and growing crime problem in Winnipeg, and it wasn't pretty. Having lived in Ottawa as an MP for 13 years, she's a tourist here. Her knowledge of the city comes from newspaper headlines supplemented by a day spent here and there at her Bannerman Avenue home before leaving for her beach cottage between sessions of Parliament. JustJudy knows crime is bad in Winnipeg -- her mother tells her so. So part of her campaign for mayor is to attack the problem -- with cliches. The way to fight crime, says JustJudy, is to attack -- wait for it -- the root causes. Yep. Root causes. Now why hasn't anyone thought of that before? Oh...

There are so many things wrong with the David Asper stadium deal that its hard to decide where to start. They started digging a hole at the University of Manitoba last week although they don't know what they're building, they don't know how much it will cost and they don't know who will pay for it. We do know that at some point unelected Premier Greg Selinger, the dirtiest politician in Manitoba, made a decision to channel millions of dollars into the pockets of the Asper family. Why would he do that? We'll leave it to your imagination to provide the answer while we provide the facts. Selinger hid $115 million in the provincial budget for David Asper in a section so obscure and so buried nobody could find it without a knowing guide. There was no mention in the Throne Speech about a new stadium, never mind that the province was paying for it. Why do you think they were hiding it? To skirt the law, which requires putting government contracts to tend...

They should have titled it How To Buy A Headline. Manitoba Hydro has submitted a long, long, long report by their hired guns, KPMG, to the Public Utilities Board in their latest effort to undermine the New York consultant who blew the whistle on the shaky, scary way that Hydro is really run. "KPMG review calls allegations unfounded" blared the headline in the Winnipeg Free Press, written by someone who hadn't read a word of the KPMG report and who was relying for guidance on reporter Mary Agnes Welch, who apparently never read beyond the carefully worded conclusions which told Hydro exactly what Hydro wanted to hear. Which certainly wasn't "Facts Vindicate Whistleblower", the headline that anyone who actually read the report would agree is an accurate reflection of the contents. Manitoba Hydro is not being mismanaged, said KPMG, to wild huzzahs from Manitoba Hydro managers. KPMG had been hired to repudiate the whistleblower's allegat...