The Black Rod

D espite ISP problems that have hobbled us for weeks, we can't let the year go by without our annual naming of the Newsmaker of the Year.   While reviewing the news stories of 2014, we were surprised how many carried the fingerprints of this man. Although credited with each story in the press, it's only when you look at the body of his work over the year that you recognize what a powerful eminence grise he actually was, his influence spanning from city hall, to the Legislature, to the halls of academe to Parliament Hill.   We proudly honour as The Black Rod Newsmaker of 2014 -- Colin Craig, Prairie director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.   Just look at the headlines:   * RCMP launch criminal investigation of fishy contracts handed out during Sam Katz's term of office. * Poof! Red River College's head honcho disappears like a thief in the night. Administrators discover the spiffy marble counter tops in her home came from a multi-mil

NDP M.P. Christine Moore and CBC Radio host Jian Gomeshi have one thing in common.  They both thought they could deflect blame in a sex scandal by admitting a sexual indiscretion before it was known publicly.  Both were wrong. Gomeshi tried to get ahead of a newspaper investigation into allegations of rough sex on his part.  He published a blog post admitting to a predeliction for S&M.  The post contributed to his firing from the CBC. In the wake of the Gomeshi affair, Moore shifted the national debate on sexual harassment to Parliament Hill as a cesspit of rapacious politicians and staff preying on innocent young girls working in the political sphere.  When Liberal leader Justin Trudeau championed her never-explained complaint against Liberal M.P. Massimo Pacetti, she managed to go unnamed. But eventually Moore could see the pressure growing for her to shed her anonymity and go public with her allegations.  So she went on a press to

So Greg Selinger lied to the public, lied to the Legislature, and lied to the press. Since when is this news ? Why do you think we call him the dirtiest politician in Manitoba? Even the most recalcitrant taxpayers caught on to his lying ways when he broke his (useless) word, during the last provincial election campaign, not to raise the provincial sales tax. He also openly broke the law to do it. Then he lied about why he lied, coming up with a new excuse for why he had to raise the PST as quickly as an old one was disproved. Now he's admitted another lie, but only because he got caught dead to rights by CJOB. In 2012 when it was revealed that NDP MLA's were gorging themselves on free tickets from public utilities and a raft of private groups to see the Winnipeg Jets, Selinger pretended to care. He told the MLA's to pay back the cost of their freebies, to apologize to the people, and to promise not to do it again.  He failed to mention that

Brian Bowman has set a new record for the shortest time spent by a mayor before breaking a major election promise. Even disgraced Mayor Sam Katz waited a few months before revealing to voters that they had been suckered by his stance while campaigning against Judy Wasylycia-Leis against raising propery taxes. Bowman on Tuesday hadn't even been sitting in the Mayor's chair long enough to warm it up before he announced that his vaunted promise to let city council elect the members of the powerful executive policy committee was null and void. And, like a weasley lawyer, he came prepared with an excuse for why he couldn't do the very thing he had been telling voters for months that he would do.  He blamed somebody else. Actually, he blamed pretty much everybody else except himself. He blamed the law. It had to be amended by the provincial government, and he would get right on that. He blamed the city administration which broke the news to him

Let's play charades.  We'll start. Four  words. Washing hands. Wringing.  Washing.  Soap. Dirty hands. Dirty. Okay, next word. Stripper pole. Pole. Pole...ish. No.  Start over.  Vote.  Voting.  Ballot. Oh, Pole-itics. Next word. Here. Now. Everywhere?   Map. Man. Manitoba! Dirtiest Politician in Manitoba! GREG SELINGER!!!! Do we win?   No. With Greg Selinger, everbody loses. In less than a week,  the Dipper Follies has become the best show in town, with everyone glued to their radio and television sets for the latest twist and turn. What melodrama!   Five dissident MLA's.  Careers on the line. Stare-downs. Ultimatums. Veilled threats of retaliation.  A resignation expected yesterday, today, tomorrow. Like Scandal, the TV show? No, more like NDP Friends, with Stan Struthers in the Joey role.   The dissidents are called the Rebel Five in the press. It sounds like a rockabilly band.  Suddenly, in the eyes of the

Winnipeg Police Chief Devon "Mack Daddy" Clunis is a big believer in prayer, and right now he's praying you don't find out that he might have been responsible for why teen runaway Tina Fontaine wasn't picked up by police the day before she was last seen alive. By now everyone knows that two officers spoke with 15-year-old Tina Fontaine in the wee hours of August 8 after stopping a vehicle in which she was a passenger.  They took down her name, we're told, then sent her on her way.  But at the time, so the story goes, she had been reported to police as missing, and should have been apprehended. The police department revealed the contact with Tina last month and announced an internal investigation of the circumstances.  Friday, Clunis said the resulting report would be sent to the Crown Attorney's office for review, implying that charges could be laid against the two police officers. What he failed to say is that Tina Fontaine was probably released b

The NDP-backed candidate for mayor, Judy Wasylycia-Leis, has broken election law by accepting donations from a union. Two days ago the Winnipeg firefighters union announced it was endorsing her for mayor. But yesterday that endorsement exploded in her face when another mayoral election candidate, Robert Falcon-Ouellette, started asking questions about the extent of the union's support. Union boss Alex Forrest sneered "It's a stupid complaint."  He then told the Winnipeg Free Press that the signs carried and t-shirts promoting Wasylycia-Leis by his members "were all invoiced to her campaign."      Reporter Aldo Santin got confirmation from the Wasylycia-Leis campaign that the items will be a reported campaign expense. That's what's known in police circles as "a confession." The city bylaw governing municipal elections, passed under orders by the provincial NDP government, states categorically: Prohibited contr

The CMHR hasn't filed any financial reports for the past nine months. What are they hiding? The last advance from the federal government was turned over in December. They were supposed to be collecting IOU's from donors throughout the year to keep in the black.  Was there a problem with the collections? Is that why the museum is still not ready to open? They made a big stink about holding the opening ceremonies the day before the museum's announced opening date.  But when that date (Sept. 20) came around, they were nowhere near ready for visitors.  Only 4 of 11 galleries were open to ticket holders, 9000 of whom were allowed in for free because the museum couldn't charge admission to less than half the exhibits. Even then, the 4 open galleries were still unfinished.  Watching a CBC cameraman zoom in on a plywood board screwed to a wall, with the reporter asking a museum flak what was supposed to go there, was priceless. The fe

Last Friday, following the official opening ceremonies at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, the Winnipeg Free Press, the propaganda arm of the museum, updated with video and slideshow many of the stories it had published in the run up to the opening. One of these was a column by "professional journalist" Dan Lett that appeared Aug. 1st.  http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists/true-to-izzys-vision-275704621.html Something he wrote stuck in our craws back then and the update gives us an opportunity to remind Lett - he's entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.  He wrote: "(The Holocaust) gallery, as promised, focuses not on the atrocity per se, but on how the Nazis used legal means to galvanize their genocidal policies. And how the Holocaust directly resulted in the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights , the first attempt to codify in international law the principle that no country can pass laws t

Two words describe the CMHR:  Bait and Switch. Remember how it was pitched?   A translucent, other-worldly shimmering wonder.  Like this:       Five years and $351 million later, we got a giant ugly blue blob:       Iconic?  Only if you think the Kaiser's helmet is iconic...     Can we get our money back?

This story is awkward to tell. But it's necessary to tell it because the Board of Governors of Red River College has decided to hide from the public the real reason for the abrupt disappearance of Stephanie Forsyth, the college's president and CEO for the past four years. One minute she was here; the next, she was gone, with the college issuing only a short statement that the Board "and Ms. Stephanie Forsyth wish to announce that as of August 31, 2014 Ms. Forsyth will not be continuing in her role as President of Red River College for personal and family reasons." When pressed for more detail, Board chairman Richard Lennon elected to play word games. The Alice-in-Wonderland fairy tale woven by Lennon was captured best in the Winnipeg Free Press: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/silence-surrounds-presidents-exit-273890331.html "Lennon said the board did not ask Forsyth to go and he insisted it would be inaccurate to say she resi