Okay, sabbatical's over. Time to get back to work. The first order of business is some overdue unfinished business, namely the annual recognition of the Black Rod Newsmaker of the Year for 2018. It was a bit of a headscratcher as the year's end approached closer and closer. No name jumped out from the sad pack of also-rans--- Pallister, Bowman, some overpaid hockey player... Yikes, was there nobody? But then just before the stroke of midnight on the last day of the year (and too late to publish) it came. Of course. A dark horse. Someone everybody knows but nobody knows. The man who influenced more Manitobans, more Winnipegers, more Liberals than anyone else in the province... The Black Rod Newsfaker Newsmaker of the Year for 2018 -- Bob Cox, publisher of the Winnipeg Free Press. For years Box Cox (as he's affectionately known) has travelled the country far and wide preaching, threatening, lobbying, pleading for somebody ...
The origin of the Usher of the Black Rod goes back to early fourteenth century England . Today, with no royal duties to perform, the Usher knocks on the doors of the House of Commons with the Black Rod at the start of Parliament to summon the members. The rod is a symbol for the authority of debate in the upper house. We of The Black Rod adopted the symbol to knock some sense and the right questions into the heads of Legislators, pundits, and other opinion makers.