The Black Rod

The Grammy's, the Oscars, the Golden Globes.  It's awards season. Which reminded us we hadn't yet given out our last (dis)honour for 2018---Bozo of the Year. It's a category we introduced in 2013 when there was a bumper crop of contenders--Greg Selinger, Eric Robinson, Stan Struthers, Christine Melnick, and the eventual winner, University of Manitoba Professor Gary Stern who nosed out the policians by being so stupendously wrong with his scholarly declaration five years earlier that because of global warming the Arctic would be ice-free by 2013.  It's been ten years now and we're still waiting, Gary. The award has lain fallow for a few years, but it was time to revive it for 2018 because one candidate sprinted ahead of the pack and almost demanded the recognition.  So, without further ado, we present the winner of the Black Rod Bozo of the Year 2018 award to----David Chartrand, president of the Manitoba Metis Federation. Chartrand spent the year imitating the c...

A perfect storm is hitting Manitoba Hydro. Insolvency is inevitable.  Eight months ago we reported that Hydro was on its deathbed, based on the testimony of the utility's own witnesses at a hearing of the Manitoba Public Utilities Board. http://blackrod.blogspot.ca/2017/08/manitoba-hydro-is-on-its-deathbed-there.html Since then the patient's condition has deteriorated rapidly. It's time to call the family to pay their last respects.  Last week the Bank of Canada announced that the years of low interest rates are officially over. The Bank raised the bank rate by one quarter of one percent. It was the third rate hike within a year.  It's just the start. The Bank of Canada expects at least one and possibly two more rate hikes in 2018.  That will bring the bank rate to about half of where the Bank wants it to be.  You read that right---half.  The Bank of Canada wants the bank rate to steady out at 2.5 percent, the lower end of a range the Bank feels is right...

Manitoba Hydro is on its deathbed. Oh, you won't find anyone official to say it. Yet . Like relatives trying to appear cheery and optimistic around a loved one that's been diagnosed with terminal cancer, the people in power are in the first stage of grief -- denial. The prognosis for Hydro was delivered three weeks ago at hearings before the Public Utilities Board where the utility was seeking punishingly higher rates for customers in Manitoba. It took us this long to read through the hundred-plus pages of transcript, to decipher the coded language of the witnesses, to interpret what they were getting at, and, finally, to understand the terrible conclusion.  We couldn't believe it, just as, we're sure, you can't--- so we did it all again, to get a second opinion, so to speak.  Hydro conceded to the PUB that it undertook a massive expansion program--- involving three (it was once four) new dams and two new major powerlines (one in the United States)---whi...

If you blinked you missed it. Starring Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett and screen veteran Robert Redford, the movie titled "Truth" came and went and nobody noticed. Despite opening in more than 1100 theatres, this certified stinkeroo, which cost $9.6 million to make, has grossed barely $2.5 million. So why mention it? Because its the celluloid apologia for Rathergate, the infamous scandal where CBS tried to influence the 2004 American presidential election by smearing George Bush with a phony story on 60 Minutes (Wednesday edition) hosted by Dan Rather.   When the documents used by Rather to attack George Bush proved to be fraudulent, show producer Mary Mapes was fired and Dan Rather's career was over.   The only thing left behind was the mantra adopted by bad reporters everywhere: the evidence is false, but the story is true. The real heroes of Rathergate were the bloggers and internet commenters who rose up together to take the false story apart, line b...