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-...

Is Sam Katz auditioning for a new career as a comedian? He's no Robin Williams, but you've got to start somewhere.   When the news broke that the province of Manitoba had asked the RCMP to review the trio of city audits that uncovered massive favoritism in handing out construction contracts "and to conduct any investigations it considers appropriate," Katz tapped his funny bone to knock off some one-liners in the form of a "statement." His best: "The province has made their decision and chosen to exercise their right to refer to the RCMP, and all of council would support their decision , and I hope this brings closure." Bwahaha. Now that's funny. It may be too subtle for many people, but it's in the true tradition of understated British humour. You see, Katz is saying just the opposite.  He and his council cabal voted AGAINST sending the audits to the provincial justice department , a move made by c...

The looting of Winnipeg started almost as soon as Phil Sheegl got on the city payroll. And it lasted almost until the day he quit. That's the cold truth you're left with after reading the latest audit presented to city hall, an audit of five years of real estate deals conducted by the city under Sheegl's watch. Phil Sheegl, the best friend of Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz, was hired in April, 2008, as the director of the city's department of planning, property and development. In  November, 2008, he was appointed deputy Chief Administrative Officer, and in 2011 he replaced Glen Laubenstein as CAO. Three months after Sheegl got the planning job, the city announced it was looking for real estate advisors and brokers to "assist the city with real estate transactions".  They eventually qualified five. "In the transactions where an external advisor was retained, there was no documentation explaining the rationale why an external adv...

Drop dead , said the City to Colin Craig. Oh, not so succinctly. But the message was clear---beat it, get lost, scram. It took less than a dozen words to slam the door in Craig's face, lock it, bolt it, and hope he went away. Craig, you see, is the local director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. And more than a year ago, he politely asked the City for briefing notes, memos, emails and any other documentation they had regarding the process by which Winnipeg's new Fire Hall No. 11 ballooned in size to it's present corpulent state. Not that it's gargantuan in the way the Canadian Museum for Human Rights is -- four football fields of empty space enclosed within a steel and concrete skeleton. But it is almost half again as big as the other three firehalls built as part of the same infrastructure replacement program. And Fire Hall No. 11 is the fishiest project of the entire Sheegl-Shindico Bid-Rigging Scandal that's consumed the pu...