The Black Rod

The Shadow has a higher public profile than he does. You couldn't pick him out of a line-up.  If his picture has ever been posted anywhere, let us know. What is known is that he's got bigger cojones than anyone at City Hall.  This year he stared down the mayor of Winnipeg and the mayor's closest friend and ally,the city's chief administrative officer, who happens to be the most powerful man in city government. By the time he got through with them, they were sitting in council chambers like frightened schoolboys in the principal's office as they watched their power to intimidate city councillors evaporate into thin air. And because of him, those councillors developed some backbone for the first time in living memory and showed they could take the reins of government away from unelected administrators if they wanted. The Black Rod's Newsmaker of the Year---city auditor Brian Whiteside. Way back as far as last January, Whiteside gave a warning th...

There's just enough time on the last day of the last year of the first decade of the 21st Century for us to name our Newsmaker of the Year. It seems in hindsight like there were only two stories that dominated the year 2010. A tumultuous mayoral election pitted NDP pawn Judy Wasylycia-Leis against battered, chipped and dented incumbent Sam Katz. And millionaire moocher David Asper played the long con with the city and province in a tawdry proposal to build a new football stadium, allegedly on his dime, but which ended up tens of millions of dollars over budget with the government, paying the whole shot, and Davey walking away with four or more million in his pocket. While others might nominate a con man or a deceitful politician of one stripe or another, our standards are higher. When the dust settled, we could see clearly the two who deserved to be named Newsmaker of the Year, 2010 ---for, yes, it was a tie --- a tie between JHendrix70 and AlexLV. Sure...