Winnipeg city councillor Paula Havixbeck has had a target on her back since October. So her vindictive removal from the mayor's coveted executive policy committee came as no real surprise. It had just been a question of when. October, that's when the rookie councillor did the unthinkable. She stood up to council's bully twins--Mayor Sam Katz and his closest friend city CAO Phil Sheegl. Katz and Sheegl were then furiously trying to cover-up the scandal of how the company owned by Katz's business partner and other close pal Sandy Shindleman wound up with $14 million in city contracts to build four new firehalls without anybody on council knowing about it. "What's the big deal? Everybody knew," was Katz's first try to put the fire out. Everybody did know the firehalls were being built, but the name of the contractor was kept a deep, dark secret by then-deputy Fire Chief Reid Douglas, who had inexplicably gone behind counc...
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.