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...

Imagine this scenario... Mohammed and Muhammed go to Iran, a state that sponsors terrorism around the globe, and they loudly and publicly denounce Canada. Less than two months later, an organized group creates a diversion at the Winnipeg International Airport on one of the busiest travel days of the year, possibly allowing others to test the placement and reaction of security officers. This happens only days before Christmas Eve, the holiest time of the year in the Christian religion. Later, following the disruption at the airport, Mo-Hamed, an associate of Mohammed and Muhammed, informs the members of his organization he plans "an explosive delivery" to the headquarters of Manitoba Hydro, the company that provides electricity to the province--- most importantly, perhaps, to the furnaces that heat everyones' homes in the winter. It also happens to be the organization he's had a longstanding grievance against. He is stopped by sec...

Ladies, leave the room. Now, what's the dirtiest word you'll ever hear in the offices of Manitoba Hydro ? Right. Privatization. So what is Manitoba Hydro doing helping to privatize the entire electrical system of another country? You read that right --- country. The answer is another dirty word --- money . Nigeria's power system is a total disaster. The country is Africa's most populous nation with 160 million people and is Africa's second largest economy. But it only provides enough electricity, as one newspaper described it, to power a medium-sized European city. Two years ago Nigeria's president announced a multi-billion dollar plan to privatize the country's power infrastructure to boost production of electricity. Manitoba Hydro was hired this year to make sure the power that is produced gets to substations where it can be distributed to individuals and companies. In other words, to make Nigeria's power system ...

From the day he announced his run for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba, Brian Pallister was getting the same advice from pundits and pals alike. Don't let the NDP define you. Don't worry, he said. I'll fight back. I won't give them a chance. I'll define myself. And for a brief, shining moment we stood and applauded Brian Pallister for doing just that. He fought back. Aggressively. He showed more backbone than his two predecessors combined. And he won. Maybe. Maybe, because it was a pyrrhic victory. He's been defined. Stick a fork in him. He's done. And, if it could be worse, he gave them everything they needed to do it. We all know by now that Pallister just bought a mansion on Wellington Crescent for $2 million. When the story broke last week, he stood his ground. The house was a product of his success in business and in life, he said. He worked hard for his wealth and he was enjoyi...