The Black Rod

What do you think?   A Human Rights Museum insider with intimate knowledge of how the exhibits are progressing posted this on a website: SELECTED PROJECT LIST: Canadian Museum For Human Rights — Winnipeg, Canada — Completion September 2015 Say what?  Until now the various talking heads from the CMHR have sworn up, down and sideways that the museum will open in 2014--- only two years behind schedule.   They even collected $45 million from the federal government last year on their sacred pledge that this boon (plus a $35 million loan to be co-signed by the government of Manitoba) was all they needed to guarantee a 2014 opening.  Guarantee!  Pinky swear! Suddenly they're talking about opening two years from now?  Three years behind schedule? We started beating the bushes. "This" magazine was in no doubt what year the CMHR would open: http://this.org/blog/2013/03/08/friday-ftw-human-rights-museum-asks-gay-couples-to-share-their-...

My, my....has it only been two months since The Black Rod broke the story of millions of dollars in cost overruns on the new Blue Bombers stadium? The Winnipeg MSM ignored the story as long as they could, but by early September, when even the Hamilton Spectator was reporting the  cost of the stadium was approaching a quarter of a billion dollars, they were forced to do some reporting of their own. http://blackrod.blogspot.com/2013/09/winnipeg-blue-bombers-are-staring-at-40.html These days you can barely pick up a newspaper without seeing another story on the stadium as the Bombers admit the facility has repeatedly breached the "guaranteed" maximum price of $190 million. The difference is that our primary source, who we're calling A Person In A Position To Know, says the cost overrun is in the vicinity of $40 million, and the Blue Bombers only 'fess up to $14 million.  But given our man's accuracy so far, including the detail way ...

  When a law-breaking government is in power, the usual rules of propriety go out the window. That means in Manitoba, the onus has shifted to the NDP government to prove that every decision that looks or smells fishy is actually legitimate.  We can no longer assume they are honourable members of the Legislature. Case in point is the special treatment given to a teenaged potential killer who pleaded guilty to  reckless discharge of a firearm and unauthorized possession of a prohibited weapon and received the proverbial slap on the wrist Tuesday . The official record barely hints at the crime he committed. On a Saturday night in February the then-16-year-old boy and an 18-year-old companion showed up at a party on Frances Street in Winnipeg's Centennial neighbourhood. The details of the night as published online by the Winnipeg Free Press are confusing. It appears the pair were part of "a group of people". There was an argument over their...

Open wide, folks. Mary Poppins sang how a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down--- and the first win by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in their spanking new football stadium is as sweet as it gets. But now it's time for your medicine. While watching the game we thought that it was a good time to catch up with A Person In A Position To Know. We introduced him to you back in July with his hot tip about the cost overruns on the stadium that were being kept under wraps. http://blackrod.blogspot.com/2013/07/hidden-winnipeg-blue-bombers-stadium.html Yikes. No sooner did we touch base with APIAPTK than we realized that the team's new acting CEO Wade Miller is sitting on the biggest powder keg in blue-and-gold history.  When she blows, the blast will be monumental. And this time, A Person In A Position To Know is not the only source of the explosive news. During a recent on-line chitchat about stadium matters, when a curious football fan asked ...

What is racism? Apparently that's the question on everybody's lips. You can't pick up a newspaper without reading somebody's opinion of what racism is.   That's funny because for more than 50 years nobody has had any doubt about what racism is. Children and adults, men and women knew without question that racism was prejudice against someone because of the colour of their skin.    See?  Simple. But now that we've discovered that Eric Robinson, the Deputy Premier of Manitoba, is a racist by that definition, journalists, academics, ethicists, commentators of all descriptions are racing to the ramparts to say it isn't so .     That we've been using the wrong definition of racism for more than half a century.  That the true definition is a Marxist interpretation of class and power relationships, not skin colour after all. That Indians--oops, natives --- oops, aboriginals, have reason to be prejudiced against whi...

Reeling from the revelation that an NDP cabinet minister put his racist beliefs down in writing,  the government of Manitoba went directly to Premier Greg Selinger's primary defences --- smear and intimidation. But when the brave women on the board of Osborne House, the women's shelter that uncovered the racist email sent by Deputy Premier Eric Robinson, refused to buckle under Selinger's contemptible attacks, the NDP had to come up with a Plan B. Plan B :  when caught red-handed espousing racism, redefine racism . Problem solved. A week ago Selinger claimed Robinson had apologized (he didn't) and the NDP caucus , including former journalist and perennial prop Erin Selby, cabinet ministers Flor Marcelino, Kevin Chief, and abused ex-wife Kerri Irwin-Ross, clapped like trained seals in support of Robinson's right to express his racism against white people as long as the public didn't find out about it. This week, it was dif...