You know things are really slow in the news business when pundits are reduced to speculating on who will be the next leader of the Liberals in Manitoba, a bunch that hasn't elected enough MLA's to be an official party in the Legislature since 1995. And on who is running or not running to be leader of the NDP, a party repudiated so massively by the electorate that any conjectured return to government can be measured in decades, not years. The public would be better served by a discussion of who will replace Brian Pallister as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba---and hence become Premier of the province---because Pallister's number is coming up fast. Its not his age, although he will be 65 and collecting an old-age pension when the next provincial election rolls around. No, Pallister's future will be determined next year---and you can spell it P-S-T. A hike of the provincial sales tax by one percentage point doomed the NDP
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.