The Black Rod

  By any measure, Glen Murray is unfit to be mayor of Winnipeg. He's been openly lying to voters for months about the disgraceful behaviour that caused him to be fired from his "dream job" as head of the Alberta think tank the Pembina Institute. And coupled with his thuggish attempt to intimidate the female Mayor of a small township in Ontario when he was in the Liberal cabinet, his actions speak volumes about his prejudice against women whether they are colleagues, employees or elected officials. Murray has hidden behind the fiction that he left Pembina because of "personal issues" and that any recent criticisms are just sour grapes from employees who objected to his attempt to modernize and shake up the think tank. A couple of devastating investigative reports by CBC have shown that nothing could be further from the truth. Murray's critics aren't hiding behind the usual "anonymous sources" that too many "investigative reports&quo

It's astonishing how hard the Winnipeg news media are working to sanitize the details of former mayor Glen Murray's disastrous stint in his "dream job" (before he got fired) at the Pembina Institute, an  Alberta clean-energy think tank. Is it because they think their readers/viewers can't handle the truth or that they are too sensitive to be told the gross facts? Or is this reflective of their slanted coverage of the Winnipeg mayoral candidates? Murray quit his job as an elected member of the Ontario legislature to become the executive director of the Pembina Institute because, he said at the time, he couldn't resist his "dream job" , working on environmental issues at the end of his political career. Then, only eight months later, he got the bum's rush out the door. Today Murray is painting himself as a victim. He was hired, he says, to bring fresh thinking to the think-tank but the organization couldn't handle change, so they agreed "m

What better way to mark the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation than by injecting some truth into the Truth column. Then the Reconciliation can follow with the critics of Winnipeg Mayor candidate Don Woodstock issuing their apologies to him for telling the truth at an all-candidates forum held by the  Council of Women of Winnipeg . Woodstock stirred a mini-tempest when he addressed the topic of ways to improve safety for women. Another  candidate had raised the issue  of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, and Woodstrock responded by saying  Indigenous men bore much of the blame and needed to do more to stop violence against women. The knee-jerk reaction wasn't long in coming. MKO Grand Chief Garrison Settee was interviewed by CBC. "Settee said on the path toward reconciliation, Indigenous people are trying to meet non-Indigenous people halfway and don't need someone like Woodstock spreading stereotypes. "He should drop out of the race and work on h