Something is happening---and we don't know what it is, yet.
It's like a change in the weather; your knees ache, the temperature drops suddenly, or the wind picks up and you don't know what's happening, but you know something is.
There's been a change in the political weather in Manitoba.
For the past two-and-a-half weeks the NDP's biggest allies at the Winnipeg Free Press have pumped out a barrage of commentary attacking the government, which individually and collectively are so flimsy they only indicate that the writers are grasping at straws.
Columnist Niigaanwewidam Sinclair went full Tasmanian Devil on Education Minister Wayne Ewasko for calling Opposition leader Wab Kinew a ham.
In the Legislature Ewasko said that Kinew "seems to stand in this house on a day-to-day basis pretending to be some kind of actor. He's no Adam Beach, Madam Speaker."
Sinclair, who belongs to the Aboriginal Church of Perpetural Outrage, thundered that "Minister Ewasko's current comments cannot be anything but racialized." How DARE he compare one indigenous man to another indigenous man, snorted one-note-Charlie Niigaan in high dudgeon in what was undeniably a jump-the-shark moment.
Huh? What was he talking about we asked ourselves.
For those who don't know Adam Beach, which is about almost everyone on the planet, he's a Manitoba-born actor who has been in a few Hollywood movies in minor roles. His emotional range is (hat-tip to Victor Mature) look left, look right, look straight ahead.
A few days later, columnist Dan Lett, who does a podcast with Sinclair, raged about a terrible scandal at the Legislature. The government had issued a press release on a Friday afternoon, which, in Lett's view, was outrageous, duplicitous, and contemptible timing. Worse than Watergate comes immediately to mind.
We were even more puzzled?
A joke and a press release? WTF?
Not to be left behind, Tom Brodbeck rushed to the ramparts holding the NDP banner high.
He was triggered by the great news that provincial government has hired 900 health care workers since last November (2022) when Health Minister Audrey Gordon pledged to hire 2000 new health care professionals.
According to the Free Press the NDP caucus issued a statement saying the public 'can't believe' the Progressive Conservatives on health care.
Tom Broderick echoed the NDP. "... the Stefanson govt is fudging health care staff “new hire” numbers." he wrote.
"Desperate times call for questionable health-system numbers. Limping Stefanson government heralds 'significant progress’ in hiring, refuses to prove it" blared the headline over the first of two columns.
"When governments are facing almost certain defeat at the polls, as the MB Tories are, their actions often become more erratic and desperate. That likely explains Thursday’s bizarre 900 health care staff announcement." Broderick declared.
He even provided his own "research" into health care hires. The Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals tracks new hires and terminations. The union released data last week showing that from November 2022 until March (2023), there were 100 allied health workers hired and 151 terminations, for a net loss of 51.
Uhhh... The Health Care Professionals data has been prominent on every NDP MLA's facebook page for weeks. But...the numbers are quite different. There, the association claims that there were 82 allied health hires and 151 health staff lost, for a loss of 69. Did the association and the NDP overclaim the net loss by 26 percent?
In his hurry to promote the NDP, Brodbeck even resorted to setting up a straw-man argument, then knocking it down with great fanfare.
"It’s a simple question: has there been a net increase or net decrease in health care workers since Tories’ launched their $200-m recruitment plan? Instead of answers, we get gibberish."
If Brodbeck had bothered to do real research instead of relying on the NDP election team, he would have known the government's real reason for adding 2000 new health workers. It's all there in the official news release from last November:
Oopsie.
Brodbeck's tag-team partner Dan Lett re-entered the ring next.
Bleak election picture coloured by art of misdirection
It’s well-known that in high-concept theatrical magic, magicians often rely on misdirection to maintain illusions.
It’s a diabolically simple technique: direct your attention to one action, drawing away from the fact they’re actually doing something completely different.
"As is the case with any government fighting for its very survival, the Tories are making all kinds of announcements, and uttering all sorts of claims, in the hope they can somehow win re-election this year."
<snip>
"However, they have one card left to play in a desperate attempt to snatch victory from what appears to be likely defeat: tax cuts."
For someone like Lett who makes more than 95 percent of Manitoba wage earners, high taxes are not a concern.
"After giving away more than $1 billion in tax cuts, the Tories are trying to protect their weakened treasury by pumping in more cash from Hydro reserve accounts, which helps shore up the summary budget balance."
"In short, they’re using Hydro rate increases to shrink the size of the deficit and obscure the impact of the tax cuts."
Lett has been defending the NDP, literally for years, from its responsibility for mismanaging Hydro, bringing the utility to the brink of bankruptcy, and forcing huge cumulative rate increases with no end in sight. (Stay tuned, there's more about that coming in the week.) Too bad he depends on the NDP for his information instead of reading the public filings, such as this latest:
On
November 23, 2022, the Province of Manitoba announced that it would
be reducing the Provincial Debt Guarantee and water rental fees
paid by Manitoba Hydro by 50%, effective April 1, 2022.
On
November 29,2022, Manitoba Hydro advised the PUB that this announcement
would have a material impact on its finances and would allow the
utility to amend its proposed rate increases from 3.5% in 2023/24
and 2024/25, to 2% in each of these years.
Bill impacts of the 2% average
revenue increase, effective September 1, 2023, will be less than $3 a
month for the average residential customer without electric space heat ...
In short, the government has reduced the amount it takes from Hydro to allow the utility to minimize its needed rate increase to the bare minimum, ensuring what relief it can give to Manitobans struggling against rampant Liberal induced inflation, Trudeau's ever-increasing carbon tax, and city and school board unstoppable tax increases. Is this one of those tax cuts? How diabolical.
Lett wasn't finished yet. So far the NDP's allies offered complaints about bad jokes, bad timing, bad hiring, and bad tax cuts. It was time to get personal.
Despite becoming the first woman Premier of Manitoba, Heather Stefanson was not a worthy role model, said Lett.
Why?
The Premier wouldn't condemn a presentation to the Brandon school board by parents opposed to sexually explicit books in school libraries. By the standards of the Brave New World espoused in the Winnipeg Free Press, sexualizing children is good, and parents are bad.
