When the Louis Riel School Division gleefully announced that the board had suspended one of its school trustees, only The Black Rod examined the reasons why. To our astonishment, we discovered that none of the publicized reasons for suspension were valid. Trustee Francine Champagne had done nothing, said nothing, or written anything on the job that fit any of the alleged reasons for her suspension. So why, we asked, would the remaining trustees risk their reputations and maybe even their jobs, to excoriate a duly elected school official who was innocent of any wrongdoing? The answer presented itself two weeks later with the unexpected announcement by Ryan Palmquist, another LRSD trustee, that he was coming out of the closet. Palmquist said he was a 'bisexual' who was married, to a woman, and was the father of three children. He could, he said, hide as a pretend-heterosexual, but he "owed" it to gay and transexual kids and their families to share the risk of
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.