The Black Rod

Janice Lukes has to be fired from Winnipeg council's executive policy committee immediately. She was hand-picked by Mayor Brian Bowman to sit on EPC and to chair the city's influential public works committee.  We'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't know what a mistake he was making. Winnipeg cannot have someone who openly breaks the law sit on the city's most powerful committee.  Especially now that we see how much of a Trojan Horse she is for the bike lobby, promoting, priorizing and spearheading major projects that benefit a tiny special interest group at the expense of the rest of taxpaying Winnipeggers. It was that allegiance to the bike lobby that caught her up. The Winnipeg Free Press recently published a story about a stretch of Pembina Highway leading to the University of Manitoba that bicyclists feel is unsafe. Stretch of Pembina has already proved deadly for cyclists By: Kristin Annable  It’s a no man’s land for cyclists. A ...

Winnipeg 's new mayor Brian Bowman knew where to find the money for the off-leash dog park he promised his friends  in the suburbs---take it from inner city children using city pools. Bowman and his handpicked chairman of the city's finance committee, Charleswood councillor Marty Marantz,  brought a budget to city council cutting $300,000 from the aquatics recreation programs used by the children and spending $300,000 on a park where dogs can run around. They whined a lot about how tough it was to balance the budget and how they had to make tough decisions. But all along they had no intention of saving money by reducing spending on recreation services. They just raided the kids for cash for dogs. "I'd like to see it as a destination for Winnipeggers in the suburbs, to have a reason to come downtown..." was the way Bowman put it. This act alone will define Bowman's term in office.  Brian Bowman  started breaking his campaign promises...

New Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman already has a nickname at City Hall. Bozo Bowman. Ouch. Two thirds of the way into his first hundred days in office, his colleagues on council have decided he's a legend in his own mind. 'Know Nothing' Brian Bowman promised to do City Hall differently, to "hit the ground running", to "think big." So on Wednesday, what did he do?  Bowman decided to pick a fight and to do it 'old style', namely to follow the footsteps of former mayor Sam Katz step for step.  How's that for doing things differently? Bowman adopted Katz's sleazy tactic of "walking on" a motion to executive policy committee.  That's politico-speak for slipping a motion onto the agenda at the last minute and expecting your toadies to ram it through without debate.  So what happened?  What do you think?  Bowman's toadies on EPC rammed the motion through without debate. He "hit the gr...

Brian Bowman has set a new record for the shortest time spent by a mayor before breaking a major election promise. Even disgraced Mayor Sam Katz waited a few months before revealing to voters that they had been suckered by his stance while campaigning against Judy Wasylycia-Leis against raising propery taxes. Bowman on Tuesday hadn't even been sitting in the Mayor's chair long enough to warm it up before he announced that his vaunted promise to let city council elect the members of the powerful executive policy committee was null and void. And, like a weasley lawyer, he came prepared with an excuse for why he couldn't do the very thing he had been telling voters for months that he would do.  He blamed somebody else. Actually, he blamed pretty much everybody else except himself. He blamed the law. It had to be amended by the provincial government, and he would get right on that. He blamed the city administration which broke the news to him ...