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...

Can supporters of The Canadian Museum for Human Rights handle the truth?  * $80 million in debt with no hope of paying it off * begging the federal government to raise its $21.7 million annual allowance by at least 50 percent  to buy more time *  a report that seems to indicate the museum's fundraising arm can't collect $24 million, or almost one in four of the $151 million dollars the Friends of the CMHR boasts it has raised. Last week the CMHR announced what should have been good news ---it settled its tax bill with the City of Winnipeg.  The museum owed $2.7 million  for this year's property taxes, much much less than the $5-to-$8 million they expected their taxes to be. The federal government, which is ultimately on the hook for what's called "payments in lieu of taxes" for federal institutions like museums, paid the $2.7 million plus arrears of $6.7 million. It then put the total - $9.4M - on the CMHR's tab. The museum is already $70 million...

Aided and abetted by the laziest and worst reporting in the mainstream media,  the long con known as the Canadian Museum for Human Rights made the news again this week. A "jovial" Gail Asper crowed that the fundraising arm of the museum, which she heads, had surpassed its goal of $150 million in private donations thanks to four million dollars pledged by two foundations and a labour union.  The total raised was $1.5 million over the goal, the news media gushed. The only problem with that announcement -- a problem which went unreported by a single news outlet --- is that it's a lie. The only way the 'Friends of the CMHR' could reach its fundraising goal was to ignore almost $80 million in advances, loans, and unpaid obligations that still have to be covered.  You read that right---Gail Asper's pet project, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights still owes almost $80 million! Asper, with the collusion of the MSM, has to rewrite history to, as they sa...

There's something fishy going on with the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, and we can't put our finger on what it is. Let's start with the bogus "news" story in the Winnipeg Free Press, the propaganda arm of the CMHR, that Canadian realtors "have come up with a $2 million donation." There's no byline so we don't know who wrote the story, but whoever it was,  he or she had to struggle mightily with the facts to devise a story that implies something false without lying outright. Someone with only a cursory interest in the CMHR would read the story and come away thinking the Canadian Real Estate Association had raised $2 million and donated it to the still-unopened museum.  That's what the Free Press wants you to think. But reading a little closer you see that the realtors' fundraising campaign started in 2008. In truth, then, it took them six years to raise $2 million. And their donation is not new money . I...

The 2014 Winter Olympics have ended and Canadians are still on a high. We trounced the Americans in hockey (always a good thing) and our women's curling team set an Olympic record that can never be beaten (all wins, no losses). All in all, we're betting Canadians will say they got their money's worth at these Olys. How much money?  The federal government kicks in $22 million a year towards winter sports. (Another $34 million goes to summer sports and $6 million to team sports.) Canada sent 221 athetes to Sochi: 27 speed skaters, 25 men’s hockey players, 24 snowboarders, 21 women’s hockey players, 20 freestyle ski jumpers, 17 figure skaters, 16 bobsledders, 15 alpine skiers, 13 cross-country skiers, 10 curlers, eight lugers, eight biathletes, seven ski jumpers, six ski cross competitors and four skeleton racers. They did us proud, each and every one of them, and that includes the coaches and parents of the athletes. But while rooting throug...

Bwahahahaha. The snow's up to our roofs, it's colder in Winnipeg than on Mars, and the mayor thinks that clearing the snow and ice off city streets is an unnecessary luxury.  Sometimes you really need a laugh. The Globe and Mail came to the rescue Saturday. In a puff piece about the over-budget, overdue, over-hyped Canadian Museum for Human Rights, writer Roy MacGregor gushed that "(m)ore than 75,000 people"  have donated money to build the thing. "It is a striking and memorable building, if rather eccentric." Which is Toronto-high society-speak for "Yikes, is it ever ugly!" http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/in-winnipeg-a-striking-museum-for-an-evolving-city/article16193962/ The punchline of the piece is how wrong MacGregor's awe-inducing declaration of public support for the epic money pit is. By all accounts, the real number of donors to the CMHR is barely 7500.  That's right, one-tenth of wh...

Fundraising for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights has collapsed. The museum's fundraising arm, The Friends of the CMHR, has managed to gather barely two million dollars in pledges this year so far. Over the past 14 months, only 200 private donations have been received . Given that donations are usually spread out over 5-10 years, that means they could have raised as little as $400,000 cash in 2013.   In that case the CMHR has officially slid into the abyss, with costs, including millions in unpaid back taxes, escalating faster than they can raise money to pay for them. The only thing that's propped up this White Elephant appears to be a wink-wink nudge-nudge $10 million slipped to the CMHR under the table by the federal government. In 2011, after running out of money and while waiting for a government bailout, the CMHR stopped hiring and paying for the design of exhibits. In that way they underspent their $21 million annual operating funds by $10 million. They, a...

What do you think?   A Human Rights Museum insider with intimate knowledge of how the exhibits are progressing posted this on a website: SELECTED PROJECT LIST: Canadian Museum For Human Rights — Winnipeg, Canada — Completion September 2015 Say what?  Until now the various talking heads from the CMHR have sworn up, down and sideways that the museum will open in 2014--- only two years behind schedule.   They even collected $45 million from the federal government last year on their sacred pledge that this boon (plus a $35 million loan to be co-signed by the government of Manitoba) was all they needed to guarantee a 2014 opening.  Guarantee!  Pinky swear! Suddenly they're talking about opening two years from now?  Three years behind schedule? We started beating the bushes. "This" magazine was in no doubt what year the CMHR would open: http://this.org/blog/2013/03/08/friday-ftw-human-rights-museum-asks-gay-couples-to-share-their-...