The Black Rod

Two months ago the Stephen Harper government announced they were shutting down the Experimental Lakes Area, a one-of-a-kind science research project, run by Winnipeg scientists. They said it was to save $2 million a year, a half-a-gazillionth of the federal budget. The ELA consists of 58 lakes near Kenora. For 44 years scientists were able to use the closed ecosystems of the lakes to do groundbreaking research on acid rain, toxic metals, the effect of phosphates on freshwater lakes, what spawns algae blooms that kill lakes, and climate change. One story on the closure declared "the ELA was to water ecology what the supercollider is to physics." As a result of the defunding of the world-reknowned project, 40 biologists, chemists and other scientists from Winnipeg will lose their jobs. Scientists from around the world have decried the Harper government's action, giving Canada a bad name in science circles everywhere. But the governm...

The tragic death of Cherie Lynn Richard happened just as we were finishing a report on the latest twist in the Canadian Museum for Human Rights fiasco. We set our work aside temporarily to concentrate on the murder on Furby Street when we noticed that everyone seemed to be ignoring, or avoiding, the obvious --- Cherie Lynn Richard had become the latest on the mythological list of Murdered and Missing Aboriginal Women. The mainstream media, which trumpets every demand for a public inquiry into these "Murdered and Missing Aboriginal Women", had missed the glaring opportunity to focus on the latest and most accessible case to see what lessons can be learned. So we've stepped into the void. We launched The Black Rod Online Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Aboriginal Women. Case No. One ----Cherie Lynn Richard. Age 20. Murdered July 22, 2012, Winnipeg, Manitoba. Normally, the story starts with a short synopsis of the event and expands from ther...

Psst. Hey, buddy. Wanna buy a museum? Have we got a deal for you. Big mofo. Ugly as sin. No heat. No lights. Its still unfinished--- but you can't beat the deal. Once in a lifetime opp, pal. Buy it for a song, and the federal government pays you $21.5 million a year.  Not a word of a lie. Hey, where you goin'? Buddy... Buddy... Think we're kidding? Okay, a little bit. But here's the real poop---as of June 30, the day you and we had to pay our property taxes to the city, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights was $453,505 in arrears on its tax bill. And that's after some Fairy Godmother secretly wiped out another $118,000 of the tax bill. We're still waiting for some explanation how that happened. If it was any other property in the city, it would have received a notice in writing from the City of Winnipeg last month that it had better come up with some heavy coin to pay off its taxes or risk being put on the list of pr...

Hear that? That's the silence on the airwaves where the popular radio station KICK-FM used to broadcast. 92.9 KICK-FM, (more formally known as CKIC-FM), operating under the aegis of Red River College, pulled the plug on itself at 4 p.m. Wednesday rather than submit to the further scrutiny of the CRTC in a licence renewal process.  That silence is the bitter legacy of Winnipeg Free Press editor Margo Goodhand, whose interference in the running of KICK-FM led directly to the demise of the station which had been on the air almost 10 years. It was only a couple of weeks ago when Margo Goodhand made the surprise announcement that she was resigning as of the end of July. She was, she said, leaving her sweet post for parts unknown after five years at the helm. However she managed to stay around just long enough to see the irreparable damage that she caused to the radio station, to the reputation of the college, and, worst of all, to the integrity ...

Corporate documents from Manitoba demanded by a federal government agency have turned up missing. Without them, there's no way to prove that a shadowy committee which oversees the spending of tens of thousands of dollars from Red River College was created legally. If those documents can't be found or it turns out they were destroyed, hidden or never existed , high-level executives and former executives of Red River College could face charges which carry a maximum penalty of six months in jail and/or a fine of $5000. This includes the college lawyer, a former vice-president and the Dean of Business. A whistleblower tried to warn Colleges Minister Erin Selby last year that the shady committee was not legitimate and that $275,000 of college money was at risk, only to receive a form letter telling him to take his complaint somewhere else. Once it was clear the minister intended to do nothing about the bogus committee, the whistleblower was dis...

While covering the annual NDP convention last weekend, the Winnipeg Free Press tripped over a story about NDP in-fighting that's pitting the party's labour faction against the Premier. It's a good story. But we're betting its only the tip of the iceberg and some digging would turn up an even bigger story. In a nutshell, the NDP's executive has refused to apply for a public subsidy to political parties despite a binding motion at last year's party convention and again at this year's. Labour is demanding that the party take the money---an estimated $250,000. But Selinger knows the subsidy, dubbed a vote tax by the Opposition, is the third rail of politics in Manitoba : Touch it and risk political death. He's willing to face down the strong labour contingent in the party and suffer a little public embarassment rather than commit political suicide. The subsidy is paid, by law, to any party that asks for it on the basis of $1.25 f...

Cabinet minister Dave Chomiak poked a thumb in Premier Greg Selinger's eye on Friday, and dared the Premier to do something about it. The mainstream media reported on the thumb, but ignored the eye, leaving it up to us to do their job again. "Six Months" Chomiak is one of 12 cabinet ministers who got caught taking free tickets to Winnipeg Jets hockey games from Crown corporations, Red River College and private companies that do business with the government. But he's the only one to declare that he intends to pick and choose what sections of cabinet policy on accepting freebies he will follow and what he won't---- because he can . Earlier in the month, the Premier gave a televised mea culpa for the scandal that's enmeshed his government and announced that ministers who enjoyed Jets games on someone else's dime would pay back the cost of their tickets, and do the right thing and apologize. Chomiak said 'blow it out...