The Black Rod

It must have been as if Christmas came early. The liberal press was nearly orgasmic at the thought of witnessing their political messiah Justin Trudeau demonstrate his magnificence by casting out the conservative demons in Parliamentary byelections. Three times he had gone into the Temple of the Beast (well, Manitoba), preaching about scandal in Ottawa, and promising to cleanse the rot in a puff of (pot) smoke. Giddy with anticipation, they came  to anoint their saviour---he who would restore Liberals to their rightful place as the natural governing party once he demonstrated his miraculous powers to the voting public. They gathered to witness the rebirth of the Party--- these self-proclaimed shepherds of the ignorant masses, angels in their own minds, and a lot of asses. After all, hadn't the oracles predicted an easy and crushing victory?  'Liberals 29 points ahead in Brandon-Souris' declared the Forum Research sages. And it didn't...

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...

Every day is a remembrance day of sorts for former Winnipegger David Wolinsky. Wolinsky remembers making the perp walk to an airplane at Vancouver International Airport four years ago, hands cuffed, legs shackled and escorted through the airport's public area by two City of Winnipeg policemen. He remembers being charged with conspiracy to defraud the Astra Credit Union (before it was swallowed up by Assiniboine Credit Union).  He remembers seeing his name dragged through the mud. And he remembers what the judge said when he dropped all the charges in April. It's those memories that fuel the lawsuit Wolinsky has launched against what appears to be everyone associated with Astra-cum-Assiniboine Credit Union short of the cleaning lady and the night security guard. Joining Wolinsky in the suit are three co-plaintiffs--- a financial consultant to Wolinsky's holding company, the Protos Group; the chief financial officer of Maple Leaf Distillers, one...

This is what passes for professional journalism in Winnipeg? Of eveything written about the political persecution of former East St. Paul police chief Harry Bakema, the Saturday, Nov. 2, column by Winnipeg Free Press scribe Dan Lett stands as the most contemptible. Lett professes to be a "professional" journalist. He even gives lectures to budding journalists on how he does it. God help the profession. He hurls insults at bloggers who dare tell him how to do his job and where he fails miserably, because, of course, HE is the professional. Lett, you'll remember, was at the head of the media lynch mob in 2008 that howled for the head of every police officer and lawyer connected with the prosecution of Const. Derek Harvey-Zenk, who caused the death of Crystal Taman when he rear-ended her car which was stopped at a red light.  The occasion was a government-sponsored show trial, disguised as a public inquiry, into the fatal accident. The rabid ...

That chill down our collective spines had nothing to do with the coming winter. We were reading the 160-page, Manitoba Hydro-commissioned Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol, by a group you've never heard of, fronted by a Swedish "hydro-power expert", discussing Hydro's planned multi-billion-dollar Keeyask generating station.  It's really scary. We first heard of this report from a story in the Winnipeg Free Press: Expert applauds dam project Team spent months assessing Keeyask By: Bruce Owen   Last Modified: 10/26/2013 10:14 AM | Updates A Swedish hydro-power expert has given a thumbs-up to Manitoba Hydro's next big dam in northern Manitoba. Bernt Rydgren's report is far from the final say on the estimated $6.2-billion Keeyask generating station project, but Hydro maintains it goes a long way toward demonstrating the Crown utility has set a new globally recognized standard in how large hydroelectric projects a...

Let's sum up the reaction to the Winnipeg Firehalls audit: *  Calls for a police investigation. The Taxpayers Federation has suggested the Winnipeg police or RCMP be involved.  The union that represents Winnipeg police added its voice to the idea, but says the RCMP should do it to avoid any hint of political interference. *  Outside lawyers being brought in to take a second look at whether the audit indicates any illegal activity beyond the unethical preferential treatment that was uncovered. “I think that there (are) lingering questions that need to be answered,” said Coun. Scott Fielding, the chairman of the city's standing policy committee on protection and community services. *  Renewed calls for the creation of an Ethics Commissioner for Winnipeg *  Calls from other councillors -- and thousands of Winnipeggers -- for Mayor Sam Katz to quit *  A plea from one city councillor, at least, for the province to intervene. A...

Almost a year ago, Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz was cocky, cold, and curt when the press discovered that he bought a house in a suburb of Phoenix,  Arizona, from Winnipeg developer Sandy Shindleman's sister-in-law. The sparse and only record of the sale states that Katz paid $10 for the house valued at almost a million dollars. Terri Nordstrom, sister of Shindleman's wife, filed a "special warranty deed" in Colorado, where she lives, giving the price, and the Maricopa County Assessor's Office in Arizona provided an assessed value of the property. (The Maricopa County Treasurer's office currently shows Katz hasn't paid his 2013 taxes, $7509 owed, which were due Oct. 1, 2013.) Katz refused to answer questions about the house, other than to repeat like a broken record that he had paid "fair market value". It was a private matter and nobody's business how he knew Terri Nordstrom, when he paid for the house, and why tax...

A majority of Winnipeg city councillors decided Wednesday that the way to recapture the public's trust was to appoint as the city's top administrator a man who deserves to be fired for his role in the gross mismanagement and blatant favoritism that characterizes the Firehalls Scandal that's consuming City Hall. Way to go, team. Eleven councillors voted to appoint Deepak Joshi, the current Chief Operating Officer, as acting Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) to replace his mentor, Phil Sheegl, whose disastrous term ended last week when he quit just days before he would have gotten the axe. It's okay, they said, because Joshi will only be in charge of the city for a few months until a permanent CAO is picked.  And who wants to dwell on the past, when we can look forward to building a better city, blah blah blah. Well, to quote Shakespeare, what's past is prologue. An audit into the disastrous project of building four new fire st...

The fix was in right from the start. The external auditors who dissected the corpse of the Winnipeg Firehalls Fiasco looked for evidence of whether Shindico, the construction company owned by Mayor Sam Katz's friend and business partner, received special treatment when it got the nod to build four new fire stations. Their audit, released to the public Monday, reveals that favoritism for Shindico permeated the whole project like stink on a skunk. But the smoking gun doesn't appear until the end of Appendix G ---three maps, one letter and two emails from the back cover. It's a revelation by former Fire Chief Reid Douglas of a conversation he had with Phil Sheegl, who was then the Director of the Planning, Property and Development Department and Deputy CAO. Douglas, at the time, was the Deputy Fire Chief. Sheegl wasn't yet his boss; Sheegl wouldn't be confirmed as the city's Chief Administrative Officer, the most powerful man in Winn...