The Black Rod

Where are Simon and Garfunkle when you need them? Come to think of it, where are the usual suspects? Where's cop-basher Nahanni Fontaine? Where's her Marxist university pal, Elizabeth Comack? Where's her professional and far-left political colleague Jim Silver? Here's an obvious case of a racial hate crime, and all we hear is...the sounds of silence. CBC Television News carried an interview Thursday with a young man who was carjacked on Bannerman Avenue by some armed criminals who were, ahem, aboriginal in appearance. Before leaving they threatened their victim with the words: 'stay out of the North End white boy.' Say what? This, by any politically correct dictionary, meets the definition of a racial hate crime. And yet, where's the outrage? Where are the demands from Nahanni Fontaine for greater protection from aboriginal racists? Where's Jim Silver to declare that poverty breeds Indian racism? Where's Elizabeth Comack to condemn the police for fai...

Four months from now a picket line will be thrown up around the University of Manitoba. It will be an invisible picket line but a strong one nevertheless, a line of moral suasion that will turn the university into an academic pariah across Canada and around the world. This is the legacy of Dr. Brian Postl, the former CEO of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and the new Dean of Medicine. Thanks for nothing Bri. The reason for the censure of the U of M is contained in a report issued Wednesday by the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) into the unjust dismissal of Dr. Larry Reynolds, the former Head of Family Medicine at the university. It's a tale of Machiavellian machinations by Postl and his minions, aided and abetted by the former Dean of Medicine who had his own bone to pick with Dr. Reynolds, all of whom felt the rules didn't apply to them. It's a tale you didn't read in the mainstream press . Reynolds, says the CAUT re...

Is this the best they can do? A burned-out NDP retread is the champion of the Left in Winnipeg's mayoral contest? They've had four years to beat the bushes to find a candidate who could stand up to Sam Katz and still they had to reach way, way, way down to the bottom of the barrel to find anyone to pick up the gauntlet. Step up Judy Wasylycia-Leis. After 13 years in Parliament, during which she never climbed higher than the bottom rung of the No. 4 party in the House, Judy Alphabet thinks mediocrity is her key to the Big Job in Winnipeg. That plus being a lifelong party hack who's never had a real job in her life. http://blackrod.blogspot.com/2010/01/free-press-junk-journalism-touts-poll.html Some credentials, there, Judy. Goodness knows, Katz is vulnerable to a real candidate for mayor. In the last election he was still a relative unknown, the non-politician who had to pick up the pieces of the rubble after the ego-driven Glen Murray dumped his ...

Oh, the irony. Here's the NDP releasing a string of pre-election, tough-on-crime announcements and they get smacked in the kisser with a scandal that exposes their biggest crime-fighting "success" as a complete farce. It would be funny if it wasn't for the string of tragic deaths that leads back directly to the office of the Justice Minister. It turns out that Manitoba's probation services believes it's not bound by the sentences laid down by judges. Where a judge imposed strict probation conditions on a repeat juvenile car thief, the lad's probation officer waived them away and replaced them with her own, superior, "judgement", resulting in the death of a city cab driver rammed by the same joyriding car thief who was breaking his court-ordered probation. The electorate has learned through evidence presented at a sentencing hearing that the epidemic of car theft infecting Winnipeg was fed for years by this very lax sup...

The complaint from the Manitoba Hydro Whistleblower has been punted back to the province's do-nothing Ombudsman. The Public Utilities Board last month told the whistleblower, a New York energy risk consultant, " Tough luck, sweetie. It's not our job to see if Hydro pissed away a billion dollars of taxpayers' money." Their exact words in bureauspeak were: "The Board’s jurisdiction derives from The Public Utilities Board Act of Manitoba and The Crown Corporations Public Review and Accountability Act, in connection with regulatory responsibility for MH. As a result, it is not possible for the Ombudsman or the Auditor General to transfer their investigations to the Boa rd, although this may have appeared to be the process to the NYC . The Board is also not governed or bound by The Public Interest Disclosure (Whistleblower Protection) Act in the completion of its statutory responsibilities." So the complaint is back in the hand...

Why is Greg Selinger known as the dirtiest politician in Manitoba? Look no further than the suspicious Selinger Stadium deal for the answer. Its exactly what you would expect from the man who secretly propped up the Crocus Fund while it turned into a Ponzi scheme and lost investors millions. Why has this government gone to such great lengths to hide the details of what should be a simple deal to build a football stadium? Start with the secrecy behind the major announcement. The stadium deal wasn't mentioned in the budget presented barely a week earlier. That's funny. Either the money wasn't in the budget or it was hidden so deep it was never intended to be found. $115 million is almost a quarter of the projected deficit for 2010. How could that be overlooked? Yet, not a word in the budget speech about spending that sum on a new football stadium. The Winnipeg Free Press gave its best shot this weekend at explaining the stadium shenanigans. Th...

With a barrage of insults aimed at the leader of the Manitoba P. C. Party, millionaire moocher David Asper has politicized the Winnipeg Blue Bombers football team. Asper was spitting mad at Opposition leader Hugh McFadyen on CJOB last Thursday for expressing doubt that Asper could repay the $90 million that the NDP is lending him to build a new stadium and become the team's owner. "Everybody needs to stay focused... and not get distracted by Mr. McFadyen's cheap slogans , " hissed Asper. "It's so incredibly disappointing, frankly, to hear the scope of how uniformed or ill-informed he is ." " You really have to wonder the value of his contribution to this debate." "It's a fundamental, fundamental, misunderstanding by Mr. McFadyen of what this deal is all about." "I just find it very disappointing and, you know, I think that Mr. McFadyen certainly has the education to be a smart person but......

There. That didn't take long, did it? One week after the provincial budget, unelected Premier Greg Selinger has already overspent the projected deficit by $90 million. The province will borrow the money to lend to to a millionaire so he can achieve his lifelong dream of owning a football team. Who says this isn't a province of opportunity---for the rich and connected like Winnipeg's First Family of Millionaire Moochers, the Aspers. As predicted here last October http://blackrod.blogspot.com/2009/10/winnipegs-first-family-of-millionaire.html baby brother David's big ideas to raise money to buy the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and build a new football stadium have gone nowhere. So he went running to where all millionaire moochers go, to the government. Sister Gail's sugar daddy was former premier Gary Doer who funnelled tens of millions of dollars of provincial tax money to her human rights museum. David now has his own sugar d...

Five weeks ago, The Black Rod got an e-mail from a resident of Point Douglas. He was frustrated at getting nowhere with city officials as he tried to get information on the plans for the Disraeli Bridge reconstruction. Actually, "nowhere" would have been one step closer than he got. The stone wall on information was so thick he couldn't even get acknowledgement that anyone had heard his knock. "Can you help?" he wrote. "Give us a couple of days," we replied. We quickly determined this was a story that needed as wide exposure as possible. As many as 14 homes in Elmwood were threatened with expropriation and the elected "representatives" of Point Douglas and Elmwood were ducking all questions from residents of the area. Our correspondent had taken his story to the mainstream media, particularly the Winnipeg Free Press and CBC, and had been given the brush-off from the "professional journalists." No story here...

It had all the perverse fascination of a two-headed calf. Finance Minister Rosann Wowchuk, who can barely speak English at the best of times, was mumbling and bumbling her way through her first budget. Her shellshocked NDP colleagues sat in stunned silence. They could barely rouse themselves to slap their hands together once or twice at the obligatory applause lines. You hear more enthusiasm at a funeral. The government of unelected Premier Greg Selinger was laying out its vision for Manitoba for the next five years: SPEND. SPEND. SPEND. Yup, the NDP is going to spend its way out of the recession. Gone is the pragmatic social democrat Gary Doer. In his place is doctrinaire socialist Greg Selinger. Deficits are good, balanced budgets are bad , said Wowchuk, his handpicked finance minister. In the good times past, the NDP spent every cent they could get their hands on. And in the current hard times, they're going to spend billions of dollars (they don't have...