The Black Rod

Last week's release of the annual report on crime and disorder in the city put a lot of things in  a new perspective---starting with the surprise retirement of the police chief and ending with an abrasive member of the police board getting the hook. Back in March, Police Chief Devon Clunis made a stunning announcement---he was quitting.  Only 52, he was retiring after 29 years as a cop. He had been in the top job barely 3 l/2 years, though, which is why people were so surprised he was anxious to leave.    Anxious to leave. That's a polite way to say bolting for the exit.   Clunis made a big noise when he was hired as police chief.  He was literally going to change the culture of policing, he declared.  Fighting crime was so yesterday, he sneered. He was going to mobilize entire communities, heal social ills, and --- wait for it --- eliminate the root causes of crime. Well, he changed the mission statement, which is on Pa...

A leopard can't change its spots and the NDP's Nahanni Fontaine can't change her bias against white people. We got another taste of her advocacy for aboriginal apartheid in Hansard's official account of debate in the Legislature last week. Fontaine, the NDP's parachute candidate in St. John's riding, was promoting the need for native midwives and doulas for pregnant "indigenous women" in  northern Manitoba ( what about the rest of the expectant mothers? - ed.) when she --- oh, so casually --- started talking about how traumatic it was for these women to be in the care of  ...  White medical professionals.  "And so, as the minister knows, you know, indigenous women have to come to the south to have their babies. Often, they come without any supports.  They are immersed in white space." For people unfamiliar with the latest racial nomenclature, she explained: "And so, you know, for women that are here alone, and  that are immers...

The Parliamentary Press Gallery spent the weekend yukking it up with Justin Trudeau at the annual gallery dinner, demonstrating that relations between the Prime Minister and the press were back to normal, the master and his voice in sync again. Things had been a little strained a few weeks ago when Trudeau, determined to show that he was a tough guy and not to be trifled with in the House of Commons, delivered a hard elbow to a female MP's breast while manhandling an Opposition MP who wasn't moving fast enough to suit the PM. The reporters and pundits had to do quite the soft shoe to excuse Trudeau's boorishness when video of the incident contradicted his initial explanation for how his elbow smashed into her chest.  Luckily, the controversy subsided quickly and the press gallery could go back to work--- adoring the Sun King. And then, last week, damn it, up popped another matter that threatened to blemish the reign of Trudeau II. Its name---Hunter Tootoo. Hunt...

Today we expect to see Manitoba voters deliver a historic repudiation of almost 16 years of NDP government. But incoming premier Brian Pallister is dead wrong if he thinks that just giving the scoundrels the boot is enough. The wolves have had free rein on the farm too long. By the end they had convinced themselves, like all despots, that they could do no wrong.  *  Trying to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Jockey Club to patch the depleted provincial budget *  Publicly supporting a racist cabinet minister who admitted to prejudice against whites, *  Shrugging off a stomach-churning account of a woman spending her final hours of life screaming in pain on the floor of a hospital emergency ward  The NDP saw any opposition as downright evil and having to be stamped out. By controlling the levers of power, the NDP were able to slough off one major scandal after another. That doesn't mean the scandals didn't exist.  But yo...

Wow. If you wanted election fireworks, you should have been at the Sinclair Park community centre Wednesday night. Candidates for St. John's riding squared off in a wide-open forum and its hard to say what the bigger story was --- the fact that one city councillor and two candidates stormed out of the building in separate huffs? or the tip that the NDP has begun shredding its files and replacing the computer hard drives at the Legislature? One thing for sure --- the biggest loser was the NDP's parachute star candidate Nahanni Fontaine, who demonstrated she's completely unfit to be a member of the Legislature. She's too thin-skinned, can't take criticism or hard questions. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen, and she ran. Fontaine was the target of local gadfly Josh Sigurdson, who lobbed questions at her about the NDP's role in the seizure of children by Child and Family Services.  The audience (of about 25) was unsatis...

As the vultures of the press circle over the wounded Liberal Party of Manitoba, one NDP star candidate must be laughing up her sleeve at how her extremist past has escaped the scrutiny of reporters and pundits. Parachuted into a safe NDP seat in Winnipeg's North End, she nonetheless feared a bruising campaign against a well-heeled Liberal opponent.  Ha ha.  Instead, the sleepy newspeeps have turned a blind eye to her years of vitriolic attacks on Christianity, white people, and police. * She's spent years  bashing Christianity  as the root cause of all the problems of native people in Canada. * She's called for  a boycott of white businesses . * And with her  Marxist research partner, she's  smeared city police as intransigent racists . Step up Nahanni Fontaine, running for election in St. John's riding as successor to the retiring Gord Macintosh. While her male counterpart in the NDP's galaxy of stars, Wab Kinew, has responded to the contro...