Harsh rays of truth for the B. Sun

Some interesting chit chat coming out of Wheat City these days...

Apparently the Brandon Sun isn't doing so well in the readership department and, in response, the paper decided to hold focus groups to find out how they could improve.

Addicts has learned that the overwhelming response from Brandon folks was that they felt the Sun has become little more than a apology sheet for the Tories and right-wing opinion in general (our friend Curtis, notwithstanding).

In short, readers told the Sun what has been obvious since James O'Connor became editor - that it had become a Tory rag. (Which seems to be an occupational hazard for papers called "the Sun" everywhere.)

It will be interesting to watch what the Brandon Sun does with this feedback, if anything.

We wonder whether O'Connor, former spinner for the Filmon government, will keep grinding out a Tory newsletter? Or will he talk the feedback to heart and lead the paper to some sort of neutral, more objective ground?

It wouldn't be the first time a paper in Manitoba dismissed public opinion research 'cuz it didn't support its own fiercely-held ideology. What's heartening, though, is to learn that readers see right through this.

Perhaps there's a lesson here for the Winnipeg Sun (ironically, where O'Connor started out years ago, taking photos of scantily-clad Sun girls). Perhaps after 25 years of a stagnant product and diminishing returns, they should take a closer look at their own one-note song?

Spiritless eulogy

Last week, Huey Duck's old buddies at Aikins MacAulay and Thordvalson finally relented and sponsored a Chamber of Commerce luncheon so their former co-woker could spread his sage advice and political wisdom as the keynote speaker.

First off, we are concerned for Huey's mental state, as it seems he cannot go through an entire speech without evoking the the former premier's name. No, not Filmon, but Pawley. How horrible Hugh's teenage years must have been under the Pawley NDP as Hugh's reaction seems disturbingly Pavlovian. Stand next to Hugh utter the name Howard Pawley and we bet his eyes begin to twitch.

However, we can sympathize. Sometimes we feel compelled to complain about the dirty days of Walter Weir. (Who doesn't, right?) Sometimes, it's so intense we find ourselves howling towards the ceiling, yelling "Weeeeeiiiir. Weeeeiiiir." For some reason it seems to annoy people around us.

But we digress.

Back to Huey's speech and his vision for the future. Does his vision include hydro as a key part of our future? Apparently not.

Maybe that's because when Hugh and the boys were previously in power they killed Conawapa and their best idea for business development was to loan scads of money to call centres.

What about hope for Aboriginal Manitobans as being vital to our future -- did he mention that? Mmm, not so much.

Maybe because Aboriginal people just aren't on Team Huey's radar. Never have been.

Did he mention alternative energy like wind power or ethanol, and biodiesel or biotech and nutricueticals to help the rural economy? 'Fraid not.

As a matter of fact the only mention of rural Manitoba was his intention NOT to dismantle rural regional health authorities while he pledged to, well ... maybe, we're not sure, perhaps, but it might be a good idea to, um, dissolve the Winnipeg RHA. (And this was the only item of news interest out of the whole chin wag.)

Of course, as we detailed here before, he was a senior advisor in the former Filmon government when RHAs were created with not one, but two, RHAs for the city of Winnipeg. Wethinks he calls to, perhaps, slay the monster he helped create.

Attaboy tiger. Go get 'em.

Seriously, for a moment, it is a worthy policy plank to seek to keep health spending in check. Hardly original, but hard to say that the Tories are wasting their time thinking about it. But apart from the siren call of US-style private medicine, Huey has only the the "possible" dismantling fo the WRHA as his approach on health care?

It's pretty thin gruel in itself, let alone the inherent irony in Huey choosing that target considering his former employment history.

On other fronts, he reportedly also made a call to bring back the Jets.

Oooo-kay. Forgive us for being a tad picky, but wasn't it the Filmon government that ran on saving the Jets in 1995? Then afterwards they failed to build a new arena and then the Jets went away? (They also said MTS wouldn't be privatized in that election, but so much for that, too.)

And wasn't it in fact the Doer government that partnered with Mark Chipman to build a new downtown arena, which has invigorated the Moose and breathed life into downtown, positioning us well if it were ever possible again to bring the NHL to Winnipeg?

We are thinking that Huey Duck's "Back to the Future" campaign theme he's developing may not exactly bowl over the Manitoba public.

The ongoing saga of CSI Tuxedo

Did somone move April Fool's Day get and forget to tell us?

What else could possibly explain a CJOB story earnestly reporting that "the Manitoba Conservative Crocus Task Force is not prepared to go public with any information" while at the same time hinting that committee otherwise known as CSI Tuxedo has actually found something?

And just what is the basis for this most earnest of reports? Well, 'cuz Tory retread Don Orchard says so. He says there's stuff there, it just can't be revealed. Employees are scared, he says, providing absolutely no evidence for any of his claims.

And 'OB repo Jeff Keele repeats it all straight up, without question -- the Gospel According to Orchard. Does Keele and his bosses really, honestly believe that the Tories have found damning evidence against the Doer government but are choosing not to release it?

If the Tories truly had a smoking gun, there are so many options for further investigation, without exposing any "frightend employees" - from the coppers to the auditors. Hey, they could even send the info anonymously to CJOB's "secret fax."

We are led to assume that they either have so much regard for the government that they are choosing to keeping this explosive information to themselves, or that they have absolutely nothing.

Hmmm. Hard to decide which seems more likely.

Thursday night questions ...

• Why does Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz get so much credit for bolstering his police ranks when he funded a grand total of two police officers out of his own budget? The other 46 are coming courtesy of the Doer government. Operation Clean Sweep would be the equivalent of a toothbrush without provincial support.

• Why is Tory Justice Critic Kelvin Goertzen so in love with electronic monitoring for violent criminals when it should only be used for non-violent offenders? There is a big difference between slapping an ankle bracelet on Martha Stewart and doing the same to a Hell’s Angel.

• Is Winnipeg Police Chief Jack Ewatski the modern version of Rip Van Winkle? Several decades of extended slumber are the only justification for suggesting the Winnipeg Police Service has never had a zero tolerance policy on domestic violence.

• How does Tory Agriculture Critic Ralph Eichler have credibility on ANY industry – agriculture or otherwise – when he can’t even pronounce the word? If George Bush opened a school of elocution, Eichler could make the dean’s list.

• Does anyone pay any attention to the typists at the Winnipeg Free Press when they spout off about downtown redevelopment when they abandoned the core area themselves? The Doctors of the Downtown are always willing to live up to their Hypocritical Oath.

• Did we just get back on a time machine or are we the only people shocked that two teenage girls have to go to the Manitoba Human Rights Commission so they can play hockey with boys? Perhaps the Manitoba High Schools Athletic Association thinks that if the girls win this one, they might fight for right to vote next. It is sad that we seem to be back in the days of Premier Roblin (and we’re talking about Rodmond, not Duff).

• Does anyone remember that before anyone ever heard of Friendly Manitoba, this province was The Land of 100,000 Lakes? And before that Sunny Manitoba. Did anyone know that Friendly Manitoba only ever existed on the licence plate? Does anyone know that the rest of Canada doesn't even know that Friendly Manitoba is the slogan on our licence plate? That is something to remember as a few peanut gallery pundits freak out about the new Spirited Energy brand for the province. Sometimes even the most beloved slogan has a shelf life. (Or never really got off the ground to begin with.) Get over it.

Deathbed bully pulpit

OK, that's enough. We are very sorry that Rev. Harry Lehotsky is dying of an untreatable cancer. We believe he is a dedicated man who has worked hard doing things many of us would not choose to do. But listening this morning to CBC radio to Harry developing his old theme of questioning the merit of the social services and the people who deliver them in Winnipeg's inner city, he cranked it up a notch, attacking them as "incestuous".

What? Harry's own organization is run by a cadre of carefully groomed disciples -- hardly a paragon of democracy. And while he rails about the government-funded do-gooders around him, he accepted millions of dollars from the government for his own housing projects.

It's one thing for the media to build the guy up as the unusual inner city activist, whose conservative values seem at odds with things. But since the announcement of his upcoming death, he has been transformed into semi-sainted status where he is adulated at every turn and his every word is taken as a revelation of unquestionable truth.

But it should be no wonder, we suppose, that he is taking the opportunity of his own very public deathwatch to turn it into a powerful bully pulpit to knock down others, who also happen to be trying to do the right thing in Winnipeg's inner city.

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Today, an interesting admission of error by the Winnipeg Freep Ress editorial section. On the weekend they decided to even further lower their own standards by matching Tom Bunk-beck's ludicrous attack on the premier's comments, stating a couple of weeks ago in Question Period that the number of patients in the hallway was zero.

In fact, that happened to be the official count that day. Zero.

But the dear old scribblers bought the crazy Tory belief that healthcare was better under them. (Can we have some of that to smoke, too? It looks like it packs a punch.) They went so far as to totally mangle the stats and claiming numbers of patients in ER hallways has gone up -- not down by 80% as it actually has.

Apparently, they were corrected on this gross error. Today, they made a rare apology.

At least that's better than Bunk-beck.

Who's on Winnipeg Sun chopping block?

Today's late breaking news about 120 job cuts in the Sun media chain have the denizens of Church Avenue in a bit of a state, understandably, this evening.

The Globe reports that "Roughly 30 of the job cuts, which include 13 union positions, will come in Toronto. The rest will be spread over operations in Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg as well as at the London Free Press. The two Sun papers in Quebec are not affected."

"Cuts in the chain's editorial staff will hit reporters, editors, photographers, librarians, researchers, freelancers and some managers," says the CBC.

Canadian Press quotes Brad Honywill, president of the Southern Ontario Newsmedia Guild, as saying: "People were incredulous that on the one hand they were trying to bill this as a commitment to gathering news content, at the same as they were saying they are eliminating jobs,"

It will be interesting to read if Tom Bunk-beck has anything to say about this development, considering his conversion from a mere cynic to Conservative apologist and arch anti-unionist (we have heard from some of his incredulous colleagues that in the late 1990s he was an avid supporter of the Winnipeg Sun union's near-strike over wages and benefits).

Alas, we trust his current religion has endeared him enough to his betters that he will be spared some private sector reality.

City Summit Part Deux?

Expect Winnipeg's social organizations to soon unveil what amounts to a response to the Sam and Rudy show that took place a number of weeks back. You'll remember that event -- the Winnipeg City Summit. It was awash in controversy from the beginning, owing largely to the high price tag to attend (yup, lots of pro-Katz business buddies) and the fact that the guest list effectively shut out a number of groups and individuals that without too much argument should have had a voice in any diverse dialogue about the direction the city is headed.

Apparently the organizing committee of this broader City Summit (which apparently includes the Social Planning Council, student leaders, labour, Aboriginal groups, and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives) has been meeting for a few weeks now. We don't know details on date and location yet.

It's a pretty smart move. One assumes the event will be held during this fall's municipal election campaign, where it'll provide an opportunity to ensure issues like poverty, bus rapid transit, urban sprawl, affordable housing, and the terrible process at City Hall will get at least some coverage in the media and may even spur some councillors (Hellooooo Bill Clement, Franco Munificent and Jae Eadie) into taking some kind of coherent position on them.

And it'll be good to hear something other than the predictable Rudy Giuliani 'hire more cops, cut social programs' message. Where do we sign up?

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We're a little behind on reading, but we see our friend Curtis take a jab at us, including extensive quoting of Mouseland. Sir, we are somewhat impressed you've even heard of Mouseland. We are happy to engage in debate. However, we need no lessons on Tommy Douglas from you. Apart from his fine oratory, Tommy also knew what running government was all about. He knew it was important to separate the wheat from the chaff of day-to-day barbs from the real cats. You make no case the government is acting "like cats", apart from merely asserting it. Your point, sir, is pure chaff.

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Re: Oilers. Aaarrrrrrrrrrrggggggh! 'Nuff said.

Losing the World Cup

With Monday, the first day of the last week begins before the House of Commons recesses for the summer. And on Monday, MPs are set to debate a motion from Winnipeg South Centre's Anita Neville asking the Conservatives to commit to the $5.1 billion Kelowna Agreement.

During the federal election, the Conservatives were of two minds on the Accord.

On Saskatchewan radio, Conservative MP (now immigration minister) Monte Solberg said: “(The) Kelowna (First Ministers Meeting) Agreement is something that they crafted at the last moment on the back of a napkin on the eve of an election. We're not going to honour that. We will have our own plan that will help natives a lot more than the Liberals.”

The very next day, his colleague MP Jim Prentice stated on Aboriginal Peoples Television Network that: “…I am the party spokesman on the Kelowna accord and let’s be perfectly clear for the viewers of your network. We are supportive of Kelowna. We are supportive of the targets and objectives that were set at Kelowna.”

Under demands that Harper clarify the issue, on January 11 the Tory campaign said: "The Conservative Party supports all of the objectives, targets, and principles as laid out in the agreement. A Conservative government will work closely with the provinces and Aboriginal peoples to develop a responsible fiscal plan to meet these objectives."

Since then, there has been no indication Harper wants to go anywhere near the Kelowna Accord, or meeting its "objectives, targets, and principles".

Unlike Solberg's claims of being written on the back of a napkin, the deal took 18 months to negotiate and includes a 19-page plan of targets and reporting requirements for a 10-year period. It would go a long way to improving the lives of Aboriginal Canadians.

But it pretty much goes without saying that even if the opposition majority wins the day, the Harper government will not implement the agreement reached last fall with First Nation leaders and the premiers.

And doing so will be a day of tremendous setback for Canada -- a black day. Missing the chance to really take a big step forward in redressing a profusion of wrongs will surely be seen by history as Canada having lost in the World Cup of doing the right thing.

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Sporting analogies aside ... go Oilers.

Up in smoke

The CBC is smokin' these days, producing such thought-provoking pieces as today's little ditty titled Manitoba NDP under fire for ignoring smoking ban. While no Manitoban should be ignoring the smoking ban, the story stretches the truth as we thought only Brodbeck could - starting with the following opening statement:

"An NDP smoking ban in public buildings in Manitoba appears to be going unheeded by some government staff members who have been spotted puffing away in the legislative building," the story claims.

"Earlier this week, three people were spotted hanging out the windows of the NDP's caucus office, smoking."

Well, NDP caucus members do not work for government any more than Tory caucus members do. But let's not let the facts get in the way of a cheap "gotcha" story.

The story goes on to say: "The CBC tried to get a comment from Michael Balagus, Premier Gary Doer's chief of staff, as he enjoyed a cigarette outside the legislative building. He too declined."

As the story says, Balagus was smoking OUTSIDE the building. But despite NOT breaking any law, Balagus finds himself named in this story about alleged wrong doers.

Using the CBC's peculiar brand of "news" judgement, one could see a whole series of stories emerging:

Balagus Has a Beer With Someone Who Used to Smoke; Balagus Spotted Grocery Shopping, Buys Smokes; Doer Spotted with Notorious Smoker Balagus. The possibilities are virtually endless. Of course, Tory health critic Myrna Driedger accused the government of "hypocrisy." (Like the CBC, having no proof is never a deterrant for Myrna).

Too bad the CBC didn't ask Tory MLAs Bonnie Mitchelson or David Faurschou for comment. The two Tories can be found almost daily, puffing away outside the east doors of the Legislature. Usually not far from Balagus himself.

Hmmmm.... Outside Smoker Balagus in Cahoots With Tories? Stay tuned folks. We'll smoke 'em out.

Send in the clowns

There are so many things one could say about Crocus gadfly Bernie Bellan’s announcement he intends to run under the Manitoba Liberal banner in Tuxedo. You could mention the curiousness of the choice of riding, where he would face off against current MLA and former Wellington West employee Heather Stefanson. (Tory-populated Wellington West of course was the underwriter for Crocus.)

You could say it is about time Bellan shed the thin non-partisan veneer he was peddling to the media these past many months.

And of course you could see the move of the Quixotic Bellan to the Liberals in general line with what seems to be the hallmark strategy of Manitoba’s rump party, taking pride in trying to shove a stick into the spokes of anything that comes by, regardless of the impact on everyday Manitobans.

You can see the Jon-Kev sideshow take pride in the fact they prevented several pieces of legislation from passing in the recently-ended session of the Manitoba legislature – bragging on their website that they “wiped out” 11 bills, including the legislation that would crack down on exploitive payday loans companies.

The Liberals clearly see Crocus as a major vote-getting issue for them. We, however, would be more concerned if we were in their shoes that they could get wiped of the face of the provincial political scene altogether, being easily painted as a party that prefers antics in the legislature than preventing people from being exploited.

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While it may take Manitobans a little while to get used to the new provincial “spirited energy” brand, it’s clear that the predictable opposition to it is actually more trumped up than real. Many of the callers into radio shows this week are known regulars of the Tory phone tree. It is known that the Tory network was cranked up to get the anti-“spirited energy” votes up on online polls that have been running since the launch of the brand earlier this week.

This morning’s Free Press is teeming with Tory rent-a-gripers, including Conservative caucus staffer Maureen Cousins, who was quoted directly in Kevin Rollason’s story about reaction to “spirited energy”.

It’s an interesting choice of things to attack on the part of Team Baby Huey – a project led and supported by such prominent New Democratic apologists like Bob Silver, Dave Angus and Graham Starmer. Ah well, Huey’s a brilliant strategist, he likes to tell us, so we’re sure he knows what he’s doing.

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UPDATE: We understand that long-time PC caucus staffer Maureen Cousins has not worked there for some time.

Polling revisited

Well, the proof of the point we were making a few weeks ago about the unreliability of public domain polling has been made clearly for all to see next door in Ontario.

Manitobans may have seen the recent headline about Dalton McGuinty's Liberal government being 8 points ahead of the John Tory, well, Tories in an SES poll conducted in late May.

What you may not have seen was a poll taken at almost exactly the same time by Leger that puts McGuinty's Libs 2 points behind Tory's Tories.

This disparity is described here.

Both companies are established market research firms. Both had significant sample sizes (about 500 in the SES poll, about 1000 in the Leger poll) as well as following established sampling and opinion research methods.

Both informed us the margin of error was minimal (4.5% -- SES, 3.1% -- Leger). The spread between the two polls is so wide it cannot be explained away by these margins.

The danger with the Probe/Free Press situation here in Manitoba is they are the only game in town. And their results are picked up and repeated by their polling-starved competitors. No one else is doing public domain work to show that different polling firms often do things quite differently and come up with significantly different results.

There is a lot of art to polling. Unfortunately, journalists tend to overly rely on them to generate copy and they do not convey the alchemy aspect to their audience very much.

Some have said this is because they don't understand polling particularly well. We, however, have no particular opinion on that issue.

Déjà vu all over again

Ontario never learns.

Back in the days when Alberta was a struggling province, people there tried their best to get Bay Street to get interested in developing the province’s oil potential.

They couldn’t get a sniff.

In a combination of desperation and frustration, they turned south.

As a result, Alberta found American investors looking to become even more rich and found them in the United States. Leduc #1 was a gusher and Alberta and their American friends never looked back.

A big loser was Ontario which lost its opportunity to get rich along with their fellow Canadians.

But the biggest loser was Canada itself. Alberta has never gotten over the resentment of being left in the financial cold by eastern bankers and investors, which is why they would have been very happy to let “those eastern bastards freeze in the dark” when Pierre Trudeau embarked on the ill-fated National Energy Program voyage in the 1980s.

Fast forward to 2006, in the face of a changing energy landscape, and we fear history is repeating itself.

This week, Ontario announced that is heading back into the nuclear age and will invest in expensive and potentially dangerous nuclear power instead of buying hydro from Manitoba and Quebec.

The decision defies all political logic and may be the last act that will turn Dalton McGuinty into a one-term premier.

He seems not to recognize a good deal when he sees one, an opportunity to light up the homes and businesses of his province without poisoning his citizens with coal dust or putting them at risk with nukes.

To the Manitoba government’s credit, it is willing to keep trying to penetrate the thick cranium of the man who brought health premiums back to Ontario.

Premier Gary Doer has been beating the nation building-drum on the East West power grid because he knows energy, in this case clean energy, is the commodity that can unite this country and divide it.

By heading down the perilous nuclear road, McGuinty may be forcing Manitoba to look south for customers. When nukes prove to be too expensive, too controversial and too dangerous and Ontario looks to Manitoba again, it may be too late.

Ontario needs Manitoba more than Manitoba needs Ontario, but McGuinty just doesn’t get it.

How can Manitoba help a politician who won't help himself?

No class

Huey Duck proved he is far, far away from being ready for prime time with his antics in the House. This session of course is now over. We can only assume he was perhaps frustrated with his lack of impact during his freshman stint as Opposition leader. That's about as generous as it can get when someone resorts to base name-calling.

We don't have the Hansard yet, but for some godforsaken reason Huey decided to go beyond the roster of cheap shots he was amassing to the point where he apparently thought on Tuesday that it would be a good idea to call the Premier a liar.

Rude, you say? Sure. Unadvised? Probably.

Unparliamentary? No-brainer.

So, as you would think, he was properly called upon to withdraw his comments by the Speaker. His response? He merely expressed regret that it was unparliamentary to call "a liar a liar".

One other thing to add to that list -- low-class.

Winnipeg pundit world filled with proxy Tories

It is always astounding when proxy Tories like Dave Angus and Adrienne Batra refer to themselves as non-partisan without bursting into laughter or flames.

Two items last week show once again that our so-called leaders of business and taxpayers' rights are little more than Conservative cheerleaders - minus the dance routines.

On Sunday in the pages of the Winnipeg Sun, Angus, in his role as president of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, provided his review on the new Tory MPs from Manitoba and their government and gave them glowing marks.

He did so despite his own admission that the Tories have yet to deliver on key Winnipeg priorities such as the Red River Floodway and the Manitoba Human Rights Museum.

Yes and other than the unfortunate gunfire Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

As for Batra, the local mouthpiece for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, showed her true colours by what she didn't say.

This week, two-time public purse dipper Rick Borotsik revealed his intentions to try to become a three-time drinker when he announced he is seeking the provincial Tory nomination in Brandon West.

Given the CTF's history on the pensions issue, one would have expected a news release or some sort of public comment of outrage by Batra.

But not a peep.

Perhaps we should give the benefit of the doubt to Batra. Maybe her screeches of righteous indignation were so shrill that no human being, nor beast - not even Tom Brodbeck and Gerald Flood - could hear them.

But our guess is she knows where her bread is buttered and she isn't about to rain on Borotsik's parade.

Don't get us wrong.

We have no quarrel with those who are willing to put their cards and bias on the table and let fly.

That's democracy.

But Angus and Batra still pretend that they are something more and than shameless spinners for the Tories when they are not.

Sleeping with the stupid elephant

It's frequently so easy to mock Americans -- especially American politicians and officials when they take the rare step of discussing Canada. The problem is, of course, their stupidity can easily cause major headaches for their most immediate neighbour to the north.

Indiana Republican John Hostettler, a long-time fear-mongerer about the terrorist threat from Canada, used last week's arrest of 17 suspected al-Qaedists in Ontario as a new opportunity to beat his drum.

“We do not want to have to worry about a neighbour that has a very different attitude than we do about terrorism,” he said before taking Stephen Harper to task for his quip that he can “live with all these threats as long as they’re not from my caucus.”

Smarten up, Stephen. Your allies aren't amused by your new-found sense of humour.

We generally laugh off this nonsense from south of the border. We guess they didn't notice that law enforcement authorities actually caught these guys before something happend. We're sure residents of London, England wished they could say the same thing.

However, this sort of tripe is becoming dangerous. It drives the attempts to raise border security to the point that it could kill thousands of Canadian export-dependent businesses.

And the Conservative government will be continually pressured to cave in on both the border issue, requiring Canadians to show passports to get into the U.S., and on immigrants and refugees.

Immigrant communities should be worried that Harper could sacrifice their interests to placate the U.S. and get them to ease off on the border security issue.

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We checked out the Winnipeg Free Press's new array of blogging reporters -- part of new editor Bob Cox's attempt to update the Mountain Avenue behemoth.

Much to our horror, the sole politcs watcher is veterean reporter and knockabout boy Dan Lett. Our horror was not that Lett had a blog, but what he chose to call his blog -- "The Sausage Factory". We discovered this on the day we had used the very same term in a headline.

In the spirit of a Winnipeg corporate lawyer -- no, not Huey Duck -- David Carrick, we are considering our legal options to deal with this outrage.

Bunk-beck vies for Pulitzer ... and other tales from the sausage factory

Tom Brodbeck is known in some circles as the man who taught Rochelle Squires everything she knows. Certainly that was ten minutes of his life he'll never get back, but not nearly as wasted an effort as his current "gotcha" campaign against Premier Gary Doer.

The bee in Bunk-beck's bonnet this week? Doer "lied" in the legislature about the number of patients in Winnipeg hospital ERs. This is the quote in contention, from Tuesday's question period: "The average patients in the hallways in the emergency rooms in 1999 were 28 patients, Mr. Speaker. Today, there is zero."

OK, there you go. When the Tories left office the average number in the hallways was 28. On Tuesday the count was zero. Pretty straight-forward.

But not for Bunk-beck's heightened sense of moral outrage. Clearly Doer was saying the average was zero, right? No patients were in the hallways under the NDP. (Release the balloons and streamers. Roll credits.)

Yes, yes. We know. Hallway medicine was not completely eliminated in a few weeks back in 1999. Give it a rest. It was an ambitious promise that the NDP ONLY GOT 80% OF THE WAY THERE. (A fact Doer also said in the same exchange, conveniently ignored by Bunk-beck.)

Set the bar high and achieve 80% of the goal. Not perfect, but it seems pretty darn good to us.

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This morning CBC Radio apologized to the Health Sciences Centre for saying yesterday that racism led to poor treatment of an Aboriginal woman. They backed this up with no facts, mererly the hearsay of the woman. The CBC apologizes for nearly nothing. This one really fell between the cracks.

Again, the once mighty Mother Corp shows signs of decline.

Team Huey out of step with "Consensus Manitoba"

So, while Huey Duck spends his freshman days as leader still seeking his sea legs, treading ground extremely well trod unsuccessfully to-date -- private health care, anti-master labour agreement, tax cuts for the rich -- there is new evidence today showing that route as a complete non-starter with Manitobans.

This week the Canada West Foundation released an analysis of a recent study they conducted of Manitobans' attitudes on major public policy issues.

Among the list of issues found to be salient with most western Canadians -- improving health care, strengthening the justice system, and increased accountability in general -- Manitobans buck the trends by placing a particularly high priority on the environment, eliminating poverty, aboriginal issues, and an interestingly non-polarized view of childcare (in short, we should both fund more daycare as well as provide support for stay-at-home parents).

Deep tax cuts, the Tory siren song, are not a high priority.

The survey was more evidence of how fundamentally humanistic and progressive Manitobans are in their general orientation. It's a sign that Manitobans think things are pretty good these days.

It's also one more sign that the Doer NDP model of government is right where the Manitoba consensus is and that it's going to take a lot more than a slick corporate lawyer to convince Manitobans that we need to significantly change the course we're on.

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In the ever-popular "credit where credit is due" department, nods have to go to the much-maligned Winnipeg Freep Ress editorial pages for a much more sane view of equalization in Wednesday's edition. Not that we agree with the simplistic Frontier Institute nostrum they've bought into that equalization favours bad fiscal policy. (Would someone please tell Peter Holle AGAIN that Manitoba has one of the lowest public service costs per capita in the country?)

And credit also goes to the king of frequently colourful (yikes!) quotes, Winnipeg Centre MP Pat Martin, for his letter to the editor Wednesday condemning the recent Ontario CUPE anti-Israel resolution, showing that the Canadian labour movement and the federal NDP is not completely insane.

Anti-immigration bandwagon to begin

With the rather shocking news about 17 Ontario men arrested in an al-Qaeda-inspired bomb plot just sinking in to Canadians' consciousness over the weekend, you can already count on the Harper government to unveil a "crackdown" on our "loose" immigration policies in the days to come.

Both inside and outside our borders, the predictable attack on our immigrant and refugee system has begun, starting with a misinformed U.S. congressman on Wolf Blitzer's show on CNN yesterday repeating the tired chestnut that Canada is a breeding ground for terrorism.

This despite authorities confirming the terrorist suspects being largely Canadian citizens (however, some were of Somali, Egyptian, Jamaican and Trinidadian backgrounds, they added) much as the suspects in last year's London tube bomblings were for the most part not immigrants, but British-born.

It's reminiscent of the post-9/11 nonsense with politicians including Hillary Clinton raising hysteria about the risk posed by the longest unprotected border in the world.

Canada is about to pay a high price to our commerce with the U.S. as a fallout of this hysteria, with new rules coming in that will significantly slow down all traffic at border crossings. Manitoba, which has an export-heavy economy, could suffer very badly in the coming years.

Of course, immigration has little to do with the problem. However, the answers to why people -- even Canadian citizens -- might be drawn to an extremist al-Qaeda ideology is much tougher than sabre-rattling about allegedly lax immigration policies.

Watch for immigration minister Monte Solberg to launch a sweeping change to Canada's immigration and refugee system in the coming days, appealing heavily to both the Conservative base and a swath of Canadians newly made anxious by the prospect of homegrown Muslim extremist violence.

The bandwagon has begun and there's no time to waste. Canada's Muslim community should get ready to put on their hardhats, it's going to get rough.

(However, unhelpfully to the federal NDP in opposing the upcoming "get toug on immigration" hysteria, is the fact already making the rounds on conservative blogs about Jack Layton repeating his call for the end to security certificates to a Muslim conference on May 20.)

Kyoto today, gone tomorrow

On the day the province increases its funding to the International Institute for Sustainable Development, it might be approporiate to remark that we thought we had made progress when we read that the Premier reaffirmed Manitoba's commitment to Kyoto after a very long, pregnant silence since the election of the anti-Kyoto federal government.

“I support Kyoto,” said Doer in a May 25 story. “We supported Kyoto before the Liberal government committed to it. We supported it after they committed to it and we support it now.” The story goes on to say "Doer said Manitoba will go even farther and exceed the accord’s emissions targets."

Nicely done. Back on track.

Or was it?

This week Doer had the unique position of chairing the Western Premiers and helping to push forward an agenda in line with Manitoba's interests. Now, we recognize it would have been unrealistic to get Alberta on board with a pro-Kyoto communique. But in a May 30, release, here we have the OFFICIAL POSITION of the provinces, including Manitoba, that DOESN'T EVEN MENTION THE WORD KYOTO. Whaaa?

Within five days, our green premier went from reaffirming our support for Kyoto, to chairing a conference that dare not utter the name -- instead, buying into the Conservative's rhetoric about made-in-Canada nonsense -- as if greenhouse gasses obey borders.

The Conservative position is one beholden to Alberta, which doesn't like facing some of the negative consequences of its otherwise good fortune of having won the geology lottery by sitting on huge oil reserves. Why else not do Kyoto, which is the bare minimum we can do?

The old chestnut that China and India not being in Kyoto and therefore the agreement is useless is a silly one. Saying not everyone is playing by the rules, therefore the rules are bad, makes no sense. Canada implementing Kyoto, even if we don't meet all our targets, means significant levels of GHGs start going down. There is no other plan right now. Buying into a fictional non-existent plan is the easy way out. Our children and our children's children won't thank us for taking the easy way out. We should be fighting for Kyoto, making the case on the national stage for Kyoto.

Mr. Doer, validating the right-wing anti-Kyoto movement is a cop out. This week was a missed opportunity to demonstrate your leadership on Kyoto and the environment.