What's with Andy?

Another Manitoba Tory blog bites the dust?

We guess that's one way of covering all the bases ...

OK, we promise we'll go to another topic real soon. But, thanks to eagle-eyed correspondents, we just couldn't pass up this tip.

In a stunning feat of political contortionism worthy of a Cirque du Soleil act, Kevin Lamoureux (see below) slams the provincial re-branding -- all the while his leader seems to like it, here and here.

(As we see in this photo, at least there's evidence one of the province's Liberals is actually a Friendly Manitoban.)

Two Liberals, two positions. What more could one ask for?

As an aside, we have been hard on Rochelle Squires in the past. Although she covered the Kevin "story" below without mentioning this above situational hilarity, we must forgive her for not being completely up on Jon's blog postings.

Another friendly Manitoban ...

'Nuff said.

Sure it's free to be a "friendly Manitoban" -- but that assumes you are actually somewhat friendly ...

Just because it's worth the reminder, this is the spoof that had so many laughing, until their liberal guilt kicked in. Others whose comments appear frequently in places like this and who would have you belive they are actually reasonable folks are still laughing at it, we understand -- just not in public, mind you.

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Isn't it a bit rich when Mr. CC -- the "blogging hall monitor" as Lett calls him -- expects people to accept a tale of his Blogger ineptitude to explain part of his disappearance of more than a week? We are forced to remember he so loudly denounced this space for discussing some of our members' technical inabilities while our geeks took time off, which he also made snide comments about.

(Actually, we sympathize with the Blogger mishap, we've lost posts after pushing the "publish" button once or twice. It's a real pain in the arse.)

Further on CC taking another shot at us, we quote: "We dislike Dan Vandal because we think that politicians who step-up for the big prize should go quietly into the good night when they don't win."

Hmmm. It's akin to saying Bob Dole or John Kerry should simply have slipped into the hereafter after they each lost running for President. (Gawd, it's so true!) Interesting P.O.V. But doesn't it have interesting implications for recent leadership contenders closer to home?

Then there's "Fletch" -- who hates Spirited Energy, but would have used it to help bring back the Jets; who rails violently at our rather mild views on the civic St. B race, yet chides us for alleged strong language pointed at others.

Sigh.

We know consistency can be the hobgoblin of small minds, yet Fletch's rhetorical u-turns are positively, well, weird.

And we're forced to remind Fletch the premier didn't create the Spirited Energy campaign -- although Fletch would have run that one himself, we're led to understand, if he had the big job. It was actually signed off by people like ... hmm, who was it again? Oh, yes, the likes of Dave Angus, Stu Duncan and Bob Silver. And endorsed by people like Graham Starmer. A raging pool of New Dems, to be sure.

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So Lett has taken a cue from Kinsella and decided to see if Manitoba blogging can stoke the fire of real political discourse, not just play in these little e-sandboxes, hurling insults among the occasional ideas at each other. He has thrown down the gauntlet for the Fort Rouge NDP candidates to get serious about some policy and use his space as the crucible of democracy.

First, we're forced to rap Dan, if gently, on the knuckles for his digs at the BBAs. There was absolutely no apoplexy over Jamie's decision to run -- we just found it interesting you didn't appear to ask him why he didn't feel as Donne did about the primacy of having a strong woman elected in Ft. R. We're sure it would be an interesting answer, potentially worthy of some discussion, no?

(We neglected Mr. Nestruk at the time because we honestly didn't know he was in the mix or who he was, for that matter. We remain red-faced.)

As for the Fort Rouge forum as provided by the Factory, seems worthwhile to us. Maybe it could be co-hosted with the Hack, as he makes a simultaneous call for real nomination content.

Guess summer's over, girls and boys.

Sam's dynamic duo?

We understand Sam Katz has handpicked one of his key insiders to run the campaign of St. Boniface city councillor Franco Magnifico. Brian Kelcey has apparently been tapped to try and keep Magnifico from, well, being Franco in the civic election race against former St. Boniface city councillor Dan Vandal.

The race for St. B is the one to watch in this year’s municipal election campaign, and some at City Hall view it as Vandal’s to lose.

Vandal's courage to take on Franco was reportedly boosted based on internal polling numbers BBAs have been hearing about coming from sources in both camps, so it’s no surprise to learn that Mayor Sam would send one of his key insiders to try and help do a better job of selling Magnifico to voters in St. Boniface.

Kelcey -- who rubbed shoulders with other Manitobans like Baby Huey in the Mike Harris PC government in Ontario and former Ontario head of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation -- will have his hands full, if the (credible) rumour of his involvement is true.

Franco's talent for following Sam's office's orders have clearly made his political survival a priority for the mayor's circle, though the big FM's record at City Hall is nothing to gloat about: the Red Tape Commission (which Franco took the credit for but Kelcey did all the writing and heavy lifting on) was supposed to cut bureaucratic red tape but has, by most accounts, been less than a success; Franco 'secured?' $300,000 in funding for Cercle Moliere's expansion (a case of nepotism best left for another time); and FM announced something about wanting to do something sometime on the Canada Packers site (anything happen there other than the news conference to announce? what did they actually announce?). And that’s about it.

Having said all that, there are signs that if he’s not careful, Vandal could slip up. At a news conference recently to announce his candidacy, Vandal called Magnifico "a hog sniffer", accused him of being "in the Mayor’s pocket", and pointed out (correctly) that Franco was the guy who "ran the strip joint in my neighbourhood".

While it’s true that Magnifico flew to Kansas City last winter to sniff out any odour problems with a barely opened hog plant there, follows every instruction put to him by the Mayor’s office, and did run the St. Boniface Hotel which featured, ahem, exotic dancing (and a school bus right there beside the front door to allow those smokers a nice warm place in the winter to make an end run around the city’s smoking by-law), we recommend that Vandal tone down his rhetoric and let Franco shoot himself in the foot, as he’s so capable of. Let the City Hall reporters (at least those that don’t regularly drink with Katz handler Ryan Craig) point out the foibles of Franco.

Examples? Franco has been quoted as saying that he has pictures of fellow city councillor Gord Steeves with sheep (!) and that councillors "should do more bending over for developers". Indeed.

The fact is Vandal must realize that he’ll win St. B if voters see that they have a choice between the bellicose Magnifico and a proven guy like Vandal, not between two lugs just slinging mud at each other. Vandal can only lose his credibility and a good reputation by getting into a war of insults with Magnifico.

One more thing: perhaps it’s fitting if Brian Kelcey is running Magnifico's campaign. Here’s a snippet from a piece Free Press reporter Patti Edgar wrote on October 12, 2005:

"Of 287 (municipal) candidates since 1990, 87 didn't file audited financial statements or didn't do it properly. One is Brian Kelcey, whose current title is special adviser to the mayor's office. He works full-time with the mayor's executive policy committee.

"Kelcey, the author of the much-touted report on city hall red tape, ran unsuccessfully for St. Charles councillor in 1995. Katz's chief of staff, Ryan Craig, was Kelcey's official agent, charged under the bylaw with keeping campaign records and preparing an audited statement. (Agents aren't responsible for filing the document.)
"In August, Katz called it "sad and pathetic" that any candidate for city government would fail to follow simple city election bylaws. Yesterday the mayor said he was unaware of Kelcey's past bid for a council seat."

A law breaker and the owner of a sleazy strip joint: seems like they deserve each other. The people of St. Boniface ward, though, sure don't.

We print reader feedback on "Spirited Energy"

"Bah, we're Friendly Manitoba, goddammit. Everyone knows we're friendly, you putz. Bunch of rebranding humbug, humbug I say.

Oh, and, er, sorry for laughing at that drunk indian email joke that was going around."

- Gordon Sinclair Jr.

Of sawing logs on Parliament Hill and letting the wood chips fall where they may ...

Prime Minister Harper has declared he will take the deeply flawed softwood lumber deal to Parliament this fall and consider the vote one of confidence -- that is, if the vote is lost, we'll be at the polls this fall.

We say fine, and are pleased that the federal NDP -- virtually invisible since Harper's minority victory -- immediately said, via industry critic Peter Julian, they would damn the torpedoes by voting against it and take the risk of forcing an election call.

Good for them. Well done.

Harper's tactical crutch of threatening to dissolve Parliament if the majority opposition defeats virtually anything is getting very tired. He is likely relying on continuing polls that say he is comftorably ahead in voter suppoer.

We think, however, if he has to explain for several weeks to Canadians he pulled the plug over a bad lumber deal, or something equally lame, he might be very surprised at the result.

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As a footnote, we see Hugh McFadyen (we are told we shouldn't say "Huey", it's apparently rude) has made hay that he finally got an audience with the PM, six months after becoming leader of the 'Toba PCs. After the Israel/Lebanon debacle and the tired "iron hand" act noted above, he may have been wiser to hold off hitching his wagon to Harper.

And introducing ... "Fletch"

"A policy initiated by the NDP in the 1970’s (------------) continues to keep Manitoba a “have not” province. "

And what policy might this be? It must be something so diabolical, so clearly wrong-headed that it has mired our province from achieving its status as the oil baron capital of Canada, currently enjoyed by those ursurpers in Alberta, all these years?

Well, according to new non-anonymous blogger "Andy Fletcher", it's ... (wait for it) ... ReNt CoNtRoL. (Aaaah. EEEEEEK. Run screaming.)

Well, the claim to begin with is so totally preposterous it hardly merits repeating except for humour value. Can we perhaps expect the next post under the pen of Mr. "Fletcher" to start with: "A policy initiated by the NDP in the 1940s, Medicare, continues to cause cancer"?

We're still basically in beach mode, so we won't spend a lot of time with this. So let's cut to the chase. If it was so friggin evil, so bad, why did Gary Filmon not eliminate it during his nearly 12 years as premier?

Umm, hmm, yes. Whatever.

So, let's add "Fletch" to the growing roster of Manitoba websites trying to dominate the blogosphere with ridiculous right-wing tripe. Quantity versus quality seems to be the motto of a tight little cabal of tiny Tories who seem to mistake this cyber-playground we call blogging for real politics.

Oh, yeah, and "Fletch's" earlier attack on Jennifer Howard because she's been a feminist activist for a long time -- very classy. Makes you feel warm all over about how PCs are really reaching out to women.

The one thing we might admire about Fletch is his bravery in taking on the Black Rod, as Lett has noted. Although it's worth also noting right-wing blogs like he and Mr. CC -- who have recently focused on the Rod -- were all mum about his posts until the infamous pioneer Manitoba blogger decided to give Huey a rather poor grade for his overall performance so far.

Blowin' smoke on Mountain Ave.

We could go on at length about the inconsistency of the Winnipeg Free Press when it comes to their own position on the province-wide smoking ban.

But in the interest of getting back to the beach, let's just remind readers that when the Doer government introduced the smoking ban, the paper decided it was ok to run an editorial cartoon depicting the premier in a Nazi uniform.

Regardless of one's political stripe, this editorial comment went way too far. It was unnecesarily malicious (everyone KNOWS the paper's editorial board doesn't like Doer), and it trivialized the true, agonizing suffering that ocurred at the hands of the Nazis.

The issue of extending the smoking ban to reserves is a complicated one. It is easy for editorialists and the opposition to mock treaty rights. Where is there a treaty right to smoke? they ask.

In this criticize-everything-Doer-does era of the editorial board, the Winnipeg Free Press ends up doing their own readers an injustice.

The paper knows full well that the issues involving jurisdiction and the rights of Indian bands to make their own decisions is an evolving and ever-changing area of law.

Should provincial smoking laws be extended to reserves and then challenged in court by Aboriginal leaders, would the Free Press be willing to bet a year's worth of advertising revenues that the court will uphold the law? Doubt it.

But instead of penning an analysis that truly explores the complexities of the issue, the editorial board resorts to its tried and true "Doer sucks" refrain.

No wonder the Free Press missed commenting on the strategic brilliance of Gary Doer's recent infrastructure "announcement."

Hugh McFadyen took Doer's bait, cried foul, and has now surrendered the road repair agenda to the New Democrats.
Doer drain the rainy day fund to do it? Not any more than he's likely to raise taxes. The fund has grown substantially during Doer's time in office and he isn't going to jeopardize that sound bite.

What Doer is going to do is take a slice of that economic growth, pour it into concrete and asphalt, and wave bye bye to McFadyen as he stands on the shoulder sputtering in opposition.

But you won't read this type of analysis in the Free Press. Tory blogs, on the other hand, figured out pretty fast that Hugh has been had.

Of hallways and highways ...

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Picture: Winnipeg ER as seen by Tom Brodbeck.
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In these dog days of summer, the really hot political stories are generally few and far between. Besides, when you're at the beach or cottage, who can get excited about much of anything besides 'what's the SPF number?' and 'who's doing the beer run, anyway?'

But a couple of items we thought warranted some comment.

So, here's Bunk-beck back from vacation in time to see a response from the WRHA about his FIPPA (read: taxpayer-funded story-o-matic device) application. What's the outcome? 'Waiting times higher than under the Tories'

But ah, wait a sec. The numbers Brodbeck used are one of two sets collected by the WRHA. (Why do they collect two sets? Who knows?) One set, which the premier refers to, are the base number for people who are actually admitted to a space in the hallways, who are no longer emergent and waiting for a real bed somewhere in the system. This is the number recommended by health officials that the government use. (The same methodology used by the Filmon government, by the way.)

The other set, that Tom likes, are a count of all people who happen to be in a hallway for any reason at all, including people there for a short time for a test result, getting a cast, or whatever, who then are able to go home.

People in hallways at all is not an ideal situation. But the main point that lost when you have a "gotcha, Gary Doer, hallway medicine is not dead seven years later," is that the problem is significantly better than under the former Filmon government. That's a fact. Not completely eliminated, but way better.

But it's much more fun to cobble together something via FIPPA that can allow Tom to compare apples to oranges (the WRHA all-inclusive number of today to the Tory number pre-1999) in order to justify a nasty headline ... hmm, let's see, maybe "Doer fudges numbers", or something like that.

Hey, look ma! Instant drive-by smear. No hands! (We won't go on today about the Freep playing 'me too' after Huey did a newser recaping Tom's story.)

And what's the guaranteed follow up? Tom writes a column staying that Medicare is dying and should be buried now while we still can. Hello, U.S. HMOs! That's the ticket, yes?

Just for fun, wouldn't it be great to see if Tom and his friends at the Sun will try to hold Mr. Harper to such account for not meeting his campaign promises to the exact letter? Hmm, don't hold your breath.

And of course it's not an ideological thing. No sir.

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So the provincial surplus is bigger, the rainy day fund is thus bigger and a $100 million chunk will go to highways (oops, infrastructure). And Huey thinks that's bad. (And the Freep thinks it vindicates their poll.)

We could continue to tee off, but Hack did a pretty good job on this (not nearly as nasty and partisan as we may have been, of course, but a good point all the same).

We promise come September this space will be fully back up to speed. And we may even approach such topics as smoking in native casinos. But we'll see.

Meantime, pass the suntan lotion and a beer.

Conservatives' Crown Corp Chronicles

A couple of Canadian institutions have been thrust into the spotlight these days, and since everything IS political, let's take a look at some battles that are shaping up for the coming year.

The first - and by far the more serious - involves the Canadian Wheat Board and the grumblings from producers over the Harper government's plans to end the board's monopoly on export sales of wheat and barley.

(Yes, that giant swooshing sound you hear is the sound of eyes glazing over throughout the blogsphere. Our apologies, dear reader, we will try to be brief.)

But the potential political landmines underlying this situation is what's intriguing to Addicts. Indeed, it has the potential to displace the contentious softwood lumber deal as the most boring story, like, EVER.

More than that, it has the potential to become a serious wedge issue in rural Manitoba and a big-time thorn in the backside for provincial (as well as federal) Tories. It is early days yet and is already proving troublesome for Tory MP Inky Mark and others.

Provincially, there is little to choose between the Tories and NDP when it comes to farm policy. Historically, both have thrown tractor-loads of cash at farmers in order to compensate for drought, flooding, or whatever happens to be the ailment of the day.

To be fair, the Doer government is trying to generate new rural economic development by harvesting such energy "crops" as wind and ethanol, and by investing in agri-foods and nutraceuticals. Still, Doer faces an uphill battle in yellow-dog Tory country that is rural Manitoba.

And this is where the Wheat Board deliberations are quietly gaining steam as a provincial election issue. True, it is unlikely to captivate the mainstream media and generate many - if any - page one headlines.

There's no question, however, that ground wars will be fought in key rural ridings with support for the CWB providing the NDP with a much-needed rallying cry. It will make life outside of the perimeter interesting indeed.

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The second institution in play is none other than Hockey Night in Canada (HNIC). CBC's contract with the NHL is set to expire at the end of the 2007/08 season, and sources say CTV-TSN is going hard after the contract that has been CBC's cash cow for more than 50 years.

Now, we aren't even going to get into the financial implications for the CBC should they lose HNIC. Suffice to say they would rock the organization like a Scott Steven's bodycheck, as HNIC is the corp's one and only license to print money.

But financial implications aside, the CBC without HNIC is like Winnipeg without the Jets - just plain wrong.

Purists of Canadian culture who think the CBC should be hockey free - and are eagerly counting the minutes till it's all-Masterpiece-Theatre-all-the-time - are forgetting just what HNIC means to many Canadians. From the opening strains of the theme song, to Don Cherry's silly suits, the show is synonymous with growing up north of the 49th.

And this is where the game gets interesting for our hockey-mad Prime Minister. Everyone knows Harper and crew don't like the Liberal-lovin' CBC, and there's been plenty of tough talk about mandate review and the like.

Ultimately, though, overhauling the CBC is not a top Harper priority cause it's a sure-fire loser, a big, noisy, messy fight that's not worth having. Especially for a minority government. Sure, Canadians grumble about the CBC. But they also mostly like the CBC. And in many communities with limited broadcast options, they rely heavily on the CBC.

However, once negotiations with the NHL heat up and HNIC starts skating on thin ice, the federal government is going to face growing public pressure to figure out just what CBC's mandate ought to be, and how hockey fits into the corp's future. If HNIC is to go, what would the new CBC look like?

One has only to look at how Canadians mobilized by the thousands when CBC threatened to part ways with Don Cherry to see the passions that are invoked when someone tries to tinker with HNIC. Scrap it alltogether? Head's up folks, the game has only just begun.

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Other things: You heard it here first. The key issue in the next provincial election, Mantario.

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Aaaah. The other shoe drops in Fort Rouge. Howard is in. And, newsflash, she is NOT just running as a woman. (Who knew?)

No word yet on whether Allum is just running as a man.

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And from today's Star on Ignatieff sorta apologizing for his "losing no sleep" over Lebanese dead:

"Ignatieff, a one-time journalist himself, said he has no complaint about the way his comments were reported. "One rule I understand about this is that you're fully responsible for your words. You're even responsible when they're quoted out of context, as I believe I was in this instance," he said."

Yowch.

I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together ...

Goo goo goo joob.

(By the way, we know Mr. CC is not Kelvin. Our attempt at a tongue-firmly-in-cheek post was perhaps not all that well accomplished. Mr. Hack clearly did a much better job of making the point.)

Perhaps 'nuff said'bout all that for now, at least.

This and that ...

From the part of this gang that has barely figured out how to work Blogger we nod to Mr. Comments Closed, who spends lots of time talking about us and apparently is a great whiz with the Internet -- we poor schleps feel unworthy to exist in parallel cyberspace with him. Here, though, are just a few thoughts of the day to keep things going in this space until we are back up to full fighting form.

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Dan Lett seems to have become the official chronicler of the ins-and-outs of the Fort Rouge situation. Today he confirms James Allum's entry in the race, after last week's official confirmation that Donne Flanagan is out. All that's left is the official confirmation of Jennifer Howard's candidacy. We await that piece. James, currently NDP party president, does not seem to share Flanagan's exiting rationale, that the caucus needs more quality women and was stepping aside in the hope of improving Howard's chances. Though Allum of course has every right in the world to run and is clearly a quality candidate, it is interesting that Lett did not ask why Allum doesn't appear to feel the same as Flanagan.

UPDATE: We've heard Peter Reimer has told his supporters he is out. Is this right?

UPDATE, UPDATE: We're told that Pete is indeed out for sure, having informed his supporters.

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Not surprisingly, we angered journo and opposition politico types with our post about the growing FIPPA industry and specifically a recent CP story featuring a denial of access to Hecla sale info. Just to address some of the discussion -- this blog has always been clear we are pretty close to the NDP buzz at the leg, never denied it. But there is no official sanction from anybody. This is a private project to have some non-right wing content in the generally knuckle-dragging Manitoba blogosphere, not done on anyone's company time. And last we checked, there were no laws forcing people to read the content here, so if the content offends (which we hope we generally do not do) then readers are free to stop being readers. Simple as that. Other than that, we intend on continuing to offer our views on the world.

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We agree with Lett that reading PUB orders is right under watching paint peel on the fun list. But the request to Hydo to charge a big differential rate on large hydro consumers is going to be a very tricky issue for Hydro and the government to navigate. While Hydro would love to penalize the Canexuses of the world (despite announcing huge new investment in the Brandon area) -- how they avoid whacking the Inco's, Tebbec's and Mb Rolling Mills at the same time is a huge question.

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We share the joy of others with the prospect of thinning down our wallets with the new credit-card size driver's licence being introduced by MPI. We don't share some of the negative nabobery (nabobism?) about there still being a second piece of paper accompanying the card. It seems wiser to go this route now than to spend lots more money later to revamp the whole thing once the US tells us what acceptable security features they require.

And while we're talking about money, it's a bit rich to see the Winnipeg Sun bash constantly about wasting money when they seem to hardly be able to add. In recent coverage about the Spirited Energy campaign, the Sun recounts what has been reported before, that the government spent about $1.6 million in both developing the brand and in the big campaign this summer. The private sector piched in about $500,000. That adds up to $2.1 million, right? Well, apparently not. In Kathleen Martens accounting, it adds up to $4 million. Back to the abacus, we say!

The FIPPA industry

Manitoba taxpayers would be shocked at the amount of public resources that are used up diverting civil servants' time to meet the media, opposition and lobby groups' abuse of freedom of information laws to go on fishing expeditions. Not that in general the principle of freedom of information is incorrect, absolutely not -- but it was never meant to be a crutch for lazy reporters looking for obscuria to fill copy or lazy opposition and special interest groups who are bereft of ideas to engage the public.

Take this latest example, CP repo Steve Lambert's shocker about his request for info about the Hecla deal. Surprise, surprise -- his request was refused as is generally the case when the government enters an arrangement with the private sector. What would be the prospect of future public/private deals if businesspeople thought their internal info, that is required for government's due diligence in any arrangement, would become public for all -- including competitors -- to see?

Witness the end of deals with the private sector.

Mr. Lambert is a smart guy. He knew this at the outset when he submitted the FIPPA request for the info. He knew what the outcome would be so he could write the story "another secretive government deal, information request denied." Ooooooh.

It was a premeditated hit on the government that has become standard fare with several reporters -- and the other groups mentioned above --- who see freedom of information laws like FIPPA not as a public tool for reasonable access to government information, but as a bludgeon to use on the government at will.

The real FIPPA outrage is the FIPPA industry that has grown in recent years, not any particular government secrecy consipracy that makes for good copy, but is simply not true.

We won't go into the inherent hypocrisy of the Opposition when they participate in the standard rent-a-quote support role in the story, as our friend Curtis did that quite ably. We would only add this will continue to be Huey's achille's heel, as he cannot distance himself from his participation in high level decisions of the Filmon government (especially when he brags about it).

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Oh, and for the record, on the Comments Closed continuing strange obsession about who's behind the BBAs, he/she/they indeed have it wrong (as others have in the past with other guesses, as we've discussed before). Apart from that we won't participate further in this nonsense. It may well be a job for someone to say something himself.