The upside of nomination blood sacrifices for Tories ...

Apparently you get to crow about the fact your membership numbers are higher than in the past 15 years. Wow, good work guys. Much better than the no-pulse levels of the past 7 years.

Meanwhile, back at trying to appear relevant, Team Huey spent all day bowing at the altar of the questionably stable Crocus gadfly Bernie Bellan. Billed as "PCs set to grill government on Crocus" on Bellan's website, the event was, well, a complete non-event except for the hilarity of McFadyen quoting a "reliable source" that the real man behind the curtain on the Crocus conspiracy was David Woodbury (who dat?). Uh, weren't you guys saying it was Eugene Kostyra? Hmm. Maybe they'll just pick names out of the government phone directory and see how that goes tomorrow.

If this is the best CSI Tuxedo can come up with after six months, it's a good thing Don Orchard offers some value by taking backbenchers behind the barn on Hugh's behalf.

We notice Bellan's fickle political tastes, though. Wasn't he only recently touted as a Liberal candidate? This was due, we thought, because the PCs were in as "deep" on the Crocus issue as the NDP. However, since Bellan sent a questionable message to the premier's office, subsequently forwarded to Elections Manitoba, his entree into electoral politics appears on hold.

Today, the PCs aren't such bad guys, it seems. We're thinking Jon Gerrard is saying to himself "you guys can have him".

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We forgot to apologize to Gang of Four for ripping off their song title for the previous post's headline.

To hell with poverty

It may be appropriate on the morning CBC radio highlights the 10th Christmas LITE breakfast, that their national broadcast has details of the 2006 Campaign 2000 child poverty report.

Remember it wasn't that long ago that headlines were screaming about Manitoba being the child poverty capital of Canada and what a shame it was. No one was listening to the Doer government about the long-term measures that were going on to reverse the trend, one inherited from the mean-spirited Filmon policies of the 1990s.

Today, where are the headlines screaming about Manitoba's dismal status on the child poverty roster? A wire story appears buried deep in the Free Press, with no mention of Manitoba's ranking this year.

Well, a quick Google search gets you the answer -- today Manitoba's child poverty rate is DOWN to 19.2% -- now in 6th place among provinces. Sure, that's much too high, but it's a huge improvement. (The current stats are 2004 figures.)

In fact, the child poverty rate in Manitoba has been going down. Back in 2003, when we were last place (2001 figures) and child poverty was 22.5%.

The sad thing is child poverty nationally is in fact getting worse. The province with the highest rate is BC, at 23.5% -- worse than in Manitoba at its worst.

Meanwhile, the Gordon Campbell BC Liberal government (in truth, an anti-NDP coalition of right-wing Liberals, Socreds and Tories) have been following the exact economic and social path Huey McFadyen wants to follow.

In fact, Huey's buddies Jamie Watt and Greg Lyle are major advisors to Campbell, and who've also been seen in Winnipeg a few times in recent months, reportedly giving their old Harris-era comrade some strategic pointers.

Child poverty at record highs. That's the Tory way. If, god forbid, Huey ever led the Tories to victory, could Manitoba children afford that? Could we?

Food for thought, kiddies.

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The Tory eat-our-own strategy marches on -- this past week we've seen two hand-picked Huey-ites win nominations in "safe" PC seats. The most interesting of course was the defeat of incumbent Denis Rocan in Carman, with the leaders' office fingerprints all over the effort.

Similarly, there's likely an upcoming coup heading David Faurschou's way in Portage in favour of another of Huey's close allies. It's no secret Hugh and Co. are behind the effort to dump Faurschou also.

Why so much Tory effort in ridings they are likely not in too much danger of losing? Centralization of Hugh's power on the party seems the most likely answer. Far be it from us to suggest focusing on strong candidates for swing ridings would likely be a better use of his time.

Meanwhile, congrats are in order to Jennifer Howard in Fort Rouge, who edged out James Allum on Wednesday night on the first ballot. A simple, straight-forward nomination race with no blood on the floor at the end of the night. Hmm, compare and contrast.

Again, though, the main issue for the NDP is that the Fort Rouge contest had a selection of quality candidates who either ran, or had been close to running for the nomination: Jennifer, Jamie ... as well as Donne Flanagan and Pete Reimer.

Four quality young candidates who would likely have been assets in a refreshed caucus. Instead, Gary Doer only gets one fresh face while seeking a third term.

It would have been much better to do some work to encourage retirements from the class of 1990 and earlier and renewed the team more thoroughly.

They are so screwed on this one

"CJOB News

The Manitoba legislature shows support for CWB

NOV 21 2006 12:00 AM

Two symbolic resolutions on the Canadian Wheat Board were passed by the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba Monday night.

A motion to maintain the board’s single desk passed by a 34-15 margin, with a resolution to hold a farmer plebiscite in Manitoba passing 30-15.

The Opposition Tories voted against both motions. Tory Leader Hugh McFadyen says a plebiscite in Manitoba is pointless because Ottawa is already holding a plebiscite for barley farmers. McFadyen adds a vote on wheat is not necessary because the Federal Government is not planning to make any changes to its single-desk now.

The Doer Government and the opposition Liberals are calling for a plebiscite on both desks immediately. "

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One of the main reasons, besides Stephen Harper, the Tories got themselves in this terrible position of being against democracy:

"Before entering political life, Larry Maguire was the owner and operator of Maguire Farms Limited.

He was named mid-Canada's Outstanding Young Farmer in 1986, and received a Certificate of Merit from the Manitoba Agricultural and Food Sciences Grads Association in 1990. Maguire was a President of the Western Canadian Wheat Grower's Association, and served as the Western Manitoba Advisory Representative on the Canadian Wheat Board during the 1990s.

During this period, Maguire was associated with Farmers for Justice (later renamed Farmers for Economic Freedom), a right-wing advocacy group which opposed the Wheat Board."

From someone who's becoming our fave Tory cheerleader ...

"The party fixed the results and stabbed you in the back ? Well no shit, welcome to politics Rocan."

From the party that brought you the Interlake vote rigging scandal.

'Nuff said.

Let's see if Huey has a better week

Saved by the Grey Cup!

That's the thought that must have been running through Hugh McFaded's mind after the disastrous week he had in the legislature following the Throne Speech and opening of the new session.

If anyone had been paying attention to politics in the run up to today's Grey Cup, they would have seen a public performance that would make Stu Murray shudder in shame. No, really -- it was that bad.

They would have seen not the Opposition Leader putting the government on the spot, but Gary Doer forcing Huey to explain himself for misrepresenting Ontario's intentions regarding hydro from Manitoba on CKY news and to defend his former work history as a consultant to Mike Harris on privatizing Ontario Hydro. Generally, Huey was even more flustered and appeared more unsteady on his feet than last session.

Not a great start.

You can perhaps forgive Huey for not being as well prepared as he should. He was likely too busy helping orchestrate the fratricide of long-serving Carman MLA Denis Rocan and the upcoming attempted repeat performance in Portage la Prairie.

Nice work, Huey.

What have the Romans ever done for us?

Gary Doer carpet-bombed the opposition in yesterday's Throne Speech, leaving them with not much but to regain their composure to perform the totally predictable chirping from the sidelines, before they returned to their offices to seek counselling for shock and awe syndrome.

A commitment to build Conawapa on an early timeframe, up to 60% rebate to grads who stay in Manitoba, $4 billion plan to upgrade our highways, and more.

Baby Huey says "no vision".

Au contraire. The vision we submit is Doer doing what he does so well, reading Manitobans and meeting their top priorities as those evolve, with an eye keenly on the province's long term health.

Market conditions look very favourable to increasing our hydro power output considerably. But the future is going to be even hungrier for clean energy, likely faster than any of us think. Getting Conawapa done at the earliest possible date is vital for the province's prosperity in the long run.

The only criticism we have is the green light should have been turned on a lot sooner.

The tuition rebate program is complete common sense -- the taxpayers invest in students' education, we should get some return on that investment. Commit to Manitoba for a period of time and the government will make a commitment to you. Shared responsibility. We agree with Curtis this will resonate well with Manitobans.

We also agree with Curtis that it seems churlish of student political commentators to turn a lukewarm shoulder to the plan, after 7 years of cutting and freezing undergrad tuitions and record reinvestments in postsecondary institutions. Connecting student aid with a youth retention strategy should be something they embrace as part of a bigger picture. They have fallen down on this one with a criticize-everything stance that's wearing pretty thin.

And of course the Tory proxies, like Adrienne Batra, are the most predictable of all criticizing that no NEW tax cuts were announced in the speech, dismissing the level of record cuts that the NDP has introduced over the past seven years. Of course her organization criticizes the lack of tax cuts in every jurisdiction in the country, even Alberta. So it's hard to see how one could possibly make them happy without completely dismantling government altogether.

Overall, the commentary reminds us of the scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian, where the assembled Jewish malcontents ask "what have the Romans ever done for us?"

The participants in the scene eventually concede that the Romans improved things with clean water, sanitation, irrigation, roads, medicine, education, and healthcare. But then retain their rebelliousness by concluding that besides all that, what have the Romans ever done for them?

We wager Huey et al will look as silly to Manitobans with his weak protests as the Judean Popular People's Front.

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There's been media chatter lately confusing the issue of whether there are more or less young people staying in Manitoba. We remind of this recent release of data and this backgrounder -- a very illuminating comparison of Tory vs. NDP years.

Mountain Ave. typewriting school strikes again

In the Free Press's continued misguided tinkering with its format, it recently removed all stories from the front page in favour of a collection of ADD-inspired coloured boxes "teasing" readers to their highlighted stories. Front-page story: RIP.

One of the many problem with these little boxes, even more so than with headlines, is their job is to entice -- sometimes at the risk of being wildly inaccurate.

Take today's example -- not too different from yesterday's sloppy piece of work over at the Mother Corp -- "Tuition Plan Gets an F", referring to the anticipated announcement in today's throne speech about a major post secondary rebate program for grads who stay in Manitoba.

An F? And the headline writer on the actual story wasn't much kinder with "Tuition rebate plan panned".

OK, let's actually read the story, largely made up of selected quotes, such as: "From our point of view it looks like a great thing," says BU's Scott Lamont; "It's a real policy winner," says RRC's Jeff Zabudsky.

Huh? An F? Two homerun comments get you an F?

Here are a selection of the other quotes: "What it clearly won't do is make education more accessible," says CCPA's Shauna Mackinnon; "It's really just a bandaid," says Chamber pres Dave Angus; "Up-front grants and measures are a lot more effective," says CFS's Amanda Aziz.

All these comments merely imply "more needs to be done". Agreed. But an F grade? A pan? Hardly.

Oh, the two commentors who actually slam the idea: Hugh McFadyen and Jon Gerrard. We're shocked. The opposition criticises the government. Who knew?

Just as the CBC did the day before, the Freep is participating in headline hatchet jobs.

Maybe the desk staff who made the headline and front page decisions should apply for posts in the editorial side of the operation if they want to get their opinion ya-yas out. Or maybe they should take a walk during lunch to drop off their resumes on Church Avenue.

Otherwise, stick to the news and the facts, guys.

More tales from the Conspiracy Broadcasting Corp.

CBC Manitoba continues in its drive to lose listeners with looney, conspiracy-driven news coverage. This morning's example: the intro to a story about a hunter finding what sounds like an illegal hog carcass dump on a farmer's property went something like this: "Hogwash -- that's what a concerned Manitoban has to say about the province's new examination of the hog industry after what he recently discovered."

The story described the hunter's dismay at finding an old fuel truck stuffed full of rotting pigs and his concern about the potential effects on the local water table. Another version of the story explains Manitoba Conservation is giving the farmer five days to clean it up.

Bottom line: what the hell has it to do with the recently-announced pause on pig production and associated Clean Environment Commission review of the industry? There's no link whatsoever. If there was one producer or a million of them, you could still run across -- and likely will -- an irresponsible person.

It was a huge stretch, but we suppose a good enough opportunity for CBC Manitoba to editorialize about the provincial government.

We hope Janet Stewart can stand the smell of the torqued agenda as she moves from the number one newscast over to the Mother Corp. (recently saved from falling to the number 4 spot with City TV's exit from the news business).

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We have abstained from commenting on other blogs lately. But we think the following is worthwhile. An astute reader has been observing the apparently revived PITT (although, as our reader points out it sure doesn't sound like the PITT of old -- a pretender, they wager).

The below posted yesterday was the piece in question:

Vote, delete cookies, vote again.

My the NDP are busy today. I know they have a nice phone network going when polls come out like this. On a average day the sun gets about 500 votes , today , we are going on 2000.

Most sun readers are tories, you can't tell me that is correct. It's like when they all voted for Tommy Douglas as the greatest Canadian of all time, even though he supported casteration for handicapped people.

http://www.winnipegsun.com/News/poll_results.html


Just for the record the tories had 57 % at 9 am this morning.........that was with 400 hardcore sun readers voting. As the NDP got the word out , the results went the other way. I know this goes on because I got a phone call on my new cell phone once, asking me to vote at a CKY online poll.

posted by Pukinginthetent at 14:55 1 comments

Who follows these things? Knowing what the count was at 9:00 am and then checking later in the day? And this: "On a average day the sun gets about 500 votes , today , we are going on 2000."

Who would have this knowledge at their fingertips? "We" are going on 2000?

Could it be that someone on the Peg Sun editorial staff is the new PITT? Hmmm.

Manitoba's economy seen through the cracked looking-glass

Our eyes bugged out in disbelief this morning reading the Throne Speech preview written by CP scribe Steve Lambert. His lead sentence offers: "Manitoba's NDP government enters the home stretch of its current mandate this week with plans to boost a lagging economy, protect threatened rivers and lakes, and crack down on gangs and guns."

Lagging economy? We hate to start rumours, but he must be on crack.

Manitoba is expected to lead the country in housing starts. We have about the lowest unemployment in the country. Our population is growing and more youth are staying. Ask anyone in the construction sector, they are turning down business hand over fist because they can't manage any more work from both private and public projects going on.

Businesses can't find enough people to hire. Sure this is in part due to overheated economies to the west of us, especially Alberta. We, like every other jurisdition, are having a hard time competing with the super-high wages that even the completely uneducated can get in virtually uncontrolled boomtowns like Fort McMurray.

But saying that means our economy is sluggish? In trouble?

Nonsense.

The Sun also tries to take a whack at the latest economic forecasts for Manitoba by noting Manitoba's overall GDP was behind the country's average by a mere 0.2%. What the Sun scribblers don't do is even attempt to tell thereal story.

Here is what Stats Can actually says about us:

"Economic growth in Western Canada outpaced the national average in 2005, while activity east of the Manitoba-Ontario border waned.

"Nationally, real gross domestic product sat at 2.9% in 2005, just off its 2004 pace (+3.3%). High natural resource prices, good growing conditions and strong foreign demand bolstered output in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia," they state (our emphasis).

Look at why the national average is 2.9%: Alberta's GDP is 4.6%; BC's is 3.7%, Saskatchewan's is 3.1%.

Every other province is "behind" the national average (we're not including territorial numbers, as their economies are very small and a burst of public sector spending has sent Yukon's GDP to 5.2%, which hardly means Yukon's economy is outpacing Alberta's -- but it certainly helped raise that national average number).

Manitoba is essentially tied with monster economy Ontario (2.8%), ahead of Quebec (2.2%) and all of the Atlantic provinces. Newfoundland and New Brunswick form the provincial basement at 0.4% and 0.3% growth, respectively.

In 1999, the NDP inherited a true sluggish economy from the PCs. But here's a look at the history of Manitoba's GDP since 2002 as posted on Stats Can's site: 2002-1.6%; 2003-1.3%; 2004-2.5%; and 2005-2.7%.

By comparison, BC's and Saskatchewan's current numbers are down from their 2004 GDP levels, in contrast with Manitoba's steady strong growth.

Of course, the numbers we're quoting aren't even the real GDP growth the Manitoba Bureau of Statistics foresees of 2.9%, but the Sun isn't interested in telling the truth if in any way it would paint the NDP remotely positively.

Fortunately, Manitobans are smarter than the Sun editors and Steve Lambert. They know things on the ground are actually pretty rosy. They don't buy the cranky media's parallel universe -- a cracked looking-glass perception of reality. Or perhaps how reality looks on crack.

To be fair, the Sun editorial has a point. Stats Can projections are often incorrect for Manitoba. They in fact usually underestimate our growth.

So anticipating 3.2% growth for Mantioba in 2006, well above the projected national growth rate of 2.9%, seems like a pretty darn good -- and reasonable -- outlook.

Is Manitoba's economy red hot? No

But sluggish? Hardly.

And we're doing it without spiking oil revenues, thanks very much.

A McFaded shade of green

Today we see that Baby Huey thinks he can gain political margin on Gary Doer with an anaemic nod to environmental policy -- a tax cut for owners of fuel-efficient cars. Oh, maybe they would do that, he says.

Wow, with ideas and conviction like this, how can he lose?

Where is the big thinking, outside-the-box stuff we were promised when the Great Policy Wonk became leader of the Toba Tories? This green announcement makes Stephen Harper look like Al Gore on the environment.

It's pretty thin gruel if he feels he's going to compete with Doer, who is recognized internationally as fighting climate change alongside the likes of Tony Blair and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Other nuggets coming out of the Tory convention of pre-canned resolutions (that is, the party membership can no longer bring forth their own resolutions), include:

- proportional representation ... maybe
- fewer MLAs ... maybe
- cutting taxes, but not getting rid of education property taxes as they previously promised ... maybe

This goes along with other recent pronouncements by the Boy Wonder like:

- compensating Crocus investors ... maybe
- keeping the tuition freeze ... maybe
- supporting the Wheat Board ... maybe

No wonder Black Rod recently tore Huey a new a--hole.

At some point, you'd think the guy would realize he should actually stand for something, no? But so far, he's a mushy set of uncertainties.

Perhaps he thinks he's going to coast on second-term ennui with Gary Doer, just show up and capitalize on his youthful countenance.

That'll work. Maybe ... not.

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Now we have the great honour of awarding our first ever "King of Editorial Flip-Floppers" to our pal in the ranting pages of the Peg Sun, Tom Brodbeck.

We can't help but notice Bunkbeck's long, tortured defence today of the federal Tories' flip-flop on income trusts.

This, just a couple of days after he went on a front-page tear about Pat Martin's and Ray Simard's apparent "flip-flops" on the Tories' conditional sentences bill. Today flip-flops are OK. On Friday, not OK.

That's a flip and a flop.

"Ottawa had no choice but to close the income trust loophole or face losing billions in tax revenue every year as more and more companies took advantage of it," Tom now writes.

Tom supporting a "tax grab"? We nearly lost consciousness in disbelief reading this line. We doubt very strongly he has EVER supported tax increases for anyone in his incarnation as a right-wing Sun columnist.

A flip and a flop.

His defence of the move centres not on denying the Tories did indeed pledge to protect income trusts -- after all, the promise was as big as a Sun girl's surgical enhancements. But rather it relies on his assessment that it was simply a stupid promise in the first place.

Wow, we seem to recall him attacking many other political promises as stupid. Promising to end hallway medicine comes to mind, not just because the pledge had an optimistic price tag of $12 million in the 1999 election.

You may think that Tom would not join in the Tory idiocy of labelling an 80% reduction in hallway medicine the largest broken promise in human history. You would of course be wrong in thinking this, as Tom takes every opportunity to turn a significant success in health care as a failure.

What's good for the Tory goose is not so good for the NDP gander at the tip of Tom's pen.

A flip and a flop.

And though the income trust may have been stupid, we don't recall Tom ever commenting on the income trust issue a year ago when the Liberals were poised to do the identical move. Nor do we recall him flailing the Tories who assailed the plan just a dozen months ago.

A flip and a flop.

And this nugget was also a major eye-popper: "...if you're a senior living off pension income and the majority of your portfolio is made up of income trusts, you'd better get a new financial planner."

Um, Tom, that's an interesting statement. One that would be well applied to any risk investment product, like a venture capital fund. Let's say ... Crocus, maybe. Has that argument ever come pouring out of our erstwhile columnist's keyboard among the buckets of ink he has allotted to the former labour-sponsored fund?

A flip and a flop.

The award is in the mail, Tom.