Tabloid shocker: Bunkbeck clears Selinger

We doubt very much he intended to do this. You could call it inadvertent, unintended. But in fact there is no mistake.

Crocus drum-beater Tom Brodbeque's piece today proves the government's case -- that the government had no indication of valuation problems at Crocus before selling was halted.

Valuation of Crocus investments, of course, was the root problem that led to the collapse of the fund.

Our Tom details contents of an email leaked to him concerning Crocus between a senior Finance official, Steve Watson, and minister Greg Selinger, expressing concerns about pacing and liquidity that go back to 2000 and before. The email, incidentally, dates to after the September write-down of the fund.

We will repeat the point that frothing media and the opposition like to purposefully confuse -- liquidity and pacing issues were concerns since the Filmon days, and they were inconviences that Crocus officials raised repeatedly, yet these were not crises. And they had nothing to do with why Crocus ultimately failed.

Crocus failed due to the over-valuation of its investments. This debacle is the subject of legal action and we will see how that turns out.

(It's important to note, though, that Bernie Belan's gang pulled the government out of their main lawsuit as it was compromising their case. And a letter to the premier from Belan essentially saying 'if you settle with us I'll go away -- if not I'll run for the Liberals to make our issue as political as possible' is currently under investigation by Elections Manitoba.)

But back to the email in question. Tom Blowback highlights the discussion of the old liquidity and pacing complaints discussed in the email and tries to paint as this part of an extending "paper trail" of malfeasance.

Buried in his column, he casually mentions that "Watson goes on to write that government has no evidence the fund has been inflating its share price."

It's only the most important issue regarding Crocus. Why would Tom focus on it? No reason at all, because it doesn't help his case, that's why.

So, by Bunkbeck's own reluctant admission, shortly before Crocus goes belly up, Greg Selinger was advised by his senior officials that there is no evidence the fund was monkeying with its value.

Of course, this is what the government has been saying all along. Thanks to a leaker and Bunckbeque, the proof is now public.

Thanks, buddy.

Gary's catch of the day

We have been tardy to comment on anything (due largely to one of us being away for a few days). But, boy, what a coup for Gary Doer.

Erin Selby may not be a household name on the tip of everyone's lips. But she does bring some star power to Manitoba politics -- the craft oft-maligned as "showbusiness for ugly people".

Southdale, eh? We guess that big lead the NDP has in Winnipeg is showing up somewhere.

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Shocker in Quebec? Really?

We suppose few expected the haul of seats the ADQ got last night, but haven't all the pundits been telling us for a week the results were too close to call? That it was impossible to predict the outcome?

Then doesn't it follow that any outcome could happen? So it's a bit precious to call it a shocker.

Interesting, though. Very interesting.

And more bizarre poll smoking

Good lord. What the heck was that?

We watched the second installment of the CBC's newfound love of Probe Research's services last night, which focused on the result that 54% of respondents said they'd like to see a public inquiry into the Crocus collapse.

We'll address that matter in a minute, but we nearly fell out of our seats when the esteemed high-standard journalists at the Mother Ship ran a reaction piece from three "average" Crocus investors. Who were these off-the-street, average Joes?

We missed the name of the third man, but the other two were Linda West and Bernie Bellan.

Neither were identified as partisans (Linda is already the nominated Conservative in Radisson, Bernie says he's running for the Liberals). And Bellan wasn't identified as the leader of the class action lawsuit naming everyone under the sun (although he did mention the lawsuit in his comments).

Is this even remotely ethical? We think not. It's a travesty.

(We did think it slightly humourous though that only West agreed there should be an inquiry.)

Furthermore, CBC did not report their results with any context whatsoever. Although just over half of respondents said they would like to see an inquiry, if you go to CBC.ca you will find another interesting question. When asked,
four out of five people -- a full 80% -- said they are not paying attention to the Crocus issue.

What's the most likely conclusion of these two results? If you ask people if they would like an inquiry into just about any perceived problem, they will most likely say yes.

Wow. Instant headline news.

Interesting as well is that just 9% put blame at the feet of the Doer government, whereas about half of that place blame with the former Filmon government.

Too bad Probe didn't ask whether the underwriters, Wellington West, the folks who were allegedly the experts and attested to the actual value of Crocus's portfollio, were at all to blame.

What a schmozzle. Between the Probies whose skill in their craft seems questionable and the ham-handed media outlets that don't seem to understand the information they commission, Manitoba news consumers are not getting much enlightenment.

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Oh, as a footnote, we just heard that when the Probe/Free Press material was being compiled last Friday, enterprising reporter Mia Rabson was busy chasing down the top line piece of vital info from the poll -- that the new number one issue for Manitobans was not health care, not infrastructure -- but crime.

She spent all morning and well into the afternoon getting reaction from the government and others to this shocking information.

That is, until she was informed late in the day that in fact that's not what the poll showed. In reality, health care was still at the top, with crime as a distant third.

Wha? How on earth did that happen?

This, we understand, remains a mystery between Probe and the FreePies.

Drinks all around, folks.

Poll smoking, the what the f**k edition

In dissecting this weekend’s Free Press Probe poll in the previous post, we noted that the NDP is up two points from their December numbers.

In December, the Free Press reported: “Province-wide, the Tories have the support of 41 per cent of decided voters, slightly ahead of the NDP, who are at 38. The Liberals are at 16 per cent. The Green Party has the support of four per cent of decided voters, and one per cent of people said they would vote for another party."

But if you actually looked at the chart on Saturday showing Probe’s numbers since 2003, it said something else.

The December numbers were reversed – 38% was shown as the PC number and 41% for the NDP.

That makes it look like the NDP has gone down this month from December, when in fact it has gone up (albeit, it's all in the margin of error – if you accept Probe’s numbers, that is).

In fact, if you compare with the Probe's chart in their news release, that's not the only one that got screwed up. (We realize it might be hard to read here, but compare the two versions of the June 2006 numbers as well.)

Well, apart from pointing out this f**ck up with the Freep art department, it brings us to reflect on another media outlet getting into the dodgy public domain polling game – with the CBC now having bought a few questions for themselves.

We won't dwell on the problem that there is no way to compare and contrast the polls from different sources, as Probe is the only product out there that the media is buying. We trust the price was right.

Last night the CBC began reporting on their questions which asked respondents about the NDP government’s relative success on public issues such as health care, universities and colleges, the economy, public schools and the environment.

They say that in four of the five policy areas, Manitobans find the Doer NDP wanting -- that is, there are more people saying these areas are worse today than those who say they are better today.

In fact, the story on their website is titled: "Manitobans say NDP's performance is worse".

This, however, is not true even looking briefly at the reported numbers. A child could do better than the analysis offered on this one.

As we understood the charts broadcast last night (as the poll is not on their website this morning as they promised), they said regarding health care, 30% sayit is worse today than in 2003 as opposed to 25% who say it is better.

That's a five point spread between those who say it is better versus those who say it is worse. Not good, eh?

Similar results occurred regarding universities and colleges, economic management and public schools.

Only the environment bucked this trend at 15% bad versus 27% better.

Sounds like a crap sandwich for the NDP.

Case closed. Not so good for Doer’s gang.

Or is it?

Well, this picture totally leaves out any analysis of the people who said things were neither better nor worse, but the same in these topics.

And overall, on health, 49% said the same, as did 44% regarding universities and colleges, 49% on economic management and 52% on public schools. Oh, and 49% on the environment.

OK, so do you think these people were thinking these issues were OK or not OK before 2003, which was the premise of the question asked?

Considering the government got one of the largest majorities in Manitoba history in 2003, did Manitobans think all these issues were in the crapper back then?

No, obviously not.

So, a more valid conclusion of the info is as follows, once one combines the same and better numbers:

• 65% of Manitobans say health care is good
• 62% say universities and colleges are good
• 64% say economic management is fine
• 64% say public schools are dandy
• and 76% say the environment is hunky-dory

A vastly different picture than one presented by our taxpayer-funded news outlet.

To be fair to the Mother Corp, Lindsay Duncomb’s story last night was realatively balanced, even if they blew the better vs. worse aspect. The same can't be said, though, for Leslie McLaren's completely empty-headed piece on the radio this am. However, no attempt to explain what the “same” response meant was at all in evidence in either report.

So getting a correct analysis on government satisfaction on these issues was pretty much thrown out the window by the CBC, even if Probe has indeed accurately measured it to begin with -- which is by no means assured.

We hope the Mother Corp didn’t spend too much of the public’s money on these omnibus questions, because they surely are not very informative in result or interpretation.

(We also tried to check the CBC's policies on commissioning and reporting on polls, however that was impossible this morning as the website appears to be down. Hmmm. We recall it was down the last time we checked, too.)

Manitobans are smarter than the pundits

What do we make of yet another demonstration that the Manitoba punditry clearly has it wrong, this time with their pronouncements that the recent sound and fury over Crocus was a body blow to the NDP?

With the release of the quarterly Probe/Free Press numbers on the weekend, we see that not only does it appear the opposition is not making gains on the NDP, but Probe says the government is actually up a couple points from December.

Also, they asked political issues and found out that Crocus was top-of-mind for just 2% of Manitobans. That's within the margin of error of zero.

As followers of this space may have noticed, we frequently take umbrage with Probe's political prognostications and have pointed out numerous problems with their reported results. (See here, here, here , here and here.)

So perhaps you'd think with a rosier view of the NDP's fortunes published on the weekend, we would ease up on the Probies.

Wishful thinking.

To their credit, though, in this latest outing it seems the significant anomaly that showed up in December has been miraculously rectified. Specifically, Probe had been showing the NDP losing significantly in the northwest quadrant of Winnipeg (where the NDP currently holds all but two seats) and winning hand over fist in the southwest quadrant (where the NDP holds only 5 ½ seats out of 9 ½ -- indicating at least one of River Heights, Tuxedo, Charleswood or Fort Whyte could fall into NDP hands). This result was unlikely, to say the least.

Today, Probe has the NDP leading in Winnipeg by 12 points -- a huge gap. And according to the Free Press, "Across Winnipeg, the NDP is in the lead in every area except the southwest."

No explanation, mind you, of how this switcheroo happened in just three months. Just poof. Problem disappeared.

But what hasn’t disappeared is the predictions and explanations by the Probe boffins, based on no apparent information other than guesswork.

Chris Adams seems a smart man. Yet he was at a loss to explain his recent predictions about Crocus’s effect on the government’s popularity. "We do know that this will be an explosive thing, leading up to the next election," he said to the CBC on Feb. 27. "It is an issue which should damage the NDP. The question is, to what extent will the damage be sustained by opposition."

On Saturday, Adams seemed to admit he was off-base:

“… a few weeks ago he would have put money on the fact that the NDP would drop in the next poll because of all the haranguing it was facing over Crocus …"

Ah, wait for it though ....

“But it's been an issue for a long time now and people have built up an immunity or a callous to it.”

Whaaaaaa? Wait a minute. Is he saying what we think he’s saying?

Are Manitobans indeed simply weary of hearing about Crocus so they block it out and it isn’t affecting vote intention the way Adams think it ought to (or hoped it would)?

If that's the point, Adams is essentially saying that Manitobans have short attention spans and are too stupid to blame the NDP.

Well, that’s an interesting point of view.

We would suggest however a more likely conclusion is that Manitobans understand that the demise of what was in fact a private venture capital fund was an unfortunate event with many serious consequences, but it simply wasn’t the government’s fault.

In short, Manitobans are actually a lot smarter than Adams and the rest of the open-mouth set.

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We are still in stunned disbelief of Team Huey’s attempt last week to blow smoke around a future Tory government privatizing Hydro.

So, let’s get this straight -- the essence of the announcement was they have a brand new shiny plan to really monkey around with Hydro (including not calling it Hydro anymore) in order to assure people they won’t do the really big monkeying around, privatizating the crown corp jewel of Manitoba.

Oh, yeah, and raising rates so we no longer have the cheapest electricity in North America is OK, especially as Stu2 will offset those with tax cuts.

Huh?

Just to be clear, you cannot target tax cuts to compensate everyone for their bigger Hydro bill, which will vary greatly depending on individual consumption.

Sweater-boy must be on crack if he thinks that dog will hunt.

Sex and kids

Two news items caught our eye this morning. Both have to do with kids.

First there was the story about the dad who's upset that his daughter heard about condoms at school. We'll leave aside for a moment how the complaint of one parent about a pretty standard piece of the health curriculum actually rates as newsworthy in the year 2007.

In the first part of the article, the dad justifies his anger by claiming that his 12-year-old daughter "doesn't even know what a condom is." At the very end of the article, it says that he would prefer that parents, not schools, teach their kids about sex.

Hmmmm ...... If your daughter doesn't know what a condom is by the time she reaches puberty, you've pretty much abdicated your responsibility to teach her about sex.

It's the best of all possible worlds when parents are the ones to talk to their kids about sex. Parents can communicate their values about sexuality and create the kind of trust and openness with their kids that is critical to surviving the stormy years of adolescence.

The problem is that a lot of parents still don't talk about sex with their kids. Teaching about condoms (yes - even the flavoured kind!) and being willing to answer kids' questions without embarrassment is as necessary to protecting their health as telling them to put on sunscreen or eat their vegetables. Unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases are too high a price to pay for parental squeamishness.

Secondly - it was not without some satisfaction of the "I told you so" variety that we read about the Harper government's hasty retreat on providing childcare spaces through corporate tax cuts. It turns out the public sector actually is good for something - like taking care of children for families who need the help, for example.

The federal Tories' childcare plan has been an absolute disaster for Canadian families - stalling any progress that was starting to be made by throwing the provinces into uncertainty about future funding. This comes on top of the catastrophic neglect of the former Liberal government - an 11th hour "hail mary" childcare plan doesn't excuse breaking promises for over a decade.

The efficiency of the public sector in providing public services is a lesson that Tory governments never seem to learn. We're reminded of the fight to keep home care in Manitoba from being privatized in the 1990s. Manitoba's home care system has been around since 1974. One of its chief architects - Evelyn Shapiro - is about to be awarded the Order of Canada. But the Tories were willing to sell it down the river to an American company - until they figured out that the company in question couldn't actually deliver those services any more cheaply. It was the organized fight of home care workers, seniors and the NDP that kept the home care system intact.

Kinda makes you wonder what Hugh and the gang would do to Manitoba's childcare system?

Huey discovers downtown Winnipeg?

Uh, Earth to David O'Brien, Earth to O'Brien ... come in. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt.

So, how is it that the FreeP editorial pages creates a forum for Huey to get a free ride, inventing Huey's new found love of downtown Winnipeg? Is the Mountain Avenue Typing School so desperate to prop up the Tories that they have to invent ways of praising them?

We won't go into O'Brien's weird analysis of what the NDP has done downtown since 1999, but we can't help but think he may have omitted mentioning some things. Hmm. (Hint: there may be pictures here of projects actually vehemently opposed by the Conservatives.)

Attention Mr. Ritchie, clean up necessary on aisle edito.

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Contest winners!!!!

OK, the ballots have been cast and here are the winning entries in our first ever caption contest.

Screwing the Environment. Forever

For Green Sweaters.

For Blowing Smoke about Climate Change.

The Frat-Mobile.

How's My Leadership? Dial 1-800-HUGH-WHO?

If this truck's a rockin', don't come a knockin'.

"Hey, I didn't know Fred Savage was trying to mount a comeback."

And this piece of art from a contributor wins the grand prize.

To the winners, your reward is in the mail.

The Addicts' first photo caption contest

We have reports of Team Huey not only running their preelection fervor ads on CJOB, but also using the new Lime advertising trucks that drive around town and, according to the owners, occasionally do courier jobs and then, drive a lot more around town. Driving around and around and around and ...


We're looking for captions for the pic shown here. (Hint, we think something about the environment and green might be in the ballpark.)

You know what to do: toba4u2@mts.net

Ritchie should clean up editorial house

More evidence the editorial pages crew at the FreeP needs a major overhaul came to surface this past week with an odd piece by commentary editor Gerald Flood, recounting his recent public speaking experience in Miami.

In it he painted a picture of himself speaking to the denizens of Dantes Inferno -- specifically Southern Manitoba producers facing some unspecified growing "tyranny" of urban (read: NDP) Manitoba.

Just to give you all a taste of the piece, here are a couple of snippets:

"The next morning I drove, very slowly, through the worsening weather to Miami (Miami, Manitoba, alas)..."

"The meeting was held in the Miami Community Centre, a building of about 35 metres by 35 metres with a five-metre ceiling. It's not an attractive building; utility clearly was the guiding principle of its construction."

Kind of makes you want to slash your wrists, doesn't it?

However, a few days later, Flood tacked on this apology to the end of his next, rather forgettable, piece.

"I did not mean to offend people in Miami, Man., last week by suggesting that their community centre was unattractive nor by failing to learn that its furnace is geothermal and therefore not as wasteful of energy as I implied. My apologies."

Flood went on in the original column to describe more obstacles to the members of the Deerwood Soil and Management Association, saying the NDP was going to be responsible for the closure of the local rail line:

"They were told [by Flood] that Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Steve Ashton said recently that he would not stand in the path of progress and block the abandonment of a local rail line even though it would increase by 35,000 the number of diesel trucks using local highways to haul grain each year."

Today, Ashton has a letter, rightfully pointing out this is hogwash:

"...[O]ur government has a track record of working to maintain rail lines by bringing all key stakeholders together."

That Flood would contort so much to paint the picture he wants, without bothering to check facts, is a sign of the increasing irrelevance of the editorial and comment section of the Free Press. It has come a long way since the John Dafoe years, and not in a good way. Once was the words on the FreeP editorial section had some weight, regardless of whether we agreed with it or not.

It brings to mind an incident we only recently heard about, where a couple of Fridays ago the same pages carried verbatim a very long letter Huey McFadyen and Jon McGerrard sent to the Premier demanding Greg Selinger's resignation, outlining a litany of Crocus complaints. The headline was a screaming "Selinger should resign", or something like that.

Only thing is, the published letter omitted the passages that by that time had already been proven conclusively 100% wrong by the Auditor General.

In short, the Free Press conspired with the opposition to censor their own letter for maximum one-sided advantage, conveniently cutting out the parts that made them look completely foolish.

Newish publisher Andy Ritchie would do well to clean house in the editorial section, inject some fresh blood and attempt to return some credibility to what's become little more than an untalented corner of the paper fixated on tangential hobby horses.

Hugh's 5 Step Guide to Cool

1. Curl - nothing is sexier than a guy in track pants holding a broom and yelling: "Hurry!!! Hard!!!"

2. Wear sweaters -- that way people will forget you're really just a downtown lawyer.

3. Use the colour green -- people will think you care about the environment, even if you actually oppose efforts to reduce global warming.

4. Hang out with people who aren't as cool as you -- holding press conferences with guys like Jon Gerrard and Kevin Lamoureux would make anyone look hip in comparison.

5. Never admit your mistakes -- when someone finds out that you don't know what you're talking about, call them a liar. Even if it's the Auditor General.

News flash: Tories unveil new look, slogan

Stu 2 thinks through strategy ... launches brave new gambit on Crocus

Ringing bells ... didn't work.

CSI Tuxedo ... didn't work.

Surf on Liberal "leak" ... looked like it might work, but alas, 'twas a dud.

You Tube stunt ... feh.

Attack the Auditor ... not very smart.

Send Hail Mary letters to John Harvard and George Hickes to invoke medieval law ... not so much.

Have mentally unstable Tory bloggers float anything that comes into their heads ... hmm, at least I won't get sued.

One thing left to do ... (sound of sucking in wind).

Devil in the details -- the real scandal

So we're still reeling a bit from Dan Lett's feature on Saturday, trying to put some perspective about last week's Sturm und Drang over Crocus at the legislature and the ensuing media frenzy. It was shocking.

Were we shocked that Lett confirms that the infamous "smoking gun" cabinet paper actually contained no new news whatsoever? No.

Were we shocked that Lett also confirms again this thunderbolt leak had absolutely nothing to do with what actually led to the Crocus collapse in 2004? No.

Were we shocked that Lett's piece shows the actual net cash losses of investors is not as bad as critics have painted it? No.

What's shocking is the clear picture Lett paints when he quotes his anonymous Liberal source, who we assume was the person who forwarded the document to Lett a week ago Friday.

"This isn't about the details ... we stopped worrying about the details a long time ago," said the source.

Whaa? We rubbed our eyes. Took another sip of our coffee in the hopes a jolt of caffeine would correct our clearly faulty vision. But, as it turns out, it wasn't a problem with the eyes at all.

Stopped worrying about the details? What the hell is that?

So there we have it is folks, laid bare for all to see. The opposition does not give a damn about the details (read: truth).

Sure we shouldn't be surprised the opposition tries to heighten importance of its attacks on the government.

But that such gall exists and that a blatant disregard for the truth has been perpetuated on the public is in itself a scandal.

Such deception by the NDP, for example, would be severely punished by the media and opinion-leaders in this community.

The media has this past week exposed the opposition as clearly wrong, and now worse, as desperate prevaricators.

We submit, if the media is doing its job, it should not allow the Conservatives and Liberals to go unpunished for this.

Stu2 and Mini Me's plans to keep Crocus story alive revealed

The rumour on Broadway is that Stu 2 and McGerard have a news conference scheduled for Monday to reveal secret documents proving that Carol Bellringer is a communist.

Apparently they have yet to nail down the facts on whether or not it's true that Bellringer was also on those fishing trips with Brian Postl, Wayne Hildahl and Gary Doer.

Stay tuned.

Puppets Who Kill Political Careers

Speaking of pols who've gone over the deep end, this one's too funny ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkSmWGweHvs

Good god, Pat, what were you thinking? Yes, Miss Thelioma, you would indeed have to be crazy.

At least Pat's squeaky puppet delivery was better than that of his colleague, Vancouver Island MP Catherine Bell.

We reckon Jim Henson's spinning in his grave.

Stu 2 totally wigs out -- now Singleton party to Crocus 'conspiracy'

From cbc.ca/manitoba today:

"Conservative Leader Hugh McFadyen suggested Wednesday that a "secret" may have existed between the NDP government and the Auditor General's Office."

OK, here we go folks. The evidence is conclusive. Stu 2 is completely losing it. Now he's accusing Jon Singleton of conspiring with the government on Crocus.

We guess there's only one thing to say.

All Hail, Xenu!

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UPDATE: We now read that Stu 2 has clarified his auditor ire -- it is solely focused on current holder of the OAG's office, Carol Bellringer.

Wasn't she auditor when Stu 2 carried briefing books for Filmon? Didn't the Conservatives support her appointment to the office last year, as well as back when they were in power?

The wheels are definitely coming off the McFadyen bus before he even gets to decal it.