Blackberry Addicts

D'oh! I'll Probably Do it Again!

2011-09-29T21:45:00.016-05:00

When Mr. McFadyen not only lost the 2007 election but also shrunk his caucus from 20 to 19, the first word out of his mouth was, "Ouch!".

It was, without a shadow of doubt, a terrible loss for the young, sweater wearing, Jets promising Opposition Leader.

Not only did he not make any progress toward forming government, he actually moved his party and his caucus backward.

As early as the morning of May 23, 2011, Mr. McFadyen had a chance to begin restructuring his party in order to chip away at an increasingly fortified NDP majority. This opportunity, in fact, really began when Mr. McFadyen took over the leadership of the party from Mr. Stuart Murray.

But he blew it. And he blew a four year opportunity to redefine himself and his party into something Manitobans could know and trust, the only real chance he had of defeating the NDP.

To the benefit of all pundits and media, the Blackberry Addicts would like to provide the top five reasons why Mr. McFadyen and the Conservatives should lose the election tomorrow:

First, Mr. McFadyen used an election period to fundamentally redefine, unveil, and then try to communicate, a "new" McFadyen and a "new" Conservative party. This is work that takes significantly more time than a short writ period can provide.

Second, Mr. McFadyen surprised the electorate with policies they weren't expecting from him or his party. In 1999, a lot was made of Mr. Filmon's 50-50 plan. What made this promise publicly unpalatable, in the end, was that its boldness and risk was so uncharacteristic of a calculating and conservative Premier who most Manitobans had grown to know, understand, and trust.

Similarly, Mr. McFadyen surprised his party and right-of-center voters by promising to spend big money on doctors and nurses ($118 million), long-term care ($200 million), and extend deficit financing until 2018.

Mr. Selinger, on the other hand, continued throughout the campaign to promise and do things people recognized and trusted from an NDP government and Premier. Being "bold" in an election means doing things the public doesn't want you to do. The NDP understands this. Mr. McFadyen and the Winnipeg Chamber do not.

Furthermore, the Blackberry Addicts believe quite strongly that Mr. McFadyen's characterization of Mr. Filmon's decisions as "mistakes of the past" disillusioned many statesmen within the Conservative party. Just take a quick look at what Mr. Sandy Riley had to say about Mr. Filmon's record!

Third, Mr. McFadyen simply could not crack the greatest strength going for the NDP: their record of good government. As much as pundits and media try to underscore an omnipresence of bad government, this simply isn't the case in the eyes of the public. Mr. McFadyen's strategy of keeping himself and his caucus quiet throughout the spring and summer while waiting for the NDP to screw up was, in the end, a terrible mistake, and one the Blackberry Addicts and Karl Rove have written about in the past.

Fourth, a convergence of public issues driving voters to "kick the bums out" never materialized. Without the ability to ride a public wave demanding change, there is little hope of major victory.

Fifth, as the Blackberry Addicts pointed out a year ago at E-365, Mr. McFadyen is faced with the challenge of winning ten seats. This monumental challenge is further complicated by the fact the NDP holds huge pluralities in many of the seats Mr. McFadyen has to win making this year's "general election" essentially 57 independent by-elections.

Good luck to all pundits tomorrow. The Blackberry Addicts wish you all the best as you try to apply political science and reason to what is essentially an unscientific and emotional exercise. We just know you won't disappoint us.

And, in the end, always vote Quimby. He'd vote for you!

Always Beware the Probe!

2011-09-28T20:46:00.004-05:00

In the coming days, the Winnipeg Free Press will publish election survey results from Probe Research.

It's almost guaranteed that very general questions will have been asked in the survey, and it's almost guaranteed that Scott McKay, Chris Adams, and maybe even Curtis Brown will be quoted extensively on why they think the data is the way it is.

For an otherwise credible research company, it has always fascinated the Blackberry Addicts the extent to which researchers themselves provide their own personal opinions on why the public appears to think the way they think rather than actually researching why the public thinks the way they think.

Nobody pays a research company for the opinions of researchers, and it's always a hoot to read the Free Press extensively quote Scott McKay et al on why Scott McKay et al think the public thinks a certain way when they didn't even bother asking why.

Nevertheless, Mr. Dan Lett has devoted an entire blog post arguing Probe's upcoming survey results will be the definitive survey of the campaign. And readers should expect the Free Press to make a big deal out of the results.

It's been rare, in fact, for Probe to accurately predict recent election results.

In the 2007 election, the NDP won 48 percent of the popular vote. Probe's quarterly polls leading up to the 2007 general election were off between 8 and 12 percent.

June 2006 = 38%
September 2006 = 36%
December 2006 = 38%
March 2007 = 40%

And we all remember what happened in 2003 when Probe thought the NDP was at 57%, right? Probe was wrong.

So, take the upcoming Probe survey results with a gigantic grain of salt everyone.

And, most importantly, always beware the probe even if it's only presented as a bunch of questions!

Why Does McFadyen Hate Dakota Community Centre?

2011-09-26T17:14:00.008-05:00

When former Premier Gary Doer stood with Southdale candidate Erin Selby and promised to expand the Southdale Recreation Centre during the 2007 election campaign, the Winnipeg Free Press printed this headline the day following the announcement:

According to Grandpa Kives and Mary Agnes Welch, Mr. Doer's promise "circumvented a long, torturous process governing the distribution of scarce funds for improving community centres".

Please note.... this process was both "long" and "torturous". You can imagine the dungeon in which bureaucrats slaved day in and day out figuring where to spend all that frozen property tax revenue.

Anyway, flash forwarding to today, you'd think any politician brave enough to promise something similar would have been held to the same standard by the Winnipeg Free Press.

Apparently not.

Mr. McFadyen has made two recreation announcements recently. One dealing with the St. James Civic Centre. The other a commitment to build a brand new multiplex somewhere in south Winnipeg.

Interestingly, the "long" and "torturous" process undertaken by the General Council of Winnipeg Community Centres didn't end up short listing either of the projects promised by Mr. McFadyen. Neither the St. James Civic Centre nor the multiplex in south Winnipeg were identified by General Council directors on their short list. The Southdale and Winakwa proposals however, both supported by Mr. Doer in 2007, are identified.

One the proposals, in fact, included in the final short list is Dakota Community Centre, technically located in Riel but serving Seine River, two Conservative targets that Ms. Rochelle Squires and Mr. Gord Steeves must win.

It's interesting how Ms. Squires and Mr. Steeves have allowed Mr. McFadyen to ignore all the "long" and "torturous" work city council bureaucrats have done in supporting and ultimately short listing the Dakota Community Centre proposal.

The Blackberry Addicts strongly encourage Ms. Melnick and Ms. Oswald to remind constituents of Riel and Seine River that Mr. McFadyen has deliberately left Riel, Seine River, and Dakota Community Club, the home ice of NHL star Mr. Jonathan Toews, behind in this election.

And the Free Press, including Catherine Mitchell, should stand up for the "long" and "torturous" process they so fiercely defended in 2007. And, on this note, when did Catherine Mitchell suddenly embrace Hugh McFadyen's new Conservatism anyway?

Shame on all of these participants.

(Winnipeg Free Press, April 27, 2007)

When A Nurse Speaks in an Election, Does Anyone Hear?

2011-09-24T14:36:00.010-05:00

In an official news release issued late last week, Manitoba Nurses Union (MNU) called on all political parties to clarify where they stand on pensions.

More specifically, they called on the Progressive Conservatives to clarify whether or not they support the existing defined-benefit pension plan for nurses or a shift toward a defined-contribution pension plan.

The news release hardly made a ripple on the provincial election stage.

This is most unfortunate for a host of reasons.

First, any media outlet or pundit with a shred of political intuition should never discount any union representing over 11,000 workers. This is especially true when those 11,000 workers are nurses who have the ability to bring the entire provincial health system to a grinding halt.

Second, mainstream media should get their heads out of Twitter, off Facebook, and actually take a look around at what's happening in the world today.

If you believe economists and leading economic indices, we're approaching the brink of another economic collapse. Savings accounts, personal investments, homes, currencies and, yes, pension plans, are all on the road to ruin should a repeat of 2008 be in the cards. And yet, in this context, a union calling for clarity in where political parties stand on pensions is largely ignored. Shame.

Third, take a look at what's happening in the world of corporate pension funds right now (and since 2008). Just yesterday, the Royal Bank of Canada is reported to have axed its long-held defined-benefit pension plan, and replaced it with a defined-contribution plan for new hires.

This is the exact same issue on which the MNU is seeking clarity!

Pensions, how they're structured, and how they're managed are all extremely relevant, and incredibly political.

Lastly, Mr. McFadyen has been openly reported as wanting a "freer Manitoba" and wanting a larger role for "private" investment. It's not clear what Mr. McFadyen means by a "freer" Manitoba, but it would be very entertaining to see how he rationalizes a "free" Manitoba while at the same time supporting a defined-benefit pension plan for nurses.

So, when a nurse speaks in an election, does anyone hear?

They certainly should, but it appears Mr. McFadyen is largely ignoring them.

In politics, all rhetoric eventually becomes reality, and beginning the morning of Wednesday October 5 nurse pensions could end up becoming a hollow shell of what they once were.

Let's hope they won't let that happen despite being ignored.

Are Two Suits Better Than One?

2011-09-22T21:47:00.008-05:00

The very pithy NDP TV ad released a couple weeks ago portrays Mr. McFadyen not only as a risk, but also an untrustworthy slickster who wears "nice suits".

In response to the ad, Mr. McFadyen suggested to the Free Press that he wears a "$125 suit from Tip Top".

In response to Grandpa Kives' question on Saturday, Mr. McFadyen said he was wearing a "$500 J.P. Tilford suit", 50% off.

J.P Tilford is Harry Rosen's house brand, made by Samuelsohn in Montreal. As such, these suits are only available at Harry Rosen.

Harry Rosen is a much different clothing store than Tip Top, and a J.P Tilford suit is much different than a suit from Tip Top.

In response to the direct suggestion that he's an untrustworthy slickster who wears nice suits, Mr. McFadyen claimed he wears $125 suits from Tip Top.

In response to Grandpa Kives querrying what suit he was currently wearing, Mr. McFadyen admitted it was a J.P Tilford suit by Harry Rosen.

In the quest for political power, it's very easy for immature and insecure politicians to pretend to be someone they think the public wants them to be.

Mr. McFadyen's fallen head first into this trap. It's the reason he wore sweaters for most of the 2007 election campaign (note the terror exhibited by the children in the bottom right).

It's the reason he drinks Tim Hortons coffee during the week, but Starbucks on the weekend.

And it's the reason why he's pretended to be Mr. Tip Top rather than Mr. Harry Rosen.

In the end, is having two suits better than having one?

It's not the number of suits nor the make of the suit that matters.

What matters most is being mature enough to know what suits you best.

Give Him 'Freedom' or Give Him Death!

2011-09-20T21:10:00.007-05:00

A lot has been suggested of Mr. McFadyen throughout this election.

The Blackberry Addicts have received all kinds of accusations and claims against him. Most of these our readers would have heard before, some they probably have not.

Almost all of them relate to exercising incredibly poor judgement.

But, all of these unspoken words aside, one of the more salient suggestions of Mr. McFadyen was actually printed, published, and confirmed in the Winnipeg Free Press on July 3, 2010. That suggestion, of course, is the one that portrays him as a privatizer.

In an interview with Bruce Owen (pasted below), Mr. McFadyen said he stands for a "freer Manitoba".

What, exactly, does Mr. McFadyen want to "free" Manitoba from?

It's anyone's guess.

But anyone with a head on their shoulders knows that on the political spectrum, "freer" almost always means less government, less regulation, and a significantly greater role for private business in matters relating to the public good.

Is it then unreasonable for the NDP to suggest that Mr. McFadyen will privatize Manitoba Hydro? Absolutely not. As much as he wants to distance himself from Premier Filmon and the Conservatives of the past, Mr. McFadyen is of the same ilk.

Does any Manitoban know what Mr. McFadyen would ultimately do if elected Premier on October 4?

Of course not.

But take a serious look at his words below and consider the risk of giving a politician the chance to "free" our province. Grant Devine tried to free Saskatchewan in the 1980s by declaring the province, "open for business". And we all know how that turned out.

In the end, on October 4, voters will ultimately decide. Will they give Mr. McFadyen freedom or give him political death?

Winnipeg Free Press…? Please Meet Mr. Abacus

2011-09-17T15:40:00.007-05:00

Manitoba’s official broadsheet and paper of record, including its two key legislative reporters and earlier this past week its top political commentator, have reported on at least two occasions that Mr. McFadyen has to win nine (9) seats to win the October 4 election.

The Blackberry Addicts pulled out their abacus to double check the Free Press’ math.

Let’s see. There are 57 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba. To maintain the tinniest of tiny majorities, a party must win more seats than the other parties combined. In Manitoba, this equates to 29 seats.

At the time the Legislature was dissolved (notwithstanding earlier resignations), there were:

2 Liberals
19 Conservatives
36 New Democrats

The Free Press suggests Mr. McFadyen must win 9 seats to form government. The Conservatives currently hold 19 seats, plus 9 more (carry the one…) equals 28 seats.

Twenty-eight seats is not a majority, folks.

Mr. McFadyen must win 29 seats to form a majority government. He has 19 right now. That means he must win 10 more, not 9 as the Free Press suggests.

And even if Mr. McFadyen wins 10 more seats, one of his 29 member caucus would most likely be elected Speaker of the House. This would leave 28 Conservative votes and 28 non-Conservative votes. A tie! This, of course, forces the non-partisan Speaker to cast tie-breaking votes.

Certainly, not an ideal way to govern.

To govern in practical terms, Mr. McFadyen needs to win at least 11 seats. This would give him a one seat majority without requiring the non-partisan Speaker to vote.

And, as we’ve seen in the past in Manitoba, governing with a marginal majority isn’t easy at all.

All Winnipeg media and pundits might benefit from reviewing an earlier post from the Blackberry Addicts showing the immense challenge facing Mr. McFadyen and his party.

At the end of this week, remember, Mr. McFadyen and the Conservatives have about two weeks remaining (~16 days) to achieve something Gary Doer and the NDP took ten years to achieve (3650 days), and Prime Minister Stephen Harper about five years to achieve (1825 days).

Pundits and analysts beware… all the anecdotal political crap aside, don’t get caught discounting the fundamental magnitude of what actually needs to happen for Mr. McFadeyn and the Conservatives to win.

Do the Blackberry Addicts think Mr. McFadyen can do it?

Stay tuned!

McFadyen's Give-Away-Weekend Extravaganza

2011-09-15T21:06:00.011-05:00

Most Winnipeggers will know what Give-Away-Weekend is.

For those who don't, it's when your neighbours put their junk out on the curb in the hopes someone will come by, pick it up, and take it away.

For those who watch Manitoba politics, they'll remember in 2007 when the NDP threw two pieces of junk out on the curb (see Winnipeg Free Press article below).

One whose company was convicted of child pornography. The other who refused to support his own children eliciting a cutting character assessment from a provincial judge who called him the biggest liar he's ever seen.

Hugh McFadyen, in true Give-Away-Weekend style, was first in line to come pick up the junk the NDP was smart enough throw out. Liberal Leader Jon Gerrard, apparently, wasn't too far behind.

Mr. McFadyen, Mr. Gerrard, there's usually a reason why people throw their junk out on the curb. If you're going to pick it up, at the very minimum you've got to dust it off and have a look at it. You appear to have done neither.

Worst of all is that not a single media outlet in Manitoba has figured out that Mr. McFadyen and Mr. Gerrard have not only picked up two pieces of junk, but also picked up the junk the NDP was smart enough to throw out.

A political team is as important as its captain because the quality of the team reflects the judgement of its leader.

In the case of Mr. McFadyen and Mr. Gerrard, bad judgment clearly abounds.

What the Free Press Knew (But Didn't Tell You)

2011-09-14T20:21:00.006-05:00

The Blackberry Addicts are normally very careful about repeating a lot of the accusations we receive at our doorstep (of which there are many).

But we couldn't ignore the suggestions coming our way today regarding the Free Press' handling of the Brian Sinclair story.

According to Mike McIntyre, the detective leading the criminal investigation into the death of Brian Sinclair, Sgt. John O'Donovan, has concluded his investigation, is recommending charges be laid, and has forwarded his report to provincial Justice officials.

According to an official Winnipeg Police news release issued today, the investigation is ongoing, a decision to lay charges has not been made, and nothing's been forwarded to provincial Justice officials.

He said, she said?

Not entirely, apparently.

It appears it was more a case of "she said, but Free Press refused to listen".

The Blackberry Addicts can confirm, based on very credible rumblings received throughout the day today, that prior to the Free Press publishing McIntyre's story, Superintendent Corrine Scott of the Winnipeg Police Service called the Free Press night Editor directly in an attempt to clarify the details in McIntyre's story prior to it being printed.

The Free Press editor refused to make any changes, choosing to stand by their "justice source" instead of what Superintendent Scott was actually telling them on the record.

The Free Press and its night editor knew well before they published the Sinclair story today that it had very, very serious credibility issues. They didn't even bother corroborating their "source" by calling Manitoba Justice to see if the report, in fact, had been submitted to them. But they deliberately chose not to tell readers any of this.

That is what the Free Press knew, but didn't tell you. No wonder they closed their website to reader's comments.

********************************************************************
Anyone Remember This Guy?

If you miss knee-jerk (yet surprisingly thoughtful) political commentary, send an email to ctbrown@yahoo.ca letting him know that, jerk or no jerk, retirement’s for wimps.

Oh, while we’re at it, let’s bring back Grandpa Kives too!

When a Win Isn’t a Victory

2011-09-13T20:08:00.002-05:00

The results of the Canadian Wheat Board farmer plebiscite represent a very good example of when winning something can sometimes make for bad politics.

Sixty-two percent of Western Canadian farmers voted to keep the monopoly in place for wheat while only 51% voted to keep the monopoly for barley.

While it may appear counterintuitive, the Canadian Wheat Board would have found itself in a much better place politically if they’d have simply lost the barley vote.

A 50% +1 margin is a very limited vote of confidence. Had the Wheat Board lost the barley vote, it would have positioned them very well to suggest the federal government move forward with eliminating the monopoly for barley while deferring any decision on wheat.

Politically, this would have worked out much better for the Wheat Board. Now, unfortunately, the Board is saddled with defending the barley monopoly, when the barley pool is becoming increasingly irrelevant.

And, of course, “irrelevant” is exactly how Mr. Ritz wants the Wheat Board to look.

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P.S. - was there a provincial election called in Manitoba?? Somehow, we missed it!

Where's the Beef? (Er... we mean "Posts")

2011-07-07T10:47:00.004-05:00

After a period of radio silence, the Blackberry Addicts will resume posting material to help counter some of the know-nothing nonesense beginning to re-emerge across Manitoba's blog sphere.

We apologize to our many readers for our absence over the last few months. We've been busy. Very, very busy...

However, we look forward to providing our readers with quality posts and, yes, maybe even some beef.

Sing Us A Song You're the Politician

2010-12-11T11:38:00.008-06:00

Politicians often find themselves dominating the public stage.

But when, exactly, is it okay for them to dominate the music stage?

The answer's never clear. The first fundamental rule, however, is do no harm. So, if you're a politician who actually has some skills best expressed musically, your chances of harming yourself on the music stage are much less than if you're a politician who finds chalk on a chalkboard melodic.

Take, for example, Prime Minister Harper. He can actually sing. While he still doesn't bring a lot of cool to being a Conservative, he can actually carry a tune:

On the other hand, Hugh McFadyen should try not only to avoid the music stage, but also try to avoid buying his shirts at local Head Shops:

I guess we can't expect much more from a politician who kicked off the 2007 election campaign with this front page Winnipeg Free Press photo:

While some Manitobans might be in the mood for McFadyen's melody, most of us are still waiting for him to grow up.

Friends Once Again?

2010-12-10T09:11:00.004-06:00

The Blackberry Addicts has never hesitated to acknowledge when we may have sometimes misinterpreted the facts.

In the end, however, while we still think poor Mr. Rempel's left with the unfortunate job of cleaning up the mess left by the never camera shy Mr. Rodyniuk, it appears the two of them get along well enough to pose for a quick photo with Glen Feltham, Manitoba's outgoing Business School dean.

Considering what Mr. Rodyniuk left behind, we'd have to award Mr. Rempel the Nobel Prize for being the Biggest Man. And we've got to hand it to Mr. Rodyniuk for sticking around Winnipeg. When Mr. Feltham bungled the relatively insignificant application to increase tuition for business school, he fled the province!

If Engineers Ran the Zoo

2010-12-08T07:57:00.003-06:00

We can certainly appreciate that sometimes engineers feel they know better than the public. And it's certainly their right to write letters explaining how they're able to engineer something the public doesn't actually want.

As readers digest the group letter published in today's Free Press, consider what Bipoles actually look like. They're huge swaths of destruction. They are inconsistent with the development of long-term economic opportunities like ecotourism and unlike an all weather road, it's impossible to transport milk via a high voltage transmission line.

Governments at all levels - municipal, provincial, and federal - have important laws in place that actually protect the public from engineers. And it's a good thing too. Without them, hog barns and manure storage facilities, for example, could be engineered and built almost anywhere in the province.

Hugh McFadyen and his Tories haven't met an engineer they haven't wanted to hug. If you believe, however, that there's more to good public policy than an engineer's formula book, take a serious look at what the NDP, First Nations like Poplar River, and local environmental groups are actually trying to do on the East Side. And if you ever wonder what happens when governments build things in communities where people don't want them, take a tour of Winnipeg's new roundabouts.

If you truly believe in long-term economic development and economic opportunity for East Side communities, the right choice is almost formulaic.

The Art of Political Exodus

2010-11-26T09:28:00.004-06:00

Politics is difficult, and many of us can recite all the pat reasons why.

But one of the more understated, personal challenges of politics is having enough individual self-awareness to voluntarily know when it's time to pass the torch. And history has shown that voluntarily dissolving oneself of power is not easily done.

Take a moment and compare the three most recent high profile political exoduses in Canada. If you were a Premier, which of the doors below would you choose?

(Two of these things are certainly not like the other...)

Premier Danny Williams:

"Orson Welles once said that if you want a happy ending, you need to know when to end your story. So I've called you here today to announce the end of my story as the ninth premier of Newfoundland and Labrador."

Williams, 61, later told reporters he's not getting any younger. He said he wanted to leave enough time for his Progressive Conservative party to elect another leader, likely this spring, before a fixed-date election slated for next October.

Premier Gary Doer:

"I thought, if you ever get a chance in this job to go out on your own timing, you'd better take advantage of it. I have watched very good people leave not of their own accord," Doer said.

"I think it's important that you go out on your own terms as an individual but you also go in a way that allows your party to renew and the government to renew and the public to have a renewed sense of energy."

Premier Gordon Campbell:

Campbell told a news conference in Vancouver that his decision was based on the realization that his own unpopularity over the HST was preventing his government from moving forward on anything else in its economic agenda.

“When public debate becomes focused on one person, instead of what is in the best interest of British Columbians, we have lost sight about what is important,” Mr. Campbell told a news conference in Vancouver. “When that happens, it's time for a change."

We Have to Believe You're Smart

2010-11-19T14:32:00.003-06:00

One of the worst things a political party can do is take their opposition for granted. As such, parties need always assume there's method behind all of their opposition's madness, and they need to believe their opposition is smart, calculating, and strategic.

So, what happened when Hugh McFadyen responded to this week's Throne Speech? Did he assume the NDP was smart, calculating and strategic? Or did he write off the entire event as just another socialist attempt to fool Manitobans before scampering off to the Manitoba Club for a glass of soda water and lime?

Well, it seems McFadyen still thinks the NDP's stupid and cloaked in communists capes. This is a really big mistake.

What's surprising to us is that McFadyen didn't even try to use the occasion to generate some earned media of his own. Instead, he again chose to remain muted on what Manitoba Conservatives stand for and believe in, just like he did following his political convention. A few blog posts ago, we pointed out McFadyen had just 365 days left to do what took Gary Doer and the NDP ten years to do. Now, he has less than 330 days. And just this week, he passed up one of only two major opportunities remaining to tell Manitobans what he stands for and believes in.

And in the vacuum created by McFadyen's silence, the government's message ends up resonating more crisply than Christmas choirs in the rotunda. (Oops...! Should we have said "multicultural" choirs?)

And what happens as a result of all this? The NDP force McFadyen to follow when, less than a year out from the election, he should be leading.

And if readers are skeptical about our assertions, take a moment to review government news releases in the fall of 2006. Anyone with a basic level of political acumen who understands Manitoba will recognize how former Premier Gary Doer systematically stripped away and took ownership of key populist issues like Winnipeg road improvements, highway upgrades, bicycle paths, and the Canadian Wheat Board (just to name just a few), all of which was done well in advance of the 2007 election.

Doer ended up leading McFadyen, and Selinger's now doing the same. (By the way, McFadyen, remember when Doer forced you to give him a standing ovation in front of key Conservatives, including the Prime Minister, the day he called the election? That really sucked, eh?)

Conversely, has the NDP written off McFadyen's Throne Speech response as right wing blather before running off to the Union Centre to toast capitalism's demise?

Absolutely not. Which is why the NDP leads and the Tories follow.

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove issued a stern warning to fellow GOP members that they cannot count on President Obama imploding. Rather, Rove astutely points out to Republicans that the road ahead is going to be very difficult.

If this week's response to the Throne Speech is any indication, McFadyen's going to need to begin counting on more than an NDP implosion. And while we have to believe you're smart, Mr. McFadyen, it's getting more and more difficult to do so.

Hugh McFadyen Gets Cemented

2010-11-08T21:04:00.009-06:00

Anyone remotely familiar with politics knows politicians must work hard at defining themselves before someone, or something, comes along and does it for them. For example, most of our readers will remember how the federal Conservatives very effectively characterized Stephane Dion as a wiener. And we all know how that ended up, puffins and all.

The process of solidifying one's own political image is akin to the drying of concrete. Initially, like concrete, a politician's image is very malleable. However, wait too long and it becomes solidified and almost impossible to work with.

You'd think Hugh McFadyen would have learned this lesson after former Premier Gary Doer and the NDP railroaded him in the 2007 election. The NDP's success was due, in at least a small part, to how effectively they were able to systematically characterize McFadyen and his party before McFadyen was able to do it himself.

Mr. McFadyen is not, apparently, a very quick learner. He continues to keep his policies secret and appears reluctant to speak with media about what he and his party actually stand for (must be due to all that fantastic advice from Greg Burch and Rochelle Squires).

With McFadyen on mute less than a year to E-Day, the NDP have launched a campaign that, once again, defines him before he is able to define himself.

In case you haven't noticed, Mr. McFadyen, the NDP are cementing your image for you. And the more you stand still, the quicker it hardens. So by all means maintain your catatonic state!

P.S. Just one small word of advice we sincerely hope you do not take.

When you consistently and unapologetically defend this:

You almost have to expect this:

Keep stumbling along, McFadyen. We're enjoying every minute of it!

Global TV Thumbs its Nose at Winnipeg's Poor

2010-11-07T12:36:00.002-06:00

On Thursday and Friday, the Winnipeg Poverty Reduction Council held its first-ever Partnership Forum in Winnipeg.

The Winnipeg Poverty Reduction Council isn't just another gathering of the usual suspects involved in fighting poverty. Yes, inner city activists, food bank organizers, labour leaders, government officials and even some actual poor people are involved.

But what makes the Council interesting is the active and meaningful participation of business leaders (Charles Loewen, Jan Belanger, Edward Kennedy) colleges and universities (Red River College, U of W, U of M), and the media (Margo Goodhand of the Free Press). Even the Winnipeg Police Service sent a speaker. The Council is actively mobilizing the resources, skills and assets of all these people and organizations in support of truly innovative programs like Pathways to Education and the North End Hockey Program.

Why are we telling you this?

Well, one of the themes that emerged at the conference was the need for supportive local media. A venture capitalist from Hamilton gave an inspirational speech in which he spoke of the critical role played by his city's local media in raising awareness about poverty and what people in the community can do about it.

To its credit, the Winnipeg Free Press is an active participant on the Council and we look forward to its coverage of the fight against poverty in Winnipeg.

What about Global TV? When Global sent a reporter and camera down to the Forum on Friday morning, the speaker at the podium noticed and lauded the media for coming down to cover the Poverty Reduction Forum.

Even that pat on the back didn't stop Global from thumbing its nose at poverty and those trying to do something about it.

As soon as Premier Greg Selinger finished his speech, Global's reporter pulled him aside for an interview, presumably to ask what the Premier is doing and will do to reduce poverty.

But no, Global's reporter didn't ask a single question about poverty, the Forum, or the poverty reduction announcement the Premier had just made.

It turns out that Global had not come down to the Forum to cover it. Global was there purely to talk with the Premier about the stadium project.

We don't question the significance of the stadium story or the media's responsibility to ask the Premier and others involved some hard questions about the costs.

But c'mon Global, surely you can cover the Poverty Forum too.

Your own statement of corporate core values commits you to "empower citizens with knowledge" and "give back to the community."

We know you can do better, Global. Just give it a try.

A Really Unfortunate Choice of Words

2010-11-03T10:11:00.007-05:00

Take a moment to read Diane Poulin’s letter to the editor in today’s Winnipeg Free Press, which is pasted below. She publicly “confirms” a bottle of good scotch was “involved” in getting at least one councilor to help get Glen Murray's property tax reductions approved.

Correcting record

As Glen Murray's communications manager during his first term as mayor, I am writing to correct the public record. Throughout this past civic election, it was repeatedly reported that Winnipeg has experienced "13 years of tax freezes." This is wrong.

Murray, with the help of Bill Clement, respected chair of the finance committee, actually cut taxes by two per cent plus two per cent plus two per cent for a total of six per cent from 2000 to 2002. I can confirm a bottle of good scotch was involved in hammering out that plan.

City staff worked hard to achieve these cuts, so I hope that the newspaper of record in our community will use this phrase in future, which is accurate: "Winnipeggers have experienced a decade of property-tax freezes plus three years of tax cuts."

DIANE POULIN
Winnipeg

Now read section 123 of Canada’s Criminal Code:

Municipal corruption

123. (1) Every one is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years who directly or indirectly gives, offers or agrees to give or offer to a municipal official or to anyone for the benefit of a municipal official — or, being a municipal official, directly or indirectly demands, accepts or offers or agrees to accept from any person for themselves or another person — a loan, reward, advantage or benefit of any kind as consideration for the official

(a) to abstain from voting at a meeting of the municipal council or a committee of the council;
(b) to vote in favour of or against a measure, motion or resolution;
(c) to aid in procuring or preventing the adoption of a measure, motion or resolution; or
(d) to perform or fail to perform an official act.

Do we really think Glen Murray and/or Bill Clement were guilty of a criminal act? Probably not.

But we do think Ms. Poulin should refrain from publicly "confirming" anything further. Her comments today are as silly as John Harvard publicly admitting to Dan Lett in 2004 that he may step aside to allow Glen Murray a chance at federal office if prime minister Paul Martin offered him the position of Lt. Governor.

Manitoba Liberals really need to start thinking before they speak (and write).

Mr. Rempel's Left Holding the Bag

2010-10-29T10:35:00.005-05:00

It’s rare for us to single out and discuss specific Winnipeg business personalities.

But we can no longer ignore the sentiments Barry Rempel must be feeling toward former Winnipeg Airport Authority’s (WAA) Chief Operating Officer, Michael Rodyniuk.

In July, Mr. Rodyniuk, who’s never been shy of the camera, suddenly announced his departure from the WAA after six years as its COO, and just shortly before the new airport terminal was expected to open. During his time at WAA, he was responsible for overseeing the operations of the airport and the construction of the new terminal building. He left the WAA to join Exchange Income Corp.

Less than a month after his departure, on August 19, details emerged about how leaking pipes under the new terminal building, in addition to other issues, may delay its opening.

A couple weeks later, on September 3, Martin Cash reveals the terminal opening will, in fact, be delayed, and that court action is being pursued to deal with leaking pipes and other issues.

Then, just this week, on October 27, the WAA reported a decrease in third-quarter profits despite the fact airport traffic increased. The problem? It seems operating costs, something under Mr. Rodyniuk's direct control as COO, were rising faster than revenue.

We can’t help but notice how Mr. Rodyniuk got out while the getting was good! And who’s responsible for managing the mess he left behind? His former boss, Mr. Rempel.

And to top it off, on the same day and in the same newspaper that poor Mr. Rempel’s left explaining the mess left by Mr. Rodyniuk, Mr. Rodyniuk is seen posing as Horatio Caine’s understudy.

Mr. Rodyniuk, you managed to get out while the getting was good. And good for you for doing so. But try to do your former boss a small favour and show a little class. When he’s busy sweeping up your mess, maybe try holding the dustpan instead of bolstering your media portfolio.

Finally, good on you, Mr. Rempel, for maintaining your professionalism throughout it all. We can't imagine it's been easy.

Monty Python Captures It Well...

2010-10-29T09:09:00.003-05:00

As we ponder the outcome of Wednesday's civic election results, we invite readers to view Monty Python's election night special. Probably one of the best election night satires of all time...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31FFTx6AKmU

The Royal Addicts

2010-10-26T13:01:00.002-05:00

We’ve never fancied ourselves monarchists. Most of us never drink tea. Nor have we officially requested a royal designation from Her Majesty (at least not yet). But we like how “The Royal Addicts” resonates nonetheless. So very, very regal!

On this note, Kevin Prokosh, in today’s Free Press, suggests the Manitoba Theatre Centre is on the cusp of receiving the “rare” royal designation.

Unfortunately, in his list of royal things in Winni-Toba he fails to mention the Manitoba Royal Winter Fair – the largest annual event held in Brandon, and one of Western Canada’s largest agricultural events. It was bestowed royal patronage in 1970.

The Royal Addicts will not tolerate this level of perimeteritis endemic to Winnipeg media. We will fight it in all corners, and in all manifestations.

After all, if the Royal Addicts don’t stand up for Brandon, who will?

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One of our favourite bloggers turned pollster is given the closing word in today’s Free Press business section in an article suggesting Manitobans are confident about our economic future.

We have two critiques:

First, the suggestion by Curtis Brown that “the Canadian economy, on the whole, seems to have righted itself” seems inconsistent with the Bank of Canada’s revelation a few weeks ago that the output gap is actually larger than expected and that the Canadian economy will only return to full capacity a full year later than initially expected.

Furthermore, this revised prediction is encased in an ominous statement suggesting that heightened tensions in currency markets could result in an even more protracted and difficult global recovery. That is, a currency war that could negatively impact manufacturers and exporters in Manitoba and Canada.

Second, it’s unfortunate when pollsters ask the public’s opinion, receive a response, and then proceed to provide what appears to be their own individual rationale for why the public feels the way they feel.

We would love to see how many of the 1,002 adult Manitobans actually said, as part of their response to Probe’s survey, that they’re optimistic because “the Canadian economy, on the whole, seems to have righted itself” as Mr. Brown suggests. Before feeling optimistic, we always check to ensure the economy's righted itself!

It’s becoming more and more acceptable, unfortunately, for pollsters to suggest correlations exist between items that were not, in fact, tested in surveys. And this is one of many reasons why political parties do their own research. It’s normally best to hear from the public why they think the way they think rather than relying on untested speculations.

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What’s with Dauphin’s fascination with beavers? Or, more specifically, why are Manitoba Conservatives so preoccupied with beavers?

Many of our readers will remember the following 2007 Question Period exchange between Stan Struthers, MLA for Dauphin, and Heather Stefanson, MLA for Tuxedo:

Oral Questions
October 4, 2007

Mrs. Heather Stefanson (Tuxedo): Mr. Speaker, in July of this year the Minister of Conservation announced further initiatives to deal with the problem beavers in Manitoba. While I applaud the NDP for carrying on a program initiated by the previous Progressive Conservative government, I was shocked to learn that the method by which the NDP government chose to achieve this goal was through a program known as the Beaver Deceiver program.

Mr. Speaker, is it not enough that the NDP has chosen for eight years to deceive the people of Manitoba that they now have to stoop so low as to deceive the beaver population as well?

Some Honourable Members: Oh, oh.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Hon. Stan Struthers (Minister of Conservation): I can't help but think a trap has been set for me to step in, but what the heck, Mr. Speaker. This is the same population of beavers that's deceived this government on the other side for how many years?

Mr. Speaker, this is a serious problem in rural Manitoba. This problem causes us millions of dollars in damage every year in Manitoba, every year to our infrastructure. We need to be working with the R.M.s of the area which we're doing, trying to think of ways–

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mrs. Stefanson: Mr. Speaker, as hard as they've tried to deceive even the beavers of Manitoba, even the beavers have outsmarted them. Manitoba beavers have a right to know how many of their relatives have been deceived as a result of this government's Beaver Deceiver program?

Mr. Struthers: It's good to see that my colleague from Tuxedo has finally found an issue she can sink her teeth into. I think maybe, Mr. Speaker, after those comments I will simply remain listening to the next question that my honourable colleague from Tuxedo brings forward.

Don't Celebrate What You Lament

2010-10-25T08:40:00.002-05:00

In today's Winnipeg Free Press, Bart Kives begins his B1 editorial lamenting what he sees as a lack of policy debate in this year's Winnipeg civic election. He also criticizes how significantly various "distractions" seem to have characterized the campaign.

How, then, does Mr. Kives address this in his opinion piece that Margo Goodhand masquerades as news?

He proceeds to itemize and highlight, a la Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, all of the campaign's so called "distractions".

In doing so, he celebrates exactly that which he laments.

Few policies are more central to government than tax policy. Unfortunately, in Mr. Kives' laundry list of distractions, he fails to mention, even in passing, that incumbent Mayor Sam Katz is keeping secret, until after the election, his property tax policy. It's a complete joke that an incumbent Mayor can be allowed by media to keep his tax policy secret until after the election.

Today's media gravitate toward distractions like sharks to bloody fish. They seem blinded by it. And media's inability to transcend its lure is most unfortunate. In the end, Mr. Kives' opinion piece in today's Free Press does little more than perpetuate a condition whose symptoms appear endemic.

Copy Me This!

2010-10-23T10:06:00.003-05:00

If imitation is, in fact, the sincerest form of flattery, Endless Spin Cycle should be beet red this morning.

See Endless Spin Cycle post from October 12th.

Juxtapose this with Bart Kives' piece, eleven days later, in today's Free Press.

And we thought Curtis Brown quit writing for the FP Newspapers years ago!

Which Way to Justice in Manitoba?

2010-10-22T11:31:00.004-05:00

Over the coming election year, provincial politicians and party leaders will, undoubtedly, make the required pilgrimage to Manitoba’s second largest city – Brandon – many, many times over. (Just ask Curtis Brown or James O’Connor about these trips. The Brandon Sun newsroom is always giddy the night before. It’s like Christmas in July!)

As politicians pass highway #5 and approach Brandon, a sign emerges telling passing motorists which direction brings them to Justice and which direction brings them to Chater.

How interesting. Two roads diverge outside Spruce Woods; one leading to Justice, the other leading to Chater. Justice is clearly the road most travelled by politicians, but why does this path not necessarily lead its followers to the promised land?

Municipalities across Manitoba are days away from Election Day. In Winnipeg, public polls, debates, and election commitments appear to continually underscore the omnipresence of crime and public safety as a leading election issue.

As politicians vie for votes, each of them hope their rhetoric, policies, and spending priorities resonate with those voters for whom crime and public safety are top of mind issues.

Can focusing one’s campaign on justice, however, lead them to victory? What level of crime is required before voters decidedly elect a government based on their justice platform?

During the 2007 provincial election campaign, Hugh McFadyen and the provincial Tories bet the farm on justice.

McFadyen made justice a leading campaign issue. Throughout the campaign, he promised hundreds of new “crime fighters”, a new jail, and harsher laws and penalties. He even played a starring role in at least one or two of his party’s crime ads which ran in high rotation throughout the election.

Then, in the middle of the campaign, two individuals, one of whom was impaired, wanted on outstanding arrest warrants, and under various court orders, stole a vehicle, ran a stop sign and killed a single mother of three children. She was on her way to work at 4:30 in the morning. She was killed the day before Mother’s Day.

It was an incredibly high profile crime, it occurred in the middle of an election campaign, and it tore at the heart strings of many Manitobans. And for media, of course, crime is the crack cocaine of news. A quick review of the Free Press during the campaign indicates that crime, in addition to the one mentioned above, dominated its front page coverage. CTV, of course, dined (and continues to dine) on crime almost every evening.

Most significantly, however, from a campaign strategy point of view, this tragic crime highlighted a direct government failure in managing Winnipeg’s auto theft problem. Furthermore, it corroborated the extremely rare repercussions McFadyen threatened could happen if the revolving door of justice wasn’t closed.

Believe it or not, McFadyen’s extreme rhetoric (a campaign approach, interestingly, that was criticized by Preston Manning in yesterday’s Globe and Mail) was actually manifesting itself in real life! The revolving door of justice was, literally, letting really bad people out of jail, who stole cars, and killed innocent people.

How, then, did the 2007 election end up?

McFadyen lost, shrinking his caucus from 20 members to 19.

How could this be? Crime and public safety dominated almost every aspect of the campaign, and McFadyen made it his key priority, didn’t he?

Justice, as it turns out, can be very elusive. For victims, justice can be difficult to see. For politicians, justice can be difficult to deliver. For pollsters, justice can be difficult to decipher.

And media, pundits and bloggers should keep this in mind when discovering crime, once again, is a top of mind issue civically and provincially. For whatever reason, its omnipresence alone simply does not appear sufficient to sway voters.

So, which way to Justice in Manitoba? That’s easy. Turn north off the TransCanada, just passed highway #5.

Any other path simply brings you to Chater.

Grandpa Kives Stirs; Rants and Then Raves

2010-10-13T17:33:00.005-05:00

Several Addicts were lucky enough to absorb this afternoon's debate between incumbent Mayor Sam Katz and challenger Judy Wasylycia-Leis.

At the end of the debate, we really have only one question.

Can anyone tell us why Bart Kives is so angry? Based on his behaviour at this afternoon's debate, we have concluded he is going to grow into the cranky old guy who hand writes letters to politicians complaining about issues nobody cares about. You know, like Grandpa Simpson.

Maybe he's still worked up about free access to Manitoba parks. If only things weren't free, right Mr. Kives? Like the old days when the young'ns understood the meaning of work and appreciated the value of a dollar.

You gotta learn to cool your jets, buddy. You sounded like a lunatic this afternoon, and Dan Lett should have been giving YOU the stink eye!

Sex(ism), Lies, and Politics

2010-10-07T11:07:00.003-05:00

Wow...

We couldn't agree more with Curtis Brown's suggestion that sexism continues to fester in Manitoba politics.

First, Brandon Mayoral candidate Nickolas Avlonitis, a hardworking construction worker, says he doesn't want someone in a pink dress representing him.

Second, incumbent Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz, a father of two children he openly talks about (and advertises), condescendingly refers to Judy Wasylycia-Leis as his "mom", and then unapologetically defends his comments.

Mr. Katz, meet Mr. Avlonitis. It looks like the two of you might have a lot in common.

I Know I Am, But What Are You?

2010-10-06T08:43:00.003-05:00

Remember when someone called you a name in the school yard?

The usual rebuttal was, "I know you are, but what am I?" It worked like a charm when kids tried to suggest you were something other than what you knew you were.

Hugh McFadyen appears to have forgotten the ageless strategy of deny and deflect, a strategy that even children understand.

In response to Premier Greg Selinger's allegations that he will recklessly cut services and the provincial budget, McFadyen actually agreed.

"We are absolutely committed to getting the province again to live within its means," said McFadyen. He said if his Conservatives form the next government, they won't willy-nilly sacrifice jobs and services, although there would be some restructuring in the public service.

Ah. Right. You won't "cut" the public service, but you'll "restructure" it. Gotcha.

If read more simply, the exchange between Premier Selinger and McFadyen reads as follows:

Selinger: If McFadyen's Premier, he will recklessly cut, cut, cut.

McFadyen: You're right. We are committed to getting the province to live within its means. And we will "restructure" the public service to do it. Oh, did I mention as well that health care isn't our priority? Right, Blaine Pedersen already reminded you of this.

Selinger: You're a reckless cutter, sir.

McFadyen: I know I am, but what are you?

Note to McFadyen - when you're accused of being a reckless budget cutter, don't agree with it! But, by all means, please continue to volunteer what you're going to cut!

Clearly, it continues to be amateur hour at Tory House. Thank goodness Rochelle Squires and Greg Burch have arrived, eh?

And, McFadyen, you're off to a good start wasting the one year remaining before the next election. Whatever you do, don't tell people about your policies until at least summer, maybe fall, of 2011. And then spring them on Manitobans. That's a great strategy.

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If anyone's looking for a quick lesson on how to lose in politics, read Sidney Green's column in today's Winnipeg Free Press.

Mr. Green suggests that to win in politics, politicians need to "give the people something positive to vote for, not a target to vote against".

It's difficult for the Blackberry Addicts to believe that Mr. Green, himself, believes what he writes.

When Mr. Green unilaterally sought the leadership of the provincial NDP in the fall of 1968, did he not, from time to time, attempt to juxtapose his leadership abilities with that of Mr. Russ Paulley, the NDP's existing leader? And did he not, from time to time, attempt to characterize the future that awaited his party should Mr. Paulley remain as leader?

In the days leading up to the NDP convention in which Mr. Green challenged, and subsequently lost, the leadership to Mr. Paulley, Mr. Green was reported to have said that the re-election of Mr. Paulley "would be political suicide", and that if Mr. Paulley was returned as leader "it would leave the party open to ridicule by other parties and hurt the NDP if a general election was called".

Mr. Green, in your individual quest for political power, you employed the very strategy that today you dismiss. You made broad generalizations about your opponent, and drew conclusions about the future should your opponent be re-elected. You, sir, employed a strategy to give NDP delegates a target to vote against. And just because you didn't win in 1968 with this strategy doesn't mean the NDP can't in 2011.

You know better than what you write, Mr. Green. Do us all a favour next time, and write something you actually believe.

Round About the Public We Go

2010-10-03T14:49:00.011-05:00

In recent weeks, Winnipeggers and politicians have been schooled in the essential art of public consultation.

When new public projects are planned, how much time and money should government spend talking to people about a project’s details and listening to the public's concerns?

The answer’s easy: just enough, right? Too little will make people mad. Too much and you’re singing Kumbaya.

The level of consultation used in the development of roundabouts and a new football stadium helps shed some light on how government decides the degree to which it consults.

Seemingly overnight and much to the surprise of local residents and business owners, new roundabouts and other traffic controls sprung up in locations such as Assiniboine and Grosvenor Avenue.

Few people knew they were planned. Few people were given a chance to provide input or express an opinion. And, as a result, many people feel frustrated having to live with changes over which they had little control or input.

Conversely, Creswin officials recently held a widely publicized open house allowing residents in the vicinity of the new football stadium to ask questions, provide input, and express concerns about the proposed project. The project has been the subject of significant public debate, and the plans to build a stadium at the University of Manitoba have been public for years.

However, when this amount of time is taken to discuss a single project, the quality of the public debate ends up becoming significantly degraded.

Consider, for example, the concerns of Ms. Patricia Sumter who is worried about living in proximity to a new football stadium:

"My concern is that during the game people will be drinking and then walking back through our neighbourhood (to get home). They might be investigating our house if it looks dark. Are we supposed to get a Doberman?"

Really, eh? You’re worried drunk sports fans are going to walk by your house and “investigate” it if it looks dark?

If Ms. Sumter currently lives in proximity to the University of Manitoba, it’s almost guaranteed drunk people already walk by her house regularly. Especially in September when there’s hardly a single sober student within ten miles of the University campus.

And we can only assume Ms. Sumter, herself and her friends, have never ever (not even once) raised an excessive pint or two in proximity to other peoples’ houses.

When given too much time to talk, the public almost always manages to lower the level of debate to a point that’s unbecoming of a chimp.

And this is one of the reasons why politicians and government officials sometimes try to “roundabout” the public. They’re simply trying to protect the public from their own stupidity.

So, if you find yourself upset with the lack of consultation on Winnipeg’s new roundabouts, thank people like Ms. Sumter. And try to leave poor Luis Escobar alone. He was only trying to protect you from yourself!

The Final Countdown

2010-09-27T21:27:00.011-05:00

All pundits and bloggers should diarize this formula: E-365 = 4.10.11

Translation: one week from today marks a significant day in Manitoba’s political history.

Next week, Manitobans will be exactly one year away from the next provincial election at which point Manitoba’s political machinery will officially begin operating at E-365.

In politics, time is measured in the number of days remaining before an election. Hence the somewhat militarized way of measuring time by saying, “E minus 365”. Pundits beware! Don’t be caught looking silly by referring to the election as “one year away”. It will ruin you at the bar, cocktail parties, and make dinner conversation incredibly awkward.

Events are already planned for next week to highlight the day’s significance. For example, Hugh McFadyen plans to host a little Leader’s Breakfast on October 5 to mark his party’s countdown to election day on October 4, 2011.

So what, exactly, is so significant about E-365?

Quite simply, it means there’s just one year left. That’s it. Only one year remains for McFadyen to win eleven (that’s 11) seats. It’s the final countdown, people!

But a week (even a day) in politics, they say, is a lot of time. So a year in politics must be, well, an eternity, right?

Not really.

It took Gary Doer and the NDP about eleven years of slow and steady growth to win enough seats to form government. And in every single election since 1988, Doer and the NDP managed to successively increase their seat count.

McFadyen and the Tories, on the other hand, have been dismal in their eleven years as Opposition. And in every single election since 1999, including the one led by McFadyen in 2007, the Tory presence in the Legislature steadily declined - from 24 to 20 to 19. Whoa, honey, I shrunk my Caucus!
This brings us back to the significance of E-365. Is it reasonable to assume McFadyen can do in one year what it took Doer and the NDP to do over the course of eleven?

Not impossible, but certainly not likely.

The power of plurality and incumbency is difficult to overcome in just one year alone. It often takes many, many years to weaken the grip of an incumbent government and its Caucus, and this grip has only been tightening, not loosening, and according to most Manitobans good government continues to prevail.

Unfortunately, for the Tories, the situation in which they find themselves today is a product of their own strategic incompetence over the years. In every election following the Tory loss in 1999, they mistakenly ran campaigns aimed at forming government instead of running campaigns towards becoming government.

This strategy, which was clearly the wrong one, has left them with a shrunken Caucus, fewer incumbents, and just one year (out of twelve) to do all the work that should have already been done.

So, as we embark on the final countdown, we wait with bated breath to see what, if anything, McFadyen will do or say to win eleven seats. Or, at a minimum, not lose any for a change.

Manitoba Hydro’s Actions Speak Louder Than Words

2010-09-25T14:18:00.013-05:00

It’s no secret. Strategic communication isn't one of Manitoba Hydro's greatest strengths.

Case in point:

On September 21, Manitoba Hydro spokesman Glenn Schneider told the media, landowners, and the general public that he doesn’t believe expropriation will be necessary to complete the west-side construction of Bipole III. “We don’t expect to use it, period”, said Schneider of Hydro’s authority to take people’s land.

Meanwhile, only two months earlier, on July 14, Ken Tennenhouse, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for Hydro, was busy initiating action to take peoples' land and submitting the required paperwork to the Winnipeg Land Titles Office for registration. Apparently, Letellier area landowners were reluctant to give up the land necessary to allow for the construction, installation, and connection of high voltage facilities (and other equipment) to Hydro’s Letellier Station.

So, Hydro initiated action to take their land.

Mr. Schneider, how can you expect media, politicians, and landowners on the west-side route to hear (and believe) your words when the very recent actions of your Corporate Secretary are bellowing in the background?

Expropriation - the taking of private land in the name of the public good - must always be an avenue of last resort in a democratic society. To paraphrase Michael Ignatieff, expropriate if necessary, but not necessarily expropriation.

Unfortunately, in this incredibly sensitive policy area, Manitoba Hydro’s communication is not only dreadful, it’s also becoming dangerous.

The CBC Lays an Egg

2010-09-24T12:43:00.005-05:00

In case you missed it, CBC television’s “Investigative Unit” broke some hard-core news yesterday. Apparently, it actually costs charities money to raise money.

We can only imagine how this unfolded in the CBC news room the day CBC reporters read Money Sense Magazine’s review of Canada’s top 100 charities way back in June…

Oh… my… god… charities across Canada appear to be spending money to make money…! Does Mansbridge know this? Has someone, anyone, told Mansbridge? Would someone please tell Mansbridge! Where’s Swain? Don’t you see? There are hundreds of charities out there right now – right under our noses, infiltrating our communities, probably right next door to you – who are spending money, probably spending it right this very second, in order to raise money! Oh no, the children! Oh my god, what about the children? Damn it, has Mansbridge been told yet?

The CBC “investigation” does little more than point out that some charities are more efficient than other charities when it comes to revenue development. Whoop-dee-doo! Big shocker, eh?

If generating revenues efficiently is THE defining metric for successful charities, how efficient, then, is our public broadcaster?

According to CBC’s 2009 Annual Report, the CBC recorded about $1.8 billion in expenses and only $612 million in revenue.

So, here we have our public broadcaster picking on the Misericordia Hospital Foundation for spending $5.3 million to generate more than $6.3 million in revenue.

The Foundation made over a million bucks!

Yet the CBC, on the other hand, spent $1.8 billion to generate only $612 million in revenue.

They lost over a billion bucks!

How did the CBC cover the rest of their expenses? They didn’t. Even after we, the taxpayer, gave them $1.1 billion, the CBC still ended up spending about $50 million more than they received in revenue.

This investigative piece is a complete joke, and it makes our public broadcaster look even more stupid than it already is. We can only wonder when the CBC will finally stop measuring others against standards they can’t even meet themselves.

One Chamber Survey with a large grain of salt, please!

2010-09-23T15:14:00.004-05:00

Every so often, we come across membership surveys from lobby groups that ask so many uncontrolled and inconsistent questions that the survey makes respondents – the very people it seeks to represent – look silly.

The Winnipeg Business Leaders Survey, released a couple weeks ago by the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce is, unfortunately, a prime example.

According to Dave Angus, this is the first time in many years Winnipeg business leaders are no longer feeling the pinch of a worker shortage. Today, says Mr. Angus, businesses are more concerned about finding new markets and customers than they are about finding skilled workers.

How consistently, then, is this new concern reflected in the way businesses answered other survey questions?

Let’s have a quick look.

When asked to identify the one thing the provincial government could do to improve the business climate in Manitoba, a large portion of businesses (31%) wanted a reduction or elimination of business and payroll taxes. The same was true of municipal governments – 39% wanted the City of Winnipeg to reduce or eliminate business taxes.

What advice did respondents give to provincial and federal governments to deal with the current economic slowdown? You guessed it… 53% said they wanted a reduction in taxes.

No mention, at all, about their number one concern – finding new markets and customers.

Clearly, we get it. Businesses don’t really like paying taxes. Taxes ruin economies. Taxes create deadweight loss, market inefficiencies, and contribute to the loss of consumer utility. Fair enough.

What, then, would businesses do with all the cash currently being dumped into the tax hole if governments cut taxes? It’d be reasonable to assume they’d invest it in areas they feel most challenged, right? Like maybe market development, for example?

Apparently not. Only 27% of businesses are willing to use tax savings to boost marketing. Marketing, in fact, is sixth on the list of things businesses would invest in if taxes were significantly reduced. Yet Mr. Angus suggests it’s the number one concern facing Winnipeg businesses.

Interestingly, thirty-eight percent would invest in capital – build something, expand something, or otherwise invest in something that has the potential to generate future value.

And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to make more money, but capital investment doesn’t normally come before market development. So, why is capital spending a higher priority than market development when finding new markets and customers are, as Mr. Angus pointed out, the new concerns of business?

What else would business invest in if taxes were reduced or eliminated? Thirty-one percent would increase wages or benefits for employees. Well, isn’t that nice. And in time for Christmas, too!

How believable is it to think business would, in fact, increase wages when the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) lamented and almost cried, on behalf of their members, over government’s decision to increase the minimum wage by a quarter?

According to the CFIB, salary costs are one of the highest costs for small businesses such as restaurants and other family run enterprises. To be profitable, said the CFIB, they need to keep these costs in check. A twenty-five cent minimum wage increase is too much of a burden for them in these tough economic times (said the CFIB).

And yet, if we are to believe the Chamber survey, the only thing standing in the way of businesses increasing salaries and benefits are… you guessed it… those pesky taxes. Tough economic times be damned!

If read carefully and considered in a broader context, this survey paints an ugly picture of Winnipeg businesses.

And whoever designed this year’s Chamber survey has done a great injustice to Winnipeg businesses. Because of its loose structure, it has enabled secondary and tertiary messages to emerge that make hard-working Winnipeg businesses look not only inconsistent and one-dimensional, but also like disingenuous money grubbers who don’t want to pay their share of public goods.

That’s too bad. Winnipeg businesses should be expecting more from their Chamber.

Mr. Katz, Have You Met Mr. Martin?

2010-09-19T09:16:00.004-05:00

Paul Martin did a few things right but a lot of things wrong in his short time as Prime Minister and leader of the federal Liberal party.

Historians will certainly argue over what ultimately did him in. Undoubtedly, however, their lists will include the day in February 2005 when The Economist labeled him “Mr. Dithers”, and ran the headline, “Mr. Dithers and his Distracting Fiscal Cafeteria”.

The Economist, unlike Winnipeg’s mainstream political commentators, knew how to cut a political jugular. It wasn’t the cuteness and wittiness of the name that resonated so well – The Economist is no Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert. Rather, it was how the name, Mr. Dithers, underscored a fundamental leadership flaw in Paul Martin that most Canadians already recognized: his inability to make a decision.

And this is why Judy Wasylycia-Leis’ tax announcement yesterday was so important. While easy to write off as simply a “tax increase” announcement, as the Free Press already has, this announcement almost does to Sam Katz what “Mr. Dithers” did to Paul Martin. By not making a decision on property taxes, Sam Katz has allowed Wasylycia-Leis to reveal in Katz’s character what Winnipeggers are already feeling about him – underwhelmed, no vision, inability to make and stick with a decision.

And what’s most fascinating is that Katz knows Winnipeggers are feeling this way. He accepted the negative fallout from flip-flopping on rapid transit because his research told him Winnipeggers felt light rail was “visionary”. Flip-flopping was the only way Katz could attach himself to a light rail vision.

Even very good leaders end up making wrong decisions from time to time. But choosing not to make a decision in politics is the worst thing political leaders can do. This is especially true when it’s on something as fundamental as tax policy.

And for an incumbent Mayor to defer a decision on taxes until after the election is not only laughable it’s an affront to democracy. And Winnipeg’s media can’t let him get away with it.

Mr. Katz, your chief rival has you dithering. The more you dither, the more you confirm to Winnipeggers what they’re already feeling about you. So, by all means, continue to dither, sir.

Can a Cigar Sometimes Be Just a Cigar?

2010-09-17T11:13:00.002-05:00

Anyone remotely familiar with postmodern theory, anyone generally familiar with the Humanities or critical theory, or anyone who’s a nerdy loser by any other means, will remember Roland Barthes.

Barthes is best known for his contributions to the theory of semiotics – the study and interpretation of “signs”.

Barthes illustrated how something can be both a thing (signifier) and something else (signified). For example, a bottle of wine (the signifier) can for some people be a destructive addiction (the signified) while for others it can be an evening of relaxation. In today’s contemporary dialectic, Barthes’ theories are best encapsulated by the words “denotation” and “connotation”.

His ideas are abstract, as are most postmodern theories. And, in the words of Monty Python’s Dennis Moore, this is a blog, damn it, not a botany lesson!

So, what does Roland Barthes have to do with, well, anything?

Almost all of us, in fact, live Barthes’ theories every day. If you’ve ever asked someone, like your partner, to explain what they meant by something they said or did, you’re living Roland Barthes. If you’re a journalist or a blogger, and you’ve tried to figure out what the heck a politician meant by holding a press conference in Central Park, you’ve been “Barthed”. If you watch President Obama deliver a message from the Oval Office and find yourself asking why certain pictures appear behind him while others don’t, consider changing your name to Roland.

And for journalists and bloggers alike, your ego often lives and dies with how well, and how correctly, you’re able to deconstruct, decode, and describe today’s many political connotations. And as the political landscape in Canada becomes increasingly pluralistic, this task becomes more and more daunting.

The art of deconstructing political connotations is at its finest during election campaigns when reporters and bloggers fight over whose decoder rings work best. So far, we loved watching Free Press “reporter” Mary Agnes Welch attempt to figure out why Sam Katz attended a press conference with officials from Fox TV North.

And, here at the Blackberry Addicts, we look forward to pitting our decoder rings against everyone else’s.

For example, why was incumbent Mayor Sam Katz standing on the median of Portage Avenue early this morning? Really, eh, an incumbent and already recognized Mayor needs to stand outside, on a median, in two degree weather, and risk having some jerk throw a can at his head? That’s a “sign” of one of two things. Either he’s worried or his campaign team’s just plain stupid.

So, is Sigmund Freud right? Can a cigar sometimes be just a cigar?

Certainly not in politics!

The Free Press picks its Cabinet

2010-09-15T12:31:00.006-05:00

On Saturday, August 28th, Manitoba’s paper of record picked its Cabinet.

Sadly, it’s never been entirely clear how the Free Press decides who’s in and who’s out of their “Power 30”. And yet they simply won’t admit their list is almost entirely intended to flatter individuals they feel are good for their business.

Which is why, when picking their Cabinet, the Free Press isn’t required to represent, for example, all regions of Manitoba. Gender balance? Ha! In the Free Press’ inaugural listing in 2005, they identified only three powerful women (Cheryl Barker, Annita Stenning and Emoke Szathmary).

Just three, eh? There were over 1.1 million people in Manitoba in 2005, about half of whom were women. And while the 2010 listing profiles more women compared to 2005, the Free Press shamefully, and deliberately, continues to fill its Cabinet predominately with white men.

Consider, for example, their decision to include Premier Greg Selinger, Opposition Leader Hugh McFadyen, and Sam Katz, but not include Judy Wasylycia-Leis. Apparently, wanting to be Premier can make you powerful, but wanting to be mayor does not.

Sure, McFadyen’s elected and Judy isn’t. This argument would make sense except that in 2005 the Free Press felt justified in excluding all “elected” provincial Conservatives thus making one’s elected status irrelevant to whether or not you have power. Bottom line: it’s within the capacity of the Free Press to identify more women. They simply choose not to. Or maybe they think it’s not good for business.

Consider, as well, in the 2006 ranking, Dan Lett suggested that the “Premier” is destined to be number one. But in 2010, the Premier comes in at number four. In 2006, Lett wasn’t arguing that “Premier Doer” was destined to be number one. Rather, he argued that whoever occupies the position of “Premier” is, by the very nature of the position itself, the most powerful.

If Dan was right in 2006, what happened in 2010?

The Free Press, in a less than transparent way, felt naming Mark Chipman to lead their 2010 Cabinet was better for business than continuing to recognize that being Premier, regardless of who holds the position, brings with it great power and great responsibility. Mark Chipman can do a lot of things. But Mark Chipman can’t pass a law. Mark Chipman doesn’t control a $~12 billion budget. Mark Chipman can’t appoint a judge.

Interestingly, while McFadyen squeaked in at number 27, one of his “young Turks”, Mr. Sandy Riley, is on the outs. Hey Free Press… do you realize you’ve released one of McFadyen’s close advisors and friends? If we read the goat innards on this one, it appears the Free Press isn’t buying too heavily into McFadyen’s stock. And for good reason!

By the way – remember in 2006 when Ryan Craig was named the 23rd most powerful person in Manitoba? He came in just behind Tanis Mindell, a top-notch bureaucrat who continues to lead Manitoba’s most powerful Cabinet committee – Treasury Board. Good call on your picks that year, Free Press. We can’t imagine the business Ryan Craig generated for you!

Back by unpopular demand...

2010-09-13T21:07:00.007-05:00

With this post, our undefined period of darkness officially comes to a close. The Blackberry Addicts has both rested and reflected, and we have decided to re-engage the public, pundits, and what passes for media following the economic calamity of 2008.

We'd like to make a couple quick points to save some of you time and energy. First, remember that we've always been called the Blackberry Addicts, not the Blackberry Addict. Second, expect to see our blog refreshed over the coming days for the sake of being, well, fresh. Third, our mission and mandate will remain unchanged. And, lastly, please grant us the privilege of some retroactive commentary... we promise there won't be much.

Goodness me, it's great to be back...!

A thirsty guy walks into a bar ... you finish it.

2007-06-25T07:33:00.000-05:00

Wow. Yowch. The Sausage Man rebuts.

Now, normally, we would not rebut a rebuttal -- kind of a tedious experience for blogger and reader alike.

In his blog, Dan denies our assertion (in a rather thin-skinned way, wethinks) that in his post-election analysis piece he bought into the Tory thesis that the election might have been theirs had there not been a "flood" of pre-election advertising by the government.

Just for the record, we have no problem with Dan or any journalist reporting what one side says. That's all fine.

It is a silly point of view, of course. Utter nonsense to say that a few ads from the government (as all governments do) somehow fooled Manitobans who would have otherwise thrown Gary Doer out. But instead they decided to hand the NDP an historic 36 seat third majority.

Our point was that if government advertising could change the mood of the public, then Gary Filmon would have reigned beyond 1999, because the Tories advertised like crazy in the pre-election period.

In fact, just a few days before the recent election, Mia Rabson revealed in one of her pieces that as Hugh McFadyen was spending the last days of the campaign suddenly complaining loudly about government advertising, setting up this strange excuse for losing the election -- back in 1999 as Filmon's Chief of Staff, McFadyen was in receipt of a memo from his campaign manager Greg Lyle advising him to crank up the provincial ad machine. Which he in fact did, but to no apparent avail.

Nonetheless, if Dan wants to report McFadyen's and Scarth's ridiculous post-justification, fine.

However, for Dan's and others' edification, here is a key line from Dan's story:

However, the deft timing of the writ, combined with the flurry of pre-election advertising, seemed to do the trick: The NDP lead grew to double-digit levels almost immediately.

Note this is assertion by the author. Unless we are mistaken, this statement is not attributed to anyone. It appears to be the analysis of the writer.

This is allowed, of course. We believe it was valid to run this story not just on the Op Ed pages, as it did, but it could have run in the news pages. But statements such as the above clearly signals that it is an ANALYSIS piece, not just straight-forward reportage. It appears that it is indeed Dan's view.

It is that view we disagreed with in our previous post.

Dan, indeed, did drink the Kool Aid -- unless he now feels the above statement is not his view, that it is not his analysis.

'Nuff said. Belaboured point is now over.

-------------------------------------------------

Business to clear up -- we have heard from scriblers such as Dan and the soon-to-depart Curtis Brown that our references to the Mountain Ave. Typing School and calls for reform of the tired and pedantic FreeP Editorial Board seem to include them.

Rest assured, gentlemen.

While we don't always agree with our friends mentioned above, we are not saying all the opinion and analysis printed by the Free Press is completely lacking. We are, however, actually speaking specifically about the hidebound, trite troglodytes of the Editorial Board itself -- the likes of Flood, Oleson and Mitchell, as we have noted here before.

And if publisher Andy Ritchie doesn't do something about this, then he might as well sell the Op Ed page space to make way for car ads -- which has the benefit of both raising Free Press Publications' profits and doing the readership a favour. Please, Mr. Ritchie, stop the pain.

---------------------------------------------

We're taking a break.

This space will darken for an undefined period -- the summer, anyway -- to rest and reflect on the purpose of this experiment of the past 18 months.

Take care all. Have a good summer. Have a few beers.

Dan drinks the PC Kool-Aid

2007-06-20T07:49:00.000-05:00

We've been away a few days, so we're just catching up on the pile of papers in the porch.

Not tons of things of interest, but Dan "the Sausage Man" Lett's election retrospective on the weekend had some points worth discussing.

Apart from creating titters around the Leg, we understand, by mislabeling Doer Chief of Staff Michael Balagus as the Clerk of the Executive Council, Dan offers up some interesting views from NDP and Tory top operatives.

However, it seems that Dan bought the Tories' rationalization of their loss as being largely due to massive government advertising.

It's nonsense, of course.

On one hand, the Tories can't even keep their story straight. In the "massive government advertising" they point to, they include the total $2.4 million spent over the past year on the Spirited Energy campaign, which in fact, a) was not government advertising but a community effort supported by the government, and b) includes lots of stuff which was not advertising at all.

But more importantly, just last week, Tory MLA Leanne Rowat noted the one-year anniversary of Spirited Energy by admonishing the government, calling the effort a "lead balloon" that landed with a resounding "thud".

Not only are the PCs trying to have it both ways, but they are wrong on both counts.

Spirited Energy will likely go on because the main movers and shakers in town want it to go on and know that over time the grousing will go away and promoting Manitoba is absolutely necessary.

But the other point they are wrong on is that government advertising, of course, does not win or lose elections.

If it did, Gary Filmon would have won in 1999.

We should not need to remind the greybeards in the crowd (and we certainly shouldn't have to remind Dan) that back then, the PCs ran tons of government advertising in the run up to the election. And it apparently did them no good whatsoever.

Objectively, there were similarities between the 1999 and 2007 elections: the incumbent governments had been in for multiple terms with well-regarded leaders, but the Probe polling showed a tight race shaping up.

However, there were big differences. So many that we will only touch on a few -- like the fact the government in 1999 was seen as terrible on the top public issue, health care, was bruised badly on the trust issue due largely to the vote-rigging scandal, and the mood of change permeated the air.

All the government advertising in the world can't actually change public perceptions. It may help highlight perceptions that are already out there, but to assert a few ads changed pubic opinion around 180 degrees in just a few weeks is to believe that the public is fundamentally stupid.

And they are not.

It's not surprising, though, to see Jonathan Scarth trying to explain his way out of accountability for a lousy campaign and advertising is a convenient excuse. But it is a bit surprising to see Dan seeming to buy the same basic premise.

And, by implication, Dan is asserting in his piece that Manitobans are dumb -- easily swayed by some advertising.

C'mon Dan. You can do better than that.

-------------------------

As a postscript to the above, another common thread between Dan's piece and the PC's story is a belief in the Probe numbers of March 2007 that there was a statistical tie between the NDP and the Tories, just weeks before the writ drop.

As Balagus stated, if that was true, do you think Gary Doer would call an election? Are you nuts?

But Dan positions that point in a way to try and wedge in the scenario that there was indeed a tie as Probe stated, then there was lots of government advertising which led to a lead for the NDP going in to the election.

That's just crazy. That kind of a short term lead, if it existed, would not have been enough to call an election on. For sure, Doer would have waited until the fall if that scenario were true.

The real story is, that Dan conveniently seems to push aside, is that Probe consistently underestimates the NDP support -- for lots of reasons we have detailed here before time and time again.

It just seems very strange to us that a newspaper ostensibly interested in reporting the truth would continue down this path, knowing how consistently flawed their pollsters have been.

------------------------------------------------

Oh, and if anyone needs reminding how desperate the Tory campaign was in its final days, you need only play the ads below, which ran in high rotation on Manitoba radio stations the last several days of the campaign.

Mountain Ave. typing school provides platform for the Flat Earth Society ....

2007-06-12T07:40:00.000-05:00

Yikes!

It's as if our note yesterday on the FreeP Editorial Board resulted in an immediate brain fart.

How else can you explain a big opinion piece from well-known and completely discredited climate change deniers in today's paper?

As we have stated before, it is not simply good enough to put up 'one side of the debate' on climate change when that side is represented by the tiniest fraction of climate change 'experts' and that side is made up of stalking horses for the oil industry who conceal their dirty and self-interested benefactors.

Tim Ball, one of the authors of today's piece, is well known locally as a former professor of geography at the University of Winnipeg (although he claims he was a climatology professor) and a long-time climate change denier. He is one of the infamous 61 signatories to a letter sent last year to Stephen Harper urging him to eschew the prevailing climate change science by the vast majority of experts in the field.

Ball is usually associated these days with the Calgary-based Friends of Science (FOS), a shell organization that has long been exposed as funded by the oil industry, including in reports in the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star.

He has also been exposed for padding his resume, torquing his former position with the University of Winnipeg as "one of the first climatology PhDs in the world", before his early retirement in 1996, which is a ludicrous claim. He also regularly bills himself as "Climatologist and Prof Emeritus of Geography at the University of Winnipeg." He is in fact not listed in the U of W's roll of professors emeriti.

He also sued the Calgary Herald and CanWest for printing a truthful article about him. He is billed by the DeSmogBlog -- a leading watchdog source on climate change deniers -- as someone whose "credibility lies in shreds".

His co-author, Tom Harris, is head of an organization called the Natural Resources Stewardship Project (NRSP). The NRSP is controlled by the High Park Advocacy Group, a lobbying firm that specializes in the oil and natural gas industry.

It is becoming increasingly common for the fossil fuel lobby to take a page out of big tobacco's playbook and set up shell organizations to attempt to influence public opinion on climate change. It's clear the NRSP and FOS are false fronts for special interests in the oil industry.

Even very basic research by the FreeP Editorial Board would have easily dug up this stuff on Ball, for example, which is very well known.

To put up these stalking horse frauds on the editorial pages, whose game has been prominently exposed by independent research groups and the media, is completely unsupportable. It's a sham and terrible journalism. It does the Free Press readership a great disservice. It's complete amateur hour.

Mr. Ritchie, you have to do something.

Lame duck columnist

2007-06-11T07:33:00.000-05:00

We just spotted the several-days-old blog post of our buddy Tom Blowback, in which he calls Gary Doer a "lame duck" premier. His reasoning: That Doer's past 7 1/2 years have been about "nothing", so expect four more years of "nothing" and therefore this is a lame duck administration.

Ha. Ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Whew. Excuse us for a sec -- gotta wipe a bit of a tear from the eye.

This is the same Bunkbeck who has dined out since 1999 on the Doer government, reinventing himself from an erstwhile leg reporter into a neo-con columnist? The same guy who has railed about the lack of radical tax cuts, the lack of privatized health care, the lack of turning Manitoba into a police state, and on and on?

Nothing?

Well, that's one hell of a revelation from our Tom.

So based on what he states, we can therefore expect poor Tom to have "nothing" to write about for the next four years. (And beyond that we predict, as 2011 could well be a four-peat based on Manitobans' continued affection for more of "nothing".)

It's so sad -- nothing to write about for the next several years. Sounds like a lame duck columnist to us.

-----------------------------

Memo to Andy Richie: Time to start taking deadwood on the Editorial Board out behind the woodshed with an axe.

And we would begin this chopping spree with the frequently off-topic and oft-sotted Tom Oleson.

On Saturday, he rambled on with a clumsy, disjointed thesis about how free access abortion in Canada is perhaps responsible for our society going to hell in a hand basket.

This, we submit, was not remotely worth the trees killed to provide the space. The pound of flyers that fell out of our Saturday edition were a better use of paper by far.

We would have no problem with a thoughtful discussion of whether free access to abortion services is a good policy (though we'd likely disagree with it). Oleson's piece, however, was just more evidence the Free Press Editorial Board is a vapid wasteland occupying space that could be filled by something better -- like more car ads.

Mr. Richie, show some kindness to your readership with some tough love. Do the deed, sir.

Perhaps he did his best

2007-06-07T08:48:00.000-05:00

The notion put out by the opposition yesterday that the Throne Speech was worthy of derision due to the fact it was a repetition of the NDP's election commitments is laughable.

No new ideas, said Huey.

The election was just over two weeks ago and the opposition is trying to sell the line that the government should govern on something other than its promises? Ha.

You could just see their reaction if the Throne Speech was not reflective of the recent campaign. "They lied to Manitobans. They won't fulfill their promises."

Ah, well. We suppose they had to say something.

This morning, however, we read with interest Sausage Man Dan Lett's take on the political scene in the deadwood version of the FreeP. He states that, "Despite having lost a seat in the election, McFadyen's Tories did not run a bad campaign."

Whaaaa?

Now, we are more than happy with the notion that the NDP campaign was run brilliantly, bowling over the PC wunderkind's excellent but ultimately futile strategems. But in all seriousness, despite a very strong NDP campaign, if that campaign was indeed Hugh's best, then look out, the PC long knives should be coming for McFading, but fast.

For Dan to make the assertion that McFadyen ran a good campaign not only flies in the face of common sense, but also of his own paper's polling -- which would be an interesting non-endorsement of the Free Press's continued investment in Probe's services on the part of our Sausage Man.

In Probe's May 18 pre-election poll, they claimed Team Huey lost the respect of a full 18% of Manitobans during the campaign, which the Probites then calculated into a new metric called "momentum". They stated the PC's had a "momentum" value of -14% due to a net worsening opinion of the PCs over the course of the writ period.

If you chalk that up to the strength of the NDP campaign and its ability to paint Huey in a negative light, great. However, you would think that if McGriddle had at least done a very basic job introducing himself to Manitobans over the past year, getting into the media, creating a minor persona out there (instead of largely being invisible), then ran a good campaign -- he would have been bullet-proofed to a certain degree against the NDP attacks.

But no. The NDP attacks appeared to work like a charm: A backroom boy that helped privatize MTS and consulted with Mike Harris and Ernie Eves when they were trying to privatize Ontario Hydro (hence putting Manitoba Hydro at risk if he were premier); A policy wonk that was there to help fire over 1000 nurses and reduce doctor training, and can't help himself from defending those disastrous decisions because he believes in it; A hidebound ideologue who would repeal basic water protections that are just now starting to pay off for Lake Winnipeg and all our water resources; and lastly, someone willing to make unending reckless tax cut and policy promises that would endanger the services like health and education Manitobans so value.

All these attacks were not only verifiable but also rang true with voters. That combined with a general comfort level with 7 1/2 years of NDP rule and the public's strong affinity with Gary Doer led to not only a return to power, but an increase in seats.

As much as it may be gratifying to New Democrats for Dan to give Team Doer all the credit, he shouldn't get away with the claim that Huey ran a great campaign.

Perhaps he did his best, sure. We're willing to concede that. But a good campaign? Surely Dan is kidding.

(Oh, yeah, did we mention the Jets promise? No? Hmmm.)

It's ... so ... slow ...

2007-05-30T20:46:00.000-05:00

The news is so slow these days that the most interesting thing the Sun could muster today is a federal Tory trial balloon via Tom Blowback about naming the Human Rights Museum after John Diefenbaker.

Even if it were a remotely serious suggestion, no other federal museum is named after anybody as far as we're aware. The Museum of Civilization, the War Museum, the National Gallery -- none have any politicians' names plastered all over it.

That seems to be the fate of other institutions, such as airports and federal buildings.

Not that anyone really pays attention to even that. Does anyone say they're going to the Richardson airport to catch a flight? Does anyone say they're going to the Stanley Knowles Building to enlist in the armed forces?

Anyway, to slap the Dief on the front of the first national museum outside of Ottawa seems a bit goofy, regardless of the bejowled former PM's alleged bona fides on human rights (who knew?).

And being an institution in Winnipeg, it might be a bit of a head-scratcher for River City denizens to get the link between a 1950s-era PM from Saskatchewan and a prized new waterfront gem for Manitoba.

----------------------------------------

It's ... so ... slow ... on ... the ... blogging ... front ... tooooo

However, if you really want the full blast of sour grapes in post-election Manitoba, you have only had to look to the letters to the editor of the dailies over the past two weeks.

If you ever believed published letters were any indication of public opinion, you would also have to believe no one actually voted for the NDP and there is about to be a mass migration of people to the west and east due to the historic result on May 22. (Hmm, didn't we hear those threats in 1999 and 2003, too?)

Anyhoo, it would be nice to see more of our Tory chums out there get reinvigored and back to their keyboards -- at least for some interesting reading over the morning cuppa joe. Gawd nose it ain't happening in the newspaper.

C'mon guys. Get to work.

------------------------------------

Today, 57 MLAs get sworn in and go to the House tomorrow to hear a short, we believe, Speech from the Throne. It will be in some ways a pretty similar House to the one that last sat on April 20, hours before the writ was dropped.

Gary Doer and the NDP still firmly in charge. Huey at the front bench opposite. The Liberals remain as the Gang of Two.

But it will be a different House, too. More women than ever. The first woman of colour, ever. A larger NDP majority in the House than ... ever.

It will be different for Huey, too. Once the carrier of great expectations from his party, the media and pundits, he is now humbled, with one less net seat than he had, sharing the front-bench with a wily yet vendictive veteran having only won by the skin of her teeth (Bonnie), and rumblings about whether he will even survive as leader to take another run at the big chair.

My, what a few short weeks can do.

----------------------------------------------

Speaking of leadership, has anyone else noticed that Schulander has kept all his leadership videos up on YouTube and has been promoting them on his website? (Don't bother taking it all down. It's all been saved for posterity.)

Ah, the Wellington saga continues

2007-05-30T07:22:00.000-05:00

Today the Winnipeg Sun recounts the latest claim out of Wellington -- this one from former candidate Angie Ramos that the NDP intimidated her to drop out before the nomination deadline.

In a letter to the Sun, Ramos writes she was "forced" to sign a resignation letter and she was "coerced" to drop out.

"Forced" to resign? Like what, she was tied up?

"Coerced"? That's a pretty major 10-dollar word.

This smells like another caper with Joe Chan's fingerprints all over it.

Joe Chan you may recall is the former associate of Councillor Harvey "weird old man" Smith, who vied for the Wellington nomination, but ran into the small problem of not disclosing his former company's run-in with the law on Internet child porn charges.

Chan is also frequently singled out as the figure behind the dirty tricks that often pepper Smith's campaigns, like hiring kids to destroy opponents' signage and dropping "dirty" flyers about opponents. In Smith's race against former CBC host Maureen Pendergast, Chan is widely recognized as having gone on an intense homophobic whisper campaign among ethnic communities in the area.

But some time before the writ drop, Chan was disqualified from the nomination and ran as an independent.

Incumbent Conrad Santos dropped out of the running when news of his own possible nomination hi jinx came to light. Angie, by all accounts a nice woman, was previously an unknown quantity in the NDP. She ran for the party nomination and won with the support of the membership signed up by Chan.

As you will recall, at the time of the writ, Chan ran as an independent, but all his materials were in NDP green and orange. Santos also ran, but came dead last.

So, shortly before the official Elections Manitoba nomination deadline Ramos quit, citing health problems. The party convinced Flor Marcelino to carry the party banner and made a direct appointment. Flor won.

Word on the street is Chan had his hands all over the Ramos nomination as his back-up plan. Ramos would resign after the nomination deadline, the NDP would have no candidate in Wellington. Chan would run as the seeming-NDP candidate and scoop up the seat in the vacuum.

Ramos, however, couldn't handle the pressure of the deception and was literally sick with worry about it and came clean before the nomination deadline, messing up Chan's grand plan.

Now, it seems the questionable Chan has somehow convinced Ramos to fall back in line and has enlisted the questionably-stable Kevin Lamoureux to make some hay with the invention of a new tale for the media.

At least it isn't dull.

--------------------------

Both Samyn and Chantal Hebert [UPDATE: as did Mia] wax eloquent about Gary Doer's new status as the official dean of the First Ministers' club. It will be very interesting over the next few years to see Manitoba's place on the national scene even more elevated and what that could mean for the Keystone Province.

"Intriguing" possibility?

2007-05-29T07:43:00.000-05:00

The Canadian sports media is all atwitter today with the latest speculation an NHL team may land back in Winnipeg.

Of course the most obvious thing to say is, "wouldn't that be ironic?"

Ironic, as Hugh's Jets promise during the election campaign was roundly pilloried as a Hail Mary pass he couldn't possibly deliver on. And a community that was already burned -- burned badly -- by the economics of the NHL didn't take too well to the notion.

Jack Reimer expressed publicly what other Tories were facing on the doorstep -- Conservative stalwarts pissed right off about Hugh playing fast and loose with the public purse strings even before he had a chance to sit in the big chair.

Now, Hugh likely would have lost anyway, without the Jets gaffe. He had tried to gain momentum with his Crime and Punishment tour the previous week, to no apparent avail.

Crime is a salient issue. But as we saw, there was no evidence that it was pushing voters either away from the NDP or towards the Conservatives. On top of all that, crime tends to be a bigger issue in bedrock NDP core area and north end ridings, not the south and west suburbs which were the key battlegrounds.

Let's not forget as well that it seems unlikely Gary Doer would have pulled the plug and gone to the people if NDP internal polling showed anything remotely like Probe's picture of a 40-40 tie in the pre-election period.

We could go on at length about a variety of other reasons the Tories didn't gain ground in the writ period, but actually lost ground (not least of which was their disastrous TV ad campaign). But we will spare our readers a rehash of much of what has already been in the mainstream media.

Huey has already opined that it would be ironic in his view if the NHL actually did come back to the Peg, as it would have proved him right all along.

Of course that is nonsense.

If the Jets -- or a team of another name -- ever comes back, the private backers and Gary Doer will have to do a hell of a job convincing Manitobans they are not busting the treasury wide open and that the team has long term prospects that seem realistic in a market that may balk at tickets ranging anywhere from $40 - $120 per seat.

But if all the stars align, and the Jets do come back, it will not be because Hugh McFadyen was cheated. For all his promising of a return of the Jets within four years, the public knew better. If the NHL returns, it will be because a lot of advance work has been done by Mark Chipman, et al, as well as the leadership of the private sector and the Doer government in forging ahead with the MTS Centre.

After that, it will be a lot of hard work by private proponents and a whole lot of factors we do not control coming together to shine on Winnipeg.

Alas, hindsight, the greatest of all lenses

2007-05-25T08:23:00.000-05:00

Jack Reimer blames Huey's Jets promise for his demise in Southdale.

"I told the people at the door, I said, there's no way I would be part of any government that's going to give public funding to a professional hockey team to get them back in here," CBC reports Reimer saying.

"Definitely, it couldn't have come from someone that's been around politics for years and can sense — there's a certain sense and a certain smell that you can put with certain things," he added.

He is also quoted in other media claiming the first time he heard of the Jets promise was down at the MTS Centre where he had been summoned.

So, on the phone that fateful May 7 morning, Jack is commanded to the MTS Centre. Jack complies, apparently unaware of what the announcement was.

Jack arrives and is told to put on a white Jets jersey. Jack complies, still apparently unaware of what the announcement was.

Hugh makes announcement to bring back the Jets. Jack cheers enthusiastically along with the rest of the candidates, as you could clearly see in the TV coverage. He apparently still does not understand what the announcement is, as he would never countenance government involvement in bringing back the Jets.

Jack hits the doorstep. He meets voter outrage. He THEN finally understands what the announcement was all about.

----------------------------------

Huey and supporters have circled the wagons pretty fast around his leadership. Here's his spin, recounting how he could not get election-ready within a full year:

"There were limits to how much change I could inflict on the party," CBC quotes him as saying this morning.

Inflict?

Well, we guess we'll see how much change the party famous for back stabbing may be inflicting on Huey in the next while.

However, we actually hope Huey sticks around, surviving the inevitable slings and arrows of outrageous Tory fortune.

If he is given the chance, will he improve over the next four years? Quite possibly.

Will he be a formidable foe, though? Quite unlikely.

He is arrogant, self-satisfied and cannot shake his backroom-boy approach to the job.

More importantly, let's not forget the PCs would need to gain 10 seats now -- that's right, TEN seats -- in order to form a bare majority in the house.

And most of those seats they would need to take from the NDP are in Winnipeg. So which ones are they?

Every Winnipeg seat they targetted in this election, including ones gained by the NDP in 2003, were won by team Doer with an even greater plurality than the previous outing.

Fast forward four years from now with Erin Selby and Sharon Blady working their constituencies hard, following the example set by the 2003 "Southern Belles", transforming steals from the PCs into solid NDP seats.

Realistically, it will take a heck of a lot for the PCs to win in 2011.

We look forward to the prospect of a four-peat.

Hugh = Stu-lite

2007-05-23T08:44:00.000-05:00

Picture Stu Murray at home last night watching the election coverage. When the dust settled, McFadyen's seat yield was less than Murray's in 2003.

He had to be laughing his ass off.

The man who faced the long knives of his party for winning only 20 seats in 2003, who ran an under-funded campaign with few Tory backroom war horses putting their shoulder to the wheel for the cause.

As Murray is reported telling people these days about that time, all the PC power brokers who shooed him into the job to replace Filmon were nowhere in sight come election time.

No cash. No horses to drive the cart.

The pundits predicted oblivion and Probe predicted NDP "landslide". But Stu held on to 20 seats. No oblivion.

Then by Fall 2005, it was over. The "committee" put enough pressure on Stu that he had to quit.

Once again the PCs lived up to their well-earned reputation of eating their own.

A year ago the Tory elite put their hopes in Huey. A new, fresh, younger, energetic face to the party of dour pessimism.

A year later. Millions of dollars spent in a campaign. Lots of hype. What have they got to show for it?

19 seats.

Chuckle on, Mr. Murray. Chuckle on.

(UPDATE: We just read our pal Tom Blowback's column, essentially the same thought as above. "Great" minds must think alike.)

-------------------------------------

Whaaaat? Free Press declares Patrick O'Connor (who he?) in Lac du Bonnet.

(To be fair, it must be quite the scramble to put together the election edition of a newspaper, with late results and tight timelines. But we suspect this was a legacy of the mocked up page done in advance that editors forgot and left on. Good for another little E +1 chuckle, though.)

----------------------

Catherine Mitchell. Is she just channeling a grumpy old man to fit in at the FreeP editorial board or is she really that sour and cranky?

Her column today, entitled "For the PCs, tomorrow is a new day", her thesis is essentially the same as the Conservatives' radio ads over the last few days: The NDP has stolen the campaign by lying; we've been cheated.

Check this out: "But this is an extraordinary third majority of the NDP and it will not last either."

Geez. Thanks, Catherine (or can we call you Cathy?). You've really cleared up that democracy, people-have-a-choice thing that was confusing us about the next election.

--------------------

Probing polls

Compare the popular vote today to Probe's published results last week.

Probe poll: NDP - 44%, PC - 37%, Lib - 16%

Election 2007: NDP - 48%, PC - 38%, Lib - 12%

So, not as far out at the 2003 "landslide" prediction, but they show some interesting things.

If the Probe poll was an accurate snapshot, then Liberals were tanking in the dying days of the campaign.

Why would that be? Most according to Probe felt the NDP was on a winning trajectory anyway. So fear of a Tory win was not squeezing Liberal considerers in the run up to election day to strategically support the NDP in a raw anti-Tory push.

In fact, if the last days of the campaign were any indication, the PCs were desperate to shore up their base support with Hugh's accusations of Doer "lying", etc. and their angry, nay, desperate radio ads over the long weekend accusing Gary Doer of every malfeasance in the book and urging voters to simply "vote against the NDP".

So if anyone showed signs of sliding in terms of their campaign activity, it was the PCs.

Now, anyone who read to the bottom of the story would see that the Probe poll was only just outside the claimed margin of error of 3.5% of the actual result.

So, one has to conclude either the Liberals were never up to 16% and Probe's methodology for whatever reason propped them up beyond their strength. Or, four per cent of Liberal support ran to the NDP in the last week of the campaign for no apparent reason.

Hmmm.

---------------------------------------

And lastly, a big congratulations, Mr. Doer.

A good reason why Hugh will not only lose today, but deserve to lose

2007-05-22T08:09:00.000-05:00

Pictured above is not a piece of NDP propaganda. It's the headline from the May 16 editorial in the Thompson Citizen.

Now, many of you southern folks will say, "Thompson Citizen? Yellow-dog NDP country. Who cares?"

While it's true "Landslide Ashton" has a strong hold on the northern seat (although he first won a gazillion years ago by just a hair), the Thompson Citizen is no NDP cheering section. In fact, not long ago it proclaimed its support for Huey McFading as premier.

That has changed -- hoo boy, has it ever.

And the reason why they had a change of heart is laid out plain in the editorial. Refering to McGriddle's agriculture policy announcement in Brandon earlier this month, the Citizen says:

"McFadyen accused the NDP of politicizing where highway dollars are spent. He said that the Conservatives would spend the same $400 million a year on highway(s), but if elected, his government would cahnge how the money is allotted, which would mean more spending in the south...

"A premier needs to represent the entire province and not only the regions where you have high support. Why even run candidates in the four northern ridings, if the region is going to be treated in this manner? He certainly has it right in Flin Flon where there is no Tory candidate (on) the ballot."

And it ends with a blistering line:

"In fact, McFadyen, you aren't welcome in Thompson."

Now, apparently the Conservative campaign denies saying the above statement, which was reported in the Brandon Sun by Curtis Brown. Brown stands by the report.

So, what is the relevance of an editorial in a regional newspaper? A lot actually.

They hit the point on the head. As premier, you have to govern for the whole province, despite where your political base is.

This is something we have seen since 1999. Despite little hope of winning in southern Manitoba yellow-dog Tory seats, there has been plenty of government largesse all over the province. Certainly, the north has seen a significant increase over the Filmon years, to make up for years of under-investment. But no one can credibly claim neglect in PC stronghold seats.

This is what it takes to be premier -- even premier-in-waiting. To be premier you can't just be a glorified mayor of Winnipeg with a rural rump in your pocket.

His crass position to cater for southern votes is a clear symbol of McFadyen's lack of appreciation of the entire province. Which means not only will he lose today and severely underperform expectations, but he also deserves to lose.

E minus one ...

2007-05-21T07:45:00.000-05:00

Mia tears into Hugh's poor grasp of his own numbers.

"Will the tax cuts cost $586 million? $682 million? $723 million? $800 million? I’ve heard all the figures this week from Hugh and Gerald Hawranik."

Wow. This from the party of fiscal probity?

The guy can't explain where he thinks the money is coming from and he can't even explain how much money he's talking about.

And they get angry when it's asserted he probably can't do it without cutting core government services?

And they wonder why Hugh is tanking.

---------------------------

Overall, Dan is lukewarm on the parties' ads in this campaign.

No one seems to meet the Sausage Man's broadcast standards, with the NDP at the top of the pack, eking out a B+.

But he saves his worst for the beleaguered Tories:

"An ad the Tories call 'Worried' is beyond hyperbole; it's downright dangerous in its irresponsible portrayal of downtown Winnipeg. It's hard to tell if the ad people think this gloomy image is realistic, or whether they are aware they're essentially lying to voters."

The thing that's the most important here, and a point Dan misses altogether, is not whether journalists like them or not -- it's whether they seem to be effective in changing voter opinion.

And if the Probe poll is any indication, the NDP's ads work. The Liberals do not. And the Conservatives' ads are helping the NDP.

On that note, word is that the PC ad guru in this campaign is Barb Biggar -- former Filmon communications supremo who has put out her shingle in the private sector for over a decade now. She has a reputation as a shrewd, smart operator.

This campaign, however, may well tarnish that rep. Screaming man? What were you thinking?

And the NDP is responsible for feeling unsafe in empty parking garages at night? Whaaaa?

We've always felt uneasy in parking garages -- yes, even when Gary Filmon was premier. Even before that, too.

It's one of the biggest cliche scenes in Hollywood's vocabulary. And now, according to Team McFadyen, the NDP invented it.

Yeah, not just irresponsible, but more importantly they really missed the mark and it's not connecting with voters.

Just how far off the mark we'll see on Tuesday.

-------------------------------------

Hugh goes after government advertising in a pre-election period:

"McFadyen acknowledged that is something all governments have been known to do, including the former Tory government in 1999 when he was the party’s chief of staff. In fact, in May 1999, McFadyen was advised in a memo from the Tories' campaign manager to run government ads on health care and education because the NDP were gaining on those issues."

Hmmm. So we guess he would have some inside information on this issue.

----------------------------------------

Funniest column of the campaign: our pal Bunkbeck's blog, entitled: "Doer smarter than your average chicken."

Oddest moment: Huey calling Doer "desperate" and "a liar", then feeling no shame in claiming the Tories have run a "positive campaign".

Even Huey's team having a change of heart?

2007-05-18T06:38:00.001-05:00

A campaign shocker was on hand with the revelation, shown at left, that the sweatermobile itself seemed to be changing allegiances.

-----------------------

What about Probe's polling? Whew! What a ton of charts, graphs, margins of error, parsing of entrails.

We loved hearing Probe supremo Scott McKay on CJOB radio saying the NDP is on a steep decline track -- since 2003! Wow, that decline may have legs by 2011.

Anyway, the interesting thing is McKay doesn't compare his election numbers to his last public poll, showing team Huey and team Gary tied.

There was no explanation why the NDP fortunes have consistently risen over most of the past year in his numbers. Hmmm.

And as usual, the former Liberal Party pollster threw Jon Gerrard a lifeline with giving the doctor some 16% in the polls (guaranteed it won't be that high on Tuesday night) and "minor momentum" of 1% (what the heck is "momentum"? -- never saw that metric before).

Anyway, apparently people's perception of Huey during the campaign has gone down -- a lot. The common wisdom after Tuesday will be that McFadyen blew it with the now-infamous Jets announcement.

We're not so sure.

We believe it's actually the Tory advertising that's mainly to blame.

Their "air war" campaign has been dominated by amateurish, even bizarre ad spots throughout the campaign (including the "revolving door" spot that has Hugh awkwardly throwing down a stack of newspaper headlines and the crazy ranting poor-man's Rick Mercer).

After the election, the PC's in their truest tradition will start sharpening their knives for Hugh -- though he will likely survive that. But more usefully, they should turf their advertising firm.

--------------------------------------

Regarding that ranting guy, who is he? Every local actor we have spoken to says they don't know who he is. Did the Tories have to resort to out of town talent? Hmmm.

Maybe they kept him around to play chicken-man.

Six more sleeps ...

2007-05-16T21:52:00.000-05:00

Tuesday is election day. Wow it went fast. Wow nothing really happened.

People liked Gary Doer a month ago. Hey, guess what! They still like him.

Global says the Probe poll is in the paper tomorrow morning and reports a few nuggets, like that Hugh has run a campaign no better than Gerrard's. Hmm. Whatever that means.

The Probe Full Monte tomorrow, eh? You know how we like those.

We will chat about that, for sure.

Meanwhile, get a load of Hugh's mug from the Free Press site here -- during his editorial board drone-fest. Looks like an excited chap.

This one's making the journalism rounds ...

2007-05-14T06:54:00.000-05:00

For your amusement:

Sharking the jump

2007-05-09T22:22:00.000-05:00

Ooooh. Did he really say that? Bring back the Jets “within four years”?

Oh, my.

Can you say “defining moment”?

-------

On Monday, Richard (“RCR”) Cloutier held a candidates’ “forum” at Sisler High on youth issues.

Richard’s premise was that all young people want to do is split Manitobaburg as fast as possible. Unfortunately his thesis was not supported by his captured audience of Sisler students.

One student indeed said she was going to leave immediately after graduating … to travel.

Another said she wants to go to Calgary … because she had been there before, it seemed nice and had "better malls and entertainment." As Cloutier himself concluded, her problem wasn’t about making a good living in Manitoba but she didn’t feel she had enough ways for her to spend her money

Undeterred by these not so helpful responses, Cloutier forged ahead, asking a third student. Except that she said she wasn't exactly leaving Manitoba. In fact, she was staying … to attend the U of W - because of the new 60% tuition rebate.

Oops. Bless his heart; Richard was obliged to tell the crowd that this was an NDP promise.

-------

Sniff, sniff. They’re gone.

We LOVED the Manitoba Nurses Union ads about keeping health care first. Here is one of them for your continued edification.

It sounds an awful like the opposite of McFadyen’s “health care won’t be first” admission last year.

There has been some grousing that this ad running through the campaign is breaking the Elections Act, as a third party endorsement of the NDP.

Nope. Not only was that section of the legislation never proclaimed, due to protests of folks like Stephen Harper, when he was chief of the National Citizens Coalition, but if you don’t say vote for X party or candidate, you would not have been subject to the law anyway.

After all, it's really just a condemnation of the Tories on health care. You're free to draw your own conclusions.

What’s the matter Manitoba Club and Winnipeg Squash and Racquet Club members? Belly up. Do your part for your team.

Let’s see how the script would go – “the 1980s were really tough times for real estate speculators like me …”

Wellington clears itself up ... not bad

2007-05-06T01:24:00.000-05:00

The craziest thing about the Wellington mess is that it's turned out well in the end for the NDP.

Flor Marcelino is probably one of the best candidates possible for that constituency. Strong, articulate, editor of the Philippine Times, businesswoman, Filipina.

It's all good.

The fact that in this election the most the media has to do is speculate the NDP might be in tough (after finishing with 75% of the vote in 2003) because there are two independents (former NDP) with ties to the Filipino community also running. Bonne chance to all of you but Flor only has to make clear to Wellingtonites SHE is indeed the NDP candidate.

Hesse apologizes

2007-05-06T01:07:00.000-05:00

"I, Paul Hesse, would like to apologize to Jennifer Howard for the actions of a member of my campaign team. He acted without my knowledge or authorization. As I mentioned to Jennifer, I want this to be a positive campaign about ideas. I sincerely apologize."

This message, we understand, was also sent to the Howard campaign as well as the BBAs. We do not yet see it on Paul Hesse's web site.

Pathetic Liberal silliness in Fort Rouge

2007-05-04T22:14:00.000-05:00

A correspondent writes:

“On the morning of May 1, a young man came into the Jennifer Howard campaign asking to volunteer. Jennifer was in the office getting ready to go canvassing, he saw her and the first question he asked was what she thought of her Liberal opponent Paul Hesse.

“This peculiar question immediately caught the attention of campaign staff. Howard gave a very diplomatic answer saying she had met him, he is a lawyer and seemed nice. The man introduced himself as Matt Cohen, saying he was from Oakbank and wanted to canvass but had never done it before so wanted someone to take him out.

“He was informed a couple nights later, the campaign was sending out three groups and that would be a good night for him to go out.

“Young Mr. Cohen agreed and asked if he could 'drop a poll' by himself right away. Hmm, never done it before, eh? Staff politely suggested he just come back on Thursday. He asked for copies of all Howard’s literature, which he gave him and he left.

“Now very suspicious, campaign staff looked up Hesse’s staff on Facebook and matched one name with 'Cohen's' phone number supplied on the Howard campaign's sign up sheet.

“Our culprit is actually named Richard William Liebrecht (circled in the above picture with Jon Gerrard) – on staff with the Hesse campaign. In an online exchange later that day, Liebrecht admitted his deception with the campaign manager."

Paul Hesse. Isn't he the guy advertising about raw sewage in Osborne Village? Clearly stategic geniuses are working for him.

Преступление и наказание *

2007-05-03T22:10:00.000-05:00

Not unexpectedly, Huey followed "Hi, I'm Hugh -- I have a sweater" week with "River City = Crime City" week, attempting to exploit recent headlines on crime as a rocket to the top of the political pile.

Unfortunately for the boy wonder, his first public safety announcement on Monday (350 "crime fighters"? -- good god is it "axis of evil" next?) was panned all the way from braniac criminologists to his usual cheerleader Tom Blowback.

We are especially fond of Dan Lett's phrase "the plural of annecdote is not data" referring to sensational headlines as proof Winnipeg has an especially serious crime problem.

We especially love Huey's crime ad, featuring the Sweater-Clad Crime Fighter throwing down editions of Winnipeg dailies with their screaming headlines. It could only be improved if our besweatered Superhero ended the scene in his bitchiest voice "This crime has got to stop. And I mean it".

His prescriptions are truly laughable. They amount to looking at the NDP's tough-on-crime proposals and just doubling them. "I see your cops and raise you 100" or whatever. "I see your crowns and we'll add even more."

Nothing on what to do about kids. Nothing on needing the criminal code to be changed, unlike Stephen Harper's line.

On Wednesday Hugh, a trained lawyer along with Kelvin Goertzen, another trained lawyer, called for requiring Crown prosecutors to pursue the maximum sentences (and we thought the prosecutions branch was supposed to be independent of the Justice Minister and cabinet) and, further, directing them to make sure there are "No conditional sentences for sexual offences involving minors".

Uh, we're pretty sure the Criminal Code says that people convicted of any sexual offence aren't eligible for conditional sentences. Chomiak (another trained lawyer) should likely have jumped on that. Ah, well.

Our favourite though was today's announcement of (ta-dah) a new jail! (Or new gaol, if you want to tart it up a bit more.)

Wow. That's going to wow 'em in the Winnipeg suburbs. More jails, now we can feel good about living in McFadyen's Manitoba.

It juxtaposed pretty well with Gary Doer promising lots more new wind farms.

Hmm. More jails or more wind farms? Can't decide which we like better.

* Crime and Punishment

-----------------------------

Did anyone notice Huey throwing out an afterthought news release on more child care spaces, which essentially said "yeah, like, what the NDP is doing -- whatever, we're like so that"?

If Hugh cares so much about child care spaces and staffing, why doesn't he call on special friend, Steve Harper, to restore the child care agreement that Harper cancelled?

Talk about leading with your chin.

-----------------------------

"No one told me to dress up ..."

Good god. Christine McGhee is not just the bizarre flake who was running for the Liberals in Kirkfield Park, then bolted to try for the Tory nomination unsuccessfully. She also then successfully got the Tory nod in St. James. (Whew ... you need a program just to figure this one out.) But now she has been a prop (yikes! did we say that) all week at McGriddle's crime announcements.

Unfortunately on Wednesday, as you can see above, she had some unfortunate footwear mishap. You can click here to see the fulsome picture.

----------------------------

Mucho thanks to eagle-eyed readers for tips and suggestions.

Tom abandons Hugh

2007-05-01T16:51:00.000-05:00

We are putting Brodbeck back in our "maybe we like" category.

For the second week in a row he pulls a counter-intuitive move and craps on Team Sweater for their major Monday announcements.

First, it was the PST cut. Tom said it was dumb, which it is.

Now, he says (on his blog, anyway) that their crime announcement simply bites, calling it "thin gruel".

Hugh doesn't seem to be able to even count on his friends in this contest.

--------------------

What about them Bombers? Looks like a new stadium is coming. The only question that really remains is will David Asper get his way and pry the team from public ownership or not?

---------------------

OK, OK, OK, OK .... After dozens of you guys correcting me, I cave. I give in. My hopes for Sprinfield dashed.

Alright, you got me. When I was talking about NDP steals in this election from the other guys, I meant Southdale, not Springfield.

Sue me.

I get no respect ...

2007-04-30T06:38:00.000-05:00

Firefighters for Doer

2007-04-29T23:29:00.000-05:00

The love affair between firefighters and Gary Doer just keeps on going.

That was reaffirmed today with an announcement of more firefighters, including forest firefighters by Doer in the back yard of a Winnipeg Fire Captain in Kirkfield Park where hopeful Sharon Blady is hoping to turn that seat NDP orange.

We hear that Kirkfield Park, Springfield and Inkster are all about tied as good possibilities for pickups for the NDP in Winnipeg, where Doer's numbers are incredibly strong.

Where does firefighters come as a priority for Manitobans in the poll numbers? Well, probably doesn't really register ... until the question is asked who do you trust to make sure the services you rely on are there when you need it. About then, questions like 'who do the firefighters trust' and 'who do the nurses trust', etc. come into play.

That and the NDP's record of keeping Manitoba affordable and keeping the government affordable make it a hard case for change, despite how 'hard ... hurry hard' Hugh works to make it seem we need the kind of change he offers.

Sorry for a kind of straight-up rant today. But we couldn't really help ourselves. If you want to see something different -- then instead of firefighters, you can find out how you would save $14 on a $200 bicycle.

It had to be said ...

2007-04-25T22:16:00.000-05:00

Day 6 of the campaign and no one has said it ... publicly, at least.

But it's about time it was.

It is absolutely unbelievable that the Winnipeg Sun has Ross Romaniuk -- a nice guy, we submit -- covering the election campaign.

Nice guy or not. Good repo or not. It just stinks.

Ross is the partner of Hugh McFadyen spinner Michelle Bailey.

Whether Ross's coverage is fair or not cannot be reasonably assessed because he has an undeniable conflict of interest.

The Sun needs to clean this up and shame on them for letting it happen.

'Nuff said.

A few of these things are a lot like the others...

2007-04-24T22:32:00.000-05:00

Freep armchair QBs leave a bit to be desired

2007-04-24T06:15:00.000-05:00

It's day 5 of the election campaign and this is the first post since the call. Yeesh -- a little slow.

As you may have guessed, we're a little busy on the husting, but we'll do our best between now and May 22 to get a word in edgewise.

Today we look at the deep thoughts of Freep armchair quarterbacks Dan "Sausage Man" Lett and Lindor Reynolds.

First Lindor, calls the Jack Reimer "prop" slur against contender Erin Selby no big deal and Status of Women Minister Nancy Allen a bit disingenuous for asking for an apology. In fact Lindor says the NDP called Reimer "sexist".

Where did they say that? Reading their release on the NDP site, we see no reference to "sexist". Nor do we see the quote in any news story.

We do see the term in Mia Rabson's story -- but not in a quote or attributed to anyone.

Wethinks the meat is missing there. Lindor should check who said Reimer was "sexist" or whether he made a derogatory remark. There is a big difference there and Lindor should know that.

Dan, on the other hand, thinks the NDP "blinked" over McFadyen's anticipated "me too" with Stephen Harper on the 1% cut to the PST (what? not 2%). Seems to us the NDP have responded to every Tory announcement so far. Why is that blinking?

Anyway, Dan's biggest error is the repeated contention that in the 1990s the PCs had a tough time because of a recession and cuts in transfers from Ottawa.

If that is to hold water at all, it may be said for the early 1990s. But the latter 1990s and certainly in the last few years of the Filmon administration, transfers were growing again and the economy was doing well.

Dan, too, should know better. We hope the analysis on the campaign trail picks up a tad over this mornings offerings.

Sigh ... we're back to Bunkbeck, again

2007-04-19T08:26:00.000-05:00

The honeymoon is over, likely to his relief. We've torn up our membership in the Tom Blowback fan club.

Today Tom takes a run at Denis Rocan, using every one of Michelle Bailey's talking points and adding a few deep "insights" of his own, such as the following keen observation, intended to demonstrate Denis's mutinous tendencies: "Immediately after the NDP won government in 1999, for example, Rocan was seen giving then NDP MLA Becky Barrett a hug in the Legislative Building, saying 'I'm so happy for you.' Ugh."

Hmm. You gotta admit that "ugh" is a nice touch.

But he also hypes his blog at the end of his column. (He has a blog? Who knew?) In it he aims at Gary Doer (shock! awe!) and tries to trip up the premier on how many nurses were fired by the Conservatives in the 1990s.

Was it 1,000 or 1,500? Tom asks. It can't be both. Must be a lie.

The answer is simple. Maybe simple enough for our erstwhile columnist and now blogger to get.

The 1,000 comes from the Manitoba Nurses Union in their 1998 annual report (you may have seen this citation recently here). The 1,500 comes from more recent annual reports of the two nursing colleges - the Licenced Practical Nurses and the Registered Nurses.

Those documents actually show well over 1,500 nurses who left the system in the 1990s -- just as the $4 million contractor Connie Curran recommended to Gary Filmon and his senior staffer Hugh McFadyen.

Quite the record, eh Tom?

Introducing ... The Sweatermobile

2007-04-18T07:30:00.000-05:00

Or, perhaps, the Fratmobile.

Great YouTube link sent to us.

[UPDATE: THEY LATER SENT US A STILL, AS YOU CAN SEE AT LEFT, AND FIXED THE VIDEO.]

Our emailer says: "Video taken last night during a Tory war council at their campaign headquarters at 1700 Ellice (hmm, wonder who's the landlord?). Tory caucus members and candidates were given a kick-the-tires view of the Sweatermobile by McFadyen. Enjoy."

Enjoy, indeed.

---------

The gift of Carman-gate just keeps on giving for Huey. Just like the clap.

Not a huge surprise Denis Rocan was booted from caucus for using his opportunity to speak to the budget yesterday to rip McFadyen a new one and then vote to support the budget.

But you have to wonder whether McFadyen is beginning to regret his campaign to oust the venerable MLA, cuz now he has a complete and utter loose cannon on his hands.

(Interesting to note, too, that Rocan was the only one Huey was successful in knocking off. Both other targets, David Faurschou and Jack Reimer, rebuffed the Tory leader and his crew's efforts to dump them.)

It was hillarious to hear CBC radio this morning further drilling into the Wellington NDP "issue" with McFadyen calling it "a big mess" or something like that.

Meanwhile he has a member of his caucus speak at length about why Huey and the Tories suck in the Chamber, every word recorded for posterity, and then mutiny on the budget vote. Virtually unheard of.

Big mess, indeed.

Wellington's Waterloo?

2007-04-16T08:12:00.000-05:00

This morning, CBC radio's Leslie McLaren reported that challenger for the NDP nomination in Wellington, Joe Chan, has been disqualified from the contest, due to lack of previous disclosure of unsavoury parts of his past -- specifically child porn charges associated with his former computer company.

Chen is previously infamous in political circles for alleged, uh, creative campaigning for Daniel Mac councillor Harvey Smith. It hit the media during the 2002 race against McLaren's former CBC colleague Maureen Pendergast.

But in today's story McLaren finds U of M prof Sharon Sampert with a pithy quote to the effect of: "If the party doesn't want you to run, they'll find a way to disqualify you."

The implication being Chan was run out of town on a rail unfairly -- the victim of a nefarious backroom deal, perhaps.

According to the report, the letter Chan received says the child porn issue could potentially embarass the party if he were the successful candidate.

Do you really think the NDP is right and the opposition would dredge up that child porn thing in an election to embarass the party?

Naw, couldn't happen.

The waiting list myth

2007-04-12T08:20:00.000-05:00

The myth of the waiting list, whether for health care procedures or as highlighted in recent days, for child care spaces, is pervasive.

Pat Wege of the Manitoba Child Care Association quotes day care centres with hundreds of people on waiting lists as a sign the system is in crisis.

It is true there are a lot fewer child care spaces in some parts of Winnipeg and in some communities across Manitoba than are needed. But it's hardly a crisis.

However, it is a myth -- as with doctor waiting lists -- that they are a measure of the need or a reflection of the time one may have to wait to get a spot. They are not.

People looking for child care put themselves on several lists at once. Consistently when a space opens up at a child care centre, the staff has to call many different people on their list to offer the space, as they have already found another option by that time.

So the list not only contains names of people on several lists, it also contains those who are no longer looking.

This is the same for doctor waiting lists.

That's why Gord Mackintosh announced yesterday, smartly, that the province will institute a centrally managed waiting list for child care. This will save parents from phoning around to several centres and get on those lists.

And it will prevent dishonest advocates like Wege from wildly exaggerating a situation.

She should actually be ashamed of herself for acting so churlish in the face of a government that has stepped up to the plate on child care where few other provincial governments have.

It would have been completely reasonable for the government on budget day to say "we can't afford to backfill the shortfall from the Harper government's withdrawal from the child care deal. Sorry."

But it's been a priority over the past eight budgets and that's why our child care system is the envy of most of the country.

Too bad Pat Wege can't see that.

Blogger shocker: we like Tom

2007-04-11T07:45:00.000-05:00

We find ourselves in an odd spot this morning, being in complete agreement with Tom Brodbeck.

His column today correctly points out the peevishness of the child care lobby in Manitoba, grousing loudly about the sorry state of publicly funded spaces.

Their yapping is of course complete nonsense.

Manitoba has arguably the second strongest public child care sector, behind the enviable $7-a-day service in Quebec (though we hear of many reports that accessibility to spaces in Manitoba is far greater).

The government has poured millions over the past 8 budgets to strengthen child care across the province. More than 6,000 new spots have opened up. Wages for workers have gone up.

And despite the Harper government pulling out of the national child care deal reached with the former Martin administration, every dollar has been backfilled by the province.

Of course the government could always do more, but few sectors have done as well in the past few years comparatively as the child care sector.

They come close to post-secondary students in terms of their leadership's dishonesty in portraying their "plight" under NDP rule.

A tale of two critiques

2007-04-08T22:13:00.000-05:00

"(T)ruly bold initiatives are lacking."

"Unfortunately the budget was an opportunity missed ... (filled with) low expectations and an acceptance of mediocrity for our future."

The above two quotes were said by prominent spokespeople about last week's provincial budget.

The quiz of the day is which side said this, that the budget was disappointing to them? The right or the left?

The answer is -- both.

If you didn't know better, by reading the media you'd think Greg Selinger delivered at least two completely different budgets last week.

One version -- there wasn't a single tax cut worthwhile to be seen and social spending is out of control.

The other version -- the tax cuts were far deeper than Manitobans want and a betrayal of core NDP values.

Here is a passage from Dave Angus's predictable missive on the weekend, feigning surprise the budget did not make Newt Gingrich happy on tax cuts: "I was confident that the message of our uncompetitive tax structure was not lost on this government and they recognized the economic benefits to adopting a framework that would attract investment and job growth."

Why was he so surprised? Because"(t)he province had received unprecedented levels of equalization, $117 million increase from the federal government..."

Let's get this straight. Because equalization was finally brought back to the 10-province formula as Harper promised, this should be poured into tax cuts for Angus's members?

Hmm. Didn't Jean Charest do that? We recall it didn't work out the best for him.

But let's get real on taxes for business. In 1999 when Gary Filmon left office, Manitoba's small business tax rate was the second highest in the land at 8%. It is now 1% -- the lowest in the land by far.

So, does Dave Angus or Shannon Martin -- the former Tory staffer who never ran a business, as far as we're aware, but now head of the Manitoba branch of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business -- publicly recognize that Manitoba's small business tax rate is now the lowest in the land? No. Nothing.

(On the same theme, for years the Free Press has campaigned on increasing the provincial funding of education to 80%. Do they even tip their hat? No. All the FreeP does is complain about only $10 million specifically allocated specifically to Lake Winnipeg -- even though more than $130 million is dedicated for water and wastewater infrastructure projects that will help the root causes of water quality in the lake and across the province.)

Anyway, the not-enough-tax-cuts view is in contrast with that of Manitoba's left wing. A piece by CCPA's Shauna MacKinnon and Jim Silver in the Free Press was subtly titled "Doer abandons his principles".

"A major illustration," of the way Gary Doer is supposed to be abandoning his NDP roots according to the duo "is the way in which this budget kowtows to the tax-cutting lobby."

Whaaa?

So which is it?

We wager most Manitobans will understand that the 2007 budget is a solid, balanced plan with strong investment in priority areas and good tax cuts for business and families.

At some point both groups should realize they're overplaying their cards a bit and get back to reality.

Three posts in one night ... yikes

2007-04-03T21:56:00.000-05:00

OK, here's the scoop -- the first post of the evening was one made by an Addict yesterday that we didn't get to. The one below has been sitting since the weekend by another.

So this third should be overkill. But we can't help ourselves.

Without comment, we offer a couple of gems that we were just notified have hit You Tube.

Enjoy.

Whew!

An attempt at a clarification

2007-04-03T21:25:00.000-05:00

We get mail. We always answer -- not always to correspondents' satisfaction, we admit.

We received a note from Mr. Bernie Bellan (apologies for earlier misspellings) taking us to task for writing this last week:

"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."

Well, that the matter is under investigation is not in dispute. But our characterization was clearly not quite right. It was more the issue of Bellan offering to drop out of the race if the government agreed to his terms.

What those terms are exactly was the subject of some back and forth with Bellan.

Here's how the Free Press's Gabrielle Giroday characterized the situation on Sept.23, 2006:

"The shareholder who was one of the first to tip off Crocus Investment Fund investors to irregularities in the fund is now in hot water for e-mails he sent to the premier's office.

"Bernie Bellan announced last month he will seek the provincial Liberal nomination in the Assiniboia riding, potentially pitting him in an election race against NDP Energy Minister Jim Rondeau.

"However, Bellan's campaign may already be in trouble, thanks to e-mails suggesting he would not
run for a provincial nomination if the government settled with Crocus shareholders over at least $60 million worth of lost investments."

That is not quite so, now says Bellan to the Addicts:

"I didn't specify what it was that I was suggesting the government might offer to Crocus shareholders that would induce me to drop out of the race. As I told the investigators from Elections Manitoba, I was being deliberately vague because I thought the NDP would simply take my idea and promote it as their own unless I had some guarantees from them beforehand.

"What I was after was an increase in tax credits to Crocus shareholders who I thought, were about to be able to redeem their Crocus shares for cash as a result of the pending GrowthWorks offer to purchase all Crocus shares."

There's a lot more, but that's basically it. Those who have read the email in question (not us) and the reporter seemed to think Bellan was saying he wanted a settlement to drop out. Bellan says he was vague and was really angling for a new tax credit scheme.

So there you have it. Maybe.

Money Back Guarantee

2007-04-03T19:14:00.000-05:00

Mia Rabson provides one of the most concise explanations of why wait time guarantees are the worst health policy trend to come along since provincial governments of the 1990s cut enrollment in medical and nursing schools with the view that the ageing baby boomers should actually need fewer nurses and doctors to look after them.

The Wait Time Guarantee promise by Canada's New Government™ was a gimmicky act by people who have no real power over health care delivery in this country except to give money to the provinces and make vague threats to Alberta about enforcing the Canada Health Act.

(Of course the previous ill-fated Martin campaign had little ground to stand on calling Harper's crew gimmicky in the policy business.)

Having politicians decide how long you should wait for your heart surgery or hip replacement has had perverse results in other jurisdictions where it's been tried - like Great Britain.

Patients who are closing in on the "guaranteed" waiting time get care before other patients who may actually have greater medical need. Waiting for cancer treatment is not the same thing as waiting in line at the deli counter. Medicare was not designed to be "first come, first served". The goal of our health care system is to get people what they need when they need it -- no matter who they are or how much money they have. And generally, we try to let nurses and doctors decide how quickly you need care based on the seriousness of your condition.

Working with health care providers to reduce wait times has actually had good results in Manitoba. As Mia points out, cancer treatment times are down to about a week -- one of the shortest waits in the country. This was achieved because the government worked with Cancer Care Manitoba to keep radiation therapists working here and replace old equipment that was constantly breaking down after the decade of neglect, otherwise known as the "Filmon Years" (see current Manitoba Nurses Union campaign). Investing in people and machines -- that's the way to shorten wait lists.

But, hey, we'll still take the money from the feds. They've been shortchanging health care for decades, while racking up massive budget surpluses. It's the least -- literally -- that they could do.

Tabloid shocker: Bunkbeck clears Selinger

2007-03-28T22:26:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-27T09:41:00.000-05:00

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.

-------------------

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

2007-03-22T09:38:00.000-05:00

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.

---------------------------

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

2007-03-21T09:52:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-18T21:17:00.000-05:00

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.

------------------------------

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

2007-03-15T22:28:00.000-05:00

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?

2007-03-15T09:36:00.000-05:00

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.

----------------------------------

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

2007-03-13T10:44:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-12T09:40:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-09T08:07:00.000-06:00

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

2007-03-08T08:29:00.000-06:00

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

2007-03-05T23:32:00.000-06:00

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

2007-03-04T12:17:00.000-06:00

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

2007-03-03T12:54:00.000-06:00

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

2007-03-03T12:00:00.000-06:00

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'

2007-03-01T23:07:00.000-06:00

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!

--------------------------------

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.

Sexing Up Crocus

2007-02-28T20:51:00.000-06:00

There's a cynical saying in modern journalism that one shouldn't let the facts get in the way of a good story.

The recent media feeding frenzy over the Crocus Investment Fund (or CIF to those who actually read the auditor's report) is a good illustration of this maxim in practice.

With the Opposition stepping into a big cowpie over alleged "withholding" of material from the Auditor General, we try to hang on to some hope that Manitoba's journalists haven't completely given up on their responsibility to pursue truth, not just a sensational headline. In that spirit, here's a recap of what we actually know about the recent developments on the Crocus file:

1) The government did exactly what the leaked cabinet document recommends -- saying "no" to Crocus' request for a relaxed set of rules - thereby protecting taxpayers and Crocus shareholders.

In fact, the document says that if the government had done what Crocus asked, the liquidity and pacing concerns would possibly get worse in the future.

However, as it turns out, as the auditor's report actually shows, the liquidity problem that was raised in 2000 never actually occurred.

2) The issues in the leaked document -- whether the Fund would have enough cash to pay back investors without selling off some of its investments (liquidity) and whether there should be changes to how often someone could invest in the fund (pacing) -- were not the reasons why the Fund ultimately failed. Crocus failed because its shares were overvalued -- something the auditor determined the government had nothing to do with and the cabinet document doesn't discuss.

3) And of course, the Auditor General did indeed have the cabinet document in question when he looked at Crocus. Jon Singleton may not remember it, but his former Office has verified that it was part of the evidence they considered when they wrote the report that cleared the government of any responsibility for the Fund's failure. The auditor's report also clearly states that the liquidity and pacing issues -- which were in the Cabinet document -- were well-known by the government in mid-2000 (before the Cabinet document's date of November 2000).

So here's what the big story boils down to:

* there's a document written by government Finance officials advising the government to protect taxpayers, which the government did;
* this document contains information that everyone who actually followed the issue already knows -- because it was reviewed and reported on by the Auditor two years ago; and
* this document is about a totally different issue than the one that led to the collapse of Crocus --- overvalued shares.

Let's face it. The real issues surrounding Crocus is boring. Reporting on "liquidity", "pacing" and "valuation" does not make for front page copy.

It's much more exciting to cover the misguided memory of a former auditor, the overheated imaginations of the Opposition who sexed up the relevance of a leaked 6 1/2 year old Cabinet paper -- and who have constructed an elaborate conspiracy theory that more properly belongs on Art Bell's late night radio show than any respectable news program.

The media has a responsibility to do more than tell a good story. They are trusted to tell the truth -- even when it's desperately unsexy.

Salivating opposition have severely overplayed their hand

2007-02-28T07:41:00.000-06:00

Well, well, well.

We now learn the smoking gun turns out to be a puff of smoke.

Despite clear evidence that the 'shocking' leaked cabinet paper contained no new issues that weren't dealt with in Jon Singleton's report, and that (as the auditor's report clearly and correctly delineated) there is a world of difference between liquidity and pacing concerns versus the later Crocus valuation debacle -- the opposition, encouraged by an unquestioning media, kept on perpetuating confusion for days in hopes of creating a "scandal".

An indignant Hugh McFadyen reported Monday that he called Singleton on the weekend and the former auditor didn't recall the document. Ooooh, it must have been hidden said Hugh. And the media was happy to repeat it all.

But chinks in this line of reasoning, such as it was, emerged pretty quickly. Yesterday, to her credit, the Peg Sun's Rochelle Squires got to the heart of the Singleton issue that should have been asked immediately. She quoted the former auditor as saying: "There's nothing about this document that wasn't covered in our report," even though he apparently doesn’t recall seeing it.

Isn’t that the most important thing? Whether this leaked document was at all relevant, not just that it was seemingly new? Why didn’t anyone in the media ask that before?

Too bad few people, including her bosses at the Sun and Tory cheerleader Tom Blowback, paid much attention.

Moreover, it now seems much of the excitement around Singleton's lack of recalling the document was a mere memory lapse.

So we’re treated to days of breathless media coverage based on Jon Singleton’s amnesia? That's pathetic.

Maybe the media will realize the opposition (and the media themselves to a degree) have severely overplayed their hand. And maybe, just maybe, the media will now begin to be a little more measured while chasing every test balloon the opposition throws out on Crocus.

As to the heart of the whole Crocus issue -- if you believe the government should have rang the alarm on Crocus in 2000 over liquidity gripes faced by almost all companies at some point, then you believe in state socialism. You would therefore believe that the government is responsible for what happens internally in all private firms, that investors are not responsible for their own due diligence and the public should be told by the government who the winners and losers in our economy are.

Who would have guessed Hugh McFadyen and Jon McGerrard are socialists?

Does Singleton have memory problems -- or did Huey simply get it wrong?

2007-02-26T18:13:00.000-06:00

Still nursing this flu ... so we've been on the web and watching TV for a good part of the day.

And having done so, we need to ask whether the Winnipeg media are stupid, or worse, complicit in putting forward a lie?

Here's what we mean. This is the new "news" of the day:

Huey says as to the 2000 Cabinet paper that has the media in a tizzy: "I phoned [Singleton] at home and he said that he had no recollection of seeing that document; if he had seen it he would have remembered it, because it was a very significant document."

However, spending a couple of minutes looking online through the Crocus report, which anyone could do, here is a quote from Singleton's report (found in full here) on this very topic of liquidity concerns back in 2000! That's right, 2000.

-------------------------------------------------

CIF was very up front with IEDM as early as mid-2000 on the fact that they would run into liquidity problems if pacing continued to be based on 70% of gross sales;

------------------------------------------------

So, either Singleton has a bad memory -- because in the report he seems clear that he understood the liquidity issue goes back to the same time as the cabinet paper. Or Hugh is either purposefully or accidentally mischaracterizing Singleton.

That the opposition is happy to confuse the liquidity and pacing issue with the actual problems with the value of Crocus's investments that led to shares stopping trading in 2004 is not at all surprising.

They want the confusion.

But that Manitoba news outlets are happily following along, confusing the issues is doing their public a great disservice.

In effect, they are lying to Manitobans.

At home with the flu ...

2007-02-26T10:28:00.000-06:00

And the rest of the BBA crew has been generally derelict in their blogging duties. Tut, tut.

Through the fog of ailment, however, we notice a good correspondent has sent us this thought for the day:

"You have to wonder about priorities of the Leader of the Loyal Opposition, who demands the Premier return from Washington early and NOT press the U.S. on passport issues (the top story on CTV national last night and leading national papers today) -- an urgent issue affecting virtually every Manitoban, every Canadian and a huge portion of our economy. Instead, Hugh McFadyen demands the Premier come home to address a six-year-old document that merely confirms what was already known -- that Crocus wanted its liquidity and pacing requirements relaxed and an even bigger tax break, a request which the government denied. All old news.

What sort of message does that send Manitobans about McFadyen's judgment as to relative priority of issues facing our province?"

Good question.

More tomfoolery

2007-02-22T08:31:00.000-06:00

So Bunkbeck takes a run at David Suzuki today, retreading the old saw that unless the good doctor tours the country in a Prius, eats macrobiotic salads exclusively and wears a hair shirt, he is a shameless hypocrite and therefore there is no human-created climate change.

Ahh, stretch that out for 400 words and Tom's work is done for the day.

Nice work if you can get it.

It's just another example of the typical intellectual laziness and dishonesty coming from our favourite overpaid blowhard (at least that's what we hear his colleagues at the 'Peg Sun have to say about our Tom).

We also are trying to understand Tom's past couple of days' crusade over Spirited Energy expenditures. We read that he got a printed out list of every single payment made on the campaign, rather than photocopies of the actual invoices. And this calls for, apparently, a look by the Auditor General.

We're not sure what Tom thinks is there, but apart from likely being a waste of Carol Belringer's time, it might be helpful to have her do an audit, if for no other reason than to perhaps further expose Bunkbeck's obsession with his anti-NDP tomfoolery.

Solidarity not quite forever

2007-02-18T10:34:00.000-06:00

In the file called strange news releases, we add to the one noted by Mia about Steven Fletcher's odd decision to use taxpayer resources for a partisan congratulatory message, by noting this one from newly-minted Treasury Board president Vic Toews.

On the surface, it is a completely ignorable document congratulating his own government for its agriculture initiatives -- itemizing increased payments in some sectors and other things totally indistinguishable from a policy point of view from the previous Liberal administration.

But then, there's the way this news release -- of no apparent news value -- ends:

On Western Canadian wheat and barley producers, Minister Toews said the following:

"We have a world-class product and farmers should have the option to maximize their returns and earn their money directly from the marketplace if they choose. Canada’s New Government listened to Western Grain producers when they said that they wanted marketing choice for wheat and barley while continuing to preserve a strong Canadian Wheat Board. The government is giving them an opportunity to stand and be counted by voting in a plebiscite."

Out of the blue, for no apparent particular outward reason, Toews gives a bland, lukewarm nod to the referendum on the Wheat Board.

We can just imagine the phone conversation that led to this document.

Chuck Strahl: Hey, Vic. It's me, Chuck. You know, you've been kinda silent on this Wheat Board thing.

Vic: Well, you know Chuck, it's kind of divisive in my back yard. You know most Manitoba farmers don't like what we're doing.

Chuck: Yeah, Vic. It's that kind of team solidarity that makes me warm and fuzzy all over. I'm also hearing you're dissing me to anyone who will listen.

Vic: Well, er ...

Chuck: Fix this, Vic. Set the record straight -- or this will be at Cabinet.

Vic: Sure thing, Chuck. You got it.

One tepid statement of support, coming up.

----------------------------------------

And while we're referring to inappropriate interventions by Steven Fletcher, his apparent cold call to Mia Rabson last week to go nuts over the East Side transmission line was a bit of a head scratcher.

We thought now in government, Fletcher may have less time on his hands to play silly-bugger. Apparently not.

----------------------------------------

While we're looking at the Wheat Board vote, why isn't the Manitoba government making some hay over the three ridiculous ballot questions being asked by Strahl?

We mean, really, the party that brought us the idea of the Clarity Act is now imposing a referendum on farmers that is anything but clear.

We could hear the clip now: "We wonder why the Conservative Party feels clarity is important for Quebec referendums, but it's not good enough for Western producers?"

---------------------------------------

Lastly, we feel for the Peg Sun's John Gleeson, as we think he must hate his job.

Last week he lamented Sun readers' apparent lack of intelligence with their anger over some businesses' opposition to a new holiday in February.

As he made the stock drive-by slurs on our province with a bunch of Saskatchewan-envy lines straight out of Adrienne Batra's talking points (they have some lower tax rates than us, you know -- it's outrageous) and an attempt at a clever turn of phrase ("It's like the public is saying, 'Give us the circus, but you can hold the bread'"), the overall message from Gleeson is clear.

His readers are stupid.

That must really suck.

It’s time the Flat Earth Society had its due

2007-02-11T22:19:00.000-06:00

Tom Blowback’s latest weekend missive attacks media coverage of the most authoritative report on climate change ever made public. It was authored by 2,500 of the world’s leading climate scientists.

His basic point was the reporting was one-sided – where were the climate change deniers? How sloppy, he said.

Well, there’s a simple reason why – the consensus, actually, is one-sided and most observers, even the-not-too-diligent media types, are now generally aware that these doubters are a tiny minority in the science community and most can be easily demonstrated to be funded by big oil and other non-renewable energy interests like Exxon.

This has been well demonstrated. They have been exposed, debunked, outed.

Their last hurrah in Canada was last year when some 60 signatories sent a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper urging him to ignore the legitimate science and overwhelming evidence.

As it turns out, only 19 of the signatories are Canadian (speaking to the American base of this organized, funded denial campaign). One example of the Canadians to sign (as outlined at desmogblog.com), Ross McKitrick, a senior fellow with the Fraser Institute was one of the signatories, received $120,000 from ExxonMobil over the last three years.

A few days after Prime Minister Harper received that letter, another came from 90 of Canada's most senior climate scientists and oceanographers. This second letter cited "an increasing urgency to act on the threat of climate change", and called upon the government to develop a national policy on climate change and strategies to adapt to what it said was "the inevitable changes that will affect us all".

As most Canadians understand, global climate change caused by human activity is real and must be addressed. That's why Harper is running hard to catch up to the issue.

To give the Exxon-funded deniers more media bandwith would simply be a tragedy. They’ve had too much space already.

It would be like giving equal air time to the Flat Earth Society.

We’re not sure who Tom is trying to impress.

It sure won’t be his children and grandchildren.

----------------------

The Mountain Avenue opinion and editorial typing school demonstrated again last week how totally out of touch they are with the Manitobans whose political and policy views they are trying to influence.

Former city hall reporter, now editorialist, Dave O’Brien launched a tirade on Gary Doer’s convention speech last week – specifically his comments about the Tories’ propensity for privatization.

O'Brien states that when Doer pointed out that McFadyen would undoubtedly take Manitoba Hydro down the privatization road, it was nothing more than a scare tactic.

Huey McFadyen highlighted in his own bios that he sat around the cabinet table and helped orchestrate the sale of MTS.

O’Brien stated the issue is now “so politicized” that we can never find out objectively if actually privatizing Hydro would be good or bad.

He asks the wrong question. It's not about looking at studies and reports. It's about motivation. And the motivation behind privatizing MTS was not efficiency, but greed.

Undervalued stocks led to a very successful public offering, and lots of Manitobans made money, to be sure. But that money was made off of value created by decades of ordinary Manitobans’ investments – you, us, our parents, our grandparents. And that’s all gone.

On top of it, it has led to increased rates in many areas outside Winnipeg. This is in stark contrast to SaskTel, providing quality service at low rates.

The motivation for privatizing Hydro would not be efficiency. Regardless of the outcome of a dozen reports it would be the same, greed.

The chink in McFadyen’s tin armour is his history. As we noted he has admitted to a key role in organizing the sale of MTS. He was one of Filmon’s top advisors when Filmon first promised not to sell MTS and then did just the opposite after the 1995 election.

Then there's Hugh’s own history with the Mike Harris government as a consultant on deregulating Ontario Hydro – which was not successfully fully privatized due to public outrage. But it was chopped up and Ontario’s power system is a true mess as a result – including outrageous power rates.

So when the Premier speaks about the Tories selling Manitoba Hydro, it's not a scare tactic it's a reference to past performance by Tories. It's in their blood.

O’Brien and company can try to sell Hydro privatization to the broad public. But we think that dog won’t hunt.

Note to Mr. O'Brien: it's not a scare tactic when it's true.

Holiday rap

2007-02-06T22:50:00.000-06:00

It looks like virtually everyone wants a February holiday.

Spurred on by the introduction of "Family Day" in neighbouring Saskatchewan, local radio jocks Tom and Joe at 92 CITI have been waging a campaign the past while, including an online petition with thousands of signers. Late last week the Free Press got on the bandwagon.

But it looked like the Manitoba government was the big stick in the mud with labour minister Nancy Allen turning a cool shoulder on the idea, saying it wasn't a government priority at the moment.

Tom Blowback wakes up to the issue today, giving credit to the CITI guys and others for driving the issue and slamming the premier as Gary-come-lately, while not saying where he stands nor why the Sun never woke up to this issue at all.

Either on purpose or accident, he gets the history of this little thing totally wrong.

"The issue even made it on the agenda at the NDP convention over the weekend, receiving overwhelming support from voting delegates," he writes.

Even made it on the agenda?

Here's the last line from Mia Rabson's Jan. 31 story previewing the NDP convention:

"There is competition afoot over a statutory holiday on Feb. 15. The St. Norbert NDP wants it to become Flag Day, while the Riel constituency wants the same day designated Tommy Douglas Day."

Not just MADE it onto the agenda, but there were two competing resolutions.

Further, as Tom wouldn't know or bother to find out, the deadline for submission of such resolutions from constituencies was Dec. 19.

So just so everyone is clear, the party was WAY ahead of CITI and the others.

Now that a February holiday seems like an unstoppable train, it's little wonder Tom took a pass on his usual modus operandi of quoting the largely interchangable Batra-Starmer-Martin-Angus surrogate Conservative Party talking heads to begin mounting an opposition campaign.

He's not that dumb.

If the government didn't want to seem ahead of the issue too early and simply be slammed as "anti-business" by the same baying proxy Tories mentioned above, who can blame them?

The way it's turned out, Gary Doer should get credit for bringing in the holiday with Manitobans and credit within the party for turning a grassroots convention resolution into law.

And he can also credibly tell the business community it wasn't an idea the nasty socialist government has foisted upon them, but a widespread movement that all parties got behind.

It's just too bad it doesn't look like it's going to be "Tommy Douglas Day", but a day off next February sounds pretty good to us.

Vic's stenographer

2007-02-01T22:27:00.000-06:00

Today CTV reports that the C-17 contract is all but signed and Quebec is "only" getting about 25%-30% of the desirable aerospace contracts, while Manitoba retains about 20%.

On the surface, this appears to contradict reports Quebec senior cabinet minister, Sen. Michel Fortier, whose signature is needed to finalize any deal, would not sign the papers unless 40% went to Quebec firms. These suggestions raised the spectre of the CF-18 affair -- an episode in pure pork barrel politics from a Conservative government in Ottawa with Manitoba at the losing end over Quebec.

Following that point in time, even mentioning Brian Mulroney's name in this province could cause fisticuffs for years to follow.

However, today's news would seem to vindicate Tom Blowback’s recent column asserting forcefully (particularly forcefully) that the reports of Fortier's interference were just that -- made up, invented reports by malicious media types.

"Just a media "report" alleging he's "reportedly" doing it (that's media-speak for we don't really know but we'll say it anyway), regurgitated by other media and splashed on the front page like a cow's breakfast at dinner time."

Slap down time, Tom! Nice one. Hit 'em agin'.

Of course Tom went on to extensively quote Vic Toews about how the whole thing was nonsense and after all, Fortier was never quoted anywhere saying anything like that.

True enough.

But isn't it odd that several national media had attributed in separate stories comments like that to Fortier at the same time, quoting senior, yet anonymous, federal government sources? Did they really just make it up? Or could they have been just repeat something some idiot told them without checking?

What's the deal?

Consider this from the Globe and Mail this past Tuesday, by reporter Daniel Leblanc:

"Public Works Minister Michael Fortier, who is also the minister responsible for Montreal, had been fighting behind the scenes to obtain the "maximum for Quebec," a government source said. But Mr. Fortier failed to secure benefits in the 40-per-cent range for Quebec as he had hoped, and the government is now publicly thwarting any effort to increase benefits in favour of a specific region...

"The issue has created touchy relations between Mr. Fortier and the Department of National Defence, which wants the planes as soon as possible and feels that his demands for benefits in Quebec are unrealistic."

Seems like it maybe wasn't all nonsense now, does it? A quick Google search of Daniel Leblanc and you find out he's a veteran on Parliament Hill and one of the journos who broke the sponsorship scandal (whut dat?).

So, you decide who's more likely to have had the goods: an investigative journalist with serious sources in Ottawa, who stands by his story even after official government denials; or a cartoonish Winnipeg columnist who regularly does steno work for Vic Toews?

-----------------------------

So why did Fortier actually lose? Because of the great power of Vic Toews?

Hmm. Maybe.

Or maybe the PM remembers all-too-well CF-18 and how it served to alienate the West from not just Eastern Canada, but from Mulroney's Tories, giving rise to the Reform Party.

He should remember it very well, yes?

-------------------------------

ANNOUNCEMENT: We're introducing a new feature called Kevvie Watch. In today's instalment, we merely want to extend our well wishes to the soon-to-be-former-(again) MLA for Inkster who plans to pay for an observer seat at the NDP convention this weekend. Enjoy yourself, sir. We're sure the party will gladly take your money. (Try a few raffle tickets while you're there.)

BBA Mulligan day

2007-01-25T08:36:00.000-06:00

We're well behind in commenting on things we wanted to over the past while. So we take this opportunity to write a few brief things on breaking stuff, and a couple of Mulligans from the last week or so:

CF-18 redux? Hard to tell at this point. Sen. Fortier's letter in the FreeP this morning has him denying media reports quoting him saying more than 40% of the Boeing C-17 contracts must be in Quebec before he'll sign. On the other hand, in the math of the upcoming federal election, Harper will give a much bigger damn about Quebec than he will Manitoba.

Good news for Harper. A clear sign that Stephane Dion has poor political instincts is the story reported in the Quebec City newspaper Le Soleil yesterday that he would not object to the lifting of the Liberal's ban on senior organizer Marc-Yvan Côté -- a former Quebec cabinet minister and central figure in Adscam. (Unless we missed it, there didn't seem to be a story in either the FreeP or the Sun. Odd. It's a big story in our view.)

Wheat Board. Manitoba farmers overwhelmingly voted to support single desk selling. There was some griping from Wheat Board opponents, but no one can credibly argue that the majority has not spoken clearly and loudly in this province about the future of the CWB.

Ironically, on the day of the result, Chuck Strahl complained about the Manitoba vote and said question was torqued, then immediately announced there would be a federal vote on wheat (after giving no such assurance in the past). Then, a few days later, his office releases what his version of the question (or as it turns out, three questions) that are so meaningless, if asked they will only highten producers' anger -- even many who would have been open to monkeying around with the Wheat Board. Strange strategy.

"They may as well have asked if farmers would like to sell their barley to little green men from Mars for $200 a bushel," said NFU president Stewart Wells.

Good line.

Wonder one of the first people to propose a Clarity Act for any future referendum in Quebec might hand a copy over to Strahl? Nah. Clarity's fine for Quebec, but Westerners are better off with double- and triple-speak.

Tory/Liberal candidate in Kirkfield Park? Just bizarre, actually.

Hugh's revamped site hosts loony right views

2007-01-23T21:42:00.000-06:00

Our sharp-eyed readership noticed that Huey has revamped his personal webpage, and on it there are a selection of news articles that, of course, either praise him and the PCs, or dump on Gary Doer and the NDP.

Not too surprising.

Odd, though, is this little missive from the Western Standard (entitled "Manitoba's Spirited Status Quo" -- ho, ho, ho, chortle -- good one). The Standard is a Republican-yahoo wanna-be publication from Alberta. In this case its writer, Calgary Herald scribbler Ric Dolphin gives an interesting and highly inventive view on Manitoba's political scene -- for the clearly uninterested, navel gazing oilpatch crowd.

Well, there's perhaps no accounting for taste among Huey's staff, but nonetheless it's a very strange piece to put on your site. The implication of course, without any disclaimer as a fig leaf at all, is that Huey heartily endorses the views expressed therein.

Here, then, is a little taste of the views that Hugh apparently agrees with:

"The poll came after the Tories had knifed their former leader, Stuart Murray, in November, forcing the confidence vote that led to the leadership campaign. Murray, 51, a former roadie with Blood, Sweat and Tears, and married to the heiress of the Domo gasoline fortune (slogan: "We Jump to the Pump"), was a nice, bland, ineffectual chap who lacked the killer instinct and seemed polite in legislative debate.

"McFadyen is youthful, glib and urbane in the way that his old boss Filmon once was. He even looks a bit like Filmon in his salad days--compact, slick and stock-brokerish. He's well connected to the Winnipeg Tory establishment that revolves around the brokerage firm Wellington West, where guys like Filmon, now 63, ply their trade among the antique beams and sandblasted brick in the gentrified Winnipeg warehouse district. McFadyen also has those ties to the moneyed Jewish crowd of which his former boss, the well-liked self-made multimillionaire Mayor Katz, 54--arguably the second most powerful elected official in the province--is the political pontiff."

Knifed their former leader?

Well connected to the Winnipeg Tory establishment that revolves around the brokerage firm Wellington West?

Glib?

Well, these nuggets happen to be true, but kind of astonishing he'd put them on his site.

Here are some other memorable quips in the piece:

"[Manitoba is] this black hole at the geographical centre of the Dominion ..."

"In the leadership race that had McFadyen pitted against two conservative Conservatives from the sticks..."

"The only growth appears to be among the native Indian population, and that fact, alas, brings the predictable social ills..."

Nice. Very nice.

On the point of that last quote, we Googled this Dolphin guy, 'cause his name kinda rung a bell and we found out why.

Last year he wrote a piece on the Klein legacy (whut dat?) and the Alberta Conservative leadership. It got some attention for the following:

"Colleen's [Klein] influence is seen as destructive and her motives less than altruistic. 'Once she stops being the premier's wife, she goes back to being just another Indian,' says one of Klein's fishing buddies, in an unkind reference to Colleen's Native heritage. 'Colleen likes being picked up in a car with security and being driven to her next function,' says a longtime campaign manager close to both Kleins."

And in 2003 he was whacked by the Alberta Press Council for several pieces that were pretty negative on Aboriginal people, including calling Aboriginal communities "nests of hopelessness ... the road to hell ... and a society in shambles." The council also found "(t)here were many other statements in the columns that the complainants found offensive."

You think maybe this guy has issues or something?

The council fined Dolphin's employer, the Asper-owned Calgary Herald. Wonder if those articles will show up on display in the Museum of Human Rights?

After all, if they're good enough for the Leader of the Official Opposition ...

Hmm, it looks more like straw on the ice than "sweeping away", but if you say so ...

2007-01-21T11:05:00.000-06:00

“I wouldn’t say I’d never consider it but it’s not something I’m considering right now.”

That's from Mia Rabson's blog re: the rampant rumour we put flesh on a while back about Jennifer Jones running for Team Huey. Rabson says this puts the rumour to rest. However, the quote doesn't exactly sound like it's being put to rest to us -- there's more wiggle room there than in a (Bill) Clintonism.

On the other hand, perhaps she has indeed closed the door for this time around. She may well have followed our advice and called Hugh's bluff, thereby blanking the end and dashing McFadyen's hopes of Jones as his button draw.

Ugh, enough with the metaphors.

-------------------------------

We note our best buddy Tom Bunkbeck's latest installment in his one-man-mission to convince all that Manitoba is the worst s***hole on the planet.

He tees off today by refering to the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce 's "Making Manitoba a Have Province" campaign as proof that our economy is in the crapper.

Well, if that's the Chambers' goal, it certainly isn't stated anwhere we could find. In fact they seem to accentuate the positive as often as possible:

It begins with what we are calling a ‘grand discussion’," explains MCC President Graham Starmer, "One that has the courage to ask the tough questions, builds on a common vision and moves to concrete action." Starmer says too often talk amounts to finger pointing, and harping on our differences and what divides us, rather than building on what unites us.

Who can argue with that?

All the negative stuff in their campaign that we could find seems to be relegated to this sorta weird "Manitobans have a collective character flaw" language:

The Making Manitoba a ‘Have’ Province pamphlet sets out three basic issues that are holding us back: we lack the courage to ask the tough questions, we lack a commitment to the vision, and we lack a course of action.

In any event, does anyone believe the Chambers won't come forward at the end of this campaign and say the results of their consultations show there should be deep tax cuts, especially for business?

No, of course no one belives that. It's their job. It will be expected.

An interesting thing, though, is Brodbeck's selective use of the Manitoba Chambers' campaigns.

On this one, he points to it as proof the province is in terrible shape -- which of course (a) is so far from the truth it's laughable and (b) even his readers don't believe it.

However, we recall that Tom was less moved by the other recent "attitude change" campaign the Chambers are a huge part of -- the Spirited Energy provincial branding project.

Ah well, that wouldn't fit his "s***hole" thesis, would it?