The Sausage Factory

with Dan Lett

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• How well do we know the rules of hockey?

  We laid down a challenge to all hockey fans: test your knowledge of the rules of the game. You responded in remarkable fashion.

  View Full Post 02/25/2013 10:47 AM 0

• In minor hockey, stupid is as stupid does

  

  If you have a son or daughter in hockey, you will likely come across this video sometime in the next few days. It shows a Selkirk hockey dad, Jason Boyd, infant child in arms, protesting a penalty against his 15-year-old son in a game at Southdale arena.

  View Full Post 02/16/2013 8:52 AM 0

• It's not a revenue problem. It's a revenue problem.

  Optics are a funny thing in politics. Thanks to attack ads, talking points, Question Period rhetoric and good old-fashioned retail political manipulation, we develop certain impressions of politicians, parties and even government. These impressions could be well-earned and accurate. Or they could be completely unfair. Sometimes the only way to really assess the labels we put on politicians is to look at the hard numbers.

  View Full Post 02/11/2013 2:00 PM 0

• Justin Trudeau's premature priministerial posture

  View Full Post 10/19/2012 12:44 PM 0

• Your scandal is bigger than my scandal

  

  Allegations of misconduct abound in federal politics right now. We've got the "robocall" scandal, where opposition parties believe the ruling Conservatives sent out fraudulent and misleading automated phone messages to NDP and Liberal voters to discourage them from voting. On the other side of the House of Commons, it's "@Vikileaks," where Tories are howling for more information about the Liberal political staffer who has taken responsibility for revealing intimate details of Public Safety Minister Vic Toew's divorce file via Twitter.

  View Full Post 03/2/2012 9:48 AM 0

• Flush the water park

  

  One of the best stories out of our City Hall bureau today explains that Mayor Sam Katz is getting very close to withdrawing a $7-million offer to a private developer – any private developer – to build a water park. If he withdraws the offer of funding, it would put to an end almost eight years of lamentable management of the recreational facilities file at city hall.

  View Full Post 02/23/2012 10:27 AM 0

• The rising cost of crime and punishment

  The Free Press has written numerous articles in the last few days on the rising cost of corrections, and concerns by the Manitoba Government Employees Union about prison overcrowding. I weighed in with a column pointing out that maybe it was time for the strident law-and-order advocates to figure out a way of paying for the increased costs of longer sentences and new criminal code offences. The provinces claim it will cost them billions of dollars to pay to administer and incarcerate the increased numbers of prison inmates that will accrue from the federal government's omnibus crime bill, expected to become law later this year.

  View Full Post 02/8/2012 11:59 AM 0

• Resisting the urge to hit ‘send’

  Those who know me, especially those unfortunate enough to receive my emails on a regular basis, will snicker a bit when they see that I am writing today to take politicians to task for sending out inappropriate emails and Tweets.

  View Full Post 11/30/2011 2:44 PM 0

• It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you

  Perhaps it was no coincidence that on Tues., Nov. 15, the same day the Free Press published a column on on Mayor Sam Katz and his failure to show up at Remembrance Day ceremonies, I had an opportunity to speak to a political science class at the University of Manitoba. The class, taught by the extremely well-informed Robert Ermel of the Manitoba Institute for Policy Research, wanted to discuss the relationship between the media and politicians. They couldn’t have picked a better day.

  View Full Post 11/16/2011 2:11 PM 0

• You can't both be right

  There is a reason why smaller provinces do not see a plethora of mid-campaign opinion surveys.

  View Full Post 09/27/2011 2:36 PM 0

• Writ of Election? We don't need no stinkin' writ of election. Part Deux.

  Here we are, a full seven days before the provincial election is expected to be officially called, and for all intents and purposes, the campaign has really already begun.

  View Full Post 08/30/2011 3:47 PM 0

• Payback is, well, an unpleasant experience

  Few politicians could be smiling more these days than Manitoba's Environment Minister Bill Blaikie. The source of his amusement is the current round of moaning and whining in Ottawa over the eviction of veteran Liberal MPs from their coveted Parliament Hill offices to make way for a C-Note of NDP MPs, elected in the Orange Wave in the most recent federal election.

  View Full Post 06/9/2011 9:53 AM 0

• Wake up and smell the season tickets

  Like many of you, I was shut out in my bid for season tickets to the AYUHT (pronounced Ay-Yoot, it means As Yet Unnamed Hockey Team). It wasn't a surprise -- I had previously predicted that pent up demand from Winnipeg hockey fans would snap up the tickets in no time. I mean, did you see the way people fought with each other to grab those free hockey sticks Canadian Tire was giving away last week? We've collectively lost our nut. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

  View Full Post 06/6/2011 12:11 PM 0

• Getting only what we deserve

  The Globe and Mail reported this week that the Conservative government will proceed soon with legislation to increase the number of federal seats in Ontario, Alberta and Quebec. Government House Leader Peter Van Loan told the G&M the move was necessary to address the needs of larger provinces with growing populations. “What has happened is that we’ve have had a situation arise where votes are worth very different amounts across the country,” Van Loan said. “This is because the existing formula restrains the growth of seats in areas that are experiencing high growth, particularly in Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia.”

  View Full Post 06/2/2011 1:31 PM 0

• Premature Ex-clamation

  pre*ma*ture ex*cla*ma*tion: /prēməˈCHo͝or ek-skluh-mey-shuhn/ Noun

  View Full Post 05/26/2011 4:53 PM 0

  1. Beer and wine, risk and reward

     It came as some surprise Thursday when the province announced it was revamping liquor laws to allow, among other things, the sale of beer and wine in grocery stores. It’s a pretty deft political move for the province, a measure that sounds like it could have been a plank in the Progressive Conservative election campaign platform this fall. Only it won’t be a Tory plank, because the NDP’s already done it. Clever, clever.

     View Full Post 05/20/2011 2:07 PM 0

  2. Nothing to see here

     Prime Minister Stephen Harper will unveil a new cabinet on Wednesday, his first as head of a majority government. Tory MPs and their supporters from coast to coast are on tenterhooks right now, waiting to see if they'll get a call from the backbenches up to the "show." Although nobody will know for sure until late tonight who's in and who's out, the smart money says the shuffle will produce precious little news here in Manitoba.

     View Full Post 05/17/2011 2:55 PM 0

  3. What’s an election watchdog to do?

     It seems to becoming more and more common for newly elected politicians to be accused of breaking basic rules of elections and campaigning. In Toronto, Mayor Rob Ford is facing allegations he exceeded his $1.3-million campaign last fall by $70,000. Fords critics are demanding a more detailed audit of his expense returns to determine, among other things, whether Ford used family holding companies to funnel money into his campaign, which would likely contravene a ban on corporate donations. Not surprisingly, the imperial grand poo-bah of Ford Nation has denied any wrongdoing.

     View Full Post 05/4/2011 6:05 PM 0

  4. My academic is bigger than your academic

     In journalism, I have always understood you can find someone to say almost anything you want if you look long enough. It’s not the most flattering admission to make, but most people who regularly consume the news probably already know if you need to prove something, you can always find someone to back you up. It’s what I have always referred to as “the sweet lemon theory of journalism.” Most of us know lemons are sour. But if you give me a laptop, Google and a couple of hours, I’ll find someone who can swear definitively that lemons are sweet.

     View Full Post 04/15/2011 4:34 PM 0

  5. Per vote subsidies? We don’t need no stinkin’ per vote subsidies

     It was no surprise that Prime Minister Stephen Harper revived the idea of ending the per vote subsidy available to registered political parties. Harper tried in 2008 to do away with this form of electoral financing, but a coalition of opposition parties threatened to bring down the Tory government on a vote of non-confidence, and the move was taken off the table. This week, Harper put it back on the table. "Taxpayers shouldn't have to support political parties that they don't support. I think that's people's choice," Harper said in New Brunswick.

     View Full Post 04/2/2011 2:40 PM 0