The Sausage Factory

with Dan Lett

• The first step is admitting you have a problem

  So there I was Wednesday morning at the Salvation Army breakfast to kick off kettle collection season and I bump into David Northcott of Winnipeg Harvest food bank and Zaz Bajon, general manager of the Manitoba Theatre Centre. The two prominent Winnipeggers are having a fascinating conversation about how both of their organizations are having trouble getting support from a constituency that was always money in the bank: seniors.

  With the decline in stock markets, incomes for senior citizens have taken a bath. Less disposable income means fewer season subscriptions to MTC, and fewer donations to Winnipeg Harvest. It’s a sign of the times.

  View Full Post | 19/11/2009 11:07 AM | 8

• The WRHA: a study in mass communications

  As a further follow-up to yesterday's high drama at the flu vaccination clinic, I’ve done some additional thinking about what happened and why. One loyal reader who commented on my blogs yesterday suggested that I get over the minor inconvenience of a three-hour delay in getting H1N1 vaccine for my children and get on with my life. Unfortunately, this comment is from someone who didn’t read my blog all the way to the end.

  This is NOT a story about a few lost hours at the clinic. I agree with the reader that it was a minor inconvenience. The big issue here is why the WRHA didn’t get information out to the public in a more timely fashion and why their spokespeople are taking liberties with the truth of what actually happened.

  View Full Post | 17/11/2009 9:45 AM | 7

• Update from H1N1 land: good news

  Shrek II is over, Finding Nemo has just begun AND THE ADJUVANTED VACCINE IS HERE!

  We're just heading in and remarkably the adjuvanted vaccine has arrived more or less on time. Clinic staff have done a good job of organizing us to fast-track through the system.

  View Full Post | 16/11/2009 1:23 PM | 2

• Report from the H1N1 front lines

  10:18 a.m.

  I thought I had beaten the system when I arrived at the Grant Park shopping centre flu vaccination clinic with my kids and wife at 8AM and found there were only a dozen people in line. My joy turned to disappointment when we were told just prior to the 9:30 AM opening that there was no adjuvanted vaccine for kids under 10 or for seniors over 65.

  View Full Post | 16/11/2009 10:31 AM | 2

• Our capacity for absurdity

  Why is it that society’s most absurd qualities come to the fore at those times when we can least afford to be absurd?

  Like now, as we’re all battling the H1N1 flu virus.

  View Full Post | 30/10/2009 10:58 AM | 6

• Short-snappers for Sept. 21

  With all the low-hanging fruit for political journalists these days, it’s hard to know where to take a bite first. Here is a short list of stories and issues that comprise the burrs under my saddle.

  Days when you just love being a journalist
  This story in the Globe and Mail is a fantastic bit of journalism. Anytime you catch a government in a conflict like that, it’s been a good day.

  View Full Post | 21/09/2009 12:26 PM | 2

• Premature Gesticulation?

  WINNIPEG — NDP leadership hopeful Steve Ashton spiced things up on Monday for countless journalists when he issued a news release that pretty much settled the matter of who was going to win the race to succeed Gary Doer.

  “Ashton in lead for Delegates: Possible win on first ballot”

  View Full Post | 14/09/2009 5:25 PM | 0

• Caldwell coy on leadership rumour

  Will he or won’t he? He apparently won’t. Maybe.

  The blogosphere and my email account were abuzz today about the rumor that Brandon East MLA Drew Caldwell was considering a late run for the NDP leadership. The buzz was created by a story in the Wheat City Journal that had Caldwell, the only man ever fired from a Gary Doer cabinet, getting lots of calls urging him to run.

  View Full Post | 10/09/2009 4:54 PM | 0

• Apparently, it was so.

  

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  B.C. Liberal leader Gordon Campbell celebrates his election win in May 2009. Campbell and most of his Liberal cabinet were re-elected, giving Campbell a rare third mandate. (HTTP://WWW.WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM/CANADA/BC-GRITS-GET-THIRD-MANDATE-44869267.HTML)

  After weeks of concern that B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell was seriously considering cuts to health care and education to battle the province’s growing budget deficit, the most conservative Liberal in Canada fulfilled everyone’s worst fears with a Speech from the Throne that calls for — you guessed it — cuts to health and education.

  I recently offered the opinion that it was lunacy to cut health care and education to battle deficits because we did that in the 1990s, and it has made the public health care system much more expensive now than it needed to be.

  View Full Post | 26/08/2009 11:04 AM | 5

• Lunacy repeating itself?

  Say it ain’t so, Gordon. Say it ain’t so.

  Word out of B.C. is that the conservative Liberal government of Gordon Campbell is considering cuts to health care services to help it deal with the economic downturn. B.C. New Democrats produced a briefing note from the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority outlining plans to eliminate thousands of elective surgeries, close emergency rooms and hospital beds.

  View Full Post | 14/08/2009 10:46 AM | 25

• An admission and a startling revelation

  It’s difficult to admit this, but recently I fell into the habit of reading more of my news online than in print.

  
  I know what you’re thinking. Columnist for a large metropolitan newsPAPER and he doesn’t even pick up a copy of the actual paper. I’m guilty, with an explanation.

  View Full Post | 10/08/2009 9:49 AM | 8

• Further to my excellent downtown adventure...

  It has occurred to me after reading some of the comments here, and those
  emailed directly to me, that one of the problems we have here is a dislike
  of "downtown lifestyle." People who grew up in larger, more dense cities
  have learned to live with/appreciate living in residences with less square
  footage, public transit, shopping at smaller stores instead of big boxes,
  and co-existing with the grittier issues that come with downtown
  (panhandlers, street crime, traffic, noise and lack of greenspace.) When as a
  young man living in Toronto was all about public transit, or cycling to and
  from work/social engagements, eating and shopping downtown, and craving the
  bustling, smelly, sometimes messy, eccentric culture of Toronto's downtown.
  
  In my formative days, Queen Street West was just coming into its own, and
  you could still barhop along Queen from University to Spadina and beyond in
  the original beverage rooms that occupied what was once a working class
  neighborhood. On return visits to Toronto from Ottawa, where I went to
  school, or the west, where I worked after school, I would take the Subway to
  Bloor and Yonge, and walk down Yonge all the way to Queen just to see all
  the trashy storefronts, the colorful locals and the grime. I think the point
  here is that if you love downtowns, I mean really love them, then you tend
  to crave the grit and Toronto continues to have lots of that.
  
  I'm thinking about Little Brazil along Dundas west of Bathurst, Parkdale,
  and the Lakeshore Village west from the 427 are just a few of the ones that
  come to mind. And by gritty, I don't mean trashy and unsafe; these are
  neighborhoods that haven't been renovated and revitalized into the
  gentrified Toronto that the rest of the country images. But these are places
  where lower-income housing still rules, where there are way more strip clubs
  and massage parlors than Starbucks, and some very colourful local characters
  rule the streets.
  
  My mother lived her last days out in a fantastic waterfront condo in the
  Lakeshore Village. The building itself was very upscale, yuppie Toronto but
  the surrounding neighborhood was wonderfully un-gentrified. In fact, there
  isn't a Starbucks on Lakeshore from the South Kingsway exit off the Gardiner
  Expressway all the way out to Port Credit (old Mississauga). Can you imagine
  it?
  
  The fact is, we've never had a large population of people living "downtown"
  and thus we've never really created a generation of people who can
  appreciate or at least navigate the good, the bad and the ugly of downtown
  lifestyle. No downtown is perfect, and even in those cities where there are
  tons of people living downtown; you still have to deal with drunks,
  panhandlers and street crime. Toronto must have one of the largest downtown
  residential communities of any city in Canada, and yet a quick review of the
  pages of Toronto newspapers will tell you that crime does not disappear with
  luxury condominiums or student residences.
  
  So, here's the next question for all you downtownfiles - will Winnipeg ever
  boast a portion of its population that appreciates downtown for all the good
  and bad that it implies? Or will we continue to be a city of suburbanites
  who don't crave and don't understand downtown?

  View Full Post | 5/07/2009 4:48 PM | 11

• My most wonderful downtown adventure

  This past weekend I was lucky enough to spend most of Saturday and part of Sunday in Winnipeg’s downtown.

  As a belated anniversary present, my wife and I stayed overnight (sans enfants) at Inn at the Forks, toured the Forks market and ate at a new downtown restaurant. If not for the horrendous weather, our plans had included trips to some of our favorite Exchange district galleries. Next time.

  View Full Post | 29/06/2009 2:41 PM | 7

• Reflections on Somali pirates, Canadian warships and rigors of flying

  

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  HMCS Winnipeg at sunset in the Gulf of Aden. (DAN LETT / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)

  It's been more than a week since I returned from nearly two weeks aboard HMCS Winnipeg, the Canadian warship that had been participating in a NATO-directed counter-piracy mission in the Gulf of Aden. Here, in brief, are some of the things I learned:

   

  View Full Post | 18/06/2009 9:52 AM | 2

• Guilty with an explanation

  Sometime before I had children, I was returning from a jaunt in the Assiniboine Forest with my dogs when I decided to stop at Grant Park Mall to pick up something from Safeway. After my purchase, I tried to exit the mall parking lot on the east side, and proceeded to make a right-hand turn on Wilton Street to make my way to Taylor Avenue.

  However, as soon as I made the turn, a police officer walked out of a lane across from the mall and waved me down. He informed me that there was a prohibition on right-hand turns and that he was going to give me a ticket. I was furious.

  View Full Post | 8/05/2009 11:38 AM | 5

• Buffoons make it easy

  

  Enlarge Image 

  VANCOUVER, B.C..: FEBRUARY 5, 2009 -- Solicitor General John van Dongen unveiled a newly redesigned, high-tech driver's licences and identification cards that will help curb identity theft, fraud and driving while prohibited. Vancouver, B. C. on February 5, 2009. (CP ARCHIVE)

  Journalism is a great job. I’ve always felt that what I do beats working for a living. Some of my detractors may agree with that comment, although they may apply a completely different connotation. Anyway, the days I love being a journalist usually involve stories like this.....

  Out in British Columbia, a provincial election is being waged amidst a wave of candidate resignations. First, it was NDP candidate Ray Lam who withdrew after risqué photos of him were found on his Facebook page. The NDP campaign headquarters said the photos were not posted on his networking site when he put his name forward to be a candidate. Apparently, in an act of unadulterated political stupidity, Lam went out and posted the grin-and-grope shots AFTER his name was put on the ballot.

  View Full Post | 4/05/2009 1:59 PM | 0

• Good, bad and downright ugly

  A quick perusal of the morning headlines will produce a wide range of ideas – good ones, bad ones and ideas that should be shot, buried and never talked about again.

  
  Good – although a little late

  View Full Post | 27/04/2009 11:27 AM | 3

• The Jack Bauer syndrome

  

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  President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush stand for the closing prayer on Jan. 20, after Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States. (JAE C. HONG / HE ASSOCIATED PRESS)

  In the category of guilty pleasures, I have to admit to being a loyal follower of the television show 24.

  I know it abuses stereotypes. I know it is silly and over the top. I know the plot line is more appropriate for comic books than prime time television.

  View Full Post | 23/04/2009 1:06 PM | 0

• Truth in advertising?

  

  Enlarge Image 

  The pamphlet Dan Lett received in the mail. (JAE C. HONG / HE ASSOCIATED PRESS)

  I really have to send a special shout out to the marketing department of the Conservative Party of Canada for their latest pamphlet, which arrived at my house about two weeks ago.

  Tory MP James Bezan, who many of you may know represents the good people of Selkirk-Interlake, sponsored the pamphlet. I live in the comfy confines of Winnipeg South Centre, which is represented by lonely Liberal MP Anita Neville.

  View Full Post | 21/04/2009 2:19 PM | 3

• Time to mix things up

  So, I’m back from the floods in Fargo, the image of the boneless chicken wings at Buffalo Wild Wings stilled burned into my memory.

  (It’s not my fault – they closed all the nice restaurants and BWW had free wifi.)
   
  So much has happened in the interim, so many things I wanted to touch on that I can’t think of exactly where to begin.
   
  So, in no particular order, here are my ‘if-I-had-blogged-over-the-past-two-weeks-this-is-what-I-would-have-blogged’ blog.
   
   
  Heh, heh, heh, heh – just kidding.
   
  Just as the river crest bore down on Fargo on the last week of March, the Free Press was contacted by a city communications officer to let us know that despite all appearances to the contrary, Fargo was open for spring break visitors.
   
  "We're hoping visitors will continue to come," Dean said. "Absolutely -- this is not a situation like '97 where we saw businesses closing and people being let off work to sandbag... Not even a shadow of what we saw in 1997."
   
  Dean’s comments were published in the Free Press, and in the Fargo Forum. By the time I arrived on the 26^th, many businesses were already closed, residents were being told to stay home and off roadways, the highway north of Fargo was closed by flooding and the city was bracing for a crest well in excess of the 1997 levels. In fact, Mayor Dennis Walaker had to chastise many businesses from trying to re-open before the worst of the crest threat was over.
   
  Let’s just say that when Dean’s comments were brought up with other flood fighting officials, there were more than a few “WTF’s” being thrown around by other city officials.
   
  Dean was nowhere to be seen by this reporter during my eight days in the flood zone. Word had it he had been giving a job on the front-line – on the wet side of the dikes.

   

   

  Don’t worry everyone! I’m from CNN and I’m here to help!

   

  I was pleased to see that upon my return, our good friend Jon Stewart had taken the time to discuss the North Dakota floods on The Daily Show.

   

  In particular, Stewart was occupied with a CNN reporter who did a stand-up while passing sandbags along a line of volunteers who were toiling in the Fargodome.  At the end of the stand up, the camera lingers just long enough to see the reporter stop handling sandbags as soon as the she thought the camera was off, and start wiping her hands. “Can a girl get a wet-wiiiiiiiiiiiiipe?” a howling Stewart asked.

   

  Although not as dramatic, I did witness “The Most Trusted Name in News” in action on my second day in Fargo.

   

  My photographer, Joe Bryksa, and I had gone to the Oak Grove neighbourhood of central Fargo to watch urgent sandbagging along a particularly flood-prone area. Standing on top of a massive earthen dike that was being extended by another three feet by sandbags, we were joined by a CNN crew fresh from Atlanta. The reporter was typical of CNN types – steely jaw, slight tan, deep, dreamy, cigarette-stained voice. He was wearing about $10,000 worth of Gortex that appeared to have been purchased the night before.

   

  Anyway, as he scrambled to the top of the dike, he was overheard to say in a quite a loud voice: “Wow, this is something. Do you guys have trouble with floods every year?”

   

  You could hear the sphincter on the Fargo media liason guy tighten at that remark. Fortunately, by the time he got his story on the air, he sounded like an old Red River Valley pro. Such is the magic of television.

   

   

  Oh God, why have those Canadians forsaken us?

   

  Finally, our good, good friends at the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas took the time last Thursday to issue a news release reminding us that if Canada is completely overwhelmed by flood waters, it’s our own damn fault because of our pro-Gay laws and other policies.

   

  “God sent the flood waters to cover the evil people of Canada, where you flipped off God and raised your hands against HIS anointed by criminalising WBC’s gospel preaching against fags and fag-enablers.”

   

  You might remember the WBC crowd as the folks who wanted to come up and disrupt the funeral of the young man who was beheaded on the Greyhound bus last year. They wanted to do this because ..... oh, who am I kidding? I couldn’t possibly find a rational excuse for that bit of psychotic performance art.

   

  Anyway, to top off their latest hateful tour de force, the worshipers at the WBC felt compelled to write new lyrics for that old ditty, Red River Valley. I won’t reprint the entire text of lyrics, cause I’m already feeling bad about having written about these nutters at all, but it’s just too special to ignore completely. Remember the tune when you read this nugget:

   

  “Now that the Red River’s raging and flooding 

   

  So your food and your homes are all gone

   

  Simple sluts and the whores who have raised them

   

  Need to learn from the words of this song.”

   

  I couldn’t find any indication the good folks at the WBC have figured out why the people of Fargo deserved to be threatened by flood waters this year. North Dakota doesn’t embrace gay marriage, but there’s a rumour going around that they let their kids go trick-or-treating at Halloween, and several children were allowed into neighbouring Minnesota to see the latest Harry Potter movie.

   

  It’s hard to imagine why leadership of this fine organization has been barred from entering Canada.

  View Full Post | 6/04/2009 11:47 AM | 0

• What journalists need?

  A recent column by the Globe and Mail's Lawrence Martin argues that what journalism needs is more "Jon Stewart outrage."

  I'm a big fan of Stewart's The Daily Show, in particular Stewart’s comedic wit and journalistic sensibilities. He is a smart analyst and a devastating critic. And he was never better than he was recently while surgically dismantling Jim Cramer of CNBC’s Mad Money.

  View Full Post | 21/03/2009 12:41 PM | 3

• The depths of abject stupidity

  

  Enlarge Image 

  With protesters in the background, AIG Chairmen Edward Liddy waits to testify on Capitol Hill in Washington on Wednesday before the House Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises subcommittee. (SUSAN WALSH / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)

  Today in Washington, the CEO of American Insurance Group, Edward Liddy, denounced $165 million in executive bonuses paid out last weekend to current and former employees, while at the same time urging Congress not to ask for the money to be repaid.

  Sucking and blowing much?

  View Full Post | 18/03/2009 1:19 PM | 2

• Striking a blow for the forces of revisionist history

  

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  Pope Benedict XVI gestures from the airplane before leaving from Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport for a trip to Africa that includes stops in Cameroon and Angola, Tuesday, March 17, 2009. The seven-day pilgrimage is Benedict's first trip as pontiff to Africa, the fastest-growing region for the Roman Catholic Church. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito) (CP)

  Well struck boys.

   

  View Full Post | 17/03/2009 10:06 AM | 9

• Saving downtown once more

  There is an excellent article  by Murray McNeill in today's FP on how to encourage development in Winnipeg's downtown. I found it fascinating not because it provided a new take on an old problem - in fact, the suggestions raised by three prominent developers were pretty old news - but because it underlined the heart of the problem with Winnipeg's downtown. Namely that we've known all along how to solve the problem but we've never taken the plunge.

  Developer Hart Mallin, architect Rudy Friesen and real estate agent Bill Thiessen all concluded that the three levels of government have to provide more generous financial incentives to make it worthwhile to build new structures and rehabilitate older, heritage buildings. This has been the argument from the private sector for the 23 years I have lived and worked in Winnipeg. And for a variety of reasons, government has never really stepped up to the plate.

  View Full Post | 16/03/2009 1:51 PM | 0

• Dozing while Rome burns

  Although I'm not fond of wars (who is?) I've always loved the idea of war-time cabinets, those times when politicians of different stripes come together to make policy, enact laws and cooperate to fight a common enemy.

  There haven't been too many recent examples of the war-time cabinet, but there are a few. Former Manitoba Premier Gary Filmon created such a cabinet in 1990 when he swore in Liberal Leader Sharon Carstairs and NDP Leader Gary Doer to cabinet during the Meech Lake constitutional crisis.

  View Full Post | 13/03/2009 11:15 AM | 4

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