Under the Dome

with Larry Kusch and Bruce Owen

Getting the message out

Opposition parties on Parliament Hill made a big deal last week out of how much the federal government intends to spend promoting its March 22 budget.

View Full Post 03/16/2011 2:33 PM 0
How times change

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I used to spend my free time reading the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. In time I collected all their comics, including the Adventures of Fat Freddy’s Cat.

View Full Post 03/8/2011 5:09 PM 0
Parties busy nominating candidates

This fall’s provincial election is still nearly seven months away, but already it’s assured that there will be 10 new faces in the legislature this fall.

View Full Post 03/7/2011 3:16 PM 0
Kapyong and the Indians

“The First Nations lived up to their end of the bargain. Canada didn’t.” – lawyer Kris Saxberg

View Full Post 02/25/2011 5:28 PM 0
711 or 715; What's the difference?

The answer, according to some, is which way the wind blows.

View Full Post 02/24/2011 1:42 PM 0
After the flood, the beach

In a few short weeks they’ll be in the thick of it.

View Full Post 02/10/2011 3:34 PM 0
Not so tranquil anymore

I’ve been going to Victoria Beach most of my life, and I’m just a few days shy of my 50th birthday.

View Full Post 01/3/2011 2:43 PM 0
The Tory surge: A deja rear-view look

What do we make of the most recent Free Press/Probe poll on provincial party popular support?

View Full Post 12/20/2010 11:10 AM 0
Greg, Hugh and the stadium

My kids sometimes sing This Is The Song That Never Ends while we’re in the car.

View Full Post 12/13/2010 12:26 PM 0
Half time in the west

Progressive Conservative Finance Critic Heather Stefanson recently asked in question period where Manitoba was in preparing its second quarter report, a report that details how the province is performing financially in the first half of the 2010-11 budget year (April to September).

View Full Post 12/1/2010 12:44 PM 0
A sign, perhaps?

Question period at the Manitoba legislature is a great time for me to catch up on email.

View Full Post 11/26/2010 12:39 PM 0
The stadium and the NDP

There’s an old saying that a good lawyer already knows the answer to the question he or she asks of a witness in court.

View Full Post 11/18/2010 11:53 AM 0
Cop chopper to fly soon Part II

A couple of days ago I wondered aloud if Winnipeg’s 75 per cent drop in auto theft in the past few years has meant a similar decline in the number of high-speed police chases.

View Full Post 11/17/2010 4:12 PM 0
Cop chopper to fly soon

Winnipeg Police Chief Keith McCaskill told me late last week the new police helicopter should be in the air in early December.

View Full Post 11/15/2010 2:51 PM 0
Lake Winnipeg and Manitoba Hydro

I went to Victoria Beach on the weekend to see for myself the damage left behind from the Oct. 27 storm.

View Full Post 11/1/2010 4:29 PM 0
What Wednesday means for Oct. 4, 2011

Folks in the provincial wing of the NDP are watching Wednesday’s civic election for more than just how well Judy Wasylycia-Leis does against Sam Katz.

View Full Post 10/25/2010 11:00 AM 0
Manitoba and Saskatchewan on same page on MS? You decide

Health Minister Theresa Oswald suggested at a news conference last Friday that there wasn't a lot of difference between her province's approach to the so-called 'liberation treatment' for multiple sclerosis sufferers and that of neighbouring Saskatchewan.

View Full Post 10/21/2010 1:08 PM 0
Good news that fell through the cracks

The other day I went to a news conference in the city’s North End about the RBC Foundation’s role in keeping at-risk kids in school.

View Full Post 10/20/2010 3:08 PM 0
Will there be patio lanterns?

For the past few weeks a work crew has been hard at it building an outdoor patio outside our office window at the legislative building.

View Full Post 10/19/2010 4:26 PM 0
Manitoba politics book launch

The University of Manitoba Press is set to release a new book that examines Manitoba politics, specifically what's happened over the past 40 years and what's made us who we are as a province.

View Full Post 10/5/2010 1:03 PM 0

About Larry Kusch and Bruce Owen

Larry Kusch has been a journalist for 30 years, the last 20 with the Winnipeg Free Press. His is one of the newspaper's two legislative bureau reporters.

Raised on a Saskatchewan farm, he received an honours journalism degree from Carleton University in 1975.

At the Free Press, Larry has also worked as a general assignment reporter, business reporter, copy editor and assistant city editor.

Bruce Owen joined the Winnipeg Free Press in 1990 after four years working in other media.

He's worked in a number of positions at the Freep, including pet columnist, assistant city editor and police reporter. Right now he takes up space at the Manitoba legislature.

Bruce is one of five reporters who won a National Newspaper Award for the paper’s coverage of the 1997 Flood of the Century. He's also the recipient of the 1996 Volunteer Centre of Winnipeg Media Golden Hand Award and the 1995 Canadian Federation of Humane Societies Media Commendation Award.

In a past life Bruce worked at YMCA-YWCA Camp Stephens. He has a blog where he and others write about camp and the people who worked and played there.

You can also find Bruce on Twitter where he posts and retweets all sorts of stuff.

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