Mary Agnes Welch's Gripe Juice

with Mary Agnes Welch

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• McFadyen sets the table

  Along with five other nerds in the province, I sometimes spend quiet Fridays skimming the transcripts of legislative committee hearings. More often than not, I read Tory Leader Hugh McFadyen doing his courtroom drama thing and questioning a senior official like the head of Elections Manitoba. Often, I wonder what the hell the guy is on about. Then, a few weeks or months later, I figure it out, and the questions and answers become extremely useful.

  View Full Post 02/1/2011 11:13 AM 0

• The Tories bash back

  Wowza. Now that’s what I call an effective attack ad.

  View Full Post 12/10/2010 12:30 PM 0

• Nancy Allan, fix this

  Call it a case of delayed outrage, but I cannot believe the Winnipeg School Division doesn’t release agendas and reports before its regular meetings. This is, put simply, an affront to modern principles of open and accountable government. When Winnipeg city hall kicks your butt on the “open and accountable” front, you know you’ve got a problem.

  View Full Post 11/25/2010 1:17 PM 0

• Iggy on the Filipino vote

  Winnipeg North Tory candidate Julie Javier issued a press release yesterday evening saying it’s “regrettable” that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff suggested her candidacy is a game designed to sway Liberal Filipino voters.

  View Full Post 11/16/2010 1:40 PM 0

• A bright spot in a crap campaign

  Every election, reporters meet one or two gem candidates who probably won't win, but totally should. I was overdue for such a moment, in a campaign dominated by Sam n' Judy sniping, endless nastiness in River Heights and inconsequential issues like concrete barriers. This campaign hasn't exactly filled one with faith in the virtues of civic engagement.

  View Full Post 10/15/2010 10:29 AM 0

• Shindleman and Kowalson

  The blogosphere and the Freep’s comment section have been murmuring about the connection between River Heights-Fort Garry candidate Michael Kowalson and Sandy Shindleman, arguably the city’s most powerful developer.

  View Full Post 10/13/2010 5:03 PM 0

• Is Justin in trouble?

  St. Norbert Coun. Justin Swandel sure got an earful from crabby Fort Richmond residents last night at an open house about the new stadium. He was buttonholed and peppered with questions and he barely got a word in edgewise.

  View Full Post 10/8/2010 4:35 PM 0

• NDP leadership vote revisited

  This time last year, Bruce Owen, Larry Kusch and I were spending many a leafy night crammed into community clubs and school gyms covering the bungle that was the provincial NDP’s leadership process, the one that made Premier Greg Selinger premier. It was fun and messy and there was lots of talk about ditching the delegated voting system. A year later, that talk has fizzled.

  View Full Post 09/21/2010 9:47 AM 0

• Two Dan Mac bits

  I know everyone is talking about the Kory/Sam weirdness, but I have two colourful quotes from the Daniel McIntyre ward race that didn't fit in the paper  that I can't bear to waste.

  View Full Post 09/15/2010 10:20 AM 0

• Why press conferences don’t always suck

  I covered a routine federal-provincial back-patty press conference this morning to inaugurate a new lab at Canadian Mennonite University. It’s certainly good news for students, but it’s barely a B4 brief. I think my boss sent me in case Premier Selinger accidentally split the atom with the new Bunsen burners or something.

  View Full Post 09/3/2010 3:36 PM 0

• Selinger's thesis goes AWOL

  Just for fun, I’ve been trying for a few months to get a copy of Premier Greg Selinger’s doctoral thesis, the one he wrote as a student at the prestigious London School of Economics.

  View Full Post 08/3/2010 1:03 PM 0

• Gossipy bits....

  

  According to Order in Council #198, Todd Scarth, a senior mover-and-shaker in Greg Selinger’s bid for NDP leader, has been rewarded with a full-time post in the Community and Economic Development Committee of cabinet. That sounds like an obscure backroom group of wonks, but actually the CEDC is the most influential policy office in the province. It used to be headed up by Eugene Kostyra, widely seen as the second most powerful guy in the province, next to Gary Doer. Basically every public project you care about goes through CEDC.

  View Full Post 07/30/2010 11:13 AM 0

• LRT vs BRT

  I am loathe to weigh in to the LRT/BRT debate, partly because I did dozens of depressing stories about it the first time Sam kiboshed the existing rapid transit plan and tried to give million of dollars back to the feds. Also, I have genuinely given up hope, as a citizen, that I will ride a rapid transit system in Winnipeg in my lifetime. As

  View Full Post 07/8/2010 12:38 PM 0

• Evelyn, Sadie and Barbara at the TRC

  

  I had the pleasure of meeting three First Nations women who grew up and went to residential school near where I spent idyllic summers at my Nana’s house on the Shuswap lake in BC.

  View Full Post 06/17/2010 9:54 AM 0

• More on Lac du Bonnet

  Add Lac du Bonnet to the collection of troublesome rural municipalities. I didn't have enough room this morning to mention a recent hubbub in the cottage town where retired cattle rancher Dave Fournier was barred from recording council meetings on his digital recorder. Fournier sounds like a gentle soul and far from a troublemaker — he recorded meetings just like any journalist might because he has difficulty reading and writing. For the scoop, I'll just point to a far better source than me. Check out the quite awesome picture of the rancher holding up his offensive mini-recorder in front of the municipality sign.

  View Full Post 06/4/2010 10:20 AM 0

• Kaufmann on Veolia

  I heard yesterday that former city councillor Peter Kaufmann was a little perturbed about the city’s top-secret sewage treatment deal with Veolia. Turns out he is.

  View Full Post 05/18/2010 2:19 PM 0

• Judy in the sky with Air Miles

  Colin Craig at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation just put out a press release demanding to know how mayoral candidate Judy Wasylycia-Leis spent more than $2 million in the last decade as an MP.

  View Full Post 05/5/2010 12:53 PM 0

• Viro labs, Ombudspeople and nurses

  Did anyone notice:

  View Full Post 05/4/2010 11:38 AM 0

• My New Hero

  It's the slightly dishevelled-looking Dr. John Milloy, the professor tasked with creating an archive of residential school history for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

  View Full Post 04/8/2010 11:40 AM 0

• Motley Screw

  Can we dispense with the puritanical tsk-tsking about the couple who were schtupping/lapdancing at the Motley Crue concert? I mean, it's a Motley Crue concert. What do you expect? Hasn't anyone read The Dirt?

  View Full Post 02/5/2010 12:10 PM 0