Mary Agnes Welch's Gripe Juice

with Mary Agnes Welch

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• 0.000001% of Manitobans think your billboard is lame

  On the way out to Transcona to cover NDP Leader Jack Layton's rally last night, I spotted a billboard on Regent I hadn't seen yet. It was part of that "Unfriendly Manitoba" campaign against the hog barn ban. It said something like "98% per cent of Manitobans say kill the anti-farm bill."That made blink. When do 98% of Manitobans agree on anything? This morning I checked out the lobby group's website and got the truth. Earlier this year, about 400 people spoke at the legislature's committee hearing on Bill 17, the barn ban bill. Ninety-eight percent of those 400 people, whose opposition was coordinated by the Pork Council, opposed the bill. That's not a scientific poll. It's not a focus group. It's not even a Free Press question-of-the-day.The billboard is downright dishonest.   

  View Full Post 10/9/2008 12:44 PM 0

• Elmwoodians, move to Altona

  I covered two candidates debates yesterday. One made me totally depressed, but then Altona fixed it.First I went to Kildonan East where an energetic teacher organized an afternoon forum for the Elmwood-Transcona candidates. I went because Tory Thomas Steen was going to emerge from hiding and do battle for the first time.The students asked generally vapid questions ("What will you do for junior high students?") and the candidates were a sad collection. Jim Maloway, the perennial provincial backbencher, blustered a little about the Disraeli Bridge. The Liberal candidate was downright bizarre, rambling about Communists at one point. And Steen only answered questions when he had a tabbed page in his briefing binder he could read from. When he didn't have a pre-written answer, he either declined to speak or apologized and said "I'm new at this." He read virtually every word he uttered, with a bemused and gentle smile. He is by all accounts and appearances a lovely and honourable gentleman, but he is radically out of his depth. Only the Green guy, teacher Chris Hrynkow, made any kind of coherent impression, and a couple of students I spoke to afterward agreed. Standing in the back as the Liberal went on another whacky tangent and Steen riffled through his notes, I wondered if I wasn't witnessing the end of democracy as we know it. This is as bad as it gets.Then I drove to Altona to cover an all-candidates debate in the school board office. I went to check out Tory candidate Candice Hoeppner in the flesh, since she sometimes isn't the best at returning phone calls. She is almost sure to win Portage-Lisgar, and she is a force to be reckoned with. She's uber-organized, smart, well-spoken, well-connected and, let's just say it, attractive. It's not supposed to matter, but it does. Dare I predict: She will be Manitoba's senior minister one day and it might be sooner rather than later.Hoeppner is a very fine candidate amid a batch of fine candidates. Unlike E-T, any one of the five people running in Portage-Lisgar would make a credible MP. You've got the moppy-haired young farmer for the Greens, the rather erudite labour activist for the NDP and the plain-spoken gentleman for the Liberals who made an eloquent plea for tolerance and equality. Even the Christian Heritage candidate (they tend to be the most cringeworthy at these kinds of debates) was confident, likeable and well-spoken.Good candidates are one thing. Smart voters are icing on the cake. As I wrote today, the questions from Altonans were wide-ranging, intelligent and pointed but polite. People floated good ideas. Everyone knew everyone else and they teased each other a little. The debate ran like clockwork with just enough latitude for some older folks who'd earned it. It was a pleasure to witness.Roy MacGregor wrote today that this has been the worst election he's covered in 30 years. If I'd been around to cover all of it and not just the last two weeks, I would probably agree, except I got to go to Altona.

  View Full Post 10/9/2008 12:45 PM 0

• Chicken

  I was at a debate last week at the University of Winnipeg, one organized by the Women's Studies department. It was a packed house, full of young voters wedged into the stairwell of Eckhart-Grammate Hall, the same young people politicians always say fail to participate in the process. Granted, some were taking notes for a class assignment, but still, it was a good turnout.No Tory, though, a trend across Canada that has seen Conservative candidates shun public events. Kildonan-St. Paul MP Joy Smith was supposed to attend but copped out. She also cancelled an appearance at another forum this week.I heard several students grumble about that as they filed out. I don't know why Smith chickened out. She's combative and well-spoken. She's a spotlight hog off the campaign trail. She would have made it a much more lively and relevant debate. Why didn't she show up, put up her dukes and make her case? The students probably would have lobbed the toughest questions at her, but, as it was, the crowd was painfully polite. The candidates spent more time promoting the sisterhood than really slagging each other off. This is Women's Studies for God's sake. It's not the Teamsters. What does it say about the Tories when they don't trust a veteran politician in the most tame of environments?Meanwhile, I just got an e-mail from the organizer of a debate tomorrow night in Winnipeg South Centre, where Tory Trevor Kennerd has failed to meet any of his opponents in head to head combat. This one was at Riverview School and we were planning to cover it. Turns out Kennerd has pulled out. The organizer said, as a constituent of Winnipeg South Centre, he finds it very hard to vote for someone to speak for him in Ottawa when that person can't even speak for themselves in front of a crowd.

  View Full Post 10/6/2008 11:11 AM 0

• That Matt

  I could be woefully out of the loop after three weeks in Europe (where I spent more time keeping track of the Bavarian state elections than the Canadian one), but has anyone else noticed that Matt Shaubroeck, the young NDP candidate in St. Boniface, is the very same unknown name who did remarkably well in Tuxedo in last year's provincial election?He was still a hefty 1,400 votes away from defeating Tory MLA Heather Stefanson but I remember a few bug-eyes on election night at Tory HQ when the returns started rolling in and Shaubroeck was nipping at Stefanson's heels. That riding's been Tory for pretty much as long as Shaubroeck's been alive, and it should have been a cakewalk for the Tories, but it was a little tighter than I expected. Also, speaking of the Canadian federal election, I was reminded just how sadly insignificant Canada is abroad. Searching around for a bit of news while in Norway, I picked up a copy of the Wall Street Journal that had a little front page brief on the election call. It said this is Canada's third election in five years, which is partly true. It's the third election in a little over four years. And Time Magazine's international edition had a blurb on the race but pegged Toronto as Canada's capital. Nuts.

  View Full Post 09/30/2008 12:49 PM 0

• You know there's an election coming...Part II

  Anyone notice the full page ad the University of Winnipeg and President Lloyd Axworthy took out in this Saturday's Detour section, touting the flurry of recent senior appointments at the school?It was a big list, granted. Sixteen appointments to top jobs. But among them was Dan Hurley, Liberal candidate in Winnipeg Centre. He's the school's senior executive officer and advisor to the president. Big title, nice headshot and a mention of the fact that he was Stephane Dion's chief of staff when Dion was environment minister.Good little pre-writ plug on the paper's biggest circulation day.

  View Full Post 09/1/2008 10:44 PM 0

• You know there's an election coming when....

  Brandon-Souris MP Merv Tweed puts out the first press release I've ever seen from him, touting $6,484 in federal funding for the Virden Employment Skills Centre's youth training program.There was even a backgrounder attached.

  View Full Post 08/29/2008 1:37 PM 0

• Elmwood: 540 days

  Sounds like the NDP is holding the nomination meeting in Elmwood-Transcona a week Sunday, which could also be two days after the federal election is called. Lots of time. No sweat!Also, to the Hacks' point: It was an NDPer who said, quite reasonably, that Elmwood-Transcona is among the safest NDP seats in the country. Blaikie has held it since it included Birds Hill in 1979. That's almost longer than I have been alive. But, I note he won the riding with about 50% of the vote in 2006. Judy W-L won hers with 57%, so maybe that makes Winnipeg North the safest Manitoba NDP seat even though big chunks of it were Liberal a few years ago.My point was that, without a good NDP campaign fronted by a decent candidate who gets out early, that seat could switch if the Tories have a great candidate and some electoral momentum. They pushed hard in the provincial election there last year. And the riding has changed a lot in recent years, and you could argue it was held by Blaikie's personal popularity, not an unwavering loyalty to the NDP. Just sayin', don't write it off. See post below.

  View Full Post 08/29/2008 11:48 AM 0

• My election pledge

  I spent a cold and blustery election night in 2006 in the Selkrik Smitty's covering former Premier Ed Schreyer's race against James Bezan, the young farmer now the Tory MP for the Interlake riding. Is there anything more awesomely Canadian than that? Anyway, it was pretty clear early on that Ed wasn't going to win, so a lot of us spent the night ping-ponging between all the TVs in the banquet hall watching the returns from other ridings.There was a lot of swearing of the "Holy &*%#!!" variety when it became clear upstart video game motorized billboard guy Rod Bruinooge had defeated Reg Alcock. Nobody outside the Tory inner circle - not the smartest mainstream pundit or the most astute blogger - saw that coming. As one of many reporters who had totally ignored that riding, I was chastened.Nearly the same thing a few months later during the civic election, a race my colleague Bartley Kives and I thought we knew inside and out. There were more inklings that incumbent councillors Jae Eadie and Mark Lubosh might be in tough races, but I was still blown away to the point of deadline paralysis when they got soundly trounced.   So I have now learned that I have essentially no idea how a race will turn out on e-day. Without access to deep, deep polling data that mines the hearts of every voter, there is no way to gauge the outcome of races. We can guess and extrapolate, based on what the candidates are saying and doing, but we watchers don't really know. So we just shouldn't guess. Even in Portage-Lisgar and Provencher, where the Prime Minister could get caught on gay.com and still probably win.Election campaigns matter, and a lot can change in 30-some-odd days. Voters are not homogenous and they have the right to make up their minds without journalist pretending races are a foregone conclusion.So, in covering the looming federal election (only the first and last bits, because I am going overseas for three weeks) I promise to do my best to avoid predictions, even the ones couched by words such as "likely" and "expected." That doesn't mean we won't focus more on races that are obviously tighter than others, but I'd like to make a concerted effort not to totally ignore the ones that are "solidly held by the Tories" or "traditionally Liberal." Winnipeg Free Press subscribers will soon receive a ten-percenter in their mailboxes to that effect.

  View Full Post 09/1/2008 10:30 PM 0

• Elmwood-Transcona knee-dippers, you've had 531 days to find a federal candidate.

  Elmwood-Transcona NDP MP Bill Blaikie announced his plans to retire in March, 2007. That's a year and a half ago, and the riding still can't seem to get its crap together to find a star candidate or nominate one of the three people already running. Well, two declared candidates - CUPE's Kevin Rebeck and nurse Lorene Mahoney - and MLA Jim Maloway, who has been playing coy for months.

  View Full Post 08/28/2008 1:29 PM 0

• Advice to advance teams

  Have a political press conference in a church. You get softball questions asked in hushed, respectful tones. Even better if your guy is surrounded by some ministers (the god kind, not the cabinet kind) and a few women war veterans.That's what happened this morning at a Vic Toews presser at Holy Trinity Anglican downtown. It was nothing more than a pre-election event so Toews could talk tough about the looming vote, gussied up with a $25,000 donation to the lovely old church's stained glass window restoration.That church just sapped us of our cynicism. We couldn't needle and interrupt and eye-roll with a reverend looking on. No one even hinted around the edges of Toews recent personal issues or his flirtation with a judicial appointment. Smart move, Tories.

  View Full Post 08/27/2008 11:30 PM 0

• Stumping in Swan River

  Tory Leader Hugh McFadyen did a little tour of the province's northwest last week, hitting Swan River, Roblin, Dauphin and a couple other spots. He was also in Brandon, where he did a little door-knocking in a few targeted polls.Today, Premier Gary Doer is in Swan River and The Pas, doling out some housing money. There's also been a little splash of federal/provincial cash in Brandon, lately, too. Doer was there this morning with Treasury Board President Vic Toews dropping off some cash for the city's new Y.Coincidence? Wonder if the west side power line came up?

  View Full Post 08/25/2008 2:37 PM 0

• Endless, Dumplings take on Gold

  You gotta back up the guy who is brave enough to flip the bird to the bully, so I am. Curtis Brown finally said what should have been said ages ago. I'm sure Curtis, and West End Dumplings will both get soundly trashed for the next several days on TGCTS, or at least until Marty Gold blows the lid off the next story about the profound infallibility of the Winnipeg Police Service. 

  View Full Post 08/21/2008 10:38 AM 0

• Pat Martin watchyerback

  My mouthy NDP MP might want to take a break from the chaos of his federal ethics committee and do some quickie polling to make sure he's still going to win his Winnipeg Centre seat by a bajillion votes. The federal Tories dropped another ten-percenter in my mailbox last night - this one from Saskatchewan MP Garry Breitkreuz.Do the Tories know something we don't know? Is Pat's 7,000 vote margin of victory shrinking? I've heard Winnipeg South Centre Grit MP Anita Neville complain bitterly about the ten-percenters dumped into her riding, one the Tories could conceivably win. But Winnipeg Centre? Tell that to Stanley Knowles.That's the second Tory flyer I've had in two weeks. Curtis Brown wrote about the first one from a Vancouver Island MP late last month. This latest flyer was about drug addicts and how our playgrounds are littered with needles and drug dealers are prowling schoolyards looking to hook kids on the junk. It's all a bit melodramatic, and the American-style over-sell trivializes a complex problem. Plus, it kind of gets up my nose that some MP from small-town Saskatchewan or idyllic Vancouver Island is trying to talk tough about drugs in a riding he's probably never been to and that has genuine problems that deserve a little more thought than a scare-tactic photo of a dirty needle under the baby swings. 

  View Full Post 08/14/2008 5:51 PM 0

• Plus ca change...

  Tory boss Hugh McFadyen un-shuffled his shadow cabinet today, basically putting it back to the way it was before the election.

  View Full Post 08/12/2008 5:28 PM 0

• Way to work it, Edmonton (and Saskatchewan is still kicking our butt)

  Two little gripes that should be filed under: Why aren't we doing that?First, my colleague Bruce Owen and I just got snazzy flashdrive gadgets in the mail, courtesy of the city of Edmonton's communication's department - some pretty slick marketing. In Winnipeg, the communications department can't even answer simple questions about road paving before deadline.A couple months ago, the Canadian Association of Journalists had its annual conference in Edmonton and the city's tourism army came out in force - there was a drink night with the mayor (who looks just like Sam) and major bumph. Now, Edmonton has sent us (and presumably all the other conference-goers) a USB thingy loaded with flak phone numbers (U of A, the city, the health authority) plus story ideas and a bunch of propaganda about Edmonton. "Edmonton is a city alive with boundless energy and opportunity...we want to share our story with you," the letter reads. They even spelled my name right!Most reporters will probably delete the info on the USB drive and use it to store the latest Cornie the Mennonite video, but it's still a great idea. They really made the most out of having a bunch of reporters holed up in hotel board rooms. When the conference was held in Winnipeg a few years ago, we got pamphlets from Destination Winnipeg and that was about it.Second, why does Saskatchewan have 11 Olympic athletes going to Beijing and we only have two? That's pretty lame at a time when the city is investing millions in community clubs and recreation, a new indoor soccer complex is in the works, the Doer government has made phys ed mandatory for grades 11 and 12 and sports funding was a key promise of all the parties during last year's provincial election.

  View Full Post 08/8/2008 12:32 PM 0

• Doors Closed

  This gripe doesn't have much to do with the provincial government, except that it owns, funds or manages most of the buildings I am griping about. I have harboured this gripe for a while but a rainy night at the Fringe last week reminded me of it.Why is every door downtown locked? Most buildings - the courthouse, the Legislature, the Manitoba Museum - have multiple entrances, sometimes one on every street. But only one door is open and it's never the one you're at.Let's start at the Law Courts. I can see the old courthouse from my window at the Leg but I can't actually get into it. The court complex probably has six doors, but only one is open and it's the one farthest from me - a big deal when it's minus 40. Yeah, it's only another block. And, yeah, I understand the need for security, but it's still supremely annoying and very discouraging for pedestrians.Next, let's try to get into the confusing complex created by the Manitoba Museum and the Centennial concert hall during the Fringe, when bajillions of people are downtown, for once. On my way from Old Market Square to the Planetarium Fringe venue, I tried no fewer than three doors looking for a shortcut into the venue to get out of the crappy wind and rain. Every door on Main Street was locked, and I had to hoof it around the corner. Then, after the show was over, the tunnel to city hall was dark and locked, so we couldn't use that to bypass the rain and get a little closer to our next show. Way to promote green pedestrian power, city fathers. Couldn't you have left the doors open during the one time people are actually in The Exchange?How about my own building, the Manitoba Legislature. There's four doors (six, counting the basement entrances) and only one is really open to the public. If you are walking over from Osborne Village, you have to walk all the way around to Broadway to get in. At that point, you'd probably give up investigating the internal workings of a parliamentary democracy and just continue on to The Bay to look at shoes.Another related gripe - surface parking lots. There's a lot to hate about surface parking lots, but here's one more thing: The waist-high wooden fences around all of them. Very often, I try to cut across a surface lot - the one just east of the Burt, for example - and I get stuck in the pen. Yeah, I can hike up my skirt and leap over or double back and walk around, but it's just one more small thing that makes the downtown totally pedestrian unfriendly. 

  View Full Post 07/29/2008 5:34 PM 0

• Smoking part II

  The Hack says I'm wrong about the finer points of the Jenkinson smoking decision. http://hacksandwonks.blogspot.com/Here's the highly-technical Court of Appeal decision.http://www.canlii.org/en/mb/mbca/doc/20082008mbca28/2008mbca28.htmlIt says, essentially, that the province didn't discriminate against Mr. Jenkinson because he could, theoretically, open up his own bar on a reserve. The Hack is probably right - the decision doesn't explicitly say the province can't enforce the ban on reserve, but that's the practical application of the decision, and it was the undercurrent of the arguments made by First Nations interveners. The decision was a huge victory for the province and put the issue to rest, allowing the ban to stand off-reserve based on the principle that the province has no authority over First Nations.In related news, Portage-Lisgar MP Brian Pallister called to say he made a rookie mistake Monday. He failed to catch the Court of Appeal decision that overturned Clearwater. Fair enough.

  View Full Post 07/23/2008 11:13 AM 0

• Election objection

  Why is the province's democracy watchdog the least accountable agency in Manitoba? I know I sound like Liberal MLA Kevin Lamoureux, but the guy has a point. It's a little Zimbabwe-esque over there at Elections Manitoba. I'm not even talking about high-level accountability stuff. I'm just talking about a decent website and staff that returns phone calls.Here's my beef: Elections Manitoba did a poll following last year's election to gauge how their voting plans went. They do a poll like that after every election, I'm told. I've been asking for that poll for more than a year. In a faux-cheerful and slightly embarrassed way, I call about once a month asking when I can see the poll. I get the brush off, or my calls and e-mails go totally ignored. Par for the course at Elections Manitoba. Typically, half our calls on any given subject get returned. Except during the election when they had a temporary guy (Wayne?) who was pretty good to deal with.Premier Gary Doer says all polls paid for by taxpayers ought to be public, and Manitoba's Ombudsman made that policy official a few years ago after she ordered the city to release an OlyWest poll. The "polls are public" provision is even in the province's new access to information legislation that's slated to be passed this fall.But, foiled again. Elections Manitoba isn't covered by the FOI law.Another beef: The Elections Manitoba website sucks. I've said it before, but every time I surf over there for a simple figure, I yell it again to whomever is in my office. I can't ever find what I want and end up walking across the office to our bulletin board to peer at the yellowing Freep results page we print on election night. I know how crazy election night is in our newsroom, and I'd much rather get the definitive data from the pros who count the ballots. But their website is hard to navigate. Basic information (like, what percentage of the total vote did the NDP get?) is buried so deep you might as well get out your calculator and do the math yourself. There is virtually no historical information. Ottawa is so, so much better, thanks to a nice one-two combo of the Elections Canada site and the Parliament of Canada site, which has the voting history of every riding in every permutation. In Manitoba, we've got Wikipedia.In a province that doesn't exactly have a stellar election rep - vote rigging, pitiful turnout in remote areas, our own mini in-and-out scandal - you'd think Elections Manitoba could at least return a call or two.  

  View Full Post 07/22/2008 1:25 PM 0

• What's Pallister smoking?

  Outgoing Portage-Lisgar MP Brian Pallister issued a press release today slagging the nearby Long Plain First Nation for allowing smoking in its VLT lounge and conference centre, and chastising the province for not enforcing the province-wide smoking ban on reserves.That's interesting, I said to myself as I waited for the teachers' pension hearings to begin. This will give me a chance to speak to Pallister, which I have never done before, which says something about him and me. I fired off calls to Pallister, Chief Dennis Meeches and the province for comment and then I realised Pallister had it exactly wrong.The province can't enforce the ban on First Nations. It doesn't apply there and never has, and the courts said so. In a back-and-forth case that ended in March, Manitoba's Court of Appeal reaffirmed the rights of First Nations to be exempt from provincial law. That was, you'll recall, the case of Treherne bar owner Robert Jenkinson who challenged the law as unfair because it applied only to off-reserve bars like his. The court sided with the First Nations, not Mr. Jenkinson.At best Pallister made a silly mistake. At worst, it's a totally disingenuous bit of spin meant to make the province and Long Plain look bad, one that assumes that every reporter will be as dumb as I momentarily was. Pallister even quoted the orignal Clearwater decision that found in Jenkinson's favour, a decision that was criticized by constitutional experts and firmly overturned on appeal.Since it can't legislate, the province is using the backdoor, refusing to renew VLT licenses unless First Nations bars go smoke-free, like Brokenhead's South Beach Casino did. Long Plain's license isn't up yet, according to the province.Back in 2006, Prentice was asked about a national ban that would apply fairly to everyone, including First Nations, and he said he didn't support one. "I don't think it's appropriate for the federal government to pass a piece of legislation that applies to all First Nations on this issue," he told The Sun.

  View Full Post 07/22/2008 11:20 AM 0

• Teach-in

  Next week, the Leg committee rooms will be a-hummin' again as the teachers' pension issue goes to public hearings. There are nearly 400 teachers in the queue waiting to speak, and I expect most will vent about the two-thirds cost of living pension increase they're being offered. Not enough, they say, even though it would double their COLA hike this year and even though current and former teachers voted to accept it. The province also backfilled their pension liability by $1.5 billion, which looks none too good on the province's debt line.There was a letter to the editor recently complaining about the fact that the hearings are being held in the evening - an unsafe time for seniors to be out and about downtown and an inconvenient time to take the bus. That will be the kindest and most reasonable argument I expect to hear on Monday.The retired teachers are the single most relentless and implacable lobby group I've encountered in my brief time at the legislature. The Taxpayers Federation could take a lesson. The teachers make large and frequent appearances in the House gallery, and every reporter who touches the pension issue gets a mini-avalanche of e-mails and calls and letters to the editor - some quite rude and strident.I recall getting geeked up on the issue when I first arrived here, thinking Teachergate could be a great story, the injustice of our noble educators spending their retirement days in poverty. My interest waned after I started calling some retired teachers. In Florida.

  View Full Post 07/18/2008 3:24 PM 0