Mary Agnes Welch's Gripe Juice

with Mary Agnes Welch

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• I just caught a memorandum of understanding THIS BIG!

  The day after the city budget cut millions from pretty much every department (except cops) and imposed a new tourist tax, we get this helpful bit of news from Ottawa and the FCM:BRANDON, MANITOBA - The Government of Canada and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities today signed a Memorandum of Understanding to work together to better conserve, protect and enhance fish and fish habitat throughout Canada.To quote a good buddy of mine: "Hey - it's important to close the fish-frastructure deficit."

  View Full Post 03/7/2008 5:08 PM 0

• Give Stan some love

  A batch of environmental groups gathered this morning to say how angry they are that the province failed to extend the hog barn ban to the entire province, not just the central part.Sigh. Come on, guys. You won. The hog barns lost. The province finally did Lake Winnipeg a solid. It deserves at least one little kudo.Until now the province has been pretty much all talk on water. The Tories say it, and they're right. We've got the ban on dishsoap with phosphates, which would be cool except for the fact that it doesn't kick in for two years, at which time the soap makers were going to quit using phosphates anyway. We've also got a flurry of tiny rules that say you can't put your pig poop on this little patch of ground because it's too close to the river. But not until 2015 or 2020, so no worries. And we've got the nutrient management regs, which nobody but KAP and a couple scientists understand.Now the province finally gets serious, catapults beyond what the CEC even recommended and caps hog barns in the parts of the province where they are unequivocally out of control. Granted, they're being kind of machiavellian by hoping the crappy market culls the barns down to a manageable size.But still, Conservation Minister Stan Struthers probably has cauliflower ear from all the crabby phone calls he's been fielding from hog farmers. They are really, really mad.So, green folks, give Stan a break and acknowledge that the province has finally taken leadership on an issue after eight years of dithering.

  View Full Post 03/5/2008 4:22 PM 0

• Favourite February press release

  (It's even better than the thin-skinned one about parks the province fired off yesterday moments after a handful of environmentalists held a little demo at the Leg...)February 7, 2008

  MANITOBA'S URBAN SEARCH AND RESCUE TEAM TO TEST SOLAR-POWERED TENT IN WATERHEN

  Manitoba’s Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) team will set up and test emergency response equipment including a solar-powered tent and the Office of the Fire Commissioner (OFC) will deliver a winter rescue and survival course for emergency response personnel during a remote deployment exercise in Waterhen Feb. 12 to 14.

  View Full Post 02/28/2008 2:21 PM 0

• Camelot Down Under

  Premier Gary Doer is sharing top billing at an Australian climate change conference with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.That's the same Kennedy who has publicly condemned plans to put a hydro line down the east side of Lake Winnipeg. He runs the the National Resources Defense Council, one of the moneybags environmental lobbying groups Doer fears could hold up a power line through the boreal forest for years.That's also the Kennedy the Tories get so much mileage out of in Question Period, heckling Doer for being in the pocket of a wealthy American do-gooder.The duo are both keynote speakers at the International Solar Cities conference in Adelaide, where experts on urban climate change are meeting. (Wonder if, I dunno, maybe, er, rapid transit will come up?)Also on the keynote bill is Peter Garrett, the bald-headed former lead singer of Midnight Oil who is now the country's environment minister. Which is pretty cool, just on the face of it.

  View Full Post 02/21/2008 5:05 PM 0

• Politics and the English Language Part Deux

  What's up with everyone changing their names to words that mean nothing?We've seen the Fort Whyte Centre change its name to FortWhyte Alive, spelled all weird in a way that makes high school English teachers write us nasty letters. We've had AgriCore United become Viterra, which sounds like an SUV or a type of gatorade.Now, the province is changing the name of its annual Rural Forum to Capturing Opportunities. I've actually been to the Rural Forum in Brandon (with MLA Rick Borotsik, who schmoozed his way through the sprawling Keystone Centre during last spring's campaign) and it was exactly as advertised - a forum for farmers talking about ag innovations and marketing and growing stuff.Capturing Opportunities? What in those two tired old buzz words says farmers? For all I know, it could be the tag for the methane project at the city dump. It could be a new justice program for car thieves. It could be my dustbuster.   

  View Full Post 02/12/2008 1:23 PM 0

• NIMBY Nonsense

  There's been a lot of stuff in the news lately that has made me shake my head at the frustrating shame of it all - Kapyong Barracks, those folks in the Bannerman rooming house, the fact that Portage-Lisgar candidate Candice Hoeppner never returns my calls.But nothing has been as big a bummer as the NIMBYism in St. Vital that forced the St. Amant Centre and Marymound to abandon a plan to build a drug treatment centre there.Policy Frog said it bluntly and best here http://policyfrog.wordpress.com/ so no sense repeating. But I will add that this is the second time the good folks at Marymound have tried to open another drug treatment facility and failed because of misplaced neighbourhood outcry.You can't complain about how dangerous the downtown is and how your Honda got stolen and then balk when some non-profit drug treatment centre tries to do something about the root causes of all that.

  View Full Post 01/31/2008 2:10 PM 0

• The spy who came in for the cookie

  Political Courtesy Rule #23: If you're gonna peep on a rival party's press conference, keep your hands off the baked goods. Especially if you're stealing from the provincial Liberals, who have no money and whose policy ideas everyone already steals, anyway.

  View Full Post 01/28/2008 5:47 PM 0

• Politics and the English Language

  Despite their relentless, rah-rah public relations machines, governments do a laughably bad job of telling people about all the nice things they do.To wit: The press release. The daily missives are laboured over, tweaked and fussed with endlessly by a dozen government staffers. Soooo much effort for so little clarity.Health press releases are particularly brutal, I find. Earlier this week, I spent the better part of a morning at a press conference at HSC trying to figure out how much money Ottawa is spending on what the heck kind of aboriginal health research. I wandered from government official to doctor to PR person asking for some plain-language clarification. I listened to the 45 minutes of speeches. I read the pile of press releases several times. I tried to decipher all the acronyms and jargon and vague words. I still don't really get it.And today the province put out a press release touting a plan to help new local video game companies get more business. How could a bunch of techno-hipsters - basically the city's coolest people - be boring and pedantic and impenetrable? Here's how:"...market research and development of an alternative reality game prototype and six-episode Internet protocol television (IPTV) series." "An incubator is a facility designed to encourage entrepreneurship and minimize obstacles to new business formation and development, particularly for high-technology firms, by housing a number of budding enterprises that share an array of services such as rent and business counselling." The last word goes to George Orwell, writing more than 60 years ago:"Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase -- some jackboot, Achilles' heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse -- into the dustbin, where it belongs. "

  View Full Post 01/24/2008 4:50 PM 0

• Moving forward since 2003

  Steve Lambert, who covers the legislature for the Canadian Press, sent in the following, in response to the previous blog. It's a clip from his wire story that ran Dec. 11, 2003. That's more than five years ago.WINNIPEG (CP)    Manitobans will be encouraged to cut back on the amount of water they use under a conservation plan being developed by the provincial government, Premier Gary Doer said Thursday.    Legislation should be ready by the spring, he told the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce in his annual state-of-the province address.    "It might mean not watering your lawn as much or not putting as many chemicals on your lawn," Doer said.    "We cannot squander this wonderful, precious asset that we have."                                           Five years ago, that was the Water Protection Act Doer was talking about more than five years ago. The act passed, but five years later there are still no regulations that actually put any of the legislation into practice five years later.Thanks, Steve. I'll check on it in 2013.

  View Full Post 01/16/2008 7:34 PM 0

• Moving Forward at 0.0000023 km/h

  Everyone was abuzz yesterday about the province's move to boost the speed limit to 110 km/h on parts of the Trans-Can and Highway 75 to Emerson. I'm new here, so I checked our archives to read a little background. Turns out, the province has been mulling the speed change since at least May, 2006. That's a whole lotta mulling, nearly two years worth, all to change a couple of signs on two highways.I'm glad engineers spent time making sure Manitoba's roads are safe, and I respect the fact that the government has to consult with truckers and environmental groups and the like. But two years?

  View Full Post 01/11/2008 4:35 PM 0

• The Chomiak Stance

  This is a little stale, but I got a laugh out of a story we ran Saturday about Justice Minister Dave Chomiak.He stood on the steps of the Legislature and weathered all kinds of jeers from corrections officers protesting the fact that they have been without a contract for eons. It's pretty clear the province is stalling the negotiations - as they often do - so the officers are right to be cheesed off. But you gotta admit Chomiak's got guts to stand there and let 200 burly prison guards call him names.With the story, we ran a photo of Chomiak in the classic pose he adopts so often in the house - head down, shoulders hunched, eyes closed, waiting with deep forbearance for the heckling to stop. It's pure theatrics and it's very effective. I don't know if it worked on the corrections officers - they might be tougher to impress than your average MLA. But in the house Chomiak doesn't start speaking again until the hecklers are totally silent which happens remarkably fast. Works every time.

  View Full Post 01/8/2008 2:13 PM 0

• Putting the high in highways

  The Tories asked FIVE questions about FIVE different highways in Question Period Wednesday. Plus one about a traffic light in the RM of Rosser.

  View Full Post 11/29/2007 3:22 PM 0

• Moving Forward with a greenhouse

  Tuesday's throne speech was just bursting with bold initiatives. Man, the radical things that are about to happen will blow your mind. Here's a couple of my favourites."This year, Workplaces in Motion will be introduced to encourage Manitobans to incorporate physical activity into their workdays.""In the coming months, your government will add a crown attorney in the Brandon region.""...The Northern Healthy Foods Initiative...will be complemented by the development of a commercial greenhouse at Grand Rapids."

  View Full Post 11/21/2007 11:59 AM 0

• Robust

  It's a bad sign when a journalist wants to ban a word, but that's what I want to do with "robust."It's the new favourite word at the Manitoba Legislature, and it's everywhere. Politians throw it around like yesterday's "multi-pronged integrated community partnership."Latest offender: Justice Minister Dave Chomiak, otherwise a very literate guy. The country's justice ministers are meeting this week in Winnipeg and they've got a "robust" agenda, according to his press release.I don't really know what a robust agenda is, but I'm pretty sure the justice ministers don't have one. It's gonna be another meeting of ministers where they all kvetch about how the young offenders' act needs reforming and Ottawa needs to do more to battle organised crime. Not much of substance will actually be accomplished, kind of like the environment ministers meeting here a few months ago. They'll put out a communique later in the week full of platitudes and motherhood statements, demanding Ottawa take action. Ottawa will say, don't worry, we're about to take action. Reporters will dutifully write the story.I'm going to work on a "robust" reason not to bother.

  View Full Post 11/14/2007 11:39 AM 0

• There musta been a memo

  I bet some smart PC staffer nipped out over lunch to buy 19 poppies because every single Tory MLA was sporting one Monday in the house.Across the aisle, none of the NDP MLAs donned the Remembrance Day symbol, even Premier Gary Doer.(To be fair, none of the reporters in the press gallery had scrounged up a poppy either. We have enough trouble with the mandatory tie rule.)

  View Full Post 10/30/2007 11:37 AM 0

• Spirited smart alecs

  The Tories got cheeky with their response to the Spirited Energy audit Wednesday, handing out a press release covered in black censor marks. It was a witty swipe at the NDP, which grudgingly released a stack of Spirited Energy invoices in July after months of demands by Tories and reporters, and a slapdown by the ombudsman. Problem was, the invoices were dotted with black marks where government censors obscured ridiculous details like the number of cookies served at a lunch meeting or the cost of photocopies. The words the Tories left uncensored on their press release Wednesday read: Spirited waste and NDP mismanagement pointing to spiritless premier.”

  View Full Post 10/25/2007 11:46 AM 0

• Teachers are smart

  A group of Manitoba teachers spent the last couple of days at a conference at the legislature, studying the province's politics. This morning, at a little breakfast panel, they asked a few of us reporters how to get students more psyched up about government, especially when it still seems to be dominated by a bunch of old guys.That was some astute foreshadowing on the part of those teachers.A few hours after the panel, I got a press release from Mayor Sam Katz about a new initiative in his bid to "build a city of opportunity."He's creating a Seniors Advisory Council. 

  View Full Post 10/23/2007 4:58 PM 0

• My pen! My pen!

  (That's a Kids In the Hall reference, by the way)Everyone in the Legislature press gallery went on an online Spirited Energy shopping spree yesterday. That was after Tory MLA Leanne Rowat needled the NDP during Question Period about how exorbitant the shipping fees are if you buy any Spirited Energy swag on the province's website.The charges really are out of whack. A colleague tried to buy an umbrella with the swirly new brand emblazoned on it. Like anyone would buy that, but whatever. A $14.95 umbrella costs more than $25 with all the delivery fees and taxes.I bought a $3 pen and the shipping was about $8. Total: $11.82. For a pen that everyone around here says runs out of ink after a few uses.Basically, everything you order costs $8 to ship, whether it's 100 T-shirts or one little pen.I hope my pen arrives in time for next week's release of the auditor's report into the Spirited Energy rebanding campaign. Gotta take good notes. 

  View Full Post 10/19/2007 12:31 PM 0

• The Battle of the Bobbies

  Tory Leader Hugh McFadyen has had some good (if somewhat rehearsed) lines lately in Question Period. He's been haranguing the NDP every day about the muddle that is the east side and the decision to run the new Manitoba Hydro power line down the west side. He calls it Doer's "daffy detour" because it's going to cost millions more and leak valuable power. He also ribbed Doer for his "shifting buffet of reasons" why the power line can't run down the east side. Not bad.Yesterday was even more fun, though. McFadyen invoked the Bobbies - environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Manitoba Hydro boss Bob Brennan.McFadyen brandished duelling letters from them both - written to the Free Press three years ago when the controversy over the power line started to germinate. The letters were mostly about northern dams, so they weren't quite on point, but it was still a bit of QP theatre that really did seem to irk the premier.Kennedy said dams and transmission lines damage the boreal forest. In a pointed reply, Brennan said that's an "irresponsible exageration."Thundered McFadyen: “Will the premier say that the real reason [for the detour] is that he’s afraid of having a fight with Bobbie Kennedy?...Whose side is he on? Bobbie Brennan’s or Bobbie Kennedy’s?”Hmm, looks like Doer is on Kennedy's side. It appears that Doer is worried about Kennedy's clout and the ability of his group and other environmental activists to tie up the construction of the east side power line in years of court challenges and regulatory wrangling. One Doer spinner noted in an e-mail that Kennedy has a $70 million budget to do just that. So, in the Battle of the Bobbies, it looks like the win goes to Kennedy. 

  View Full Post 10/16/2007 12:05 PM 0

• Pretty Fly for a White Guy

  Conservation Minister Stan Struthers is about the last guy you could ever imagine in a sweatlodge, taking part in a traditional aboriginal pipe ceremony and getting all spiritual with Canada's First Peoples. Especially some First Peoples who have set up a blockade on his highway and refused to return his calls for the last month.Struthers is a nerdy white guy from Dauphin. Totally decent and hard-working, by all accounts. But, like, he's a member of the Rotary Club.Turns out, he's more first-hand familiar than most Manitobans with traditional aboriginal ceremonies. He taught in Norway House and then later took students to Peguis to participate in a sweat to get up close and personal with some native spiritual practices that few in this province truly understand."It's sombre. It's spiritual. It's a different setting than just meeting in my office," said Struthers of the sweat this Friday in Hollow Water. "I don't want to pretend I know as much as elders on this, but I'm not exactly a rookie." 

  View Full Post 10/11/2007 5:20 PM 0