Mayor? Maybe. But premier? No

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/09/2009 (5880 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

AND THEY’RE OFF… They haven’t fired the starter’s pistol yet, or even begun sharpening the knives. But unofficially, the race is already on to replace Gary Doer as leader of the provincial NDP and assume the mantle of premier of Manitoba.

Some, if not all, the probable contenders had their faces in Saturday’s Free Press. NDP party insiders all.

But one of the not-so-obvious potential candidates whose name has been mentioned is from the party’s periphery. So last Friday I emailed CUPE president Paul Moist and, in the course of asking him for a Gary Doer story, inquired if he would be interested in the premier’s old job.

Moist answered my call for a Doer story with a story that said as much about the premier’s wife as the premier.

"He is a pretty competitive guy," Moist said of Doer. "Not sure he has ever gotten over that his wife Ginny is a better golfer than he is."

Moist is a pretty competitive guy himself. But the 52-year-old, who grew up and made his home in Wolseley before moving to CUPE headquarters in Ottawa, made no reference to the question about joining the leadership race. Other than to say we could have coffee sometime.

Instead, I invited him to call me, which he did on Sunday afternoon.

By that time, others had approached him with the same question, including a couple of his friends in the media.

The short answer is no, he’s not interested in running for leadership of the NDP. But he made it known he might be interested in running for another job — mayor of Winnipeg.

Moist is that upset at Sam Katz’s leadership at city hall, in large part, no doubt, because it’s costing CUPE jobs. "He’s running by decree," Moist said, a reference to the control Katz has over the majority of council votes.

Moist had some other choice words, but here are the most important ones.

"I’m sorely tempted to take that guy on," is where Moist left it.

For now, at least.

"ö "ö "ö

WELCOME TO WINNIPEG (CONTINUED)… The email that arrived late Monday afternoon had an intriguing subject line:

"It’s happened again."

"It" turned out to concern a 39-year-old tourist from Munich. The writer was a woman named Lori Darragh.

"Dear Mr. Sinclair,

"I work as a tour guide at the legislative building, so I get to boast about Manitoba and Winnipeg almost every day, but something that happened today makes that very hard…

"A man named Mathias came on one of my tours, from Germany, who was biking across Canada for his holidays. He was the only person on my tour, so over the course of the hour I got to know him quite well. He’d spent the past two months biking from Vancouver and was soon going to be leaving for Toronto, where he would catch a flight back to Germany. After the tour, I bade him farewell and he left the building. That’s why I was very surprised to see him back 20 minutes later… Can you guess what comes next?"

No, actually I couldn’t, so on I read.

"His $1,500 black CUBE bike had been stolen that he’d brought here from Germany."

Of course, how stupid of me.

"It was parked right along Broadway," Lori continued, "and sometime in the hour and a half he had spent in the building, someone had come along and snapped the lock. As security let him use the phone to make a police report, it was clear that he was holding back tears. I offered him a ride back to his hostel at the end of my shift, but he decided to walk back.

"I wish there was something I could do to help him. I wanted to offer him an extra bike I have sitting in my garage, but it’s a busted Canadian Tire bike with two gears, so it’s not exactly suitable for biking to Toronto. I would hate for his trip to Canada to end on such a sour note."

So would we all, I would hope.

There’s already some good news.

An hour after the first e-mail from Lori, her second arrived.

"I’ve already had about $100 pledged towards a new bike for him."

If you can help, his name is Mathias Kolczynski and he’s staying at the HI hostel at 330 Kennedy St. (943-5581). His email is M-ONTOUR@GMX.DE

Or you can contact me, of course.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca