(Welcome to our new readers, coming to us courtesy of local pollsters and mainstream media pundits. Make sure to tune in to our show at 4 PM weekdays on 92.9 Kick-FM, for even more about the changing political landscape in Manitoba.)
The so-called pundits fell all over themselves yesterday and today to heap praise on Beltway-bound Premier Gary Doer, and demonstrated how truly out-of touch they are with reality, in rationalizing their predictions about possible successors.
Nary a one, made any mention of the NDP switch from true democratic one-vote-per-member to a union-slanted delegate leadership convention system at their 2007 convention, which led to the exit of Elmwood MLA Jim Malloway to the federal stage when he squawked loud and long about the change.
The bias of the predictors, who universally avoided mentioning the obvious downside of some potential aspirants, (i.e. Finance Minister Greg Selingers' involvement in the 1999 Election Rebate scam), and ignored Doer's burial of "old left" (ie Bill Blaikie) style politics in his remarks, was exemplified once more today in the Free Press.
Ignoring the record number of departing doctors, the impending audit of WRHA slush-funded "brown envelopes", and her hiding from the press when the video of Brian Sinclair in the Health Sciences Centre proved she had lied to the Legislature, the "Theresa Oswald for NDP leader" idea was revisited with a straight face.
"She's managed the politically risky health portfolio "quite successfully," said University of Manitoba political scientist Paul Thomas, who said Oswald "seems to be down-to-earth and very human in the way she presents herself and her ideas."
James Cotton, who was assaulted by a Free Press reporter when he tried to question Deputy Premier Wowchuck about how charity-bound government pork ended up in Freep employees' bellies, did an excellent job in recounting the true record of the Doer administration that the broadsheet refuses to detail:
http://manitobapost.blogspot.com/2009/08/ginny-is-smiling-for-different.html
Meanwhile, after The Black Rod provided their own take on the political reasons for Doer's decision to depart ("his teflon was gone...This is the best time to leave, right before the perfect storm that's brewing for 2010 hits"), http://blackrod.blogspot.com/2009/08/gary-doer-gittin-while-gittins-good.html, longtime Doer-apologist, former MSM columnist, and part-time blogger Curtis Brown trotted out his current employers' springtime poll as proof the blog could not possibly be correct, "sorry".
Sorry indeed.
The facts buried in the poll, taken June 8-25th - before the details of the 1999 Elections Manitoba rebate scam that engulfed Selinger, Justice Minister Dave Chomiak and Doer himself, and before gang warfare on our streets became issue -- show that the Black Rod may have been even more correct than they realized.
- The poll Brown cleaves to, showed a 44-36% lead for the NDP.
- The margin of error was 3.1%
- That means the poll result could have been NDP 40.9- PC 39.1.
( Brown replies: ... The margin of error was 3.1%. Yes, it could have been NDP 40.9, PC 39.1....)
- The Tories showed a lead among young voters, many of whom were highly pissed off at the NDP refusing to refund illegal photo-radar tickets. - The NDP had dropped 2 percent since their last poll, which means if they continued trending downwards ...
Premier Doer said at the press conference that "I believe you can't be accountable to the public without accessibility through the media. I try to be accessible, unless I'm dodging you."
Given that we never received a single reply to our invitations for him to appear on TGCTS and address the campus radio audience, it would appear that Doer realized that Kick-FM was a teflon-free zone.
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From our email bag:
Marty,
Thank you for suggesting the more prosaic theory of why so many young aboriginal are missing or murdered. The usual race hustlers want a task force to hunt down the white devil apparently targeting aboriginal women (or white devils, if you believe Lindor Reynolds). Some seem to perversely desire finding a Willie Pickton-type figure, as it will simultaneously vindicate their prejudices and further their agenda. But most likely these girls and women were killed by street gangs; the fact that Cherrisse Houle and Hilary Wilson knew each other substantiates that theory.
We often hear how aboriginal youth are more vulnerable, or lead high-risk lifestyles. You were right about the waste funding more education programs would be. Who doesn't know you shouldn't do crack? Or you shouldn't be a whore? Or you shouldn't hang with street gangs? The only reason a kid wouldn't know better is if they came from a remote reserve but considering how pervasive the street gangs are on reserves, even the remote ones, I doubt kids aren't exposed to those evils already.
What the race hustlers and sad-sack sociologists refuse to accept is that kids are making irrational choices that threaten their well-being and life. It takes a lot of desperation for a kid to choose the irrational, to choose to be so fatalistic. Growing up on a reserve where welfare is in its third generation giving birth to the fourth, where one or two families dominate the band, where the average resident has zero equity and little chance of acquiring any, where kicks include sniffing gas or guzzling super juice: who wouldn't despair?
Either we believe the aboriginal lobbyists that aboriginals are "over-represented" in jails and social services or we recognize just how profoundly detrimental the reserve system is to human beings. Some lobbyists and apologists claim we would feel differently if it were white girls from the suburbs. It's not a fair comparison. No other group has the socialization of the reserve system to deal with. No other group has a history of being treated differently in law and in society. I'm tossing thoughts around here but can you have a real social contract when you also have Indian treaties? And the lobbyists want more aboriginal-specific programs... What the public might generally feel towards these serial tragedies is something like a passive/aggressive response.
Regardless of what anyone feels or does or says, the sun will rise on the reserve system tomorrow and the day after. We will be told to pay more money to compensate for what we are told is our systemic racism. Homicide after homicide, we are told it is us or some white devil we spawned that is killing these girls; no other suspects are considered. Meanwhile the gangs blast away every night and most violent crimes are tagged with the familiar phrase, 'aboriginal in appearance.' I don't know how many job ads I've seen that offered first dibs to applicants that are aboriginal in appearance. The state bends over backwards to appease the historically disadvantaged but the history never ends.
You can't expect much sympathy from the public that witnesses the choice of irrational, criminal behavior in spite of an abundance of opportunities. Does anyone not know you shouldn't drink when pregnant? And yet there are more FASD cases ever year. And more aboriginal kids in care than ever before. And what is the one constant in all these nightmares and tragedies? The reserve system.
And we know the reserves are now euphemistically known as "First Nations communities" and they are moving towards self-government and self-sufficiency. Canada, as it is presently constituted is failing us, and failing native kids. We the people are sick of being told we have a racist system when the same voices that condemn us also want the reserves to continue and to have different rights and race-specific services and programs. The public cannot be indifferent to these deaths. If anything, these deaths prove our point: the reserve system is a colossal failure. We ask: How many more deaths does it take before the Crown and its fellow travelers renounce the reserve system?
No, Ms. Fontaine and Ms. Reynolds, do not ask us if we care about these women. It is you who sifts through their entrails for signs of serial killers or some other fiction that comports with your ideological bent. A task force? Why bother? You still have the same judges and the same justice system. Forgive us, the public, who sees no change no matter how many bodies end up in the morgue. There are no gangbusters in office here, just colour-coded activists and professional socialists who make their living off the human carnage, and they're making a killing.
Keep up the good work!
M
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When we stop to think about why our city is in CHAOS engulfed in violence, theft, homicide. It is very simple.
Human beings have been desensitized to all these issues. No one cares anymore. Back in the day when the neighborhood bully would beat up on one of the small kids the entire neighborhood would teach him a lesson, and his parents would hear an ear full from all the other parents. This comes from growing up on HOME Street (between Notre dame & Wellington).
The main media outlets help to turn a blind eye to all the chaos by running stories like this http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/garden-variety-lack-of-reason-53287202.html ..... Are you kidding me? This story is being run mean while I haven't heard squat about Vince Weiguang Li. The man who beheaded the young man on the grey hound bus.
The media should be hammering everyone involved with this guy until he is put in jail for life with no parole. But instead I hear more about how he was troubled, and suffered with a disorder. So keep printing stories about gardens at bus stops, and lets continue to turn a blind eye to what is really happening out there.
Regards,
JY
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I guess we aren’t entitled to question our betters such as judges and politicians. According to (a recent letter to the editor) we should only be permitted to trudge away while child rapists, street thugs and other assorted scum commit their crimes, then abscond after receiving bail. I thought it was a free country where we were permitted to express deep frustrations when we repeatedly witness first hand the pain and trauma victims’ experience which is often compounded when their victimizers receive little or no meaningful consequences for their actions.
All too often there is little “justice” in the system and that’s why cops speak out, both to inform the public and tell the truth about a system that needs some serious fixing. Obviously this man feels the system works quite well and is more than happy to trust his fate, and that of his loved ones to it, should they ever happen, god forbid, to be victimized themselves. I wonder how satisfied with the performance of judges and politicians he will be then.
Mike Sutherland
President
Winnipeg Police Association
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Hello Marty,
I do have to reiterate how much I hate the NDP and the fact that they have repeatedly lied to, deceived and screwed over the people of Manitoba on most issues - not just health care. I also will say that any progress that we see on wait times appears to have come from federal (read: Conservative) money and direction and their efforts.
Having said this, it is unfair to dramatically increase the number of physicians allowed to access MRIs and then to simultaneously have the extra techs, machines and radiologists available. When the MMA negotiated for universal access to MRI by family physicians, many of which have no business ordering MRIs, they slit their own throat, so to speak on this issue.
Now you have an extra 500+ people accessing a scarce resource without ready infrastructure to accomidate this. I am willing to bet that if MB health did not grant this concession, we might be ahead of the curve when it comes to wait times on this issue.
Cheers,
Dr X
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I had a blast driving to work this morning with the Louise bridge closed and a bus stalled in the curb lane.
Oh yeah never mind that's only a closed bridge which has 1 lane not the closed bridge with 2 lanes I wonder how much longer it will take when disraelli is closed and we get a bus stall in the curb lane?? Cause you know its going to happen
GG, Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone
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Marty: I guess we know why Doer never gave a f___ about Disraeli.
He was planning on quitting his job so he wouldn't get stuck in it.
Swell guy, it all makes sense now if he stayed till the next election he would have added the 50-80 minutes onto his round trip like the rest of us.
Now he can just sit back collect his big pension(remember at his age there is no wait) and laugh at the rest of us suckers as we suffer making it to work to pay for his fun. Legacy they say? Legacy of self interest reinforced at every turn.
Thanks
A Loyal listener
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and lastly, this email from June 5, 2008:
... By the way, I do listen to your show and I find it highly entertaining.
Best,
Curtis Brown
