Winnipeg Free Press

I’ve been going back and forth with Tory Leader Hugh McFadyen and NDP House Leader Dave Chomiak about why Question Period has sucked lately. The Tories have been asking lame questions, the NDP have been giving even lamer answers and everyone’s almost done caring. But there’s a third batch of players in the QP equation that also bear some responsibility, and that’s reporters like me. McFadyen was telling me about what it was like under Filmon, when he’d emerge from the House for the daily scrums to be surrounded by cameras, microphones and veteran reporters who would buttonhole him for some pretty ugly Q&As. Filmon couldn’t physically escape down the hall because of all the journalists, and the reporters sort of fed off each other’s questions for a pretty high-octane scrum. Granted, it was a more intense time - major budget cuts, selling MTS and the like. The Leg is now a far more boring place, thanks to good economic times and a premier who thinks new driver’s licenses are a major public policy initiative. 

Still, this session, we’ve had only one scrum that I’d call remotely invigorating - the one where everyone hassled Doer about Crown corps giving money to the human rights museum. Even then, there was only a half-dozen reporters and the story died the next day. On any given day in the media balcony in the house, there’s maybe five regulars and the odd camera that shows up because a reporter needs a clip from the roads minister about potholes or something equally one-off. We’re just not covering QP the way we did, and the MLAs know this, so they’ve just stopped trying as hard.  It’s not just QP. There’s far, far fewer reporters covering the Legislature in general, competing with each other and spending time digging up stuff. CBC has all but abandoned the Leg, and no television station sends anyone down with any regularity. Space in my own newspaper has shrunk dramatically since the days of Arlene Bilinkoff and Curt Petrovich, so we’re doing fewer stories. Whole bills get briefed. That means the daily clash of Question Period, the moment where ideas and policies crystallize, just doesn’t have any impact on voters anymore. I don’t know what to do about that. 

The ministers’ travel expenses were posted online yesterday, and a few of us veteran cheapskate backpackers spent some time bitching about how bad the Doer government appears to be at, like, checking out travelocity.com.

In fairness, most of the ministers were pretty frugal. Ag Minister Rosann Wowchuck spent about $6,000 on her 10-day trade mission to India, which I don’t think is unreasonable at all. Couple readers wrote me to say the same, which is not the feedback you usually get with these kinds of stories. Plus, I actually WANT ministers to travel and learn things and get new ideas, so I am loathe to begrudge a trip.

Having said that, there was one tidbit in the pages of forms that is too funny to go unmentioned.

Healthy Living Minister Kerri Irvin-Ross went to an aboriginal women’s summit in Corner Brook, Nfld and spent about $450 on her flight. I couldn’t have scored a better deal myself. Way to use the expedia.com, Kerri!

But Aboriginal Affairs Minister Oscar Lathlin went to the exact same conference and spent nearly $3,000 on his flight.

I didn’t write about it today because I was worried Lathlin and Irvin-Ross had taken a charter and he’d just eaten most of the cost. Or that he’d taken a bunch of staff along (the original explanation from the province, that didn’t make sense at all). But, no. He just booked the flight late due to a schedule change. Even with that, though, I just checked Air Canada and I can score a last minute Tango flight to Deer Lake for half that price.

How about Hotwire.com? Trip Advisor? Anyone?

The Rowat Smear

I can’t recall a dirtier bit of political character assasination than the one perpetrated on Minnedosa MLA Leanne Rowat this week. In my years as a political reporter, it was the first time I’ve sat in the gallery and thought to myself that politics has become so petty and small and perverse that it’s probably unsalvageable. And I covered Winnipeg city hall for four years, so that’s saying something.

I didn’t hear Rowat’s heckle, but I heard about the YouTube video almost as soon as it was posted just hours after QP. I got calls about it. I didn’t bite because it all seemed so clearly bogus and trumped up. But then Aboriginal and Northern Affairs Minister Oscar Lathlin raised it on the floor of the House and it became impossible to ignore.

No right thinking person who follows the Manitoba Legislature would ever think Rowat intended anything other than a knee-jerk heckle of the NDP’s Spirited Energy campaign. Speaker of the House George Hicks agreed, telling the Winnipeg Sun the other day that he never for a moment thought Rowat was making a racist slur. Rowat is among the brightest and most progressive Tory MLAs elected, and I can think of two other occasions when she has made the same heckle, part of the stupid and childish daily shouting matches that MLA’s from both sides of the House engage in.

The NDP tried to argue that they were really going after McFadyen, not Rowat. She apologized and he didn’t. But half of Lathlin’s speech - which was a rare show of passion for him on the floor of the House - was about “the member from Minnedosa.” And he gave a rare interview to the Brandon Sun, read by many people in Rowat’s Westman riding. Keep in mind, Rowat won her seat the first time around by just 14 votes, earning her the nickname Landslide Leanne.

As Lathlin delivered his indictment, many reporters noted how uncomfortable Premier Gary Doer looked. And he didn’t much want to talk about the allegations of racism during an unrelated press conference later that afternoon. But he just couldn’t resist Thursday. When he got up to withdraw an unparliamentary remark, he looked pointedly across the aisle at McFadyen and said “And, I apologize.” It was pretty much the only reference to an episode I think most MLAs would just as soon forget.

Not yet, though. Today, Rupertsland MLA Eric Robinson had another go at Rowat during a meeting in Hollow Water. He called her a big mouth and said her remarks were cheap and stupid. Which is odd because just moments before she uttered the infamous “wine and beer” heckle, Robinson and Rowat had one of the most respectful exchanges in the house I have heard for a long time. Rowat called Robinson an honourable man, which he is. And Robinson acknowledged that Rowat cares just as much about Aboriginal poverty as he does.

There might be rednecks in the Tory caucus but Leanne Rowat isn’t one of them. And there are certainly racists comments made every day in this country and in the halls of the provincial Legislature, but Rowat’s just weren’t among them.

Empty Seats

I’ve been trying to keep track of MLA attendance because the Legislature itself has no accurate way of doing it. MLAs are supposed to report their absences but most don’t.

I gave up keeping track, though, when I was sick for a couple days and my system went to pot. But for the last three weeks or so it looks like Russell MLA Len Derkach and The Pas MLA Oscar Lathlin have been the most absent. But there was a rare day a couple weeks ago when all 57 MLAs were in the house for Question Period.

It’s hard to make a cogent argument as to WHY MLA’s shouldn’t miss Question Period. It’s become a waste of time.

What happened to Sam’s Clean-n-Green pledge?

An NDP flack was telling me recently about a German journalist who stopped in Winnipeg on his way to Churchill and commented on how dirty the city looked.

I couldn’t agree more. Is it just me or is this year particularly schmutzy? There’s layers of litter caught in bushes and fences just about everywhere I go, even in front of the Free Press building. The dust is disgusting and every window in the city needs to be washed.

Why can’t we get Winnipeg cleaned up a little faster in the spring? And why can’t we ban those white plastic bags that are a huge part of the litter that makes the city look so shoddy and sad?

Um, so if Hugh is Neville Chamberlain, that makes Toews….

Earlier this week, McFadyen quizzed Doer about the hold-up on the deal with Federal Treasury Board President Vic Toews on federal infrastructure money. McFadyen said Doer was standing in the way of a deal with Ottawa. Here’s Doer’s reply:

“Well, Mr. Speaker, there’s a difference between standing in the way and standing up. I’ve never seen a Leader of the Opposition act like Neville Chamberlain in this Chamber. It’s the first time I’ve seen that happen.”

How come no one got cheesed off at THAT?

And that’s refreshing. 

In his speech to party faithfuls Saturday in Brandon, Tory Leader Hugh McFadyen quoted JFK (and not a quote I’ve heard a million times), made reference to 18th century political economist Thomas Malthus and pulled an anecdote from a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of John Adams.

Those were the immortal words of a fellow press gallery scribe, cuddled up with all of us in the media gallery for Question Period last week.

It’s been the most boring three months ever at the Manitoba Legislature. Except for the hog barn ban, the NDP government has done absolutely nothing of note since Christmas. That means the Tories had plenty of time to mine their sources, hoard all sorts of damning details of government waste and corruption and craft the perfect question to make Premier Gary Doer’s head explode. 

Nope. They asked about hogs (way to woo Winnipeg, guys…) and hallway medicine. The health question was based on a story CJOB’s Richard Cloutier had on his show that morning, not on any sleuthing the Tories did while the house was out.

There’s two things to say here.

One, Tory Leader Hugh McFadyen believes Question Period is good for getting Doer on the record about some things but essentially useless for getting the Opposition’s message into the media. That’s true, and I don’t know whose fault it is - the Tories for asking such lame questions or us for throwing up our hands in boredom all the time. Traditionally, the Free Press has sent both reporters up to the gallery to sit through QP, since there used to be a schwack of tidbits that shook lose. I think that might change.

Second, as reheated as the Tory questions are, there’s just not a huge amount to bug the government about that will score points among voters. Doer has done just enough on just enough fronts to have just enough of an answer for everything. He is so painfully cautious that he almost never causes controversy. The economy is fine and a windfall in federal transfer payment means the NDP escaped the budget hacking and slashing the Tories were forced to do in the 1990s. So, except the power line, Crocus and the odd lady stuck in a hospital hallway, McFadyen doesn’t have a lot of material to work with.

Which is why our notebooks might stay empty during QP for some time to come.

#1 

It was so relaxed.

Free Press Photographer Mike Aporius and I were all anal retentive about covering the big deal in Grand Forks Friday night. We left Winnipeg super early. We worried about security and getting pinned in a crush of egos from NBC and CBS. We fussed about access around the Alerus and whether the cops would be jerks if we tried to wander around freely. We figured that after Sept. 11 and given the intensity of the nomination battle and the short notice that party oganizers and the candidates would turn the Alerus into Tiananmen Square.

Whatever. Those were the nicest cops ever. At one point, Aporius grabbed his 47 cameras, snuck out of the media pen and wandered right up to the stage, thinking he’d be nabbed by Secret Service and sent back within five minutes. Instead, it took a long time for a party volunteer to notice him and even then a Secret Service guy stepped in and said ‘Nah, he’s alright.” Aporius got within two feet of Obama as he walked the rope line, which we all saw on the jumbotron.

Basically, no one really cared where we went. There was a special checkpoint before the ballrooms where Obama was having his $100-a-ticket private reception. We wandered through and the police officer just shrugged his shoulders and said “sure” when I asked if we could head down to the reception area.

Compare that to my trip to Churchill last year to see Prime Minister Stephen Harper dole out some money to the railway and port up there. We schlumped 1,000 km there to ask him one question and get our bathroom breaks micro-managed. Every step we took was pre-ordained and after the brief press conference I never got within 20 feet of Harper again.

#2

Yes, I know. Clinton told a whopper.

In my story from GF, I mentioned Clinton’s highlight moment - a story she told about a pregnant Ohio woman who was uninsured and refused care at her local hospital. Her baby died and so did she. It was, for cynical me, the only tingly moment of the night.

But Saturday morning my Blackberry was abuzz with readers pointing me to a New York Times story that morning that debunked Clinton’s anecdote. The Times did some digging on the story, which Clinton has been using in her stump speech for at least the last month, and it turns out the woman had insurance and was never refused treatment. The small-town hospital is imploring Clinton to quit telling the story.

That’s disappointing, and given the Clintons’ rep for manipulating the truth, entirely predictable. But the interesting thing about it was how many e-mails I had from people demanding we correct the record. The e-mails appeared to come from average readers - Lynnes and Dianes and Amys. After a little backing and forthing, I realised these weren’t Winnipeggers who happen to read the New York Times (except you, Jeff Browaty). These were Obama supporters, probably part of some media monitoring office that sends e-mail blasts to reporters under the guise of being average folk. 

#3

Clinton was still cooler. 

I was waiting for the big shiver when Obama spoke. He was great at first - with the kind of cadence and symmetry you only hear from politicians on The West Wing. Then it got kind of repetitive and empty and then I got bored. Then I realised I couldn’t really remember exactly what he had just talked about.

Clinton had tons of ideas, ones that made common sense and ones I actually remembered when it was all over. She spoke for too long but she had plenty of crowd support, a surprise since nearly everyone I spoke to was there to see Obama. Compared to Obama, she seemed miles more substantive and detail-oriented and mature. Plus she worked harder - she was the last to speak at an event where she was clearly second-fiddle. She worked the rope line for at least a half an hour, taking pictures and signing swag. Obama was out of there like a shot.

I said all this to Conservation Minister Stan Struthers when I ran into him on the way to the bathroom. He countered with the idea that the top job ought to belong to someone who can really inspire people, get them thinking beyond themselves. You can hire people to come up with smart policy. You can’t fake the inspiring part. 

Okay, how do you get a gym full of tots all fired up about nutrient management regulation so the photo op doesn’t go all to hell while CTV is rolling? Ask Water Minister Christine Melnick, not a politician or a portfolio normally associated with inspiring Hallmark moments.

The province finally signed off on some new water pollution regs Tuesday (see crabby post below) and did a little press announcement at Lakewood School. Reporters were rolling their eyes at the deja-vous of it all, and the cute kids were getting a little antsy when Melnick (known for her elementary teacher-style sweaters) made the trip to St. Charles a tiny bit worthwhile.

The kids got a chance to ask a couple questions before reporters did. They asked how many fish were dying from pollution in Lake Winnipeg and how much algae is too much. Melnick fielded the questions like a pro - short, simple, colourful answers that were really answers. Then she fired off a few questions to the kids - how many have fish tanks? How many have cottages? How many have been swimming in Lake Winnipeg? How many have heard the loons around the lake? Hands were shooting up all over the gym and even I was reminded why we give a crap about Lake Winnipeg.

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.”