Jon Montgomery and Sochi 2014: what could have been

The Canadian men’s skeleton team for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia will only have two athletes, and one of them will not be named Jon Montgomery. Until recently many people, myself included, assumed that Jon would be there. Why wouldn’t we? He is the reigning gold medalist, he was the fastest Canadian in…

Death Cab For Selby

Other people have died shortly after being released from hospital, but recent back-to-back fatalities have put a spotlight on a possible systemic problem within the Manitoba health care system. Walking into that spotlight last Friday was the Minister of Health, Erin Selby, not to take responsibility on behalf of the health care system but to…

2014 Peg-city Predictions

A few predictions for the coming year in this colder-than-Mars city of Winnipeg … Manitoba Politics There will be less excitement in the Manitoba political arena this year than last. Last year brought a new leader to one of the three major political parties when the refreshingly youthful Rana Bokhari took hold of the Liberal…

Last Song Standing

One of the things I liked most about 92.9 Kick FM, Red River College’s campus radio station, was alternative music that provided a departure from the classic rock or top 40 stuff at the mainstream stations. With the death of that station a couple of years ago there is no consistent source of new alternative…

MPI: increasing more than your premiums

Something you should know about me: I am a little bit of a hoarder. Not a big league hoarder with stacks of boxes, clothes, chicken bones and Safeway bags filled with collectable dust bunnies. I am actually reasonably organized, but I also happen to have MPI statements dating back several years. My MPI renewal also…

A Clean Fight

It wasn’t a typical Thursday night for me. Instead of my usual routine of organizing my collection of beer bottle caps while listening to Kenny Rogers, I headed off to the fights. The event was The Clean Fight — a fundraiser for iDE-Canada, organized by In This Corner (ITC) Boxing Fitness Centre. 14 women raised…

It’s worse than you think

There is this show on the cable network Slice called Til Debt Do Us Part. In it, host Gail Vaz-Oxlade helps couples solve their spending problem and the crushing debt burden that it caused. There is a moment in every episode after Gail does all her calculations that she meets with the couple – usually…

UPDATED: The Premier is “probably” lying.

UPDATE: It had come to light that the $5.5 billion that the government said or implied it would invest on core infrastructure isn’t really $5.5 billion. Minister Steve Ashton clarified that this figure includes anticipated cost sharing from the Feds. See here and here. How much are they going to spend? No one knows. Not…

I never really knew my neighbour

I never really knew my neighbour. In fact, now that I think about it, I didn’t even know his last name. He was a veteran. He lived across the street with his wife, who suffered badly from Alzheimer’s. Though he spent most of his time indoors he would wander out sometimes in his sweat pants…

Introducing Bokhari

No, it’s not a brand of rum. Bokhari, Rana Bokhari, is the new leader of the Manitoba Liberal Party. This is an interesting development, and I think it’s great news for not just the Liberal party but for Manitoba politics in general. Rana represents the best chance of the Liberal party to reinvent and rejuvenate…