I have been employed by a large firm that went through a dramatic restructuring. I will not tell you which one, though some of you know and some will guess, but I can tell you that we were a publicly traded company operating in a duopoly environment, meaning there was limited competition. I was hired…
I apologize in advance if you were one of the few people who read my first post on this subject over a year ago, as this re-hashes much of what I said there. But I feel compelled to post about it again in light of a MyToba column wherein Spencer Fernando argues for holding a referendum…
By now most swing voters in Manitoba have made up their minds to vote for somebody other than the NDP, and are reviewing their options among the remaining parties. If there are any non-diehard NDPers that are still leaning towards voting for the incumbents, it may be because they buy the NDP’s message that we…
I sometimes feel bad for the Manitoba NDP party. After 16 years in power they have mangled almost every portfolio so badly that they have very little to brag about. They want to be the party of health care, but after dumping hundreds of millions into the health system, wait times are the worst in…
On April 30, the Manitoba provincial government will present its budget for the coming fiscal year. You can be sure that within the budget package the government will trumpet the tax savings that it has bestowed on Manitoba wage earners over the years. You can be equally sure that there will be no mention of…
I once had a conversation with a person from an obscure political party who’s platform involved holding a referendum on every major economic or policy decision. “What could be more democratic than that?” he asked. Nothing, I suppose, but the point of a democracy isn’t to put every individual decision in the hands of…
I was scanning the Winnipeg Sun today when I came upon a full page ad directed at Manitoba Hydro employees: The ad starts by buttering up Hydro employees by telling them that they “have done a fine job”, then sets about explaining why their employer is going to shambles. The ad explains that the NDP…
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…
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…
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…
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