Lameduck Mayor Sam Katz steps up to fill Robin Williams' shoes

Is Sam Katz auditioning for a new career as a comedian?

He's no Robin Williams, but you've got to start somewhere.

When the news broke that the province of Manitoba had asked the RCMP to review the trio of city audits that uncovered massive favoritism in handing out construction contracts "and to conduct any investigations it considers appropriate," Katz tapped his funny bone to knock off some one-liners in the form of a "statement."

His best: "The province has made their decision and chosen to exercise their right to refer to the RCMP, and all of council would support their decision, and I hope this brings closure."

Bwahaha. Now that's funny.

It may be too subtle for many people, but it's in the true tradition of understated British humour.

You see, Katz is saying just the opposite.

He and his council cabal voted AGAINST sending the audits to the provincial justice department, a move made by councillors in the hope the province would call in the Mounties.

The vote was razor-thin, 8-7 to approve the motion. One councillor didn't vote -- Justin Swandel, Katz's sidekick, his Ed McMahon to Sam's Johnny Carson, the guy who sits there and guffaws at his master's lame jokes.

The council meeting ran late and Swandel left for an appointment. If he stayed he would have cast the tying vote that would have killed the motion to refer to the province.

Now that's funny, Sam Katz's staunchest ally ensured the RCMP would be called in to investigate Sam Katz's administration.

Katz isn't running for re-election because the humourless electorate might not find the scandals that have cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars so funny. Instead, he's adopted the old adage: always leave 'em laughing.

But the RCMP review might not be the "closure" the lameduck mayor wants.

The police might just expand on the "prima facie" case built by the audits and dig deeper into the cozy relationship between the mayor, his best friend and the city's chief administrative officer, and his other friend and investor and beneficiary of the best friend's largesse. Who knows, the Mounties might just travel to Scottsdale, Arizona, to ask questions about the million dollar house Sam Katz bought from sister of an executive of Shindico for $10 "and other considerations."

But for a comedian it's all grist for the mill. Sam Katz even has his punchline written and waiting:
"When it comes to ability, intelligence and integrity, this jury wouldn't even qualify to be in the same building, let alone the same room, as Phil Sheegl."

Nanu Nanu.

The unreported bombshell conspiracy evidence in the Trudeau/SNC-Lavelin scandal

Wow. No, double-wow. A game-changing bombshell lies buried in the supplementary evidence provided to the House of Commons Judiciary Committee by former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould. It has gone virtually unreported since she submitted the material almost a week ago. As far as we can find, only one journalist-- Andrew Coyne, columnist for the National Post--- has even mentioned it and even then he badly missed what it meant, burying it in paragraph 10 of a 14 paragraph story. The gist of the greatest political scandal in modern Canadian history is well-known by now. It's bigger than Adscam, the revelation 15 years ago that prominent members of the Liberal Party of Canada and the party itself funneled tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks into their own pockets from federal spending in Quebec sponsoring ads promoting Canadian unity. That was just venal politicians and a crooked political party helping themselves to public money. The Trudeau-Snc-Lavalin scandal is

Crips and Bloodz true cultural anchors of Winnipeg's aboriginal gangs

(Bebo tribute page to Aaron Nabess on the right, his handgun-toting friend on the left) At least six murder victims in Winnipeg in the past year are linked to a network of thuglife, gangster rap-styled, mainly aboriginal street gangs calling themselves Crips and Bloods after the major black gangs of L.A. The Black Rod has been monitoring these gangs for several months ever since discovering memorial tributes to victim Josh Prince on numerous pages on Bebo.com, a social networking website like Myspace and Facebook. Josh Prince , a student of Kildonan East Collegiate, was stabbed to death the night of May 26 allegedly while breaking up a fight. His family said at the time he had once been associated with an unidentified gang, but had since broken away. But the devotion to Prince on sites like Watt Street Bloodz and Kingk Notorious Bloodz (King-K-BLOODZ4Life) shows that at the time of his death he was still accepted as one of their own. Our searches of Bebo have turned up another five ga

Manitoba Hydro is on its deathbed. There, we said it.

Manitoba Hydro is on its deathbed. Oh, you won't find anyone official to say it. Yet . Like relatives trying to appear cheery and optimistic around a loved one that's been diagnosed with terminal cancer, the people in power are in the first stage of grief -- denial. The prognosis for Hydro was delivered three weeks ago at hearings before the Public Utilities Board where the utility was seeking punishingly higher rates for customers in Manitoba. It took us this long to read through the hundred-plus pages of transcript, to decipher the coded language of the witnesses, to interpret what they were getting at, and, finally, to understand the terrible conclusion. We couldn't believe it, just as, we're sure, you can't--- so we did it all again, to get a second opinion, so to speak. Hydro conceded to the PUB that it undertook a massive expansion program--- involving three (it was once four) new dams and two new major powerlines (one in the United States)---whi

Nahanni Fontaine, the NDP's Christian-bashing, cop-smearing, other star candidate

As the vultures of the press circle over the wounded Liberal Party of Manitoba, one NDP star candidate must be laughing up her sleeve at how her extremist past has escaped the scrutiny of reporters and pundits. Parachuted into a safe NDP seat in Winnipeg's North End, she nonetheless feared a bruising campaign against a well-heeled Liberal opponent. Ha ha. Instead, the sleepy newspeeps have turned a blind eye to her years of vitriolic attacks on Christianity, white people, and police. * She's spent years bashing Christianity as the root cause of all the problems of native people in Canada. * She's called for a boycott of white businesses . * And with her Marxist research partner, she's smeared city police as intransigent racists . Step up Nahanni Fontaine, running for election in St. John's riding as successor to the retiring Gord Macintosh. While her male counterpart in the NDP's galaxy of stars, Wab Kinew, has responded to the controversy over

Exposing the CBC/WFP double-team smear of a hero cop

Published since 2006 on territory ceded, released, surrendered and yielded up in 1871 to Her Majesty the Queen and successors forever. Exposing the CBC/FP double-team smear of a hero cop Some of the shoddiest journalism in recent times appeared this long August weekend when the CBC and Winnipeg Free Press doubled teamed on a blatant smear of a veteran city police officer. In the latest example of narrative journalism these media outlets spun stories with total disregard for facts that contradicted the central message of the reports which, simplified, is: police are bad and the system is covering up. Let's start with the story on the taxpayer funded CBC by Sarah Petz that can be summed up in the lead. "A February incident where an off-duty Winnipeg officer allegedly knocked a suspect unconscious wasn't reported to the province's police watchdog, and one criminologist says it shows how flawed oversight of law enforcement can be." There you have it. A policeman, not

Winnipeg needs a new police chief - ASAP

When did the magic die? A week ago the Winnipeg police department delivered the bad news---crime in the city is out of control. The picture painted by the numbers (for 2018) was appalling. Robberies up ten percent in a single year. (And that was the good news.) Property crimes were up almost 20 percent. Total crime was 33 percent higher than the five year average. The measure of violent crime in Winnipeg had soared to a rating of 161. Only four years earlier it stood at 116. That's a 38 percent deterioration in safety. How did it happen? How, when in 2015 the police and Winnipeg's police board announced they had discovered the magic solution to crime? "Smart Policing" they called it. A team of crime analysts would pore through data to spot crime hot-spots and as soon as they identified a trend (car thefts, muggings, liquor store robberies) they could call in police resources to descend on the problem and nip it. The police

The Black Rod

Search This Blog