Quickly...

Leanne Rowat is not a racist.

What she said -- when it's decontextualized, as it is in this YouTube clip -- was certainly easy to misconstrue. But to her credit, she apologized for it, and now she's being pilloried over it long after the fact.

The people who insist on making a federal case out of this cheapen what we truly define as racism by refusing to let the issue go. I have no doubt that Grand Chief Morris Shannacappo, Minister Oscar Lathlin and many other Aboriginal Manitobans have too often faced the ugly reality of prejudice, but the rants about resignations and blanket apologies smack of nothing more than political point-scoring.

Reading Hansard, it is somewhat heartening to know that Oscar's six-day delay in raising the issue publicly was because he was away on business and not because his mid-afternoon QP nap ran extra long. Still, to read his remarks and those of Dave Chomiak, the Legislature's prince of pontification, one gets the impression this has nothing to do with racism and everything to do with painting a Tory MLA as just another white-bred knuckledragger from rural Manitoba so that a piece of the NDP base won't be tempted to start voting PC.

Fortunately, this remnant of life under the Broadway bubble will be forgotten by Monday...

One hopes.

Pulling Another Chretien

I've said before that Gary Doer and Jean Chretien are remarkably similar politicians.

Today, Premier Doer once again mimicked le P'tit Gars de Shawinigan by effectively tying his successor's hands with new electoral rules that fix election dates, limit pre-writ advertising and give parties public financing.

It's a nice concept, but if it's such a great thing to do, why didn't Doer bring in these changes last year -- back when these changes might have made a difference in the provincial election? Instead, Doer has covered off every complaint made about his government's conduct in the lead-up to last May 22 and in the process, stripped several tools from the Office of the Premier's political toolkit.

Just as Chretien made life intentionally difficult for his rival and successor, Paul Martin, by restricting corporate donations to parties and leadership candidates, Doer seems to be keen on ensuring that no provincial party leader, NDP or otherwise, can replicate the Doer three-peat.

The next premier, unlike Doer, won't be able to stroll over to Government House an hour after a major federal funding announcement and drop the writ now that the next election date has been fixed.

The next premier, unlike Doer, won't be able to soften up the electorate with a self-serving spate of pre-election government advertising. Manitoba Won't Mean Business, nor will Manitobans be Seeing Green within 60 days of the next campaign.

The next premier, unlike Doer, won't benefit from having surrogates bombard the airwaves and billboards with third-party advertising not-so-subtly reminding voters how terrible the 1990s were (at least if you were a teacher or nurse).

The next premier, unlike Doer, will have to bury his political skeletons a little deeper, as the comissioner of elections will be able to shed light on his or her investigations into partisan chicanery. Good thing that Maples business was out of the way before that one went in the books.

It's all well and good to do. But it begs the question: is it all to be open and transparent, or is it just to make sure one man's remarkable political achievement remains intact?

Risk For Political Geeks, Rural Edition*

Every 10 years, a judge, a bureaucrat and some other very smart people conclave, much like the cardinals who elect the Pope, to make an important choice. Data is crunched. Arguments are made. Meanwhile, nervous Manitoba politicos bite their nails, fretful MLAs update their resumes and real life-deprived geeks like myself sit in anticipation for a puff of white smoke and new boundaries for 57 Manitoba constituencies to be handed down from on high.

As promised, here is a look at the Elections Manitoba Boundary Review process. To save the aforementioned smart people some time from their trying year-long process, I'd suggest they could look over what I managed to put together in an hour, as well as check out the fine work fellow blogger Prairie Topiary has also done on how Winnipeg's boundaries could be readjusted.

To avoid repetition, I'm going to start my review by looking at rural and northern constituencies. There seem to be three major questions here:

1. Can the North go from five seats to four? (NB: This the Tories, even though it pretty much makes Swan River an NDP stronghold forever)
2. Will rural Western Manitoba lose a seat? (NB: This helps the NDP)
3. Will southeast Manitoba gain a seat? (Which might help the NDP -- but only if this guy replaces Doer, and even then it's too close to call...)

Let's start with the North...

The northern seats are allowed to be 25 percent below the provincial "quotient" of 20,147 people per constituency. The average population in the five northern seats is 17,659 (12.3 percent below quotient), with a wild fluctuation between the most populous northern seat in The Pas (20,525, 1.88% above quotient) and the emptiest northern constituency in Flin Flon (12,960, 35.7% below quotient).

Some Tories would surely love to lose Flin Flon (they couldn't get anyone to run there last May, and were roundly mocked for icing a shorthanded side...) but the fact the North is only 12 percent below quotient suggests you can carve up The Pas and Thompson (which is only 4.6% below quotient) to make it work. For instance, you might move the Nisichawayasihk First Nation (pop. 2,096) and the communities around Wabowden (pop. 2,096) out of Thompson and put them in with Flin Flon while moving the Cross Lake First Nation (pop. 4,700) from The Pas to Thompson.

At 10.6 percent below quotient, Swan River is probably fine as it is, and you could easily bump up Rupertsland (17,600, 12.7% below quotient) by shifting Manigotogan and/or Bissett from Lac du Bonnet, which is over-quotient and likely to pick up people from elsewhere.

Now, to the southwest...

At 41,511 people, Brandon is still too small to create a third rural/urban riding, so the two Brandons will have to be redrawn since Brandon West (21,640, 7.1% over-quotient) is quite a bit bigger than Brandon East (19,870, 1.37% under-quotient). In a situation that I know makes Brandon East Tory candidate of record Mike Waddell and his restless brood of tiny Tory adventurers drool with anticipation, Elections Manitoba will have to shift the boundary west on the North Hill, thus putting a sizable neighbourhood of $250,000+ homes into a constituency that has elected a New Democrat in every election since the moon landing.

Beyond the Eastern Access (Brandon's half-completed answer to the Perimeter Highway), three of six constituencies are below the rural deviation cutoff of 10 percent. While Minnedosa (18,285, 9.24% under-quotient), Ste. Rose (18,525, 8.05% under) and Dauphin-Roblin (18,635, 7.5% under) are inside the line, Russell (17,330, 13.98% under), Arthur-Virden (17,630, 12.48% under) and Turtle Mountain (17,375, 13.76% under) are getting more than their fair share of representation at the moment.

If you whittle these seats down to five, you'd end up with the average seat being over-quotient by 6.8 percent -- which is inside the line set down by the Boundaries Commission, though a little unfair if you consider nearby Swan River would remain about 10 percent under the line. Still, it's the most likely scenario, with Minnedosa likely to be swallowed up as Dauphin-Roblin grabs Crane River and Ste. Rose from the poorly-named Ste. Rose (in reality, Neepawa) constituency; that constituency puts Minnedosa in with Neepawa and Gladstone; Russell takes in Newdale, Rapid City and Rivers; Arthur-Virden swallows up Souris and Turtle Mountain (again, a stupidly-named constituency that hasn't included the Turtle Mountains since the mid-1990s) absorbs Shilo and Wawanesa while possibly shedding Brookdale and Wellwood (which go north).

I'm going to stop there for tonight. Looking at the southeast, it's a mess and requires some deeper thought before I wield the gerrymandering scalpel on that pocket of the province. Somehow, when the smoke clears, I intend to show how a new constituency in the most conservative corner of Manitoba could vote for the Green Party. Just watch me.

*a shout out to Policy Frog for delivering the catchy title for this time-consuming task is in order.

Cranky About Carbon Taxes

To the Frog and others with something to say about the province's green plan:

I couldn't say it better myself.

So I'll just repeat what I said six months ago, except that I'd ask you to replace the words "federal" with "provincial," "Conservative" with "NDP" and "Jim Flaherty" with "Greg Selinger."

Savvy?

Quickly, Briefly...

It's busy busy, so this is just a quick note to let the world know I'm still alive. Three things, very quickly:

1. I'm surprised no one has written anything in the media about the upcoming review of provincial election boundaries. It's arcane, dry and doesn't make for good TV, but it's very important as far as Manitoba politics and the next election. It must be, since it's generating a lot of interest/anxiety in both the NDP and PC parties right now. The numbers are interesting, at the very least. Go check it out.

2. First it's the media, then it's the bureaucrats ... and now Elections Canada is part of the great Trudeaupian/leftist/liberal/commie conspiracy?!? Adjust your tinfoil hats, you guys. Next up will be news from Conservative Central that Bisphenol A causes Canadians to involuntarily genuflect before photos of Jean Chretien.

3. I wholeheartedly concur. Question Period is a complete waste of everyone's time. But it's always fun for us political junkies to watch, even if there's no point in taking notes.

Welcome To Cartography School

The Tories were handing out this little card to people this afternoon to voters in Brandon's Green Acres ward. Obviously, it was designed to play up the fact the Wheat City has no representation in Gary Doer's cabinet. But the map it uses -- showing the Keystone Province from Dauphin south -- betrays a lot about how Tories view Manitoba.

Brandon may have been chopped from the NDP's Manitoba map, but the map the Tories are using misses more than a few important communities. Like Thompson, the province's third-largest city. And Flin Flon. And The Pas. And important aboriginal communities like Norway House and Cross Lake. And, of course, one of our most important tourist destinations -- Churchill.

Looking at this map is like looking at one of those 15th century maps of the world that warned mariners that "Here Be Dragons" where North America lies. Maybe the Tories believe there are dragons in Lake Athapapuskow, or Wekusko Lake. Or, maybe they think areas that are incapable of raising grain, cows and reliable conservative voters don't deserve to be on the map.

In any event, this map certainly betrays more about Tory attitudes to northern Manitoba than it does say about the NDP's approach to Brandon, doesn't it?

Hugh McFadyen Now Has My Jets Toque, And Thomas Malthus Sucks

I can't believe he actually accepted my goodwill gesture and offering of the Jets toque. He wouldn't guarantee that he'd wear it as he knocks on doors this afternoon in Brandon East, but he actually took it when I offered it to him on the Keystone concourse a few moments ago. Good stuff. If someone actually photographs him wearing the thing (or, for that matter, symbolically burning it during this afternoon's constitutional discussion), you know where to send it.

Now, on to more serious matters. And I mean really serious.

This morning, Hugh and the Tories broadened their attacks to include not just Gary Doer and Greg Selinger, but also long-dead political economists with a savage take on the world.

In this morning's address, Hugh educated the gathered Tory masses about Thomas Malthus. Malthus predicted in the 19th century that humans would soon run out of food and that government should impose population controls in order to create a more sustainable society. In short, Malthus -- whose work continues to inspire the radical fringe of the green movement -- was a gloomy gus. "If you think Greg Selinger is grumpy, you should have met Thomas Malthus," McFadyen told delegates, not elaborating as to whether 23 Kennedy now has a time machine and the Tory leader has, in fact, met the English demographer in the flesh.

Anyway, McFadyen has an anti-Malthusian way to make Manitoba a have province, and that's by setting the goal of making the population hit the 2 million mark within 20 years. He didn't say exactly how he intends to do this, though in the post-speech scrum I suggested getting people to turn the lights out more often, like some did during the recent Earth Hour, might boost conception rates. He dismissed it, saying he was speaking more about growing the economy. Though he did concede that annexing northwestern Ontario -- while being quick to add, "I'm kidding" -- would help Manitoba reach this goal sooner.

The juxtaposition between Gary Doer and Hugh McFadyen couldn't be more apparent than it was during this speech. McFadyen quoted John Adams, spoke about the Lockean notion of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" and traced the historical evolution of Toryism as the movement that ended the British slave trade, freed slaves in the U.S. and first introduced the notion of human rights to Canada.

I tried to picture Gary Doer speaking about all of these things, but all I could conjure up were recollections of stump speeches where Doer talks about drinking beer and does his Jean Chretien impression. Needless to say, that stuff resonates, whereas I'm not sure reviving the long-dead Malthusian bogeyman really hits home with the folks on the front step.

Maybe it might click if you talk about Thomas Malthus while wearing a Jets toque. Try it, Hugh.