By Ken Waddell

There are two “traditions” in the newspaper business that have done great harm to public debate.
One is the fact that among the newspapers that actually publish an editorial, its written by an editorial board or, if written by an individual, it’s written anonymously. There is a marked difference between an editorial and a column. What you are reading here is called an editorial but by today’s definition, it’s a column. In today’s newspaper world of anonymity and weak journalism, what they call an editorial would never have a writer’s name or picture attached it. It wasn’t always that way. Some famous, even notorious editors have applied their names and pictures to editorials over the years. Somewhere over the years it was decided that an editorial can’t be an individual opinion, it must be a “corporate” opinion. Corporations don’t have a conscience so how can they be expected to have an opinion?
Perhaps the reason for anonymity could be to avoid backlash or repercussion against an individual writer. In times past, readers who disagreed with an editorial might even inflict violence on a particular writer. Not many editorials conjure up that level of animosity any more. Today, anonymity prevails even over the most bland of topics. In 20 years of writing I have only had one threat to my life. It came early in the days of The Banner when I got an anonymous late night phone call from a man with a distinct British accent. He claimed to be a labour union leader and he assured me that I would be taken out of I kept on writing against the unions.
In Canada’s style of  political blandness, there are few issues that generate the level of animosity that could result in harm to an editor. In many countries that is not the case and journalists and editors face danger and death all the time. In Canada, the only topic today that might generate any real threat to a writer would be if he dared to discuss the terrorist intentions of certain Islam extremists.
The other newspaper “tradition” that has developed is the fact that all the news industry has far too many “repeaters” and too few “reporters.” Getting the real news in the papers isn’t that hard. It takes some work and a willing staff at a local paper to accommodate local submissions. Most local newspapers do that fairly well. Some not so much. Community newspapers are having a bit of a struggle as ad revenues seem to be a bit more elusive than say 10 years ago. However, it’s obvious that small towns still like their newspapers as, including our own two papers The Neepawa Banner and Rivers Banner, there are a dozen or more scattered across western Manitoba. They have a fair bit of local news, the kind that matters to local readers.
Where the problem comes up is that even in local newspapers and certainly in the larger daily papers there is lots of news that a reader has seen on the internet the day before or on television. Reporters, and editors, seem happy enough to take stories off a wire service and plunk them on a page and call it news. Well it’s not really news unless it contains fresh facts. At least it should be written from a local perspective.
The real problem is that newspaper ownership is too concentrated. The corporations such as Quebecor and Glacier have bought up papers  by the dozens. They figure that they can run a newspaper with very few people. And they can, if all they do is “repeat” the news rather than “report” the news.
About 10 years ago, an astute editor of a community paper started to peruse the large dailies across the country. He looked at the front page story in about 20 large newspapers. Eighteen or 19 had the same front page story. Now, it’s really sad that there’s that little original thought going into our daily papers.
In order for there to be proper public discourse, readers need fresh news and opinion columns that are both local and original. We try to do that. Readers can help us by sending in news stories, pictures and news tips. We prefer email but a phone call works too. Dropping by our offices is nice too but we may not be able to visit for a long period of time.
As far as editorials and news columns go, may the day never come when we have to resort to unsigned columns. And if you want to call what we write on these pages, editorials, that’s fine with us. An editorial should have a name attached to it. Surely we can have that much freedom of speech in Canada.

Every Canadian should sit back a bit and enjoy the Olympics. It seems by the television ratings that’s exactly what’s happening. Ratings are very high. And so they should be. The Winter Olympics only come around every four years and we have excellent athletes.
Canadians shouldn’t get too upset about the medal count as many countries have a much larger population and a much larger budget for training than we in Canada have. It may seem strange to have Canadian skaters beaten out by Chinese or Koreans but look at how many people they have to draw their talent from. Korea has 69 million, twice our population almost. China has 20-30 times our population.
So we should sit back, relax and enjoy the show. We paid for it after all.
Paying for the Olympics is akin to buying a Christmas gift for your parents or your kids. You usually overextend, you reach beyond what you can afford. So that’s what we do as a country every 20 years  or so, we may over reach a bit. Better to do so for the Olympics than to over reach in many other ways. The point of that comment is two-fold. First, the Olympics are an inspiration, or should be an inspiration, to all of us. Second, it’s better to spend money on the Olympics than some of the dumb stuff we spend tax payers dollars on now. Large car companies come to mind actually, followed by bloated salaries for bureaucrats in our senior governments.
On that point it’s hard not to sound old-fashioned, to sound like an old person longing for some “good old days”. But get over the fact that older people take a strong interest in where the tax dollars are being spent and think about it for a bit. Yes, just think for a few minutes.
Our governments have gotten far too large and expensive. In Manitoba we pay the premier about $150,000 per year. He or she is the head honcho, the one in charge. The person who takes the glory when things go well and takes the fall when things go bad. There’s not much job security and there’s not much pension plan. Premiers rarely last more than 10 years and  if anyone has worked out an average but it’s likely less than five years. So given the risk and level of responsibility, why are there dozens, if not hundreds of bureaucrats paid twice and three times that which we pay that premier.
There is a high level of accountability at the premier level. If the premier’s party or the people in general get tired of them, they vote premier out of office. Its a fairly simple system. However, if  a bureaucrat gets a cushy job, they may well be there for life and and at two to three times the salary of the boss. We have let the bureaucracy get away with theft of the highest degree.
The problem is, how do you change it? Can you imagine if we all of a sudden told every bureaucrat above that level that they were getting a salary cut to the level of the premier or less? That’s what should happen but it’s not going to. The high level bureaucrats would scream bloody murder if that had to get along with “only” $150,000 per year. 
The logical question that should be asked is how about the civil servants and front line health care workers? Why should some person who runs the Winnipeg RHA get $3-400,000 per year and a full time nurse say only $50-70,000. If I get sick and am laying deathly ill in a hospital, I want to see an RN looking over me, not an overpaid bureaucrat.
The world has gone mad. We pay the least valuable jobs the most money. I’m sure that many bureaucrats are well intentioned and honourable people but, sad to say, their jobs are not worth what we pay them.
If we actually got our priorities straight in Canada, we would pay people according to their importance to society. You know, the priority of needs thing. First of all, we would pay high wages to water treatment plant operators as, assuming we have air to breathe, we need good water next on the priority list. Then we would pay our farmers and food workers because, after air and water, we need good food. Then we would pay our carpenters to build us good homes. Somewhere down the line after water plant workers, farmers, carpenters, doctors, nurses, teachers and a few other ranking needs, we might get around to needing bureaucrats. 
The list would get awfully long before we would add the bureaucrats. Perhaps somewhere just ahead of government lawyers.

Cries of equality and liberty have rung out through the centuries. The twin cries have become the trademarks of numerous political movements. The Manitoba NDP would certainly make a stated case for liberty and equality. However, in the case of rural and northern Manitoba, they have failed miserably.
The problem with the Manitoba NDP is that they believe that simplistic solutions must be applied to every circumstance. Perhaps the average Manitoba NDP person’s IQ is lower than the provincial average and therefore simplistic solutions are all they can understand. Whatever the reason, the issue of liberty is usually overcome by the improper application of equality.
Now equality is a good thing when it applies to human rights, to access to education and to health care. It’s a good thing in many instances. Our current government has failed miserably even in assuring equality in either human rights or access to health care and education but that’s another story for another day.
While equality is essential in the above three instances, it isn’t the best approach in all circumstances. In some cases, equality is actually a feeble or even harmful approach. Case in point, there are a few environmentally sensitive areas where hog barns shouldn’t be built. No one argues that point, not even the most fervent hog producers. But the NDP solution is to ban hog barns almost everywhere. Equality of regulation isn’t the right method. Hog barns need to be restricted in certain areas but new hog barns are essential to the industry in areas that can easily handle the barns. Now considering the current hog market some would simplistically ask, “Why build more barns?” Good question, but there are good answers. One is that older barns may not be as efficient or environmentally sound as new barns, so it makes sense to build a new one. Another answer is that, given the high cost of fertilizer and the high cost of trucking commercial fertilizer hundreds of miles, a grain farmer might well benefit from a nearby barn so he can apply hog manure to his crop land. There’s another reason. A person may just want to invest in the industry and he should have the freedom to do so, but the NDP government has pretty much shut down all three reasons or motives to build.
On another front, the government, faced with a sewage leakage issue in some parts of cottage country, applied an oppressive and equal law to all rural ares. Equality of policy application has hit rural residences really hard. No more sewage ejectors! If you own one you can keep it but if you sell your rural property, then you have to upgrade to a sewage tank and a septic field. If you don’t have room for a septic field, then it’s a holding tank.
Equality of application of a law designed to fix up some cottage situations is now going to unnecessarily cost rural property owners millions of dollars. The irony of it all is that sewage ejectors, which pump out grey water onto the ground in a secluded and often fenced off part of the property, actually provide for several levels of economical sewage treatment. Ejectors subject septic tank-treated grey water to the sun, to the air and to soaking into the ground. Sewage fields take the tank-treated water and put it underground directly. No sun, no air and ironically several feet closer to the water table.
For 10 years we have had a government that adopts simplistic measures, applies them to all and then walks away from the consequences. Rural and northern Manitoba, and First Nations communities in particular, have all suffered at the hands of the simple minded NDP government. That the NDP gets any votes in rural and northern Manitoba or on First Nations communities is strange. One needs to ask, how much abuse needs to be dished out before the electorate turns their back on simple minded oppression.
This cheerless bunch of “equality” pursuers, the Manitoba NDP, in the ultimate irony, have done little for themselves and absolutely nothing for anyone else.
How long must we suffer, how long indeed?

Deputy Premier and Finance minister Rosann Wowchuk sent me a letter recently about Manitoba Hydro. The letter was in response to a challenge I sent to the NDP government about the money they had spent on consulting with First Nations communities. I asked if I could publish her letter and permission was refused but the letter was re-written as a letter to the editor and part of it is quoted below.
“Manitoba Hydro is entering an exciting new decade of investment in the future of our province. Major new hydro-electric generation and transmission projects require large capital investments but the returns to Manitobans are many times greater and will endure for generations to come. The $160 million of payments provided to Aboriginal communities must be considered in the context of the total costs of these major projects. In the case of the new Wuskwatim and Keeyask generating stations, the funds provided are less than 2.5 per cent of total estimated project costs.”
Now Mrs. Wowchuk may think “Manitoba Hydro is entering an exciting new decade of investment in the future of our province”, however, given the track record of the NDP in particular, and governments in general, I doubt that all the “due diligence” has been done. Aside from investing $160 million into consulting with First Nations, by the government’s own figures noted above we are about to spend $6.4 billion on Hydro expansion. We all know they plan to waste over half a billion by putting the Bi-Pole III line in the wrong place.
Just this week the government blasted the PC Manitoba party, not for questioning where the line will go but accuse the PC party of “delaying” the line and costing Hydro future sales. The NDP conveniently forgets one thing, that Manitoba Hydro was aiming for the shorter cheaper line at least a decade ago. The delay has been of their doing by not building the line on the east side 10 years ago. We would be selling power by now if they had moved ahead 10 years ago. Perhaps the grandiose and inefficient new Hydro office sidelined their thinking.
So why didn’t they move ahead? Basically the promise of new Hydro dams is to Manitoba politics like mid-Western U.S. politicians promising to send money to the farmers. It’s just how you appease the voters. So, the longer the Manitoba politicians can stretch out the promise of Hydro prosperity, the longer you can get re-elected.
There is likely another reason that the NDP didn’t go ahead. There may be little guarantee of new markets. Hydro has two markets. One is domestic, the Manitoba market and the other is the holy grail of U.S. exports.
We were supposed to see unbridled prosperity in Manitoba if we kept domestic Hydro prices low. Businesses would flood into Manitoba to take advantage of our cheaper Hydro rates. That hasn’t happened and it’s because Manitoba isn’t all that business friendly. If a company was planning to build or expand in Manitoba, and all things were equal in their analysis against other places, why would they come here and pay a payroll tax? Even if the payroll tax here was off-set by higher income taxes in another place, the company would go there. Why? Because with a payroll tax you have to pay every month. With income tax, you only pay when you have a net income. Even if you lose money in Manitoba, you pay the payroll tax. Manitoba may as well have a “Stop, don’t stay here” sign on every entrance to Manitoba. In other words, the tax policy of Manitoba far offsets cheap Hydro rates.
Export markets are elusive. One has to wonder if Hydro will ever sell more power to Ontario or Saskatchewan or the United States. In order to sell more power, there has to be an increased market. Saskatchewan and Ontario may well develop their own power sources rather than pay us. The same could be said of the United States, especially as nuclear power becomes more efficient, is reported to be safer and is more accepted in the public eyes. There is another fact that is doubtful that the NDP have even looked at. Have they drawn a line on the map along state lines of the area they hope to sell power to? Have they looked at the population stats for that area? I’m willing to bet that population isn’t increasing that much in those ares. Without a population increase, there’s no need for more power.
How about industrial needs? Could it be that the power needs of the declining U.S. industrial base is also declining. Those are questions that need to be asked. If in fact the markets are as elusive as they appear, have we asked the really tough questions? In its simplest terms, will the markets be there after we have invested billions in new hydro dams, new power lines? Given Hydro’s record of obtaining and then losing Ontario power contracts, we should be very wary of where we place our debt dollars. And what happens if interest rates go up significantly?
These questions need to be asked. Perhaps the future of Hydro should be placed in the hands of people who are lot farther from retirement than Rosann Wochuk, Greg Sellnger or Hydro CEO Bob Brennan. After all if they screw up, it won’t be they who will have to pay for it. Just a thought.