Another Day, Another Dagger (Et Tu, Gordon? – Part 2)

Can anyone please tell me why Gordon Sinclair Jr. is so vociferously opposed to Sam Katz? His column today berates the Mayor for publicly condemning the stabbing of a 16 year old at the Forks. Apparently, Sinclair and a “newsroom colleague” view this as crass political opportunism. Sinclair states:

“If he wants to show he really cares, he should be as concerned at least as much about the places Winnipeggers live as the sites tourists visit.
But he's not.
If he was, he could have issued a statement about Sunday's other victim of a random act of violence. The 25-year-old woman was driving down Route 90 when someone standing on the Portage Avenue overpass dropped a rock through her windshield. “

If by your own admission the overpass rock thrower was just as important a story, how do you explain the fact that on page B1 (aka front page of the City & Business section) of today’s paper ALL of the articles pertain to the Forks stabbing, your column included? I had to get the follow-up on the overpass story from your competitor.


To those that would label me a rabid Sinclair detractor, I submit the following (sent June 15, 2006) in my defense:

“Hello Gordon.

If I go to the pains of berating you when I disagree with you it is only fair that I commend your column when I wholeheartedly agree with you.
In two succinct sentences you managed to encapsulate what many of us "nose to the grindstone" Manitobans feel about the whole Stuart Smalley-esque daily affirmation campaign code-named Spirited Energy -
"As I was saying, we got branded yesterday. What I forgot to mention is how much it hurt."

Our businesses and undertakings are on par or superior to anything coming out of Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver. Many of us simply lack the garish audacity to flaunt our achievements unlike the self-congratulatory folks in our bigger urban centres. We go about our business knowing that our effort feeds our families and gives us a sense of self-actualization. Even in the face of a punitive provincial tax structure or questionable provincial fiscal management, we frenetically toil away.

I would much rather have seen the $2 million broken into 20 pieces of $100,000.00 and then used to buy 20 deserving impoverished Manitoba families homes. Imagine the ripple effect created when 20 families break a cycle of dependence on housing agencies and become home owners. Instead, as you rightfully pointed out, millions of dollars went out the back door to suited individuals in other urban centres.

To the non-believers, this campaign only serves to reaffirm their convictions - a province so desperate that we need, a la Stuart Smalley, to engage the services of outside "professionals" to tell ourselves we are good enough and that people like us. To the rest of us (who frankly find the doubters misinformed and/or authors of their own misfortune by not taking charge and making the changes they want to see in Manitoba) this is money and effort that could have been put to a multitude of better uses.

Bravo on an insightful and astute article!


Sincerely,
Proud to be a Winnipegger & Unapologetic for Being One”