It was inevitable that, when faced with an endless barrage of questions from Crocus shareholders and the media, the NDP government would turn to their human pretzel, Greg Selinger the social worker finance minister, to lead the defense of an indefensible position.
"Who knew what and when?" has become the refrain heard from the media experts who may have missed the boat three years ago when I had alerted them to the rot in Crocus, but who are now obessed with exposing the government's perfidy. Here we have Minister of Blame Deflection Selinger coming up with what will go down as classic doublespeak, when he says that he'll have to get back to the media to see whether he remembers seeing an absolutely pivotal e-mail from a government official in 2002. Upon further consideration, Selinger reports (surprise, surprise) that no, he doesn't remember seeing the e-mail.
Then we get former Industry Minister Mary-Ann Mihychuk (a really decent person, by all accounts - too bad she was thrust into the role she had as Minister responsible for the Crocus Fund at the time when I was asking whether the government was doing anything to protect shareholders' interests from the obvious difficulties that the Fund was in way back in 2002), appearing on Richard Cloutier's show, trying to take the high road and answer questions truthfully until she realized that she was wading into treacherous waters and thought better of continuing to anwer Cloutier's increasingly tough questions.
Note to all you NDP ministers: Your denials and obfuscations are going to come apart, whether it's at the hands of the media or lawyers. (I hope none of you has to face Adler when he starts popping the kind of questions that engulfed poor Stu Murray this week and that led him to moan that he had been "shaken down"by his own fellow PC's.) You know something, Stu, even those sanctimonious custodians of all that is right and proper on the Free Press editorial board hit the nail on the head when they called upon you to step down. John Loewen is a far more capable leader ready to take up the battle with the gang of liars and incompetents that we have running this government.
But it's Selinger who has emerged as the most loathsome and dangerous enemy for Crocus shareholders, especially now that Gary Doer appears to be shell shocked by the findings of the Singleton report.
Question to Minister Selinger: "If a 'little postman', as Gordon Sinclair referred to me, could figure out what was really going on with Crocus way back in 2002, without access to any of the information that you would have had supplied to you by all your officials and, most importantly, John Clarkson and Charles Curtis (who were both on the board of Crocus at the time), then only a fool could believe that you didn't know full well that Crocus was in such deep trouble that its ability to continue operations was in peril at that time. Greg, why don't you ask Gary Filmon what it was like to be cross-examined by Paul Walsh during the Monin inquiry into vote-rigging? He's going to cut you to ribbons.

As someone who had been practically begging anyone in the media to take a look at Crocus for almost three years, only to be treated with universal disdain, if not contempt, I find it a bit hard to take, watching the jackals in the media descend on the Crocus corpse. Hey, Tom Brodbeck of the Sun, why don't you tell your readers how you completely ignored my suggestions to you that you take a look at Crocus's inflated share price and crazy valuations way back in 2002?
I've listed other journalists elsewhere on this site who could have done something about the Crocus story had they been the least bit interested to take a look at it, whether they were at the Free Press, the CBC, the Globe and Mail, or CJOB.
And, while Richard Cloutier and Paul Egan have been doing fabulous work of late exposing Crocus chicanery along with the betrayal of Crocus shareholders by the government, I wish that Richard especially had been into this earlier. (In his defense, he spreads himself thin and he's admitted to me that he could have done more. He's certainly into it now.) But Charles Adler, you're the best in the business. You can do so much more on this file to bring it to a conclusion that will help the 34,000 shareholders. I'm waiting for you to step up as only you can...you're starting to give hints that you're going to do that, but you can do so much more.
(Footnote to this entry (posted June 3): Adler got the message. He's now on top of the Crocus story as only he can cover a story - cutting through the fog and crap which is the only way this govenment knows how to handle scrutiny).
I have to reserve the harshest criticism, however, for the editorial board of the Free Press. When this story finally gets written Manitobans will be shocked to find out how complicit the oh-so-important editorial board at our largest daily was in keeping the truth about Crocus from getting out. They're embarrassed at the extent to which they were in bed with Crocus and, even though their editorials have a sharp tone to them now  in how they're criticizing the government's inexcusable incompetence over this issue, some day the truth about the Free Press will emerge in the same way that the truth about Crocus has now emerged.Luckily for the Free Press, prostitution in this country isn't illegal - only solicitation. Who was the pimp and who was the whore? Free Press or Crocus. I wonder if we'll ever find out.
What I'd like to see is a forum where the major media outlets in this town can get together and explain to the public why they deliberately ignored the Crocus story for so long. Thankfully, they're all into it now, but the media in this town have nothing to be proud of.

Charles Adler's righteous indignation over the government's absolute incompetence in handling the Crocus file is just a little bit hard to take. As was the case with a lot of other media heavies in this town, I had sent Adler information about Crocus years ago (the same way that I had sent info to the government and to the MSC), strongly suggesting that he take a look at what was going on at Crocus. Did Charles pay any attention? Not that I know of. So, Charles, when you start pontificating about the government ignoring so many "red flags" the way you did this morning - hey, bud, you ignored them, too.
If that weren't bad enough  - what really gets me is the way you used Stuart Murray to insinuate that Crocus investors were not the sharpest knives in the drawer. When you asked Murray whether any of his friends had shares in Crocus and Murray said that he didn't know of any, the clear insinuation was that Crocus shareholders were rubes, while the upper crust knew better than to be sucked into Crocus.
For your information, Charles, (and make no mistake, I still hold you in the highest esteem), you are dead wrong in thinking that there was some sort of class differentiation when it came to buying Crocus shares. When you have over 33,000 Manitobans holding shares in one company, you better believe that a group that big represents an enormous cross-section of Manitobans. Within the Crocus Investors Association membership, we have doctors, lawyers, accountants, and businesspeople, as well as farmers, civil servants, and yes, lots of trade unionists (like me).
And you know something else, Charles, lots of Crocus Fund shareholders did really well with their shares (if they sold them in time - as have most Crocus shareholders over the years), as both my wife and I did. When you factor in the tax credits and the increase in share price, we got something in the order of a 20% rate of return on the shares we held. I wish Crocus had never gone off the rails the way it did starting around 1999. Before then, it was one of the best things that ever happened to Manitoba. Further, as much as Sherman Kreiner is being scapegoated for so much of what went wrong, I still hold him in the greatest of respect. He's as brilliant in his own right as are you, Charles. Some day we'll hear his side of things. I hope that day is sooner rather than later.

But when I heard Murray talking about being "shaken down" by Charlie Spiring and David Filmon, I really had to laugh. Murray was only too glad to give the shiv to John Loewen back in February, 2002, after Loewen had called upon the government to halt the sale of Crocus shares. How long did it take for Murray to remove Loewen from his position as deputy leader and finance critic? About one nanosecond, that's how long. Murray was only too glad to see Loewen end up with egg on his face (at the time...since then I guess we know who should have been wearing the egg - right, Gary Doer?) In one fell swoop he got rid of his chief rival for his position as leader and was gloating over Loewen's perceived humiliation.
If you're finally going to try and use the Crocus issue to take jabs at the NDP, Charles, you might want to think twice. No one associated with this story has any right to be righteously indignant, including anyone in the media - all of whom should have been on to this story three years ago. Next time I tell you there's a story out there, maybe you'll take me seriously.

Well, that was one wild afternoon we went through as we witnessed the dissection of what used to be the Crocus Fund. No one should be surprised that the media hounds were all over the revelations in AG Singleton's report about loverboy James Umlah. I told you, Kathleen Martens (Sun Business Editor): "Once the media get their paws on Umlah this story is going to take off." (See my earlier references to Umlah, also known as the George Hamilton of Crocus, in earlier entries.)
Of course, with a 250-page report offering an excrutiatingly detailed account of Crocus's descent into financial hell, Gary Doer and his cohorts find themselves in a rather uncomfortable position, to say the least. Let's see now...how can Gary divert attention this time? All right, we'll follow up all the AG's recommendations, he says immediately. But you know something, Gary, it's too little, and it's way too late. You want to do something that will finally score some points with that angry mob (mostly former NDP supporters) that's looking for blood: "Wind this sucker up right away!" Appoint a receiver, call for the equitable disposition of assets and announce that you are going to throw your full support behind the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit that's about to be launched against Crocus.
At least that way, Crocus shareholders will feel encouraged that they are going to get a subtantial amount back of what they put into Crocus.
As for the details in Singleton's report ...more to follow in coming days. In the meantime, let's get some reaction from readers of this blog. There's a message board at the top of this page.  Sound off on what you think of the AG's report.

 I just couldn't resist offering this advice to the estimable Robert Tapper, however: Do you know how your act is playing out there, sir? You are coming across as a blowhard as you repeatedly wax indignant over your client's (Umlah) treatment by the AG. Umlah set himself up as the perfect whipping boy and he is going to serve as fodder for the media so long as this story survives. Play it cool, Robert. Every time you open your mouth to defend your client you antagonize anyone who's watching you or reading about you.