There are a number of versions of the decades old Bill Cosby routine on You Tube, but this is one of the shorter ones, that provides a bit of humour to help get the message across.

The last time where the routine wasn’t quite so funny was 11 years ago, when the threat of massive flood damage to our city, like that that took place in Grand Forks, was a very real possibility - despite ‘Duff’s ditch‘.

At the time many people never realized that the Canadian military along with many pieces of heavy equipment were in place to perform what would have been the last desperate act of protection, the closure and diking of all road and rail crossings over the floodway, in an effort to salvage at least parts of Winnipeg from flooding.

I suppose it was because we came within inches of that happening that focused political attention on the issue, but no doubt the fact the military was no longer going to be city residents played a part in the final decision to spend the millions to widen the floodway.

Sadly like most big dollar projects in Manitoba, this one too attracted the usual amount of petty political posturing and bickering because one special interest group or another figured they didn’t get their share of the trough feeding. But I will never understand what the true motivation was of either the Winnipeg Free Press and/or it’s reporter Aldo Santin, along with City Councillor Russ Wyatt in the original handling of the issue of the replacement of the CPR bridge over the floodway.

I have no doubt that Freep management doesn’t think that they and their reporter manufactured news instead of simply reporting it. Santin still has a job, so far I haven’t seen any sign of Gilroy’s letter to the editor which disputes their erroneous story, nor any apology and/or retraction by the Freep or Santin.

I suppose the lastest installment of the issue by Joe ‘Bow-tie’ Paraskevas - Train-parking decision put into reverse where the man in charge of the Floodway project, Ernie Gilroy is finally quoted about ’something’ is better than nothing, which is exactly the net worth of everything on the subject that came out of the mouth of Councillor Russ Wyatt - nothing.

But, but, but the statement in the story: ‘As a result of the committee’s reversal, the cost of bridge reconstruction  would jump by $19 million because the authority would have to build two detour rail bridges’, does nothing but add insult to injury.

Yes the civic committee did reverse their original decision, and likely the cost will increase by 19 M $$$ because of the alternate plan, but the real fault, if there is any, lays with the Winnipeg Free Press, Aldo Santin, and Russ Wyatt in an attempt to manufacture negative public opinion for their own purposes.

It’s something the Minister of Transport in Ottawa is aware of, along with the area’s elected provincial NDP representatives. I’m sure that politics being what it is, it won’t have a direct impact on the voters when it comes to things like funding for rapid transit, or business development, or even funding for the Upper Fort, but I suspect that it won’t be forgotten either, and there will be a political price to be paid somewhere along the line to work off that completely unnecessary 19 M $$$ that’s been added to the taxpayer - and their peace of mind..