Contents
EXTRA! EXTRA!
Education Platform Updates!
Publisher's Note
Articles
Manitoba's Role in Federal-Provincial Relations
 by 
The Honourable Gary Doer
Energy & the Environment
 by 
The Right Honourable Edward R. Schreyer
Women & Politics
 by 
The Honourable Sharon Carstairs
My Political Philosophy
 by 
Dr. Jon Gerrard
The Olivieri Case
 by 
Dr. Jon Thompson
Dr. Patricia A. Baird
Dr. Jocelyn Downie
Public U to Private U (included with permission of the author) [PDF]
 by 
Dr. Kelvin K. Ogilvie
Manitoba Politics
 by 
Stuart Murray
Politics of the Margins
 by 
Dr. Scott Grills
Politics & Fundraising
 by 
Marc Desrosiers
The Future of the Federal Conservatives
 by 
Kerry Auriat
Politics of Medicine
 by 
Dr. Diarmuid (Derry) Decter
Liberal Success, Liberal Downfall?
 by 
Dr. Meir Serfaty
Urban Dilemma
 by 
Vince Barletta
Ending the Interregnum Well
 by 
Dr. David McLeod
Politics in the University
 by 
L. P. Visentin
The Lighter Side
Political Haiku
 by 
L. P. Visentin
Pallister Poetry
 by 
Brian Pallister
The Way We Were
Politics at BU
 by 
Tom Mitchell
Haikuing the Political Landscape
L. P. Visentin

Part 1: Main Streeting
Art in politics,
Requires one part slight of truth,
Cynically applied.

Politics and faith
Make risky dancing partners,
When freedom is played.

Hail to the chieftan,
A chant of the mindless throng
When reason exits.

Ethical discourse
In the realm of politics,
Is rarer than truth.

Unfortunately,
Unaccountability,
Means majority.

Left is right is left,
Depending on the moment,
Place, or face in place.

For the others west,
Individuality
Beats collective will.

Budget surplus and
Democratic deficits
Numb dumb electors.

Harlots of the spin
Live off scrums and confections,
Wrapped up as free press.

Bovine electors
Grunt an acquiescence while
Worlds unfold elsewhere.

Illiterates in
Parish politics, play to
Beer-belly polkas.

Part II : Pick Your Province

Gerrymandering
Is here, about the boundaries,
Courts deny the sly.

Campbell was his name
Draft Beer Party was his game.
Forgotten and missed

Xenophobically,
White stiff-necked honking yahoos
Spur dark resentment.

Socialist at heart,
Under hard scrabble drying sun
Lies a cheap flat soul.

Fishers on the dole
Draining marrow from the blind
Laughing all the way.

Revenge of the tongue
Translated liberty by
Tyrannical souls.

Philosophically,
Distinctively not you, but
Politics of Me.

Politics of guilt,
Layered with resentment and
Low expectations.

Pur laine Innuit
Are not Bloc or Poutiniste,
But vrai Quebecois.

Right of right and right,
Castled by cant, unwillingly
A marriage partner.

Eras pass and still,
Flatlands mirror ambitions
And politicians.

Over the rainbow
The old and British Left
Grows old but not wise.

Upper Canada,
Colored and maybe free of
Right, white bigotry.

Immigration broke
The compact protestant grip
On our foreign souls.

Contrarians all,
Dream of amber waves and space,
Voting with their feet.

Queen of the prairies
Urban reserve for Mounties,
And social contracts.

Underground railway
Ended in bleek black ghettos,
Still there in spirit.

Cape Breton Island
Hides Acadians, and Campbells,
And lost red Tories.

Politics and tides
Here, so very very high, but
Low in principle.

Empire loyalists
Say Fliddleheads refer to
Their flakey leaders.

III. CULTURAL WELLSPRINGS AND OTHER REFLECTIONS

Carving hero-lines,
Gives meaning to a culture
Frozen in the past.

East to west to east,
National identity
Shaped by roaring crowds.

Mullet styled icons
Strutting down the streets of life
Solipsistically.

Montreal besmirched
By Gomery spillover,
Still our stylish heart.

Monosyllabic,
Me myself philosophy,
Knuckle dragging west.

Trivial pursuit,
Culture of the night and right,
Jounalists delight.

Torranna wanna
Be, like New York, but not too,
Just derivative.

Old Orchard Beach is
A paradise of kitsch for
Pure hot dog eaters.

Old L.L. Beaners
Sip hot tea at the Empress
Monarchistically.

Being Gomeried,
Means public deflection from
Real deficiencies.

Gomery was a
Substitute for hockey and
Just more dithering.

Senate toads among
Democratic deficits
Need careful watching.

Winnipeg pretends
Amazingly hard, to be
Someplace civilized.

Please, God save Le Roi
For civilizing this oft
Wild cold paradise.

Exoneration
Like abomination rhymes
With Gomeration!

Amorality,
Invincible ignorance,
Is electible.

Seems we elected
Curly, Larry, Moe and Shemp
Sadly not funny.


L. P. Visentin—Dr. Visentin is the President and Vice-Chancellor of Brandon University, and artist and a poet.
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