Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 30, 2015, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A4 A 4 WINNIPEG FREE PRESS, THURSDAY, JULY 30, 2015 TOP NEWS winnipegfreepress. com O TTAWA - While most Manitobans are lounging on their docks and digging in their gardens this weekend, Prime Minister Stephen Harper might try and quietly pull the plug on this Parliament. Local candidates and MPs began scrambling Wednesday morning as word hit Harper had planned a Conservative party rally for Montreal Sunday night and was preparing to possibly ask Gov. Gen. David Johnson to dissolve Parliament Sunday. Harper himself refused to offer any clues during a rare interview with Bloomberg News Wednesday. " I don't speculate and I particularly don't speculate on my own actions," he said. " Obviously there is an important decision coming up for Canadians Oct. 19." But even the fact of his doing a oneon- one interview with a national media outlet launched the tongues wagging. Conservative sources told the Free Press nothing was certain, but there was activity from the people who would be in the know. If Harper calls the election Sunday, it will start the longest, and most expensive, electoral campaign in Canadian history. There will be 79 days of campaigning before the vote Oct. 19. Until now, the longest campaign was 72 days in 1917 during the First World War. The average is 38. The minimum is 37. There is no maximum. Most local candidates seem to be planning for Aug. 9 and some are even still on vacation. But signs are on order, volunteers are being trained and offices are being rented. Winnipeg Centre MP Pat Martin said with a tough challenge from Liberal Robert- Falcon Ouellette on the table, he will have to be out the door the minute the campaign begins. Martin said having such a long campaign is an unnecessary political move by the Conservatives to take advantage of their bigger bank accounts and will be costly for taxpayers. " I will be spending twice as much money as I wanted to," Martin said. That includes renting a campaign office as of Aug. 1, instead of Sept. 1, adding an entire month's rent to the bill. Candidates who get 10 per cent or more of the vote in their ridings will have 60 per cent of their expenses covered by taxpayers. Since the Conservatives passed new election rules last year, every extra day of a campaign increases the spending limits for parties and candidates. Parties, which would have been able to spend $ 25.4 million if they run 338 candidates, will be able to spend an extra $ 675,000 for every extra day beyond the 37- day minimum. Over a 79- day campaign, that adds up to an additional $ 28.4 million per party. If they get at least two per cent of the vote nationally, taxpayers will rebate them half of whatever they spend. For the three main parties, that could add $ 81 million to the election cost right there. Candidates could spend as much as $ 900,000 more every day in total, adding an estimated $ 30 million more to the cost of the election for taxpayers. None of that includes the added costs to Elections Canada to run a 79- day campaign, hiring staff and renting office space and equipment for more than an extra month. The 2011 election cost taxpayers just shy of $ 300 million. The 2015 election could cost twice that. Martin said it would just prove the Conservatives have no qualms making taxpayers foot the bill for their political ambitions. " It's the polar opposite of being frugal," he said. So why go now? The Conservatives have the deepest pockets of any party and can more easily afford a longer campaign. At the end of 2014 the Conservatives had $ 11.6 million in cash in the bank compared to $ 8 million for the Liberals and $ 2.5 million for the NDP. Conservative riding associations had another $ 19 million, compared to $ 8 million for the Liberals and $ 4.4 million for the NDP. In Manitoba, at the end of 2014, the Conservatives had more than $ 100,000 in cash on hand in five ridings and more than $ 60,000 in the bank in four others. The Liberals and NDP had no ridings with more than $ 100,000, and the Liberals had only one with more than $ 50,000. The Liberals had less than $ 10,000 in the bank in seven ridings, and the NDP had less than $ 10,000 in eight. Not all the riding associations have reported their 2014 figures. Even if the opposition parties could afford this campaign, the cost will deplete their resources leaving them more vulnerable in the next election especially since most signs right now point to a minority- government result on Oct. 19. Winnipeg North Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux and Selkirk- Interlake Conservative MP James Bezan both said they don't expect to really ramp up their campaign efforts until after Labour Day no matter when the writ is dropped, but both acknowledged longer campaigns put more pressure on finances and volunteers. Still, Lamoureux said even though the Conservatives may have the financial edge in a longer campaign, he thinks it's better to call it sooner because the playing field is more level. The government, he said, can't announce any more infrastructure money as they have been in every community for the last few weeks. They can't use taxpayer money to pay for their ads anymore. mia. rabson@ freepress. mb. ca PM may call election Sunday Longer campaigning period will cost taxpayers more By Mia Rabson ' It's the polar opposite of being frugal' - NDP MP Pat Martin on the added cost of an early election call JUST because a tornado is big and bad - like Monday's in southwest Manitoba - it doesn't mean it's the worst. When measuring and rating a tornado, meteorologists make those assessments based on the wind speed, which is determined by the storm damage. So, with apologies to the metal band Megadeth, when a tornado creates a symphony of destruction, it will get a high EF- rating. A tornado that swirls around a farmer's field is going to get a lower rating. Though Monday's tornado was large and stayed on the ground for hours, it wasn't as powerful as feared. Environment Canada determined Wednesday the twister rated a high- end EF- 2. That means wind speeds were between 180 and 220 kilometres per hour and damage was " considerable," including torn- off roofs, snapped trees and cars lifted off the ground. An EF- 5, the highest rating involves total destruction. The tornado that hit Elie on June 22, 2007, was rated as an EF- 5. Nobody was injured. Elie is 40 kilometres west of Winnipeg. " This can be confusing because people look at pictures of a tornado and they think, ' Oh that's an EF- 5 or that's an EF- 1' without understanding how it's rated," said Terri Lang, an Environment Canada meteorologist. " The surveyors from Environment Canada go out and look at the damage that's done. Damage to bins, property, trees and how the damage is spread out. Based on how bad the damage is, they can estimate a wind speed from that damage. Most people think if it's a big tornado, it's got to be an EF- 5, that's not true. Big tornadoes are not necessarily strong tornadoes." The tornado that ripped through southwestern Manitoba on Monday night, which lasted nearly three hours and covered about 100 kilometres as it moved, was so large and violent Regina- based storm chaser Greg Johnson called it " the iconic tornado of 2015 in North America." While there was serious damage to property, especially in the Tilston area, it wasn't considered " incredible damage" on the EF- scale. No injuries have been reported. Lang said the winds of a tornado can be compared to the spinning of a figure skater. The faster the skater wants to spin, the tighter the arms are to the skater's body. When the skater wants to slow down, the arms are extended. " Often some of the really tight tornadoes have some of the strongest winds," Lang said. Lang said the EF- rating stands for Enhanced Fujita scale, named for Dr. T. Theodore Fujita, who developed the original scale that represents wind estimates based on damage caused by the tornado. The EF- scale has seven levels from the lowest EF- 0 ( winds 104- 117 km/ h) to ER- 5 ( winds higher than 321 km/ h). There is an EF- no rating, which would occur if winds were higher than EF- 5 and actual damage couldn't be assessed because of widespread secondary damage from items flying around. " The strongest tornado recorded in Canada was in Elie... and it was an EF- 5. That tornado was so small, the width of it was not very big, but it did absolutely devastating damage," Lang said. It took a couple of days to determine the rating of the southwest Manitoba twister because there was a long damage path. " What we're finding with this particular one is that it went through a lot of fields. It's hard to assess damage to crops because not very strong winds can damage crops," she said. " It ( the tornado) needs to hit buildings and trees to get a good idea of exactly how strong it was." She said Environment Canada surveyors assess damage by examining such things as how buildings were destroyed, what was the pattern of things thrown about, what size of trees were snapped and if objects became embedded in something. Johnson, said to have chased this tornado through weather patterns from Mexico to Manitoba, said this tornado impressed him because of its many different forms - it was a typical funnel cloud, it had small twisters inside it and it was also a wedge ( the funnel was as wide as it was tall) - and how long it lasted. Lang said the smaller tornadoes embedded in the bigger one, which can be seen in videos of the event, are called suction vortices. " So you can imagine how complex the damage pattern is. Because it was on the ground for a long time, there's a lot of things to look at and that takes some time," Lang said. ashley. prest@ freepress. mb. ca Southwest Manitoba tornado rated EF- 2 Less powerful than Elie's 2007 twister By Ashley Prest Expert says take cover, not photos WHEN a tornado comes your way, take cover before taking a photo. That seems like fairly obvious advice, but Environment Canada said people are still taking unnecessary chances to snap a tornado picture. " Everybody and their dog literally have a cellphone ( camera), so we're seeing an increase ( in photos of tornadoes)," said Environment Canada meteorologist Terri Lang. She said an increased awareness about funnel clouds makes people think more tornadoes are happening than is actually the case. " People go on social media and they share the pictures of what they think are tornadoes, but they are just little clouds. Last week, what we saw in Calgary when that funnel cloud came down, we easily got 20,000 pictures of the same funnel cloud because everyone was taking pictures of it, rather than taking cover," Lang said. " We've always had a level of concern about that and we don't endorse storm chasers. We do storm- spotter training, to teach people what to look for in clouds and how to report it to us, but we don't tell them to get in a car and chase them." Lang said safety is the first priority, and people should only be taking pictures if they are in a safe place. " In Calgary, it concerned us because a lot of people weren't taking the necessary precautions. I don't think they recognized the danger. That particular tornado, that came out of a super- cell, that wasn't a cold- air funnel cloud. That was a tornado that could have been quite dangerous," Lang said. " I noticed in Manitoba when it was happening the other ( Monday) night, most people were seeking shelter, they were in their basements. The messaging was different, I noticed, in Manitoba. ( It was) ' Stay safe, seek shelter now,' that sort of thing. In the Calgary one, you didn't see that sort of messaging. " It was a difference in risk perception. Because there hasn't been an Elie- type of tornado close to Calgary, maybe they didn't understand the risk is real," Lang said, referring to the June 22, 2007, tornado in Elie, 40 kilometres west of Winnipeg. Four houses were destroyed, including one that was ripped off its foundation and tossed 20 metres in the air, vehicles were thrown through the air and many other buildings severely damaged. No one was killed or injured in the tornadoes in Elie, Calgary or Monday's tornado in southwest Manitoba. " When tornadoes happen, you don't have a lot of time. Sometimes it's a matter of seconds or minutes to take cover," Lang said. - Ashley Prest ' When tornadoes happen, you don't have a lot of time. Sometimes it's a matter of seconds or minutes to take cover' - Environment Canada meteorologist Terri Lang ERIC BELL / BRANDON SUN FILES People were left to clean up farmland debris after a tornado tore through southwest Manitoba Monday night. The tornado covered about 100 kilometres and lasted almost to three hours. MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Hydro workers install new power poles along Highway 256 near Tilston, after a stretch a few kilometres long was damaged by Monday's tornado. ' Because it was on the ground for a long time, there's a lot of things to look at and that takes some time' - meteorologist Terri Lang, on calculating the EF- rating of a tornado A_ 06_ Jul- 30- 15_ FP_ 01. indd A4 7/ 29/ 15 10: 37: 10 PM ;