1. Early on in negotiations a question was raised regarding the employment of Grant Mitchell, an employer lawyer from Winnipeg and activist in Canadian Labour Watch Association, Vancouver, as chief negotiator for the University.  The reason this was of interest is because it was a departure from past practice; specifically, in the past, negotiations for the University were done by Vice Presidents and from time-to-time Deans.  There was, in short, an element of collegiality in the negotiations process. 

2. The other anomaly in this year's negotiation is that apparently external consultants were hired by Brandon University to provide advice on how the Collective Agreement should be restructured to give the President and senior administrators more control over faculty members and their activities.     An interesting question would be to find out the purpose for recruiting an external consultant to submit a plan for bringing about changes in the conditions governing faculty-administration relations. 

3.  Also, of course, the use of external consultants and the hiring of an employer lawyer add costs to collective bargaining.  This is a matter that the media might be expected to take an interest in.  For example, the lawyer:  how much is he being paid per hour and for expenses?  Are there limits on how much time he can bill for or are the billable hours subject to his control?  The consultants:  how much are they getting for preparing a bargaining agenda?

4.  In the period leading up the strike at the University - President and lawyer - suggested that they were limited  to by government imposed limits to how much they could offer in salary increases.  The University never produced a document to verify the existence of government-imposed limits.  However, BUFA did get confirmation from government officials and ministers that no such limits existed.  The Brandon Sun was not interested in following up on this question. 

5.  The government-imposed limit were subsequently transformed into voluntary limits.  In other words, the limits were imposed by the University itself.  It was previously suggested that the issues raised now, resulted from a deal that the presidents of the three universities had agreed to prior to May 2009.  In brief, the alleged contents of this deal called for each of the universities to hold the line at 0, 0 and 2% on salary increases over three years.  The other component of the deal was that Grant Mitchell would be hired to negotiate for all three universities.

Grant Mitchell implicitly acknowledged the existence of such a deal in a story in the November 10, 2011 Brandon Sun, titled "Pop pleads BU's case."  In the story Grant Mitchell addressed the crowd regarding the strike: "Grant Mitchell [told the crowd] he has negotiated  labour contracts for other universities in Manitoba without a strike. The same settlement we offered (BUFA) was accepted by the University of Manitoba Faculty Association without a strike vote, let alone having a strike or arbitration."  The implication of Mitchell's comments would seem to be that there was indeed an agreement involving the three university presidents.  Grant Mitchell delivered the goods at the U of M and the U of W.  Now he is trying to deliver the goods at BU.  Perhaps that's why he refuses to yield on wages and is demanding arbitration.

The Brandon Sun cast aspersions on the motives of faculty members, students and anyone else that disagreed with the position of the Brandon Sun.  This may be why Sun reporters avoided asking questions about the factors motivating Mitchell and the University.