The fast and furious year of Manitoba business

In thinking about a review of the year in business in Manitoba while we’re all hunkered down in the fourth wave, you have to remind yourself that there was actual business being transacted in 2021.

The food delivery business — invented in Canada right here in Winnipeg — became a mature industry “overnight” during the pandemic, complete with a narrative about how its earnings were gouging the meagre profits of our favourite restaurants.

The pandemic contributed to further our collective irresponsibility about dealing with climate change even while a historic drought this summer wreaked havoc on the province’s agricultural sector which, it becomes increasingly obvious, is the most important sector of Manitoba’s economy.

The year also introduced the general public to the concept of supply chains, an otherwise anodyne business term that took on sinister characteristics as its disruptions affected everything from the supply of Christmas trees and flowers on Mother’s Day to crucial industrial inputs that caused major employers like New Flyer to go into conniptions while trying to keep the assembly lines moving.

Slate of books coming in the first half of 2022 show plenty of promise

In 2021, a year of great books helped readers escape (or, adversely, learn more about) our not-so-great current situation.

And while the first days of 2022 don’t look a whole heck of a lot better, it’s reassuring to see so many titles (particularly by women writers, it would seem) that should give readers cause for optimism going into the new year.

For fans of fiction, essays, memoirs, celebrity bios, poetry and more, here are 20 buzz-worthy titles to keep on your radar for early 2022…

Anthem

As premier, Brian Pallister took on just about everyone

If there was a turning point for Brian Pallister during his time as Manitoba premier, it was probably around the third week of June.

His Progressive Conservative government was in the throes of a political firestorm after ignoring pleas from doctors and infectious disease experts to impose strict public health measures to slow the spread of the fast-moving Delta variant.

The failure to act proved deadly: Manitoba hospitals were overwhelmed with hundreds of COVID-19 patients, forcing health officials to send 57 to other provinces for treatment. The pandemic death toll swelled by 172 in May and June.

Combined with a growing number of unpopular political decisions (including the proposed elimination of elected school boards), Pallister’s popularity hit rock bottom. A Winnipeg Free Press/Probe Research poll released June 18 showed the Progressive Conservative party had the support of only 29 per cent of Manitobans — its weakest showing since the party won government with 53 per cent of the vote in 2016.

WAG’s Qaumajuq opening a bright spot in a dark year

My most vivid memory of 2021 took place on March 1, after taking that first step into Qilak, the majestic main exhibition space at Qaumajuq, and looking up.

It was a bright and lit moment in a dark and dreary year.

Qilak is quite a sight, and there’s nothing like it in Winnipeg and in fact, few like it anywhere.

The official opening of Qaumajuq, the Winnipeg Art Gallery’s new home for Inuit art and its vast collection of sculptures, prints, tapestries and textiles, was a few weeks away, but the gallery granted some journalists an early look-see at Winnipeg’s latest architectural addition and tourist draw.

Ten tunes for 2021

There was a fair share of wow in Manitoba’s music scene in 2021 to go along with all the woe.

Between the COVID-19 waves created by Delta and Omicron variants this year, there was a chance for artists to perform before live audiences at stages around the province big and small.

That allowed singer-songwriters such as Del Barber, the country-folk artist who lives near the western Manitoba farm town of Inglis, a chance to perform in Winnipeg and set up a tour — fingers crossed — with Ariel Posen, another Winnipegger, in Europe for February.

It allowed the country group Petric, big winners at the Manitoba Country Music Awards in November, to play the Canada Life Centre in an all-Canadian triple bill with High Valley and Dean Brody just a couple of weeks later.

Restaurants and bars faced an unprecedented, unpalatable 2021

It was another strange year of foodservice amid a pandemic, albeit one with fewer lockdowns and slightly more good news stories than 2020.

Dining still hasn’t returned to “normal” and those in the industry continue to find ways to make the most of an ever-shifting situation — one again made precarious by the Omicron variant. It’s not the December anyone wanted, least of all bar and restaurant owners who have been forced to cancel lucrative holiday parties and reinstate capacity limits in their dining rooms.

Since the future is, yet again, uncertain, let’s spend some time reminiscing about the past. Restaurant reviews are still on pause at the Free Press, so this isn’t a best-of list, but rather a round-up of some of the challenges, wins and trends of 2021.

Another year of adaptationsRestaurants were able to open briefly at 25 per cent capacity in February, but the third wave quickly derailed any progress. The sector opened up in a major way on Canada Day — thanks to widespread vaccine uptake — and restrictions continued to loosen through the summer for fully vaccinated patrons.

Building a new nest, feathered friends included

Like so many of us, particularly those fortunate to be able to work from home, my pandemic year revolved around where I live.

In August 2019, I moved from the upper half of a West Broadway duplex into my partner’s century-plus-old West End home, and initially things were great — we had just enough space for her and me, as well as my two kids (half of the time). We all worked, we went to school, so when we were all at home the place felt busy, but not too crowded.

All that changed with the pandemic, as kids were suddenly thrust into the world of remote learning in 2020. My teenage daughter had a desk in her room; my partner worked in the small third-floor space that had been converted into a makeshift office. That left my elementary school (at the time) son and I sitting face to face at the dining room table, me banging out and editing copy for the Free Press and him struggling to stay focused on school assignments between Microsoft Teams meetings. I quickly realized how wildly unprepared I was for quarterbacking school duties. (Thank you, Manitoba teachers, for everything you do.)

My partner and I had been casually looking for potential houses pre-pandemic, but once we were all in the house together all day, it was clear we needed to pick up the pace. And in August 2020, after the typical overbidding, we found our spot, a mid-century modern home in St. James.

Public opposition forced province to abandon school system overhaul

Forget plastic flamingos and garden gnomes. The most popular lawn ornament in the province in 2021 was a sign denouncing Bill 64.

The introduction of the Education Modernization Act — now-defunct Tory legislation that would have overhauled the public school system by replacing elected boards with a provincial authority of government appointees — gave rise to protest in every corner of the province.

Upwards of 500 people, a record in the Manitoba legislative assembly, signed up to speak about the controversial bill at the committee stage. Many of them took issue with the legislation scrapping accountability in public education by abolishing local trustees who govern school policies and advocate for changes in classrooms on behalf of families.

The 309-page document, however, was thrown out before presenters could vocalize their frustrations at 450 Broadway.

Giving up the bargaining, baking and busywork has been an illuminating lesson in acceptance

This was the year of nothing. And it was absolutely glorious.

While the beginning of the pandemic felt like pulling the brakes on a speeding train — the residual momentum and expectations of “normal” life barrelling along for ages — 2021 was a time of stasis. I stopped trying to cope and settled into an oddly comforting space of liminal nothingness. The desire to stay busy, achieve goals and make personal improvements despite the disruptions of a global health crisis fell far, far away.

Like everyone, I assumed lockdowns, mask mandates and social distancing would be temporary measures. Life was supposed to be back on track by now, especially with the arrival of vaccines. Heading into another wave of restrictions — pandemic 3.0, as some are calling it — and it’s obvious things aren’t going back to normal anytime soon, if ever.

Looking back, I can pinpoint my transitions through the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Denial was immediate and frantic.

Forced to look, after generations of looking away

This was the year that Canada could no longer look away.

It was the year that it came face-to-face with a history it had long tried to forget, because the forgetting was convenient, because the forgetting meant that it was possible to plead innocence, or to insist that it had no more responsibility for the wreckage or that there were no more amends to make.

Now, as we look back on the year’s biggest stories, we cannot forget the discoveries of unmarked residential school graves.

It took a lot, in 2021, for news of significance to cut through the deluge of headlines thrown off by COVID-19. As with the year before, the pandemic sucked up most of Canada’s news gathering resources and also most of its reserves of attention, leaving little space for other stories to receive due consideration; there will be much that we missed, in these years.

The best editorial cartoons of 2021

The world welcomes 2017

Circle the globe celebrating the New Year in pictures.

Prominent Manitobans who died in 2016 a diverse mix

The province lost a former lieutenant-governor, a former provincial cabinet minister, a national curling champion, both the brains and voice of K-tel, a prominent judge, a former senator and a fiercely independent furniture store owner in 2016.

John Harvard, who died in January at age 77, was born John Harvard Heidman in Glenboro, the 11th of 14 children.Harvard dropped the last name when he started his broadcasting career because he worried people would find it tough to pronounce. He was host of the Johnson Harvard Show on CJOB before jumping to CBC as host of television’s 24 Hours and being awarded the ACTRA award as best broadcaster in the country.

Harvard left journalism to become a politician where he was elected a Liberal in the federal riding of Winnipeg-St. James four times. He was appointed lieutenant-governor in 2004.

“I saw the shining light of patriotism in my travels throughout this great province,” Harvard said of his time as lieutenant-governor.

Free Press photographers best work of 2016

Of the thousands of photos captured throughout the year, the Winnipeg Free Press photojournalists pick their very best.