In praise of messy, unruly free speech

There’s a lot of obnoxious and hypocritical talk about free speech circulating online, in editorial pages and at the family dinner table.

Gun buyback comments an embarassing mistake

Cabinet unanimity is an interesting animal. Behind closed doors, cabinet ministers at the provincial and federal levels hash out the basic priorities and directions of government — sometimes, everyone at the table agrees. Often, it’s not unanimous.

Charges upgraded to attempted murder in summer sword attack

A 16-year-old male has been charged with two additional counts of attempted murder after more victims were confirmed in relation to a sword attack at a high school in June.

Indigenous stories given wings by peers, playwrights

Six Indigenous storytellers are sharing new works with local audiences this week through Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre’s Pimootayowin: A Festival of New Work.

Message to the U.S. ambassador: we’re disappointed, too

The U.S. ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra, is disappointed with us.

Minister says law on sign language services in works

Manitoba’s accessibility minister hinted her office is drafting legislation to increase access to and recognition of American and Indigenous sign language services.

Three months after she was caught complaining about an ASL interpreter on a “hot mic,” Nahanni Fontaine gave members of the deaf community an update about her office’s work on the file.

Fontaine, whose portfolio includes families, gender equity and accessibility, said efforts are underway to make real-time captioning and other interpretation services more available, consistent and reliable across local governments.

“We are exploring ways to support recognition of ASL and Indigenous sign languages as important parts of Manitoba’s cultural and linguistic landscape,” Fontaine said Tuesday at Memorial Park following a first-of-its-kind flag raising. “These are steps forward.”

Speed-limit cut proposed for street in Wolseley

A reduction to the speed limit has been proposed for a section of Arlington Street following concerns that ramped-up bus traffic has added noise and disruption to the quiet Wolseley neighbourhood.

Coun. Cindy Gilroy (Daniel McIntyre) is calling on city council to reduce the speed limit to 30 km/h from 50 km/h on Arlington, between Portage and Wolseley avenues.

Gilroy said the 28 Arlington route was added when Transit implemented a new primary network at the end of June. That turned a stretch that had little bus traffic into a key route, adding speed, congestion, noise and vibrations that shake nearby homes, she said.

“A large bus is a change in itself. And a lot of the residents really want the slowing down of the bus to 30 (km/h). They’ve said loud and clear that this is very disrupting,” said Gilroy.

Police investigating fires, vandalism at NDP cabinet ministers’ North End constituency offices

Broken windows, four blazes started in two months

Foster parents charged, accused of assaulting children in their care

Two foster parents in north Winnipeg are accused of abusing children in their care, including one who was in critical condition Tuesday, in a case that has Manitoba’s children’s advocate seeking answers.

MMF objects to city renaming St. Boniface park

The Manitoba Métis Federation is questioning why the city wants to change the name of a park that honours Métis history — one year after it opened in the Glenwood neighbourhood.

City council will review a motion to rename Carriere Avenue Park in honour of James Peebles, an astrophysicist and astronomer raised in the St. Boniface neighbourhood.

The park, which opened last September near the corner of Carriere Avenue and Des Meurons Street, was built on the former farmland of André Carriere, the federation said in a news release Monday.

“It seems that the city did not undertake appropriate due diligence to understand the historical significance of the name given to the street itself, much less the park,” MMF Winnipeg region vice president Andrew Carrier, a descendant of André Carriere, said in a statement.

Winnipegger’s artwork chosen for Walmart’s national Orange Shirt offering

As she walked into the Unicity Walmart department store, Indigenous artist Brooklyn Rudolph-Nicholas felt her excitement levels rising.

She headed towards the racks of instantly recognizable orange T-shirts, smiling as she glimpsed the familiar image on the front.

It was a pinch-me moment: her work was emblazoned on Walmart Canada’s National Day for Truth & Reconciliation orange shirts stocked in stores across the country.

The granddaughter of two residential school survivors, Rudolph-Nicholas made her T-shirt art in honour of her late grandparents.

TikTok’s algorithm to be licensed to US joint venture led by Oracle and Silver Lake

WASHINGTON (AP) — Tech giant Oracle will spearhead U.S. oversight of the algorithm and security underlying TikTok's popular video platform under the terms of a deal laid out this week by President Donald Trump's administration.

All the final details still need to be nailed down among several joint venture partners that will include Oracle, investment firm Silver Lake Partners and possibly two billionaires — media mogul Rupert Murdoch and personal computer pioneer Michael Dell. The U.S. administration would not have a stake in the joint venture nor be part of its board, according to a senior White House official.

President Trump is expected to issue an executive order later this week that declares that the terms of the deal meet the security concerns laid out by the law, the senior White House official said. China still needs to sign off on the framework proposal, and any final deal would still require regulatory approval.

The proposal is aimed at resolving a long-running effort to wrest TikTok's U.S. operations from its Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, because of national security concerns. TikTok has become a high-profile topic during conversations between Trump and China President Xi Jinping as they continue to spar in a trade war that's roiled the global economy for much of the year.

McLuhan’s childhood home to become hub for big ideas

Renowned media theorist Marshall McLuhan’s childhood home in Winnipeg will soon welcome visitors to “come for the message” but “stay for the medium.”

The play on McLuhan’s famous term is the tag line of Howard R. Engel, president Winnipeg non-profit Marshall McLuhan Initiative, who bought the home at 507 Gertrude Ave., where McLuhan lived between 1921 and 1934.

On Saturday afternoon Engel and his team unveiled a Manitoba Historical Society blue plaque at the Osborne Village address commemorating the site of where the memorable Manitoban spent his childhood.

“We are over the moon,” Engel said. “This will not only be a museum, but also include a public gathering space for lectures’ presentations who help extend the working ideas of McLuhan.”

Domestic enrolment helped U of W’s fiscal health: president

The University of Winnipeg’s financial situation has stabilized following 10 months of cutbacks on the downtown campus.

“We’re confident we’ll have a balanced budget this year, and we’re very happy about that,” said Todd Mondor, the U of W’s president and vice-chancellor.

Mondor attributed the “stable” position to a rise in domestic enrolment and “better than expected” 2025-26 registration among international students.

An influx of cash has also provided some relief, he said. The province recently topped up the school’s annual funding by $2.5 million and it was gifted $5 million from the Mastercard Foundation.

Bail reform as an approach to crime reduction

For the last several months, a conversation about modifying our bail system in unspecified ways, with the express goal of increasing public safety, has taken hold. Usually, a specific case of an accused person allegedly committing a new offence while on bail is at the centre of the argument.

Canadians have enjoyed the rights guaranteed to them by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms since 1982. Included in the charter are rights related to freedom of expression, freedom of movement and several legal rights. The legal rights that are engaged in the conversation about bail reform are the right to be presumed innocent and the right to reasonable bail. These rights are intertwined.

Typically, we do not punish individuals who have not been found guilty of a crime. Accused people should have their day in court prior to having their freedom taken away. Release pending trial is the rule, detention is the exception.

Detention is warranted when detention is necessary on one or more of three grounds: to ensure the accused attends court, where the detention is necessary for the safety of the public, and/or where the detention is necessary to maintain confidence in the administration of justice.

‘You gave him purpose… gave him his freedom’: grateful mother from Colombia celebrates Sunshine Fund

Freedom for the Recio family, in their native Colombia, was tied to an unexpected emblem.

“Our children watched The Parent Trap at least 50 times, dreaming of canoes and lakes and cabins in the woods,” Angela Recio told a crowded room at the Caboto Centre on Thursday.

“But in Colombia, where we lived in South America, that kind of freedom was unimaginable. Sending our child off into the wilderness was not just unthinkable, it was unsafe.”

Recio was addressing donors, nature lovers, Manitoba Camping Association staff and friends at the organization’s appreciation luncheon for supporters of its Sunshine Fund.

Bus riders, drivers welcome police safety initiative; two arrests made on day plan rolled out

The announcement of a new police strategy — placing both uniformed and plainclothes officers on Winnipeg Transit — was welcome news for riders Friday.

The Winnipeg Police Service announced the initiative’s first arrests were made on Wednesday, when the plan was unveiled.

“I love it,” said one elderly woman who was waiting for her bus at Unicity. “I love it for the bus drivers as well, because they take the brunt of it.”

She said she had already noticed more police nearby, pointing out that she saw multiple cruisers pull into the parking lot while she ate breakfast at a nearby Burger King.

Province to reimburse Brandon school division for evacuee costs

BRANDON — The Brandon School Division will receive financial support from the province to cover the cost of hosting wildfire evacuees in its schools, Education Minister Tracy Schmidt said Thursday.

“We encourage divisions to track… expenses and to be in touch with our department — many of them already have — and we will work with them to make sure that those expenses are covered,” Schmidt said.

In Brandon, 64 students from evacuated communities were enrolled in local schools on Thursday.

As a result, the division is paying for 8.5 additional substitute teachers, a bus driver and gas for a new route, and is buying extra equipment to take on the students, totalling a “rough estimate” of $100,000, the division said.

Read and research, before engaging your rage

It looked like Liberal arrogance of the first degree, deliberately blowing off a meeting of a major Parliamentary committee.

Conservative MP Larry Brock on X: “UNBELIEVABLE. Parliament is back, but Liberal members of the Justice Committee are MISSING IN ACTION. Crime is out of control, Canadians are terrified, but Conservatives are ready to restore safety to our streets.”

Ditto, Conservative MP Roman Babar: “It’s 3:30 pm on a Tuesday. The Standing Committee on Justice is supposed to be meeting right now. Crime is out of control and justice reform is desperately needed. The Committee’s Conservative members are ready to work, but Liberal members refuse to show up. Unbelievable!”

You get the point. Problem is, there was no meeting. No staff. No translators. Just four Conservative MPs.

Donald Trump and his Venezuelan gambit

Whatever this is, it is not a replay of Operation Just Cause — otherwise known as the December 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama.

It’s hard to know for sure what U.S. President Donald Trump is up to with respect to his current naval deployment in the Caribbean Sea. Perhaps it is about looking tough against the illegal drug trade. He also wants to send a pointed signal to left-leaning Venezuela and any other country that gets on the wrong side of the Trump White House.

But I’m not convinced that official Washington is plotting to invade Venezuela over issues and allegations swirling around narco-trafficking, gangs and terrorist activities. Remember, Trump came close to pulling the trigger on the Nicolás Maduro government in April 2019 and then had second thoughts — much to the chagrin of then-national security adviser John Bolton.

It is true that the Trump administration is putting on a pretty good show for those who are paying attention. Deploying a flotilla of naval ships (and one nuclear submarine) of various capabilities is not an insignificant display of military prowess — not to mention some 4,500 armed military types (including 2,200 U.S. Marines). But, as I said, this is largely for show.