On the Night Table: Sally Ito

Democracy is on the ropes everywhere in the world as politics have become extreme, divisive, virulent — just plain toxic.

It would seem like a reasonable, visceral decision not to participate, to not be contaminated or compromised by association. However, like education, where more education is the cure to a lack, a deficit in democratic politics calls for more, not less, political engagement.

In his 1919 poem The Second Coming, W. B. Yeats wrote, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;” as a description of social and political catastrophe and the failure of usual safeguards in the aftermath of the First World War. He ends the first stanza with: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.”

I believe it’s an apt description of what’s going on today — not new but frightening, nonetheless.

Winnipeg is facing a housing and toxic drug crisis that is not going away. Every day, we see the consequences — people living without safe homes, encampments in neighbourhoods and public spaces, increasingly toxic drugs, overdoses and emergency services stretched to their limits.

These are symptoms of a deeper crisis of inter-generational trauma related to colonization of the original peoples of these lands, compounded by a crisis in housing, income security, mental health and addictions services and the availability of community based supports.

Winnipeg’s next city council must decide whether it is prepared to invest in solutions that address the root causes.

Weaving a Better Winnipeg: The Alternative Municipal Budget 2026, proposes a five-point action plan that would put housing, outreach, human rights and Indigenous leadership at the centre of Winnipeg’s response.