Staying silent about hate is really choosing a side

There was a time when a swastika spray-painted on a building in Winnipeg would have been shocking in its rarity. Now it’s shocking in its familiarity.

More and more parking spaces amid empty promises

The history of Great West Life/Canada Life in West Broadway is one of ceaseless unneighbourliness and willful ignorance to the needs of the community in which they conduct their business.

Video record of ICE killing Minnesota mom lays bare Trump’s disgraceful lies

There were stuffed animals spilling from the glove box of her SUV, because she was a mother. A mother of three children, including a six-year-old who was thankfully in school that day, and not in the vehicle with her. Her wife was, though. Her wife was right beside her when an ICE agent executed her with three bullets to the head.

Transit service must be dependable

If there’s anything worse for a public-transportation user than waiting in the winter cold for a Winnipeg Transit bus that never arrives, it surely must be waiting for a bus that does arrive but, being already overpacked with a standing-room complement of riders, passes by without stopping or opening its doors.

To belt on school buses or not to belt

To seatbelt or not to seatbelt?

That is the question that generations of school officials and transportation safety experts have been trying to answer.

On first pass, the argument for mandatory seatbelts in school buses seems like a no-brainer. Seatbelts are, unequivocally, one of the greatest safety devices ever introduced to the world of transportation. Still, they are not universally used.

Trains, for example, do not normally offer seatbelts. The same goes for most forms of public transit: buses, streetcars and light rail. And then there are school buses.

Anticipation TV: In celebration of waiting together for the next episode

Remember “Must-See TV”?

For decades, this was how the Thursday-night lineup on NBC was marketed as that was when all the network’s most popular sitcoms aired. Seinfeld, Friends, Frasier, Mad About You, Cheers and Wings were part of the original ’90s Must-See TV lineup, a tradition that was carried on through the 2000s-10s with shows such as Parks & Recreation, The Office, Community and 30 Rock. The two-hour comedy block was followed by a prestige drama at 9 p.m., before the news.

At the risk of sounding like a Things Were Better Back When scold, this really was a golden age for viewers. It was a scheduled time to catch up on your stories, but it also functioned as a community builder. All the new episodes from the night before were discussed and debated and quoted around watercoolers at the office or desks in the classroom on Friday morning, and if you missed them or had them waiting on a VHS tape or something, well, sucked to be you. This was Appointment Television. Best be on time.

The Pitt, the hit HBO Max medical drama which began its second season on Thursday night, feels like a welcome return to Appointment Television. For one, it shares a lot of DNA with ER, the other John Wells-produced medical drama which, for 15 seasons, dominated Must-See TV’s drama slot. We can literally once again watch Noah Wyle play a doctor on Thursdays at 9 p.m.

As the U.S. pulls away, we have to step up

On Tuesday, a report on American failure to protect right whales, an endangered species in the North Atlantic, was issued by the Commission on Environmental Co-operation.

On Wednesday, the U.S. withdrew from that organization.

The timing was a coincidence. The intent was not. Right whales are not killer whales, after all. They didn’t kill the CEC. No, what killed the CEC wasn’t the drift of right whales into the path of commercial shipping that kills them, but the continued drift of the U.S. away from a treaty-driven, rules-based international order into one of America-first national dominance.

That same day, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration announced its formal withdrawal from 65 other international organizations, treaties, and conventions that they deemed “contrary to the interests of the United States.” Almost half of these are part of the United Nations network. Almost a third are involved in climate change and environmental sustainability initiatives. Many others focus on international law and development. All, apparently, work against the interests of America.