Taking back the internet with politeness

If you are at least closer to a good mood than a bad one this time of year, here’s a way that, maybe, we could all work together to make next year slightly better, especially online. Because a lot of the online world, particularly social media, is a dark pit of misinformation, hate and bile. Every day, insults grow and the borders that mark civility come closer to being overrun.

Riding the fiscal roller-coaster, and holding on tight

On Dec. 12, Manitoba learned it would be getting a $355-million increase to its federal equalization payment, bringing the total to just more than $5 billion. Equalization involves the redistribution of federal income tax revenue from provinces with bigger economies to those with smaller economies to ensure all Canadians have access to the same levels of government services.

Time to clean up a world of ‘slop’

Merriam-Webster chose its word of the year correctly, and for more reasons than it might realize.

“Slop” is the word of 2025, according to the dictionary publisher. The decision was motivated primarily by the public’s encounters with, and reaction to, content generated by “artificial intelligence” large-language models.

Despite the best efforts of the technology’s proponents, people are quickly getting tired of being inundated with gaudy, glossy, lazy AI-generated images and videos practically everywhere they turn, from social media platforms to T-shirt vendors.

According to a Pew Research Center survey of U.S. residents released in September, respondents were more concerned than excited by the technology, and were “generally pessimistic about AI’s effect on people’s ability to think creatively…”

Waiting out the ongoing American chaos

If you missed Wednesday’s speech to the American nation by President Donald Trump, you can rest assured you didn’t miss much that you haven’t already seen.

Except, perhaps, a performance that should give you serious pause about where our next-door neighbour and largest trading partner is heading. (A harried Free Press editorial writer watched it all, so you don’t have to.)

Flanked by two flags and standing behind a podium, Trump spoke for roughly 17 minutes, claiming that inflation had been defeated, wages were rising, drug prices were about to fall by “400, 500 and even 600 per cent” and America was respected “like never before.”

A sample: “We’re doing what nobody thought was even possible, not even remotely possible. There has never, frankly, been anything like it. One year ago our country was dead. We were absolutely dead. Our country was ready to fail, totally failed. Now we’re the hottest country anywhere in the world, and that’s said by every single leader that I’ve spoken to over the last five months.”

Pierre Poilievre may be his own problem

It’s often said the first step toward finding a solution is admitting there’s a problem.

Pierre Poilievre has a problem. What seems to be making it difficult for the Conservative party leader to fix is his inability to recognize — or, at least, publicly acknowledge — that Pierre Poilievre, in large part, is the problem.

In the wake of recently having three Conservative MPs exit his caucus — two crossing the floor to join the ruling Liberal party and a third declaring he intends to leave office early next year — Poilievre continues to reject any suggestion his leadership style is a factor in those departures or the other concerning trends that find the party he leads losing strength and influence less than 12 months after seemingly being headed toward a massive majority victory.

When Acadie-Annapolis MP Chris d’Entremont defected in November, he cited Poilievre’s combative/divisive style as a factor in his decision. “It’s just looking at leadership styles and whether we are doing the right thing for Canada or we’re doing the right thing for ourselves, and I would rather be on the side of Canadians,” he said, adding other Conservatives should consider whether they’re “trying to build for the world… rather than knocking people down.”

The growing horror of antisemitic violence

This can’t keep happening.

Members of the Jewish community in Australia faced a horrific attack at a religious holiday event, with two gunmen opening fire on families and children at Australia’s famed Bondi Beach. The suspects are a father and son; the elder died at the scene and the son is in hospital.

The dead include a Holocaust survivor who died shielding his wife from bullets, two rabbis, a 10-year-old girl, a 62-year-old businessman and philanthropist who tried to draw the attackers’ fire to save others, and an older couple who were both killed as they tried, but failed, to disarm one of the shooters early in the attack.

All that appeared to matter to the shooters was that their targets were Jews celebrating the start of Hanukkah.

Penny-wise, pound-foolish fire department budgeting

There are many ways to balance a budget. Choosing the cheapest option in the short term is not always the most responsible one.

Winnipeg city council’s continued refusal to bring firefighter staffing up to acceptable levels — while leaning ever harder on overtime to plug the gaps — is a textbook case of being penny-wise and pound-foolish.

It may look fiscally prudent on a spreadsheet. But in practice, it is burning out a workforce, eroding public safety and almost certainly costing taxpayers more in the long run.

Winnipeg firefighters and their union representatives have been sounding the alarm bell for months about chronic understaffing. And they are not crying wolf. They are describing a service at a breaking point.

More unsettling sabre-rattling to the south of us

America’s ambassador to Canada will have to forgive Canadians for being skeptical.

Pete Hoekstra, U.S. President Donald Trump’s representative in this country, is trying to assuage Canadian concerns that the U.S.’s new national security strategy means the administration may come to meddle in Canadian politics.

The strategy adds a “Trump corollary” to the Monroe doctrine of 1823, which was aimed at keeping European powers out of the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. Trump’s update re-asserts America as the No. 1 power in the hemisphere, vowing to “deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our hemisphere.”

It goes on to state the U.S.’s intention to “enlist” allies in the hemisphere to “control migration, stop drug flows, and strengthen ability and security on land and sea,” and “expand” its influence by “cultivating and strengthening new partners while bolstering our own nation’s appeal as the hemisphere’s economic and security partner of choice.”

A temporary move that we shouldn’t plan to continue

Apparently, there are two vastly different definitions of “elbows up,” the ubiquitous rallying cry of patriotic Canadians outraged over injuries and insults inflicted by U.S. President Donald Trump.

The first definition, of course, is a reference to the hockey-style elbow shiver we are prepared to inflict on anyone who threatens our sovereignty.

More recently, however, “elbows up” has developed a parallel connotation: as a description of the posture some Canadians assume as they raise an elbow to quaff an American wine or whiskey.

The latter group of elbows-up activists were in abundance this week when the NDP government announced it would start selling off the $8-million stockpile of American alcohol it pulled off the shelves earlier this year to protest Trump’s tariffs and annexation fantasies.

Bad idea now will still be bad idea next year

Bad ideas don’t improve with age. First, some background; the Winnipeg Parking Authority wanted to “explore a photo-based public reporting system for parking violations,” which could “leverage technology and community involvement to identify and address parking violations using a photo-based public reporting system.”

The traffic disaster that failed to arrive

For pedestrians and motorists who have traversed Winnipeg’s most iconic intersection during the past six months, a quick upward glance would have confirmed what proponents of reopening the windy interchange to foot traffic have predicted all along:

Recall legislation and risk to good governance

There is, no doubt, a certain amount of schadenfreude in watching an ever-growing number of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party MLAs (including herself) face recall petitions.

Supervised consumption sites need consultation

No neighbourhood in Winnipeg is ever going to volunteer to host a supervised consumption site.

Food prices will only get worse

Headlines this week reveal a food economy that appears to be starving producers while bestowing nearly unlimited riches on grocery retailers.

Caught in the middle are consumers who face skyrocketing prices that show no sign of slowing down.

The Canada Food Report predicted this week that food prices will rise by four to six per cent over the next year, driven largely by the cost of meat products. In case you were wondering, the rate of food inflation is two to four times higher than overall inflation.

Some premium products, like steak, continue to drive the increase in price. The spike in beef prices is well documented and explained. Changing climate has ravaged the beef industry, leading to lower supply and higher costs of production.

Leader dissolving before our eyes

The American public and the world in general is repeatedly vexed by the outbursts of the country’s doddering leader — but as strange as it is to say, it could be worse.

Recent outbursts and public naps have made it clear U.S. President Donald Trump is a leader in decline.

His personal disdain for the press — particularly female journalists — is, if not any greater than usual, at least being expressed with even less care, including referring to a female journalist as “Piggy,” when asked about the Epstein files. He asked another, “Are you stupid? Are you a stupid person?” as Americans celebrated Thanksgiving. In general, whatever filters he had appear to be gone — he recently referred to Somali immigrants as “garbage” as his administration moved to pause immigration applications from Somalia and 18 other travel-ban nations.

This week, he claimed to be “sharper” than he was a quarter-century ago before appearing to fall asleep during a cabinet meeting. It’s not the first time Trump has had trouble appearing awake before onlookers.