Mira Black performs at News Café today

Gillingham vows drug crackdowns would continue on his watch

Scott Gillingham would “immediately” provide funding to extend an initiative that cracks down on open drug use and connects vulnerable people to addictions and homelessness supports, if he’s re-elected mayor.

That partnership between Winnipeg Police Service and outreach organizations began Aug. 7 and is currently set to wrap up Oct. 31.

Gillingham said he would provide $100,000 to Ka Ni Kanichihk, which led weekly outreach walks and worked with police to support the effort, since it needs more funding to extend the program.

That should cover another six months of costs and provide time for the organization to seek longer term funding, the incumbent mayoral candidate said.

Additional $5.4 million in federal sports funding to ease financial burdens, invest in athletes

Skylar Park hearkens back to the same story anytime she reflects on the support she’s received throughout her career.

It’s one she can’t help but grow emotional about.

It was 2017 when Winnipeg’s prized taekwondo athlete made the World Taekwondo Grand Prix for the first time in her career. The international event, held in Moscow, Russia, featured the top 32 athletes in the world, and Park was the only Canadian.

In many ways, she felt the weight of the country on her shoulders.

White-supremacist highway sign casts pall on Steinbach city council campaign

The RCMP is investigating a white-nationalist sign near Steinbach with racist messaging and alleged links to a known Canadian far-right group.

Kinew won’t budge on opposition to criminalizing residential school denialism

Premier Wab Kinew stood by his opposition to the proposed criminalization of residential school denialism Wednesday, after some First Nations leaders criticized his earlier comments and asked him to reconsider.

Kinew said he doesn’t think Canada should make residential school denialism a crime, nor does he think it’s feasible to do, and he’d prefer to see it combated with education.

“When somebody has a question or wants to make a statement from a place of ignorance, the response isn’t to try to criminalize,” he told reporters.

“The response should be to try to heal whatever is going on with them that would cause them to say something hurtful, to try and educate whatever they lack in terms of knowledge about the true history of our country, and ultimately to find a way for us to all live together.”

Shoal Lake No. 40 First Nation, Ottawa reach $17.45-M treaty settlement

Shoal Lake No. 40 First Nation and the federal government have resolved a long-running treaty land entitlement claim and have agreed on a $17.45 million settlement.

The claim relates to seven islands in Indian Bay on Shoal Lake — known as the Garden Islands — which were promised to Shoal Lake No. 40 First Nation under Treaty 3 but were never set aside as reserve land, a Thursday news release said.

The First Nation filed the claim in 1991.

“This claim has been outstanding for many years, and we are very pleased to have reached settlement on this important matter,” Shoal Lake Chief Herb Green said in the release. “We continue to uphold our shared connections to these islands, and the settlement of this Claim is an important part of Shoal Lake No. 40 history and legacy.”

High-risk sex offender charged with Osborne Village apartment break-ins

A convicted, high-risk sex offender has been arrested for allegedly breaking into several Osborne Village apartments last month, court records show.

Winnipeg Police Service property crime investigators were alerted to the series of break-ins in September.

Investigators learned that three break-and-enters occurred Sept. 13-14 at apartments on the 200 block of Stradbrook Avenue; a suspect got inside via a window.

In two of the break-ins, police said, the suspect fled after encountering the residents inside their homes. Nothing was stolen and no one was hurt in any of the incidents.