Good morning!
Manitoba’s monopoly on liquor: A study released Thursday by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found Manitobans are better off having publicly-run liquor sales, as opposed to provinces such as Alberta where private stores can sell liquor. But Ben MacPhee-Sigurdson, who writes regularly about all things alcohol, disagrees. “The introduction of private wine stores in Manitoba didn’t result in drunken lawlessness in the streets. We deserve the benefit of the doubt again.” READ MORE
Your forecast: Keep umbrellas close at hand this weekend. Today will be cloudy, with a high of 18 C, with showers likely in the late evening. Clouds and rain showers are ahead for the weekend. Saturday will hit a high of 21, with a 60 per cent chance of rain. Sunday will hit 19, with a 40 per cent chance of rain.
In case you missed it
PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILESJanis Johnson in 2007. She will leave her seat in the Senate Tuesday — 26 years after she started. She is Manitoba’s longest-serving senator.
Senator leaves: Janis Johnson, 70, said Thursday she will leave her seat in the Senate next week after serving 26 years. It’s unlikely she swaps Christmas cards with Steven Harper, who was prime minister for 10 years while Johnson was in the Senate. “It was ultra-partisan because of the way the former prime minister treated the Senate and the role he wanted it to play. He didn’t feel it had a part to play in our democracy,” she tells reporter Mia Rabson. READ MORE
Mr. Popularity: Manitoba’s new premier is the second-most-popular premier in Canada, according to an Angus Reid poll released Thursday. Fifty-three per cent of Manitobans say they approve of the way Pallister is running the province, up seven points from the last survey, reports Nick Martin. READ MORE
Up next
Artificial patients, real experiences: The University of Manitoba opens a new, interactive nursing lab today, complete with high-fidelity mannequins that simulate medical conditions and then give readings and reactions that help teach student nurses. The six mannequins can simulate conditions such as childbirth, cardiac arrest, asthma attacks and physical trauma.
Plane pull: About 2,000 participants from nearly 80 Manitoba corporations compete today in trying to pull a massive aircraft across a finish line for a good cause, contributing pledges to the United Way. Planes on the tarmac will be a CL-215 water bomber and a Boeing 727. The fun happens at the Stevenson Campus of Red River, 2280 Saskatchewan Ave. (west side of airport)
Around the water cooler
JOHN WOODS / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILESFort Rouge MLA Wab Kinew
MLA for hire: Is it appropriate for a politician to accept fees for speeches? Wab Kinew thinks so. The NDP MLA for Fort Rouge will be paid $7,000 for a speech this weekend, one of his many speaking engagements. Kinew, who said he is cutting back on the number of paid speeches he delivers, is also an author and broadcaster and was a sought-after speaker before he was elected to office in April. READ MORE
Curmudgeonly columnist returns: Scott Campbell, the former NHLer whose Free Press column often offered scathingly frank observations about the Winnipeg Jets, returns today. And he seems grudgingly optimistic: “I started writing here last January and there were so many things that were upside down it was hard to be positive about the Jets. Today they seem to have some bite behind their bark.” READ MORE
Trending now
#reasonsnottodateme: Take some as warnings, some as sensible advice. “I’d pick Harry Styles over you”; “I will correct your grammar”; and “I’m not yet dead so it’s pointless measuring the levels of Carbon-14 in my body” are just some of the reasons Twitter users are offering this morning.
On this date
On Sept. 23, 1968: The Winnipeg Free Press reported that the Soviet Union had recovered its automatic spacecraft, Zond Five, from the Indian Ocean after it made its historic flight around the moon. Western experts considered it a technical triumph and a major step for Russian plans to put a man on the moon within the next year or two. in Washington, D.C., 200 people walked out of an address being given by Cardinal Patrick O’Boyle, who exhorted Catholics to follow the Pope’s ban against artificial contraception. In Winnipeg, six people were stabbed by a man wielding a 10-inch knife at the cafeteria of the old Winnipeg airport terminal. In Ottawa, prime minister Pierre Trudeau promised Canada would keep the monarchy as long as people wanted it. READ MORE
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