Without words, dance piece speaks volumes

PCs renew calls for CFS inquiry

The Progressive Conservatives renewed calls to put Manitoba’s child and welfare system under the microscope Thursday, tabling a motion that urged the province to appoint a commissioner to lead a public inquiry.

Families critic Jodie Byram’s opposition day motion, which was ultimately defeated by the NDP majority, reiterated demands for an inquiry into the systemic failures of Child and Family Services, more than 20 years after the death of Phoenix Sinclair first prompted demands for answers.

“We have seen far too many children die under the care of CFS, and we need to determine where the gaps are in the system in order to make the system a safer place for children,” Byram told reporters before the motion was defeated in the legislature.

Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine said in an interview that her department, CFS agencies and authorities are “doing good work” and won’t call an inquiry.

Mayoral race all sideshow, little substance

Well, there’s one thing that can be said about Winnipeg’s 2026 mayoral race that sets it apart from most previous campaigns for city council’s top position:

Without words, dance piece speaks volumes

Finding Wolastoq Voice, playing in the smaller, intimate Colin Jackson Studio adjacent to Prairie Theatre Exchange's main theatre, is primarily a dance piece.

For its hour-long uninterrupted duration, performer Aria Evans is alone on a circular platform, a magic-touched circular structure of wood, sand and water designed by Andy Moro. Without ever speaking, Evans dramatically and very physically interprets the words and song of Natalie Sappier, a Wolastoqiyik artist from Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick.

So yes, it's a dance piece, but it's one with the power to move you to tears with the journey it describes from innocence to hard experience, from depression to rebirth through art.

The show was directed by PTE artistic director Thomas Morgan Jones, who essentially midwived the work with Sappier while he was A.D. at Theatre New Brunswick. Prior to creating the show, Sappier was a painter. Jones presumably saw the writer within. So will the audience.

Release police HQ report: Klein

Mayoral candidate Kevin Klein is lobbying the province to release the final report from the public inquiry into the Winnipeg Police Service headquarters before the upcoming municipal election.

Klein wrote to the provincial government to request that the information be shared promptly and before Winnipeg voters go to the polls on Oct. 28.

A Thursday CBC report stated the document is finished, “has been sent to the printer” and submitted to the province but isn’t expected to be publicly released until after Winnipeg’s Oct. 28 municipal election.

“It’s all about accountability. The report is done. People have waited (many) years,” said Klein.

Crime spree lands accused murderers behind bars

Three men have been sentenced to jail terms for a commercial robbery spree in southern Manitoba launched just two weeks after they were accused of killing a 19-year-old man in Abbotsford, B.C.

Twenty-two-year-old Ravdeep Gill of Winnipeg, pleaded guilty Monday to four counts of robbery and Harmandeep Gill, 27, of Brampton, Ont. and Jaskaran Singh, 21, of Surrey, B.C., each pleaded guilty to two counts of robbery for a 10-day crime blitz that targeted gas bars in Swan Lake, Teulon and St. Laurent, and a meat shop in Winnipeg.

Ravdeep Gill was sentenced to four years custody while Harmandeep Gill and Singh each received sentences of 30 months.

According to B.C. media reports, all three men are charged with first-degree murder in a Feb. 1, 2025 killing in Abbotsford that police there described as a targeted hit.