Promising bits in disjointed, dystopian novel

Is this the season of secession?

Canada has entered its season of secession. Like El Nino, the currents of grievance can blow hot and cold. Today, they are hot. But how hot for how long? The odds of Alberta and now Quebec separating from Canada are not high, but they are never zero.

After a year of waving the flag in a surge of national patriotism to confront Donald Trump’s attacks on Canada — economic and verbal — it is both jarring and frustrating for most Canadians to be reminded of the pervasive and persistent tensions that come with governing our federation.

When we need new national purpose to confront big economic sovereignty and security challenges from outside, that purpose is undermined and diminished by having to confront homegrown grievances.

We’ve seen and seen off two separation referendums in Quebec. Now we have a newly elected separatist party coming to power. In Alberta, voters will soon decide whether the independence road is one they want to travel.

Alberta’s gopher museum closed until further notice as owners find new facility

A quirky Alberta roadside attraction that has delighted travellers for decades with its stuffed rodents in tiny costumes is closed until further notice.

The World Famous Gopher Hole Museum, located in Torrington, a hamlet about 120 kilometres north of Calgary, made the announcement online earlier this week.

Laural Kurta, museum director, said she was forced to close the doors because the two historical buildings that house the exhibits need to be replaced.

"We have done every patch repair, staple, spackle, everything we could possibly do, and it is just at its end," Kurta said in an interview Tuesday.

Landlords will face fines for breaching confidentiality

The province is amending legislation to allow landlords to be penalized if they breach the confidentiality of tenants who break their lease by obtaining a domestic violence certificate.

“Hopefully, now there’s going to be measures in place so that if this happens again, and God forbid it happens again to anyone else, that there would be penalties imposed on landlords who do that,” said one victim whose concerns were published on the front page of the Free Press last month.

Under current legislation, landlords must ensure that any information received from those tenants regarding the termination of the tenancy is kept confidential, but there are no penalties for landlords who violate that section of the act. After hearing from victims put at risk when landlords broke the law by violating their confidentiality, the government announced Monday that it is amending the Residential Tenancies Act to allow for penalties.

The young woman who spoke to the Free Press showed that her landlord copied her alleged abuser in email correspondence that included her personal email address and the domestic violence certificate she obtained in 2025 to end a tenancy agreement early and leave an abusive relationship.

Dog feces vandalism shuts down food pantry

A few shelves set up beneath a West End community notice board were meant to offer a place where neighbours could leave food for anyone who needed it.

Late philanthropist, family fill Harvest’s Empty Bowls with record-setting $5-M donation

It was a record-breaking night for Harvest Manitoba made possible by a genuine Winnipeg hero and his family.

The organization’s annual Empty Bowls Celebrity Auction Dinner on Thursday raised $6.5 million to support Manitobans facing hunger and food insecurity.

And it was a $5-million legacy donation from late city philanthropist Doug Harvey and his family that will see the event go down in the history books as the largest gala fundraising total ever recorded in Manitoba.

“There was literally nothing that lit my dad up more than contributing himself, but even more so, inspiring others to give,” his daughter Lauren Harvey said Friday.