Ontario extends program that helps rural and northern hospitals avoid ER closures

New businesses start to creep up in former Winnipeg Slurpee shops

The remnants of 7-Eleven can still be seen as new businesses move into spaces where Slurpee machines and taquitos once ruled.

As fresh paint dries on several new ventures — such as a pizza place and a convenience store with a name that might make a customer do a double-take — holes across Winnipeg once occupied by the international convenience chain are slowly being filled.

Business at a Domino’s Pizza in Elmwood, formerly a 7-Eleven, has been booming since it opened June 1, the store manager said.

“The issues that 7-Eleven would have had might be different than what we would have. They were dealing with a lot of theft where people can just walk in and out, but Domino’s isn’t set up that way,” said Paul Hemmerling.

Of frogs, roses, kings and a Great Lake

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, as the saying goes. Basically, if you change something’s name, you don’t actually change the nature of the thing.

That being said, if even 15 years ago an American president had called an entire news conference to announce he was renaming one of the Great Lakes by writing on a map with a red pen and issuing an executive order purporting to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America,” all and sundry would question his mental health.

Maybe, after witnessing so much from Donald Trump, we’ve all just been hardened off and the foolish is now expected daily. Perhaps it’s the political equivalent of the fable of the boiling frog.

As the fable goes, drop a frog into a pot of boiling water and it will jump right out. But put the frog in room temperature water and bring the pot to a boil, the frog will stay until its death. (It’s unlikely the frog would actually wait.)

‘Not his best work,’ Kinew says of Trump’s order to rename Lake Ontario

An executive order by U.S. President Donald Trump to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America is “sad,” Premier Wab Kinew says.

Manitoba Hydro’s strategy: Deny, deny, deny

Here’s a good story…

A man walks into your office and says, “Have I got a deal for you! I want $3 billion (plus perhaps a bit more) to build you something that you might use three or even four times a year, for maybe 30-60 hours each time. Sign here.”

You might respond… “and I’ve got a lovely bridge for sale…”

That is exactly what Manitoba Hydro wants — $3 billion or more, plus the fossil fuel bonus for peak load events that happen a few times each year. They assure us that the gas turbines will only be used very occasionally. At the same time, they tell us that we are headed for a crisis of energy supply by 2030.