The Wrap: Child care, supervised drug site, encampment safety, northern Manitoban in Ukraine
Plus: A Winnipegger carves out a niche for himself

In the wake of a Free Press investigation that put the spotlight on the province’s struggling child-care system, Nello Altomare, minister of early childhood learning, sat down with the newspaper to address a number of issues flagged in the six-part series published in June.

At Manitoba’s first supervised consumption site, users will be able to do their laundry, receive primary medical care, seek addictions treatment and mental health counselling.

While it will be a place where people can safely and legally use drugs, the Aboriginal Health and Wellness Centre promised it will do much more than that, at a news conference to announce the site Friday.

First thing, though: it needs a building, writes Malak Abas.

Residents are calling for the city to reform its encampment support services after a senior was allegedly shoved and cursed at by someone living at the homeless encampment in McFadyen Park on Thursday.

There’s a real need for wraparound support to stop a vicious cycle for people living in the camps, the victim told Nicole Buffie.

“I wouldn’t even treat an animal the way the city is treating these people,” he said.

Austin Lathlin-Bercier is Manitoba’s only fatal casualty in the war in Ukraine.

Melissa Martin talks to his family about who he was and what he stood for, and to his brothers-in-arms in the International Legion’s Bravo 2 Company about their gratitude for fighting alongside the young man from Opaskwayak Cree Nation.

Lucas Kost, a self-described “country boy at heart,” was 10 years old and living with his artistically inclined parents on an acreage just outside Lac du Bonnet when he picked up a whittling knife for the first time.

His carving hobby has now snowballed into a full-time gig, with orders for his wood spirits from almost every corner of North America and as far away as Taiwan.

David Sanderson talks to Kost about his work.