Search for another Vancouver Island boa constrictor prompts warning about exotic pets

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.

Towing company hands stolen car back, but not to owner

A Manitoba man says he is dumbfounded after his car was stolen, impounded by a Winnipeg towing company and given back — to someone that wasn’t him.

Cody Lamb lives in the western Manitoba community of Douglas, about 18 kilometres east of Brandon, but spends weeks away from home working on oil rigs in Alberta.

The 24-year-old says on Sept. 11, while away for work, he heard from his girlfriend who told him his car wasn’t in their driveway. Lamb reported the car stolen to Brandon RCMP the same day.

After filing the report, he heard from Steinbach RCMP on Oct. 1 that his car was recovered that day in the community of Mitchell, roughly five km west of Steinbach.

A Rocky day on the mayoral campaign trail for Kevin Klein

Kevin Klein acknowledges it’s hard to foresee what he’ll wake up to each morning in the final weeks of a mayoral campaign.

But the seasoned politician, who has served as both a city councillor and a provincial cabinet minister, couldn’t have predicted the events — what he describes as “drama” — that unfolded last Sunday.

Fellow mayoral candidate Mike Vogiatzakis accused Klein’s campaign team of offering him a job to drop out of the race, while a guest writer’s column in the Winnipeg Sun that questioned the deaths of Indigenous children at residential schools, just days after the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, sparked condemnation from a prominent Indigenous organization. (Klein is the CEO of the Klein Group, the company that owns the Sun. He has maintained he is not involved in its operations while running for mayor.)

The Free Press had already been scheduled to join Klein on the campaign trail Monday, intending to document a day in the life of the front-running candidate to unseat incumbent Scott Gillingham, before the controversies hit.

Chopped trees will leave a ‘blight’ on Windsor Park

Robert Gordon has watched the trees grow along a popular Windsor Park walking path for nearly six decades.

Now, as Manitoba Hydro cuts them down to protect nearby power lines, he says a familiar part of his childhood neighbourhood is disappearing.

Although he no longer lives in the area, Gordon regularly returns to walk or cycle along the tree-lined path, which runs parallel to Archibald Street.

He was concerned when he recently spotted crews clearing vegetation near the entrance to the path, but initially assumed they were removing brush. When he returned, he discovered the clearing had extended farther along the corridor.

‘Please excuse us from writing these notes …’

It’s a common-sense prescription for the health-care system. The only wonder is that it took so long to happen.

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.