This old house is perfect

Education student designs lesson plans to take a bite out of food marketing

Instead of apples, Emma Caronte is handing out lesson plans on local food history to Manitoba teachers this back-to-school season.

The undergraduate researcher spent her summer break creating a social studies unit that investigates food guide evolution, marketing tactics and how honey dill sauce became a pantry staple on the Prairies.

“I want students to develop a greater interest in food and what outside influences affect their choices and what we consider ‘healthy,’” said Caronte, a final-year education student at the University of Manitoba.

She is advertising her 112-page project as a user-friendly resource for classroom teachers and “a fun sub plan” targeted at Grade 6, 7, 8 and 9.

Labour board ruling halts Dynacare strike

The Manitoba Labour Board has cut short a strike by 350 lab workers employed by Dynacare who administer blood and urine tests for patients in Winnipeg, Brandon and surrounding communities.

The board ruled late Tuesday afternoon that the workers, who hit the picket line at 6 a.m., must return to work Wednesday.

Jason Linklater, president of their union, the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals, slammed the board’s decision.

“The Manitoba Labour Board is doing exactly what the government asked them to do: they are taking away our members’ right to fight for fairness,” he said in a statement.

‘It blew my mind that four lives were taken’

A two-vehicle crash that killed four teenage friends in the Interlake Sunday night prompted outpourings of grief in several communities and calls for safety improvements at the intersection, which was also the site of a death in July.

Recent high school graduates Maya Borsa and Chloe Vermette, both 18, were identified by their families as victims of the collision at Highway 8 and Provincial Road 229, just west of Winnipeg Beach.

“(Chloe) was a very bubbly, loving personality. Always giving, always caring. Her friends meant the world to her,” said her mother, Veronique Vermette, who struggled to comprehend the tragedy when she went to the scene Monday. “We sat in the rain for hours, and it blew my mind that four lives were taken.”

The teens’ parents are waiting for RCMP to provide more information about the cause of the crash. Chloe, who graduated from Windsor Park Collegiate in Winnipeg in July, was driving one of the vehicles, her mother said.

Councillors say Main Street Project scuttles other agency’s efforts to house homeless

A Winnipeg outreach agency that’s been largely shut out of government funding says it has found housing for more people in the last five months than Manitoba’s homeless strategy that began last year.

NDP minister needs lesson in political civility

Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine’s decision to intercede in Winnipeg’s mayoral election may be surprising to some political observers. To others, however, it is entirely on brand.

On Tuesday, Fontaine posted a video on social media in which she expressed concern that former city councillor and Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Kevin Klein was entering the race to challenge incumbent Mayor Scott Gillingham.

The caption on the video was blunt: “I mean, really, who chooses to work for Count Dracula?”

“Kevin Klein once worked for Peter Nygard. Peter Nygard is Canada’s equivalent to (American sex offender) Jeffrey Epstein — had his own little island, did unspeakable, disgusting things to women and girls … anyways, I just thought that Winnipeggers would want to know that Kevin Klein, at one point, worked for Peter Nygard,” she says in the video.

Enrolment up at alternative schools

Independent schools are preparing to welcome a record number of students as more families pay for faith-based instruction and secular alternatives.

The overwhelming majority of Manitoba children — 200,000 — are starting in the public school system this fall. Since 2000, the percentage of students enrolled elsewhere — in homeschools, funded and non-funded independent schools — has nearly doubled, to 12 per cent from seven per cent.

“If money was no object, we could fill dozens and dozens more classrooms with the demand for independent education,” said Andrew Micklefield, executive director of the Manitoba Federation of Independent Schools, who is a former Tory government house leader.

The King’s School, Dasmesh School, Springs Christian Academy, Beautiful Saviour Lutheran School, Steinbach Christian School and IQRA Islamic School have all either upscaled at some point over the last five years or are actively in the process of expanding their footprint.