Royal MTC director bids fond farewell

It’s back and it’s better than ever.

National non-profit ogranization motionball will be returning for its annual event — the 2026 Marathon of Sports Winnipeg — at the Dakota Community Centre Sept. 19. This fundraising event will help support the Special Olympics Manitoba and Canada foundation in hopes of reaching their goal of $100,000.

Local Special Olympic athletes, including the province’s own Alec Baldwin, as well as registered participants will join together to play a variety of team sports such as basketball, kinball and bocce ball.

Dauphin’s 8,400 residents, ravaged by floodwaters from unprecedented rainfall in June that has left the city without its hospital for the entire summer, will have a temporary but functioning ER shortly, Premier Wab Kinew promised Monday.

“We’ve heard you loud and clear Dauphin,” Kinew said in a post on X on Monday. “You need these services close to home, you’ll have an emergency department working by Labour Day.”

Dauphin Mayor David Bosiak was elated after hearing the news. “We’re tickled in town,” Bosiak said, adding he has faith the premier will deliver.

Kinew is expected to provide further details Tuesday.

In support of real engineering

Jerry Storie’s op-ed Take advantage of hydroelectric potential and Laura Cameron’s op-ed Lasting legacy or pining for a pipe dream, both in the Free Press Aug. 17, provide quite different perspectives on what should be done to provide reliable power to Manitoba residents in the future.

Mr. Storie advocates construction of more hydroelectric projects rather than new natural gas generated capacity to offset looming power shortages. He argues that these hydroelectric projects will benefit Manitoba for the next century, and observes there will be significant increases in the demand for electricity in upcoming years. He is not wrong in any of these observations. However, hydroelectric developments are very capital intensive and have long lead development periods. Natural gas generation can be brought on line far more quickly with less investment. And perhaps Mr. Storie’s minimization of the environmental impacts of these developments deserves more scrutiny. Any First Nations impacted by development deserve to be consulted and participate in any benefits. Having said this, Mr. Storie is a former minister responsible for Manitoba Hydro, and thus has a fairly deep understanding of the issues at hand.

Laura Cameron advocates against construction of the LNG pipeline and terminal at Churchill, citing “the technical challenges of building a pipeline over thawing permafrost; the prohibitive cost of ice-breaking tankers that move LNG through the Arctic; and a forecasted global oversupply of LNG and uncertain long-term export markets.” These would all be persuasive arguments if Ms Cameron possessed any credentials indicating an expertise in engineering or economics. She does not. The balance of Ms Cameron’s op-ed focuses on ways for Manitoba to reduce its carbon footprint while taking a few shots at the proposed LNG pipeline to B.C. Her opposition to the pipeline to Churchill is almost a Trojan horse.

U.S. authorities say a Manitoba man falsely claimed he had been kidnapped and taken across the Canada-U.S. border over the weekend.

Roderick Garson, 37, is being held in a county jail near Alexandria, Minn., after he was arrested and charged with falsely reporting a crime.

The arrest stems from a report police received Saturday that a man had been abducted with a weapon in Manitoba and taken across the border into the United States.

The investigation led U.S. authorities to Alexandria, about two hours northwest of Minneapolis, where police located the reported victim and suspect after the latter ran into a local store claiming he had escaped from his 31-year-old unnamed captor.