Manitoba shines at 2020 Western Canadian Music Awards

9 to 5: workplace wake-up call still has something to say

I watched the 1980 comedy 9 to 5 for the first time this week.

I know: I’m an HR consultant. I’ve been doing this work for 13 years, I write about workplaces for a living, and somehow I had never actually watched the movie that gave us one of the most recognizable workplace songs of all time.

I knew the premise, of course. I knew American music icon Dolly Parton was in it. I knew there was a terrible boss and three women who eventually decided they had enough.

I expected a funny, somewhat dated movie about three women getting revenge on an awful boss. What I didn’t expect was to spend the next two hours thinking about how much has changed in the workplace since 1980 — and how much really hasn’t.

Chrétien says Canada bows to no one in fiery address at 9/11 commemoration

GANDER - Former prime minister Jean Chrétien drew a standing ovation inside a Gander, N.L., hockey arena on Friday as he delivered a pointed message to American leaders during a ceremony marking the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, 25 years ago.

The 92-year-old warned Americans never to mistake Canadian generosity for weakness, nor its kindness for softness.

U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra looked on as Chrétien insisted his pointed words were a sign of friendship. Friends tell each other the truth, he said.

“We embraced our friends and we helped them in their moment of need, but we bow to no one,” Chretien said, as the crowd erupted again.

Artist’s inspired work brings Red River Métis story back to Portage and Main

Jennine Krauchi calls them the “grandmothers.” “They speak to you very silently. You never hear a word, but they speak,” Krauchi says, referring to the antique pieces of Métis needlework she’s carefully studied for years. But there are few precedents for her latest art project: a 85-foot-wide by 32-foot-high chain curtain of Métis needlework that drapes over the historic Bank of Montreal’s neoclassical facade.

Fallis’s comic thriller infiltrates book club

The Free Press Book Club and McNally Robinson Booksellers are pleased to welcome Toronto author Terry Fallis to the next virtual meeting on Tuesday, September 29 at 7 p.m. to read from and discuss his novel The Marionette.

Fallis, a former lawyer, bureaucrat and political consultant, is the author of 10 bestselling novels and the two-time winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour (in 2015 for No Relation and in 2008 for The Best Laid Plans, which also won CBC’s Canada Reads in 2011).

His 11th novel, An End In Itself, will be published in November by McClelland & Stewart, who also published The Marionette in October 2025 (and which was also longlisted for the Leacock medal).

The Marionette follows James Norval, bestselling author of a series of thrillers featuring fictional CIA agent Hunter Chase. While in Tajikistan researching his next Hunter Chase novel, Norval is detained by local officials and subsequently freed and ferried away by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

Multiple factors add up to difficult harvest

Earlier this month, farmers sent agriculture publications some heartbreaking photos showing how heavy rains across the Prairies had pummelled a promising harvest.

An idled combine up to its axles in a flooded Saskatchewan field, straw bales surrounded by water and field equipment stranded on the far side of a washed-out section told the obvious story.

The Sept. 6-7 event was just the latest in a series of heavy rainfall events that have plagued this year’s growing season. Similar deluges hit different regions July 15-17, Aug. 14, and Aug. 31 — some of which were accompanied by tornadoes.

“What’s made this season challenging is the intensity of these rainfalls,” said Manitoba Agriculture ag meteorology specialist Alison Sass as she reviewed the summer’s weather patterns on an extension webinar.

Highway-safety upgrades in progress after tragic Interlake crash

Provincial workers have started to update or install safety measures at a rural Interlake intersection where four teenage friends died in a crash on Labour Day weekend.

Pavement markings were repainted at Highway 8 and Provincial Road 229, just west of Winnipeg Beach, ahead of work to refresh worn-down rumble strips, starting Monday, and install flashing lights atop two stop signs, following an assessment earlier this week.

“They will also need to incorporate any information from the RCMP report that might be helpful if we were to consider any additional safety measures at this intersection,” Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Lisa Naylor said of department staff.

“The most important thing is safety, and any kinds of changes we make at any intersection actually have to make it safer.”