Life wearing suit and tie not for this artistic guy

Dynacare workers provide essential services that must be maintained during strike, labour board rules

The Manitoba Labour Board has ruled Dynacare workers are essential employees and their services must be maintained during a labour dispute.

Health minister warns $1.2 billion in annual federal funding set to expire in March

Manitoba’s health minister is warning of possible cuts to health care with $1.2 billion in annual funding from Ottawa set to expire next year.

“We’re very concerned that what would be the largest cut to health care in a generation is right in front of us,” Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said Thursday at the Manitoba legislature. “It means that services that Manitobans depend on will be in jeopardy and be at risk.

“Any reductions, any cuts from Canada, will have direct impacts on the health outcomes of Manitobans.”

Asagwara, who serves as the provincial and territorial health minister lead, chaired a virtual meeting Tuesday with provincial and territorial health ministers to discuss federal funding for health care, mental health care and substance use services, which is scheduled to expire March 31, 2027.

Port of Churchill signs agreement with Dutch port

Arctic Gateway Group, operator of the Port of Churchill, has signed an agreement with the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands to attract business and strengthen supply chains linking Western Canada and Europe.

The agreement enables the two ports to work together to develop new trade in critical minerals and energy products, connect Canadian producers with European buyers, and identify opportunities to improve the supply chain from Western Canadian resource projects through Churchill and into European markets.

The Port of Rotterdam is Europe’s largest port and home to more than 3,000 businesses across its industrial complex, serving as a major gateway for critical raw materials and energy.

Meanwhile, the Port of Churchill has been identified as a transformative national strategy for Canada and is emerging as a northern trade corridor connecting Western Canada’s resources to global markets.

Cops handcuffed by bail issues, lack of mental-health options, WPS chief tells residents in crime-ridden North End neighbourhood

Weak bail reform and a lack of mental-health resources and addictions treatment beds are making it more difficult to tackle crime in inner-city neighbourhoods such as William Whyte, where there has been a significant increase in criminal behaviour compared to last year, the city’s top police officer says.

Winnipeg Police Services Chief Gene Bowers made the remarks Thursday night at an event hosted by the William Whyte Neighbourhood Association, where about two dozen residents gathered to share their concerns about crime in the North End community.

“Fentanyl and meth, that’s caused a strain on all our front lines and and all these agencies that are trying to help people,” Bowers told the room of people at Inner City Youth Alive on Aberdeen Avenue Thursday night.

“What really is the problem is there’s no treatment. That’s the gap, because (police and agencies) are all churning the same people through, and we’re all seeing them. We’re all frustrated that there’s no help.”

Man who killed two Indigenous women, was accused of killing third, back in prison less than year after statutory release

A Winnipeg man convicted of killing two First Nations women more than a decade ago — with charges stayed in a third slaying — has been sent back to prison less than a year after he left under conditions.

Parole Board of Canada officials revoked 67-year-old Shawn Lamb’s statutory release after a hearing last week.

“Your actions are not beyond your control, yet you continue to wilfully make poor decisions that place the public at risk,” board member Arun Kundu-Thomsen wrote in a decision released this week.

Lamb gained statutory release — a legislated conditional release most federal inmates automatically qualify for after serving two-thirds of their sentence — in November last year and lived in several Ontario facilities for federal offenders.