APTN, CBC to air National Day for Truth and Reconciliation programming

Three vying to unseat Allard in St. Boniface

Four councillor candidates are running to represent the St. Boniface ward in Winnipeg's municipal election.

Empty desks: Advocates talk chronic school absenteeism

Concerned that school and government leaders are downplaying the state of student absenteeism, community organizers are strategizing to create urgency around who’s regularly missing class — and why — in Winnipeg.

The inaugural Youth at Risk in Winnipeg Symposium, held over the weekend at the Canadian Mennonite University, drew roughly 100 people to discuss barriers to attendance and brainstorm ways to remove them.

Nearly 20 years after he began calling attention to the issue, first as a volunteer with the Point Douglas Residents Committee, Sel Burrows gave an impassioned speech about the lack of political will to take meaningful action to help students from “dysfunctional homes.”

“I’ve dealt with nine cabinet ministers, Conservative and NDP, and five deputy ministers, and the issue has not gotten any better,” Burrows told teachers, reseachers and community support workers gathered Saturday on CMU’s Shaftesbury campus.

Surprising announcement opens door slightly for accountability in police HQ saga

Early Monday afternoon, it looked as if former Mayor Sam Katz, former chief administrative officer Phil Sheegl and contractor Armik Babakhanians were going to finally and successfully escape the long arm of the law for their roles in the Winnipeg Police Service headquarters scandal.

Katie Zacharia and the telling of lies

U.S. President Donald Trump’s new press secretary made her debut last week and was almost universally panned and parodied, lasting just five days before being fired.

New blood in St. Vital

Candidates to fill the wide-open St. Vital city council seat are sharing their plans to ease traffic, tighten up development rules, protect trees and improve Winnipeg Transit.

Coun. Brian Mayes led the ward since 2011 but is not running for re-election, guaranteeing a new city councillor will be chosen.

Chris Sigurdson, a Louis Riel School Division trustee and criminal defence lawyer, is competing for the job with Mayes’ endorsement.

Sigurdson said his trustee work over the last 16 years provided a valuable education in local government that he could apply at city hall.

Police HQ report ‘outrageous’: Kinew

Premier Wab Kinew says public inquiry findings that taxpayers were overcharged more than $40 million for the Winnipeg Police Service headquarters project and two city leaders broke the public trust are “outrageous.”

Inquiry commissioner Garth Smorang’s report, which was released Monday, concluded former mayor Sam Katz “violated the public trust” and council code of conduct, while the city’s former chief administrative officer Phil Sheegl suffered from a “complete lack of a moral compass.”

Smorang also found the city was overcharged $43.3 million for the project, with $42 million of that going to key contractor Caspian Projects.

“It’s outrageous that people who were elected betrayed the public here in the city. It’s outrageous that there were people in business who ripped you off, ripped me off — I was paying property taxes in Winnipeg at the time — and ripped all of us off to the tune of $43.3 million. That’s crazy,” said Kinew.