Koncan’s zahgidiwin/love earns playwright award

Nothing wrong with planting trees, but it won’t get province very far on path to net zero

Manitoba’s new plan to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 is a lot of things. It’s detailed. It’s certainly comprehensive in scope. But when it is all said and done, it is still very much a work in progress.

Trade war fuelling spike in city costs

A trade war between the U.S. and Canada could cost the City of Winnipeg millions of dollars more than was anticipated during the budget process for this year’s expenditures and beyond.

Rogers, Telus deny blame for June twister alert barrage

Telecom companies say they aren’t to blame for the barrage of tornado alerts Manitobans received during severe thunderstorms in early June.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission announced in August it would investigate the unusually high number of alerts, and called on the Pelmorex Corp., which operates the national Alert Ready system, along with telecom companies Bell, Rogers and Telus to respond to a number of questions.

They were given until last Friday to describe their possible roles in the creation, receipt, processing or distribution of alerts issued from Environment and Climate Change Canada in the midst of the June 9 storm.

Telus said in its response that it received 133 alert requests targeted to Manitoba created by Environment Canada and forwarded by Pelmorex between 2:35 p.m. June 9 and 3:29 a.m. the following day. While the majority of those messages contained identical information and were automatically suppressed, 17 were ultimately sent out as alerts in Winnipeg.

Menstruation, consent move up in sex-ed lesson plan

Manitoba’s newest curriculum introduces the menstrual cycle earlier and repeatedly calls for explicit lessons on how students can give, seek, and decline to provide their consent.

The education department has released its sweeping proposal to overhaul how exercise, nutrition and sexuality are taught between kindergarten and Grade 12.

Grade 5 has long served as a key turning point for “the talk,” said J Fiedler, a sexual and reproductive health educator who provided input on the new curriculum.

“There’s no ‘the talk’ anymore. Now, there’s continuations of multiple ‘talks,’ which can hopefully reduce stress for students and stigma that people experience talking about sexuality.”