On the Night Table

Winnipeg Police Service recognizes, honours residential school survivors as Orange Shirt Day approaches

Winnipeg Police Service members lit a sacred fire outside of their North District Station in recognition of residential school survivors ahead of the upcoming Orange Shirt Day.

“We know that the relationship between policing and Indigenous communities has not always been one of trust,” WPS Chief Gene Bowers told visitors at a gathering outside of the station Sunday afternoon.

“We cannot change that history, but we can acknowledge it, we can learn from it, and we can take responsibility for how we move forward.”

The sacred fire, guided by elder Mike Calder, will burn for 24 hours at the Sinclair Street station, and then be allowed to extinguish naturally. It’s the second year the WPS has lit a sacred fire in recognition of residential school survivors — last year, the fire was lit outside of WPS headquarters on Smith Street.

Restaurants ‘under pressure’

Happy hour outings are on Jackie Piggott’s calendar — but even those are fewer.

She and her husband might visit a restaurant once a month. It’s a change over the past year: earlier, they may go twice, thrice or weekly.

“It’s something that we’ve talked about, my husband and myself, just because the pricing is so expensive,” Piggott said, stopping during a grocery run in St. Vital. “It’s also better for our health.”

She’s in the majority: a new Restaurants Canada report found 80 per cent of Canadians are eating out less frequently because of higher living costs, up from 75 per cent in 2025.

Special teams woes hurt Bombers in loss to Argos

THEY’VE been the most consistent of the three phases in the Winnipeg Blue Bombers arsenal this season.

A port in the proverbial storm, throughout this topsy-turvy campaign of ups-and-downs, the special-teams units have been supplying strength to a group that is still searching for consistency with only four games left in the regular season.

That’s what made this momentary lapse so costly in a 30-28 loss to the Toronto Argonauts on Friday at Princess Auto Stadium.

“We didn’t keep up our end of the bargain. And that hurts our football team, hurts our chances of winning games,” said Blue Bombers special teams ace Tanner Cadwallader. “And if we want to win close games. we’ve got to be a whole lot better than that. And we will. We’re going to come in (on Saturday for the film session) and go through it with a fine-tooth comb and just work a little bit harder.”

Is a better Winnipeg on the horizon?

Four Free Press columnists weigh in on the challenges ahead and how the city can become better.

‘In Normandy, we remember’

Travelling nearly 7,000 km from his home in France to Winnipeg gave Gabriel Zaranski a new perspective on warfare.

“It’s very different to speak about war in school (than) to speak with real people who (have fought) in a war,” he said. “We can feel the emotion when they speak … The testimony has more impact when it’s real soldiers.”

Zaranski is one of 14 Grade 12 students from Bayeux, a town in France’s Normandy region, in Winnipeg this week for a learning tour.

The students, who attend Lycée Arcisse de Caumont high school, met on Saturday with veterans from the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada, a local military regiment, to discuss their studies and the regiment’s role in the Second World War.