A labour of love

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.”

9 to 5:

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.

Retired sportscaster Scott Oake determined as fundraising for women's addictions treatment facility enters home stretch

For now, the patch of land just east of the Victoria Hospital doesn’t look like much: just a field of rocks, mounded dirt, and concrete piles driven into the earth. Yet when Scott Oake looks over the site, he can already imagine how it will look in just over a year’s time, when the new Anne Oake Family Recovery Centre is expected to open.

It’s easier to picture this time around. In 2020, when the recently-retired CBC sportscaster and his late wife, Anne, were building their first labour of intermingled grief and love, the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre for men, it was hard for him to wrap his mind around how a raw construction site could transform into a welcoming addictions treatment facility.

When that centre opened in 2021, Oake found it looked “almost identical” to the architect’s renderings. So it’s easy to hope the Anne Oake Centre will be the same. It will be the first facility of its kind, its founders believe, not only in Canada but in North America: a place where 50 to 70 women can pursue sobriety while staying with their children.

“At Bruce Oake there’s a culture of love, and most of all a culture of hope,” Oake said, speaking at the site Thursday after a media conference to announce the final push of the centre’s fundraising campaign. “I can feel it every time I walk into that building. And I know it will be the same here.”

Is Trump about to poke Quebec’s political beehive?

When was the last time that a U.S. president seriously stirred the hornet’s nest of Quebec politics?

My best recollection is former U.S. president Bill Clinton. During the 1994 Quebec referendum campaign, Clinton made clear that the U.S. wholly endorsed a united and strong federal Canada — as opposed to a dismembered one. He went on to add that an independent Quebec would have no guarantee of joining the North American Free Trade Agreement as a full-fledged member.

Today, we see U.S. President Donald Trump inserting himself — unwittingly or wittingly — into the electoral and sovereignty politics of Quebec. It’s pretty clear that the resurgent Coalition Avenir Québec government is trying to make the Oct. 5 provincial election about anything other than its own governmental record and more about Trump’s economic coercion against Canada. Of course, the Parti Québécois, the odds-on-favourite, wants to make the electoral contest a referendum on the CAQ and its party leader, Christine Fréchette.

But what if Trump really wanted to make his presence felt in Quebec’s political life? How much influence could he have on shaping political outcomes in Quebec? How much of an “X factor” could he be?

Injuries reported after police pursuit on Broadway

Winnipeg police are investigating a “serious incident” in which people were injured following a police pursuit near Broadway and Young Street Friday afternoon.

Police said the scene would remain secured as officers investigate. No details about the number or severity of injuries were released.

Broadway was closed between Furby and Young streets until further notice and motorists were asked to avoid the area.

Shaelyn Desmarais McLeod, whose car sustained minor damage, said she witnessed the end of the police pursuit.

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.