Bergen wins book of the year a fourth time

Acquisition of former residential school grounds will help educate future generations: premier

Premier Wab Kinew says a former Brandon-area campground acquired by the province will help educate future generations about the horrors of residential schools.

“We live in an era where people are trying to deny what happened in residential schools,” Kinew said during a Tuesday afternoon visit to Turtle Crossing Campground, near the former Brandon Indian Residential School. “It’s an important part of our national history, and keeping that truth alive.”

Kinew officially announced the province’s plan Tuesday, in partnership with the City of Brandon, to acquire and protect the site where the bodies of more than 50 Indigenous children are located.

The premier said the property has “huge national significance” for education about residential school history because it is one of the “most documented” in the country. He carried photographs, and some 20th century newspaper clippings from the Brandon Sun around the site Tuesday.

As political jockeying begins, don’t forget job No. 1

The goal, for all parties in a democracy, is to make the best legislation and bring in the strongest policy forward for voters and citizens.

And every party has a role to play in that effort.

Governments set policy and bring forward legislation. Official oppositions challenge that process with the goal of identifying weaknesses or flaws in proposed laws, bringing forward the positions of groups affected by proposed legislative change, and generally are supposed to bring a critical lens to the process in an effort to improve the final result.

Third parties bring forward still further viewpoints and analysis, often from a different political bent, but valuable insight and viewpoints nonetheless.

What’s up

Connection: Recent Work from Artist Moms 2.0

Community Art Gallery at the Pavilion, Assiniboine Park, 55 Pavilion Cres.

Artist talk Saturday, 2 p.m.

Free

What’s open, what’s closed, what’s up in Winnipeg on National Day for Truth and Reconciliation Sept. 30, 2026

The National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, or Orange Shirt Day, as it's known in Manitoba, happens Sept. 30 with many commemorative community events scheduled.

Bergen wins book of the year a fourth time

For the fourth time in his literary career, Winnipeg author David Bergen took home the top prize at the 2021 Manitoba Book Awards.

Here the Dark, a collection of short stories and a novella published by Biblioasis, won the McNally Robinson Book of the Year award, which Bergen also won for his debut novel A Year of Lesser (1996) as well as 2005’s The Time in Between and 2009’s The Retreat. Here the Dark was also a finalist for the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize.

Among the competition for the top prize at this year’s Manitoba Book Awards, announced online on May 20, was David A. Robertson’s Black Water: Family, Legacy, and Blood Memory (HarperCollins), which won the 2021 Alexander Kennedy Isbister award for non-fiction as well as the Carol Shields Winnipeg book award, as well as Lara Rae’s Dragonfly, published by J. Gordon Shillingford, which won this year’s Chris Johnson award for best play by a Manitoba playwright.

Jonathan Ball added to his Manitoba Book Award collection, winning the Margaret Laurence award for fiction for his debut collection of short fiction, The Lightning of Possible Storms, published by Book*hug Press. Ball previously won in the poetry category, as well as the 2014 award for most promising Manitoba writer.