Memorial service set for next week for Broadway star Gavin Creel, who died Sept. 30

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: My wife is no longer my life partner! To my mind, she’s just the mother of my children. She still lives with us and does the major part of the child care.

This summer she discovered I had a girlfriend, but she didn’t want to “break up our family,” as I earn a lot of money. Now she’s treating me like garbage. She’s pleasant to the kids and our cleaning help, but she doesn’t speak much to me, and is disposed to giving me lists for groceries and medication pickups via email, so I pay for almost everything.

The kids seem fine so far, because we haven’t broken up our family and we haven’t changed how we treat each other in front of them. We’re polite and we never fight.

Then just last weekend, my wife finally let me know she’d recently met someone she’s “seeing privately.” It’s a guy we both know from a sports activity the kids enjoy. That just makes me sick — and is upsetting me far more than breaking up.

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: I came home alone in my own car after a first date with a great new guy I met through my work. Unfortunately, I found my ex-boyfriend in the driveway of my new rental house. He’d fallen asleep in his car, waiting there.

I just lost it! I banged on his window, and yelled, “What are you doing here? Get out of here, and go home!”

He finally sat up, rubbed his eyes and two minutes later he backed out, yelling crude names at me out the window. Then he took off like a shot!

I found out today that somebody we both know told him I was out on a date. That’s why he was drunk and jealous! I want to get rid of him for good, but now he’s not taking my calls, so I can’t even tell him that and re-ditch him!

Manitoba Hydro is pressing ahead with its proposed $3-billion gas-turbine project in Brandon as though approval was a foregone conclusion. Six weeks of Public Utilities Board hearings exposed serious doubts about the need for three turbines, their escalating cost and whether more affordable alternatives have been adequately examined. Yet before the PUB has delivered its recommendations and the government has authorized the investment, Hydro applied for an environmental license on Oct. 8.

Starting the environmental review early may save time but proceeding before the premier and his cabinet have made a decision risks reducing regulatory scrutiny and political approval to mere formalities. Has the government already given Hydro the green light?

Few dispute that Manitoba will need more capacity as demand grows. Daymark Energy Advisors, the PUB’s independent consultant, concluded that Hydro had established a need for additional capacity by 2030. However, Daymark questioned the size of the projected shortfall, Hydro’s load forecasts and its turbine cost assumptions. Hydro itself acknowledged that its planning costs were based on 2024 information, and that surging North American demand for gas turbines has since put significant upward pressure on prices. Then there’s the impact of Trump’s trade war. These are not minor details, but updated costs have not been obtained.

The bigger problem is how Hydro has framed the alternatives. Interim CEO Hal Turner recently argued that wind and battery storage alone cannot reliably carry Manitoba through prolonged extreme cold. Fair enough. However, critics are not proposing wind and batteries alone.