Not your typical romcom

‘Eight credible threats’ against Hydro employees: CEO

Manitoba Hydro president and CEO Allan Danroth took aim at critics and revealed he and staff members have been threatened while defending the Crown corporation’s plan for three new combustion turbines Monday.

Without identifying individuals, Danroth said “constant, uninformed criticism” of Hydro and misinformation has eroded public trust and contributed to hostilities and an unsafe workplace for employees.

“Manitoba Hydro is currently managing eight credible threats against our employees, five of them directed at me personally,” Danroth told a Public Utilities Board hearing in Winnipeg.

“More troubling is these threats are increasingly affecting our front-line workforce. In the last year, my employees have been threatened with weapons, including guns, while performing their duties, and in one recent incident a homeowner directed his dogs to attack one of our meter readers.”

Cultural consultation gives Indigenous stories strength in Netflix’s new Little House on the Prairie

Through her work as an Indigenous consultant for film and TV, Julie O’Keefe, a citizen of the Osage Nation, has brought accuracy and authenticity to works such as Martin Scorsese’s 2023 crime drama Killers of the Flower Moon, the 2025 western miniseries American Primeval and, most recently, Rebecca Sonnenshine’s new adaptation of Little House on the Prairie.

But she doesn’t work solo.

“One of the things that I always say is, in any of these jobs that I do — whether it’s Shoshone and Paiute and Ute or Osage — I never come alone to this,” says O’Keefe, who grew up in Pawhuska, Okla., the heart of the Osage Nation, and is now based in Santa Fe, N.M. “I engage because those stories are so much richer with our voices added to it, and we know that.

“I’m sitting down with brilliant directors, brilliant writers, and I’m handing over pieces of history that they’re like, ‘How come nobody knows this?’ And the great part is, this is the time in history … people are really starting to get on top of wanting this for their stories, because it really wasn’t of any importance before.”

Students continue to criticize handling of MITT’s closure

Students at a Manitoba trade college say their education has been hampered as a result of its impending closure and they blame government for a poor transition.

The provincial government announced in January it would close the Manitoba Institute of Trades and Technology because it was no longer financially viable following the federal government’s decision to cut the number of international students allowed to study in Canada.

Officials have said students would remain the top priority as 19 programs from MITT are set to be absorbed by Red River College Polytech.

Kieran Smith, an electrical applications student at MITT, said it feels like those in charge “don’t really care.”

A small step among troubling signs

There’s no getting around the fact — to many people, downtown Winnipeg is unsafe. Period.

Landlord asks city to work with him over homeless camp after appeal option turfed

A West Broadway landlord says the City of Winnipeg has rejected his attempt to appeal an order that requires him to clear a homeless encampment from his riverfront property.

Marvin Sharp, CEO of Astroid Management Ltd., which operates the Pen-Eve Apartments at 35 Balmoral St., said Monday the decision is absurd since his firm was given almost no time to respond to the order.

The city denied his request for an appeal hearing because he failed to respond before the July 18 compliance deadline.

Sharp contends that was impossible because the compliance order, dated July 10, did not arrive at his office until July 17, leaving him just one day to file an appeal. The city clerk’s office is closed on weekends.