Animated adventure tackles grown-up issues

Dozens of Uber, Lyft drivers switched to cheaper insurance coverage: MPI probe

Ride-service drivers have been defrauding Manitoba Public Insurance by improperly insuring their vehicles as for personal use.

The public insurer and the City of Winnipeg, which regulates ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft, discovered the widespread fraud after MPI conducted a review in December last year.

“When a driver changes their coverage from ride-share insurance to a personal vehicle coverage and continues to operate as a ride-share driver, that is fraud, plain and simple,” said MPI chief executive officer Satvir Jatana at a news conference Thursday.

MPI’s review looked at a random sample of 408 ride-hailing vehicles and found 108 were operating without the proper vehicle-for-hire insurance coverage. In order to register with the city as a ride-service driver, a vehicle must have such insurance and proof must be provided to the ride-booking company.

Indigenous leaders meet with Governor General during first official visit to Manitoba

Three Indigenous leaders were encouraged after discussing reconciliation and the need to confront residential school denialism with Gov. Gen. Louise Arbour, while she began her first official visit to Manitoba Wednesday.

Canadian Mennonite University students, staff victims of cyberattack

Canadian Mennonite University fell victim to a cyberattack that compromised the data of current and former students and employees last month.

School officials became aware of the cybersecurity incident, in which an “unknown third party” accessed its information technology systems without authorization, on Sept. 18, university president Cheryl Pauls said in a recent statement.

The university has since confirmed the third party used that access to steal information from its systems.

“We immediately initiated our incident response plan, retained expert assistance, and informed the university community whose workflows were affected as soon as we became aware of the incident,” Pauls said. “We also reported this incident to law enforcement and will be filing a report with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.”

Sex offender who changed name sent back to prison

The father of a boy repeatedly abused by convicted sex predator Ryan Knight said he believes his son would have been kept safe had there been a law in place preventing sex offenders from legally changing their name.

Duo accused in random Osborne Village attacks no strangers to police

A man arrested following a violent, random attack on two men in Osborne Village late Sunday night was released from jail a week earlier after a dozen charges, including crimes of violence, were stayed against him, court records show.

A man in his 40s was sent to hospital in critical condition and another man in his 20s in stable condition following separate attacks shortly before midnight in the vicinity of River Avenue and Osborne Street.

Police have charged Reginald Owen, 26, and Meaghan Owen, 32, both from Little Grand Rapids, with assault with a weapon and aggravated assault. They both remain in custody.

Court records show Reginald Owen was sentenced Sept. 24 to 30 days time served after pleading guilty to simple possession of magic mushrooms. Owen remained in custody until the following day when he was set to apply for bail on charges including assault, sexual assault, choking to overcome resistance, pointing a firearm, and carrying a concealed weapon.

New beds fill gaps, won’t fix health-care woes

The NDP government is finally putting more money into one of the most important solutions to Manitoba’s emergency-room crisis: getting patients who no longer require acute-care treatment out of hospitals and into more appropriate care.

The province is adding 103 new community-based spaces in Winnipeg for patients who no longer need to be in hospital but still need somewhere safe to go.

That’s a good investment. It’s also an acknowledgement of a problem that has been clogging Manitoba’s hospitals for years.

About 600 patients are occupying hospital beds on an average day even though they no longer require acute care treatment. They are waiting for personal-care-home beds, housing, home supports, mental-health services or other community-based options.