Epitaph signs Propagandhi

Impaired driving victim honoured

Ten years after he was killed in a collision involving an impaired driver in 2016, Robbie Anderson’s name has been added to MADD Canada’s Manitoba Memorial honouring those killed in drunk and drug-impaired-related crashes.

His older brother Chris Anderson, was one of two dozen people who gathered at the Glen Eden Funeral Home and Cemetery in West St. Paul Saturday to remember their loved ones, 86 victims whose names are etched into the granite monument near the heart of the graveyard.

“It’s heavy,” said Anderson when asked what it was like to be part of the ceremony and see his brother’s name added. “It’s been something I’ve been thinking about for a while.”

Grateful for MADD’s work and its efforts to honour Robbie, who was 27 when he died, Anderson said his brother, represented the “absolute best of us.”

Proposed Transcona development — which could add 20,000 people — gets thumbs down from residents

Dozens of Winnipeggers fear plans to make way for up to 20,000 more people to live in south Transcona would dramatically alter their neighbourhood and tie hefty fees for new services to their property titles.

If city council adopts the proposed South Transcona secondary plan, all future development applications would need to conform to its goals. The affected area is located south of Dugald Road, north of St. Boniface Road, east of Plessis Road and west of Murdock Road.

Homeowner Virginia Page Jähne fears the plan could add a massive tab to the title of her 4.3-acre property to cover services required for the development.

“My main concern is that they are wanting to put $1.4 million onto my title to pay for this. Now, they say that I will not have to pay it unless I subdivide. But if a person comes by and wants to buy from me … and they see that $1.4 million … what’s the first thing (they’re) going to do?” said Page Jähne, in an interview.

Nola chef earns national award

Celebrated Winnipeg chef Emily Butcher has another feather to add to her toque. The executive chef and owner of Nola and Bar Accanto in St. Boniface has received the Culinary Award of Excellence from Restaurants Canada, a national foodservice advocacy organization.

HSC weapons scanners effective, needed at other hospitals: nurses union

The AI weapons scanners at Health Sciences Centre have detected close to 2,000 items since they were installed at Manitoba’s largest hospital.

From March 6, 2025 to the beginning of this month, a total of 1,973 items had been flagged by the scanners and identified for further review, Shared Health said this week.

Knives, Swiss army knives and other multi-tools, drugs, alcohol, box cutters, syringes and other injection devices were detected, it said. The technology set up at entrances to the adult and children’s emergency rooms and the crisis response centre is designed to identify a wide range of objects that may require review under site safety protocols.

But Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson said the technology isn’t available everywhere at HSC, and a sawed-off rifle was discovered in the adult ER earlier this month.

WRHA directs three care homes to accommodate surge of hospital patients

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority has directed three long-term care centres to make space for hospital patients, citing “exceptionally high demand for care across the health-care system.”

Trailblazing Western Scrap Metals heavy-equipment operator relishes role at massive crane’s control

Less than five per cent of heavy-equipment operators in the country are women but that number is trending upward, according to a study conducted by trade magazine Crane & Hoist Canada.

It was reported that in Ontario roughly eight per cent of jobs in the transport and heavy-equipment field are currently held by women. Furthermore, in 2024 almost 20 per cent of graduates at an Edmonton-based heavy-equipment operator training school were female, the article stated.

That brings us to Harmony Guspodarchuk, the first female crane operator in the 70-year history of Western Scrap Metals, a family-owned business at 18 Sutherland Ave.

Three years ago, Guspodarchuk literally stepped into the driver’s seat of a 27,500-kilogram, Liebherr C 924 Heavy Lift Litronic crane. The 29-year-old hasn’t looked back much since.