Remembrance Day special focuses on Afghan mission

Dynacare workers provide essential services that must be maintained during strike, labour board rules

The Manitoba Labour Board has ruled Dynacare workers are essential employees and their services must be maintained during a labour dispute.

Mayoral candidate Vogiatzakis criticized for living outside Winnipeg

A mayoral hopeful took heat from other candidates Friday for living outside Winnipeg while running in the civic election.

Mike Vogiatzakis’s primary residence is in the Rural Municipality of St. Andrews, about 25 kilometres north of Winnipeg — a community with its own mayor and councillors.

But the funeral director said he owns a home in Winnipeg where he divides his time, and he would move to the city full-time if elected mayor.

“It doesn’t matter where a person lives. Why are we dividing St. Andrews and Manitoba and Winnipeg? I’ve met the criteria to run for mayor,” Vogiatzakis said Friday morning.

Brandonmeat packer thriving on its own

BRANDON — Canada Packers has strengthened its business and laid the foundation for future growth during its first year as an independent company, its president says.

The Brandon-based pork producer, separated from Maple Leaf Foods in October 2025, established its own leadership, strategy, systems, culture and identity while continuing operations across its hog production farms and regional hog barns in southern and eastern Manitoba.

The company’s first year was focused on building a successful standalone business while continuing to serve customers, communities and shareholders, president Dennis Organ said.

“Market conditions over the past year have been more challenging than we anticipated when we became a separate entity,” he said in an email. “Despite that, we continued to execute against our priorities, including increasing processing volumes, maintaining disciplined operations and strengthening the business.”

Broadening prediction-market gambling a bad idea

Let’s make a prediction: sooner or later, when Canadian governments find a way to take their own cut of the action, prediction-contract gambling on everything from sports to entertainment to political decisions is going to come to Canada.

And that’s a horrible, dangerous, pernicious idea.

Unless you have particular access to information — either inside information or strategic information based on skills or education — you’re not likely to make money at it. In fact, structurally, you’re likely to lose. In prediction markets, you basically pay an amount, plus fees from the company involved, to bet on whether something will or will not happen within a certain time frame. The amount you pay for your contract depends on how other people are also betting.

As Wealthsimple describes it, “You buy whichever side you think is right. Prices move with demand, so if the market leans towards one outcome, the more that side costs. If a lot of people are backing the TSX to finish above 38,000, yes gets more expensive and no gets cheaper.”

Khan should’ve taken high road: Goertzen

The veteran Progressive Conservative who championed Obby Khan’s leadership bid says the former Blue Bomber dropped the ball by dissing his Tory teammates before he stepped down.

“I wouldn’t recommend it, and I didn’t recommend it,” Kelvin Goertzen (Steinbach) said in an interview Friday.

Khan resigned as PC leader and quit the caucus Monday saying some members were secretly plotting his ouster, even after he won a confidence vote on Sept. 25.

On Tuesday, Khan lashed out in a CJOB interview, naming the alleged plotters, saying constituents deserved to know which of their elected representatives “lacked moral integrity.” Khan told the Free Press he was “deeply emotionally hurt,” and felt stabbed in the back.