Mennonite university adds social work program

Is the student or the system falling short?

One night at bedtime, a 10-year-old looked at her mother with tears in her eyes and said, “Mom, I think I’m stupid.”

Echoes of Idle No More as Carney set to meet with First Nations

The prime minister, premiers and First Nations leaders will meet in Ottawa Monday to discuss a host of issues, including Indigenous involvement in energy and resource development projects.

Opening of Portage and Main shows even seemingly insurmountable impasses can be overcome

There are places in a city that become more than places. Portage and Main is one of them. For generations of Winnipeggers, the intersection has represented downtown, traffic, development and civic identity. Its reopening to pedestrians in 2025, after 46 years of closure, was about more than crossing a street. It was a reminder that decisions made by one generation can shape the choices available to another — and that even seemingly permanent decisions can be reconsidered.

I have spent much of my professional life thinking about Winnipeg as a planner, working in public, private and non-profit settings. My PhD research gave me an opportunity to examine Portage and Main differently: not simply as a debate about cars and pedestrians, but as a window into how power operates in a city. I reviewed 569 archival documents spanning the 1960s to the present, interviewed 48 planners with experience in Winnipeg, and mapped the relationships between planners, politicians, developers, engineers, residents, businesses and advocacy groups.

What emerged was a story about how planning decisions become embedded in a city’s institutions, agreements, infrastructure, professional practices and political expectations — shaping not only what gets built, but who gets to influence what gets built.

The closure of Portage and Main in 1979 did not remain a decision confined to a particular political moment. Over time, it was reinforced by development agreements, physical infrastructure, property relationships, traffic-engineering practices, administrative routines, and public narratives about mobility and downtown revitalization. The people who made many of those original decisions eventually left office. The arrangements they created remained. Later planners inherited them.

Dustin Byfuglien gets warm welcome at alumni game

To say that Dustin Byfuglien wasn’t a fan of the spotlight is an understatement of epic proportions.

The guy with the personality that was larger than life preferred to keep that side of him mostly contained behind the hallowed halls of the Winnipeg Jets locker room.

Since he unexpectedly stepped away from the game in the fall of 2019, Byfuglien has limited his rare interviews to discussions about fishing, happily leaving the NHL game in his rearview mirror.

But on Saturday morning, there was Byfuglien standing in the newly-renovated Jets’ dressing room, holding court with a group of reporters hanging on his every word prior to the alumni game that was part of the 2026 Heritage Classic.

‘Savage and brutal’ Erickson home invasion nets 17-year sentence

BRANDON — A woman who fought off the man who slashed her throat in a random home invasion in Erickson described the violent assault as the worst day of her life and a nightmare she can’t seem to shake off.

“I feel like a shell of the person I used to be. Not every second of every day, but definitely every day. It comes in waves,” Candace Richardson said as she read from a victim impact statement in a Brandon courtroom on Friday.

Carter Prince, 21, who pleaded guilty to attempted murder for the June 2023 attack, sat in the prisoner’s box as Richardson spoke.

“I’ll be completely fine, laughing, having fun or just relaxing with my family,” she told the court. “Then time goes so slowly, like you’re floating away, but instead of floating, I’m pinned to the ground, being stabbed over and over again. There’s blood everywhere and darkness surrounding me.”

‘Exciting’ turn for mayoral candidate as election race enters final stretch

A small but steady stream of voters arrived at a Portage Avenue diner Sunday to meet Noah Redden, just two days after a new poll suggested the 27-year-old has emerged as a player in Winnipeg’s race for mayor.

Once a low-polling candidate, the software developer is now in third place with 14 per cent support, tied with candidate Mike Vogiatzakis, an Abacus Data survey released Friday shows.

Incumbent Scott Gillingham remains in the lead with the support of 36 per cent of decided voters — 19 percentage points lower than a September survey conducted by Abacus for the Free Press.

The new data placed former city councillor and Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Kevin Klein in second place with 19 per cent support — a drop of four percentage points since September.