Pope names Mexican-American broadcasting executive to lead Vatican communications

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.”

Clock ticks down on destruction of records documenting residential school abuses

In less than a year, a private company is set to destroy the largest cache of records detailing the widespread abuse of Indigenous children at residential schools in Canada.

The destruction, which was ordered by an Ontario court in 2014 and later upheld by the Supreme Court, is set to take place on Sept. 19, 2027.

This countdown is igniting emotional conversations that seek to balance the immense historical value of the records alongside the confidentiality survivors were promised as part of the process of providing detailed testimony about abuses they’d suffered.

The records were created as part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, a class-action settlement stemming from survivors who began suing the federal government in the late 1990s over the harm they’d been subjected to at residential schools.

The idea of Alberta separation viewed through a faith lens shows further fracture lines

CALGARY — One morning in May, John Pentland, a minister at Hillhurst United Church in Calgary, opened his newspaper and read about a group of Albertans who were trying to divide his country.

Something inside of him felt like it cracked open. He started to weep.

“I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t breathe,” he said. He called a friend and told him: “I think I’m losing my mind.”

Pentland has always believed in Canada — flawed as it might be — as a nation gifted with diversity and welcoming of asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants. But recently that belief has been shaken as he’s witnessed right-wing ideologies charged with anti-immigrant sentiment take root in his province. It makes him angry and embarrassed for the country he loves.

A day on the campaign trail: Winnipeg's mayor, seeking a second term, does double duty

In the weeks leading up to the civic election, Scott Gillingham has been performing a juggling act: he’s running to be Winnipeg’s 45th mayor, while still serving as its 44th.

“If someone asks me about the campaign, I’m going to answer them. But I think for most people, I’m the mayor of Winnipeg, even if I’m showing up as a candidate,” Gillingham, 58, says. “I try to do all I can to maintain that distinction.”

The Free Press joined Gillingham on a recent rainy September Saturday on the campaign trail, where he served in both roles during an event-laden day. City council’s final meeting before the Oct. 28 election was days earlier.

In Winnipeg, it’s rare for an incumbent to be defeated. But Gillingham knows his win in 2022 wasn’t exactly a landslide — he won with 27.5 per cent of the vote — and he’s been thinking about his second term ever since.

Gillingham talks trash, pledges big bin boost

Scott Gillingham says he would add hundreds of locked garbage bins downtown to prevent unsightly trash piles if re-elected as mayor.