Providence University College president to step down

‘Eight credible threats’ against Hydro employees: CEO

Manitoba Hydro president and CEO Allan Danroth took aim at critics and revealed he and staff members have been threatened while defending the Crown corporation’s plan for three new combustion turbines Monday.

Without identifying individuals, Danroth said “constant, uninformed criticism” of Hydro and misinformation has eroded public trust and contributed to hostilities and an unsafe workplace for employees.

“Manitoba Hydro is currently managing eight credible threats against our employees, five of them directed at me personally,” Danroth told a Public Utilities Board hearing in Winnipeg.

“More troubling is these threats are increasingly affecting our front-line workforce. In the last year, my employees have been threatened with weapons, including guns, while performing their duties, and in one recent incident a homeowner directed his dogs to attack one of our meter readers.”

Supervised consumption site to open Aug. 11

The province’s first supervised consumption site is set for an official launch on Aug. 11, a provincial spokesperson has confirmed.

The 366 Henry Ave. site, which is being run by the Aboriginal Health and Wellness Centre of Winnipeg, will have two days of training for staff members later this week, before opening for full operation in the parking lot in two weeks.

The building is still undergoing renovations, and operations will eventually be moved inside the former Western Fabrics building.

In the interim, mobile units will be set up in the parking lot, which has been fenced off for privacy reasons.

CMHR ‘fans flames of antisemitism,’ Asper says, ending support from family that led effort to create it

The Winnipeg family that led the effort to build the Canadian Museum for Human Rights will not provide support going forward, philanthropist and honorary board member Gail Asper says.

Cyclists shown Winnipeg’s warmer side

Fundraising cyclists from New Brunswick who had their bikes stolen in Winnipeg got to see a completely different side of the city over the weekend.

Visitors from across Canada make Somerset restaurant’s social media challenge a success

There may not be another restaurant in Manitoba that can say it has welcomed visitors from as many communities across the province and beyond as the Somerset Food Bar & Lounge has this summer.

In just over a two week span, visitors from more than 100 towns have come out to the family-owned restaurant tucked away in Somerset, a community of roughly 450 people in the Pembina Valley 130 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg.

It started as a challenge, “60 Towns in 60 Days,” where the restaurant wanted to document how many different places they could reach, as it often sees people travelling across Canada stop at the restaurant. The goal was also to encourage people to make a drive they normally wouldn’t.

“The more we started sharing, the more people really started getting behind it, and it turned into this really big thing fairly quickly,” said Jay Friesen, restaurant manager.

Dreaming of a better future

The lingering ghosts of colonialism have long haunted Nova Scotia artist Arjun Lal.

“When I’m thinking of colonial ghosts, it’s these elements of colonial legacy and oppression that maintains a presence in this contemporary world,” says Lal, 34.

He said he most commonly sees this in the fetish community, where colonialism is still often role-played through the oppressor and the oppressed.

Seeing how society’s systems and spaces are still shaped by colonial powers, Lal, whose parents both immigrated from India, questioned what it would be like to break free from these systems and their current form: What would it be like to be a flamingo?