Ontario premier refuses to back away from plans to build on protected Greenbelt

Volunteer pop-up library axed from Manitoba Youth Centre

Manitoba Corrections has cancelled a pop-up library program at the Manitoba Youth Centre, leaving inmates without librarian services and fewer options to borrow certain books.

The Prison Libraries Committee, part of the non-profit Manitoba Library Association, operated and funded the volunteer program since 2024 before it was shut down by the province last month. The group previously partnered with the province to offer the service because the facility has no dedicated library of its own.

“It is concerning that community members who are incarcerated, especially youth, are losing out on meaningful programming, access to information and rehabilitation efforts, which are offered at no cost to (Manitoba) Corrections. We urge Manitoba Justice to promote more library services and programming, not less,” said a Sept. 24 letter from the non-profit addressed to the justice minister.

Ashley Huot, chair of the Prison Libraries Committee, said she was puzzled when she received an email last month from Manitoba Corrections stating that the pop-up library was no longer needed.

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.

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.”

Retired guidance counsellor defends explicit 2025 sex-ed presentation to high school football team in disciplinary hearing

Gus Watanabe, a former employee of Oak Park High School in Winnipeg, was the subject of a public disciplinary hearing on Thursday.