B.C.’s Joffre Lakes Park closing for a month for recovery, First Nations’ practices

Group’s second LP made to get hearts racing

While a live performance is a moment in time that comes and goes, a record is something that, ostensibly, lives on.

Capital punishment as macabre theatre

There was already enough to write about the question of capital punishment when the State of Tennessee attempted to execute Christa Pike.

Federal data on Winnipeg's number of homeless people inaccurate, advocates say

The head of End Homelessness Winnipeg says she has no confidence in data about the city’s homeless population due to problems with the federal system that tracks those numbers.

Jennifer Rattray, the organization’s chief executive officer, told the Free Press Thursday it continues to work with the federal government to resolve problems with the Homeless Individuals and Families Information System, which keeps tabs on people who access homelessness services.

CBC has reported it obtained an internal memo from EHW that shows that as of the end of March, the number of chronically homeless Winnipeggers had fallen to 436 from about 4,400, as a result of efforts to correct the database.

Earlier this year, the organization had reported more than 8,000 people were accessing services.

B.C.’s Joffre Lakes Park closing for a month for recovery, First Nations’ practices

PEMBERTON, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA - British Columbia's government says Joffre Lakes Park will shut for a month in about two weeks' time, to allow it to "recover from a busy summer" and allow First Nations to carry out cultural practices.

It says the closure from Sept. 2 to Oct. 3 is also in recognition of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and will be the last of three closures this year.

The park's operation has been contested by the Lil'wat and N'Quatqua First Nations, which temporarily shut access to the park in 2023 to assert title and rights to the territory.

A statement from the Ministry of Environment and Parks says the closure next month will "provide time and space for members of the Lil'wat Nation and N'Quatqua to reconnect with the land."

Hockey teams scramble after two city arenas put on ice

Instead of ice, Barry Bonni walks onto a dull concrete surface at the Terry Sawchuk Memorial Arena on Thursday.

The arena, as well as the West Kildonan Memorial Arena, have had to close after failing inspections. Predictably, the city’s hockey community is in a tailspin because ice time is so precious.

“We’re now in panic mode,” said Bonni, president of the River East Royal Knights on Thursday. The Sawchuk arena is the team’s home rink.

Bonni, who is a living legend in Manitoba’s hockey community, said the Manitoba Major Junior Hockey League club is scrambling to find ice time.

Violence directed at Winnipeg School Division support staff surges, union reports

Kicking, biting and other types of student aggression toward educational assistants in Winnipeg has surged 118 per cent since 2022-23.

On Friday, the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union released a breakdown of violent incidents involving support staff in the Winnipeg School Division, the province’s largest.

“You don’t need to teach math to see the numbers are going the wrong way,” MGEU president Kyle Ross said in a news release.

The data shows a surge in “student-related aggression” involving both children with additional needs and other students between 2022-23 and 2025-26.