Ontario expanding areas where alcohol can be consumed in provincial parks

Play asks the cutting questions

An IKEA nursery awaiting its tenant is the first stage into which visitors are allowed entry in playwright Jordi Mand’s The Cut.

We see an antique rocker and unmarked boxes strewn about, with a table lamp — an unofficial Ner tamid, eternal candle — sitting on the unblemished carpet in the centre of the room. Sarah (Hallie Seline) and Andrew (Wade Bogert O’Brien) have a lot to unpack as they settle into their own home: two shelves of biography waiting for a third.

The box of books from Sarah’s parents is opened early.

“Something From Nothing? Goodnight Bubbala?” Andrew laughs, turning the volumes cover-out on the wall of his future son’s room. “What are they building? A Jewish bookshelf?”

Dozens, if not hundreds, of wounds inflicted on man, murder trial told

The body of a Winnipeg man beaten to death in a North End drug house was outside a Flora Avenue church for nearly a week before it was discovered, a court has been told.

Winnipeg-shot biopic as daring as its subject

Simultaneously huge in its biographical breadth and intimate in its scale, Patrick Wang’s film A. Rimbaud is a portrait of the 19th-century poet Arthur Rimbaud, a grand, 175-minute biopic that eschews the genre’s convention with the adventurous spirit Rimbaud applied to the written word.

For example, while we follow Rimbaud travelling the globe, the film was shot entirely on a Winnipeg soundstage.

Also, Rimbaud (portrayed by charismatic Australian actor Blake Draper) is always alone on camera. The voices of other characters are filled in by a series of musical instruments, inevitably recalling how the same technique was employed by Bill Melendez in Peanuts cartoons, wherein adult voices were portrayed by a muted trombone.

The film ended up being shot in Winnipeg thanks largely to producer Evan Johnson, a filmmaker in his own right with shared directing credits on various films with his brother Galen Johnson and Guy Maddin, including The Green Fog (2017) and Rumours (2024).

Police HQ report ‘outrageous’: Kinew

Premier Wab Kinew says public inquiry findings that taxpayers were overcharged more than $40 million for the Winnipeg Police Service headquarters project and two city leaders broke the public trust are “outrageous.”

Inquiry commissioner Garth Smorang’s report, which was released Monday, concluded former mayor Sam Katz “violated the public trust” and council code of conduct, while the city’s former chief administrative officer Phil Sheegl suffered from a “complete lack of a moral compass.”

Smorang also found the city was overcharged $43.3 million for the project, with $42 million of that going to key contractor Caspian Projects.

“It’s outrageous that people who were elected betrayed the public here in the city. It’s outrageous that there were people in business who ripped you off, ripped me off — I was paying property taxes in Winnipeg at the time — and ripped all of us off to the tune of $43.3 million. That’s crazy,” said Kinew.

Policy change gives Manitoba renters a break from proposed hikes

Aidan Wilson said he was reduced to tears after getting a call from Premier Wab Kinew’s office.

He’d just learned tenants of a West Broadway apartment, including himself, would no longer pay a hundreds-of-dollars monthly rent increase as of Nov. 1.

“It’s been a lot to deal with, it’s a lot to push for, and it’s a lot to speak up. All of these emotions just kind of came flooding out,” Wilson said Tuesday at a news conference alongside Kinew.

The premier announced that renters will not have to pay the increases until the provincial Residential Tenancies Branch hears landlords’ arguments and issues its decisions.