Is tick-borne germ causing scourge?

Is tick-borne germ causing scourge?

Fact: Manitoba has one of the highest rates of multiple sclerosis in the country.

Or do we just think we do?

In a recent thesis, Winnipeg researcher Kathleen Crang found that some Manitobans diagnosed with MS and other chronic conditions may actually be suffering from an unwelcome visitor: the borrelia bacteria, a tick-borne "biological evil genius" that causes Lyme disease.

"If I knew someone with MS, I'd be saying, 'let's look at those questions,'" said Crang. "If their MS is coupled with heart problems, or skin rashes, or rheumatological involvement, there might be some question as to why."

‘No CUSMA, no booze-ma’: Kinew

With the next round of tariffs set to hit Canadian goods next week, and a new report suggesting Manitobans could be severely impacted if the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement on trade breaks down, Premier Wab Kinew pledged Wednesday to keep working with the U.S. ambassador — and keep American booze off Manitoba shelves, for now.

It’s one thing to climb aboard rail-relocation train, quite another to pay for the ride

Anyone who wants a brighter, safer, healthier future for the city of Winnipeg should really want the renewed hopes of rail relocation to finally become reality. And the sooner, the better.

Premier Wab Kinew announced Wednesday the province was going to forge a plan to relocate the Canadian Pacific Kansas City central yards and many of other the lines that run through Winnipeg to a bypass that runs around the city.

This “plan to design a plan” strategy was devised by a task force headed up by former federal MP and cabinet minister Lloyd Axworthy, who in 2024 was given a two-year mandate to find the best way to rid the city of some or all of its rail infrastructure.

For the record, Kinew and Axworthy said a relocation would likely take 20 years to complete, which makes this week’s announcement an important statement of intent, but little more. The sobering reality is that this promising idea has been proposed by political leaders, and then abandoned, for decades.

Inman launching new album at WECC

Give Richard Inman a moment and a surface, and he’ll cover it with a story.

“I’ve scribbled down lyrics on paper plates, McDonald’s bags — whatever you got,” says Inman, who grew up in southern Manitoba but now lives in a three-bedroom ranch house near Twin Butte, Alta., so close to the American border that he says he can spit into Montana from his backyard.

“The other day I had a line in my head for seven hours before I wrote it down,” says the songwriter, who managed to remember the phrasing after driving home from a music festival in Idaho. “That certainly was lucky.”

Though Inman, 35, first starting sharing his Americana concoctions with crowds at Winnipeg’s Times Change(d) High & Lonesome Club in the late 2000s, learning how to play his compositions with his band, the Mad Trappers, he has spent the bulk of the past decade out west, splitting time between the stage and the sale barn.

Trailblazing Western Scrap Metals heavy-equipment operator relishes role at massive crane’s control

Less than five per cent of heavy-equipment operators in the country are women but that number is trending upward, according to a study conducted by trade magazine Crane & Hoist Canada.

It was reported that in Ontario roughly eight per cent of jobs in the transport and heavy-equipment field are currently held by women. Furthermore, in 2024 almost 20 per cent of graduates at an Edmonton-based heavy-equipment operator training school were female, the article stated.

That brings us to Harmony Guspodarchuk, the first female crane operator in the 70-year history of Western Scrap Metals, a family-owned business at 18 Sutherland Ave. Three years ago, Guspodarchuk literally stepped into the driver’s seat of a 27,500-kilogram, Liebherr C 924 Heavy Lift Litronic crane. The 29-year-old hasn’t looked back much since. Well, except to ensure that her machine’s 900-kilogram, five-claw grappling hook isn’t releasing a derelict air conditioner or bed frame on top of anything valuable.

“There are seven (metal) scrapyards in the city and unfortunately, I don’t know of any other women doing this,” says Guspodarchuk, dressed in a bright-orange T-shirt, dark pants and scuffed pair of steel-toe boots, her shoulder-length hair tied back in a ponytail. “That’s a shame because if you’re asking me, scrapyards could definitely use a woman’s touch. I like to think I’m very organized and one of my goals has been to clean up the yard to make things more efficient, which a lot of people tell me is now the case.”