B.C. moves to accelerate process for thousands needing a family doctor

Exchange welcomes new gallery

Co-owned by Laura Porath and Mike Page, Lucent Gallery + Design Studio celebrates its grand opening, Thursday.

Frustration on menu as construction drags on

Nearly four months of construction outside the front door of a longtime Portage Avenue restaurant has driven away customers and left its owner struggling to cover operating expenses.

Henderson crosswalk has glaring safety gap, say researchers months after pedestrian killed

Six months after a fatal collision at a crosswalk on Henderson Highway, two traffic safety researchers question why the intersection remains an outlier that is missing key flashing lights.

The City of Winnipeg is being urged to install “backflashers” to better protect road users moving in all directions at the intersection where a 32-year-old father died in the spring.

“It’s these little, mundane, non-sexy engineering problems that can cause everything right up to fatality,” said Curt Pankratz, an associate professor at the University of Winnipeg who studies traffic engineering and policymaking.

On April 19, shortly before sunrise, Gabe Beardy was struck when he was crossing the six-lane thoroughfare at Neil Avenue.

Hutterite colonies embrace the manufacturing business – while staying faithful to their way of life

Tucked away at Oak Bluff Hutterite Colony, past rows of communal housing and farm buildings, Aaron Maendel tinkers in a laboratory.

Black-and-white sheets smeared with grey-test formulas cover a counter. A Thermotron — a refrigerator-looking machine — is powered off but standing by to simulate any desired temperature.

Maendel moves to a worktop littered with partly full mixing cups. He pulls out a small, rectangular sample — a sheet showing the drying time of his new fixation, floor coatings.

“Very simple, actually. Very simple machine. Drags a stick through the mud,” Maendel says.

Chief medical officer quits, cites work environment ‘challenges’

Manitoba’s provincial chief medical officer is resigning from his position at Shared Health, citing the role’s demands and work environment challenges in an email viewed by the Free Press.

Dr. José François, who’s held the executive position since April 2024, sent an email to provincial medical specialty leads that said his final day will be Jan. 17, 2027, after he submitted his resignation Wednesday. Several other senior leaders have departed the provincial health authority in recent months.

“Serving in this role has been a privilege,” François, a longtime family physician from Ste. Anne, wrote in the email.

He said his “greatest pleasure” was working alongside and supporting an “exceptional group” of provincial medical specialty leads and chief medical officers.