Students help develop strategy for coping with vaccine pain, fear

Manitoba Hydro’s energy plan set to be scrutinized

Manitoba Hydro is set to face questions and concerns over its plan for the province’s future energy needs, which includes proposed natural gas-powered turbines in Brandon and Indigenous-owned wind farms.

The Public Utilities Board, an arm’s-length regulator, will begin six weeks of hearings Monday into the 10-year blueprint and potential ways to satisfy electricity demand, while Hydro grapples with a projected energy shortfall, debt of $25 billion and aging infrastructure.

“The development plan reflects the best available information and analysis of how Manitoba Hydro can meet growing energy demand, while balancing factors we know are important to our customers, including cost, reliability and the environment,” Peter Chura, a spokesman for the Crown corporation, told the Free Press.

“We are confident in our analysis and that we’ve appropriately balanced reliability, affordability, safety and risk.”

Ref ‘dominates’ game in Sea Bears loss to Honey Badgers, says coach

Following a festive Christmas-in-July-themed Saturday afternoon inside Canada Life Centre, Winnipeg Sea Bears head coach Mike Raimbault didn’t mince words about who he thought was the Grinch in a hard-fought 88-86 loss to the visiting Brampton Honey Badgers that ended in controversy.

As the Sea Bears owned a one-point lead in Target Score Time, Brampton guard Sean East II was awarded three free throws — all of which he converted — after a questionable foul called on Teddy Allen by official Perry Stothart.

Raimbault, who has been known to bite his tongue on such topics, left nothing to the imagination about where he stood on the game-deciding judgment made in a game that had major post-season implications.

“I just felt like it was a fitting ending to the game where Perry Stothart had dominated the flow of the game from the start,” he said. “For him to call a bit of a guess foul and end the game on the foul, I felt like it’s disappointing that he can come in and dictate how the game’s going to be played and flow, and (that) continues to be a bit of an M.O. for him. So I think we’re disappointed with the fact that the league continues to let that happen.”

A small step among troubling signs

There’s no getting around the fact — to many people, downtown Winnipeg is unsafe. Period.

Automation reaches new heights on farm

LANGHAM, Sask. — The thousands of farmers from across the Prairies who flock to the annual Ag in Motion show every July seem oblivious to the possibility the technology on display could one day replace many of them.

Families with children in tow, Hutterite colony workers, grandparents and young couples just starting out roamed through the 600 or more exhibitor displays, amazed at how everything about farming just keeps getting bigger, more efficient and increasingly more automated.

It’s now possible to seed using a 100-foot-wide drill — a 12-foot jump over the widest available a few years ago — provided the farmer can afford a tractor with enough horsepower to pull it. Those sell for around $850,000 and up.

Granted, the number of farms with enough acres to justify that kind of width and drawing power is still relatively small, but farms continue to grow. And it’s no secret the number of people who have the interest, skills and financial wherewithal to run them continues to shrink.

Dropping the gloves to make the point

In hockey parlance, it’s called “shedding,” the moment in a game when you are forced to deal with an instigator by dropping (shedding) your gloves for an all-out brawl.

That term is a deep cut from hockey culture that Prime Minister Mark Carney — he of the “elbows up” phenomenon — may need to not only embrace but practise more often in the face of yet another round of overly punitive tariffs imposed by United States President Donald Trump.

To be fair, under Carney’s leadership, Canada has not exactly rolled over in the face of Trump’s bully-boy tactics.

Yes, Canada has made concessions to placate Trump to further a new continental trade agreement: investing more money to combat the cross-border flow of fentanyl that isn’t actually happening, stalling efforts to tax streaming companies as most European countries already do, and — most recently — giving Trump a cut of profits from the Canadian-made, Canadian-paid Gordie Howe bridge between Windsor and Detroit.