The Wrap: Bombers prep for Grey Cup, health task force done, Indigenous-led opera opens, and the flavours of Ukraine at a Winnipeg arena

A win Sunday over a feisty Montreal Alouettes side will put the 2019-23 Blue Bombers in the same conversation as the 1958-62 Bombers — which won four titles in five years — and the Edmonton team from 1978-82 that captured five in a row.

“There’s a lot of honour and pride that comes with that. Just every word that you can think of, that’s what it means,” says wide receiver Kenny Lawler.

Sports writers Taylor Allen and Jeff Hamilton look at what the team’s been doing to recover from last year’s heartbreaking loss and secure this year’s Grey Cup.

The provincial government announced Friday that it would wind down the task force which was created in 2021 to eliminate procedure backlogs caused in part by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Medical professionals praised the announcement, saying it would increase capacity in the medical system.

But the Progressive Conservatives say the NDP shouldn’t disband the task force just yet, arguing the province does not have the capacity to meet the patients waiting today.

Since its introduction in 2018, the federal carbon price scheme has generated its fair share of plaudits and criticisms.

But recent exemptions have opened rigorous debate about the financial impacts of the fees, shifting the focus to affordability — particularly for middle-class Canadians feeling the pressure of carbon pricing in day-to-day life.

The messages are confusing and the environmental impacts are unclear.

So we asked three experts to weigh in on what it all means.

Li Keur: Riel’s Heart of the North, presented by the Manitoba Opera, makes its world première at the Centennial Concert Hall Saturday night.

The production is the result of a long journey of personal reclamation and reconciliation for many of those involved.

“I see this as 150 years overdue,” says Suzanne Steele, a Vancouver-based Métis poet and architect of the first full-scale Indigenous-led opera to be presented on a major Canadian mainstage. “To see yourself onstage, it’s not only nice, it’s necessary.”

Since mid-September, Olha Mashyna and Oleksandr Mashyn have operated the Centre Ice Café, tucked inside the Dakota Community Centre at 1188 Dakota St.

There, the couple — who moved to Winnipeg from Ukraine in March — turns out a wealth of Ukrainian favourites seven days a week, most of which are based on her late mother’s tried-and-true recipes.

Now, even Winnipeggers who don’t have kids on the ice are driving across town for perogies, cabbage rolls and pelmeni.