Booth University College continues program for emergency shelter residents

Shelter U has found a permanent home in inner-city Winnipeg.

Following a pilot that produced 50 certificates and inspired multiple recipients to pursue further studies, Booth University College will continue an alternative program that makes higher education more accessible in Manitoba.

“It is the best of what education can be,” said Rev. Rob Fringer, president of the Christian post-secondary institute.

In January 2025, Booth’s Aaron Klassen launched the first of a series of humanities courses — a project he dubbed Shelter U — out of the Salvation Army’s Winnipeg Centre of Hope.

High school grads feel the love during North End parade

Talon Phrakonekham felt a tinge of nostalgia as he and fellow members of the Class of 2026 roamed North End streets lined with young cheerleaders and gave out high-fives on Tuesday afternoon.

Dozens of children from elementary schools in the neighbourhood that Talon grew up in shouted congratulations from the Salter Street sidewalk and waved posters marking the occasion.

“You did so good in math. We are so proud of you,” one sign declared in a child’s wonky handwriting.

Talon, 17, said the North End Grad Walk — now in its fifth year — provided an opportunity for both celebration and self-reflection.

Ottawa’s new surveillance pricing rules not likely to take effect before 2028

OTTAWA - The federal government wants to be "super careful" as it tackles surveillance pricing, Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon said after tabling the government's new privacy bill.

Under the plan outlined by Solomon, those rules on surveillance pricing are unlikely to be in place before 2028.

"It's very easy to say just ban using personal information to give personal pricing, because we have to be super careful that we don't want to penalize people who are members of a rewards program," Solomon said Monday in an interview with The Canadian Press.

The government introduced the bill Monday — its third attempt to update decades-old privacy laws covering the private sector.

Sisler program creating new generation of animators

The characters start as crude shapes and stand-ins, then take on form. Your Elsa, Miles Morales or Buzz Lightyear are born, but move only in key poses, like a picture book.

Province tabs $4.3M for programs to boost employment strategies for young Manitobans

It’s an ongoing cycle in Tasnim Aljoumah’s orbit: submit a stack of resumés, get a sprinkle of responses.

The 16-year-old hasn’t started job hunting yet, but she’s watched her friends’ disheartening results.

“It’s not as fun as it seems, and it’s definitely not as easy,” Tasnim, who’s finishing Grade 11, said Tuesday outside University of Winnipeg Collegiate.

She pondered the job market hours after Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew announced $4.3 million for two initiatives to boost youth employment.

Transit revenue drop projected to be worse than predicted in 2026 budget

Winnipeg Transit warns it may earn $18.4 million less from rider fares this year than its budget calls for.

When the city’s 2026 budget was released, Transit estimated it would earn $97 million in fare revenue throughout this year. However, it also listed an “outstanding risk” that fares could fall $11.1 million lower due to a drop in ridership.

A finance update, based on figures up to the end of March, notes that risk has since increased.

“As of the first quarter, Transit is forecasting a reduction in revenues of $18.4 million,” the report notes.

Nursing grad hopes to drive change for Indigenous patients

A Cree student who graduated from the University of Manitoba nursing program said she’s striving to make the health-care system a more welcoming place for Indigenous patients.

Kaydence Morgado Thomas, who was raised in Winnipeg and has ties to Norway House Cree Nation, officially graduated from the UM Pathways to Indigenous Nursing Education program earlier this month.

She is set to begin work at Health Sciences Centre next month and will pick up shifts at Percy E Moore Hospital in Hodgson, whose patients also come from Peguis First Nation and Fisher River Cree Nation.

“I want to create an environment where patients feel respected and valued,” said Morgado Thomas.

Everyday business is human rights work: CMHR chief executive

There’s war, disease spread, attacks on minority groups globally.

But when the head of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights addressed Manitoba business leaders, she offered more narrow advice: start by looking inwards.

“Every single person in this room is already doing human rights work,” Isha Khan told Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce members during a Friday luncheon.

Spread among the tables in the Delta Hotels ballroom were slips of paper saying “Imagine,” with blank spaces underneath. The sheets are usually found on the national museum’s seventh floor.

Return to office mandate keys: clarity, consistency, consideration

A recent British Columbia Court of Appeal decision is prompting renewed conversation across Canada about remote work, employer authority and what happens when expectations about where work is performed are not clearly set out.

While the case itself is rooted in B.C., the implications are relevant for employers in Manitoba and elsewhere who are continuing to refine their return to office strategies in a post-COVID-19 pandemic world.

At the heart of the discussion is a simple but important question: if an employee was hired during a period when remote work was widely accepted or even standard, can an employer later require that employee to return to the workplace full time?

The court’s message, in essence, reinforces something many employment lawyers have been emphasizing since pandemic restrictions eased: remote work is not automatically a permanent entitlement.

Don’t let fear of change determine vote

It is a truth universally acknowledged that human beings don’t just dislike change; we fear it. That’s as true for moving house as it is for getting a divorce or ousting a political incumbent.

Manitoba makes strides on poverty, but EIA rates must increase: report

When Jayline Bursey gets her monthly Employment and Income Assistance cheque, it’s gone almost immediately.

LHC helps underserved clients navigate the justice system

Norman Yusim came out of retirement to get right back to work. He didn’t plan it that way, but when the perfect opportunity landed in his lap, it was impossible to turn down.

The 70-year-old lawyer with a passion for helping people is back at it at the Legal Help Centre (LHC), empowering underserved individuals to navigate legal problems, offering guidance and connections to resources.

“LHC provides such an important service to those in need with legal issues, providing access to justice to those who simply cannot afford to hire lawyers, by helping them seek out resources, providing advice and assistance to the Court of King’s Bench in Winnipeg,” said Yusim. “LHC, in my view, provides an invaluable service.”

Prior to beginning his employment at LHC in September 2025, Yusim volunteered there as a mentor to the law students who worked directly with clients to assist them with legal matters (family law, immigration law, estate law, criminal law, small claims matters and civil litigation matters, among others).

Bruno Van Bewer dribble vers les Bisons

Depuis l’âge de sept ans, la vie de Bruno Van Bewer tourne autour du basketball.

“Ma mère m’a inscrit dans un camp, et je suis tombé en amour avec le sport,” explique-t-il. Capitaine des Olympiens du Collège Jeanne-Sauvé, c’est alors qu’il évoluait au sein de l’équipe manitobaine aux Jeux du Canada l’été dernier qu’il a été approché par l’entraîneur des Bisons.

Il a donc commencé à assister à plusieurs entraînements de la formation de basketball avant que l’offre lui soit confirmée.

“Ils m’ont vu jouer et ils ont vraiment aimé. Après un bout de temps, ils m’ont dit qu’ils aimaient mon style et avaient une place pour moi dans leur équipe. C’est comme ça que ça s’est déroulé.”

Overcoming workplace conflicts, setting boundaries can create professional resilience

One of the clearest signs of professional maturity is the ability to continue working effectively with someone after a disagreement, misunderstanding or difficult chapter in the relationship.

After years of living in encampments, Lawrence is slowly adjusting to life with a roof, instead of a tarp, over his head

Just weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic upended daily life in early 2020, Lawrence had a steady job, reliable income and a roof over his head. Within months, it was all gone.

After burning through his savings to keep paying rent, the 58-year-old from Sagkeeng First Nation spent the next 4 1/2 years homeless, living in an encampment along Waterfront Drive.

“At first, I couldn’t believe it,” he said while sitting in an office chair inside a low-barrier apartment complex in the city’s West End. “I was sitting at a drop-in centre trying to figure out ‘how did I end up here?’ It was too quick for me to absorb at the time.”

Lawrence, who didn’t want his last name used, has now been housed for three months through the province’s Your Way Home strategy, which aims to move roughly 700 Manitobans from encampments into stable housing.

Gamification and memes lure young people to sports wagering apps, prediction markets

When Rory McIlroy won the Masters for the second year in a row, Kalshi shared a photo of him on Instagram with the words, “Wait he’s goated.” When a video of NBA player Damian Lillard recovering from an injury circulated online, Kalshi’s main competitor Polymarket posted, “The league is cooked.”

If you don’t know what either of those phrases mean, it's because you may not be the target audience.

The posts and hundreds of others like it are exposing younger people to prediction market platforms, where users can put money on the line for the outcomes of real-world events — or absurd ones like when the U.S. will confirm that aliens exist or whether Jesus Christ will return before 2027.

Once on the platforms, companies keep users hooked with what they market as low-stakes, casual opportunities to make an easy buck, creating an environment that some say feels more like a game and less like a risky financial transaction with potentially harmful consequences. Indeed, recent academic research looking at 588 million trades on Polymarket found that profits were concentrated to just a very small group of top traders while the majority of users — 69% — lost money.

Manitoba delinquency rate rises amid cost of living strain: Equifax

Manitobans are increasingly missing credit card payments as the cost of living rises.

Non-mortgage debt in Manitoba jumped 1.84 per cent, when comparing January through March to the same time last year. Manitobans’ average non-mortgage debt hung around $18,568.

Meanwhile, the measure tracking when Manitobans pass payment deadlines by at least 90 days — called a delinquency rate — hiked 2.32 per cent year-over-year, according to new data from credit reporting agency Equifax Canada.

“It’s not the worst province, by a long way,” said Rebecca Oakes, Equifax vice-president of advanced analytics. “But … (there’s) also a little bit more financial stress than some of the other provinces.”

Youth unemployment more than just an economic statistic

For many young Canadians, getting a first job is no longer a simple rite of passage. It has become a source of stress, frustration and uncertainty about the future.

Across Canada, teenagers and young adults are sending out resumés, applying online for hours at a time and following up with employers, only to hear nothing back. For students trying to save for tuition, get experience or simply gain independence, the struggle to find work is becoming increasingly discouraging.

Statistics Canada reported the national unemployment rate for youth ages 15 to 24 reached 14.3 per cent in April, far above the overall unemployment rate of 6.9 per cent. The youth unemployment rate remains significantly higher than the pre-COVID-19 pandemic average of 10.8 per cent.

Behind those numbers are young people who are eager to work but unable to gain a foothold in the labour market. Many employers continue to ask for experience even for entry-level positions, leaving students and recent grads trapped in a cycle where they cannot gain experience because nobody will hire them.

Investor strange love

Risk and reward seem like polar opposites. Yet when it comes to investing, greater risk yields greater potential reward. The other side of that coin, however, is the greater the reward you seek, the greater the risk of losing money.

Small businesses’ capacity to hire youth being constrained: CFIB survey

TORONTO - A weaker economy and rising costs are leaving little room for small businesses to hire and train inexperienced youth, a new report suggests.

While small businesses remain the "training ground" for many young people entering the workforce, a survey by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business says small businesses are facing challenges from weak demand and rising payroll costs.

That's leaving many business owners with fewer resources to hire and train young workers.

"For many small businesses, taking a chance on someone with no experience, especially when training requires considerable time and effort, is simply not feasible in the current climate," the report said.

Study probes experiences of Indigenous grads

Brandon Murdock recalled thinking in 2020 that, despite his struggling academic performance, he had “a solid case” to remain enrolled at the University of Winnipeg.

Murdock was mistaken — it didn’t matter that he’d missed a voluntary course withdrawal date because he’d been overwhelmed with grief amid a wave of COVID-19-related deaths in Fisher River Cree Nation, the 31-year-old said.

There was little slack for a student who had already been suspended once before. His arts degree program, which he began in 2012, was initially put on hold in 2015 because his attendance, grades and motivation suffered during a family health crisis.

Murdock shared those challenges, among others he’s faced as a first-generation university student who grew up in foster care, as part of a recent study about the experiences of Indigenous and racialized Grade 12 graduates in Winnipeg.