Winnipeg firefighters can’t keep doing more with less

Fifty years ago, Winnipeg had fewer people, fewer challenges, and more firefighters. Today, our city has grown by roughly 53 per cent, but the Winnipeg Fire Department (WFD) has fewer frontline firefighters on duty than it did in 1975. This is not just a historical footnote. It is a red flag.

Chinese landscape architect Yu Kongjian among 4 killed in a plane crash in Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The crash of a small plane in southwestern Brazil killed four people including Chinese landscape architect and urban planner Yu Kongjian, Brazilian authorities said Wednesday.

The accident happened late Tuesday during a landing attempt at a large farm about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the municipality of Aquidauana in Mato Grosso do Sul state, firefighters said.

Yu, who was known for promoting ecologically sound development, was traveling with two Brazilian documentary makers, Luiz Fernando Feres da Cunha Ferraz and Rubens Crispim Jr., who were making a film about the Pantanal wetlands. All three were killed along with pilot Marcelo Pereira de Barros, authorities said.

Yu was know for developing the concept of “ sponge cities, ” with infrastructure that can absorb rainwater to mitigate flood risks and improve the urban climate.

Increase in number of doctors is only a start

Manitoba posted a record increase of new physicians this past year, a development that deserves recognition.

Ralliers decry Kinew’s pro-pipeline policy

Almost 300 people braved the rain Saturday afternoon to demand Premier Wab Kinew and the NDP government take action on climate change.

A crowd donning rain jackets and umbrellas gathered on Osborne Street in front of the Fort Rouge Leisure Centre next to Kinew’s constituency office with posters decrying proposed pipelines and Manitoba’s extreme wildfire season.

“Watching how the weather has changed due to climate change has been really concerning to me. I look outside every day and I think about it,” said Ashley Blackshaw, an environmental studies graduate who drove to Winnipeg from Starbuck to attend Saturday’s rally.

Blackshaw made a custom sign bearing lyrics from rock band Smashmouth’s hit “All Star” saying “The ice we’re skating is getting pretty thin.”

Going with the flow: Molten master plan quickly bears fruit for dessert enterprise

On Sept. 13 and 14, Melted, a four-month-old enterprise that dishes out strawberries smothered in warm melted chocolate and assorted toppings, set up shop at the Allery, on the second level of The Forks Market.

Small changes, big impact

Are you a climate champion or climate destroyer? Ecological quizzes and carbon-footprint calculators can help you find out.

Introduction to Michif — one word at a time

Before the wolf can howl, Norman Fleury says a Michif word: Ooyoowuk.

“Ooyoowuk,” Fleury repeats. Or, in English, “howl.”

Ooyoowuk is one of 70 words articulated by Fleury with an animation and English translation to match — all bundled into digital flashcards.

A group of Métis entrepreneurs unveiled their Michif flashcards this week. They join a swelling movement to revitalize the Métis language, which combines languages such as Cree and French.

Will electric tractors gain traction? At a pilot event for farmers, researchers see possibilities

EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — In the soft dirt of an indoor horseback riding ring last month, a group of farmers got ready to test drive a new piece of equipment: an electric tractor.

As they took turns climbing in — some surprised by its quick acceleration — they gave real-time feedback to the Michigan State University researchers who have been developing it for over two years.

The farmers remarked on the motor's quiet whir. Most were intrigued, or at least open to the idea. Some were concerned that the battery on the underside of the carriage would mean a lower clearance over the field, while others worried that it would simply be too expensive.

“What we hope to do when we retire is we want to get everything electric on the farm. The tractor is the last electric implement to get,” said Don Dunklee, one of the farmers to provide feedback. He runs a small organic vegetable farm that's relied on wind and solar for decades.

Smash n Axe Arcade Disco opens in former Nor Villa Hotel banquet room on blueprint of nostalgia

The dream of the ‘90s is alive in North Kildonan, and it’s been given a 2025 twist.

Adam Dudek and Raj Maniar have fond memories of visiting arcades 30 years ago, playing games and seeing the designs on the carpets glow under black lights. So when they were decorating Smash n Axe Arcade Disco, the River East neighbourhood business they opened on Wednesday, they decided to give it a neon splash.

“We really wanted to bring people back in time and give them the feeling they had when they were a kid,” Dudek said.

Located in the basement of the Nor Villa Hotel (1763 Henderson Hwy.), Smash n Axe features more than 20 arcade games, including 11 pinball machines.

Clarity, ‘competitiveness’ key to name change

In some ways, the entity that helped draw the 2023 World Police and Fire Games, a studio for video game publisher Ubisoft and the 2025 Grey Cup to Winnipeg isn’t changing.

When self-doubt creeps in at work, pause and reframe your negative thoughts. Here’s how

NEW YORK (AP) — When we make mistakes at work, it can lead to a cycle of negative thinking.

The damaging thoughts swirl: “I’m an impostor.” “I’m not smart enough.” “I’m failing at my job.”

Feeling like an impostor — doubting one’s own abilities despite a track record of success — is common, especially among women and members of marginalized groups. Even on days when everything’s going right, it can be hard to shift out of a cycle of self-doubt.

But there are ways to interrupt that downward spiral.

Drunk driver who killed woman in 2022 hit-and-run denied parole

The man who killed a 24-year-old woman while driving drunk in a high-speed hit-and-run collision in Transcona in 2022 was denied parole Wednesday.

In November 2023, Tyler Scott Goodman was sentenced to seven years in prison — six for impaired driving causing death and one for leaving the scene — for the collision that killed Jordyn Reimer on May 1, 2022, sparking outrage from loved ones who argued the sentence was too low.

The Wednesday hearing, at Stony Mountain prison, was to assess whether Goodman could be deemed a manageable risk if granted day or full parole.

Parole Board of Canada member Lesley Monkman said he wasn’t ready for either.

We all live in glass houses now

In the 19th century, stocks and pillories were still in use in Canada, with people put on public display, their necks, hands or feet clamped into hinged wooden frames for a few hours as punishment for crimes like public drunkenness or disorder, theft and perjury.

Mayor, inner circle want assaults on firefighters, paramedics added to Criminal Code

Physical assaults and threats against Winnipeg firefighters and paramedics have become a regular occurrence on the job, prompting a push within city hall for changes to Canada’s Criminal Code.

Mayor Scott Gillingham said 58 assaults or threats were reported by the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service halfway through 2025 — a figure that one union says is likely underreported by a large margin.

“When you’ve got firefighters, firefighter paramedics and paramedics attending a call to try to help someone, they shouldn’t be assaulted,” Gillingham told reporters. “When they are, there’s got to be consequences for individuals who assault our front-line workers.”

At a meeting Tuesday, city hall’s executive policy committee unanimously endorsed a motion, introduced by the mayor, that calls on Ottawa to amend the Criminal Code to make assaults against firefighters and paramedics a distinct offence, and increase penalties for aggravated assaults against first responders.

The big meaning behind micro-relationships, and why we should talk to strangers more

VANCOUVER - Psychology Prof. Gillian Sandstrom was a lonely graduate student in Toronto when she began what she calls "a tiny, tiny micro-relationship."

She and a woman who ran a hotdog stand on her way to university around 2007 would wave hello and smile at each other. Their interactions were so small that Sandstrom uses air quotes to even describe them as a "relationship."

And yet "it really meant something much bigger than it seemed like it should, and it made me feel like I belonged there," said Sandstrom.

"I felt very out of place and she, more than anyone else, is who made me feel OK, which was a bit puzzling."

Early childhood educators give high marks to job satisfaction: poll

Despite eight in 10 early childhood educators reporting high levels of job satisfaction, many employers in the sector continue to struggle with staffing shortages.

The Manitoba Child Care Association has released the results of an online survey of its members that took place between Feb. 4 and 18.

Probe Research Inc. led the project — a decade after the Winnipeg-based polling firm conducted an initial workforce survey for the association.

This time around, 830 people, including front-line early childhood educators, centre directors and family child-care providers, submitted responses.

‘Doggie dates’ give four-legged friends a break from shelter life

Whenever Kendra Drever has a day off or free time before class, she likes to go on a “doggie date.”

The 30-year-old Red River College Polytech student volunteers at the City of Winnipeg’s Animal Services Agency, which allows members of the public to take dogs who are up for adoption out for a walk in the community to get a break from the confines of the shelter.

“I love just getting to meet the dogs, seeing all their different personalities, taking them out and giving them new experiences and getting to relay some new information to the shelter,” Drever says.

Volunteers keep an eye on the dog’s behaviour during the dates, to give shelter staff intel that could be key to placing the dog in the right home, such as whether the animal is obedient while on a leash.

‘As we grow, our roots only grow deeper’: Red River Mutual insurance company celebrates 150 years

If Red River Mutual was an ice cream flavour, it would be rhubarb.

Scratch that. Red River Mutual has an ice cream flavour — and it is rhubarb.

Earlier this year, the mutual insurance company — which is headquartered in Altona and has a regional office in Winnipeg — partnered with Chaeban Ice Cream to create a special, limited edition flavour. Red River Mutual Rhubarb includes fresh pieces of the titular vegetable along with crisp clusters made using rolled oats, flour, brown sugar, butter and almonds.

The collaboration is part of Red River Mutual’s ongoing 150th anniversary celebrations, and the rhubarb is a nod to the company’s roots in southern Manitoba’s Pembina Valley.

First Anishinaabe woman Bar Association president prioritizes mentorship, protecting the rule of law

In 1991, when Stacey Soldier was just 15 years old, Manitoba marked a watershed moment. After three years of hearings, the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry released its final report, a searing reckoning with how the province’s police and justice system had failed Indigenous people.

At home in Thompson, Soldier watched news of the inquiry unfold on TV. (“We were only allowed to watch the news in our house,” she says with a laugh.) The Anishinaabe teen was inspired to see an Indigenous judge, then-Justice Murray Sinclair, co-presiding over the proceedings, and was transfixed by the findings.

It felt “thrilling for justice,” she recalls. But it was also a stark lesson in the challenges her people faced to obtain it.

“One thing that the AJI made clear is that this is a system that wasn’t designed to help Indigenous communities and people in any way,” she says, chatting at her law firm Cochrane Sinclair’s Exchange District offices last week.

Local engineer was a real game changer

Forty-seven years ago, George Klassen had an idea that improved the lives of millions of people in Bangladesh. It was for a hand-powered rower pump, a classic piece of simple, inexpensive and appropriate technology that poor farmers could use to irrigate their crops.

Today, an estimated 500,000 rower pumps are still in operation, benefitting more than 2.5 million people in that southeast Asian country — a legacy to Klassen’s vision, curiosity and ingenuity.

Klassen, who died on April 15 in Steinbach, spent his early years in Blumenort (near Gretna) before moving with his parents and 10 siblings to a farm near Steinbach. After graduating from the University of Manitoba with a B.Sc., he taught science and math in Nigeria with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) for three years.

There, he became convinced the best way he could serve people in the global south was by assisting them with practical skills and knowledge. With that in mind, when Klassen returned to Canada he decided to go back to the University of Manitoba to study engineering.