La créativité franco-manitobaine rayonne: Anna Binta Diallo expose à travers le pays

En 2025, l’artiste visuelle franco-manitobaine Anna Binta Diallo connaît une année charnière. De Vancouver à Toronto, en passant par Edmonton et Winnipeg, ses expositions se succèdent, confirmant la place qu’elle occupe désormais parmi les figures majeures de la scène artistique canadienne contemporaine.

Née à Dakar, Sénégal, en 1983 et élevée à Saint-Boniface, Anna Binta Diallo tisse depuis toujours des liens entre les continents et les mémoires. Ses œuvres explorent les intersections entre identité, nostalgie et nature, dans un langage visuel qui conjugue collage, vidéo, graphisme et sculpture.

“Le collage est depuis longtemps au cœur de ma démarche,” confie-t-elle. “J’aime réagencer des images anciennes, des sons, des fragments d’archives pour construire de nouveaux récits.”

L’artiste collecte cartes, livres et photos qu’elle transforme en compositions hybrides, à la croisée du passé et du futur.

Coming of age in the era of ‘fake news’

‘Let’s get media lit(erate)!” The punny slogan was my attempt to get students excited about fact-checking, current events and finding alternative sources to Wikipedia — a crowd-sourced platform anyone can edit.

Province releases inaugural innovation report

Promises to keep data in Manitoba and bolster the economy through innovation highlight the province’s first innovation and prosperity report.

“AI, tech, it’s gonna be in your industry,” Premier Wab Kinew said Friday after the report’s release. “We have to get in the game.”

Proponents of the 39-page document expressed hope for Manitoba’s future; critics deemed the strategy lacking.

A majority of Manitoba’s data storage and cloud computing infrastructure is run by United States firms such as Microsoft. The report calls on the province to build its own infrastructure with federal and provincial funds.

The ‘fix’ is a fantasy as dysfunctional health-care system fails Manitobans on multiple fronts

If you’ve been stuck in a Winnipeg emergency room wondering why you’re waiting longer than ever to see a doctor, you’re not imagining it.

New numbers are in, and they paint a grim picture of a health-care system still in crisis.

According to the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority’s 2024-25 annual report released this week, emergency room and urgent care wait times have jumped 36 per cent over the past three years.

The 90th percentile wait time — meaning nine out of 10 patients are seen faster and one in 10 waits longer — has ballooned from 7.6 hours in 2022-23 to 10.3 hours in 2024-25.

Winnipeg-based organization injects federal funds into innovative, women-powered business in Bolivia

With practised grace, Antonia Olpo slides down the bank of the long, shallow pond and plunges fully clothed into the muddy water. On the grass above, other women and their male helpers unfurl the net, stretching it across the pond from edge to edge, and let it sink below the surface.

WNDX Festival celebrates 20 years of avant-garde, cutting-edge cinema

When it happened for the first time in 2006, the WNDX Festival of Moving Image was an open-ended hypothesis, and even those most dedicated to its success had their doubts.

“We didn’t know what was going to happen, and only in doing it did we really understand how many times it could have catastrophically failed,” says artistic director Cecilia Araneda, who co-founded the festival with Solomon Nagler.

But it was in that grey zone of possibility and limit-testing, that both the festival and its filmmakers soon thrived —establishing WNDX as a cornerstone event with an international reputation for showcasing a dizzying variety of off-centre, outre and avant-garde work by both emerging and established creators.

As the festival’s porcelain anniversary edition begins tonight, the results are conclusive: WNDX offers replicable proof of its own staying power in the experimental film sphere.

Custom metal fabrication firm NJ Industries Inc. builds reputation on customer loyalty

Dirk Hollar and his colleagues don’t give out awards to the businesses they work with, but if they did, the “No. 1 Vendor” award would go to NJ Industries Inc.

Hollar is the operations manager at Freedom Concepts Inc., a Winnipeg company that creates bicycles for individuals with limited mobility. When Hollar needed a small order of sprockets made a few years ago, someone suggested he check out NJ Industries, a custom metal fabrication facility headquartered in the CentrePort Canada development on the northwest edge of Winnipeg.

Hollar drove to the company and introduced himself to owner Nagarajah Jayaranjan — better known to his customers and friends as Jay. Jayaranjan took Hollar’s order and showed him around the facility. By the time the tour was over, the sprockets were ready. Jayaranjan handed them to Hollar, free of charge.

That gesture led to ongoing business between the two companies.

Walk across Manitoba raises funds for first responders dealing with mental health issues

Andrew Cherkas deals with his mental health struggles one step at a time.

The 43-year-old firefighter lives with post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the tragedies he’s witnessed on the job and contemplated suicide in 2021.

Since then, medication and therapy have helped him get to a better place. The daily walks he takes with his dog, Charlie, along the trails near his home south of Portage la Prairie, are also healing. No headphones, no music — just Cherkas, Charlie and the outdoors.

Last spring, Cherkas came up with an idea to raise awareness and funds for first responders struggling with mental health issues. He launched Steppin’ in Support for 1977 earlier this month with the goal of walking across Manitoba while inviting people to donate to the Preston Heinbigner Memorial Fund.

Local chefs heat up culinary competition

Seven local chefs have thrown their hats in the ring for a chance to represent Winnipeg at the 2026 Canadian Culinary Championship in Ottawa January next year.

Also known as Canada’s Great Kitchen Party, the regional qualifier takes place on Wednesday, Oct. 1, at the RBC Convention Centre, and features entertainment from Spirit of the West’s Geoff Kelly, as well as Canadian musicians Barney Bentall, Kevin Fox, Matthew Harder and Rebecca Harder.

Chefs Emily Butcher (Bar Accanto), Darnell Banman (Thermea Spa Village), Michael de Groot (Gather Craft Kitchen & Bar), Ken Hoang (Le Colonial Restaurant and Bar), Norman Pastorin, (Basta! Filipino Kitchen), Chinnie Ramos (Wow! Catering) and Lauren Wiebe-Dembowski (Niakwa Country Club) will be judged on skill, creativity and technique as they vie to impress the panel of local culinary experts, led by head national judge Chris Johns, 2025 regional winner Austin Granados (formerly of Cake-ology) and Winnipeg senior judge Mike Green.

“We’re honoured to have such a strong field of chefs representing Winnipeg this year,” said Green.

Music Go Round gears up for Canadian grand opening

Keith Dixon has fond memories of learning to play his sister’s guitar in 2005. Three years later, he acquired an axe of his own — a Gibson Les Paul with a cherry sunburst finish.

Winnipegger’s artwork chosen for Walmart’s national Orange Shirt offering

As she walked into the Unicity Walmart department store, Indigenous artist Brooklyn Rudolph-Nicholas felt her excitement levels rising.

She headed towards the racks of instantly recognizable orange T-shirts, smiling as she glimpsed the familiar image on the front.

It was a pinch-me moment: her work was emblazoned on Walmart Canada’s National Day for Truth & Reconciliation orange shirts stocked in stores across the country.

The granddaughter of two residential school survivors, Rudolph-Nicholas made her T-shirt art in honour of her late grandparents.

Domestic enrolment helped U of W’s fiscal health: president

The University of Winnipeg’s financial situation has stabilized following 10 months of cutbacks on the downtown campus.

“We’re confident we’ll have a balanced budget this year, and we’re very happy about that,” said Todd Mondor, the U of W’s president and vice-chancellor.

Mondor attributed the “stable” position to a rise in domestic enrolment and “better than expected” 2025-26 registration among international students.

An influx of cash has also provided some relief, he said. The province recently topped up the school’s annual funding by $2.5 million and it was gifted $5 million from the Mastercard Foundation.

Bail reform as an approach to crime reduction

For the last several months, a conversation about modifying our bail system in unspecified ways, with the express goal of increasing public safety, has taken hold. Usually, a specific case of an accused person allegedly committing a new offence while on bail is at the centre of the argument.

Canadians have enjoyed the rights guaranteed to them by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms since 1982. Included in the charter are rights related to freedom of expression, freedom of movement and several legal rights. The legal rights that are engaged in the conversation about bail reform are the right to be presumed innocent and the right to reasonable bail. These rights are intertwined.

Typically, we do not punish individuals who have not been found guilty of a crime. Accused people should have their day in court prior to having their freedom taken away. Release pending trial is the rule, detention is the exception.

Detention is warranted when detention is necessary on one or more of three grounds: to ensure the accused attends court, where the detention is necessary for the safety of the public, and/or where the detention is necessary to maintain confidence in the administration of justice.

Reimagining the garden

Next week, close to 100 horticultural professionals from botanical gardens and conservatories across Canada and the U.S. will be in Winnipeg for the American Public Gardens Association’s 2025 Horticulture, Greenhouse, & Facilities Symposium, which will be hosted by Assiniboine Park Conservancy at The Leaf.

Bus riders, drivers welcome police safety initiative; two arrests made on day plan rolled out

The announcement of a new police strategy — placing both uniformed and plainclothes officers on Winnipeg Transit — was welcome news for riders Friday.

The Winnipeg Police Service announced the initiative’s first arrests were made on Wednesday, when the plan was unveiled.

“I love it,” said one elderly woman who was waiting for her bus at Unicity. “I love it for the bus drivers as well, because they take the brunt of it.”

She said she had already noticed more police nearby, pointing out that she saw multiple cruisers pull into the parking lot while she ate breakfast at a nearby Burger King.

Police officers to patrol on buses, around stops as violent crime rises

Winnipeggers can expect to see more police officers on and around buses, as police launch a new initiative to combat a surge in violent crime.

A few Transit tweaks help, but aren’t a solution

Winnipeg Transit has made some adjustments to its overhauled route system, the first since the original summer rollout that has left many riders frustrated.

City non-profit inks deal with subsidiary of leader in phosphate-based fertilizers

A Winnipeg non-profit committed to advancing digital agriculture has inked a deal with the North American subsidiary of a global leader in phosphate-based fertilizers.

Leaders from Enterprise Machine Intelligence and Learning Initiative and OCP North America signed a collaboration agreement last week. They said the collaboration will focus on advancing agricultural innovation through field-based research that will take place through EMILI’s Innovation Farms powered by AgExpert.

Innovation Farms spans more than 14,000 acres across two Manitoba farms to provide demonstrations, testing and validation of agriculture technology and production practices in commercial farm settings.

The partnership will allow EMILI to give Manitoba farmers a first-hand look at new innovations, said Jacqueline Keena, managing director.

Bus overhaul leaves gaps in service to Grace Hospital, Assiniboine clinic

Some St. James residents are up in arms after a shift in bus routes cut evening and weekend stops in front of Grace Hospital and nearby Assiniboine Medical Clinic.

As part of the city’s recent Transit overhaul, there are now three feeder routes that stop directly in front of the Booth Drive hospital and within a block of the Lodge Avenue clinic. But they don’t run on weekends and stop in the early evening on weekdays, leaving an unacceptable gap in service, said St. James Coun. Shawn Dobson.

“I can’t fathom you walking in the rain or the cold, all that distance from Portage Avenue up to the hospital, it makes no sense,” he said Monday.

"A frequent express route, the FX3, stops at the nearby Sturgeon Road into the night all week, it’s too far of a walk for seniors and people with medically complex needs, and will only get more difficult for everyone in winter," Dobson said.

New St. B ER great, but where are all the doctors to staff it?

When governments announce a major hospital expansion, it’s usually billed as a silver bullet solution to long wait times and overcrowding.

The latest example is St. Boniface Hospital’s newly expanded and renovated emergency department, expected to open officially on Oct. 2. (It was supposed to open next week, but there’s been a delay).

On paper, it looks impressive: more treatment spaces, updated facilities, a modern design intended to improve patient experience.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: the facelift won’t do much — if anything — to cut ER wait times. If history is any guide, the experience for patients at St. Boniface will look remarkably similar to what it’s been for years — hours-long waits, gurneys lined up in hallways and admitted patients languishing in the emergency department because there’s no staffed hospital bed to move them into.

Stop the online world, I want to get off

One day, I won’t need to keep up.

I look forward to that. When I won’t need to know what is happening with tariffs and governments, when I won’t have to fill my morning cup with a daily dose of man’s inhumanity to man, when I don’t have to dig through dross.

I’m just back at work after a few weeks out in a non-media world, realizing after several days I felt like I was coming up from underwater — and that, crucially, I was actually thinking about things beyond the regular churn of news. That I was having thoughts not directly connected to work purposes, that delightful meanderings of mind were still possibly in my weary head.

Thoughts about the domed shape of a sea urchin’s pale-green shell once all of its spines have fallen away; about the feel of small smooth beach rocks as you hold them in place against your index finger and rub them with you thumb. About the distance and weight of the horizon on a grey day, and the slap and lop of small waves on a beach protected by offshore rocks.