Manitoba documentary focuses lens on environmental defenders, beauty of prairies

Everything We Need Is Here is the latest sumptuously shot Manitoba film rooted in the Prairie landscape.

Though totally unrelated in subject matter, the documentary recalls the 2024 Daughters of the Sun with its saturated and slow-mo sweeps across boreal forests and limestone tinted lakes.

But while Daughters has much murmured narration and arthouse flair, Everything is a plucky film, a can-do sort of doc about the land and its grassroots defenders.

Their voices resonate strong and clear across storylines that weave together the joys of foraging and local environmental protests.

What a way to fly — if you’re rich

When my husband and I were catching a flight from Roatán, Honduras, to Toronto earlier this year, we shared a taxi to the airport with an acquaintance.

He was an amiable guy and we made small talk. I noticed he got jostled travelling over the bumpy island roads same as we did, even though he was one of those annoyingly well-put-together travellers who seemed unfazed by the crushing humidity that was making my hair stick to my neck and forehead. Perhaps he was wearing one of those breathable fabrics that wicks away moisture.

And though I had heard he had travelled to many parts of the world, I noticed his luggage wasn’t quite as “seasoned” as ours.

We shook hands at departures, and the light rhythmic whir of his pristine wheelie bag quickly faded as he melted into the throng at Juan Manuel Gálvez International Airport while we were still gathering our bags.

Buckled concrete gives drivers the heave-ho

Highways, local roads and sidewalks have buckled and broken thanks to extreme heat in recent days, wreaking havoc with travel.

Garth Thomson was driving on the Perimeter Highway, just north of Assiniboia Downs, around 4 p.m. Sunday when he suddenly came upon a major gap in the road.

“There was a big break in the highway, which was the heaving. I had about four seconds to decide what I was going to do. So, I kind of hit my brakes and drove more towards the centre, where the big chunks weren’t (located),” said Thomson. “It happened so fast … there were big chunks (of concrete), probably a foot (per) square, sticking up.”

His convertible had bumper damage and a hole in its gas tank, he said.

If it works in Ontario, why not in Manitoba?

Grid-scale battery storage has fundamentally changed the global energy landscape — and Manitoba needs to get on board.

Battery systems store large amounts of excess electricity for when it’s most needed. While they can be charged from any generation source, they are especially beneficial for integrating wind and solar power, which vary with weather and time of day. Batteries allow electrical grids to meet the need for firm, dispatchable and affordable capacity using renewable energy, rather than relying on coal, nuclear and fossil gas. They also provide numerous other benefits, including reducing overloading of transmission infrastructure and helping to regulate the grid’s frequency and voltage.

Average costs for grid-scale batteries plummeted by more than half between 2023 and 2025 and installations have skyrocketed in China, the U.S., Australia and Europe. Texas now has 16,500 megawatts (MW) of battery storage, while California has 15,200 MW. Closer to home, Ontario recently awarded 640 MW of contracts to three battery storage projects in a competitive auction, with batteries beating out fossil gas-fired power plants on cost every time. One of these projects will be built near Dryden, only four hours east of Winnipeg.

Each battery system will provide eight hours of capacity but will cost considerably less than Ontario’s previous battery procurements, which provide only four hours of capacity. With this latest auction, Ontario has now secured 3,600 MW of battery storage capacity, including the operational Oneida (250 MW), Hagersville (300 MW) and Napanee (250 MW) projects. Almost all have significant Indigenous participation, with the latest procurements boasting 50 per cent First Nations ownership.

Mayor’s flip-flop a welcome effect of campaign

Trees may not have a vote, but they are poised to become among the biggest winners from this fall’s municipal elections in Winnipeg.

At the start of the week, things didn’t look good for Winnipeg’s tree population. City staff issued a report recommending city council reduce the 2026 urban forest renewal program and divert the money to improvements to the Assiniboine Park Conservancy’s Journey to Churchill exhibition.

The recommendation was triggered by a directive from the provincial government to take the same sum of money out of a strategic infrastructure fund it provides to the city to support the conservancy exhibit. This left the city with a $1.2-million hole in its infrastructure program. Staff felt the money could come from the tree-planting budget.

Mayor Scott Gillingham — who is running for re-election this fall — initially endorsed the recommendation when it was put before the executive policy committee (which he chairs) earlier this week. Seventy-two hours later, however, Gillingham was having second thoughts.

Saison des feux: vigilance au rural

Dans un contexte d’incendies plus intenses ces dernières années, l’exemple de La Broquerie permet de mieux comprendre ce qui alimente les feux et comment y faire face.

“On est chanceux, cette année,” estime Rhéal Gagnon, nouvellement chef des pompiers de La Broquerie. Entré en fonction il y a tout juste un mois, il prend la tête du service en pleine saison des feux.

Pompier dans la municipalité depuis 34 ans, il considère cette nomination comme “un privilège” et une occasion de continuer à servir sa communauté. Comme francophone en contexte minoritaire, il y voit aussi un symbole : “Les francophones, on est quand même capable d’avoir des postes comme ça.”

À ce jour, la caserne a bien répondu à quelques feux, mais “rien de majeur.” Elle n’a pas non plus été appelée en renfort dans d’autres communautés. Il attribue ce répit momentané aux récentes pluies : “Cette année, c’est un peu plus humide que l’année passée, où l’été avait été très sec.” Si la saison demeure pour l’instant calme, les pompiers de La Broquerie restent cependant prêts à intervenir à tout moment.

Homeless face even more peril in high heat after drug use crackdown, advocates say

Advocates say the recent police crackdown on open drug use on Winnipeg streets has driven members of the homeless community into the shadows and will put them at risk during the heatwave this week.

“That was a really ugly week and a half in the city’s history. The results have been devastating,” said Kate Sjoberg, executive director of Resource Assistance for Youth, who has been highly critical of the 10-day drug sweep in which more than 100 people were detained for drug use or trafficking.

She said the crackdown has made it harder for some homeless people to receive help because they’ve moved to less visible areas to avoid police.

Environment Canada issued a special weather statement for southern Manitoba that warns of intense heat that will last into next week. It’s expected to reach up to 45 degrees Celsius on Sunday, when the humidity is factored in.

When it comes to our city’s tree canopy, Winnipeggers stand tall

For over 50 years, we’ve watched trees slowly vanish from the core neighbourhoods of the city. There’s no way to put a price tag on that loss, in either beauty or environmental value. But the trees of Winnipeg have many allies.

Westman residents fear power project’s wind turbines will sully their idyllic landscape

POLONIA — Leonard Kaspick can list just about every household in the valley.

“There’s someone living right across the northeast, someone living behind here, about a quarter mile there’s a house there, then a half mile there’s another house there, I’m here, and then on top of the hill there’s someone else there,” he says, standing in the heart of the hamlet — a community hall just off the main drag.

Besides the hall and the smattering of homes, there’s a historic (though out-of-commission) church next door and a single general store further down the road.

“There’s less people here now than there was in 1885,” Kaspick, 83, jokes as he wraps up a condensed history of the western-Manitoba community.

MMF buys long-vacant federal lab

The Manitoba Métis Federation has taken another major step in its effort to help revitalize downtown Winnipeg by acquiring the former National Research Council property on Ellice Avenue.

The federation has scheduled a news conference today to announce it has purchased the office tower, laboratory and parking lot at 435-445 Ellice Ave. The acquisition expands its downtown footprint to more than one million square feet of owned property and will eventually house about 70 per cent of its 1,300 employees.

The sale ends a years-long legal dispute between the federation and the research council. The federation had sued the federal agency after an earlier agreement to purchase the property collapsed in 2020.

“Everybody’s happy, they’re happy, we’re happy. And now we just got to start the transition of our plan,” federation president David Chartrand told the Free Press Thursday.

Apartment rents continue to climb in Manitoba

Winnipeg saw a marginal increase — 0.9 per cent — to $1,678, according to a July 2026 Rentals.ca report, which shows June data.

Colourful folk festival campground a hive of creative activity

The 51st annual Winnipeg Folk Festival had yet to commence, but festivities in the campground were already in full swing.

The festival campground opened early Wednesday morning and provides a temporary home to more than 6,000 residents during the four-day music festival at Birds Hill Provincial Park.

By Thursday afternoon, the area had been transformed into a sea of colourful tents and trailers. A steady stream of campers could be seen hauling wagons from the parking lot loaded with essentials: coolers and tarps, sleeping bags and sunscreen.

Others brought a little more than the basics.

Keeping cool: How Meta plans to cut down on water use at its Alberta data centre

CALGARY - A Meta Platforms Inc. executive garnered applause at a news conference this week after he boasted that a gargantuan data centre planned for north of Edmonton would use less water annually than a typical Alberta golf course.

The tech behemoth was announcing a $13-billion-plus investment in a complex the size of 33 Canadian Football League fields. It will be powered by a new natural gas plant that could eventually produce more electricity than what the City of Edmonton uses.

The data centre in Sturgeon County, like other hyperscale proposals in Canada, is to use what's known as a closed-loop cooling system to keep servers from overheating. That differs from an evaporative cooling system, which requires enormous amounts of cool water that is not reused.

Gary Demasi, vice-president of data centre strategy and development at Meta, told a news conference Wednesday that no water will be needed for regular cooling operations.

Play for all: story time inspires students to fight for accessible playgrounds

Concerned about injustice on their school jungle gym, St. Vital students spent months researching upgrades to make playgrounds more accessible for children in Manitoba.

Darwin School is dismissed for the summer, but one of its teachers plans to resume an advocacy project after the break.

“It’s not fair,” 12-year-old Selena Wei said about the fact one of her classmates — along with other children who use wheelchairs — can’t fully experience the pea-gravel playground at 175 Darwin St. and others like it.

“A playground is a really big part of a child’s life. It’s where they experience most of their outside time and where they’re the most social,” Selena said.

Meta to build $13B data centre north of Edmonton, its first in Canada

CALGARY - The tech behemoth behind Facebook and Instagram says it plans to make Alberta home to its first artificial intelligence data centre in Canada and its largest outside the United States.

Meta announced Wednesday that the $13-billion-plus project is to be built in Sturgeon County, in the Industrial Heartland region north of Edmonton.

The one-gigawatt, nearly 270,000-square-metre data centre would be powered by a natural gas-fired plant to be built by a consortium that includes Calgary-based Pembina Pipeline Ltd.

It takes about 1.4 gigawatts to power Edmonton, and the proposed data centre campus could fit 33 Canadian Football League fields.

What can you do with $200 million?

Let’s see if I’ve got this right. In the article Carbon capture project gains support (June 30), Julia-Simone Rutgers writes that the direct carbon capture facility proposed by Deep Sky for construction in southwestern Manitoba will cost $200 million to build.

The company claims the facility will scrub 30,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year and inject it 1,000 metres into the ground. To do this, it will need to draw up to 15 megawatts of power from the Manitoba Hydro grid for the first stage of the project. The project will be financed by selling carbon credits.

To put this into perspective, the Canadian industrial carbon price is set at $130 per tonne. At that price, Deep Sky will have to sell more than 1.5 million tonnes of carbon just to cover the upfront cost of building the plant. That’s over 51 years’ worth of carbon credits. And that doesn’t even cover the everyday operating costs, such as the electricity needed to run the plant.

Some studies suggest it requires about 2,000-2,500 kilowatt hours to electricity to capture one tonne of CO2 and inject it into the ground. To capture 30,000 tonnes, that’s about 60 million kWh. Even if Manitoba Hydro sells it to the facility for only $0.035/kWh, that’s an additional $70 per tonne.

City considers million-dollar chop to tree planting program

The City of Winnipeg is one step away from chopping $1.2 million from its tree planting program to fill a separate budget gap.

The Manitoba government recently directed the city to spend an additional $1.236 million of its provincial “strategic infrastructure basket” funding on the Assiniboine Park Conservancy Journey to Churchill Exhibit, according to a city finance report.

Finance officials recommend the city fill that budget gap by transferring the same amount from the urban forest tree planting budget, which council’s executive policy committee voted in favour of Tuesday.

A local tree protection group said any funding loss would hurt an already ailing city canopy.

US airlines are redesigning travel around their highest-paying passengers

They may arrive at the same destination, but two passengers on the same flight can have strikingly different travel experiences.

One traveler breezes through a priority security lane and heads straight to an invite-only lounge for craft cocktails and a chef-prepared meal before boarding early. A flight attendant offering a glass of champagne and a warm hand towel welcomes the passenger to a spacious seat at the front of the plane.

The other traveler stands in a line at every step — security screening, a café selling $16 sandwiches, a crowded gate — then boards with one of the final groups, hoping there’s still room for a carry-on in the overhead bin before folding into a cramped middle seat. After the cabin lights dim, sleep comes in fragments, and a travel pillow does little to ease a stiff neck.

The contrasting journeys are no accident. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the largest U.S. airlines have pulled out all the stops to court premium passengers who are willing to pay for comfort, convenience and exclusivity. Budget-conscious travelers may notice a widening gap between the back of the plane and up front as the carriers increasingly build their businesses around selling first-class, business-class and premium-economy seats.

Teen urges premier to reject data centre, ‘put people and the environment first’

A 17-year-old who started a petition against the construction of an AI data centre northwest of Winnipeg has made a personal appeal to the premier to stop it.

Leona Gollub emailed Premier Wab Kinew to voice her concern about the environmental impact of a 5.5-megawatt AI data centre that’s being built on Brookside Boulevard in the Centreport industrial area in the Rural Municipality of Rosser, northwest of Winnipeg.

She said she worries about the noise and light pollution that would be emitted by the facility, and the massive amount of electricity it will require that could instead power people’s homes.

The premier, who recently rejected a data centre in Île dês Chênes, southeast of Winnipeg, thanked her for her concern in an email but did not go beyond that.

Feasibility study planned for arena on former Kapyong Barracks site

A First Nations development group is hoping to pull in prospective sports teams with plans to build an arena in south Winnipeg.

The Treaty One Development Corp. is exploring the feasibility of a 6,000-person arena in Naawi-Oodena, the former Kapyong Barracks site, on the southeast side at Taylor Avenue and Kenaston Boulevard.

The hope is to give aspiring athletes a large space to practice, and possibly even bring a junior or professional sports team to Winnipeg, said chief development officer Cody Mercer, who listed the Western Hockey League or National Lacrosse League as examples.

“Not just working for Treaty One, but also in our membership of the seven communities, there’s a ton of athletes, and really we see that when they’re getting to that higher level of hockey or anything like that, they’re having to move away,” he said. “We thought this is an idea that we can try to bring (in) a team.”

Businesses report ongoing struggle amid reduced walk-by traffic 1 year into Graham Avenue transit corridor rework

Layoffs, squeezed profits, reduced hours and a downsizing have plagued Graham Avenue businesses in the year since buses were removed from the former Winnipeg Transit strip.

A convenience store along the road doubled its footprint two years ago. Now, it’s operating in half the space: a wall was built in the middle of the shop last month, creating room for a new tenant.

Across the street, bong seller Aluminum Sound has laid off two staff. It’s one of at least two companies to lessen its employee count following the Transit overhaul.

“You could fire a cannon down Graham Avenue a lot of the time and not have to worry about any casualties,” said Aimee Peake, owner of Bison Books.

Environnement et communauté

“Il y en a plusieurs des entreprises qui font du greenwashing, ils se peinturent dans le développement durable, l’affichent sur le site web: Écologique! Nous, on l’est pour vrai,” c’est ce qu’affirme Éric Gosselin, directeur général de Sun Certified. La Liberté l’a rencontré dans l’atelier de sa compagnie, un vaste espace de travail garni de matériaux en bois, de maquettes et de murs de maisons.

Cette société de construction de logements a des méthodes bien particulières, notamment pour l’isolation des maisons. Les travailleurs utilisent des matériaux organiques pour créer une épaisse couche d’isolation à base de papier et de carton. “La première chose qu’on fait, c’est utiliser des matières organiques, alors du bois et de la fibre cellulosique. Et il y en a beaucoup dans l’enveloppe du bâtiment, pour renforcer l’isolation,” explique Éric Gosselin.

La compagnie privilégie les matériaux renouvelables, ce qui la démarque des autres sociétés dans le domaine. “Pour l’isolation, quand on utilise du bois, c’est renouvelable. On pourra toujours planter d’autres arbres et ça va repousser. Chez les constructeurs standards, c’est de la mousse ou du rockwool, fait à base de pétrole ou de minéraux.”

Cette volonté d’accorder plus d’importance à l’environnement dans le domaine de l’habitation, c’est ce qui a mené à la création de Sun Certified.

New Kevin Walters Plaza graced by art with heart

Tears fill the eyes of an Ojibwa sculptor from Peguis First Nation as he talks about the spiritual journey and deep friendships that came out of creating his first public art piece.

Plan for 24 Sussex Drive makes sense

It has, for more than a decade, been this country’s highest-profile vacant dwelling.

Prior to 2015, however, 24 Sussex Drive in Ottawa had been the official residence of Canada’s prime ministers for more than 60 years, an address whose mention conjured notions of prestige and distinction akin to those associated with 10 Downing Street in London or the White House in Washington, D.C.

After years of deferred maintenance and, one might argue, outright neglect, the 35-room mansion that was home to every prime minister from Louis St-Laurent to Stephen Harper is no longer fit for human habitation. Among the concerns that led Justin Trudeau to opt not to live at 24 Sussex — choosing instead to dwell at nearby Rideau Cottage — were a leaky roof, cracked windows, failing plumbing, faulty wiring and the presence of asbestos in the structure’s 160-year-old construction materials.

Current Prime Minister (and non-Sussex resident) Mark Carney thinks it’s time for 24 Sussex to reclaim its status as the PM’s official residence. Last Friday he unveiled plans for a massive redesign and renovation plan and a fundraising campaign that will invite Canadians to contribute to the project.