More than 60,000 Manitobans rely on food bank each month, Harvest Manitoba report says

Linda Smith first turned to Harvest Manitoba in the early 1990s when her husband became permanently disabled. Now, on a fixed income, she continues to access the food bank to make ends meet.

Smith is one of more than 60,000 Manitobans now relying on food banks each month as demand continues to grow, a new report by Harvest Manitoba reveals.

The organization said in its 2025-26 impact report, released Thursday, that 61,188 people accessed a food bank in the province in March. Nearly half of them were children. The number of people accessing food banks in the province since 2020 has ballooned by more than 150 per cent, including more seniors, like Smith, than ever before.

Smith, a mother of five now in her 70s, first went to Harvest Manitoba in 1991 when he husband was disabled, and then again in the mid 2000s following a major car accident that led to a brain stem injury that forced her out of the workforce.

Rain causing poor harvest conditions for farmers

BRANDON — Farmers are dealing with poor harvest conditions owing to the high amount of rain this month.

Brandon had received 74.7 millimetres of rain by Sept. 15, a spokesperson for Environment and Climate Change Canada said Wednesday. The amount is equal to 173 per cent of average rainfall for Brandon.

The wet conditions are causing crop loss and delays in harvesting, several Westman farmers said this week.

“At this point, it (could be) six figures of loss. And that all happens in days,” Cassandra Lepp, a Rivers-area wheat and canola farmer, said. “We have good crops out there, and they are disappearing.”

Diverting intoxicated people from ER to recovery program ‘transformative’: study

TORONTO - A new study suggests diverting intoxicated people from emergency rooms to a safe recovery space can help free up valuable health care resources and offer more suitable care.

The study, published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health this week, evaluated the first two years of a non-medical Stabilization and Connection Centre in Toronto launched in 2022.

The centre was created to redirect people who are intoxicated by alcohol or opioids and don't require medical attention from the ER to a 10-bed facility with support workers.

The University Health Network program partners with The Neighbourhood Group Community Services and Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre, who staff the site.

Winnipeg, police and downtown crime

A safer downtown is not much use if people are still afraid to walk there.

That is the uncomfortable message from Winnipeg’s latest police citizen survey, and one city council should take seriously.

Downtown crime has fallen this year, according to the most recent police statistics. Violent crime is down even more. But for most Winnipeggers, the downtown still feels like a place to avoid, particularly after dark.

Only 44 per cent of survey respondents said they feel very or reasonably safe walking alone downtown during the day. At night, that number plunges to just eight per cent. Among women, it is an appalling three per cent, compared with 14 per cent of men.

MPI looks into motorcycle safety

Manitoba Public Insurance is probing how to make regional roads safer for motorcyclists.

The public insurer is seeking feedback about restrictions on powerful bikes for new riders, mandatory training for older motorcyclists and limiting registrations to drivers who have a motorcycle licence (Class 6).

The Coalition of Manitoba Motorcycle Groups, which is set to gather at its regular meeting in Winnipeg Wednesday, will weigh in.

President Mary Johnson said some of the questions — such as those that relate to restricting new riders to bikes with engines under 500 cubic centimetres — are non-starters.

Drug recovery centre opens office in ‘heart of the city’

Richard Halverson found his freedom from addiction through Adult & Teen Challenge and, six years later, he hopes a new Winnipeg location will bring hope to the city.

Downtown no place to be after dark, huge majority of Winnipeggers say in survey

Most Winnipeggers are afraid to walk alone downtown and believe the city needs more police officers, a new survey finds.

Ebola outbreak in Congo spreads to a 7th province

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — The Ebola outbreak in Congo, the world's fastest-growing outbreak of the disease on record, has now spread to seven provinces in the African country, local authorities said. And it's showing no signs of slowing down.

According to the governor of the northwestern province of Sud-Ubangi, Jean-Rene Galekwa Vundawe, Congo’s national research institute tested a sample and found traces of the Bundibugyo virus, the rare kind of Ebola that caused the current outbreak.

The statement, which was issued on Thursday and reported by local media outlets on Friday, said the sample was from the Bulu health district in Sud-Ubangi. It did not disclose other information about the source of the infection.

Local lawmaker and former health minister Jean-Jacques Mbungani said on X on Thursday a positive case was recorded in Gwaka, a town in Sud-Ubangi province. He said the patient was a 23-year-old man and has died.

Canada needs up to 4.69 million new homes by 2036, but construction could slow: CMHC

The federal housing agency says Canada narrowly chipped away at its supply gap over the past year, but the country still needs up to nearly 4.7 million new homes over the next decade to restore pre-pandemic affordability by 2036.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. released its latest supply gap estimate report, which said between 417,000 and 469,000 new housing units are needed per year across the ownership and rental markets over the next decade to reach affordability targets.

That's down slightly from its last estimate in July 2025, when CMHC said the pace of home construction would need to roughly double to between 430,000 and 480,000 new units annually over the coming decade.

But the agency warned recent affordability gains are at risk as new home construction is instead expected to slow, especially in the home ownership market.

Ottawa renews commitment, provides funding, for Lake Winnipeg watershed protection

The federal government has renewed its memorandum of understanding with the province to protect the Lake Winnipeg watershed and is contributing more than $2 million for several projects to protect the basin.

Ottawa and the province have agreed to extend the current MOU for an additional five-year term, to August 21, 2031. The understanding has been in place since 2010.

“Lake Winnipeg is not only an environmental treasure, it’s also an economic treasure. But we also know that Lake Winnipeg is under pressure. Too many nutrients, particularly phosphorus, are entering the lake, contributing to harmful algae blooms and affecting water quality and ecosystem health,” said Terry Duguid, MP for Winnipeg South.

Lake Winnipeg is one of the largest freshwater bodies in the world and its watershed spans parts of four provinces and four American states. It is vulnerable to high levels of nutrients caused by agricultural runoff, sewage and other contaminants that create large algae blooms and affect fisheries.

Winter to wait on the sidelines as El Nino extends fall: The Weather Network outlook

It's shaping up to be a mild fall across much of Canada, The Weather Network's forecast suggests, with a potentially historic El Nino expected to prolong the season and delay winter's arrival.

September and October will still bring the usual swings between warm spells and bursts of chilly, stormy weather, the network's three-month outlook says. But the balance is expected to trend milder and, in many regions, drier than normal as the season progresses, said senior meteorologist Doug Gillham.

"Winter is probably going to wait on the sidelines for a while," he said in an interview.

The main reason is El Nino, the climate phenomenon tied to shifting patches of warm water in the Pacific Ocean, Gillham said.

Changes to Canada’s climate now ‘irreversible,’ federal report says

OTTAWA - The impacts of climate change in Canada are now largely irreversible and average temperatures are expected to rise by at least 3.5 C by the end of the century, a new government report warns.

The report, published Thursday, is the second released by Environment and Climate Change Canada examining changes to Canada's climate. It was authored by nearly two dozen government and climate science experts.

It says that even if the world reaches net-zero emissions by 2075 — which would mean any greenhouse gases would be captured by nature or technology — the effects in Canada will be stark.

The report says those effects include a nearly 50 per cent increase in the area burned by wildfires and glaciers in Western Canada losing more than 75 per cent of their mass.

‘One-stop powwow shop’: Trail Creations opens doors to traditional, ceremonial clothing

Spoons hang on the wall — small, silver and, unlike most items in the shop, not for sale.

One from Saskatchewan, another from Florida. Each represents a place Jessica Lavallee and her family visited during a powwow circuit. The 32,000-kilometre trek led Jessica to 3096 Portage Ave.

She opened Trail Creations, a Winnipeg store selling materials to make traditional Indigenous garb, in the space last month.

“We want it to be a one-stop powwow shop,” Lavallee said.

Recognizing the value of phys-ed for kids

The message from Premier Wab Kinew and Education Minister Tracy Schmidt last week about the importance of exercise for young people was timely and important — but it is not new.

Immigration board asks feds to better track temporary residents

OTTAWA - Canada needs to make further cuts to the number of temporary residents in the country and generate better tracking data when they leave the country, the head of an expert panel on immigration said.

Parisa Mahboubi chairs the C.D. Howe Institute's immigration targets council, which includes former immigration minister Jason Kenney and top academics in the field in its membership. The council is preparing a submission for the government's annual immigration levels consultation period.

The report comes two years after Canada began moving to cut down on the number of temporary residents, including foreign students and workers, as soaring immigration contributed to significant issues, including housing shortages and overburdened social services.

In July, Prime Minister Mark Carney said immigration was too high when he took office in 2025, and specifically blamed a loss of control of the intake of international students and temporary workers.

Icelandic voters reject a proposal to restart negotiations to join the European Union

REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) — Iceland's voters rejected restarting negotiations to join the European Union in a referendum that pitted concerns about geopolitical stability against keeping national control of Iceland’s prized fisheries, officials said Sunday.

Opponents defeated the measure by a margin of 52.8% to 47.2%, the National Electoral Commission said. The result puts the divisive issue to rest for now — more than a decade after a euroskeptic government ended EU talks that had begun after the 2008 financial crisis.

The vote Saturday was held in the shadow of repeated threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to take control of nearby Greenland. Although Iceland is a NATO member, supporters said European solidarity would provide greater protection if Trump ever made similar threats toward the volcanic island.

Iceland’s left-leaning coalition government, elected in 2024, moved up the EU referendum it had planned for next year after Trump mistakenly named Iceland four times while speaking about his designs on Greenland.

At the city’s busiest fire and paramedic hall, first responders face a relentless workload

As a soft rain begins to fall between the concrete walls of “Hope Alley,” little feels further away than the place’s namesake.

Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service crews have been called to the narrow downtown passage, named by Al Wiebe, a formerly homeless man turned advocate. People regularly pass through here, moving between the shelters, drop-ins and resource centres clustered around Main Street between Logan and Higgins avenues.

Against a wall, as the sky switches into night mode, a man sits bleeding from his nose, seemingly unaware of how he ended up with blood running down his T-shirt.

His situation has already set Winnipeg’s emergency response network in motion.

Researchers tracking Manitoba monarchs migrating to Mexico

Thirty monarch butterflies were outfitted with trackers at the Living Prairie Museum this week as part of a national effort to help preserve the endangered species, marking the first time the new technology has been used in Manitoba.