One of Canada’s most prominent MAID providers reflects on divisive decade

TORONTO - Dr. Ellen Wiebe has never been one to shy away from risk.

It started with the very first patient she provided with a medically assisted death: Hanne Schafer, a 66-year-old Calgary psychologist diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis three months before retiring in 2013.

MAID was three years away from legalization, but Schafer was quickly losing her ability to talk, walk, eat and drink and wanted the procedure as soon as she could get it. On Feb. 29, 2016, a judge approved her request, more than three months before MAID would become legal on June 17.

The next hurdle was finding a doctor prepared to do it, recalls Schafer’s husband Daniel Laurin. He credits Wiebe with helping his late wife when no one else would: "It was a very humane thing to do.”

Committee majority recommends against MAID for mental illness, four senators object

OTTAWA - A parliamentary committee is calling on the federal government to indefinitely exclude people with mental illness from becoming eligible for medical assistance in dying, after a process that some of the committee's members decried as flawed and biased.

Conservative and Liberal members of Parliament on the committee co-signed that single recommendation in a report Wednesday that included a number of dissenting opinions.

People with a mental illness as their sole underlying condition are set to become eligible to apply for medical assistance in dying, or MAID, next March.

The committee of MPs and senators was tasked with studying whether the country is ready for that to happen.

Justice minister says he will review MAID committee testimony before making decision

OTTAWA - Justice Minister Sean Fraser says he will take time over the summer to review the work of a committee tasked with determining whether Canada is ready to allow people with mental illness access to medically assisted dying.

Committee co-chair Marcus Powlowski said last week the report would be presented to Parliament on Wednesday to ensure it's in the government's hands before the House of Commons takes its summer break.

Fraser said Tuesday he will consider more than the committee's conclusions and recommendations.

"Importantly to me, I'm also going to be reviewing the witness testimony upon which those recommendations were based," he said.

MPs urge action to undercut ‘manosphere’ by tackling anti-women ideology

OTTAWA - MPs are calling on the government to tackle the rise of antifeminist ideology by funding programs that undercut the "manosphere" of online influencers who blame women for men's problems.

The House of Commons status of women committee tabled a report Tuesday warning "antifeminist ideologies are becoming increasingly prominent in Canada and internationally."

The committee says boys and young men who are isolated or struggling to find their place in society are being presented with extreme content online that glorifies dominating and dehumanizing women and amplifies gender-based violence.

At a news conference on Parliament Hill, Conservative MP Dominique Vien, the committee's chair, told reporters witnesses who spoke to the committee struggled to identify a single reason for the rise in antifeminism.

‘Dominoes’ we don’t mean to topple yield results

A keystone habit is a single change that, once in place, quietly drags a whole pile of other positive changes along behind it.

‘Fentanyl fold’ on city streets stresses prompt need for supervised consumption site: premier

Alarmed after seeing the “fentanyl fold” on city streets, Premier Wab Kinew promises a supervised drug consumption site will open this month — despite concerns essential staffers have yet to be hired.

In a sit-down interview with the Free Press Friday, the premier reinforced that the site — announced in the summer of 2024 — would be operational by the end of June.

“The urgency of the drug crisis is so visible in a way that everyone sees it,” Kinew said.

The province received approval from Health Canada for the Indigenous-led site, at 366 Henry Ave., in May.

New Brunswick woman sues OpenAI, alleging ChatGPT led to daughter’s death

When 24-year-old Alice Carrier told ChatGPT that she had to die to stop the pain she was feeling, the chatbot allegedly appeared to agree. By the next day, Carrier was dead.

Mother of B.C. cyberbullying victim Amanda Todd welcomes federal online safety bill

The mother of a British Columbia teen who died by suicide after being relentlessly tormented by a cyberbully says proposed federal legislation tackling online safety would have helped her daughter and will help save lives.

Carol Todd's daughter Amanda died in 2012 after being sexually exploited by an online predator.

Todd said in an interview on Thursday that the Safe Social Media Act addresses the mental and emotional toll of social media and is an important step toward keeping youth safe online.

It's also something Amanda would have wanted, she said.

Concerns from array of groups about prevalence of gambling ads during World Cup

TORONTO - The stage is set for Toronto's turn as FIFA World Cup host, and some government officials and advocates worry that the major sporting event will also spark intensified gambling advertising — and the public health problems that can follow.

Stan Cho, Ontario's minister of tourism, culture and gaming, is looking at further restrictions on gambling advertising in the province and is concerned in particular about the global soccer tournament.

"Any time there's a big sporting event, you see the spike in just gambling in sheer numbers," he said recently. "Of course that means that problem gamblers are going to be more susceptible to the problem that they have."

The Responsible Gambling Council reserves ad spots during events like the World Cup, Cho said, but advocates who oppose gambling advertising want to see the first province to bring in a regulated online gambling market go much further.

Social media platforms, app stores at odds over who should enforce social media bans

As countries including Canada move toward social media bans in an attempt to keep youths safe online, tech companies are in a tug of war over who should be the gatekeepers.

Executives from Snapchat and Meta, the owner of Instagram, Facebook and Threads, have argued it should be app stores rather than platforms charged with verifying the ages of users when they try to add a platform to their phones.

Apple and Google, which run the App Store and Play Store respectively, have introduced some age-gating measures but appear to be at odds with social media platforms over whose responsibility those measures should be.

Experts say trying to put the onus on either side is pointless because app store owners, platforms, governments and parents all have to step up to keep kids safe online.

Oligarchs don’t care about ‘public good’

Don’t think the tech oligarchs are the good guys, fighting for democracy, in the next battle that’s coming. Because they’re not.

Ottawa’s new Digital Safety Act expected to include under-16 social media ban

OTTAWA - The federal government is expected to bar kids under the age of 16 from social media in new legislation set to be introduced Wednesday.

The government gave notice Tuesday that it will introduce a bill "to enact the Digital Safety Act and the Digital Safety Commission of Canada Act." It has scheduled a technical briefing and press conference on the new bill for late Wednesday afternoon.

Culture Minister Marc Miller, who is taking the lead on the legislation, said the government will take all reasonable measures to ensure kids are safe.

“It’s obvious why it’s a priority. Kids are dying,” he told reporters on Parliament Hill.

Online therapy developed in Montreal helps seniors sleep better, study finds

MONTREAL - For many older adults, a restless night can be an unwelcome part of aging, but new research suggests that help may be just a few clicks away.

Researchers at a Montreal-based institute of geriatrics found that participants who completed an online program designed to treat insomnia and anxiety slept better and reported fewer symptoms of insomnia compared with when they started the treatment.

The study, published in May in the peer-reviewed journal "Age and Ageing," followed 80 adults aged 65 and older with insomnia symptoms. Participants completed the therapy through an online platform called e-SPACE Aging Well.

Researchers found that the treatment program improved participants' sleep efficiency — the amount of time spent asleep while in bed — by 11.46 per cent. Five participants met the study’s criteria for remission and no longer met the threshold for insomnia, say the researchers with Centre de recherche de l'Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal.

‘Pick-up man’: Organizations work to address mental health of Canadian farmers

Josh Lehmann was a cowboy from Rosthern, a tiny town near where the North and South Saskatchewan rivers meet and the open prairie rolls into the northern boreal forest.

He was a rodeo rider, a good friend, someone who would stop whatever they were doing to help.

Inside he struggled with his mental health, said his sister.

"He was just a cowboy through and through," Morgan Lehmann said in an interview from her family’s ranch northeast of Saskatoon.

Sweet dreams in new beds for 50 children

Fifty twin-sized beds were hand-built for 50 children by volunteers Friday as part of an annual event put on by Manitoba Blue Cross and Sleep in Heavenly Peace.

“New people are always needing beds, and so there’s always a demand,” said Jim Thiessen, co-president of the charity in Winnipeg.

This is the third year volunteers from both organizations have built beds behind Blue Cross Park since the non-profit announced they’d pay for a five-year lease on a warehouse that has allowed the charity to build beds year-round.

The non-profit organization relies solely on donations to build and deliver beds to families in need across Canada.

Quebec health minister tables bill banning energy drink sales to youth under 16

QUÉBEC - Quebec’s health minister tabled a bill on Friday banning the sale of energy drinks to youth under the age of 16, describing the measure as an "extremely important" step to protect young people's health.

Sonia Bélanger's proposed legislation would also force youth to show a piece of ID proving their age in order to buy a drink having caffeine concentration of 150 milligrams per litre or more and containing other ingredients, such as taurine, vitamins or minerals.

"The risks associated with their consumption are too often trivialized," Bélanger told reporters at the legislature. "Yet, we are facing a real and worrying public health issue."

Calls to ban the sale of energy drinks to those under 16 years old grew after the death of 15-year-old Zachary Miron, who died in 2024 after drinking a can of Red Bull while on ADHD medication.

Far-flung buddies celebrate four decades of annual golf trips in the city their friendships were forged

A group of lifelong friends from Winnipeg are reuniting for their 40th annual golf trip.

Teaching, learning are unrealistic expectations in intolerably hot classrooms

There is something fundamentally wrong with a province that can find room for tax cuts yet still sends thousands of children and teachers into classrooms that feel more like saunas than places of learning.

Early childhood educators discuss First Nations students’ needs

Early childhood educators traded tips to improve attendance and well-being among First Nations students and their families at a first-of-its-kind event in Winnipeg.

The University of Winnipeg hosted an inaugural roundtable for ECEs to share their challenges and successes related to Indigenous education on Tuesday.

“The limited assessment data that we do have shows Indigenous children are not doing as well in life as other children and so we need to pick it up,” said Sheri-Lynn Skwarchuk, a professor who oversees the developmental studies program.

The facilitator described the gathering of nearly 50 women, including front-line workers, centre co-ordinators and post-secondary instructors, as a momentous occasion for their shared profession.

Winnipeg artist’s House on Fire chronicles fallout of grandmother’s MK Ultra experience

In the late 1950s, Velma Orlikow sought treatment for postpartum depression at the Allen Memorial Institute at McGill University in Montreal.

Later, it would be discovered that she was unknowingly enrolled in the secret CIA research program now known as MK Ultra, where she was the victim of brainwashing experiments at the hands of Dr. Ewen Cameron. She was injected with LSD and forced to listen to Cameron’s voice on tape for hours.

In the 1980s, Orlikow and eight other victims sued the CIA, which settled out of court.

Winnipeg visual artist Sarah Anne Johnson, Orlikow’s granddaughter, explores this difficult family history through her long-running series of work House on Fire, which is on view now at Plug In ICA.

Life at the speed of sound

I was only five years old when the Beatles broke up and yet their music has been the overarching soundtrack of my life.