Home care assessment wait times stagnate

Wait times to be assessed for home care in Winnipeg haven’t improved in five years, including since the pandemic, when services were stretched to the limit.

In addition, as the population ages, hiring key home-care staff hasn’t kept pace, unions say.

Roughly half of people seeking home care through the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority waited 16 days or longer in 2025.

In 2021, that number — the midway point between the longest and shortest wait times — was 14 days, data obtained via a freedom of information request show.

Construction work officially begins on $3-billion wind farm northeast of Quebec City

BEAUPRÉ - Construction on a major wind farm northeast of Quebec City has been officially launched, with an investment of $3 billion.

The first two phases of the Des Neiges wind farm — the southern sector and the Charlevoix sector — will comprise a total of 114 turbines and generate 800 Megawatts of wind energy, enough to power 140,000 homes.

The project by Quebec's hydro utility, Boralex, and Énergir — the largest natural gas distributor in the province — is to be located on the grounds of the Séminaire de Québec in the Charlevoix region.

The third phase, if completed, will bring the farm's output to 1,200 Megawatts and contribute Hydro-Québec's goal of adding 10,000 MW of wind power to its current portfolio of 4,000 MW by 2035.

Manitoba Hydro reduces remote work; decision raises fears among employees at other Crown corporations

Manitoba Hydro’s decision to cut remote workdays from two to one per week for eligible employees is causing concern for other public-sector workers who worry hybrid arrangements will be eroded.

Canada not worried U.S.-Mexico trade talks will upend trilateral deal, LeBlanc says

OTTAWA - Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said on Monday he isn't worried Mexico will sign a trade agreement with the Americans that excludes Canada.

LeBlanc told reporters at a news conference that the Mexicans are also committed to a trilateral deal as the countries work to renew the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade, better known as CUSMA.

"We've also said all along that there will be a bilateral element to these discussions and there will also be a trilateral element," he said.

"The American administration and our government and the Mexicans have also been clear that there are bilateral issues that properly will be worked on together by two countries and it will necessarily form part of the discussion around the trilateral review of CUSMA as well."

Brandon plane museum needs to land cash for major overhaul

BRANDON — Brandon’s warplane museum is planning a roughly $15-million “major redevelopment” to stabilize the hangar and potentially build a new half-hangar on site.

The Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum issued a negotiated request for proposals in February and is receiving regular on-site visits from interested parties, director Zoe McQuinn told the Brandon Sun on Friday.

Museum officials are searching for the best way to repair the hangar’s concrete floor, which is affecting the historic wooden structure on top of it.

“You can see (the effects) all throughout the hangar in different ways,” McQuinn said Friday, while stepping over cracks. “We need a way to stop the heaving in the floor and the twisting in the frame.”

U of M tuition poised to climb four per cent

University of Manitoba students are facing the highest tuition hike in years.

Prabhnoor Singh, president of the University of Manitoba Students’ Union, said the province’s decision to allow post-secondary institutions to increase tuition by as much as four per cent will put a huge burden on students who already struggle to make ends meet.

“Why is this being allowed?” Singh said on Friday.

“It’s crazy for an NDP government to do something like this. Students are already having to make sacrifices. They are deciding between putting food on their table or buying textbooks, paying for tuition.”

Environmental groups give NDP budget a ‘near failing grade’

The Manitoba government has made big promises to protect and prioritize the environment as it works to boost economic development and become a “have province.”

But climate groups say the latest provincial budget, released Tuesday, has failed to deliver.

A coalition of environmental organizations including the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Manitoba Eco-Network and Climate Action Team Manitoba gave the province “a near failing grade for its lack of meaningful investment in climate action and environmental protection,” according to a Friday release.

“Manitoba’s 2026 budget and the past two budgets before it have been extremely disappointing for climate and nature,” Ron Thiessen, executive director of CPAWS Manitoba, said in an interview.

Councillors vote for city staff to handle organic waste collection

City employees are expected to collect the waste when Winnipeg’s curbside compost program begins in 2030.

On Thursday, city council cast a nine to seven vote to have organic waste picked up by “in-house” staff.

The successful addition to the next round of waste collection contracts was raised by Coun. Brian Mayes, who has long pushed for some public waste collection.

Currently, the entire service is contracted out to private companies.

Canadian sport system ‘underfunded and unsafe,’ commission urges Ottawa to step up

Canadian sport needs an overhaul, and it starts with the federal government.

That was the conclusion of the Future of Sport in Canada Commission's final report released Tuesday.

The Canadian sport system is broken, fragmented and unsustainable, said Lise Maisonneuve, a former chief justice of the Ontario court of justice, who headed the commission.

The report issued 98 calls to action for phased-in change over five years, but starting immediately.

Cuba refuses to let US Embassy in Havana import diesel for its generators

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Cuban government has refused a request by the U.S. Embassy in Havana to allow it to import diesel for its generators while the Trump administration continues to impose a fuel blockade on the island, two U.S. officials familiar with the matter said Friday.

The government turned down the request as the U.S. State Department has been weighing a reduction in staffing at the embassy in the Cuban capital of Havana because of the lack of diesel. Such a move would likely lead to a U.S. demand for a similar reduction in staffing at the Cuban Embassy in Washington, say the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

The Cuban government rejection was first reported by The Washington Post.

The White House, State Department and Cuban Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Province still working on Crown corporation legislation to get Port of Churchill expansion going, Kinew says

Legislation needed to begin the work of turning the Port of Churchill into a national export hub with the potential to transform Manitoba’s economy is still being hammered out, says Premier Wab Kinew.

The act, to create the Manitoba Crown-Indigenous Corp., is still being written, which meant it was not among the more than 40 bills introduced by the NDP before Wednesday’s deadline for passage before the legislative session’s summer recess.

The government promised the legislation in November’s throne speech.

“The corporation has been set up,” the premier said Thursday at an unrelated event.

Most vulnerable will pay the most for federal budget cuts

As the federal government reallocates funds to deal with a $78 billion deficit, the loss of prison librarian positions threatens to undermine rehabilitation efforts for marginalized inmates.

‘A life-or-death program’: non-profit’s successful at-risk youth training awaits Ottawa funding decision

An inner-city non-profit that helps at-risk youth in Winnipeg has warned it will be forced to end an employment and training program March 31 unless government funding comes through.

A year of federal funding is set to run out for Resource Assistance for Youth’s Level Up! program, which has educated and secured work experience for more than 350 young people since 2020.

“We’re in that moment where no level of government has said, ‘We want to continue to support this going forward,’” said Kate Sjoberg, RaY’s executive director.

The paid training program involves six weeks of in-class learning and 12 weeks of work experience with a local employer. Participants also receive housing and mental-health and other supports.

Finance minister’s budget preview focuses on little feet

Manitoba’s finance minister — who had bags of children’s shoes in tow — announced Friday that families and affordability measures would feature prominently in Tuesday’s budget.

Adrien Sala went to Linwood Child Centre, his children’s former daycare, to announce that 2,000 childcare spaces would open within the province.

Tuesday’s budget will also include a 2.9 per cent increase to wages paid to early childhood educators as of September.

“We’re looking to make sure that we invest in you guys, our next generation,” Sala said, steps from children at Linwood.

Canada should ‘absolutely’ match Poland’s Chinese EV ban at military bases: expert

OTTAWA - Intelligence and cybersecurity experts are warning the Liberal government about national security risks posed by allowing Chinese electric vehicles onto Canadian military bases.

Critics and some experts are even calling on Ottawa to ban the cars from Canadian Armed Forces bases and other sensitive sites due to onboard sensors they say could collect and transmit sensitive information to the Chinese government.

Their warning comes after Poland and Israel instituted similar bans  on EVs built by Chinese companies like BYD Auto over the past year — and as Conservative politicians in Canada raise the alarm over the threat of so-called "spy cars."

Dennis Molinaro, a counter-intelligence expert at Ontario Tech University and a former national security analyst, said the federal government should follow the example of Poland and Israel.

Gas pains: soaring prices due to Mideast conflict could lead to energy turning point in Canada

Veteran actor Billy Bob Thornton may seem like an unlikely source of wisdom about the world’s relentless dependence on oil. Then again, it would be hard to find a better, more poignant description of the global addiction than a diatribe he delivered in a recent episode of Landman, a melodrama set in the Texas oil industry.

Thornton’s character, Tommy Norris, a crisis manager for a large oil company, is walking through a wind turbine farm that generates electricity to power remote oil rigs. Norris notes that over a wind turbine’s 20-year lifespan, the “clean” energy it produces won’t offset the carbon emitted in the manufacturing of its components or its installation. The same economics, Norris says, can be applied to solar panels and batteries for electric vehicles.

Then, the punchline.

“Our whole lives depend on (oil). And hell, it’s in everything — that road we came in on, the wheels on every car ever made, including yours. It’s in tennis rackets and lipstick and refrigerators and antihistamines. Pretty much anything plastic: your cellphone case, artificial heart valves, any kind of clothing that’s not made with animal or plant fibers. Soap, f—king hand lotion, garbage bags, fishing boats. You name it, every f—king thing. And you know what the kicker is?

Shopping bill is a good pre-emptive strike

On the face of it, it looks like a solution desperately hunting for a problem.

But that’s sometimes the way proactive legislation looks.

As first salvos go, Manitoba’s Bill 49 should probably be viewed not an effort not to deal with an imaginary problem, but one being put in place to ensure that the problem doesn’t arrive.

What the bill does is to add individual pricing to the province’s collection of improper business practices.

PUB locks in Hydro rate increases, warns more on way

Manitoba Hydro customers can expect further upward pressure in rates as the Public Utilities Board has finalized a four per cent general rate increase — effective Jan. 1, 2026 — and approved general revenue increases of 3.5 per cent Jan. 1, 2027, and three per cent Jan. 1, 2028.

The board noted short-term financial pressure due to severe drought conditions, according to a news release late Thursday.

In 2025, water flows approached the second-lowest levels in 112 years, the release said.

Between filing the application in March 2025 and oral hearings in November, Hydro’s outloook worsened by more than $600 million — from a projected net income of $218 million to a projected loss of $409 million, the board’s release said.

Downtown mulls uncertain impact of Fairmont downtime

As the Fairmont Winnipeg hotel prepares to close its doors this summer for a months-long renovation project, surrounding businesses say they’re waiting to see what the impact will be on Winnipeg’s downtown.

Any time Palomino Club owner Christian Stringer books an act outside of the province, he’ll set them up at the Fairmont — most recently, DJ Pauly D of Jersey Shore fame — and a chunk of his customer base is out-of-towners staying at the nearby hotel looking for a bit of fun.

“(The Fairmont) has always been the five-star (hotel) for us,” Stringer said Thursday.

He said he’s not sure how much the hotel closing from July until spring of 2027 will affect business. He worries it might complicate bringing in performers from outside of Canada — a practice he’s already had to cut back on as the Canadian dollar has made it harder to meet the asking price of U.S. acts.

Construction groups miffed by new fee on public-sector projects

Three large construction associations in Manitoba say the cost of huge public projects will soar thanks to a new fee implemented by the province, and they want the auditor general to investigate it.

The fee is applied to projects covered by Manitoba Jobs Agreements, which launched last year to try to ensure more local workers and contractors benefit from big public-sector projects. Builders must pay 85 cents per hour, per worker.

The Winnipeg Construction Association, Manitoba Heavy Construction Association and the Construction Association of Rural Manitoba attacked the fee in a joint letter Thursday.

“The 85 cents per hour has nothing to do with wages of workers on site,” said Darryl Harrison, director of the Winnipeg association. “Every cent… (could) be spent in other ways that help the Manitoba taxpayer.

Province intends to create registry of Manitoba-certified Red Seal tradespeople

The Manitoba government plans to create an online public registry of certified tradespeople.