La grande histoire d’un petit village

Le village de Sainte-Agathe, qui borde les rives de la rivière Rouge et de la rivière aux Rats, à près de 40 kilomètres au sud de Winnipeg, fêtera ce 28 mai son 150e anniversaire.

Alors 150 ans, ça fait beaucoup de bougies, certainement trop pour toutes les faire tenir sur un gâteau, mais ça ne veut pas dire qu’on laisse tomber les célébrations.

Ce 28 mai, l’évènement se tiendra près du quai de Sainte-Agathe, où un bateau transportait les voitures d’un côté à l’autre de la rivière, à l’époque où il n’existait pas de pont.

Joel Lemoine, conseiller municipal pour Sainte-Agathe détaille la nature des célébrations.

Agape Table expansion underscores surging food demand

Food banks and non-profit organizations across Manitoba are expanding their spaces to meet record demand for food.

Agape Table showed off its new 10,500-square foot home at 350 Furby St. Thursday, where it has planted permanent roots for the first time in its 45-year history.

It is located next to the Wave Church, where it had been operating out of the basement for eight years.

The executive director of the food-distribution charity said a bigger space has been needed for years.

New space cleared for prayer at city’s airport

If you like to get grounded before you’re airborne, the Winnipeg Richardson International Airport has a place for you.

The airport now has a designated space where people of any faith can take a few minutes of quiet solitude to pray while they’re waiting for their flight.

It’s a small, carpeted area enclosed by movable panels against one of the glass walls of the arrivals and departures wing between Gates 9 and 10.

The prayer space is behind security, accessible only to passengers who are travelling.

Foreign actors producing more false content about Alberta separatism: report

EDMONTON - Foreign actors are increasingly generating articles, podcasts and social media posts riddled with disinformation about Alberta's separatist movement, says a new report.

The report from a team of researchers, published Wednesday by the Canadian monitoring platform DisinfoWatch, says the campaigns are coming out of Russia and the United States.

It says social media influencers with millions of followers are generating the disinformation in the United States.

"This matters because influencers increasingly command more attention than traditional institutions and can move fringe narratives into mainstream political debate," the report says.

Chartrand lauds court decision as ‘victory for Red River Métis’

The president of the Manitoba Métis Federation and others have been awarded nearly $12 million in legal fees after an unfounded and unreasonable attack by the Métis National Council, a judge has ruled.

Ontario Superior Court Justice Loretta Merritt said in a 15-page decision released on Monday that she was awarding court costs of $6.02 million to MMF president David Chartrand, $1.3 million to Clement Chartier, the MNC’s former president for almost two decades, and $2.06 million to former MNC executive director Wenda Watteyne.

The judge also awarded $2.4 million in costs to several consulting firms and consultants whose reputations were damaged when they were  falsely accused by the MNC of aiding the unfounded allegations of financial impropriety.

“Mr. Chartier and president (Chartrand) have devoted their lives to advancing the interests of the Métis nation,” Merritt wrote. “Ms. Watteyne dedicated the vast majority of her career to the service of the Métis community.

Solomon says delayed federal AI strategy coming soon, will address impact on jobs

OTTAWA - The federal government's promised new national AI strategy will consider the technology’s impacts on the labour market, Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon said on Monday.

It’s been six months since the government wrapped up fast-tracked consultations on the strategy. Solomon initially promised it would be tabled by the end of last year.

Solomon said last fall Canada couldn't afford to wait and had to move quickly. When he was asked Monday to explain the delay in introducing the strategy, he said it will be released "very soon."

While Solomon initially signalled an adoption-focused approach, experts say the public conversation around AI has shifted since to focus more on concerns about safety and social impact. Canada has also strengthened relationships with other middle powers that are more pro-regulation than the United States under President Donald Trump.

Empower youth by giving them tools to stay safe online

Do you support banning kids from social media? Do you also post photos of your kids on your Facebook or Instagram?

Whenever the topic of banning social media for kids comes up, as it did again this week when Premier Wab Kinew announced that Manitoba will ban youth from using social media and AI chatbots, we run into a wee bit of cognitive dissonance among the adults.

Many of today’s young people had social media presences long before they were old enough to consent to them — not as users, but as content posted by their parents. Instagram is nearly 16 years old; the iPhone nearly 20. A lot of kids have had digital footprints since the sonogram. Their whole lives are online.

So, as young people who are already on social media transition into social media users themselves, we should, as a society, empower them to make informed decisions about how, where and if they want to show up online, not ban them from platforms they use to connect with their peers, express their creativity and learn about the world. Platforms they’ve grown up around and, in many cases, on.

Despite discrimination, Winnipeg proved to be good fit for Jews fleeing Holocaust

Freda Shiel was 10 years old when the train from Halifax pulled into Winnipeg in 1948. Other families on the platform were met by relatives. Freda and her parents stood there alone. “It was a heartbreaking moment,” she recalled 40 years later, when the Winnipeg Second Generation Group came to record what she remembered.

In the years after May 8, 1945, the end of the Second World War in Europe, hundreds of thousands of survivors and refugees had to find somewhere to go. Some of them, through routes that were rarely straightforward, ended up here. By the late 1950s, roughly 1,000 Holocaust survivors had settled in Winnipeg — more than five per cent of the city’s Jewish population. Forty-eight testimonies including Freda’s, recorded in 1988 and 1989 and now held at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, are still relatively unknown. What they say about this city is more precise, and more complicated, than either a story of welcome or of failure.

Winnipeg did not simply receive these newcomers. It admitted them on terms they would spend decades reshaping. Philip Weiss arrived the same year as Freda. He had survived the ghettos and labour camps of occupied Poland and finally the Nazi concentration camp Mauthausen, where American troops liberated him on May 5, 1945 — a date he carried for the rest of his life. He landed in Halifax on Feb. 11, 1948, his birthday, and took the train west. After years in cattle cars, he marvelled at the white tablecloths and silver cutlery in the dining car, at cherry pie and banana splits that seemed almost unreal on the Canadian Prairies.

Like Weiss, most survivors came through schemes like the Tailor Project, a joint initiative of the Canadian Jewish Congress, garment manufacturers and the federal government that offered entry on the condition that they work in the needle trades.

Census data does much more than determine population

The children of families who live in public housing in Tuxedo are more likely to graduate from high school, go to college or university, and less likely to need income assistance when they become adults than their counterparts who live just off Main Street in the North End.

How do we know this? The national census.

Officially known as the Census of Population, in the next few weeks, an estimated 41 million Canadians will receive this year’s census to fill in the boxes that reflect their lives. Most will receive the short form, which census officials say should take only five to 10 minutes to fill out. But 25 per cent of Canadians will receive the lengthier long-form census, which includes more demographic questions, and takes about a half-hour or so to complete, depending on the size of the household.

It’s only when the numbers are tallied that we will know exactly how many people there are in the country.

‘Denial of care’: Doctors worry about refugees as payment requirements take effect

TORONTO - Refugees now have to pay out of pocket for part of their drug prescriptions, mental health counselling, dental services, vision care and health equipment — including wheelchairs — as changes to a federal program take effect.

For decades, Canada's Interim Federal Health Program has provided complete health coverage to refugees and refugee claimants until they are eligible for provincial health plans and benefits.

But starting Friday, they must pay $4 for every prescription and 30 per cent of the cost of supplemental health products and services.

More than a dozen medical, nursing, social work and refugee organizations, including the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Paediatric Society, the Canadian Psychiatric Association and the Canadian Nurses Association, have warned that refugees can't afford those co-payments and their physical and mental health will suffer.

Young Canadians want AI companies to make their chatbots less addictive: report

OTTAWA - A new report focusing on the perspectives of young people says the government should order AI companies to take steps to curb the addictive aspects of their AI chatbots.

It’s one of a series of recommendations made by youth between the ages of 17 and 23 who took part in roundtables across the country.

Participants presented the report — published by McGill University’s Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy and Simon Fraser University's Dialogue on Technology Project — and its recommendations on Parliament Hill on Thursday.

Maddie Case, a youth fellow with the McGill centre, introduced the 25 young people who developed the chatbot recommendations.

Kinew threatens billion-dollar fines for tech giants ignoring social-media ban for youths

Manitoba may impose billion-dollar fines on tech companies that violate a proposed ban on social media and AI chatbots for youths under the age 16.

Canada is getting a sovereign wealth fund. What does that mean and how do they work?

Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the creation of the country's first-ever sovereign wealth fund on Monday, called the Canada Strong Fund.

Carney pitched the new fund as a way for Canadians to invest in nation-building projects in areas that include energy, infrastructure, mining, agriculture and technology.

Here's what you need to know about sovereign wealth funds and how they operate.

What is a sovereign wealth fund?

Structural issues forced Grant’s Old Mill, built in 1973, to shut down

Grant’s Old Mill, a longtime city landmark, is closed due to structural problems as the Manitoba Métis Federation looks to discuss its future with Winnipeg’s mayor.

MMF minister Will Gooden is a descendant of Métis leader Cuthbert Grant, the man commemorated by the replica mill along Sturgeon Creek. He said MMF president David Chartrand wants to set up a meeting with Mayor Scott Gillingham.

“It’s an opportunity now to see what we can make happen here,” Gooden said Monday. “It is a replica, but it is still very significant, not just for the Red River Métis, but also for that part of town.”

The water mill, located at 2777 Portage Ave., was constructed in 1973 as a City of Winnipeg centennial project and was officially opened by then-premier Ed Schreyer in 1975. It is a replica of the mill constructed by Grant in 1829.

Manitoba Métis president rebukes AFN chief over call for withdrawal of treaty

OTTAWA - The president of the Manitoba Métis Federation is accusing the Assembly of First Nations of misleading people about legislation that would codify the federation's right to self-government.

On Thursday, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak took aim at a first-of-its-kind treaty between the federal government and the Manitoba Métis Federation, which came up for debate in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

Woodhouse Nepinak said in a media statement the legislation threatens to create a hierarchy of rights, with First Nations at the bottom.

“This piece of legislation must not proceed until First Nations voices’ are heard and our rights are respected, protected and upheld,” Woodhouse Nepinak wrote, saying Bill C-21 was developed without consultations with First Nations, despite it having implications for First Nations lands in Manitoba "and beyond."

Stirring oratorio pays homage to Indigenous veterans

‘My war wasn’t in Europe. My war was when I came back to Canada and I couldn’t vote until 1962,” says composer Andrew Balfour. He’s paraphrasing a quote by an Indigenous veteran and the inspiration for his oratorio notinikew (i went to war).

Where did political ethics go?

Somewhere along the line, politicians have learned that they can lie with impunity. Not just being misleading or dissembling or answering questions evasively, but outright lying.

Former minister Catherine McKenna blasts the heads of Canadian oil companies

MONTRÉAL - Former environment minister Catherine McKenna says the leaders of Canada's oil industry are figures close to American President Donald Trump who are "taking us for fools" and putting both the economy and environment at risk.

Canada's official greenhouse gas inventory was published last week. It showed that in 2024, oil and gas production was the only sector in the country to have increased its greenhouse gas emissions.

"In Canada, we expect, Canadians expect everyone to step up and do their parts. But instead, we have oil and gas, which is largely foreign-owned, largely U.S.-owned, who aren't doing their part. All they're doing is increasing our emissions and demanding subsidies," McKenna said in an interview while at Montreal's climate summit last week.

She adds that oil companies are "demanding that Canadian taxpayers pay the bill for cleaning up the pollution they cause and building pipelines they won’t risk their own money on."

Phasing out of door-to-door mail delivery sinks in for Winnipeggers

Canada Post said Thursday it plans to convert about four million addresses to community mailboxes over the next five years, beginning with 136,000 in late 2026 and early 2027.

AI content should be labelled, heritage committee says

OTTAWA - The government should require that content generated by artificial intelligence be clearly labelled, a House of Commons committee said in a new report.

The members of Parliament on the committee are calling for standardized labels for AI content that are visible and that the public can understand. They say the requirement should apply to all relevant sectors, including digital platforms and broadcasters.

This would "promote transparency, maintain public trust and preserve the integrity of Canada’s information and cultural ecosystem," the report said.

It called on the government to establish "a framework governing the systematic and easily identifiable labelling of content created with the assistance of artificial intelligence, including through the use of metadata, digital watermarks or other robust technical solutions."

First Nations chiefs call for inquiry into RCMP after CBC report on surveillance

OTTAWA - First Nations leaders called on the RCMP to apologize and demanded a federal inquiry Thursday after CBC reported the police service spied on Indigenous political leaders in the 1960s and beyond.

CBC Indigenous uncovered some 6,000 pages of internal RCMP documents that indicate the RCMP was monitoring Indigenous political activity as early as 1968.

The CBC report said police targeted future national chiefs Noel Starblanket, David Ahenakew, Georges Erasmus and Phil Fontaine. CBC Indigenous reported that Ovide Mercredi, who also went on to serve as national chief, was mentioned in the files.

Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Grand Chief Kyra Wilson said the RCMP should apologize directly to community members, on their own territories, by the end of the year for the "Native extremism" program.

U.S. leads spike in applications for Canadian citizenship by descent

OTTAWA - Interest in Canadian citizenship by descent among citizens in a handful of countries — especially the United States — surged after the federal government passed a new law clarifying the rules.

C-3, which took effect on Dec. 15, 2025, allows someone born outside Canada before that date to a Canadian parent who also was born outside Canada to file a citizenship claim. Anyone born or adopted on or after Dec. 15, 2025 can make a claim as long as the parent, who was also born or adopted abroad, spent at least three years in Canada before their child's birth or adoption.

The law was drafted and passed in response to a 2023 Ontario Superior Court order that found a law on citizenship by descent passed by Stephen Harper's government was unconstitutional.

That Harper-era law said Canadians who were born abroad could only pass down their citizenship if their children were born in Canada.

Holocaust survivors, family members mark solemn day by remembering not to forget

Rob Berkowits carries a black and white photo in his wallet — of his father, Alex, and fellow prisoners in a Nazi Germany concentration camp — as a constant reminder the challenges in his life are small.