Alberta’s Smith to put immigration, Constitution questions on fall referendum

EDMONTON - Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's government is putting nine questions to a provincewide referendum on Oct. 19, including proposals to restrict social services from some immigrants.

One question asks Albertans if non-permanent residents should be charged a "reasonable" fee to access health and education systems.

Another asks for approval to cut off newcomers from social services if they don't fall under "Alberta approved immigration status." The question doesn't define what that status means.

Other questions delve into the Constitution, asking whether Alberta should open negotiations with the rest of Canada to abolish the Senate and to give provinces the power to appoint superior court judges.

Canada should work to recruit bilingual health workers, Senate report says

OTTAWA - Many Canadians face barriers to accessing health care in their own language and the federal government should prioritize fast-tracking immigration and credential recognition for bilingual and francophone health-care workers, a new Senate report says.

The Senate committee on official languages recently wrapped up an 18-month study of language barriers in the health system.

It heard from witnesses from across the country — including anglophones in Quebec and francophones in the rest of Canada who said that they have trouble accessing care in their own language.

"There is an acute shortage of health care professionals all across Canada, which has been intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic and the growing influx of newcomers," the report said, adding that attracting more health professionals to Canada and more training and foreign credential recognition are all needed.

Modern, historic letters showcase love in dangerous times

Love is in the air at Oseredok.

The Ukrainian cultural and educational centre’s current exhibition, Love Letters: A Timeless Experience, bears witness to the fraught and emotional journeys of past and present Ukrainian-Canadian couples through historical love letters, digital declarations and personal artifacts as they navigated courtship, separation and reunion.

Spanning the 20th and 21st centuries, the exhibition draws on a combination of archival material, including the cultural centre’s collection of rare wedding photographs and studio portraits, and visual installations to trace the love lives of Ukrainian-Canadians across the decades.

A letter-writing manual penned in 1913 by linguist and author F. Dojacek forms the backbone of the immersive show.

Who is championing Canada in Alberta?

The most perplexing aspect of the incipient secession movement in Alberta isn’t that there are grassroots voices promoting it, but that there are few establishment voices challenging it. When the division of your country is on the table, why is the knife and fork only in the hands of the separatists?

Most days of the week, we are Team Canada. That’s because most days U.S. President Donald Trump seems to attack us. Unity against the latest orange narcissist threat comes automatically, if fatiguingly. But unity in the face of provincial grievance and a separatist movement is harder to manifest. It generates its own kind of fatigue.

Why?

First of all, we’ve seen this movie before. A half-century of official Quebec separatism, two referendums and numerous Parti Quebecois sovereigntist governments, have left most Canadians jaded as to the prospect of the same dynamic in Alberta.

When it comes to fixing health care, province must follow doctors’ orders

To get an honest assessment of Manitoba’s health-care system, it’s best to skip the government news releases and listen to the doctors.

Danielle Smith plays separation carrot-and-stick

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is beginning to look like something of a separation arsonist.

Alberta’s Smith owes answers before separation vote: former federal minister Dion

EDMONTON - The man who helped write the rules on separation votes in Canada says if Alberta’s premier is going to take her province down that “worrying” path, she has a duty to spell out to everyone how it will be triggered and what happens afterward.

Stéphane Dion says Danielle Smith must make it clear what she would do if Alberta votes to leave and whether she would also carry out the required negotiations with the federal government.

Dion also says it's up to Smith to determine the clear majority threshold number for a successful referendum, as the federal law doesn't specify.

"She owes that to the people of Alberta and the whole people of Canada," Dion said in an interview Wednesday.

Alberta group gets green light to collect signatures for separation referendum

EDMONTON - Alberta's election agency has fired the starter's pistol on the race to collect enough names for a referendum on the province quitting Canada.

Elections Alberta announced Friday that Mitch Sylvestre and the Alberta Prosperity Project have from Saturday until May 2 to collect just under 178,000 signatures to qualify.

"Citizen initiative petition signature sheets have been issued," Elections Alberta said in a statement Friday.

"The proponent may now proceed with collecting signatures."

Métis federation sues Ottawa, Manitoba over Sixties Scoop

The Manitoba Métis Federation is suing the federal and Manitoba governments for damages caused to the Red River Métis as a whole when an unknown number of children were placed with non-Indigenous families during the Sixties Scoop.

Investing for ourselves, and those downstream

We have invested large sums of money in infrastructure before.

You don’t often hear Winnipeggers complaining about the results: soft, clean drinking water thanks to the Shoal Lake aqueduct and flood protection thanks to the Red River Floodway.

A new city report outlines the importance of upgrading Winnipeg’s North End sewage treatment plant, which is responsible for treating 70 per cent of the city’s wastewater and all sewage sludge. The report focuses on the upgrades’ potential benefits to the city, including increased capacity to build new homes and businesses, and related economic growth.

It briefly mentions that upgrades to the plant are necessary in order to meet environmental regulations designed to protect waterways from the discharge of harmful materials that compromise the health of the Red River and Lake Winnipeg.

Manitoba teenagers honour war victims during trip to Europe

A group of Manitoba teens are honouring veterans and victims of the world wars overseas as part of a new provincial program that pays for them to visit historic and commemorative sites in Europe.

Truth, home, nature: Renaming process for Wolseley School 'requires care’

Wolseley School will be renamed after the towering trees that surround it, a perennial grass found in nearby Omand’s Creek or a Michif phrase.

Winnipeg-based organization injects federal funds into innovative, women-powered business in Bolivia

With practised grace, Antonia Olpo slides down the bank of the long, shallow pond and plunges fully clothed into the muddy water. On the grass above, other women and their male helpers unfurl the net, stretching it across the pond from edge to edge, and let it sink below the surface.

Cessation of war in Europe 80 years ago brought Winnipeggers together in record numbers

When the news reached Canada in May 1945 that the German army had surrendered, and the threat and horrors of the Nazi regime had finally been defeated, Canadians from coast to coast took to the streets to celebrate.

And as they often do in times of joy and jubilation, Winnipeggers gathered that day at the intersection of Portage and Main.

An image by famous Winnipeg photographer L.B. Foote captured the moment — troops, citizens and dignitaries congregated around a small grandstand erected at the famous intersection.

“It was a universal reaction, and a very spontaneous and organic reaction around the world on VE-Day,” said Bill Zuk, secretary of the Canadian Aviation Historical Society’s Manitoba Chapter.

Lawyer, philanthropist had a fierce sense of social justice

A luminary in human rights advocacy, Canadian lawyer Yude Henteleff was a natural explorer both in his travels and in his daily life. Henteleff lived 97 years with passion and dynamism.

He died Dec. 8, 2024.

Henteleff’s accomplishments and list of awards and accolades began at age 16 when he was elected president of the Jewish Youth Council and then to the youth division of the Canadian Jewish Congress. His activities in the Jewish community were extensive and lifelong.

The father, grandfather and partner lived life to the fullest, propelled by a fierce sense of social justice and belief in “tikkun olam,” a Hebrew phrase meaning “to repair the world.”

Life of pioneer for women’s rights in Manitoba chronicled in new account

Manitobans with an interest in history are proud that our province was the first in Canada to grant women the vote, but if asked who led the women’s suffrage campaign here, most would say Nellie McClung. A minority might say it was a team effort. Few would name Lillian Beynon Thomas.

Law professor Robert Hawkins became interested in Thomas because of her determined efforts to have a dower act passed in Manitoba. After devoting several years to the dower campaign, Thomas realized it would never happen without women’s suffrage. So in 1913, she organized the Political Equality League to lead the fight.

Born in 1874, Thomas came from a relatively poor family homesteading near Hartney. After finishing high school, she taught in rural schools off and on for 13 years, saving enough money to further her education; in 1905, when only 11 per cent of university grads were women, Thomas graduated from Brandon University. The following year, having had enough of teaching, she landed a job with the Manitoba Free Press.

For the next 11 years, Thomas edited the women’s page of a widely distributed weekly, The Prairie Farmer, and for five years wrote a daily column in the Free Press as well.

Rupert’s Land inhabitants blindsided by Canada’s purchase of their homeland in 1869

When the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) reached an agreement to sell Rupert’s Land to Canada in the spring of 1869, it came as a complete surprise to the people living in what is today Western Canada. They were neither consulted on the proposed annexation nor given any details about how it would affect their lives.

Rise of FLQ in 1960s documented in Montreal cartoonist’s graphic novel

Ever since he was a teenager, Montreal cartoonist Chris Oliveros has been fascinated by the story of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ).

In high school, his history class was shown Robin Spry’s 1973 National Film Board documentary Action: The October Crisis of 1970, which detailed the acts of terrorism, including the kidnapping and murder of Quebec labour minister Pierre Laporte, carried out by the militant separatist group in Montreal — under the auspices of liberating Quebec from anglophone rule — and the military response that followed. (The film is available to watch free online at wfp.to/6pe.)

“I was really struck by the fact that events like these, these incredibly tumultuous events, kidnappings and the army in the streets of Montreal, all of this could happen here, in the city where I lived,” says Oliveros from his Montreal home. “I was really blown away.”

Earlier this month, Montreal publisher Drawn & Quarterly (which Oliveros founded in 1990) published his graphic novel Are You Willing To Die For The Cause?: Revolution in 1960s Quebec, the first of two books about the FLQ by the 57-year-old cartoonist.

Liberal insider reflects on struggle to entrench Indigenous rights during the constitutional process of the early 1980s

The following is an abridged excerpt from Unlikely Insider: A West Coast Advocate in Ottawa, by Jack Austin, a former federal Liberal policy adviser, chief of staff to prime minister Pierre Trudeau and senator, with Edie Austin (McGill University Press, 2023). In the book the Liberal insider reflects on the struggle to entrench Indigenous rights during the constitutional process of the early 1980s.

Indigenous issues no longer stuck on back burner

Manitoba follows a standard formula for federal elections: other than the affluent suburbs, Winnipeg votes mostly Liberal while everywhere else — besides the north — goes Conservative.

With support for provincial Conservatives waning, anger at Justin Trudeau for calling an election during a pandemic, and the rise of the provincial NDP, there are strong indications that predictable Manitoba seats are up for grabs.

The appearance of Trudeau and O’Toole in the city Friday is evidence.

Why would both visit on the same day NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh toured unmarked graves at a former residential school in Saskatchewan?

Winnipeg Railway Museum can punch your ticket to the past, but it also needs your help

The Winnipeg Railway Museum, run by the Midwestern Rail Association and the Winnipeg Model Railway Club, is "the coolest indoor museum in Canada in the winter and the hottest ticket in town in summer."