Government votes down autism strategy bill proposed by Liberal MLA

Mark Jackson paused as he questioned when his daughter got her autism diagnosis — maybe one year, maybe two, from the first doctor referral.

“The wait times are not great,” he said.

He joined about two dozen people at the legislature Tuesday to show support for an autism strategy, as proposed by Liberal Cindy Lamoureux in a private member’s bill that was introduced Monday.

The strategy would make wait times for diagnosis and supports for autistic people and their families as top priorities.

Accessible, inclusive sports giving elementary-age phys-ed students a lesson in empathy

Beaverlodge School phys-ed teacher Jordan Adam has launched a new inclusive sports program to expose students to lesser-known activities and spark discussion about accessibility.

City councillors fear backlash over tax bills thanks to huge increases in education portion

Two councillors say Winnipeggers who experience sticker shock when they open their 2026 municipal tax bills should know who to blame — and it isn’t the city.

Proposed legislation targets predatory grocery pricing

The Manitoba government is taking action to ensure grocery pricing based on customer data doesn’t rear its predatory head in the province.

Feds appealing use of Emergencies Act during ‘Freedom Convoy’ at Supreme Court

OTTAWA - The federal government is appealing to the Supreme Court a lower court decision that found its use of the Emergencies Act four years ago during "Freedom Convoy" protests was unreasonable and led to the infringement of constitutional rights.

The government invoked the act to quell protests in the national capital and at key border points.

"Canada has sought leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada to review of the use of the Emergencies Act during the convoy protests and blockades that caused serious disruptions across the country," said Justice Minister Sean Fraser’s spokesperson Lola Dandybaeva.

"Our government remains committed to ensuring it has the tools needed to protect the safety and security of Canadians in the face of threats to public order and national security."

Churchill port could further stunt polar bear growth: U of M researcher

Manitoba’s bold plan to transform the Port of Churchill into a shipping powerhouse could have a negative effect on the area’s treasured polar bear population, which fuels its tourism trade, new research shows.

AI systems use Canadian journalism but seldom cite media sources: report

OTTAWA - A new study released on Monday says AI systems depend on Canadian journalism for the information they provide users but don't offer compensation or proper attribution in return

Researchers at McGill University’s Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy tested 2,267 Canadian news stories on major AI models.

"All four models showed extensive knowledge of Canadian current events consistent with having ingested Canadian news reporting," the report says.

The researchers found when ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Grok were asked about Canadian news events from their training data, they did not provide source attribution about 82 per cent of the time.

Muslim community reflects on decades worth of growth

As Manitoba Muslims enter the last days of the holy month of Ramadan, they are counting their blessings, including the growth of their community since the establishment of the first mosque in the province 50 years ago.

“That was a great accomplishment,” said Abdo el-Tassi, who was among the 10 or so families who started the Pioneer Mosque in St. Vital in 1976.

El-Tassi — a prominent Winnipeg business leader and philanthropist — said he feels “very proud” of what the Muslim community has accomplished since that time.

Today there are as many as 20 mosques or prayer centres in the province, including in Thompson, Brandon, Niverville, Steinbach and Winkler. The most recent one to open was the Al-Haqq Masjid in Winnipeg, which serves the Nigerian Muslim community.

Indigenous partnerships key to wildfire preparation

More than 5.3 million acres in Manitoba burned — second only to Saskatchewan — as wildfires raged across Western Canada last summer, and 32,000-plus residents, most of whom were Indigenous, were evacuated from their communities.

In Winnipeg, air quality due to the smoke was so terrible that by August, the year’s poor conditions had broken a 65-year record.

In northern places such as Thompson, the smoke was life-threatening. For most of the summer the city was engulfed in smoke, causing wide-scale lung irritation. Anyone with respiratory conditions like asthma and heart disease was forced to stay indoors.

The fires began after the May 10-11 weekend, when temperatures rose above 35 C, drying the underbrush and creating dangerous conditions.

Government data shows extent of truancy issue

You start to deal with a problem by admitting that you actually have one, not by burying it because you’re concerned about how it might look.

Protesters rally against police brutality

A rally marking the International Day Against Police Brutality gathered outside Winnipeg’s police headquarters and marched downtown Sunday afternoon.

Several dozen people gathered outside the Smith Street building, some carrying signs with slogans including “Cops don’t keep communities safe,” and “Fund community, defund cops.” While marching downtown, protesters stopped outside of the Canada Life Centre, where a Winnipeg Jets game was underway, before ending the march at the Magnus Eliason Recreation Centre.

Organizer Dale Schindle said the march was to honour victims of police violence worldwide, and to inspire others to view Winnipeg’s police force with a critical lens — especially with a civic election coming up this fall.

“There is a municipal election coming up, and I want you to consider how the money is spent in your city,” Schindle said outside of the police headquarters building. “A third of the budget goes to police, and you can look at their annual reports, they do not do what they say they’re going to do. They do not keep us safe — we keep us safe.”

Years of training keep Artemis II crew mission-ready, researcher says

MONTREAL - Despite the delays for NASA's Artemis II mission around the moon and back, a space medicine researcher says the crew, which includes Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, are physically ready for when the time comes to launch.

"They've been preparing for years, so what is a few more months," said Dr. Farhan Asrar, a physician, space medicine researcher and associate dean at Toronto Metropolitan University's School of Medicine.

"One thing that I've always kind of appreciated and respected in the life of astronauts … is it's always expecting the unexpected and how do you best prepare for that?"

NASA has targeted an April 1 launch for Artemis II, with a six-day launch window running through April 6 announced last week.

Ukrainian Guide to Winnipeg directory puts focus on area businesses, services run by Ukrainians

A new online directory brings together Ukrainian-owned businesses and service providers in Winnipeg.

The brainchild of Mila Shykota, a provincial government worker who immigrated to Winnipeg in 2022 after Russia invaded her native Ukraine, the directory features 138 businesses — a number she says she adds to every day.

“I came up with the idea a year ago, when I initiated a project at work celebrating our diversity, since our team is very multicultural,” Shykota said on Friday.

She invited co-workers to represent their own country in some way, be it cuisine, culture or heritage. She said when she was preparing her own presentation, she decided to collect data on all of the Ukrainian restaurants and souvenir boutiques in Winnipeg so her colleagues could experience her culture.

Former volleyball star recalls struggles for gay rights during 1980s

In 1981, tennis star Martina Navratilova made international headlines off the court for coming out as a lesbian. Around the same time, a less prominent Canadian athlete named Betty Baxter was beginning a public battle for equality.

Baxter was well-known in the queer community, having played on the national Canadian women’s volleyball team at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. She caused a media frenzy a few years later when she became the first female and youngest ever coach of the same team.

Less well-known was that after only 18 months as coach she was fired, behind closed doors, as rumours swirled that she was a lesbian. Baxter had not come out publicly; she lost her job for not denying she was a lesbian.

She was told by a human rights lawyer that she had no recourse. This was common practice before sexual orientation was enshrined in the Human Rights Act in 1996; contemporary readers may have a difficult time imagining how brave it was to come out publicly in the ‘80s.

Proposed quarry threatens Manitoba’s bear cub rescue, operator says

Manitoba’s only black bear rescue says a proposed limestone quarry less than a kilometre away from their sanctuary would have devastating effects on the cubs in their care.

Judy Stearns says the sound of constant rock blasting and gravel trucks driving in and out of the site near Stonewall would stress out the orphan cubs, who tend to be anxious anyway.

“There’s not a tree or hill between us,” said Stearns, who runs the rescue with her husband, Roger. “The project is just not conducive to being beside a wildlife sanctuary with noise-sensitive, timid animals.”

The rescue and rehabilitation centre has been in the RM of Rockwood, located northwest of Winnipeg, since 2018, but the Stearns family has lived in the municipality for more than 20 years.

Canada, Manitoba lagging behind promise to meet 2030 target of protecting more land and water

There are just four years left on the clock for Manitoba — and the rest of the country — to meet a promise to conserve 30 per cent of land and water by 2030.

But halfway through the timeline adopted at the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity in 2022, Canada has made little progress, adding less than one percentage point to its protected land tally and three points to its protected waters.

The country needs to double its protected areas to meet its target, known as 30-by-30. But conservation groups, including the Wilderness Committee and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, warn progress could stall even further as federal funding for conservation initiatives is set to run out at the end of the month — and there’s no indication it will be renewed.

“We have a conservation economy that we can build on, that gives local jobs, that helps honour our Indigenous reconciliation commitments,” Sandra Schwartz, national executive director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, said.

‘We’re ready to defend the Arctic,’ Carney says alongside German, Norwegian leaders

BARDUFOSS - Canada and its allies are prepared to defend the Arctic, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday in Bardufoss, Norway, after observing NATO’s Cold Response exercises.

He held a news conference alongside Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Asked by a German reporter whether the "conflict" over the Trump administration's demands for Greenland is settled, the leaders emphasized Greenland's independence.

"It's up to the people in Greenland and the King of Denmark to trace the future for the people in Greenland," Store said.

NDP bill aims to strengthen renters’ protection

The Manitoba government says it will carry out the largest expansion of rent control in decades.

Public Service Delivery Minister Mintu Sandhu called the measure “historical action” that will affect thousands of units in the province.

Under the proposed legislation, which was introduced by the NDP Thursday, suites that rent for at least $2,000 a month won’t be subject to rent control. Currently the threshold is $1,670 a month.

The proposed law leaves intact the exemption for complexes that are less than 20 years old.

Some B.C. appraisers adding land-claims clause after Aboriginal title court case

VICTORIA - An organization representing about 1,200 appraisers in British Columbia says some of its members are adding clauses to their reports noting that current, past, and potential future land claims have not been considered in their valuations.

Allan Beatty, president of the B.C. branch of the Appraisal Institute of Canada, says in a statement that the recent Cowichan Aboriginal title court ruling in B.C. is contributing to speculation that private property rights could be affected.

Beatty says the organization is preparing advice for its members on the appropriate limitation clauses, but discourages the use of "unsubstantiated adjustments that do not reflect the most relevant market data."

In an August 2025 ruling, a B.C. Supreme Court judge confirmed the Cowichan Tribes hold Aboriginal title over about 300 hectares of land on the Fraser River in Richmond, B.C.

Traffic reporter Dev Oza steers into slapstick of our daily commute

Did you hear the one about the traffic reporter who moonlights as a standup comic?

B.C. chiefs tell MP Aaron Gunn to ‘chillax’ about land acknowledgments

VANCOUVER - The chiefs of four British Columbia First Nations have told Conservative member of Parliament Aaron Gunn to "chillax" after he criticized land acknowledgments referring to "unceded territory" at the start of public events.

In a joint statement, the chiefs from the Tla'amin, Homalco, K'omoks and Klahoose nations said that "harmless" land acknowledgments only recognized "the history of the place" where people held events.

The nations said that land acknowledgments "have never seized private property, cancelled a mortgage, repossessed a pickup truck or altered a single title deed anywhere in Canada."

"Chiefs from four First Nations communities are urging the public to please approach Aaron Gunn with no caution whatsoever," their statement issued on Wednesday said.

New government bill would help police, spy service probe online activities

OTTAWA - Proposed legislation would give police and Canada's spy service new powers to investigate online activities — powers they say they need to keep pace with criminals in the digital age.

The bill tabled in the House of Commons on Thursday would require internet and phone companies to tell authorities whether they provide service to a particular person or account number.

The legislation would allow police to then seek a production order from a court to obtain subscriber information from a company, such as the name, address, phone number and services provided.

The bill also updates warrant powers for computer searches and proposes a new authority to allow Canadian police to make requests of foreign electronic service providers, including social media and AI chatbot companies.