Local Muslims, Indigenous people hold interfaith event

Bannock with wild rice and samosas with halal beef stew were served in equal measure as Indigenous and Muslim Winnipeggers sought common ground at an interfaith event discussing truth and reconciliation Sunday.

The Islamic Social Services Association’s second annual Muslim-Indigenous Solidarity event recognized Orange Shirt Day through conversations with elders, shared prayers and crafting.

Organizer Shahina Siddiqui said many of the people attending the gathering, held at Canadian Mennonite University, share the traumatic impacts of colonialism.

Siddiqui said she herself had attended a Catholic day school in her home country of Pakistan, where she and other students were forced to speak English, and were hurt if they didn’t. Many Muslim-majority countries, she said, have been harmed by colonialism.

Province invests $3.8M in culinary arts training facility for francophone high school students

A new dedicated culinary arts training facility will give francophone high school students a place to learn the trade in French.

An aim to bring everyone together

Imagine a world where people work together to celebrate differences, learn from each other, build empathy and understanding.

A world where connection replaces division and gives every person a place to discover their gifts and strengths, so they can thrive.

That’s exactly what AIM 4 ALL is doing, giving individuals with and without disabilities a space to collaborate and create art as equals on the stage.

The goal of the new musical theatre company is to produce fully inclusive productions and give performance opportunities to their ensemble throughout the training season. By fostering a safe, creative, and diverse environment, AIM 4 ALL empowers participants of all abilities to share their talents and flourish together.

Restaurants ‘under pressure’

Happy hour outings are on Jackie Piggott’s calendar — but even those are fewer.

She and her husband might visit a restaurant once a month. It’s a change over the past year: earlier, they might go twice, thrice or weekly.

“It’s something that we’ve talked about, my husband and myself, just because the pricing is so expensive,” Piggott said, stopping during a grocery run in St. Vital. “It’s also better for our health.”

She’s in the majority: a new Restaurants Canada report found 80 per cent of Canadians are eating out less frequently because of higher living costs, up from 75 per cent in 2025.

Positive anticipation is growing about major housing developments underway in Winnipeg’s downtown

If traffic is light and the wind is down, Somia Sadiq is able to hear the roar of Winnipeg Jets fans twice: first through her window, then on TV.

From her apartment view high above downtown, she can look out at Graham Avenue’s painted pedestrian landscape, see construction cranes and hear the heavy equipment at work as massive housing projects take shape at The Forks, at what used to be Portage Place shopping centre and at the former Hudson’s Bay building.

Sadiq has lived at 300 Main for 2 1/2 years, a few steps from the city’s famous, windy and reopened-to-pedestrians Portage Avenue intersection. At 42 storeys, it’s the tallest building in Winnipeg.

She is among 18,000 downtown residents who will soon be joined by thousands of others attracted to the city’s core by the new wave of major construction projects.

East St. Paul product’s next wheelchair basketball chapter in Spain’s best men’s division

Every time Joshua Brown takes the court, the line between dreams and reality blurs.

You see, Brown, born and raised in East St. Paul, was diagnosed with cerebral palsy early in life. Understanding his condition, he came to terms with the challenge it would be to play stand-up sports competitively.

That didn’t stop him from dreaming, though.

Brown remembers watching Canada’s best in wheelchair basketball at the Paralympic Games on television as a youngster, and vividly recalls what went through his mind at the time.

More than 60,000 Manitobans rely on food bank each month, Harvest Manitoba report says

Linda Smith first turned to Harvest Manitoba in the early 1990s when her husband became permanently disabled. Now, on a fixed income, she continues to access the food bank to make ends meet.

Smith is one of more than 60,000 Manitobans now relying on food banks each month as demand continues to grow, a new report by Harvest Manitoba reveals.

The organization said in its 2025-26 impact report, released Thursday, that 61,188 people accessed a food bank in the province in March. Nearly half of them were children. The number of people accessing food banks in the province since 2020 has ballooned by more than 150 per cent, including more seniors, like Smith, than ever before.

Smith, a mother of five now in her 70s, first went to Harvest Manitoba in 1991 when he husband was disabled, and then again in the mid 2000s following a major car accident that led to a brain stem injury that forced her out of the workforce.

Oxford English Dictionary adds several words long used in the Caribbean and Bermuda

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — More than a dozen words long used in Bermuda and across the Caribbean got an official nod on Wednesday from the Oxford English Dictionary.

First in line is “bimpert,” a Bermudian word of unknown origin that is used to describe a stupid or foolish person. People on the tiny island in the north Atlantic often use it in this traditional phrase: “A bimpert is justah wuffless bye,” which roughly translates to: an idiot is just a worthless boy.

Another colorful addition is “hornerman,” a word used in the eastern Caribbean island of Trinidad and Tobago since 1975 to describe an unfaithful man or a man having a relationship with someone else's partner.

Leonard Alexander, a grocery store owner in Trinidad, chuckled at the inclusion of the word “hornerman.” He explained that to “horn” means being unfaithful, and now the world would know the term for a man who commits such an act.

Gillingham promises to make north Main revitalization a second-term priority

Scott Gillingham says he will work to “reset and renew” north Main Street, if he wins a second term as mayor.

The incumbent candidate promised Tuesday to devise a long-term plan to rejuvenate that section of the thoroughfare, noting it has recently suffered from decay.

“It has a rich history, a deep and proud history. But the last couple of years, to say it’s been underperforming would be an understatement…. So many stretches of Main Street here, I see derelict buildings, boarded-up businesses, piles of rubble after fires that sit waiting to be cleaned up,” Gillingham said.

“We can disrupt what is going on and turn the tide on north Main Street.”

‘We’re small, but we’re strong and mighty’: Lögberg-Heimskringla newspaper celebrates 140 years in Manitoba

A “friend” of the Icelandic community is now 140 years old.

Lögberg-Heimskringla, a Winnipeg-based newspaper that serves the Icelandic diaspora throughout North America, has published continuously for nearly a century-and-a-half. Staff and supporters celebrated the anniversary Saturday afternoon during a gathering at the Scandinavian Cultural Centre.

“Whatever else it may be, Lögberg-Heimskringla is a friend in print — a familiar cultural institution that has enriched our lives and understanding, informing us and entertaining us at the same time,” editor Stefan Jonasson wrote in the paper’s anniversary issue, published on Sept. 15.

“It has served as a vessel to convey the Icelandic culture and heritage in North America through the course of several generations and changing circumstances, preserving memories from the past, imagining what lies ahead and reinventing itself along the way.”

National Black Canadians Summit celebrates culture, combats racism

Despite the event’s name — the National Black Canadians Summit — Bruce Miller felt he should attend.

He booked a ticket. And so, this weekend, the Indigenous Manitoban joined roughly 1,500 people flocking to the RBC Convention Centre.

It’s a full schedule — addresses from a former Canadian governor general, sessions on Black mental health and anti-Black racism.

The annual event draws politicians, artists and other professionals from across the country.

Permanent exhibition at human rights museum looks at Black experience in Canada

Canada does not have a standardized national curriculum, something Alia Aluma sometimes notices in conversation.

“You can almost tell where someone’s from by asking them what they know about Black history because you will learn reasonably specific things, and so if you’re in Saskatchewan, you (may) have no idea that Africville exists,” says the Montreal-based creative and curator.

She’s referring to a small community in Halifax of historically Black Nova Scotians, founded by formerly enslaved African Americans who fled the United States during the War of 1812.

By the same token, it may seem unlikely that the average Nova Scotian is aware of the Order of Sleeping Car Porters, North America’s first Black union, established in Winnipeg two years before the General Strike of 1919.

Soul candles ritual connects women to the past

On one evening every fall during the 10 Days of Awe — the solemn period of reflection and repentance between the Jewish holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur — Jane Enkin sits down with a group of women in her Winnipeg home to make candles. The making of the candles is not simply for fun or creative expression — although it serves those purposes as well—but is, rather, an intentional re-enactment of an ancient and little-known High Holiday spiritual ritual.

That ritual is neshome likht, the crafting of ceremonial soul candles.

The making of soul candles during the High Holiday season was common practice among Ashkenazie or Eastern European Jewish women beginning in the 12th century. The candles were made for the souls of both the living and the dead, and often were customized with special wicks made from threads that were used, in another ancient custom, to measure Jewish cemeteries. The measuring of the cemeteries was seen as a way to connect to the deceased in the weeks leading up to Yom Kippur so that those who had already passed might prevail upon God to include their loved ones’ names in the Book of Life.

While the practice of measuring cemeteries has largely fallen by the wayside, the making of soul candles, or the laying of wicks, has managed to survive over the centuries and has enjoyed a significant resurgence in modern times.

Experts say small companions play huge role in well-being as we age

My mother-in-law will turn 89 this year and she’s in love. In her rural home — where she’s lived for more than 60 years — her new roommate, a kitten named Pepper, has brought sheer joy to her world.

She regales my partner with play-by-plays of Pepper’s antics and activities. She repeatedly expresses how happy she is since Pepper moved in. She can’t imagine her world without him. They’re inseparable.

With the huge role tiny Pepper now plays in her life, calls to our home are less frequent, as she immerses herself in playing with Pepper, cleaning up after him and just delighting in his every move. Pepper has given her a renewed sense of happiness and purpose, keeping her mind on the present and free of worry.

And though a kitten is an unusual choice for a senior, experts agree that a pet of any age will benefit immensely from someone regularly being at home with them, the same way my mother-in-law’s quality of life has been enhanced by Pepper’s presence.

United Way, other charities fight for dollars as donor base shrinks

Winnipeg’s charitable sector is being squeezed from both sides: demand for help is growing while the pool of donors to meet that need is shrinking.

The imbalance is increasingly being carried by a relatively small group of deep-pocketed donors. Last year, 600 people — about three per cent of United Way Winnipeg’s individual donors — accounted for roughly $8 million, or 55 per cent of individual donations.

The fundraising pitch isn’t getting any easier.

Homelessness and public drug use have become increasingly visible, household budgets remain strained and the problems charities are trying to address can seem so entrenched that donors may reasonably wonder what difference another contribution can make.

Fiddling and a jig mark ceremony to rename Wolseley-area school

Beckoned by a fiddle, students broke out into a jig behind Little Bluestem School on Thursday evening to mark the end of a multi-year renaming process.

“I couldn’t help myself. I just had to dance,” eight-year-old Stevie Morrison said at a ribbon-cutting event to celebrate the new signage at 511 Clifton St., formerly known as Wolseley School.

Stevie and Fallon Lovelace Sharkey, 7, were out of breath after bouncing up and down to the beat, attempting to execute the Red River Métis dance moves they were taught at school.

There were cheers and tears as adults watched jigging on school grounds once named after a man who did not believe in Métis peoples’ right to self-determination.

‘Parental rights’ issue resurfaces

Trustee campaign material that condemns rainbow flags is being met with outrage of all kinds, written complaints and, in one case, a cease-and-desist order.

“Parental rights,” including questions about classroom diversity, equity and inclusion policies, are resurfacing heading into school board elections across Manitoba.

“People are trying to advance their politics and their issues while simultaneously calling teachers ideologues and brainwashers,” said Shannon Moore, an associate professor at the University of Manitoba who studies sexual health education. “And I find that rich.”

Moore said parents have a right to choose independent school or homeschool, but they do not have a right to dictate curriculum that is currently developed using research and mainstream morals.

A community brought the Trident Press home

A truck pulled up outside Oseredok a few weeks ago carrying more than an exhibition. Inside were the panels of Ukrainian Voice: A Legacy Mosaic, a monumental artwork built from the printing blocks once used to reproduce the photographs and illustrations in one of Canada’s longest-running Ukrainian newspapers.

Anglophones hail Quebec ruling ordering elections agency to send bilingual documents

MONTREAL - Members of Quebec's anglophone community are hailing a Quebec Superior Court ruling that ordered Élections Québec to mail voting reminder cards in both French and English.

The ruling provides a temporary resolution to a controversy triggered by the adoption of legislation in 2022 that required public institutions to communicate with citizens in French, with few exceptions.

The ruling suspends provisions of Quebec's Charter of the French language for 10 days so that the provincial agency overseeing the elections can send out the reminder cards for voters in both languages.

"This is an important victory for English-speaking Quebecers and for democratic participation in Quebec," said Eva Ludvig, president of anglophone advocacy group TALQ.

Putting together annual fashion show takes many hard-working hands

A frenzy of activity is taking place behind the closed doors of WAG-Qaumajuq on Monday. It’s the day before Crafted on the Catwalk, the gallery’s annual fashion and design show, and the clock is ticking.

There’s less than 30 hours before the big event and it’s all hands on deck.

A steady stream of people walk in and out of the Memorial Boulevard entrance towards the main hall, which glows in soft hues as technicians test out lighting equipment.

The ground floor is teeming with people lugging chairs and pushing trolleys. A stream of white material unravelling from its roll prompts a shouted “OK to step on this?” and receives an equally loud ‘No!” in reply, voices raised above the metallic buzz of a drill as staff from a local production company put together seats.

Northern style: WAG-Qaumajuq, CBC series partner for runway show

Award-winning TV series North of North by Inuit filmmakers Stacey Aglok MacDonald (Qanurli, The Grizzlies) and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril (Angry Inuk, The Grizzlies) made a return to the small screen last week on APTN, CBC Gem and CBC TV with its second season première.

North of North is partnering with the Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq to celebrate the way it has propelled authentic northern fashion into the global spotlight at the gallery’s special edition of Crafted on the Catwalk Tuesday night, featuring fashion and design from Manitoba, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, Nunatsiavut and Nunavik.

Arnaquq-Baril and series stars Anna Lambe and Zorga Qaunaq spoke to the Free Press ahead of Tuesday’s catwalk show.

Free Press: The fashion in Season 1 set the bar so high. We’re barely into Season 2 and have already seen so many covetable, stunning looks. What story do the clothes tell the viewers?