Chinese newcomers protest over delays in security screening clearance

Dozens of Chinese newcomers rallied outside Winnipeg’s federal immigration office Friday to protest what they describe as untenable delays to Canada’s security screening process.

The rally against Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada comes after a surge in immigration security screening requests created backlogs for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

Protesters said the resulting delays have left them in limbo as they try to obtain permanent residency.

“We just want transparency,” said Pakying Chau, 26, who travelled from Hong Kong to Winnipeg in 2018 to study agribusiness.

Giant Tiger decision creates giant void for desperate population

A lot of Winnipeggers may shrug, but the end of Giant Tiger’s downtown store is a giant problem for many of the people living in the centre of the city.

It would have been difficult for anyone going into or passing by the Canadian discount chain’s Donald Street and Ellice Avenue location Thursday to miss the red notices posted on the store’s windows advising it will close on Nov. 7.

According to a 2024 Downtown Winnipeg BIZ report, about 18,000 people live in Winnipeg’s downtown.

More than 60,000 people work there, and some days — when there’s a big concert or the Jets play at Canada Life Centre, for example — the number of people spending time in the area increases significantly.

Bill Wilson, one of Canada’s last Second World War veterans, dies at 101

Veterans Affairs Canada says one of the country's last surviving Second World War veterans has died.

A social media post from the federal agency says William (Bill) Wilson died Monday at 101.

It says he was born in Manitoba in 1924, and served aboard the HMCS Ottawa and took part in the bloody D-Day landings on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944.

The post says after the war, Wilson was part of the Canadian delegations to D-Day and Netherlands anniversary commemorations.

On eve of Folklorama, Ghana pavilion scrambles to replace stolen outfits

Volunteers from Folklorama’s Ghana pavilion scrambled to replace cultural costumes for about 40 young dancers after the outfits were stolen in Winnipeg days before the annual festival begins.

Two plastic storage bins containing the costumes, to be worn by children and teenagers, were taken from the trunk of a parked car on Banning Street, near Notre Dame Avenue in the West End, likely late Wednesday or early Thursday.

“I felt sad that this has happened. I felt completely devastated for the mother who had them in her car,” said pavilion co-ordinator Abigail Larson. “The initial feeling of sadness changed to, ‘OK, how do we make this a positive?’”

The costumes belong to the Ghana Union of Manitoba Dancers, whose members have rehearsed for months for Folklorama, which begins Sunday.

The bountiful harvest: Thousands of visitors flock to St. Norbert Farmers’ Market every Saturday

While most of Winnipeg is still sleeping, or perhaps just starting to think about making the morning coffee, a patch of shade and sun just south of the Perimeter Highway is already humming with life.

Minister says changes to Nutrition North program set to roll out in the fall

OTTAWA - Northern Affairs Minister Rebecca Chartrand says changes to the Nutrition North program are coming this fall, but they won't be limited to subsidies to reduce the cost of food in the North.

Instead, Chartrand said, the federal government is looking at all options to help reduce food insecurity in the region, including strengthening local supply chains and supporting harvesters.

Nutrition North provides money to retailers to help bring down the high cost of groceries in 124 communities. Some retailers have been accused of not applying the full subsidy to the items they sell.

The federal government says it has been reviewing the program to strengthen the food economy, restructure governance and reform subsidies.

Get a little culture: Folklorama celebrates 55 years

You never have to wait more than a week in Winnipeg during summer for the next major festival.

And you never have to venture very far during Folklorama, which begins Sunday, before running into another church, community centre or curling club humming with music, food and cultural dress.

In sheer scale, it’s the most transformative festival Winnipeg has.

Featuring 45 pavilions this year, its 55th, Folklorama launched Wednesday at a news conference at The Forks. (The official kickoff is Sunday at Assiniboine Park’s Lyric Theatre and Field at 4 p.m., the only chance to see all the Pavilion Ambassadors in one spot.) The event also featured a citizen ceremony for several dozen new Canadians, presided over by Canada’s first Métis citizenship judge, Suzanne Carrière.

New Indigenous languages commissioner says her job is to support incoming leadership

OTTAWA - The interim head of the Indigenous languages commission, which is now facing a federal audit, says her job is to support new leadership to ensure a fresh start for the institution.

Candice St-Aubin, who left her job as a senior federal public servant to take on the interim commissioner's role, said on social media it's deeply meaningful work that "asks much of the mind, heart and spirit."

"I do not approach this work as temporary. The responsibility to support the preservation, revitalization, and strengthening of Indigenous languages in Canada does not pause while institutional processes continue," St-Aubin wrote.

"While the formal process will determine the leadership team that follows, I see my role as helping support those who will welcome them and ensuring they can begin their work on a strong and respectful foundation."

Report draws link between missing Indigenous women and trafficking across Canada

A new analysis of online sex advertisements featuring Indigenous women has identified cross-country corridors that are highly indicative of sex trafficking, while revealing insight into how women and girls are exploited in Winnipeg.

Temporary foreign workers rally to stay

Close to 100 temporary foreign workers, mainly from China, whose time in Canada is running out, rallied on the steps of the Manitoba legislature Tuesday to raise awareness of their situation.

They arrived in Manitoba before the federal government cut immigration levels — when international students and temporary foreign workers had a shot at becoming permanent residents if they met the requirements to stay, said Ruby Lu.

“We come here for a few years and we work for a few years, pay taxes. Some of us are already bought a house,” said Lu, whose work permit expires at the end of the year.

“So if our (permit) expires, we don’t know what to do,” she said in front of demonstrators holding signs with messages including “we love Manitoba” and “bring back TPP” — the temporary public policy used by the Manitoba provincial nominee program to support open work permits and prioritize permanent residency for select candidates.

Cultural consultation gives Indigenous stories strength in Netflix’s new Little House on the Prairie

Through her work as an Indigenous consultant for film and TV, Julie O’Keefe, a citizen of the Osage Nation, has brought accuracy and authenticity to works such as Martin Scorsese’s 2023 crime drama Killers of the Flower Moon, the 2025 western miniseries American Primeval and, most recently, Rebecca Sonnenshine’s new adaptation of Little House on the Prairie.

But she doesn’t work solo.

“One of the things that I always say is, in any of these jobs that I do — whether it’s Shoshone and Paiute and Ute or Osage — I never come alone to this,” says O’Keefe, who grew up in Pawhuska, Okla., the heart of the Osage Nation, and is now based in Santa Fe, N.M. “I engage because those stories are so much richer with our voices added to it, and we know that.

“I’m sitting down with brilliant directors, brilliant writers, and I’m handing over pieces of history that they’re like, ‘How come nobody knows this?’ And the great part is, this is the time in history … people are really starting to get on top of wanting this for their stories, because it really wasn’t of any importance before.”

Together Project helps newcomers feel at home

When refugee families first arrive in Winnipeg they are plunged into an alien culture.

Often fleeing dangerous circumstances, discrimination or war, displaced families are forced to navigate bewildering societal norms and cultural expectations in an unfamiliar environment.

It can often feel utterly overwhelming.

And while government settlement agencies are an invaluable foundational resource, nothing can replace human connection and peer-to-peer guidance.

Anishinaabe Days teepee poles vandalized

An act of vandalism to a teepee at the Treaty One Development Corp’s Anishinaabe Days did not stop the celebrations from continuing over the weekend.

An eroding Winnipeg neighbourhood looks to new foundations

The lot Jesse Bettcher lives on in Winnipeg's North End used to be a pile of burnt rubble. Same with the one next door. And the one across the street. But he's now the proud owner of a two-storey house with blue-grey siding and white trim.

Young Quebec sailor, 17, aims to challenge gender stereotypes in sailing

MONTREAL - At 17, Jasmine Pernot is set to become the youngest skipper and one of only three women leading crews in Quebec's new offshore sailing race, hoping to show other young women they belong at the helm.

Jasmine Pernot will lead a crew of seven in the inaugural St-Laurent 400, a 400-nautical-mile race that begins in Tadoussac, at the mouth of the Saguenay River on Quebec's North Shore, on Aug. 6 and finishes in the Magdalen Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

"Everyone has been looking forward to this race because it's a format we haven't had yet in Quebec," Pernot said Thursday before a training session at the Deux-Montagnes sailing club, northwest of Montreal.

Unlike shorter races where crews return to shore at the end of the day, competitors will spend more than 24 consecutive hours at sea.

For unique Menno-centric take on Free Press, satirist mines her jibes between the lines

Free Press readers of a certain vintage may remember when tuning into a local radio station to hear a pair of disc jockeys perusing a section of the Saturday edition was appointment listening.

On Sunday mornings from 1962 until the mid-1980s, CKRC 630 personalities Bob Washington and Tom Ashmore — better known as Wash and Ash — entertained Winnipeggers of all ages by impersonating the likes of Dennis the Menace, Beetle Bailey and Archie Andrews, as they lent their voices to that weekend’s multi-page, colour comic insert.

In a 1984 interview, Washington, who died in 2016 at the age of 82, attributed the weekly program’s longevity to audiences enjoying the antics of “two middle-aged guys in 24 dialects, giving their version of what Dagwood is saying to Blondie, or what Hägar the Horrible is bragging about.”

More than 40 years later, another Winnipegger is turning to the Free Press for her material. Only instead of reading the paper’s funnies, Lori Klassen, a mother of three and grandmother of two, is funnily reading the paper.

While Osborne Village hub has transitioned from church to community space, entrenched issues persist

On Wednesday afternoon, when the sun shone its hottest, the shaded lawn in front of the Augustine Centre was empty, save for a shopping cart abandoned beside the church’s old stone entry steps. A security guard milled about the sidewalk on the west side of the building, though in that moment, he didn’t have much to do.

Nearby a man was lying, not on church property, but on a grassy bit of boulevard wedged between the sidewalk and Pulford Street. He lay on his back with his sneakered feet akimbo, gazing up at the leaves. Beside him was a shopping cart piled with blankets, a bag of clothes and other sundry belongings.

A few minutes later, someone emerged from the Oak Table drop-in centre in the church basement, strolled up to the prone man and spoke to him briefly. The man sat up, repacked his cart and pushed it across River Avenue. He collected a second cart he’d stashed there, and rattled away down the back lane behind the Gas Station Theatre.

After that, for a while, the only people around the building were the security guard and a few small groups of friends and relatives emerging from the Oak Table drop-in, chatting in friendly conversation as they made their way down the street.

Cleanup squad makes positive waves across city

The period after the snow melts isn’t when Winnipeg is at its most attractive.

As months of hidden trash and accumulated waste emerge, streets and sidewalks across the city quickly become covered in litter.

But Take Pride Winnipeg’s latest litter index has found the city looks cleaner than it did earlier this spring. Every area of Winnipeg showed improvement.

The organization’s overall litter index score dropped from 5.92 after the snow melted to 3.47 in its latest assessment. The index measures litter levels on a scale of one to 10, with one representing a perfectly clean area and 10 representing the worst levels of litter.

‘Too big to rig’: Alberta separation petition succeeds with 223K verified signatures

EDMONTON - A citizen-led petition seeking to force a vote on Alberta quitting Canada is officially successful.

Elections Alberta announced Friday it verified nearly 223,000 signatures out of almost 280,000 valid names counted. The petition needed almost 178,000 signatures to be successful.

Despite the result, the document is largely moot.

It was quashed in court in May, although the ruling is being appealed by those behind the petition campaign as well as by Premier Danielle Smith's government.

Inner City Youth Alive changes lives, one program at a time, in city's North End

Inner City Youth Alive has worked in Winnipeg's North End neighbourhood, running programs including a drop‑in centre, summer camps, school support and a wilderness program, for 40 years. The Free Press spent a day following the organization’s work.

First Nation evacuees fleeing wildfire face safety risks in Toronto, leaders say

TORONTO - In a Toronto hotel off Highway 401, a bag check station screening for alcohol greets people in the lobby.

Cat Lake First Nation operations manager Derek Spence said it’s to limit drinking among residents who evacuated from the community north of Sioux Lookout, Ont., last week as wildfires closed in and downed power lines. Alcohol and drugs are much easier to come by in Toronto than the remote fly-in community residents call home, Spence explained.

Substance use and fears of suspicious people hanging around the hotel where Cat Lake residents are sheltering have been fuelling some residents’ desire to return home as soon as possible, even as nearly 180 wildfires continue to burn in Ontario’s north.

“It is a scary city for some people, and there (were) people hanging around here trying to abduct some of the ladies,” Spence said. “Someone's gonna get lost, someone's going to get hurt, someone's going to get killed.”

‘Existential’: Community papers struggling to survive amid Canada Post flyer delivery

MONTREAL - Community newspaper owners claim Canada Post is helping to drive some of them out of business thanks to an expanded partnership it forged with the country's largest printing firm.

Last month, the Crown corporation launched the countrywide rollout of a joint venture with Transcontinental Inc. known as Raddar, which saw Canada Post start delivering discount-deal leaflets in all 10 provinces.

Community newspapers have traditionally relied on flyer bundles to fund their publications, which are delivered free to millions of readers in urban and rural communities.

Paul Deegan, CEO of News Media Canada, which represents scores of community papers among the 550 news titles it advocates for, says those outlets are now losing ad clients after being undercut by a government-backed enterprise. The revenue loss threatens to shutter news outlets and leave residents less informed about their communities, he said.

In an apartment above the Sherbie, famous local artists line the walls

Directly above the West Broadway vendor and noisy bar now known as the Kyoto Kat Club, amid a primly kept wardrobe and dirty coffee mugs, Josh Peterson’s bachelor suite is bursting with coveted Manitoba art.