Squirrel skirmish: animal groups fight province’s pesticide approval

Animal rights groups are protesting a decision by the province to allow the city to use two chemicals to control its ground squirrel populations at some parks.

The city received permission from the province to use Rozol RTU field rodent bait and RoCon concentrate rodenticide for a year in an effort to control squirrels at nine parks.

“It’s disappointing,” said Danae Tonge of Manitoba Animal Save. “The city had a year to come up with something else but they didn’t. Why would the province have approved this?”

The group is set to hold a noon-hour rally outside city hall on Thursday followed by a protest at the Legislature starting at 1:15 p.m.

Councillors brace for impact when provincial education property tax hikes crash into Winnipeggers’ mailboxes

The despondency in the voices of Winnipeg city councillors Jeff Browaty and Evan Duncan was palpable.

The two suburban councillors took the opportunity this week to slam the provincial NDP government for increases in the education portion of property taxes that many Winnipeg property owners will see later this spring when they receive their tax bills.

According to Browaty (North Kildonan) and Duncan (Charleswood-Tuxedo-Westwood), even though the tax increases are mostly due to provincial policies and school division decisions, the city will end up bearing the brunt of criticism.

“I’d like to see them take accountability and ownership of it,” said Duncan, pointing south from city hall to the Manitoba legislature.

Alberta government moves to drastically reduce access to medically assisted dying

EDMONTON - Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's government took steps Wednesday to drastically restrict who's eligible for medical assistance in dying.

Smith’s United Conservative Party government introduced a bill that, if passed, would limit medical assistance in dying, better known as MAID, to those likely to die of natural causes within a year.

Those under 18 would still be prohibited regardless of condition, in line with current federal rules.

But Smith said Ottawa's framework is largely missing the mark.

Most Canadians want to ban or regulate algorithmic pricing, poll shows

OTTAWA - Most Canadians want the government to ban or regulate the use of algorithms to set prices, a new poll suggests — with half of respondents saying the practice is unfair because it can result in people paying different prices for the same product.

The Abacus Data poll, which was conducted online and can't be assigned a margin of error, surveyed 1,931 Canadians on algorithmic pricing.

The poll defined algorithmic pricing as the adjustment of prices in real time based on such factors as who is buying, the time of day and browsing behaviour.

Algorithmic pricing is already established in sectors like travel but has been expanding into other markets, such as retail and rental housing. It could, for example, lead to a retailer charging different prices for diapers online, depending on what it can glean about a shopper's habits.

Ottawa contributes $91M to 10-storey Naawi-Oodena apartment block

The federal government has announced $91 million to support the development of a 10-storey apartment building that’s under construction at the former Kapyong Barracks site.

“This is an exciting day, but it really marks the doors opening for future with a lot more affordable homes for people who need them the most,” said federal Housing Minister Gregor Robertson.

The project — named Endayaan Omaa, meaning “home is here” in the Anishinaabemowin language — will create 260 housing units in southwest Winnipeg; 109 units will offer affordable rents below median market value.

It is part of the larger plan to transform the former military site into Canada’s largest urban reserve. The overall project, led by a consortium of seven Treaty One Nations and dubbed Naawi-Oodena, is expected to provide about 5,000 homes.

David Suzuki is turning 90. Environmentalists may have ‘lost, big time,’ but he still has hope

David Suzuki admits defeat — at least in some respects.

The geneticist-turned-environmentalist, who is days away from his 90th birthday, reflected on his legacy as he prepared to release his latest book, "Lessons from a Lifetime," which compiles photos and stories from his life, as well as testimonials written by those he inspired.

"To me, the important legacy that I want to tell my grandchildren is, look, I tried. I love you. I did the best I could for you. And I tried," he said on a video call last month.

"The measure of a person is not whether they succeeded — because we've lost, environmentalists have lost, big time — but that we tried."

Culture minister says ‘serious conversation’ needed about AI systems and news media

OTTAWA - Culture Minister Marc Miller says the government must have a serious conversation about AI systems’ use of news.

"Having the news cannibalized and regurgitated undermines the spirit of the use of that news in the first place and the purpose for which it's used and we have to have a serious conversation with the platforms that purport to use it including AI shops," Miller said.

Miller was asked whether the government is open to extending its Online News Act to AI companies. The Online News Act requires Meta and Google to compensate media outlets for displaying their content. Meta pulled news off its platforms in response, but Google has been making payments under the act.

He said it’s not a question about opening up the legislation but of making sure companies are acting responsibly.

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.

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."

How Canadian box-office hit ‘Undertone’ got to the screen without public funding

TORONTO - Personal grief, a potentially haunted house and a sound-driven sense of dread helped turn “Undertone” into one of the year’s most unexpected horror hits.

But the biggest twist? The director says he made the film with no government money after his previous work was rejected by Canada’s public film funders.

The Toronto-shot film opened to $9.3 million at the North American box office over the weekend — a scary good debut for a movie made on a $500,000 budget.

For director Ian Tuason, his debut feature’s unlikely path to the big screen is also a quiet critique of how Canadian films get financed.

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.

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.

Speed limits and safety — follow the science

The premier of Manitoba recently appeared hesitant about collaborating with Winnipeg City Council on a public works proposal to lower the city’s default residential speed limit from 50 km/h to 40 km/h. Without a provincial amendment to the Highway Traffic Act, the city says implementing the change would require installing signs on hundreds of streets, at a cost of up to $10 million to taxpayers.

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.”

Manitoba looks to strengthen whistleblower protections

Employers who’ve been accused of taking action against a whistleblower would be forced to prove their innocence, under proposed legislation introduced by the Manitoba government.

“Individuals who report wrongdoing should be protected,” said Public Service Minister Adrien Sala, who introduced Bill 14 last week.

Currently, people must prove they were laid off, demoted or otherwise punished because they’d reported wrongdoing.

Changes to Manitoba’s Public Interest Disclosure Act, which apply only to public-sector employees, would also enable workers who have signed non-disclosure agreements or other restrictive contracts to file whistleblower reports.

The supreme leader is the problem

Prime Minister Mark Carney says the world is being run by hegemons. “We live in an era of great power rivalry,” he said in his now-famous Davos speech, where those countries assert their economic, political, and military strength to dominate the less powerful.

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.