Great workplace shorts debate: time to free knees

We’ve reached the point where employers need to reconsider what “professional appearance” means. Spoiler alert: it has very little to do with the amount of fabric covering your shins.

‘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.

Human toll of drug crisis hurts everyday citizens, too: biz leader

The Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce has given a thumbs-up to the recent 10-day police crackdown on open drug use and trafficking downtown, and says governments should follow up the effort with a public safety strategy.

The chamber released a statement Friday that says the enforcement initiative, which began June 24, was required owing to the city’s growing safety concerns.

“Businesses, employees are scared to come to work. Businesses are talking to me about closing their doors,” said president and CEO Loren Remillard in an interview. “There’s a human toll being exacted through this crisis, and it’s not just on the homeless community.”

Remillard said the news release was issued weeks after the crackdown to allow for the dust to settle.

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.

Critics accuse Ottawa of ignoring human rights as it signs trade deal with Ecuador

OTTAWA - Critics are accusing Ottawa of prioritizing trade over human rights by signing a free trade deal with Ecuador.

International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu and Ecuador's minister of production, foreign trade and investment Luis Alberto Jaramillo took part in a signing event in Ottawa on Friday.

A Global Affairs Canada news release issued Friday said the event marks an "important milestone in Canada's efforts to diversify trade and create new opportunities for Canadian businesses."

"It also reflects Canada and Ecuador’s shared commitment to strengthening their trade and investment relationship and bringing the agreement into force as soon as possible," said the release.

Cab companies hailed for improved Indigenous relations

Three taxi drivers have been fired and others suspended without pay since a zero-tolerance policy for mistreatment of Indigenous passengers was implemented by Winnipeg’s two largest cab companies.

Giant metal roosters spread autism acceptance in Maine after town zoning spat

OGUNQUIT, Maine (AP) — Giant metal roosters are popping up on lawns in and around a community in southern Maine and as far away as New Zealand in support of a 6-year-old autistic girl and her love of the colorful creations.

David and Sara LeBlanc had a rotating display of the roughly 6-foot-tall (1.8-meter-tall) ornaments decorating their Ogunquit lawn until officials in the small coastal town deemed them to be impermissible advertising for their attached restaurant, The Omelette Factory.

The couple initially resisted the town's removal order, insisting the roosters were meant to comfort their daughter Pyper, not advertise their business.

“Roosters don’t lay eggs,” David LeBlanc told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Carney says ‘everything’s on the table’ for tariff retaliation against United States

CHARLOTTETOWN - Prime Minister Mark Carney says "everything's on the table" if Canada can't secure a deal to avoid a dramatic escalation in U.S. tariffs planned for next month.

Carney was asked Thursday what measures his government is considering in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's threat to impose 50 per cent tariffs on a variety of Canadian goods.

While the prime minister said Canada has a "full range" of options, he refused to identify specific measures Ottawa could take in retaliation if Trump’s new tariffs come into force.

“It would be counterproductive at this stage to respond in advance. But it’s important to know what your options are, to have worked it through,” Carney said.

A foodborne parasite and government efficiency

Week-long explosive diarrhea. There. Now that we’ve got your attention, here’s a cautionary tale about red-tape reduction and public health.

Small business group says immigration cut makes it tough to hire workers

Canada’s immigration clampdown has put employers in remote and rural places in a bind and put fear into employees from abroad who want to stay.

Yi (Rick) Zheng and his family from China, who’ve been working in Thompson for two years and hope to gain permanent residency, said they fear their work permits will expire and they’ll have to leave the country.

Zheng, 41, says he works as a restaurant cook and his wife works at a hotel in the northern city, where their two children, ages 10 and 12, are thriving in school.

“I work very hard every day. Our kitchen doesn’t have enough staff.”

Manitoba Premier Kinew ‘willing to entertain’ Alberta to Ontario pipeline

CHARLOTTETOWN - Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said Wednesday he's open to a west-east pipeline being pitched by his counterparts in Alberta and Ontario.

Kinew, speaking to reporters at a meeting of premiers in Charlottetown, said the pipeline could make Canada stronger and that there are workers in his province who would be eager to help build it.

"I love Alberta, I love Albertans, so (I'm) willing to entertain the idea," he said.

The pipeline proposal was announced earlier this month by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Ontario Premier Doug Ford.

New graphic images are rolling out on cigarette packs in Canada. Could more be done?

TORONTO - A baby swarmed by smoke. A toilet of bloody urine. A cancerous colon.

These are among the new series of 13 graphic images that are required to be printed on cigarette packages across Canada by Aug. 1.

This is the fourth set of warnings mandated by Health Canada since 2000, aiming to reduce tobacco use to less than 5 per cent by 2035.

According to the federal health agency’s latest projections, Canada appears on track to reach that goal. Tobacco use was down to an estimated 13 per cent in 2024, compared to 29 per cent in 2001. Approximately 300,000 Canadians who smoked in 2023 quit in 2024.

Landlord miffed after city orders cleanup of riverside homeless camp

A West Broadway landlord is angry the City of Winnipeg has ordered him to clear away a homeless encampment from his riverfront property or have the cleanup cost added to his property tax bill.

Marvin Sharp, CEO of Astroid Management Ltd., which manages the Pen-Eve Apartments at 35 Balmoral St., said the city is forcing private property owners to deal with a problem they didn’t create.

“This is kind of like the neighbours throwing their garbage over the fence, every single day, and the city’s saying, ‘You have to go clean this up, but we’re not going to go tell the neighbour to stop doing that,’” Sharp said. “What do you want me to do here? You’ve got a serious problem here. We’re not talking about someone throwing garbage on the ground. We’re talking about encampments.”

Sharp said he received a city compliance order dated July 10, which was viewed by the Free Press. It says a bylaw officer observed “an accumulation of garbage” on the property, including abandoned goods of manufacture, tents and unattended shopping carts.

Nearly one in four watercraft fail inspection during roadside blitz to prevent aquatic pests

More than 120 watercraft failed a roadside inspection over the weekend aimed at slowing the spread of aquatic invasive species, including zebra mussels.

Judge approves a $1.5B Anthropic settlement over pirated books used to train the Claude chatbot

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge has approved a $1.5 billion copyright settlement in which artificial intelligence company Anthropic will pay thousands of authors about $3,000 per book after using pirated copies of their works to train its Claude chatbot.

District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín said in a Monday ruling that the class-action settlement provides “meaningful relief” to affected authors and publishers.

About 91% of the more than 482,000 books covered by the ruling have been claimed by authors or publishers who are now due payment.

Plaintiff attorney Justin Nelson said in a statement that the settlement was "the largest known copyright recovery in history. We look forward to making distributions to the Class as promptly as possible.”

Court orders Alberta prison to take steps to protect inmates from extreme heat

OTTAWA - As the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal prepares to hear a separate case about extreme heat in prisons, the Federal Court has directed an Alberta prison to take steps to install air conditioning to protect inmates.

The court said Correctional Service Canada has failed to put an effective solution in place at the Edmonton Institution for Women's secure unit, despite complaints about extreme heat that go back two decades.

"The excessively high temperatures have caused inmates to suffer panic attacks, psychological distress, and sleep deprivation. It is a long-standing problem: CSC has known of design problems with the temperature regulation equipment in Secure since as early as 2012," Justice Meaghan Conroy wrote in the July 16 decision.

One affidavit from an inmate housed in 2018 in a corner cell nicknamed "the oven" said a maintenance worker recorded a temperature of over 40 C in her cell.

Restorative justice program helps newcomers find their way

The Masjid Bilal is a chunky grey building just off Logan Avenue surrounded by warehouses and railyards. It looks more like a bunker than a mosque.

But on a summer Friday afternoon, its green-and-white carpeted interior is humming with activity. Two men in white robes and flat woolen caps are seated on the carpet poring over a copy of the Qur’an. A few young boys dodge through hallways, poking curious noses into open doors. At the back, next to a table piled with prayer mats, two girls in hijabs share schoolyard gossip. In the kitchen, women are cooking up pots of rice and chicken for people who will soon arrive for Friday prayers.

The Masjid Bilal is a community hub for members of Winnipeg’s African diaspora as well as Muslims from many other countries.

It’s also home to the Bilal Community and Family Centre, an innovative, community-centred nonprofit that is meeting vital needs for newcomers in this city.

Opposition brewing as data centre capacity is set to explode across Canada

OTTAWA - Across Canada, plans are underway for a massive boom in construction of the huge new data centres needed for artificial intelligence technology.

But opposition is also building as residents worry about how the facilities will affect their communities — and as the data centres themselves become a symbol of the anxieties swirling around AI.

"An AI data centre is like the physical avatar of AI. And so it's just like concrete and steel, physical space of a technology that increasingly I think Canadians are worried is going to have a really disruptive impact on their lives," said David Coletto, CEO of Abacus Data.

"The local concerns are tied to the resources that these data centres consume. So it's about electricity, it's about water, it’s about noise."

A whack-a-mole approach to a complex problem

The Winnipeg Police Service has produced a report that details the results of a recent 10-day crackdown on open drug use and trafficking. Unfortunately, and to the detriment of both the community and police service, they just won’t show it to anyone.

This week, a WPS spokeswoman confirmed no decision has been made “regarding reporting, future activities or the release of results” from the drug sweep. As the operation was ongoing, WPS did say that it “interacted” with more than 100 people and arrested 25, with most of those related to warrants and breaches of court orders, not open drug use or trafficking.

These very preliminary results prompted criticism that the WPS had failed to adequately collaborate with social service agencies that help the homeless and those suffering from addictions and mental health.

A detailed report on the results of the sweep, along with commentary from the police about lessons learned, is essential if police are to engage in this kind of initiative again. In fact, it would be hard to see how police could ever unleash a similar operation without some sort of accounting of the impacts — both good and bad — of the first effort.

Drug court helps break addiction’s bleak cycle

BRANDON — Judge Shauna Hewitt-Michta often finds herself scanning the court docket to see who could be a candidate for the Westman drug treatment court.

“We have quite a revolving door in terms of substance abuse and addiction, criminal behaviour, incarceration and then the cycle repeats,” she said.

The drug treatment court aims to break that cycle.

“The best chance of long-term protection of the public is the rehabilitation of offenders, and at the end of the day, I think that’s what this is all about — trying to get down to those root causes of crime and hopefully, helping people break the cycle,” she said.

First Nations’ concerns overshadowed by talk of major projects

The contrast could not have been more stark in Ottawa — unceded Algonquin territory — this week.