Smith’s pretzel logic confuses

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith had both sides of her mouth working overtime on Aug. 30, when she spoke at an event in Calgary to commemorate Alberta Day, the annual celebration of the province’s entry into Confederation in 1905 (officially Sept. 1, it was celebrated on the weekend).

Smith’s comments — and the things she did not say — revealed a lot about the political tightrope the premier is trying to walk over the challenges currently faced by her province. At the top of that list of challenges is a persistent campaign to separate Alberta from the aforementioned Confederation. A campaign that Smith appears to both support and oppose, depending on which day of the week it is.

Her Alberta Day remarks were an excellent case in point.

Smith has decided that on Oct. 19, Albertans will vote on a series of non-binding propositions in a province referendum. One of those questions will ask Albertans whether they want to hold a referendum on separation, thus making this fall’s vote a “referendum on whether to hold a referendum,” as some observers have dubbed it.

For newcomer pizza purveyors, it’s all about crafting solid foundations

A recent poll conducted by an Internet-based market-research firm determined that close to 20 per cent of people eschew their leftover pizza crust.

Some argued that the residual crust lacks flavour. Others submitted that it’s too hard or crunchy to enjoy sans toppings. Given that information, what are we to make of Crusty Craft Pizza, a five-month-old takeout spot whose owners are so confident in their European-style pizza crust that they’ve chosen to highlight it in their business moniker?

Whenever somebody informs them they don’t like pizza crust, their response is, well, they haven’t tried theirs, says Oleksii Samokvhal, who together with his wife, Iryna Mehedyn, opened Crusty Craft Pizza in early April, at 1311 Day St. in Transcona.

“It’s thin in the middle, with raised edges we hand-form ourselves,” says Mehedyn, a native of Ukraine who, like her Kyiv-born husband, relocated to Winnipeg to escape the conflict in their home country.

Learn to make natural plant dyes and more at the Manitoba Fibre Festival

“I like to grow plants with purpose,” Bethany Booy said as we sat in her backyard in St. Vital on a warm day in August.

Booy is a fibre artist who gardens and forages locally grown plants for projects that she makes such as clothing items and baskets. She made a vest, for example, out of yarn she dyed using the indigo plant (Persicaria tinctoria) which she grows in her garden. She has also made her own natural dyes for yarn using onion skin, coreopsis (tick seed), and dock, a common perennial weed, as well as sumac and the bark and leaves from apple trees.

She grows a range of flowers such as Hopi Red Dye Amaranth, Rudbeckia black-eyed Susan, black hollyhock (Alcea rosea Nigra), Scabiosa Black Knight, marigolds and Cosmos sulphureus (sulphur cosmos) which she harvests and dries, and then uses for natural dyeing.

Booy also grows a dainty flower called Dyer’s chamomile. “It’s not used for making tea. It dyes a beautiful bright yellow,” she says.

Minnesota paddler’s many adventures in Boundary Waters, Canadian Shield chronicled

Minnesotan Bob O’Hara was a young lad when he fell in love with camping and canoeing on the Boundary Waters that stretch from northern Minnesota to the Canadian Shield.

He first launched a canoe as a Boy Scout in the 1950s, and as of last summer you could still find him on the border lakes, his 67th consecutive year on the waterways that launched his 50-year odyssey of Far North expeditions. In Where the Green Light Shines, author Ryan Rodgers describes it as “an astonishing run, every year from the age of 18 to 84.”

As remarkable as that seems, it is the five decades O’Hara spent paddling through northern Canada — mostly as a leader, dealing with often horrendous weather, one set of rapids after another, food shortages and a myriad of other concerns while living in the exhilaration of discovery and of communing with nature — that tell the real story of a life lived large, outside the constraints of everyday urban existence.

Not that O’Hara didn’t have to work for a living and to finance his adventures. He began a teaching job in 1963 and started what he’d continue throughout his career: taking students canoeing and camping in the Boundary Waters. During the first five years of the job, he taught for 180 days and camped for 125.

Culture, language confront the almighty algorithm

If the only public discourse that counts occurs solely online, and if the online spaces are controlled by bots, propagandists and American corporate interests, can Canada even make and enforce our own laws any more?

‘Come September…’

Making predictions in print is rarely a good idea, and saying “I told you so” is always rude, but rules are made to be broken. On June 10, one week before the short-lived ‘memorandum of understanding’ on the Middle East war was signed, I wrote a piece on that war that predicted what would happen next.

It said: “The next few months should be eventful but not alarming: ceasefires made, broken and remade on the U.S.-Iran front, while Gaza rots … Come September, however, things will probably start to get exciting, because the elections will create deadlines. Not for Iran, of course, but for Trump and for Netanyahu.”

I’m not claiming any great insight here. To the contrary, I’m pointing out that the probable course of events was so obvious as to be almost inevitable. The Iranians had already won just by not losing, and Donald Trump had no cards left to play.

It wasn’t yet clear that his cartoonish defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, had already managed to squander most of America’s large stockpile of precision-guided bombs and missiles with no visible effect on Iranian strategy, but that doesn’t really matter anyway. American weapons are of no relevance so long as Iran can keep control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Former MLA details early years, struggles with alcohol and his path forward in earnest new memoir

Kevin Chief, the former two-time MLA for Point Douglas, is very unusual for a politician. In casual conversations with Manitobans of various voting flavours over the past decade and change, this reviewer can’t recall one single person ever saying they didn’t like the guy. On two occasions, acquaintances mused that they would cross party lines (in opposite directions) to vote for Chief if he ever ran for office in their riding.

Granting that these observations are anecdotal, how does one account for such broad appeal?

It’s not charisma so much as sincerity. When Chief speaks about his experiences and his hopes for the world (and, as a public speaker and presenter, he has given a lot of speeches both in and out of office), it comes across as both heartfelt and thoroughly ruminated upon. The same is true, as it turns out, in his new book.

With a Name Like Chief, co-written with Stu Slayen, is not a political memoir. While Chief’s political career did the most to put him in the public eye, the five years he spent in the Manitoba legislature starting in 2011 make up only a small percentage of his life, and receive a commensurate page count. Instead, two of the major throughlines of the book are the intertwined roles of alcohol and Canada’s horrific colonization project, and how they impacted his life experiences.

Lake city extraordinaire

Although it’s the nearest eastward city, Kenora is so not Winnipeg.

Driving into its lake-embraced, pine-embellished hilly terrain, Margie and I saw three fawns, a fox and a bashful bear near the west side’s odd glacial “rock holes.” Plus, we encountered a 12-metre tall, green-striped muskie named Husky.

And one giant yellow spider. The eight-legged beastie is made from a Volkswagen Beetle, and grasps a wrench and a hammer while wearing a top hat made from an oil barrel. It’s nameless. How about, um, Bugsy?

The tourist information centre boasts North America’s biggest collection of — yes, you guessed it — outboard motors. Staff admitted, “Well, it used to be the biggest. It might still be the biggest not privately held.”

Transcona's Flamingo car wash promises 'soapy disco' for your ride

For Kyle Thompson, foam is where the heart is.

As a high school student at Winnipeg’s Transcona Collegiate, one of his classes required him to create a business plan. He was cleaning vehicles part-time at the Chamois Car Wash and Detail Centre, so he used the assignment to envision a car wash of his own — one with a Regent Avenue address.

Fast forward some 25 years later and that dream is a reality. Thompson is the co-owner and general manager at Flamingo Express Car Wash.

Located at 868 Regent Ave. West — east of the row of car dealerships that call the thoroughfare home and across the street from an Amazon distribution hub — Flamingo opened last month.

UN General Assembly endorses a new world map that shows more accurately Africa’s size

The United Nations General Assembly on Friday endorsed a new world map that represents Africa more accurately in its larger size, a culmination of a recent campaign led by African countries and advocacy groups.

Friday’s resolution, which was sponsored by Togo and backed by members of the African Union, was passed with 164 member states voting in favor. Only the U.S. voted against it while six other countries — Serbia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova and Ukraine — abstained.

The vote encourages governments and institutions around the world to replace the traditional Mercator map, commonly used since the 16th Century, with the Equal Earth projection that advocates and geographers say shows locations more accurately.

The Mercator projection shows Greenland and Africa as appearing to be about the same size whereas in the Equal Earth projection that shows continents in their true proportions, Africa is 14 times larger than Greenland.

Complex dual production 'R+J: Closing Night' brings theatre audience in on panicked process of putting on a show

Theatre Projects Manitoba will attempt to pull off an extraordinary feat of live performance next week with a metatheatrical experiment that walks the tightrope between on-stage drama and backstage chaos.

‘Quite a journey’: dozens move into transitional housing downtown

Dozens of residents have moved into transitional housing units in a former university building in downtown Winnipeg.

Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith said 42 residents have moved into suites on the third and fourth floors of a seven-storey building previously owned by Providence University College and Theological Seminary. There will be space for as many as 118 people who were in encampments or otherwise homeless.

The remaining units under renovation are expected to be ready and occupied in the coming weeks, Smith said.

“This has been two years in the making,” the minister said at a media event with residents, staff, neighbours and supporters. The building cost the province $24.4 million to purchase and renovate.

Councillors want city to revamp homeless camp approach

Three Winnipeg councillors say the city uses lack of housing as an excuse to drop the ball on managing public spaces affected by the homeless crisis.

Sherri Rollins, Cindy Gilroy and John Orlikow want bureaucrats to develop a co-ordinated, proportionate and measured approach to maintaining safe, accessible and usable public spaces.

On Friday, they put forward a motion at the final city centre committee meeting before the Oct. 28 election. Gilroy is the only one seeking re-election, in the Daniel McIntyre ward.

“Right now, we have de facto designated encampments. We have increasing social disorder that much of the sector is pointing toward our own policy and blaming it for causing the disruption to the whole entirety of the city and spreading the problem,” said Rollins (Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry).

How to make National Day for Truth and Reconciliation personal

Throughout September, there will be thousands of opportunities to participate in the interests of truth, reconciliation and building a Canada that is inclusive and just. If you run out of ideas for taking part, here are a few things you can do.

Mayoral candidate Gillingham vows building boom; Vogiatzakis, Woodstock promise improved safety

Scott Gillingham promised several new steps to help get more homes and businesses built in Winnipeg Friday, if re-elected as mayor, amid other pledges from his competition.

Insurance money spent, family waits for provincial flood aid

Three months after a once-in-a-lifetime rainstorm battered her home and caused extensive flooding, J’aime Killbery is still picking up the pieces while she waits for financial relief from the provincial government.

Killbery lives in Balmoral, north of Stonewall, in the rural municipality of Rockwood, one of the communities hardest-hit by the June 9 deluge. The RM declared a state of emergency after a record-breaking 250 mm of rainfall caused sewer backups and overland flooding.

The damage to the family home was immense. Their fully finished basement was destroyed by sewage water, meaning the walls and flooring needed to be ripped out and replaced.

While family is handling some repairs themselves to cut costs, every repair is expensive, Killbery said.

Argentine court clears return of Nazi-looted portrait to Jewish dealer’s heir

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — A long-lost Italian portrait looted from a prominent Jewish art dealer during World War II was set to be returned to his heir after an Argentine court on Friday approved a deal under which the daughter of a fugitive Nazi official agreed to give up her claim rather than face trial.

The agreement paves the way for the long-sought return of “ Portrait of a Lady ” to Marei von Saher, the sole surviving heir of Dutch-Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, whose celebrated collection was sold under duress to Nazi officials after Adolf Hitler’s Germany invaded the Netherlands in 1940.

Patricia Kadgien, the daughter of the late high-ranking Nazi official Friedrich Kadgien, and her husband, Juan Carlos Cortegoso, were charged with aggravated cover-up last year after authorities said they hid the 18th-century painting despite knowing it was being sought by Argentine and international investigators.

Under the agreement, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, the couple agreed to give up any claim to the work and consent to its return to von Saher in exchange for avoiding a criminal trial and spending two years under court supervision. During that time, they must make payments to a hospital in Argentina's coastal city of Mar del Plata, where they live, and keep authorities informed of their whereabouts.

Federal Tories launch ‘Conservatives for Canada’ campaign ahead of Alberta referendum

OTTAWA - The federal Conservatives have launched a campaign to engage their supporters and encourage them to vote to stay in Canada in the upcoming Alberta referendum.

Albertans are set to vote on Oct. 19 on whether they want to remain a province or begin the legal process to hold a binding referendum on leaving the country.

In a speech he delivered in Calgary this summer, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called for Albertans to stay united and argued that separatists have a problem not with Canada but with the Liberal government.

"We don't need a different country in Alberta, we need different government policies in Ottawa," Poilievre said on June 8.

NDP minister needs lesson in political civility

Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine’s decision to intercede in Winnipeg’s mayoral election may be surprising to some political observers. To others, however, it is entirely on brand.

On Tuesday, Fontaine posted a video on social media in which she expressed concern that former city councillor and Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Kevin Klein was entering the race to challenge incumbent Mayor Scott Gillingham.

The caption on the video was blunt: “I mean, really, who chooses to work for Count Dracula?”

“Kevin Klein once worked for Peter Nygard. Peter Nygard is Canada’s equivalent to (American sex offender) Jeffrey Epstein — had his own little island, did unspeakable, disgusting things to women and girls … anyways, I just thought that Winnipeggers would want to know that Kevin Klein, at one point, worked for Peter Nygard,” she says in the video.