Feds, most provinces get top marks on internal trade — but more work to be done

OTTAWA - The federal government has gone from a C student to top of the class in its work to advance internal trade between provinces, says the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

In the federation's latest annual report card on internal trade, the federal government jumped to an A-plus from the C grade it got in 2025.

The report card released Wednesday by the advocacy group for small businesses said Canada has made unprecedented progress toward breaking down internal trade barriers long considered a self-imposed drag on the domestic economy.

The International Monetary Fund estimates that removing internal trade barriers could boost Canada's real gross domestic product by $210 billion over the long term.

What a way to fly — if you’re rich

When my husband and I were catching a flight from Roatán, Honduras, to Toronto earlier this year, we shared a taxi to the airport with an acquaintance.

He was an amiable guy and we made small talk. I noticed he got jostled travelling over the bumpy island roads same as we did, even though he was one of those annoyingly well-put-together travellers who seemed unfazed by the crushing humidity that was making my hair stick to my neck and forehead. Perhaps he was wearing one of those breathable fabrics that wicks away moisture.

And though I had heard he had travelled to many parts of the world, I noticed his luggage wasn’t quite as “seasoned” as ours.

We shook hands at departures, and the light rhythmic whir of his pristine wheelie bag quickly faded as he melted into the throng at Juan Manuel Gálvez International Airport while we were still gathering our bags.

Home residents turn to agency after operator lays off 70 staff who unionized

Residents of a Winnipeg retirement home have taken matters into their own hands after the majority of the facility’s home-care aides were laid off following their unionization.

A committee of residents have banded together to work with a private agency to staff Shaftesbury Park Retirement Residence after many of its existing aides complete their final shift on Monday.

“It is heartbreaking because there are a lot of vulnerable people here who are not capable of advocating for themselves,” said Joelle Robinson, who has lived at the home since 2023 after she suffered a brain aneurysm. “We’re trying very hard to make it so that our residents aren’t completely up the creek.”

Robinson, a retired lawyer, joined Terry Hopkinson and several other residents of the South Tuxedo home to create a committee and send out a request for proposal to eight companies that specialized in seniors care.

Buckled concrete gives drivers the heave-ho

Highways, local roads and sidewalks have buckled and broken thanks to extreme heat in recent days, wreaking havoc with travel.

Garth Thomson was driving on the Perimeter Highway, just north of Assiniboia Downs, around 4 p.m. Sunday when he suddenly came upon a major gap in the road.

“There was a big break in the highway, which was the heaving. I had about four seconds to decide what I was going to do. So, I kind of hit my brakes and drove more towards the centre, where the big chunks weren’t (located),” said Thomson. “It happened so fast … there were big chunks (of concrete), probably a foot (per) square, sticking up.”

His convertible had bumper damage and a hole in its gas tank, he said.

Winnipeg’s first pro women’s team will be in the Northern Super League

Desiree Scott made a name for herself on the pitch as The Destroyer. Now, she’s continuing her legacy as a builder.

On Tuesday, the Olympic gold medalist helped announce the Northern Super League’s expansion to Winnipeg, the seventh franchise in Canada’s rapidly growing professional women’s soccer league.

It’s also the first pro women’s sports team in the city.

Scott, a Winnipeg native, had been vocal about her desire for a pro women’s team in her hometown during her playing days, and has spearheaded the movement for it to come to fruition in the last year.

Federal researchers using driftwood to study and track seabird deaths off N.S. coast

HALIFAX - Federal researchers want to know where dead seabirds off the coast of Nova Scotia are most likely to wash up, and they’re using a low-tech solution to find out: driftwood.

Environment and Climate Change Canada has dropped about 600 wooden blocks in the ocean this summer. Coated in non-toxic, bright orange paint and affixed with contact information, the floating blocks are essentially standing in for bird carcasses.

Researchers are hoping birders and beachcombers who find them will report their date and location, ultimately helping to create a picture of where seabirds might drift after a mass death in the ocean.

“So you release these blocks and they help you figure out where carcasses could drift and what proportion of the carcasses end up on shore," Rob Ronconi, a biologist and wildlife emergency response coordinator for the federal environment department, said in an interview.

More mayoral candidates would mean more ideas

The absence of a competitive race for Winnipeg mayor is shaping up as one of the biggest disappointments of this year’s civic election.

Manitoba firm fills merch tables

Fans of California-based rock band Mammoth who purchase one of the group’s T-shirts tonight at Canada Life Centre will be purchasing clothing that was screenprinted in Manitoba.

Chief says assembly will tackle effect of major projects push on First Nations rights

OTTAWA - Major projects and a coming meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney and the premiers will be the main focus of the Assembly of First Nations annual general assembly this week, National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said Monday.

The AFN gathering begins Tuesday and runs for three days.

Speaking alongside a handful of regional chiefs and First Nations representatives at a news conference, Woodhouse Nepinak blasted the federal government over its approach to major projects development and said it could threaten the rights of First Nations.

She said First Nations are not opposed to economic growth and are simply asking for a seat at the table as the federal government attempts to shore up the economy.

bet365 expands Canadian footprint with launch in Alberta’s gaming market

Trip Stoddard and bet365 are expanding their Canadian footprint.

Alberta officially opened its regulated sports betting and iGaming market Monday, becoming the second Canadian province to do so. Ontario became the first to offer a regulated, private market for online gaming April 4, 2022.

And like it did in Ontario, bet365 is among the operators that will set up shop in Alberta.

“Canada is a key market for bet365, and cementing our brand’s presence in Alberta marks another milestone in our long-term commitment to Canadian sports fans,” said Stoddard, head of development at bet365. "We're proud to work alongside Alberta's regulators to give fans a trusted platform to engage with the sports they love through a responsible, world-class experience."

Hundreds of economists say ‘we must act now’ on AI’s economic impact and job displacement risks

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Hundreds of economists say in an open letter that institutions “must act now” to address how artificial intelligence could transform the economy and could put many people out of work.

The statement released Monday was signed by top economists, along with computer scientists and some executives at tech companies including Anthropic, Google and OpenAI.

“AI may become radically more powerful over the next 10 years,” says the letter organized by Stanford University's digital economy lab. “This could drive an unprecedented transformation of our economy, larger than the Industrial Revolution, but unfolding over a vastly shorter time frame. It could bring risks, including large-scale job displacement, as well as opportunities such as major gains in living standards.”

The letter, which has only four sentences, says leaders must “build the incentives, guardrails, and institutions needed to steer AI in a direction that complements humans and benefits society.”

In a sweet discovery, astronomers find sugar lurking in the space between stars

NEW YORK (AP) — The space between stars just got a little sweeter.

Astronomers have detected a type of sugar in space that's also found in raspberries and self-tanners. The sugar, called erythrulose, lurks in what's called the interstellar medium: thin clouds of gas and dust littered between stars.

Sugar does more than sweeten tea and powder doughnuts. Different varieties fuel our cells and even make up DNA. Scientists are itching to know how sugars form because they're a key ingredient for life as we know it.

Using two dish-shaped radio telescopes in Spain, researchers collected data from a large gas cloud near the center of the Milky Way. They identified the sugar in gas form by comparing telescope signals to samples in the lab. It's the latest kind of sugar detected in space — in a region crossed by NASA's twin Voyager, the farthest spacecraft to ever travel from Earth.

U of W falls back on tuition hikes amid budget crunch

The University of Winnipeg has joined other public post-secondary institutions across the province in hiking tuition rates by four per cent — as high as possible — for the fall.

Domestic fees are increasing by more annually in 2026-27 than they have in eight years in Manitoba.

International rates, which are unregulated and roughly four times those paid by their Canadian peers, are rising even higher.

U of W’s board of regents approved a $180.7-million budget on June 22 that increases costs in undergraduate and graduate programs and phases out “low rate” courses on the downtown campus.

Mom spearheads fight for rehab services

Four years ago, a car crash permanently changed Will Castor’s life.

The 28-year-old suffered a traumatic brain injury that required a long recovery as he worked to relearn skills many people take for granted, such as eating, speaking and getting out of bed.

A key part of that journey was First Steps Wellness Centre, a Winnipeg rehabilitation facility, where Will worked with therapists to regain independence and connect with others facing similar challenges.

But on June 5, financial constraints forced First Steps to close, leaving families without the specialized therapy they had come to rely on.

Pristine Roofing nears 30 years with focus on making difference

More than 25 years after the dramatic film Pay It Forward inspired moviegoers to engage in acts of goodwill, serial reciprocity is alive and well at Pristine Roofing and Siding.

Natural disasters, accidents or wear and tear can put a roof in rough shape, risking the overall well-being of a home. Since not everyone can afford the repairs needed to feel safe and secure in their own house, staff at the Winnipeg company decided to do something about it.

Last year, Pristine launched its “Pay It Forward Project.” Manitoba residents can nominate someone who’s fallen on hard times and is in dire need of a new roof. The company chooses one recipient annually and does the repair work for free.

“We’re always looking at ways that we can help our community out,” says Don Fata, sales manager, who, along with Ash Boyd, started Pristine in 1998.

Painter honed art of volunteering at Lower Fort Garry historic site

When visitors wandered around Lower Fort Garry National Historic Site in the summer of 2023, they encountered a rather unusual volunteer: artist JD Hawk at his easel, busily working on his live paintings.

Hawk engaged with visitors as he painted, encouraging them to come and ask questions about what he was working on.

The paintings he produced during his tenure were never intended for exhibition, however. They were rough drafts for him to reference later in the year when creating his final paintings.

“There’s no fine detail, they’re not masterpieces. I consider them like a scrapbook, exploring the colours I would need to use for my master paintings,” he explains, adding that when he wasn’t painting he would walk around taking photographs for further reference material.

If it works in Ontario, why not in Manitoba?

Grid-scale battery storage has fundamentally changed the global energy landscape — and Manitoba needs to get on board.

Battery systems store large amounts of excess electricity for when it’s most needed. While they can be charged from any generation source, they are especially beneficial for integrating wind and solar power, which vary with weather and time of day. Batteries allow electrical grids to meet the need for firm, dispatchable and affordable capacity using renewable energy, rather than relying on coal, nuclear and fossil gas. They also provide numerous other benefits, including reducing overloading of transmission infrastructure and helping to regulate the grid’s frequency and voltage.

Average costs for grid-scale batteries plummeted by more than half between 2023 and 2025 and installations have skyrocketed in China, the U.S., Australia and Europe. Texas now has 16,500 megawatts (MW) of battery storage, while California has 15,200 MW. Closer to home, Ontario recently awarded 640 MW of contracts to three battery storage projects in a competitive auction, with batteries beating out fossil gas-fired power plants on cost every time. One of these projects will be built near Dryden, only four hours east of Winnipeg.

Each battery system will provide eight hours of capacity but will cost considerably less than Ontario’s previous battery procurements, which provide only four hours of capacity. With this latest auction, Ontario has now secured 3,600 MW of battery storage capacity, including the operational Oneida (250 MW), Hagersville (300 MW) and Napanee (250 MW) projects. Almost all have significant Indigenous participation, with the latest procurements boasting 50 per cent First Nations ownership.

Quebec municipalities express interest in Samuel de Champlain statue from Ontario

Some Quebec municipalities and organizations are offering to take a controversial statue of Samuel de Champlain from an Ontario city in Simcoe County.

The nearly four-metre-tall bronze monument of the 17th century explorer and founder of Quebec City was removed from a park in Orillia, Ont., and placed in storage in 2017 following debate over its colonial imagery.

Orillia Mayor Don McIsaac said a wave of offers poured in after the city recently raised the possibility of melting the statue down.

“They say it's racist, it's not our history, it is an insult to Indigenous peoples,” McIsaac said in an interview about the controversy over the statue.