RCMP investigating macabre display threatening rural officials in yard on ‘sovereign land’

Manitoba RCMP say they are investigating a disturbing display depicting threats toward elected municipal officials outside a home in the Rural Municipality of Taché after receiving a pair of complaints earlier this week.

The display, located on a Ste-Genevieve property on Municipal Road 41E, about 45 minutes southeast of Winnipeg, showed five life-sized dolls hanging by their necks from nooses on a makeshift gallows. Four of the dolls had different municipal ward numbers painted on, including wards two, four, five and six.

One doll hanging from the centre was dressed in a red cap, crown and wore a dollar-sign necklace.

The dolls also each had a letter attached which, combined, spelled “karma.”

Clinic run by suspended plastic surgeon closes

The clinic operated by a suspended plastic surgeon has closed amid an investigation by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba.

Ziesmann Cosmetic Clinic has closed permanently, a staff member at the Portage Avenue site told the Free Press Friday, before breaking down in tears and declining to comment further.

Manitoba’s physician watchdog suspended clinic founder Dr. Manfred Ziesmann on Oct. 15 while the probe is being conducted, said Dr. Guillaume Poliquin, the assistant registrar of complaints and investigations, last week.

The college had placed restrictions on Ziesmann’s practice earlier this year following a disciplinary hearing regarding patients who suffered complications from breast augmentations and other surgeries.

Jays-Dodgers World Series highlights the ties that bind two nations

Michale Poulin shifted quickly from foot to foot as he stood on the concrete at the World Series watch party in Nathan Phillips Square, in the shadow of Toronto city hall.

As a couple dozen diehard fans settled into multi-coloured Muskoka chairs lined up in front of a giant video screen, he adjusted his Blue Jays cap, which was precariously perched on a thick woolen toque. Small crystals of ice were already forming on his long wavy beard.

His fidgeting was designed in part to chase away the stone-sharpened edge of the Toronto cold, and partly to work off his nervous energy about whether the Blue Jays were going to do something they had not done in his lifetime.

When the 2025 season started, did Poulin, 26, think the Jays had any chance of capturing a World Series championship? “God no,” Poulin says without hesitation. “I thought it was going to be a complete repeat of last year when we finished in last place.”

Transit proposes late service on 11 routes, new hires

Winnipeg Transit plans to spend millions of dollars each year and add 33.5 new staff positions to ensure buses on some of its fixed routes can run later into the night.

Curler popularized a form of sport that allowed people of all ages, abilities to play

Stick curling was essentially new and unheard of when Ernie Oliver started driving up and down Manitoba — and later across Canada — to introduce the sport to curlers about 25 years ago.

It is now played by thousands of people in clubs across Canada thanks to the efforts of people such as Oliver, a Manitoba Curling Hall of Fame inductee for his role as a builder. In stick curling, two-person teams deliver a rock from a standing position or from a wheelchair using a stick, hence the name.

“His thing was always that when people get older, they can’t get into the hack anymore,” his daughter Roberta Oliver said. “He did it so the older people who loved curling could still curl. Every year, he kept teaching more people and going out there, getting the sport as big as he could.”

Oliver received several accolades for helping to extend curling careers and keep seniors active.

Losing homelessness adviser disappointing, but new role ‘positive development,’ premier says

Manitoba’s premier says he would have preferred that his hand-picked adviser on homelessness stay in her role, after she resigned less than a year into the job.

But a day after Tessa Blaikie Whitecloud confirmed she had submitted her resignation, Wab Kinew said he remains confident his government’s Your Way Home strategy — aimed at ending chronic homelessness by 2031 — will stay on track.

“Tessa is somebody that I have a ton of respect for, and that I am very close to, personally,” Kinew said at an unrelated event Friday afternoon. “To see her move to the (Collaborative Housing Alliance Real Estate Investment Trust) gives me confidence that you’re going to have that crucial part of the equation — getting more housing units built — that we’ve got a very capable hand at the wheel there.”

Kinew appointed Blaikie Whitecloud in January to lead the NDP government’s effort to end chronic homelessness, at a starting salary of $177,745. Her mandate included moving people from encampments into stable housing supported by social services.

Winnipeg MP’s private member’s bill would make residential school denialism a crime

Manitoba New Democrat MP Leah Gazan reintroduced a private member’s bill Friday that would criminalize residential school denialism, saying “real action” is needed to combat rising anti-Indigenous hate.

Bill C-254, if passed, would amend the Criminal Code to include the promotion of hatred against Indigenous Peoples by “condoning, denying, downplaying or justifying the Indian residential school system.”

“We cannot ignore the obvious, that residential school denialism is simply an act of inciting hate against Indigenous people,” Gazan, the MP for Winnipeg Centre, said in a news release.

“Members of Parliament must act immediately to uphold their safety, and I urge all my parliamentary colleagues to protect survivors and families by supporting this bill.”