News briefs for Wednesday, October 5, 2022

Blue Bombers quarterback Zach Collaros and receiver Nic Demski have been named CFL Top Performers of the Month for September.

Collaros completed 73 of 108 passes for 1,125 yards and 12 touchdowns in four games. He was twice named a Top Performer of the Week during the month of September, and this is his second nod as a Top Performer of the Month in 2022. Collaros leads the CFL in passing with 3,874 yards and in touchdowns with 32.

Demski registered 346 yards from scrimmage in four games in September, including 280 receiving and six touchdown catches. He recorded eight second-down receptions and 85 yards after the catch. Demski now has 52 catches for 613 yards and nine touchdowns in 2022.

The Western Hockey League’s Winnipeg Ice are in a familiar spot, ranked No. 1 in the Canadian Hockey League’s rankings of major-junior clubs to start the 2022-23 season.

Winnipeg was No. 1 for much of 2021-22 and after four road wins to start the season has been voted first in the weekly poll by a panel of NHL scouts.

A 25-year-old Dauphin man was stabbed after confronting a trio of teens hitting his parked vehicle with a sword Monday evening.

RCMP officers were called to the northwestern Manitoba city’s hospital at about 6 p.m. where the man was receiving treatment for his wound, which wasn’t life threatening, Mounties said Wednesday. The victim was later released from hospital.

RCMP said the three teens had been walking on Oak Street in the community around 5:45 p.m. when one began hitting the vehicle. The victim came over to confront them but was hit with the sword. The victim took the sword from the teens before they ran away, RCMP said.

RCMP said the suspects are a white teen male, between 17-19, approximately 6′ with a slim build and dirty blond shoulder-length hair; an Indigenous teen male about 6′ with a slim build and dirty blond shoulder-length hair; and an Indigenous teen female with light-coloured hair with green streaks.

Mounties ask anyone with information to call the detachment at 204-622-5050 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-222-8477.

Five additional people have been charged with obstructing a peace officer in relation to the dismantling of a camp, which protesters called a “law lodge,” at the front of the Manitoba legislature Tuesday.

Winnipeg police said they found a number of weapons, including three axes, a hammer, hatchet, body armour, a three-foot club, a spear and a machete.

Police say the five accused had failed to vacate the illegal camp. One of the accused is Trina Maggie Francois. The 45-year-old activist sang a protest version of O Canada for the Pope during his visit to Alberta last summer. 

Seven others were charged Monday.

Two adults were arrested last week after RCMP found drugs and a pellet gun while searching a house in Opaskwayak Cree Nation as part of an ongoing investigation.

Officers seized about 225 grams of cocaine and a pellet gun from the house on Cowley Avenue on Sept. 27.

Five people were arrested at the scene, but only two were charged.

A 28-year-old Opaskwayak Cree Nation woman has been charged with possession for the purpose of trafficking and is scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 13.

A 52-year-old man, also from Opaskwayak Cree Nation, has been charged with the same offence, and several firearm offences.

Manitoba Public Insurance and the University of Manitoba announced a combined $3.5 million in funding to support traumatic brain injury research Wednesday.

The contribution means the research endowment fund is now at a total of $5 million, the interest from which will be reinvested to continue to support traumatic brain injury research in Manitoba.

It makes sense for MPI to contribute to the research via the money it collects from drivers’ premiums because of the prevalence of collisions that cause brain injuries, MPI president and CEO Eric Herbelin said.

 

 

Defenceman Carson Lambos has been reassigned to the WHL’s Winnipeg Ice by the Minnesota Wild.

The 19-year-old Winnipegger, chosen 26th overall in the 2021 NHL Draft, was the last junior player remaining in Wild training camp. He is expected to rejoin the Ice for road games in Regina on Friday and Moose Jaw on Saturday.

Frontier School Division faces $30,000 in fines after an employee was severely injured in a workplace incident.

According to a release from Manitoba Labour, Consumer Protection and Government Services Wednesday, a worker with Frontier School Division in Moose Lake was pushing wood through an unguarded table saw on Dec. 12 2019 when their left hand was cut by the rotating blade, resulting in serious lacerations.

After an investigation by Workplace Safety and Health resulted in charges laid against the school division, Frontier pleaded guilty to failing to ensure safeguards were in place on July 26 of this year and have been fined $30,000.

A Brandon contracting company has been fined $25,000 after not immediately reporting a workplace injury to Workplace Safety and Health.

An Excel-7 Ltd. worker was replacing concrete slabs with a lifting device in a hog barn in the Rural Municipality of Oakview on Dec. 11, 2019, when a cable on the lifting device snapped and a 700-pound slab fell several feet below floor level and swung from one end, crushing the worker’s thumb between the slab and lifting device. The worker was also trapped against by the machine’s other cable, which had to be severed to free him.

According to a release from Manitoba Labour, Consumer Protection and Government Services Wednesday, Excel-7 did not inform their Workplace Safety and Health branch until two days later.

After an investigation by Workplace Safety and Health, charges of failing to immediately notify the branch that a serious incident had occurred were laid against Excel-7, which pleaded guilty on Sept. 27 of this year. The court imposed a fine of $25,000.