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Debate and classroom discussion topics

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TIM SMITH / THE BRANDON SUN FILES Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew

Pipeline could be Kinew’s legacy or a slick disappointment

Dan Lett 5 minute read Preview

Pipeline could be Kinew’s legacy or a slick disappointment

Dan Lett 5 minute read Friday, Jul. 10, 2026

Is Wab Kinew poised to become Manitoba’s Pipeline King?

Developments on several fronts are giving Manitoba’s premier the opportunity to make oil and gas pipelines not only the cornerstone of his current economic policy, but also the lasting legacy from his time governing the province.

On the one hand, Prime Minister Mark Carney has promised significant sums of federal money to develop the Port of Churchill into the major shipping hub it has always aspired to be. The catch is that Manitoba must come up with a firm plan to ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) through the port by 2030, a goal that almost certainly requires a pipeline.

At the same time, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and, most recently, Ontario Premier Doug Ford are signing deals to build LNG pipelines that connect western oil fields to major shipping hubs in eastern Canada.

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Friday, Jul. 10, 2026
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Wind turbines in southern Manitoba.

Westman residents fear power project’s wind turbines will sully their idyllic landscape

Julia-Simone Rutgers 16 minute read Preview

Westman residents fear power project’s wind turbines will sully their idyllic landscape

Julia-Simone Rutgers 16 minute read Friday, Jul. 10, 2026

POLONIA — Leonard Kaspick can list just about every household in the valley.

“There’s someone living right across the northeast, someone living behind here, about a quarter mile there’s a house there, then a half mile there’s another house there, I’m here, and then on top of the hill there’s someone else there,” he says, standing in the heart of the hamlet — a community hall just off the main drag.

Besides the hall and the smattering of homes, there’s a historic (though out-of-commission) church next door and a single general store further down the road.

“There’s less people here now than there was in 1885,” Kaspick, 83, jokes as he wraps up a condensed history of the western-Manitoba community.

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Friday, Jul. 10, 2026

Manitoba needs clean, publicly owned data centres

Hersh Seth 5 minute read Friday, Jul. 10, 2026

Some might disagree, but I believe Winnipeg needs an AI data centre.

Meta, the tech giant behind Facebook and Instagram, says it's building a new AI date centre in Sturgeon County, Alta. The facility, shown in this rendered image, will be a one-gigawatt, nearly 270,000-square-metre data centre powered by a natural gas-fired plant. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Handout - Sturgeon Data Centre (Mandatory Credit)

Keeping cool: How Meta plans to cut down on water use at its Alberta data centre

Lauren Krugel, The Canadian Press 6 minute read Preview

Keeping cool: How Meta plans to cut down on water use at its Alberta data centre

Lauren Krugel, The Canadian Press 6 minute read Friday, Jul. 10, 2026

CALGARY - A Meta Platforms Inc. executive garnered applause at a news conference this week after he boasted that a gargantuan data centre planned for north of Edmonton would use less water annually than a typical Alberta golf course.

The tech behemoth was announcing a $13-billion-plus investment in a complex the size of 33 Canadian Football League fields. It will be powered by a new natural gas plant that could eventually produce more electricity than what the City of Edmonton uses.

The data centre in Sturgeon County, like other hyperscale proposals in Canada, is to use what's known as a closed-loop cooling system to keep servers from overheating. That differs from an evaporative cooling system, which requires enormous amounts of cool water that is not reused.

Gary Demasi, vice-president of data centre strategy and development at Meta, told a news conference Wednesday that no water will be needed for regular cooling operations.

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Friday, Jul. 10, 2026
Secretary of State for Sport Adam van Koeverden speaks during a news conference in Vancouver, on Friday, May 1, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ethan Cairns
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Canada objects to Olympics loosening restrictions on Russia athletes amid Ukraine war

Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press 4 minute read Preview
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Canada objects to Olympics loosening restrictions on Russia athletes amid Ukraine war

Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press 4 minute read Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026

OTTAWA - Canada objected on Thursday to the International Olympic Committee loosening its suspension on Russian athletes.

The move, announced Tuesday, would apply to the 2028 games in Los Angeles, opening the door for Russian athletes to compete, but the IOC says it will decide later if they could do it with the Russian flag and anthem.

"I am appalled by the IOC’s decision," wrote Secretary of State for sport Adam van Koeverden, a former Olympian.

"The countries of Russia and Belarus should not be represented in international sports competitions while Russia's illegal and unjustifiable full-scale invasion against Ukraine continues," he wrote.

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Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026
Ruth Bonneville / Free Press biz - PNP Games Photo of Dan Boissoneault, business and community development representative of PNP Games. PNP Games has started a petition calling on Sony to reverse its decision to stop making physical discs for PlayStation 5. The decision takes effect in 2028; the petition has gotten more than 200,000 signatures. PNP Games, 160 Meadowood Dr See story by Gabby July 8th, 2026

Disc drive: petition seeks to reverse Sony decision to stop producing physical discs

Gabrielle Piché 5 minute read Preview

Disc drive: petition seeks to reverse Sony decision to stop producing physical discs

Gabrielle Piché 5 minute read Thursday, Jul. 9, 2026

Atop a counter displaying vintage video games, a sign urges passersby to petition Sony Group Corp.

The Japanese multinational company’s PlayStation system discs aren’t retro — yet. But they will be in 2028, when Sony plans to stop producing the physical products.

Its games will be sold online or in “digital formats” at shops, including as codes.

Winnipeg-based independent chain PNP Games has outfitted its St. Vital area store with signs of protest. It’s also launched an online petition — one garnering more than 231,000 signatures in roughly a week.

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Thursday, Jul. 9, 2026
A Meta logo is shown on a video screen at LlamaCon 2025, an AI developer conference, in Menlo Park, Calif., Tuesday, April 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Meta to build $13B data centre north of Edmonton, its first in Canada

Lauren Krugel, The Canadian Press 5 minute read Preview

Meta to build $13B data centre north of Edmonton, its first in Canada

Lauren Krugel, The Canadian Press 5 minute read Thursday, Jul. 9, 2026

CALGARY - The tech behemoth behind Facebook and Instagram says it plans to make Alberta home to its first artificial intelligence data centre in Canada and its largest outside the United States.

Meta announced Wednesday that the $13-billion-plus project is to be built in Sturgeon County, in the Industrial Heartland region north of Edmonton.

The one-gigawatt, nearly 270,000-square-metre data centre would be powered by a natural gas-fired plant to be built by a consortium that includes Calgary-based Pembina Pipeline Ltd.

It takes about 1.4 gigawatts to power Edmonton, and the proposed data centre campus could fit 33 Canadian Football League fields.

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Thursday, Jul. 9, 2026
The area of Olds, Alta., where Synapse Real Estate Corp. is planning a data centre complex with 1.4 gigawatts of natural gas-fired power generation is shown on Thursday, June 4, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Lauren Krugel
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Data centre capacity could soar to 20 GW in planned projects: government document

Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press 6 minute read Preview
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Data centre capacity could soar to 20 GW in planned projects: government document

Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press 6 minute read Thursday, Jul. 30, 2026

OTTAWA - A document prepared for the federal artificial intelligence minister to use when pitching international investors on Canada’s AI ecosystem identifies a massive proposed increase in Canada’s data centre capacity.

But spokespeople for the government pushed back strongly on the figure, saying it is not a projection of the capacity Canada expects to build, and the total capacity will be much less.

It says Canada currently has about 337 megawatts of AI data centre capacity, and there are more than 20 gigawatts — or 20,000 megawatts — in projects that are "under planning or development."

The number was included in a presentation prepared by a government department for Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon to use with international investors. It was obtained by The Canadian Press through access-to-information.

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Thursday, Jul. 30, 2026
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES CUPE Local 500 president Gord Delbridge doesn’t buy arguments the city can’t find ways around global trade deals.
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Union urges voters to make buy local civic election issue

Malak Abas 4 minute read Preview
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Union urges voters to make buy local civic election issue

Malak Abas 4 minute read Wednesday, Jul. 8, 2026

The City of Winnipeg’s largest union is calling on voters to demand local-first practices from candidates running in the civic election in October.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 500 has launched a petition and is running video ads that criticize city contracts recently awarded to U.S.-based companies: garbage collection from GFL Environmental, which moved its home base to Florida this year, and the decision to end its contract with Salisbury House, to provide food at two city-owned golf courses, after 16 years and switch to Aramark.

“These are city services paid for by Winnipeggers, but the money isn’t staying here, it’s not just going to your neighbour’s local business,” Winnipeg resident Ian Bawa says in one video ad posted to YouTube. “The local guarantee asks every municipal candidate to commit — when these contracts renew, bring the work back in house, give it to Manitoba-based companies.”

The petition has garnered more than 4,000 names.

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Wednesday, Jul. 8, 2026
Deep Sky / Facebook A rendering of what Deep Sky’s proposed Westman carbon capture site may look like.
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What can you do with $200 million?

Ed Lohrenz 5 minute read Preview
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What can you do with $200 million?

Ed Lohrenz 5 minute read Wednesday, Jul. 8, 2026

Let’s see if I’ve got this right. In the article Carbon capture project gains support (June 30), Julia-Simone Rutgers writes that the direct carbon capture facility proposed by Deep Sky for construction in southwestern Manitoba will cost $200 million to build.

The company claims the facility will scrub 30,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year and inject it 1,000 metres into the ground. To do this, it will need to draw up to 15 megawatts of power from the Manitoba Hydro grid for the first stage of the project. The project will be financed by selling carbon credits.

To put this into perspective, the Canadian industrial carbon price is set at $130 per tonne. At that price, Deep Sky will have to sell more than 1.5 million tonnes of carbon just to cover the upfront cost of building the plant. That’s over 51 years’ worth of carbon credits. And that doesn’t even cover the everyday operating costs, such as the electricity needed to run the plant.

Some studies suggest it requires about 2,000-2,500 kilowatt hours to electricity to capture one tonne of CO2 and inject it into the ground. To capture 30,000 tonnes, that’s about 60 million kWh. Even if Manitoba Hydro sells it to the facility for only $0.035/kWh, that’s an additional $70 per tonne.

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Wednesday, Jul. 8, 2026