Manitoba marks end of sending simple workplace problems to doctor’s office

There are some changes in the workplace that make you think: “Well, it’s about time.”

This is one of them.

Starting Oct. 1, Manitoba changed the rules around sick notes. I think it is going to be a wonderful change — not just for doctors and patients, but for employers, employees and the way we think about accountability at work.

The change comes from Bill 11, the Employment Standards Code Amendment Act (Sick Notes for Employee Absences), which received royal assent on June 1 and came into force Thursday. Under the new rules, employers generally cannot require a sick note for an illness or injury unless the employee is away for more than one week or has been absent because of illness or injury for more than 10 scheduled workdays in the calendar year.

The idea of Alberta separation viewed through a faith lens shows further fracture lines

CALGARY — One morning in May, John Pentland, a minister at Hillhurst United Church in Calgary, opened his newspaper and read about a group of Albertans who were trying to divide his country.

Something inside of him felt like it cracked open. He started to weep.

“I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t breathe,” he said. He called a friend and told him: “I think I’m losing my mind.”

Pentland has always believed in Canada — flawed as it might be — as a nation gifted with diversity and welcoming of asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants. But recently that belief has been shaken as he’s witnessed right-wing ideologies charged with anti-immigrant sentiment take root in his province. It makes him angry and embarrassed for the country he loves.

Deadpool drops by Children’s Hospital to say thanks on behalf of Olympian’s family

For Olympian Justin Duff, rappelling down the side of a hospital was more than a test of nerve. It was a chance to give back to a place that helped his family through a frightening time.

On Friday, Duff, a former professional volleyball player who competed in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janerio, was one of several local community leaders and emergency-service workers who descended the side of the Health Sciences Centre Children’s Hospital for the fifth-annual Suspended Superheroes fundraiser.

Dressed as Deadpool, Duff took his time while making his way down the building, pausing at each floor’s window to wave and smile at the children and parents inside.

“Being able to bring a little bit of joy to these kids who are really fighting, it’s a great thing to do,” he said.

Cops handcuffed by bail issues, lack of mental-health options, WPS chief tells residents in crime-ridden North End neighbourhood

Weak bail reform and a lack of mental-health resources and addictions treatment beds are making it more difficult to tackle crime in inner-city neighbourhoods such as William Whyte, where there has been a significant increase in criminal behaviour compared to last year, the city’s top police officer says.

Winnipeg Police Services Chief Gene Bowers made the remarks Thursday night at an event hosted by the William Whyte Neighbourhood Association, where about two dozen residents gathered to share their concerns about crime in the North End community.

“Fentanyl and meth, that’s caused a strain on all our front lines and and all these agencies that are trying to help people,” Bowers told the room of people at Inner City Youth Alive on Aberdeen Avenue Thursday night.

“What really is the problem is there’s no treatment. That’s the gap, because (police and agencies) are all churning the same people through, and we’re all seeing them. We’re all frustrated that there’s no help.”

Six high school hockey programs ceased operations following new Hockey Manitoba policy

She lived the best of both worlds.

For the last three years, the 17-year-old wore a sweater for two different hockey programs — her high school team and AAA club in the Manitoba Female Hockey League — and was preparing to flourish in both colours again this winter.

Recently, however, the blue-liner was disappointed to learn she is no longer eligible to play her Grade 12 season with her school owing to a new policy imposed by Hockey Manitoba that bans players from participating in the Manitoba Women’s High School Hockey League if they are on a U18 AAA team roster.

The rule applies to all athletes who play for both Winnipeg-based and rural AAA teams.

Quebec Conservative Leader Éric Duhaime admits to using AI to write book

MONTREAL - Quebec Conservative Party Leader Éric Duhaime admitted to using artificial intelligence to write his latest book.

Duhaime told reporters Friday morning that he used AI as "a tool among others" to write the book, titled Destination Autonomie, which was published in April.

Duhaime, who previously worked as a columnist and radio host, said he used AI to structure his thoughts and that the ideas in the book are all his.

"AI is important to us. It’s part of reality. That said, it has to be done under human supervision. And that’s exactly what happened," Duhaime said.

Clock ticks down on destruction of records documenting residential school abuses

In less than a year, a private company is set to destroy the largest cache of records detailing the widespread abuse of Indigenous children at residential schools in Canada.

The destruction, which was ordered by an Ontario court in 2014 and later upheld by the Supreme Court, is set to take place on Sept. 19, 2027.

This countdown is igniting emotional conversations that seek to balance the immense historical value of the records alongside the confidentiality survivors were promised as part of the process of providing detailed testimony about abuses they’d suffered.

The records were created as part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, a class-action settlement stemming from survivors who began suing the federal government in the late 1990s over the harm they’d been subjected to at residential schools.

Time for AI guardrails is right now

The genie is most definitely out of the bottle.