On April 17, 1982, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into force, outlining the rights and freedoms that all Canadians are entitled to within our country.

As we consider the Charter as the anniversary passes for another year, we have an opportunity to be reminded that all of the rights outlined in the Charter apply to every Canadian citizen, including children and youth. After all, children are not citizens-in-waiting; they are already holders of rights. Children and youth are a particularly distinct group of citizens whose rights need to be safeguarded. This assertion is especially pertinent with the rise of the “parental rights” movement, which falsely positions the rights of parents over the rights of children. To be clear, the Charter does not give parents special rights over any other rights holder.

In fact, “parental rights” are not explicitly named in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Charter does name fundamental freedoms (like freedom of conscience, religion and expression) and life, liberty and security of the person. These rights have been interpreted by courts to include a parent’s right to make decisions regarding the care and education of their children.

However, these rights have limits. The rights of parents need to be balanced against children’s rights and their best interests. Parental decision making is also subject to the government’s obligation to protect children and uphold their rights.

Canadian policymakers often focus on natural resources, telecommunications and automotive manufacturing when talking about the country’s economic pillars. However, there is another major industry that employs more people than some of these sectors, even as it steadily loses money.

Right now, the Canadian media and advertising sector is facing serious challenges. The 2026 Canadian Media Means Business (CMMB) report shows that in 2024, the sector provided 137,600 direct jobs.

That’s more than auto manufacturing, telecommunications and almost 40 per cent more than mining. Including indirect and related jobs, the sector adds $22.6 billion to Canada’s GDP.

Even though the industry is a big part of the economy, there is now a major gap between how much Canadians use media and how much money stays in Canada.

“We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran.”

Familiar genocidal threats from U.S. President Donald Trump, with the trademark mobster-style “NO MORE MR NICE GUY” at the end of his online post. It’s amazing how fast you get used to it.

There may be another ceasefire by the time you read this, or 92 million Iranians may be learning to live with no electricity, little food and no water. (In other rants he threatens Iran’s desalination plants and its bridges, crucial for getting food to the cities.) In either case, the regime’s leaders, all survivors of his assassination attempts, remain unyielding.

Trump regularly has “good conversations” with the civilian and Islamic Revolutionary Guard leaders, many of them entirely imaginary. But just beneath the surface he’s as frantic as a trapped rat, unable to understand why the Iranians won’t give in although “they have no cards.” (Wrong: they have weapons, patience, faith and, above all, favourable geography.)

As a part of its body-worn camera program, the RCMP recently completed a pilot project using artificial intelligence to draft reports. The AI-generated reports are created from audio captured from officers’ body cameras. A report can be drafted in mere seconds. The pilot, which ran for about six months and concluded in January, occurred across eight detachments in British Columbia generating nearly 800 reports.

Harnessing AI to write police reports is replete with some serious and unresolved concerns and must be immediately discontinued.

It isn’t even entirely clear why police need to use AI in the first place.

The primary justification for the expanding use of AI to generate police reports across law enforcement is to free police from the administrative burden of having to write reports in the first place. The idea is that officers could do more relevant police work, presumably patrol work.

Seniors do not need lower movie prices.

For the first time in almost seven years, I went to a movie in a cinema recently — Project Hail Mary, if you must know. When purchasing my ticket online, the menu offered a reduced senior price, a widespread practice in the retail and service industries. My mouse hovered over the price options as I debated whether to select the lower senior’s price I qualify for, or choose the regular fee, thereby registering my principled objection to this practice.

Hypothesis No. 1 is that Cineplex is genuinely concerned about the welfare of Canadian seniors and so offers us a price break. Call this the altruistic theory. However, while I appreciate the gesture, the seniors’ discount is irritating and wrong.

First, it is unenforced. Anyone can select the option with almost zero chance of detection. The bored teens who wave their electronic readers over my phone just want to hear the confirmation beep. Even if they were to glance up and try to align the price with my age, those under 20 are notoriously bad at estimating the age of anyone over 30.

On any given day in a small town, restaurants should be busy. Orders coming in. People being served. The steady rhythm of a place that’s part of the community.

Instead, more and more locations are running below capacity; not because customers aren’t there, but because there aren’t enough staff.

This is the reality in many rural and tourism communities across Canada.

Recently, Ottawa took a small but important step to begin to address it.

In the wake of U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, oil and gas prices have surged, triggering what’s widely expected to be the worst energy crisis on record. Amid ongoing affordability challenges, governments are reaching for policy tools to soften the blow for consumers.

Why are landlords calling on tenants to oppose stronger rent control?

When the provincial government introduced the “largest expansion of rent control in decades,” landlord pushback was predictable. While Manitoba’s Professional Property Managers Association typically keeps its policy advocacy fairly quiet, they have made their position known through local media and paid social media ads urging tenants to oppose the expansion of rent control.

Real estate appraiser Carson Horsburgh, having knowledge of landlords’ consultations with the province, warned in the Free Press of “sweeping regulatory changes,” (Bad policy: the fallout from rent changes, Think Tank, March 24) but landlord pushback has primarily centred on a specific proposed amendment to the residential rent regulation. The proposal is to cut the portion of capital expenses landlords can claim toward rent increases by 50 per cent, which would essentially cut renovation-related rent increases in half.

Many tenants will surely welcome this relief, especially after a PPMA spokesperson publicly warned higher rent increases were coming after the province ended the education property tax rebate last year.

Time stops for no one. It keeps ticking away like a perpetual motion machine erasing our youth. Aging is entropy inevitably moving us into a state of disorder.

We wake up one morning and say, “What happened?” Our friends ask us: “Are you living the dream?” Retirement is supposed to be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Except it often doesn’t feel like that.

Suddenly, we are contending with hip and knee replacements, angioplasty or by-pass surgery, chemotherapy and cancer surgery, cataract surgery, emergency visits to the hospital, not to mention cognitive and physical decline associated with degenerative illnesses.

And then there are the numerous medications we are required to take to help us cope with these various medical disorders, all of which have side effects. To counter these side effects, we need to take a different set of medications. We live a life of neverending alarms going off telling us which meds we need to take and when.

I had a foggy idea of Winnipeg from childhood. A middle-aged niece of my maternal grandmother lived there, and she would visit us in Toronto for family occasions. Her dry and tepid humour, no-nonsense approach and sensible shoes gave me the impression that Winnipeg must be a very cold place — with no joie de vivre.

Ironically, when I moved to Winnipeg in 2002 after a courtship with my future husband, I could finally and positively confirm my childhood assumptions. Yes, I did experience many winters at -32 C, but the latter conjecture was far from the truth.

To uproot oneself from your place of birth and to start life anew in another city is not easy. Once I settled into matrimonial bliss, moved to the ’burbs, and secured a fulfilling job, the goal before me was clear: make new friends. And I did. I made new lifelong friends who I cherish dearly. While age is indeed a number, I often wondered about the genesis of one intergenerational friendship.

As fate would have it, I landed a fundraising job at The Manitoba Museum. Soon after starting, I was tasked with overseeing a tribute dinner for George T. Richardson. In the execution of the gala, I had a chance meeting in the elevator with Tannis: statuesque, elegant and impeccably dressed. It was just the two of us.

As many people in Canada gathered around their tables during the recent Easter weekend, sharing warm meals with family and friends, there was a quieter, far less comfortable reality unfolding behind closed doors across the country.

For many people with disabilities, this holiday was not defined by abundance, but by impossible choices — between paying rent or buying groceries, between keeping the lights on or filling a prescription.

The rising cost of living in Canada has become a dominant national concern, but its impact is not felt equally. Inflation has driven up the price of basic necessities — food, housing, electricity and medication — at a pace that far outstrips income supports for the most vulnerable. Among those hit hardest are people with disabilities, many of whom rely on fixed or limited incomes that have not kept up with this rapid escalation in costs.

About 27 per cent of people in Canada live with a disability. And they are more than twice as likely to live in poverty compared to those without disabilities.