DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: Last week I heard the doorbell and opened the door quickly without really looking outside. It was the kid who lived next door before he went away to university. He’s back for a little while — and looking like a rock star.

He used to play in a local band, but he never looked the part while he lived with his parents. Now this “kid” is so hot-looking and pumped up, he’s dangerous.

I invited him in from the cold and gave him a coffee. He was all about asking to see my daughter, but she was in class at the university — and thank God. If she gets a look at the new him with his hair, earrings and tattoos, her dad and I are in trouble.

He’s home for a whole month. What can I do to warn my daughter away?

If the government catches you fishing without a licence you could receive a $298 fine. Similarly, you’ll face a $143 fine if you haven’t updated the address on your driver’s licence after moving. These are just a couple examples of the various fines Manitobans face for relatively small mistakes.

So what happened when the government’s health system accidentally let patient Debbie Fewster die on a waitlist? There were no consequences, according to a freedom of information response from Shared Health. It seems the government doesn’t want to hold itself accountable for colossal mistakes.

The Niverville patient was told in 2024 that she needed heart surgery within three weeks but died on a waiting list after waiting more than two months. After we helped bring her story to light a year ago, Debbie’s children have since learned their mother died because the system accidentally put her case in the long-term pile instead of the urgent pile.

Compare this with a Manitoba business that faced a $70,000 fine last year when an employee died on the job. The year prior a different business faced $23,000 in penalties for an accident that saw an employee lose a finger. These are serious consequences for serious incidents.

PREMIER Wab Kinew is a top-notch communicator among Canadian politicians. Given that fact, it is surprising that his government is doing such a poor job of communicating a compelling narrative regarding Budget 2026.

The spin has focused mostly on minor and “gimmicky” items such as free bus fare for kids and making prepared meals and junk food cheaper at grocery stores. That’s a mistake, given the availability of a more persuasive narrative.

Such an approach would focus on the argument that, if not for factors well beyond the control of the government, they would be well on their way to achieving a balanced budget by next year, as the NDP has promised.

The argument is composed of two components. First, all provinces are struggling to limit the harmful impacts of the erratic conduct of the Trump administration. The constant cascade of tariffs and other threats has hurt economic activity in Manitoba and the tax revenues the province would otherwise be earning, just as it has harmed every other province.

Canada’s first AI Literacy Day was March 27.

While many forms of technology remain neutral, unbiased, objective, and impartial by their very nature, this is certainly not the case for many of the AI systems that have already been integrated into our lives. Encouraging AI literacy for people of all ages is important, as it offers space for us to seek answers to the important questions that will hopefully equip us to make informed decisions and lead to the safe and responsible use of this technology.

According to MediaSmarts, Canada’s centre for digital media literacy, AI literacy is about understanding how artificial intelligence shapes what we see and do online — and I would add, how it shapes what we see and do in the real world.

This brought to mind Ray Bradbury’s 1953 dystopian classic Fahrenheit 451. The futuristic TV parlours, with their wall-sized television screens, immersed people in shallow, chaotic noise. One could easily mistake Bradbury’s description of such rooms with that of generative AI: “It grows you any shape it wishes! It is an environment as real as the world. It becomes and is the truth.”

An important part of the provincial government’s March 24 budget is the increase of $2.5 million in the amount allocated to adult basic education. This will move us one step closer to our goal of building the best adult basic education system in Canada.

Adult basic education includes the mature high school diploma for adults who did not previously complete high school, and adult literacy programs that bring adult learners up to high school entry level.

The program transforms the lives of adult learners and is effectively cost-free.

A recent study found that adult basic education moves enough people off Employment and Income Assistance, reducing government expenditures, and enough people into full-time employment, increasing income tax revenue, that it pays for itself in ten years.