Those who pay attention to Manitoba politics will no doubt be aware of a little dust-up happening within the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba. In short, the party has decided to prevent Wally Daudrich from seeking the party’s nomination in the constituency of Turtle Mountain, close to where he lives.

Many supporters of Daudrich have taken to social media to criticize the decision. After all, he has spent months campaigning for this nomination and has sold countless memberships, thereby bringing more members to the PC Party. A common question within these complaints is, “Why is the party blocking Daudrich from becoming a PC Party candidate in a seat he is likely to win?”

Well, allow me to speculate on what, to me, is an obvious issue for Daudrich, the PC Party of Manitoba, and conservative politics in Manitoba more generally.

In February 2025 I attended one of Daudrich’s “meet and greet” events to hear from him during the PC Party leadership race.

When you flunked a test in school, you could try to soften your parents’ reaction by pointing out that your classmates did worse.

Manitoba Finance Minister Adrien Sala can barely make that argument.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation just released its annual report cards for all provincial finance ministers. Sala is tied as the second-worst-performing finance minister in the country, based on his latest budget.

Sala received an overall grade of D- this year. That’s a slight improvement over the F he received last year, but still not good enough for taxpayers.

The Winnipeg Police Service is beginning its long-awaited body-worn camera (BWC) pilot project. The pilot will include 40 front-line officers who will wear the devices for the next six months.

Winnipeg police will be gathering community feedback through public forums and a public perception survey in order “to ensure that the pilot is informed by meaningful input.”

The public perception survey asks respondents to indicate their level of agreement with a series of statements, on a scale of strongly agree to strongly disagree — a frequent and familiar tool for surveys, known as a Likert scale. There is also an option to indicate no opinion. The survey of opinions about body cameras begins with five basic profile questions followed by 18 Likert scale statements and concludes with a short space for additional comments.

From a research standpoint, there are fundamental flaws with the survey that make it incapable of producing meaningful results that would inform a body camera pilot in Winnipeg.

‘Education got us into this mess and education will get us out of it.”

With these familiar and powerful words, the late Justice Murray Sinclair, chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, pointed deliberately and necessarily to education as the key to reconciliation.

This journey of education and understanding is one all Canadians should take to truly understand a dark chapter of our country’s history, the impacts of which continue to reverberate through communities and families. In response, the TRC offered a clear plan for education to blaze the path needed for a better future.

Every school year, First Nations, Métis, and Inuit students are welcomed into classrooms throughout Louis Riel School Division. This is a sacred trust placed in the hands of school staff, senior staff and the school board.

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew recently rejected a proposed AI data centre near Winnipeg, citing concerns over water use, noise, and a perceived lack of public benefit.

The instinct to protect communities from unwanted development is understandable. But when the objections collapse under scrutiny, and when the stakes include Canada’s standing in the global AI economy, the decision deserves a harder look.

Critics of data centres frequently invoke water consumption, and there is genuine nuance worth discussing.

Large facilities do use water for evaporative cooling. But comparison matters. A typical 18-hole golf course uses approximately 300,000 gallons of water per day during summer months.

These days, billionaires act like they own the world — which they pretty much do.

So, it’s not surprising they’re facing an uprising coming from the struggling masses below.

That uprising, led by unionized health-care workers in California, has collected more than a million signatures with the goal of getting a wealth tax — aimed exclusively at billionaires — onto a statewide ballot. California voters would then decide whether to tax some of the world’s largest mega-fortunes in order to replace funds the Trump administration is taking out of health care.

The showdown in California could be a harbinger of what lies ahead in Canada.

Since former federal environment minister Steven Guilbeault announced he was resigning as an MP, the reactions from all sides have been predictable.

Good riddance to his “rigid and dogmatic approach” that threatened national unity, some say, or perhaps his ouster represents a “people last” move “toward a literally scorched Earth.” Other commentators shrugged: it’s a “political divorce,” because “circumstances had changed.”

A common sentiment seems to be that although the “radical” environmentalist had his way for a while, as Tom Brodbeck argued in these pages, Guilbeault’s quest for “ideological purity” and inability to work within the system meant that he never had a chance. He couldn’t “compromise.”

All of the above narratives ignore what Guilbeault achieved working in government: actual steps down the road toward realistic sustainable development, built on the hard-fought idea of a national bargain and degrees of conciliation.

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew may have good intentions in proposing restrictions on social media use in schools, but a blanket ban on platforms like YouTube risks doing more harm than good.

In the rush to address concerns about screen time, online addiction, and student distraction, we may be overlooking an important reality: digital tools, when used responsibly, have become an essential part of modern teaching and learning.

As an educator, I spend countless hours preparing materials for my classes.

Effective teaching is not simply standing at the front of a room and talking while students passively absorb information. It involves designing lessons that engage students with different abilities, interests, and learning styles.