Editorials – Winnipeg Free Press

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Manitoba Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine (left) along with Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith, at the renewal of the province’s five-year poverty reduction strategy.

The number of impoverished children is growing

Editorial 4 minute read Yesterday at 2:02 AM CST

Canada is, unfortunately, beginning to look like the land of poor prospects for its children.

The country saw an increase in child poverty for the third straight year in 2023 — the most recent available public data — according to an annual child poverty report card recently released by Campaign 2000, a non-partisan coalition dedicated to ending child poverty in Canada.

It doesn’t matter which measuring stick you use: according to the official Market Basket Measure, child poverty has more than doubled since 2020, to 10.7 per cent — or 802,000 children. Meanwhile, the Census Family Low Income Measure, After Tax — which Campaign 2000 uses and claims is a better indicator — put the number at 18.3 per cent, or 1.4 million children.

According to 2023 data, Manitoba was the second-highest in child poverty rates based on the CFLIM-AT measure, at 26.9 per cent (Saskatchewan had the highest, at 27.1 per cent). Winnipeg was sixth-highest among large urban centres for the same year, at a rate of 22 per cent.

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Jennilee Martineau, owner of Ex Inked Laser Tattoo Removal.

When the internet extortionist comes calling

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When the internet extortionist comes calling

Editorial 4 minute read Friday, Feb. 27, 2026

Crowdsourcing is only as good as the crowd.

And it’s only as honest as the crowd as well.

Sadly, the problem is that the crowd may be neither.

Everyone has, no doubt, heard of the prevalence of internet scams — the police warn you about them, your bank warns you regularly, and the list goes on.

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Friday, Feb. 27, 2026

The Canadian Press files
Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre

Is it time for a look in the mirror?

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Is it time for a look in the mirror?

Editorial 4 minute read Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026

“It’s not you, it’s me.”

It’s the time-worn rationale offered up when a relationship dissolves and one partner seeks to blunt the pain of the breakup by assuming responsibility. It’s more strategic than sincere, however, with the real goal being to avoid having to engage in a lengthy conversation about who’s to blame for what.

Conservative Party of Canada Leader Pierre Poilievre has endured his share of messy breakups lately; in recent months, three MPs have decided the party’s values no longer align with their own, and the way to best serve their constituents is by crossing the floor and joining the ranks of the governing Liberal Party led by Prime Minister Mark Carney.

The most recent is Edmonton Riverbend MP Matt Jeneroux, who last November announced he intended to resign his parliamentary seat this spring. Having clearly had a change of heart, he announced on Feb. 18 he would instead join Carney’s Liberals, having been impressed by the PM’s much-lauded speech at the World Economic Forum and concerned by the growing wave of separatist sentiment in Alberta and Quebec.

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Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito
B.C. Premier David Eby

AI chatbots and teens — a sometimes deadly combination

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

AI chatbots and teens — a sometimes deadly combination

Editorial 4 minute read Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026

As if there weren’t enough concerns about the changes artificial intelligence may bring in the future — the displacement of millions of workers, or the potential for AI to disconnect from its human managers and go its own way — there are clear and present dangers which AI companies must be forced to address now.

In September, the parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine testified to a U.S. Senate hearing about their son’s interaction with a ChatGTP chatbot. About how their son had conversations with the chatbot about his plans for suicide. The chatbot, Adam’s parents testified, not only discouraged Adam from talking to his parents, but even went so far as to offer to draft the 16-year-old’s suicide note.

Adam committed suicide.

As his father, Matthew Raine, told senators, “ChatGPT told my son, ‘Let’s make this space the first place where someone actually sees you’ … ChatGPT encouraged Adam’s darkest thoughts and pushed him forward. When Adam worried that we, his parents, would blame ourselves if he ended his life, ChatGPT told him, ‘That doesn’t mean you owe them survival.’”

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Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026

Mikaela MacKenzie/Winnipeg Free Press files
Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson

Hospital safety solutions have to deliver results

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Hospital safety solutions have to deliver results

Editorial 4 minute read Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026

It is encouraging that the Manitoba government has announced new and expanded measures to improve safety and security in hospitals. Any action that acknowledges the reality of violence faced by nurses and other health-care workers — and seeks to reduce it — is both necessary and welcome.

But the timing of those announcements, and the recent decision by nurses at St. Boniface Hospital to overwhelmingly grey-list their workplace, underscore a hard truth: despite progress, Manitoba’s hospitals remain unsafe for too many people working there.

Grey-listing is a serious step. It discourages nurses from seeking employment at a facility and is used only when other efforts have failed to produce meaningful change. That 94 per cent of nurses at St. Boniface Hospital voted in favour of grey-listing should give government and health-system leaders pause.

This is not a narrow or partisan protest. It is a near-unanimous expression of fear, frustration and exhaustion from nurses at Manitoba’s second-largest hospital.

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Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026

The Associated Press files
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor

An arrest in Britain sends global shockwaves

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An arrest in Britain sends global shockwaves

Editorial 4 minute read Monday, Feb. 23, 2026

In England, a major Epstein domino has finally teetered over.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, former prince and close associate to Jeffrey Epstein, was arrested Thursday on suspicion that the disgraced aristocrat sent confidential trade reports to the financier and convicted sex offender, who was found to have committed suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. Epstein’s close associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, is currently imprisoned after being convicted of child sex trafficking in 2022.

It is the first time a senior royal has been arrested in centuries (Andrew has since been released from custody as the investigation continues — he has not been charged). It is the newest low in the ex-prince’s life, after being stripped of his royal titles in October last year. King Charles said in response to the arrest that “the law must take its course,” — in other words, no help from the throne is on the way.

It’s an encouraging development that countries whose leaders and other prominent figures have been caught up in the sprawling Epstein scandal are finally beginning to take the matter as seriously as it deserves. U.K. authorities are also investigating Peter Mandelson, now-former minister for the Labour party, on similar suspicions that he passed sensitive materials to Epstein, though he has not been arrested. Mandelson resigned from Labour and stepped down from the House of Lords earlier this month.

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Monday, Feb. 23, 2026

Mark Schiefelbein / The Associated Press
U.S. President Donald Trump

After a court decision on tariffs, what’s next?

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After a court decision on tariffs, what’s next?

Editorial 4 minute read Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026

U.S. President Donald Trump loves the word tariffs — he’s said so many times.

In fact, he’s said “I love the word tariffs — it’s the most beautiful word in the dictionary.”

The U.S. Supreme Court? Not so much. At least, not when the president claims he can unilaterally impose them.

Friday, a majority of the court struck down Trump’s use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, saying, bluntly, “IEEPA does not authorize the president to impose tariffs.”

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Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026

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Google’s data centres consume billions of litres of water each year.

Data centres and infrastructure: an expensive pairing

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Data centres and infrastructure: an expensive pairing

Editorial 4 minute read Friday, Feb. 20, 2026

If you build it, they will compute.

But at what cost?

Governments around the world — India being the latest — have been falling over themselves trying to lure power-hungry, water-thirsty data centre operations to build in their backyards.

In a world where artificial intelligence is the current biggest and brightest thing, the centres offer good initial construction jobs and, post-construction, smaller levels of operational positions, and different administrations have offered everything from financial incentives to tax breaks.

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Friday, Feb. 20, 2026

John Woods / The Canadian Press
A border marker is shown just outside of Emerson, Man.

Tariff cracks are starting to show

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Tariff cracks are starting to show

Editorial 4 minute read Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026

The cracks are most definitely starting to show.

U.S. President Donald Trump has made tariffs — punitive, erratic, inflammatory, self-injurious and, more often than not, petty in their application — the foundation of what passes for economic policy during his second term in office.

The agenda has created uncertainty, distrust and even a measure of enmity among what had formerly been friendly trading nations, underpinned by Trump’s continual carping that America has been “ripped off” by its long-standing partners in global commerce.

At the top of the tariff target list, of course, has been Canada, which found itself squarely in the crosshairs as soon as the president moved back into the White House in January 2025. Having developed an irrational dislike for former prime minister Justin Trudeau, Trump threatened (and, in some cases, summarily imposed) varying levels of tariffs, while at the same time disparaging Canada’s sovereignty by musing aloud about absorbing it as the 51st U.S. state.

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Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026

Christinne Muschi / The Canadian Press
A vigil for mass shoting victims in Tumbler Ridge.

A sign of hope amid true darkness

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

A sign of hope amid true darkness

Editorial 4 minute read Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026

It’s been eight days since the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C.

Eight people were killed — five children between the ages of 11 and 13, an educational assistant, and two relatives of the shooter. Two other children were seriously wounded, among 27 injured. The shooter then killed themself with one of their own weapons.

The students: Abel Mwansa Jr., 12; Zoey Benoit, 12; Ezekiel Schofield, 13; Ticaria Lampert, 12; Kylie Smith, 12. Educational assistant Shannda Aviugana-Durand, 39. Family members Emmett Jacobs, 11, and Jennifer Jacobs, 39.

There’s been time to watch, to listen, to read and to think. To get more clarity about the horrible crime than the sheer shock which was the first reaction as details of the crime unfolded.

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Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026

Evan Vucci / The Associated Press
U.S. President Donald Trump
AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein
U.S. President Donald Trump

Trump’s move to pre-empt fair elections

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Trump’s move to pre-empt fair elections

Editorial 4 minute read Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026

U.S. President Donald Trump has waged an unrelenting war on democratic institutions since beginning his second term in January 2025. So much so that many observers have warned that he is trying to install an authoritarian government in the place of the current democracy.

If that is his ultimate goal, then the next and perhaps final stage in that transition would be a seismic disruption of elections.

Trump has mused in recent weeks about cancelling midterm elections scheduled for this November and “nationalizing” the oversight of elections — effectively giving the federal government authority for how elections are conducted — that are traditionally the purview of state and local governments. These proposals are predicated on Trump’s continued but disproven allegations that voter fraud cost him the election in 2020.

At the same time, his administration has used FBI and Department of Justice resources to seize ballots from a Democratic stronghold jurisdiction in Georgia in a bid to revive long-since-disproven allegations of voter fraud, and sought broad access to voter-registration data.

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Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026

FILE
Sturgeon Heights Collegiate bans backpacks in class.

Taking back the right to backpacks

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Taking back the right to backpacks

Editorial 4 minute read Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026

It’s tough being a high-school student in Canada in 2026.

Some of them entered high school in the shadow of COVID-19, where the typical norms of secondary education radically changed out of necessity. Post-pandemic, the very-online, social-media-driven world of teens has been overrun with liars, grifters, scammers and extortion artists.

Not only do you have to take care not to snap and share intimate photos of yourself, lest they break containment onto the wider internet, you now have to wonder if someone will take your more innocuous photos and use them to generate sexually explicit material with an AI chatbot.

And then, for some reason, your school decides you shouldn’t be allowed to carry your backpack around with you to class, even though you may have been doing it for years.

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Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026

The Canadian Press
Prime Minister Mark Carney

Small movement on U.S. tariffs only the beginning

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Small movement on U.S. tariffs only the beginning

Editorial 4 minute read Friday, Feb. 13, 2026

It’s a long road with no turns, but plenty of potholes. On Wednesday, there was a glimmer of hope up ahead — but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

In Congress, six republicans joined with Democrats to pass a motion to overturn U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada. The Senate — which has already voted to remove the tariffs — will have to vote again, and then the motion will, in all likelihood, be vetoed by Trump.

Vetoed, because Trump never has, and probably never will, admit to having made a mistake.

But his move to tariff-centred economics is a massive mistake.

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Friday, Feb. 13, 2026

THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Patrick Doyle
Former prime minister Stephen Harper

Remembering history to move ahead

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Remembering history to move ahead

Editorial 4 minute read Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026

With his party’s long-anticipated leadership review squarely in the rear-view mirror and armed with a resounding endorsement from its membership, Pierre Poilievre can set his focus on setting the future direction of the Conservative Party of Canada.

In determining the party’s path forward, he would do well to spend a bit of time considering its past.

Despite having received the support of 87 per cent of delegates at the CPC convention in Calgary — a lofty figure that surpasses the 84 per cent approval received by Stephen Harper in a 2005 leadership review following a loss in his first federal election as leader — Poilievre’s popularity among the broader spectrum of the population remains a challenge.

According to recent polls, nearly 60 per cent of Canadians view Poilievre unfavourably, while approval numbers for Prime Minister Mark Carney — the man the CPC leader will inevitably face in the next federal election — also remain at around 60 per cent.

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Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026

Free speech used to justify corporate profit

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Free speech used to justify corporate profit

Editorial 4 minute read Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

And sometimes, an unequal and remarkably revealing reaction.

Last week, there was an editorial in this space talking about the Spanish government’s decision to try and put the brakes on the seamy morass of social media sites, and the effects those sites were having on Spanish youth.

“Social media has become a failed state, a place where laws are ignored and crime is endured, where disinformation is worth more than truth and half of users suffer hate speech,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said in a speech at the World Government Summit in Dubai. “A failed state in which algorithms distort the public conversation and our data and images are defied and sold.”

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Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026

Critical incidents are supposed to lead to action

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Critical incidents are supposed to lead to action

Editorial 4 minute read Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026

The failure to recognize and intervene when a patient’s health has deteriorated remains one of the most troubling and persistent causes of death and serious injury in Manitoba’s health-care system.

The province’s latest critical incident report makes that grim reality impossible to ignore and underscores why nurse-to-patient ratios can no longer remain a theoretical discussion or a future aspiration.

Eight people died and 24 others suffered major medical consequences between Jan. 1 and March 31 this year as a result of critical incidents in Manitoba’s health facilities.

While the total number of incidents declined slightly from the previous quarter, the underlying causes are depressingly familiar. Too often, patients deteriorated without timely recognition. Too often, gaps in monitoring led to preventable harm. And too often, the common thread was staffing stretched beyond safe limits.

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Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026

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