Editorials – Winnipeg Free Press

MIKE DEAL / FREE Press files
Basic reading skills are fundamental.

Human rights and learning to read

Editorial 4 minute read Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025

It’s a human rights issue, plain and simple.

A report released late last month by the Manitoba Human Rights Commission makes clear the province is failing young students and their families by not providing adequate assessment and supports related to basic reading skills.

And reading, the report declares, is as fundamental as education gets.

“Reading is the foundation of learning and a fundamental skill that shapes every aspect of life,” the document’s executive summary states. “Students who cannot read well are more likely to face challenges in school, work and everyday life. When students cannot access reading instruction, it affects their confidence, mental health and long-term opportunities.”

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Federal budget makes some health spending vanish

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Federal budget makes some health spending vanish

Editorial 4 minute read Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025

The federal government’s decision not to renew a multi-year health-care agreement with the provinces amounts to a quiet — but very real — funding cut.

Dubbed “Working Together to Improve Healthcare for Canadians,” the agreement was launched in 2023. It provided provinces with targeted funding — on top of the regular Canada Health Transfer — to hire more frontline staff, reduce wait times and modernize health care technology.

For Manitoba, that translated into almost $150 million a year in additional federal funding.

But nowhere in Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first federal budget did the Liberal government indicate the program will be renewed.

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Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sammy Kogan
Prime Minister Mark Carney

Changed names, the law and sex offenders

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Changed names, the law and sex offenders

Editorial 4 minute read Monday, Nov. 10, 2025

The NDP government of Manitoba cannot say why it passed — but did not enact — a 2024 law preventing citizens convicted of child sexual offences from legally changing their names. All we know is that government is now scrambling to put this law into effect after its shortcoming was fully revealed to the public.

Last week, the Free Press reported how a mother had learned that a man she had befriended and allowed to spend time with her preteen son was actually a convicted child sex offender who had legally changed his name.

Ryan Knight, who was charged this past July with allegedly making and possessing child pornography, sexual interference and aggravated sexual assault, had legally changed his name from Ryan Gabourie, apparently to conceal the fact that nearly 20 years ago, he spent seven years in prison for sexually molesting five young boys.

It took less than a day for Premier Wab Kinew to announce the law would soon be put into action. Kinew said the delay was due to the fact the regulations needed to accompany the new law had not yet been drafted.

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Monday, Nov. 10, 2025

MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS files
Premier Wab Kinew

Other encampment options possible

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Other encampment options possible

Editorial 4 minute read Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025

Authorities in Winnipeg will soon launch their latest response to homeless encampments, though sadly actual solutions to the problem remain elusive.

Beginning in mid-November, the city will roll out its new policy for dealing with the encampments, in an effort to prevent them from being established and presenting risks near sensitive sites and public spaces. The system outlines three different levels of encampment response, each calling for a different degree of involvement from police, fire-paramedics and support workers. Some responses call only for outreach, rather than removal of encampments.

The new policy is sure to bring relief to Winnipeggers who have been alarmed by the emergence of homeless encampments in public spaces, near schools, or other at other locations where they may present unwanted risks to residents in the area.

What it does not do, however, is get the city any closer to a long-term solution to its homelessness crisis. The number of homeless people in Winnipeg nearly doubled last year — End Homelessness Winnipeg’s annual street census reported that about 2,469 people are homeless in the city. The Manitoba government has implemented a strategy to get people into housing, but the process has been slow and the results to date underwhelming. About 100 people had been successfully placed in housing as of the end of October, but that still leaves more than 2,000 people living rough.

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Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025

Ruth Bonneville / Free Press files
An encampment near St. John’s Park this summer.

Many Canadian eyes on America’s top court

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Many Canadian eyes on America’s top court

Editorial 4 minute read Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025

When oral arguments were presented Wednesday morning to the Supreme Court of the United States, Canada was just one of many interested parties listening intently to what was said.

The issue at hand before America’s highest court was tariffs — specifically, the legality of the manner in which U.S. President Donald Trump has unilaterally imposed them on virtually every one of his nation’s global trading partners.

In order to bypass the congressional approvals that are routinely required on matters of taxation and revenue, Trump has invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The 1977 law allows the president to regulate economic transactions during national emergencies; in order to invoke the law as the rationale for his wide-ranging and whim-motivated penalties, Trump has stretched the definitions of “national emergency” and “national security” to encompass pretty much anything or anyone in the global marketplace he doesn’t like at a particular moment in time.

Trump’s tariff strategy has been challenged by numerous small business groups, as well as at least a dozen states, and lower courts have consistently ruled against the punitive policy. The Supreme Court case — which will require lengthy deliberation and likely won’t produce a decision for several months — will be a defining moment for Trump.

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Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025

win mcnamee / getty images Files
The U.S. Supreme Court

Focus on the verdict, not political posturing

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Focus on the verdict, not political posturing

Editorial 4 minute read Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025

This may not be popular — after all, politicians from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew to Ontario Premier Doug Ford have gone full-bore to wind up the public on this issue.

Kinew even went so far as to suggest invoking “the code of the streets” and the need for some convicted criminals to be buried “under the prison.”

The object of their attacks? A Supreme Court of Canada verdict that overturned a mandatory minimum one-year prison sentence for convictions involving child pornography.

The verdict is getting plenty of heat beyond the politicians.

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Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025

Mike Deal/Winnipeg Free Press files
Premier Wab Kinew

Increased costs and fees — end the dance

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Increased costs and fees — end the dance

Editorial 4 minute read Monday, Nov. 3, 2025

There are few people who dispute the need for a $3-billion upgrade to Winnipeg’s North End Sewage Treatment Plant. How and when it should be fully funded, however, has been a source of great uncertainty.

There is near consensus on the size, scope and environmental importance of the project. Massive upgrades to the 88-year-old facility have been contemplated for decades and became a pressing issue in the early 2000s when the aging plant failed and spewed millions of cubic litres of raw sewage into the Red River. Ultimately, the provincial Clean Environment Commission ordered the City of Winnipeg to assemble a plan to replace the plant.

The city responded with a three-phase plan that, in 2005, was pegged at more than $1 billion, a sum that was well beyond the financial capacity of the city and its homeowners to cover on their own. Funding requests were made to both the provincial and federal governments, triggering the first in a series of what we might call the fiscal tango.

It starts with the city releasing trial balloons featuring alarming estimates of the increased cost per home of paying for the upgrade without funding from senior levels of government. After this initial gesture, Ottawa and the province expressed their support but stop short of fully committing to its costs.

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Monday, Nov. 3, 2025

MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS
Construction at the Nort End Sewage Treatment Plant.

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Ford’s anti-tariff ad leaves bruise

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Ford’s anti-tariff ad leaves bruise

Editorial 4 minute read Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025

Say what you will about Ontario Premier Doug Ford — he knows how to get under a fellow populist’s skin.

Ford succeeded in irritating U.S. President Donald Trump with his decision to run a TV ad critical of Trump’s tariff scheme, utilizing old footage of former president Ronald Reagan to make the point that the late president — still greatly admired among many Americans — would not have approved of Trump’s methods.

Reaction to the ad among Trump and his supporters was swift and furious. MAGA acolytes denounced it, claiming it skewed Reagan’s words, while Trump claimed the ad was AI-generated (it was not). He immediately threatened to impose an extra 10 per cent in tariffs on Canada, “over and above” what he has previously laid out.

The clips of Reagan, pulled from a 1987 speech, are authentic, although a case can be made they did not include the full context of Reagan’s words regarding the U.S.’s trading relationship with Japan — the subject of the comments — at the time of the speech.

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Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025

THE CANADIAN PRESS files
Ontario Premier Doug Ford

Time to limit the notwithstanding clause

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Time to limit the notwithstanding clause

Editorial 4 minute read Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025

You can perhaps better understand why the federal government has asked Canada’s Supreme Court to rule on whether there should be guardrails on how the notwithstanding clause can be used.

The clause enables provincial governments — and theoretically, even the federal government — to bring in legislation that violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

It’s easier to understand why the federal government wants the Supreme Court’s ruling when provinces like Alberta are using the clause for things as common as imposing contracts on its employees — thereby giving those employees no ability to strike or challenge the imposed contracts in court.

The Alberta government took such an action against its striking teachers on Monday despite having other options, and despite recognizing that the law it brought in likely not only violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but the Alberta Bill of Rights and the Alberta Human Rights Act as well.

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Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025

Christinne muschi / The Canadian Press files
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith

Province has to do more than talk the talk

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Province has to do more than talk the talk

Editorial 4 minute read Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025

The breakdown of mediation between the Manitoba Association of Crown Attorneys (MACA) and the provincial government should alarm anyone concerned about public safety.

This is not just a labour dispute, it’s a crisis that strikes at the core of Manitoba’s ability to prosecute crimes fairly, efficiently and effectively.

For months, prosecutors have been raising the alarm about crushing workloads, burnout and chronic understaffing in the Crown’s office.

Some have left for other jurisdictions or for less stressful work in the private sector. Those who remain are often stretched to the breaking point, juggling dozens of files at once, with little time to properly prepare cases or argue bail hearings.

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Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025

MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS
Premier Wab Kinew

Metaphor is dead as Trump ‘renovates’

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Metaphor is dead as Trump ‘renovates’

Editorial 4 minute read Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025

It appears U.S. President Donald Trump will not stop until he has rendered literally every metaphorical description one could give for his presidency.

Case in point: he’s tearing the White House apart.

Trump, as part of a lifelong effort to make everything about himself, has torn down the entire East Wing of the presidential building as he moves ahead with construction of an ornate, US$350-million ballroom. The demolition was carried out without the approvals that are normally required. He already had the Rose Garden paved over, he evidently needs more change than that.

One could have made the argument during his first term that Trump had already rewritten American politics in his image, an image which persisted through others even during his four-year absence from the Oval Office during former president Joe Biden’s term. Republican policy revolves around his whims. Democrats were, and still are, defined by how hard they will work to oppose him. When he leaves the office one day, his spectre will likely endure, hovering over the American body politic for a generation.

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Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025

The Associated Press
A window dangles as work continues Tuesday on the demolition of a part of the East Wing of the White House before construction of a new ballroom.

A clarification that still leaves things muddy

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A clarification that still leaves things muddy

Editorial 4 minute read Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025

Sometimes, even a clarification doesn’t do much to actually clarify things.

On Monday, federal Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre did his best to walk back his recent criticism of the RCMP.

Maybe he’s hoping the clarification won’t be read too closely. Or maybe, because he released it as a written statement from his office, instead of actually saying it out loud, it won’t be read at all by those he was trying to reach during his appearance on the Northern Perspectives YouTube channel last week.

His complete statement is devilishly difficult to track down online. It doesn’t appear in his X feed — and it doesn’t appear among the recent statements that the Conservative Party has posted online over the last few days, but sections of it have been reported.

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Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre

Stefanson and a fine — was it suitable punishment?

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Stefanson and a fine — was it suitable punishment?

Editorial 4 minute read Friday, Oct. 17, 2025

There is something utterly unsatisfying about the political epitaph that has been written about former premier Heather Stefanson.

Manitoba’s first female premier resigned her seat in the spring of 2024, seven months after she and her Progressive Conservative party were thumped by the NDP in the 2023 election. The insult to the injury came in June 2024, when the NDP captured Stefanson’s Tuxedo seat in a byelection.

If that was the last we heard of Stefanson, it would have been a sufficiently tragic end to her long career in public service. Unfortunately for Stefanson, that is not the last we heard.

In May, Jeffrey Schnoor, Manitoba’s ethics commissioner, found that Stefanson, former deputy premier Cliff Cullen and former economic development minister Jeff Wharton, violated the Conflict of Interest Act by trying to get an environmental licence for the controversial Sio Silica sand mining project following the 2023 election. The transgressions occurred during the so-called caretaker period, in which an ousted government must not undertake any consequential decisions or actions while it hands over the reins of power to a new government.

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Friday, Oct. 17, 2025

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS PC’s Heather Stefanson is interviewed by the media after the debate. Leaders of the three main provincial parties, PC’s Heather Stefanson, NDP’s Web Kinew, and Liberal’s Dougald Lamont, take part in a debate hosted by the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce at the RBC Convention Centre Wednesday afternoon. 230920 - Wednesday, September 20, 2023.

A relationship that’s on the rocks

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A relationship that’s on the rocks

Editorial 4 minute read 2:01 AM CST

The hardest part of a breakup, it’s sometimes said, is letting go.

When it comes to Canada-U.S. relations, it seems many Manitobans might be ready to do just that.

Recent polling by Probe Research shows a clear majority — nearly two-thirds of 1,000 Manitobans surveyed between Nov. 25 and Dec. 10 — agree the United States is no longer Canada’s ally.

After a year filled with trade uncertainty, erratic tariff impositions and inflammatory but nonsensical musings by President Donald Trump about annexing this country as the 51st U.S. state, a great many folks hereabouts think significant damage has befallen what was once the world’s most reliable and enviable international relationship.

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2:01 AM CST

U.S. President Donald Trump (Julia Demaree Nikhinson / The Associated Press files)

Riding the fiscal roller-coaster, and holding on tight

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Riding the fiscal roller-coaster, and holding on tight

Editorial 4 minute read Monday, Dec. 22, 2025

It was truly a fiscal roller-coaster of emotions.

On Dec. 12, Manitoba learned it would be getting a $355-million increase to its federal equalization payment, bringing the total to just more than $5 billion. Equalization involves the redistribution of federal income tax revenue from provinces with bigger economies to those with smaller economies to ensure all Canadians have access to the same levels of government services.

Just three days later, the relief over the increase in equalization was dashed by news the budget deficit had grown exponentially. The province’s second-quarter fiscal update showed the budget is now forecast to have a $1.6-billion deficit, nearly twice what the NDP government had budgeted in the spring.

The fiscal backsliding has been attributed to the impacts of a historic drought. The province faced $227 million in unfunded costs to fight wildfires. At the same time, Manitoba Hydro went from forecasting a small net profit to a $464-million loss, all due to drought conditions that have lowered water levels.

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Monday, Dec. 22, 2025

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS files
Premier Wab Kinew

Time to clean up a world of ‘slop’

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Time to clean up a world of ‘slop’

Editorial 4 minute read Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025

Merriam-Webster chose its word of the year correctly, and for more reasons than it might realize.

“Slop” is the word of 2025, according to the dictionary publisher. The decision was motivated primarily by the public’s encounters with, and reaction to, content generated by “artificial intelligence” large-language models.

Despite the best efforts of the technology’s proponents, people are quickly getting tired of being inundated with gaudy, glossy, lazy AI-generated images and videos practically everywhere they turn, from social media platforms to T-shirt vendors.

According to a Pew Research Center survey of U.S. residents released in September, respondents were more concerned than excited by the technology, and were “generally pessimistic about AI’s effect on people’s ability to think creatively…”

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Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025

December 24, 2025

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