Delta 9’s getting its joint ready for big day

Human rights museum responds to reopening backlash

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights reopened to fully vaccinated members of the public this week, drawing cries of discrimination from those who have chosen not to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

While the some of the backlash has been “disturbing,” museum CEO Isha Khan said the conflict has opened room for a conversation about human rights during the pandemic.

“We made the decision to open in compliance with that law, really because we’re a public institution and we saw it as our responsibility to open as soon as we could to the public — within the restrictions as they currently are,” Khan said Thursday.

“But it’s really important to us, as the Canadian Museum for Human Rights we have a mandate for human rights education, that we’re trying to ground the conversation in human rights principles.”

Defunding police ‘illogical step’: Pallister

Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister says he’s open to channelling justice funding to preventive programs, but questions whether defunding police is the best approach — warning there will always be criminals taking advantage of vulnerable people.

“I think the motivation that lies in frustrations of the actions of some police services — not necessarily here in Winnipeg exclusively, but elsewhere — is justifiable and understandable, and I get it,” Pallister said Tuesday, when asked to comment on the 30,000 signatures collected for a Justice 4 Black Lives Winnipeg petition calling for the abolition of the city police.

“But then moving to defunding police is, to me, an illogical step from that one. Don’t let your frustration lose your common sense... There’s a lot of people out there in vulnerable communities who depend on the police to protect them and make sure they’re safe from the action of criminals.”

There has been a widespread call to restructure police funding in the wake of George Floyd’s death May 25 in Minneapolis.

Court ruling concludes Canadian Wheat Board saga

It remains to be seen whether the recent court ruling in a lawsuit filed after Canadian Wheat Board’s dissolution in 2012 puts the whole debate to rest, as some no doubt hope.

But either way, the dust has settled on the post-CWB world. The sun still rises and a new generation of farmers on the land only knows by name an institution that for generations influenced every aspect of Prairie grain farming.

The first Rural Revival column I wrote for this newspaper more than 30 years ago was about a thousand farmers from Western Canada demonstrating in support of the Wheat Board. It was in the aftermath of the Western Grain Marketing Panel report, one of several efforts that eventually included a plebiscite to help the federal government decide what to do about a vocal minority of farmers who wanted marketing “freedom.”

The polls at the time suggested about two-thirds of farmers were comfortable enough with the single-desk system for food wheat and barley to keep it around. It served as a counterbalance to canola, which they sold on the open market. They essentially had a dual market.

Olympics Overnight: Speedskater Blondin wins silver in the mass start, Bowman narrowly misses podium in halfpipe skiing, Jamaica returns to bobsled track

Here’s what you missed overnight at Day 15 of the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

Provincial budget fails to chart new course

If the 2022 Manitoba budget was intended to provide a lifeline for the Progressive Conservative government, it must surely be considered a failure.

Prior to the budget’s release, Premier Heather Stefanson and her government were teetering on the edge of the political abyss. Manitobans are profoundly unhappy with the government’s performance on most issues, including pandemic management. National polls show Ms. Stefanson is Canada’s least popular premier.

That political context made this budget a high-priority project for the Tories. It was, simply put, their best chance to shed the lingering burden left by former premier Brian Pallister, and rebuild the party brand under a new leader.

Unfortunately, Ms. Stefanson’s first budget remains shackled to the deeply flawed fiscal and political logic that defined the Pallister years. And no single budgetary measure embodies that failure more than the premier’s decision to continue cutting education property taxes.

Haunted houses aren’t the only places to find jump scares

C’est l’Halloween, to quote the 1981 elementary school French class banger by Matt Maxwell, but you know what’s already plenty scary? Life.

We all have our personal haunted houses, so to speak, hence the popularity of the “a haunted house but it’s just…” meme that pops up every October. Sample: “a haunted house but it’s just a bunch of men telling you you’d be prettier if you smiled.”

In the spirit of the season, I thought I’d offer up a few jump scares of my own.

A haunted house but it’s just Gate E25