Curling comedy a hacky affair

Police HQ report to be released Monday

The province confirmed Friday the final report of the public inquiry into the Winnipeg Police Service headquarters will be released on Monday.

The release will take place at a media conference with commissioner of the Winnipeg Police Service Headquarters inquiry Garth Smorang, scheduled for 1 p.m. Monday at the Manitoba Legislative Building.

The $2.3-million public inquiry took place over 27.5 hearing dates between February and May.

The city has faced myriad problems related to the WPS headquarters, a former Canada Post office building and warehouse at Smith Street and Graham Avenue, for more than a decade.

Database issues cloud city homeless numbers

The head of End Homelessness Winnipeg says she has no confidence in data about the city’s homeless population due to problems with the federal system that tracks those numbers.

Jennifer Rattray, the organization’s chief executive officer, told the Free Press Thursday it continues to work with the federal government to resolve problems with the Homeless Individuals and Families Information System, which keeps tabs on people who access homelessness services.

CBC has reported it obtained an internal memo from EHW that shows that as of the end of March, the number of chronically homeless Winnipeggers had fallen to 436 from about 4,400, as a result of efforts to correct the database.

Earlier this year, the organization had reported more than 8,000 people were accessing services.

City’s Kenaston plan won’t work, outside consultant told Crown land authority in October

The consulting firm hired to redesign the former Kapyong Barracks property agrees with area residents who believe the plan to widen Kenaston Boulevard is flawed and will negatively impact surrounding neighbourhoods.

A letter sent from B.C.-based Urban Systems to Canada Lands Company says the City of Winnipeg is intent on turning Kenaston into an “urban freeway” — an approach that fails to mesh with CLC’s proposed development of the Kapyong property.

“Developing Route 90 into an urban freeway will create disruptions through significant acquisitions of the Kapyong lands by the city as required to meet right-of-way requirements for an urban freeway,” a principal of the firm says in the later dated Oct. 23, 2017.

The letter was obtained by the Winnipeg Free Press through an Access to Information request. The letter-writer's identity had been blacked-out.

Ukrainian musicians find healing in performance after fleeing war-torn homeland

For the Ukrainian people, Mariia Balieieva says, there is a before and an after.

Alberta’s immigrants feeling xenophobic chill from some questions in Monday’s referendum

EDMONTON — When Gurnam Singh Dodd came to Canada in 1976, he landed first in southern Ontario, where his brother lived. At the time, the province was mired in the era of stagflation, and it was difficult to find work; but he had some friends living in Edmonton, and asked for their advice.

“Come to Alberta,” they told him. It was a land of opportunity. The economy was booming, bolstered by soaring oil and gas prices; Dodd could surely find multiple jobs within days. With that, the young Sikh newcomer packed up and headed west, looking to put down roots on the edge of the Canadian Prairies.

Nearly 50 years later, that proved to be a wise decision. Dodd worked hard to succeed in his new home, moving up from his first minimum-wage jobs to a successful career with Edmonton Transit, and then as a driver’s licence examiner. He raised a thriving family, gave back to his community and became, in all ways, a very proud Albertan.

Around the turn of the millennium, eager to do his part in the province’s public life, he joined what was then Alberta’s Progressive Conservative party, under the leadership of premier Ralph Klein. (Klein’s father, Dodd says proudly, was a friend, and helped get him into politics.)

Curling comedy a hacky affair

Ah, small-town Canada. Land of ice, snow, Tim Hortons, curling clubs and… um.

Ontario playwright Mark Crawford's comedy The New Canadian Curling Club proceeds on a premise that small-town Canadian culture is a bit of a wasteland. In a show that trades in — pardon the pun — sweeping generalizations, that one may be the most tiresome.

The premise: Four "New Canadians" show up at a small-town Ontario curling club to learn the oddball sport from crusty curling vet Stuart MacPhail (Doug McKeag), a seventh-generation Scot proud of his family's curling legacy, inscribed for eternity, more or less, on the club's display of bonspiel trophies.

One of the players, Jamaican-born Charmaine Bailey (Lorraine James), manager of the town's only Tim Hortons franchise, isn't really a new Canadian at all. She's lived in the town for a quarter-century after falling in love with a Dutch-Canadian and following him home.