Schools in four more Ontario public health units to reopen for in-person learning

U of W Collegiate students thank residential school survivors with the lessons they’ve learned

It’s become a back-to-school tradition for teachers to invite Indigenous elders to their classrooms to share first-hand accounts about the ongoing impacts of Canada’s residential school system.

This fall, the University of Winnipeg Collegiate was among the schools that sent an invitation — but its purpose wasn’t to educate students about the system’s horrors.

“Truth and Reconciliation week is so emotional and draining for residential school survivors,” said Christine M’Lot, a longtime instructor of the school’s Grade 9 truth and reconciliation course.

“I wanted to do something a little bit different and offer a thank you.”

Cops handcuffed by bail issues, lack of mental-health options, WPS chief tells residents in crime-ridden North End neighbourhood

Weak bail reform and a lack of mental-health resources and addictions treatment beds are making it more difficult to tackle crime in inner-city neighbourhoods such as William Whyte, where there has been a significant increase in criminal behaviour compared to last year, the city’s top police officer says.

Winnipeg Police Services Chief Gene Bowers made the remarks Thursday night at an event hosted by the William Whyte Neighbourhood Association, where about two dozen residents gathered to share their concerns about crime in the North End community.

“Fentanyl and meth, that’s caused a strain on all our front lines and and all these agencies that are trying to help people,” Bowers told the room of people at Inner City Youth Alive on Aberdeen Avenue Thursday night.

“What really is the problem is there’s no treatment. That’s the gap, because (police and agencies) are all churning the same people through, and we’re all seeing them. We’re all frustrated that there’s no help.”

Stable incomes, not more weapons, provide security

Even amid a global arms race, a hike in Canadian defence spending should be a tough sell, David Olive writes.

Software glitch caused multi-provincial 911 outage: Bell

A 911 outage that affected Manitoba and four other provinces for about 90 minutes last month was caused by a software failure, according to Bell Canada’s report to a federal regulator.

An abridged version of the report, which was made public Friday, did not say how many callers were affected when Bell’s next-generation 911 platform stopped receiving new calls and transferring new calls to local 911 communications centres, putting backup systems into use.

The outage, which lasted from 2:13 a.m. to 3:40 a.m. central time on Sept. 17, was not caused by a cyberattack or any change activity, Bell said.

“Rather, the outage was caused by a latent software issue that triggered an unexpected condition in certain network components within the (next-generation 911) network,” Philippe Gauvin, Bell’s assistant general counsel, wrote in the report, which was published on the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s website.

Suspension upheld for teen hockey player involved in hazing

A high school hockey player who was found to have been involved in sexualized hazing of rookie teammates lost his suspension appeal.

The youth player was barred from Hockey Canada-sanctioned activities. He was handed the four-year and nine-month suspension from sanctioned hockey after an interim ban issued in March 2024.

He appealed his suspension late last year to the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada, an independent conflict tribunal, but the centre upheld the youth’s suspension, according to a written decision issued earlier this year.

An independent investigator who probed the hockey player’s actions described the youth as a veteran player who both participated in and co-ordinated the “assigning” of rookie team members to veteran players to perform tasks for them. He himself was “assigned” a rookie, the decision said.