Neighbouring restaurants make Canada’s Top 100 list

U of W, former professor sued over alleged sex assault

A woman who studied and worked at the University of Winnipeg has filed a lawsuit against the post-secondary institution and her former professor — a convicted sex offender — who she alleges drugged and sexually assaulted her.

The woman, a former international student from the United Kingdom and teaching assistant at the university, claims her professor and “mentor,” Derek Spencer, put a date-rape drug in her drink and groped her following a Christmas party for professors and graduate students in 2019.

“The assailant secretly placed a date-rape drug in her drink without consent and sexually assaulted her while she was in an altered and vulnerable state,” reads the woman’s statement of claim, filed in the Court of King’s Bench earlier this month.

“She suffered grave psychological and physical harm as a result.”

Midterm rout shifts landscape left

During a CBC Radio interview yesterday, In terms of what happened stateside, let’s start with Ohio, where I’ve lived since moving here from Montreal shortly before the 2024 presidential election. Donald Trump won Ohio by 11 points that year. A hotly contested battleground in the early 2000s, the Buckeye State, which has close economic ties with Canada, seemed safely Republican.

But Tuesday night, all the usual Democratic voters, including younger people, professionals, racialized people and many low-wage workers, turned out in droves. Independents and moderates broke for the Democrats, and conservative voters showed far less enthusiasm for Republican candidates than they had for Trump.

Take Lorain County, just west of Cleveland. A mostly white county of post-Second World War suburbs and poorer rural communities, Lorain went for the Democratic candidate for Senate, Sherrod Brown, by 11 points, just two years after favouring Trump by six.

Lorain broke for Dr. Amy Acton, the Democratic candidate for governor, by 14 percentage points — an extra jab, perhaps, at her Republican opponent, Trump acolyte Vivek Ramaswamy, who had run a brutal ad that questioned Acton’s honesty regarding the sexual abuse she suffered as a child.

Judge dismisses complaint about Law Enforcement Review Agency decision

A judge has sided with the Law Enforcement Review Agency in tossing out a complaint from a man who alleged police officers illegally searched his room and pointed a stun gun at him.

Michael Filbert escalated his complaint in provincial court after the agency’s commissioner recommended no further action be taken into the investigation.

In a Nov. 4 decision, Judge Keith Eyrickson said the agency’s commissioner analyzed the case’s evidence “properly and carefully.”

“The conclusion reached was one which is within the range of acceptable outcomes that were available to him on on the evidence before the agency, based on an assessment of the transparency, justification and intelligibility of this decision,” Eyrickson’s decision states.

Neighbouring restaurants make Canada’s Top 100 list

Two neighbouring Winnipeg eateries have been ranked among the top restaurants in the country.

Máquè and Close Company, which are situated next door from one another on Stafford Street, have been included in this year’s Canada’s 100 Best Restaurants List.

This is the second time chef-restaurateur Scott Bagshaw has had a business represented in the annual food and drink ranking scale. Enoteca was included in 2020.

“Hopefully we can get Passero on that list next year to get the trifecta finished,” Bagshaw says with a laugh. “I’m super proud of my staff and very grateful for our clientele.”

Fortified bottle shop opens on Osborne

As convenience stores shutter across Winnipeg, a Manitoba brewery is capitalizing on the vacant space left behind in Osborne Village to offer a new spot to grab a brew.

Farmery Estate Brewing Co. of Neepawa opened a bottle shop at Osborne Street and Roslyn Road last month. The Circle K convenience store that used to operate in that space didn’t renew its lease in September.

While the brewery had a location near Donald Street and Gertrude Avenue for five years, co-owner Chris Warwaruk said the move takes the brand into the “heart of Osborne Village.” He said he’d searched for an opening in the area for months.

“We just want to be an easy connection to the customers in the village that live there, and be an option to people that haven’t had a chance to try our brand yet, and I think that this is a good way for us to get exposure,” he told the Free Press.

How do you decolonize Canada’s museums? It’s a transformation that’s finally getting underway

The Canadian Museum of Human Rights is one of a number of museums across the country working to better their representation of traditionally marginalized groups.