Thai PM sails through last no-confidence vote ahead of polls

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.

Heated Rivalry scores on so many levels

Heated Rivalry’s current cultural moment looks improbable on paper: how did a little six-episode Canadian show with no stars, from a Canadian director, based on a Canadian gay hockey romance series, released on a Canadian streaming platform set the world on fire?

Jacob Tierney’s (Letterkenny) sports romance, based on Rachel Reid’s Game Changers novels, about the long-simmering — and secret — love between on-ice hockey rivals Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Conner Storrie, who is Patrick Swayze incarnate) more than lives up to the hype.

It does so much so well: the white-hot chemistry between two charismatic leads, the storytelling (you will weep), the cinematography, the tension, the payoff.

But lots of shows are excellent and even era-defining. What is it about this show that has led to a frenzied fandom that rivals Swifties in obsession and intensity, specifically among women? Some of my friends are on their third rewatch of the first season (it’s been picked up by HBO, of course) which was released in November and ended late last month.

The threat from outside Canada

The 10-question referendum being held in Alberta on Monday, Oct. 19, is not the first time the unity of Canada has been threatened by a vote within one province. It is, however, the first referendum of this type to take place in an age of unfettered social media misinformation and deliberate foreign interference.

From mischievous comments by U.S. President Donald Trump about making Canada the 51st state to technology trillionaire Elon Musk’s urgings to Quebec and Alberta to separate, there are clear signs foreign interests are trying to influence Monday’s vote. But there are also less-obvious efforts at work to influence the referendum and destabilize Canada.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and independent think-tanks such as the Centre for Artificial Intelligence, Data and Conflict at the University of Regina have documented incidents involving Russian-linked automated content farms posting thousands of misleading articles about the referendum campaign on social media platforms. The content, CSIS has said, focuses on erroneous claims about the benefits of separation and the liabilities of remaining in Canada.

In the face of all that activity, Prime Minister Mark Carney has been alarmingly unconcerned. Campaigning in Alberta this week, Carney said Ottawa is closely monitoring disinformation campaigns. He added that, in his conversations with foreign governments, all have agreed to stand down from any activities that might be perceived as threats to democracy.

Grade 3 finds us… in the middle of the maze

Carolin Vesely has kept in touch with Windsor School's class of 2017 since they started kindergarten. When she and photographer Ruth Bonneville recently dropped in on the students, they were nearing the end of Grade 3.

Kindergarten is the baby trying to get its bearings, the scene-stealer whose every "first" is greeted with fanfare and applause.

Grade 6 is the eldest sibling who's expected to uphold the rights and responsibilities that come with being the biggest and the strongest.

Carney’s ‘counterweight’ summit strategy

Modern summit diplomacy had very inauspicious beginnings. Winston Churchill is widely credited with coining the phrase “summit” in 1950 to describe a conference of global leaders. But it was another British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, who initiated the first actual summit meeting 12 years earlier — with Adolf Hitler, no less.

It didn’t go well.

Over a one-month period, the two leaders met three times over the fate of Czechoslovakia. Hitler threatened war. Chamberlain threatened appeasement. Guess who won?

Chamberlain was so desperate for a peace deal and so convinced he alone could convince Hitler, that he swallowed his inhibitions and flew in an airplane for the very first time in his life. “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” he told reporters, explaining his tenacious summit activity. Skeptical of the spectacle, British Foreign Office wags quietly amended it to, “If at first you don’t concede, fly, fly again.”

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.