Staying with retired pop not your usual roomie setup

Like Selinger before him, Pallister digs a hole the party may not escape

Premier Brian Pallister has officially entered "the Selinger zone."

Students of recent Manitoba political history will remember, in 2014 and 2015, there was an active campaign within the NDP to force premier Greg Selinger to step down. Selinger ultimately retained his leadership, but he and his party were never the same.

That was abundantly clear in December 2015, with a provincial election just a few months away, when a poll done by Probe Research and the Free Press showed the Pallister-led Tories with 43 per cent support, followed by Rana Bokhari's Liberals at 29 per cent, and Selinger's NDP at a lowly 22 per cent.

Not surprisingly, the NDP was decimated in the April 2016 election, going from 37 seats to just 14. The PCs won one of the largest majorities in the province's history.

Long-term water advisory lifted for First Nation

SHOAL LAKE, ONTARIO, CANADA - Angelina McLeod spent most of her life in Shoal Lake 40 First Nation watching her uncles and her father, Alfred Redsky, a former chief, fight for clean drinking water and a better way of life.

The moment came Wednesday when, for the first time in nearly 25 years, the water flowing through the community's taps was deemed safe to drink.

"It was like I was there seeing it for them," McLeod said in a phone interview.

McLeod's father died in 2013. She kept up his fight as a documentarian and eventual councillor for the Anishinaabe community on the Manitoba-Ontario boundary.

New Indigenous reconciliation minister delivers disastrous debut

Premier Brian Pallister’s attempt to quell a firestorm over Manitoba’s history with Indigenous people backfired Thursday, when the new minister he’d just appointed to steer reconciliation suggested residential schools were started with good intentions.

The comments came just moments into the job, prompting the Opposition leader to interrupt a press conference Thursday morning.

Now, Indigenous leaders are declining phone calls and demanding apologies.

“The residential school system was designed to take Indigenous children and give them the skills and abilities they would need to fit into society as it moved forward,” Selkirk MLA Alan Lagimodiere told reporters shortly after being sworn in as minister of Indigenous reconciliation and northern relations.

Cold comfort, creative fire on Winnipeg winter set

When the movie production team for the Universal Studios release Violent Night showed up in Winnipeg around this time last winter, it brought 42-year-old Norwegian director Tommy Wirkola to the project, and it must be said, rarely has a director been so seemingly perfect for this kind of movie.

Five-star review of Winkler Bible Camp

Nile Fehr’s voice reaches another level of excitement when he talks about one particular aspect of Winkler Bible Camp: the pizza.

“The pizza? Chef’s kiss,” explained the nine-year-old.

“The pepperoni pizza was so good. It was so cheesy, there was so much pepperoni on there. You know when you go to a restaurant and they have pizza on the menu and you have it and it’s like the best pizza? Pizza is usually better when it’s made at restaurants, like, there’s a method.

“But I think (this camp) found the method that makes it taste better.”

Célébrer des employés qui mettent la main à la pâte

L’immigration francophone joue un rôle grandissant dans la vitalité de Saint-Pierre-Jolys. À la Boulangerie Saint-Pierre, des employés venus de plusieurs pays contribuent à la croissance de l’entreprise tout en s’intégrant à la vie du village. Une diversité que l’entreprise souhaite célébrer avec une nouvelle murale.

La Boulangerie Saint-Pierre, à Saint-Pierre-Jolys, connaît une importante expansion depuis quelques années. Pour Jocelyn Gagné, propriétaire de l’entreprise familiale, cette croissance repose largement sur le travail de ses employés, dont plusieurs sont des immigrants francophones. C’est pour souligner leur contribution que la boulangerie, en collaboration avec l’artiste franco-manitobain Gérald Laroche, a entrepris la création d’une murale qui ornera bientôt sa façade.

Jocelyn Gagné, qui travaille dans l’entreprise depuis l’âge de 13 ans, alors que ses parents étaient propriétaires, constate bien que la société a changé à travers les années. “On est rendu dans près de 150 magasins, on a grandi pas mal vite dans la dernière année. On a beaucoup plus d’employés que dans le temps de mes parents.” Avec une telle croissance, le besoin d’engager davantage de main-d’œuvre est venu naturellement.

Un Folklorama à l’année longue