Another round with ex means same old hangover

Province tables legislation to cover health-care system changes

The Pallister government has introduced broad legislation to support several of its key planned health-care reforms.

Health Minister Cameron Friesen said Wednesday that Bill 10 (The Regional Health Authorities Amendment Act) will provide the framework to simplify the administration of the health-care system and improve accountability.

All health services in Manitoba will be delivered through the five current regional health authorities, CancerCare Manitoba and a new provincial authority called Shared Health. The administrative changes are set to begin next month and will continue to be rolled out over the next two to three years.

The Health Department will cease to administer health services directly and focus its activities on planning, policy development, funding and oversight. It will set system-wide performance goals and track results.

City denies teen received ‘life-altering injuries’ from police dog bite in lawsuit defence

City officials have denied a 17-year-old girl’s claim she received life-altering injuries when a Winnipeg police dog bit her, arguing her lawsuit over last year’s incident should be rejected.

The teen, whom the Free Press is not naming because she is a minor involved with a police matter, seeks unspecified damages from the City of Winnipeg, in a statement of claim filed in the Court of King’s Bench in March.

The teen, described as “a small, slightly built girl,” claims she was “attacked, arrested and detained” by several Winnipeg Police Service officers around 1 a.m. on June 4, 2025.

The girl’s court papers say that in order to detain the teen, officers first deployed “a large, vicious and dangerous, non-human, canine animal,” which the lawsuit calls the “beast” in subsequent references.

Today’s horoscope

MOON ALERT: After 12:15 a.m there are no restrictions to shopping or important decisions. The moon is in Libra.

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

This is a momentous day for you because you can go after what you want. You’ll be forceful in all your communications. In fact, conversations with partners, spouses and close friends could bring about the very improvements and changes you want.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

Sheegl finally paying for his monkey business

Of all the images that Phil Sheegl conjured during his time as Winnipeg’s top bureaucrat, the most lasting has to be those damned monkeys.

In 2011, shortly after he was promoted to serve as Winnipeg’s chief administrative officer, Sheegl placed a statue of the “three wise monkeys” outside his city hall office. The iconic monkeys — which see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil — appeared suddenly and without explanation, and sat chained to a wooden bench with a bicycle cable.

To many, the monkeys seemed like a message.

Although they can mean different things to different people, the three wise monkeys are largely viewed in western societies as a tribute to the wilful ignorance of impropriety. Was this Sheegl’s way of telling us he was more than prepared to overlook the impropriety of others? Or, that most of us were too stupid (monkeys, right?) to notice what he was doing in the commission of his duties?

Spacious rural garden makes smooth transition to urban space

It’s not uncommon for homeowners to dig up some of their beloved plants when they sell their home and move to another property. But relocating hundreds of prized plants from an established and spacious rural garden to a blank slate is a whole other matter.

In 2022, Sandra Gessner Eggertson and her husband decided it was time to sell their three-acre rural property near St. Andrews. They purchased a home on a quiet street in Winnipeg where Eggertson planned to make a new garden. Their rural property was listed that fall and sold immediately. Eggertson moved in December, but first, hundreds of treasured perennials, including hostas and specialty lilies and iris plants, needed to be transplanted into pots.

With the assistance of a good friend — a fellow lily and iris enthusiast — the enormous task of digging and dividing took three months. The plant divisions were loaded into a truck and transported to her friend’s farmyard, where they spent the winter in a protected location with ample snow cover.

“First we placed bales of straw in the shape of a big square to act as a catch-all for snow,” says Eggertson. “The pots were placed close together inside the square and then covered with mulch. I had very few plant losses.”

Jets backup goalie has things to think of other than hockey

The balance David Rittich needed came in a way he least suspected.