Faith makes her seek generosity in others

Opening of Bruce Oake Treatment Centre is 'not the finish line, it's the start

The COVID-19 pandemic has been responsible for postponing or cancelling all kinds of projects, but it didn’t affect construction of the Bruce Oake Treatment Centre, which will be finished months before the planned fall opening.

Time to revamp Hydro’s water licence

On Sept. 1, Manitoba Hydro’s 50-year licence to divert 85 per cent of the flow of the second largest river in the province and flood the fourth largest lake expired. How different will the next 50 years of the Churchill River Diversion look?

The northern project is a cornerstone of the engineering wonder that provides Manitoba with inexpensive and reliable electricity.

Using control structures and a nine-kilometre channel blasted through granite, the project backs up the Churchill River — which carries five times more water than the Red — as it flows through Southern Indian Lake, a lake 50 times larger than West Hawk and Falcon lakes combined, causing it to overflow southward toward the huge dams on the distant Nelson River.

After touring Southern Indian Lake in 2022, Wab Kinew — then opposition leader — referred in a statement to witnessing “islands disappearing into the lake, shorelines eroding quickly, a landscape covered with debris, (and) fish spawning grounds lost….”

Hostile online platforms prove poisonous to much-needed genuine discourse, author argues

When Ray Robertson uses public transit, he realizes how different he is from the vast majority of modern human beings.

“Observe a bus full of near-comatose, infantilized commuters — heads lowered, fingers busy, eyes glazed,” Robertson writes in The Right to be Wrong.

“I don’t own a cellphone, perhaps my proudest act of social disobedience,” he declares.

Robertson has a large and varied body of written work, including nine novels, seven collections of non-fiction, a book of poetry and a book that inspired a film script. Born and raised in Chatham, he now lives in Toronto.

Awareness is the first line of defence

September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month in Canada. This proclamation helps focus public attention on the very important protective role that such awareness can play in reducing the death and suffering associated with this disease.

The underlying reason for that is simple. In its beginning, prostate cancer, as is true for all cancers, starts and grows silently and stealthily, giving no indication through pain or other symptoms of its presence and of the developing pathology. Everything appears normal to the unsuspecting host until the cancer has grown to an extent that it interferes with normal function. There might then be pain, bleeding or some other manifestation of the growing tumour.

Unfortunately, by that time the disease may have reached an advanced stage, which is much more difficult to treat, and less likely to have a favourable outcome. It is a general truth in dealing with all types of cancer that the earlier it is discovered and treated, the better the likelihood of a favourable outcome. Awareness can be a major determinant of whether such early discovery happens or not.

Discovery of the cancer during its period of silent, surreptitious growth creates the opportunity for early treatment. Fortunately, in the case of prostate cancer such detection is favoured by two factors.

Is ‘tornado alley’ moving north?

There’s a famous fictional story in which a ruby-slippered, tornado-tossed traveller takes a wide-eyed look around and declares, “I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

There are probably some residents of south River Heights, on the other hand, who looked out their windows last Sunday and felt as if Kansas — the U.S. state that lies smack-dab in the middle of meteorological maps outlining the area known as “tornado alley” — was exactly where they’d somehow ended up.

There is now confirmation of a tornado touching down within Winnipeg, after several residents reported seeing funnel-shaped clouds during the intense thunderstorm, and the magnitude and extremely localized nature of the damage — including felled trees, snapped hydro poles, scattered fences and the deposit of a random automobile on one resident’s front lawn — certainly shows forces more formidable than strong wind gusts were at play.

As Manitoba Hydro and City of Winnipeg crews continued the days-long effort to clean up the mess and restore power to thousands of homes affected by the long-weekend weather blast, some of the conversation related to the storm focused on how extreme events such as this have become more commonplace in a region where tornadoes were long considered a rarity.

Puncher’s chance for locals

Who doesn’t love a good comeback story?

Todd Fanning, one of the most decorated golfers in Manitoba history, is attempting to author one heck of a compelling tale at his home course this week.

After falling a whopping 10 strokes off the lead at one point in the opening 18 holes of the Canadian Men’s Senior Championship, Fanning has roared back to life and heads into Friday’s fourth and final round at Niakwa Country Club with a puncher’s chance.

He followed up Tuesday’s six-over 78 — a performance he told the Free Press was “kind of embarrassing” — with rounds of 71 and 70 on Wednesday and Thursday. That has him at three-over for the event, five shots out of first place.