Astrophysics star landing in Winnipeg this winter

Internal election reform should be high on Tories’ priority list for 2022

Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative party has a challenge in the new year: how to change its leadership election process without alienating grassroots members, while also avoiding the kind of debacle it experienced in the fall.

After coming within a whisker of electing a leader who ran on an anti-vaccine mandate platform before the Oct. 30 vote, the party will almost certainly revise its voter eligibility rules in 2022.

Former Conservative MP Shelly Glover, who ran for the leadership to replace outgoing party boss Brian Pallister, signed up thousands of new members during the race. She did so largely by appealing to opponents of vaccine mandates and other measures taken by the province to fight COVID-19.

Under the current rules, candidates were allowed to sign up new members until a month before voting day. Last-minute signups allow candidates to attract new blood to the party. However, under the Tories’ one member, one vote system, it also leaves the party open to a hostile takeover.

Unions’ battle over turf hurts health care

When the Progressive Conservative government announced a plan to massively consolidate unionized bargaining groups in the health care system, it claimed the goal was to improve efficiency and patient care.

The fact that it has pitted some of the province's largest public-sector unions against each other in gladiator-style combat is just a side benefit.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees has accused the Manitoba Government and General Employees' Union of lying and fearmongering in a bid to win the support of health care workers in upcoming representation votes.

CUPE's letter focused on the issue of whether the province, through the regional health authorities, will force home care workers and hospital aides, slated to become part of one bargaining unit, to change where they work on a whim to meet staffing shortages.

Max Parrot lands bronze but actor-turned-snowboarder Su Yiming takes big air spotlight

Su Yiming, a precocious Chinese teenager, truly exploded with supernova brilliance on Tuesday, writes Rosie DiManno.

Tory meddling could cost MPI millions, boost Autopac rates

The Pallister government has directed Manitoba Public Insurance to give complete control of its future online product sales to insurance brokers, a move that could cost the corporation an extra $23 million over five years and boost Autopac rates, according to documents obtained by the Free Press.

The documents, which include emails, letters, briefing notes and presentations, show repeated interventions by the Progressive Conservative government on behalf of brokers and shed light on why the Tory-appointed MPI board of directors sought a legal opinion last year to clarify its rights and responsibilities.

The documents also reveal that the PC government directed MPI management last fall to extend the corporation's contract with brokers by two years to Feb. 28, 2021 at a remuneration rate MPI viewed as excessive.

MPI had first proposed a less generous package than the brokers had been receiving, and then offered zero per cent increases in the first two years followed by 0.75 per cent in Year 3, mimicking government policy on civil servant and Crown corporation employee pay. The brokers wound up receiving annual increases to their base $84.5 million compensation that are indexed to inflation (the Consumer Price Index, which rose 1.9 per cent in March compared to a year earlier ).

Letter of the law: WPS, IIU clash in court

A precedent-setting legal dispute between the Winnipeg Police Service and the Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba has taken an important step forward.

Competing interpretations of the rules governing police clashed Tuesday in the Court of Queen’s Bench, as lawyers representing the two agencies presented their arguments for the first time in open court.

At the centre of the case is the question of whether WPS cadets — civilian employees of the police service — can be compelled to hand over their notes to IIU investigators.

“At its core, this dispute is between two competing interpretations of a section of the Police Services Act… We suggest there is a duty owed by the Winnipeg Police Service to the IIU that is not being satisfied,” IIU lawyer Samuel Thomson said.