Help sis see you both have right to choose

Minister faces calls to resign over St. Boniface soil contamination

Sustainable Development Minister Rochelle Squires faced calls for her resignation Tuesday, amid claims she lied in her handling of a recent report on soil contamination in Winnipeg's St. Boniface neighbourhood.

"Minister Squires should resign," Manitoba Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont said.

"The government and Minister Squires withheld a report confirming toxic contamination of soil, and then tried to use the (St. Boniface) byelection blackout to justify withholding it, when they actually had it before the election."

NDP Leader Wab Kinew echoed Lamont's claims, but stopped short of calling for her immediate resignation.

Oscar Moments: The night emotion won, for better and worse

Also streaming: “How to Survive a Pandemic” and “When We Were Bullies” on Crave, “Revenge of the Black Best Friend” and “Topline” on CBC Gem.

Vanderhaeghe ruminates on literary greats, writing, history and more in new non-fiction collection

Veteran Saskatoon author Guy Vanderhaeghe has assembled 37 of his non-fiction pieces written over the last 40 years in a new book — mostly, to paraphrase the book’s title, because his fans have asked him to.

His work is collected into six sections: “Books and Writers 1,” “Recollections 1,” “The Writer and Writing 1: Thinking by Dreams,” “Books and Writers 2,” “Recollections 2,” and “The Writer and Writing 2: History and Literature.” There are insightful book reviews, lively articles, personal memories and a few speeches, such as the Margaret Laurence lecture he gave at the Writers’ Union’s annual general meeting in May 2014.

Vanderhaeghe made an auspicious debut on the Canadian literary scene in 1982 with a much-praised short-story collection called Man Descending. To his great surprise, it won the annual Governor General’s Award for fiction. Early in the Laurence lecture, he said he knew he had not deserved the award. “Self-doubt and embarrassment were making it impossible for me to get on with the next book,” he writes. It was Laurence herself who assured him that “nothing mattered besides getting on with the work and doing it as well as I could manage. Everything else, whether praise or criticism, was in the long run nothing but mere noise, clamour, distraction.”

Vanderhaeghe has since won the Governor General’s Award two more times — in 1996 for his novel The Englishman’s Boy and in 2015 for his collection Daddy Lenin and Other Stories.

Manitoba prepares project pitches for investment summit

Powerhouse investors may hear pitches on Manitoba mines, silica sand projects and a massive greenhouse during Canada’s first major investors summit.

The Manitoba government is finalizing its list of projects to pitch at the Canada Investment Summit next month.

“The conversations that’ll be had… will be about investments in the billions of dollars,” Premier Wab Kinew said Friday.

“It’ll be one step among many that we take to build a bright future in Manitoba.”

Pallister appears determined to run on not-quite-done record

He is so going to do this.

Premier Brian Pallister wrapped up the current session of the Manitoba legislature with his most unequivocal statements to date that Manitoba will have a general election this summer. And this time, he actually provided some details about when we might expect the writ to drop.

Pallister told reporters at a news conference Tuesday that beginning in a few days, his government will begin restricting all government announcements and advertising that might contravene the 90-day communication blackout contained in the Election Finances Act. By confirming that he is effectively beginning the blackout, he is also confirming that a campaign will begin in early August for an election day sometime in early September, about a month before a federal election is scheduled.

Manitoba election campaigns run between 28 and 35 days, and the voting must be held on a Tuesday. If, for example, Pallister were to begin a blackout on Tuesday June 11, he could set an election for as early as Tuesday, Sept. 10. Although that would still be more than a full year earlier than the October 2020 date specified in law, he could claim with full justification he had honoured the spirit of the communications blackout.

Proposed Transcona development — which could add 20,000 people — gets thumbs down from residents

Dozens of Winnipeggers fear plans to make way for up to 20,000 more people to live in south Transcona would dramatically alter their neighbourhood and tie hefty fees for new services to their property titles.

If city council adopts the proposed South Transcona secondary plan, all future development applications would need to conform to its goals. The affected area is located south of Dugald Road, north of St. Boniface Road, east of Plessis Road and west of Murdock Road.

Homeowner Virginia Page Jähne fears the plan could add a massive tab to the title of her 4.3-acre property to cover services required for the development.

“My main concern is that they are wanting to put $1.4 million onto my title to pay for this. Now, they say that I will not have to pay it unless I subdivide. But if a person comes by and wants to buy from me … and they see that $1.4 million … what’s the first thing (they’re) going to do?” said Page Jähne, in an interview.