Royal Albert hints of encore in the fall

Canadian manufacturers should be “big players” in building major projects in Canada, the leader of an advocacy group representing small- and medium-sized sector members said Monday evening at a national policy conference in Winnipeg.

Catherine Swift, president of the Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses of Canada, spoke during the opening panel at the conference, organized by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, a think tank headquartered in the Manitoba capital.

The conference, which continued throughout the day on Tuesday, brought together leaders and experts from defence, Indigenous communities, energy, transportation, business and public policy to explore what it would take to move northern strategic utility corridors from proposal to construction.

“The fact that we’ve struggled as a country with building major projects such as utility corridors in the North has been particularly punitive to manufacturing because, naturally, they should be big players in any such project,” said Swift, who was a senior economist at TD Bank before serving as chief executive at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business from 1987 to 2012.

An overreaction

Re: Winnipeg teacher disciplined for ‘liking’ student’s post, Sept. 1.

I’ve been stewing about the article for a few days and trying to decide what’s been bothering me.

I feel that the school division overreacted with its disciplinary measures, and that a public servant has been publicly shamed on the front page for what I can only describe as a questionable act.