Pieces of Brandon residential school to be left in Rome

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My wife believes in magic potions, which used to make me laugh. But since Halloween season started this year, she’s been acting in a way that frightens me. She seems to think she’s a modern-day “witch.” Give me a break!

Now she has three friends who think they are really casting spells when they get together! And this year on Halloween night she’s being formally accepted into their little witchy group meeting at one of their homes, and is getting a new sorceress name. It’s creepy! How do I cope? I’ve had enough of this.

— Seriously Upset, South St. Vital

Dear Upset: Don’t buy into the hocus pocus by being afraid of it and expressing any trepidation to your wife. She needs you to be strong, so she knows she has a solid anchor and can drop out of this witchy group if it becomes too scary or silly for her.

Ottawa is betting that billions of taxpayer dollars spent on steel, asphalt and concrete will secure Canada’s economic future and prosperity. Through the $51 billion Build Communities Strong fund, the federal government is paying for roads, bridges, water systems and transit to boost productivity and attract capital from Europe and Asia.

As the shovels hit the ground from Halifax to Vancouver, Canadians should be asking themselves: What good does it do to build a stronger country if we are not building healthier Canadians?

The fund’s $5 billion allocation for health infrastructure is welcome news, as many of our hospitals and long-term care homes across the country are showing severe signs of aging, and modern care centres are much needed. But pouring concrete for new facilities is not the same as building a healthy population.

A ribbon-cutting at a modern hospital does not guarantee you see a family doctor when you need one, keep a rural emergency department open overnight, or shorten the wait for a knee replacement keeping someone off the job or robbing a retiree of independence.

Correctional Services Canada is reopening prison farms. But in B.C., where it has no such programs, a wife and her late husband, who killed a man in a botched holdup, started Emma’s Acres, a unique prison farm she hopes to see expanded.