Canada-China COVID-19 vaccine trials abandoned amid political tensions

Second plant-based protein plant planned in Manitoba to meet vegan meat demand

Manitoba is about to become a key production centre for plant-based protein with a second pea-protein production plant about to break ground.

Merit Functional Foods Corporation is building a $65-million, 65,000-square-foot facility that will produce both pea and canola protein.

The French company, Roquette, is building a $400-million pea protein plant in Portage la Prairie.

Merit is a 60-40 partnership between an investor group made up of Shaun Crew, Barry Tomiski and Ryan Bracken -- all veteran senior management and founders of Hemp Oil Canada Inc./Manitoba Harvest -- and Burcon NutraScience Corp., a publicly traded Vancouver company with strong links to Winnipeg where it has had a research lab for 20 years.

Deluxe apartment tower taking shape in Tuxedo

The owners of a shopping strip in the city’s wealthiest neighbourhood have identified the site of a longtime gas station on Corydon Avenue as an untapped residential resource.

Why are Manitoba's school immunization programs so far from achieving herd immunity?

Sometimes, neither a lollipop nor a dinosaur sticker is enough to convince someone to get a needle.

Dr. Michele Feierstein, a pediatrician for more than 35 years, knows that all too well.

Feierstein has given thousands of immunizations to young patients throughout her career, but she has also had her fair share of difficult conversations with parents who are vaccine-hesitant or outright anti-vaxxers.

She does not bar families who have lukewarm feelings about or adamant views against immunization, whether they be rooted in misinformation, distrust, religious belief, or any other reason, from her practice at the Manitoba Clinic.

Canada-China COVID vaccine trials abandoned

HALIFAX - A COVID-19 vaccine-development partnership between Canada and a Chinese firm has been abandoned, ending clinical trials that were to be conducted by a Dalhousie University research lab.

The National Research Council of Canada said Thursday the CanSino Biologics vaccine intended for phase one clinical trials has not been approved by Chinese customs for shipment to Canada.

"Due to the delay in the shipment of the vaccine doses to Canada it is evident this specific opportunity is over and the NRC is focusing its team and facilities on other partners and COVID-19 priorities," the agency said in a statement.

Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne downplayed suggestions the vaccine partnership failed because of ongoing political tensions between the two countries.

Another embarrassing loss: Arniel

RALEIGH — No sticks were smashed. No walls punched. And nary a naughty word was uttered.

Instead, the Winnipeg Jets filed off the ice here at Lenovo Center on Sunday afternoon much like they’d just played the preceding game against the Carolina Hurricanes — with no emotion, no passion, no urgency.

You’d have thought yet another loss, this one in truly humiliating fashion and a ninth consecutive overall, might have triggered something.

Anything.

The ‘Gang of Nine’ and business as usual at city hall

In the early 1990s, after the province reduced the number of municipal wards in Winnipeg to 15, critics spoke at length of how a theoretical “Gang of Eight” could control all decision making at city hall. In subsequent years, there were various incarnations of a Gang of Eight, although it was never conclusively shown that eight members of city council could consistently stay on the same page long enough to dominate civic affairs.

That is an apt tale to consider now, as Winnipeg city hall welcomes nine rookie councillors, the largest number of non-incumbents elected in more than 30 years.

Theoretically, this new group of councillors could band together and push through various reforms. It’s a highly intriguing scenario for anyone who has watched the city, on occasion, shun riskier strategies in favor of status quo politics.

However, as was the case in the early 1990s, the chances of that happening begin to fall apart once you consider the work of building and sustaining a coalition of rookie councillors who come from a broad array of backgrounds.