Paralympics follow lead of Olympics: No fans during pandemic

Court ruling concludes Canadian Wheat Board saga

It remains to be seen whether the recent court ruling in a lawsuit filed after Canadian Wheat Board’s dissolution in 2012 puts the whole debate to rest, as some no doubt hope.

But either way, the dust has settled on the post-CWB world. The sun still rises and a new generation of farmers on the land only knows by name an institution that for generations influenced every aspect of Prairie grain farming.

The first Rural Revival column I wrote for this newspaper more than 30 years ago was about a thousand farmers from Western Canada demonstrating in support of the Wheat Board. It was in the aftermath of the Western Grain Marketing Panel report, one of several efforts that eventually included a plebiscite to help the federal government decide what to do about a vocal minority of farmers who wanted marketing “freedom.”

The polls at the time suggested about two-thirds of farmers were comfortable enough with the single-desk system for food wheat and barley to keep it around. It served as a counterbalance to canola, which they sold on the open market. They essentially had a dual market.

Walkout creates chaos at St. James Smitty’s

Gordon Sharpe wanted to eat a meal at the St. James Smitty’s Wednesday, but he got a helping of bad news instead.

He saw several workers walk out of the restaurant, at 1017 St. James St.

“(The waiter) came back about 10 minutes later and stood over the table, looking a little distraught and said, ‘I’m quitting right now and so is everybody else,’” Sharpe said. “He said, ‘This is my last time serving you,’ and he was quite choked up.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said, adding that the managers scrambled to serve patrons.

Province changes Thompson ‘Vaxport’ plan

The Manitoba government has changed its plans for a vaccination "super site" for the North — just days after it was announced — after local officials argued the original proposal was unworkable.

Some northern residents will still get their COVID-19 shots at Thompson's airport, but "Vaxport" will be less super than originally planned, providing injections only to residents of fly-in communities.

Most northern residents will get their shots at the Thompson Community Recreation Centre, which is centrally located in the city of about 13,000.

"This makes much more sense logistically, and for the citizens of Thompson," Mayor Colleen Smook said Thursday after touring the airport site, which is located 10 kilometres from the city and isn't serviced by public transportation.

Paralympics follow lead of Olympics: No fans during pandemic

Ford’s comments come as Ontario’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Kieran Moore is to announce a vaccine mandate for doctors, nurses, and other “patient-facing” hospital workers on Tuesday.

Say What?! Sports guys travel to new destination

Say What?! is an email conversation between sports editor Steve Lyons and sports columnist Paul Wiecek. Look for us regularly but intermittently on the Free Press website.

Steve Lyons: Heya. How you doing? How’s 2020 treating you so far?

Few things to get us started:

Taxi and ride-hailing services receive 58 complaints since March

The City of Winnipeg has fielded 58 formal complaints about vehicle-for-hire operations since taking over industry oversight from the province in March.

According to freedom of information request results, the city mostly received complaints about taxi operations, and the two largest companies – Duffy’s Taxi and Unicity Taxi – were the main culprits.

From March 1, 2018 to July 13, 2018, the Winnipeg Parking Authority received 20 complaints about Duffy’s, mostly to do with driver road habits (five complaints), driver conduct (three), service refusal (three) or poor service (three), among other issues.

During the same period, Unicity had 19 complaints, five of them related to poor service and three about driver conduct, plus other misdeeds.