Opinion

Editorial cartoon for Feb. 26, 2026

Opinion

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Files House Speaker Tom Lindsey

Banning five words won’t clean up the legislature

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Banning five words won’t clean up the legislature

Editorial 4 minute read Thursday, May. 7, 2026

Back in the 1960s, legendary counterculture comedian George Carlin gained notoriety — and sparked no small measure of controversy — with a standup bit in which he described the seven words that can never be said on television.

The monologue was, in keeping with Carlin’s body of work during a politically charged career that spanned more than five decades, insightfully hilarious with a clear intention to provoke. A brilliant rumination on the power of speech, it cleverly dissected the profane nature of the seven words while also stripping them of their impact by repeating them out loud for comic effect.

The question of whether certain words should or shouldn’t be said was front and centre this week — albeit in a decidedly less chucklesome context — in the Manitoba legislature with the declaration by Speaker Tom Lindsey that five specific words are heretofore considered unparliamentary and banned from use in legislative proceedings.

In an ongoing — and, by all appearances, generally futile — effort to re-inject a measure of decorum to a chamber in which debate and discourse have grown more fractious, coarse and belligerent over time, Lindsey ruled MLAs can no longer call one another any of these: “bigot,” “homophobe,” “racist,” “misogynist” or “transphobe.”

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Thursday, May. 7, 2026

Opinion

Letters, April 20

8 minute read Monday, Apr. 20, 2026

A place for garbage

Re: Spruce-up spree sweeps through downtown (April 15)

Much is being said about the garbage and dirt that is visible on Winnipeg’s streets now that the snow is gone. I am glad to see that efforts are being made to clean up what has been revealed.

However, some of that garbage would not be on the streets had there been receptacles for it.

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Opinion

Mikaela MacKenzie / Free Press files Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson

Health care delayed, health care denied

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Health care delayed, health care denied

Editorial 4 minute read Tuesday, Mar. 31, 2026

Manitobans have grown accustomed to hearing about long wait times in emergency rooms, delayed diagnostic tests and months-long backlogs for surgery. They are often framed as inconveniences — frustrating, yes, but often manageable.

The province’s latest critical-incident report should put an end to that illusion.

Delays in care are not merely an inconvenience. They can be fatal.

Between April 1 and Sept. 30, 2025, 16 deaths and 43 major injuries in Manitoba’s health-care system were deemed critical incidents requiring investigation. Among those deaths were five patients who experienced delays in accessing care, delays in treatment or delays in the system’s response to their deteriorating condition.

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Tuesday, Mar. 31, 2026

Opinion

MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS The Winnipeg Police Service Project Puma investigation led to the arrest of more than 30 people and the seizure of drugs worth nearly $40 million.

Massive drug bust a big deal, but police alone cannot end misery

Tom Brodbeck 5 minute read Preview

Massive drug bust a big deal, but police alone cannot end misery

Tom Brodbeck 5 minute read 12:54 PM CDT

The largest drug bust in Manitoba history deserves to be recognized for what it is: a major victory against organized crime and a meaningful disruption to a drug trade that has devastated communities across Winnipeg and beyond.

The Winnipeg Police Service Project Puma investigation, which led to the arrest of more than 30 people and the seizure of drugs worth nearly $40 million, is no small accomplishment.

It took two years of painstaking police work, collaboration among multiple law enforcement agencies across Canada, undercover operations, surveillance and hundreds of judicial authorizations to dismantle what police describe as a sophisticated trafficking network tied to the Hells Angels, the Wolf Pack Alliance and Mexican cartels.

For too long, Manitoba has been caught in the grip of a relentless drug crisis that has fuelled violence, addiction, homelessness and despair. Methamphetamine, in particular, has ravaged Winnipeg streets, overwhelmed emergency services, destabilized neighbourhoods and destroyed countless lives and families. Fentanyl has only made things worse, adding a deadly layer to an already catastrophic public health emergency.

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12:54 PM CDT

Opinion

Nathan Denette / The Canadian Press files Is the birth rate declining because of the growth of smartphones and the decline of social lives?

Is demographic collapse a good idea?

Gwynne Dyer 5 minute read Preview

Is demographic collapse a good idea?

Gwynne Dyer 5 minute read 2:00 AM CDT

Smartphones seem to be directly linked to a worldwide crash in the birth rate.

It is “quite plausible that the modern digital media environment has had profound effects on society that have led to a decline in romantic coupling,” said Melissa Kearney, professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame. She has to talk that way, being an academic, but what she means is that people are doomscrolling, not copulating.

That’s old news, but the evidence for it is more impressive because it is data-based. That’s what we have social scientists for, and John Burn-Murdoch, a columnist with the Financial Times, realized that you could quantify the data if you talk to enough of them. So he did, and learned that the big drop in the birth rate happened precisely when people got smartphones.

Not every country adopted smartphones at the same time. 2007 was the year they were rolled out across the richer countries of the West, and three years later 34 per cent of British people and 27 per cent of American people had one. (Now it’s 95 per cent plus in both countries.),

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2:00 AM CDT

Opinion

MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESs fileS Winnipeg Police Chief Gene Bowers

Rebuilding trust in a police force

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Rebuilding trust in a police force

Editorial 4 minute read 2:00 AM CDT

Trust, said writer and educator Stephen R. Covey, is the glue of life.

“It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication,” says the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. “It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.”

And trust is also, lamentably, something that is in short supply these days when it comes to the public’s perception of the Winnipeg Police Service. Owing to what seems like a non-stop series of news stories about its officers’ various procedural missteps and/or criminally corrupt misbehaviours, the WPS finds itself in the unenviable position of having shattered the public trust on which its credibility and, indeed, its very existence as a law enforcement agency depends.

As a result, the service that in 2010 proudly emblazoned the motto “Building Relationships” on the side of its cruisers must embark on a from-square-one process of restoring its reputation.

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2:00 AM CDT

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Opinion

Words matter

Frances Ravinsky 4 minute read Yesterday at 2:00 AM CDT

I have been following with interest the media’s reporting of the ban in Manitoba’s Legislative Assembly on the use of the words racist, bigot, homophobe, misogynist and transphobe to call out hateful speech. The stated goal of the ban is “to improve House decorum.”

I’ve appreciated the fulsome coverage of this issue in the Free Press through the publishing of editorials, op-eds and letters to the editor. I was in particular struck by Premier Wab Kinew’s comments during his May 7 monthly interview with Marcy Markusa on CBC Radio.

Kinew’s strong opposition to the ban raises a critical question: How do we keep democratic civil society alive while silencing the calling out of discriminatory language and behaviour? Of course we can’t. By confusing decorum with silence we run the risk of contributing to a “head in the sand” mindset; to what American journalist and activist Barbara Ehrenreich referred to as a “Smile or Die” culture.

But then a followup question emerges: How do we effectively voice our legitimate dissent in ways that move us towards correcting discriminatory practices? A “no holds barred” approach to voicing our opposition may not be the answer. It’s all too easy to slip into shaming people by lobbing ad hominem/ad feminam attacks across partisan lines.

Opinion

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES Manitoba Court of King’s Bench Chief justice Glenn Joyal issued a sweeping ruling that federal and provincial governments breached the constitutional rights of First Nations via child-welfare funding.

This not just in: treaty rights carry legal force and are protected in the Constitution

Tom Brodbeck 5 minute read Preview

This not just in: treaty rights carry legal force and are protected in the Constitution

Tom Brodbeck 5 minute read Tuesday, May. 19, 2026

More than a century after the numbered treaties were signed across Western Canada, the courts delivered a blunt reminder last week that those agreements are not ancient historical footnotes.

They still carry legal force and governments cannot ignore them.

Two major court rulings — one in Manitoba and one in Alberta — reinforced a reality many Canadians still do not fully understand: treaties between First Nations and the Crown remain constitutionally protected agreements that continue to shape Canadian law, public policy and governments’ obligations today.

The decisions also underscored something else: Canadians would benefit greatly from learning more about treaties, why they were negotiated as Canada expanded westward and why courts continue to uphold Indigenous and treaty rights.

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Tuesday, May. 19, 2026

Opinion

Letters, May 19

7 minute read Tuesday, May. 19, 2026

On personal accountability

Re: “How we got here” (Letters, May 14)

Like James Paskaruk, I am a “Gen-X kid.” Like him, I grew up in the 1970s riding my bike everywhere, and not seeing the issues that we see in Winnipeg today. However, despite this common background, we have very different views of the reasons for these problems.

Mr. Paskaruk seems to pin the blame on an increase in capitalism since our childhood, as though somehow the ongoing quest for a more economically prosperous life is the source of societal decline. However, if we look at the reality of how Winnipeg (and Canada) evolved since the 1970s, and what has changed in that time, it paints a very different picture.

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