Bravo to Ontario Premier Doug Ford, standing up for Canada.

The Ontario government’s advertisement which aired in the U.S., especially during the initial games of the World Series, was brilliant. It spoke directly to American citizens and was quintessentially Canadian: nothing but polite. It was effective, too. It did catch U.S. President Donald Trump’s ire, but given it was too close to home, using wise words by well-respected former president Ronald Reagan to raise serious concerns about tariffs. Ford’s aplomb contrasts starkly with Prime Minister Mark Carney, who can be generously described these days as “elbows down.”

Despite all the budget hubbub, Carney’s tactics with the U.S. appear protracted and ineffective, with “backing down” becoming his hallmark. The European Union has a deal. Mexico has at least a partial deal. We do not. Some have blamed Ford for the suspension of talks, but U.S. officials confirmed the ad alone was not the cause, further indicating progress was slow. This undermines Carney’s claim that a deal had been imminent. The situation also perfectly suits Trump as we face a constant drip of job-loss announcements going south.

Carney’s apology to Trump is also at odds with fiery rhetoric he employed during the election. In a broadly aired story last March, including on BBC, he stated, “My government will keep tariffs on until the Americans show us respect.” That did not transpire. He also disparaged, “the person who worships at the altar of Donald Trump will kneel before him, not stand up to him.”

I sometimes wonder if humanity is just a series of badly edited takes. Some people march, some legislate, some argue online like prophets with Wi-Fi. Me? I prefer the slow way. The kind that happens over burnt coffee, years of awkward silences and the steady work of trying not to mistake love for agreement.

My mother once bought me a book of quotes for 25 cents at a garage sale. On page 32, Desmond Tutu whispers, “My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”

That line should have been printed on every family dinner table, especially ours.

I think of Richard whenever I read it. Richard with the kind eyes and doomsday opinions. He still calls his mother every Sunday, remembers birthdays I forget and once drove through a blizzard to fix my broken mailbox because “it looked sad.” But for years, he carried stories about people who looked like me — old myths that clung to his good heart like cobwebs that refused to burn.

On Wednesday of last week, Bill 48 — The Protective Detention and Care of Intoxicated Persons Act — was passed into law by the Manitoba Legislative Assembly. It was introduced on Oct. 2 and enacted little more than a month later.

Rushed legislation often leads to confusion among the public due to the limited opportunity for study, discussion and debate. That may be the case with respect to Bill 48.

Many in the media and public have focused on the legislation’s establishment of “protective care centres,” along with provisions that would authorize the involuntary detention of highly intoxicated persons for up to 72 hours (up from the previous maximum of 24 hours), but there is more to the bill than that.

In fact, it is fair to ask how many MLAs and ordinary Manitobans had actually read Bill 48 prior to its passage. If they had, it is likely that far more questions would have emerged.

In 1788 James Madison, in Federalist No. 48 commenting on the American Constitution wrote, “An elective despotism is not the government we fought for … the powers of government should be divided and balanced among several bodies (legislative, executive, judicial) of magistry as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.”

Today, his worst fears are being realized.

At the time, his concern was the overreaching power of the legislative arm (Congress), the argument supports a system of checks and balances, which has since become a principle not only of politics but also of human relationships. Today the difference is that the executive branch (the president) constitutes an elective despotism, governing without limits, running roughshod over Congress, the courts, and the other check, the opposition Democratic Party.

Most recently, the sitting president demolished part of the White House, unilaterally overriding the precedent of that authority accruing to the National Capital Planning Commission. This is only one of the latest, seemingly arbitrary, decisions which ignore established constraints.

The ceasefire in Gaza, however shaky, is freeing up some bandwidth for the world’s media to fret about other ongoing massacres, and UN Secretary General António Guterres wasted no time in turning the spotlight on Sudan. “The horrifying crisis in Sudan … is spiralling out of control,” he said Nov. 3, but the civil war may really be coming to an end.

The biggest city in western Sudan, El Fasher, fell to the nastier of two brutal rivals last month after a two-year siege.

That was followed by the worst massacre in a civil war that has already killed 150,000 people and made one-third of the population refugees, but with luck it may be the last such event in the current cycle.

The civil war began in 2023, when the two leading generals split over who was going to run the military regime. The obvious choice was the head of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), General Abdul Fattah al-Burhan. His rival was General Mohamed Hamdan Dagolo, also known as Hemedti.

Recently, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that one-year mandatory minimum jail sentences for possession of and accessing child pornography (child sexual abuse and exploitation material) are unconstitutional.

In response to this ruling, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew appears to be calling for the extrajudicial killing of convicted offenders and encouraging vigilante justice saying “Not only should (you) go to prison for a long time, they should bury you under the prison. You shouldn’t get protective custody. They should put you into general population, if you know what I mean.”

Not only do these comments advocate further violence in prisons — threatening the life and safety of those working and incarcerated in these institutions — these comments are an affront to the administration of justice and rule of law.

Mandatory minimum sentences are a blunt legal tool that can prevent a judge from doing their job, which includes considering the individual circumstances of a case in arriving at a fit and proportionate sentence. Not only can mandatory minimums constrain a judge’s consideration of the circumstances of the accused, they can also limit deliberation about the harms to a victim or community in the specific circumstances of an offence.

Every fall, EMILI — a Manitoba-based nonprofit for which I’m managing director — hosts our Agriculture Enlightened conference. This year’s event on Oct. 23 drew business leaders, producers, civil servants, technologists and investors from across North America. Some came from as far as Ghana and Mongolia.

Such interest in part stems from the echoes of Canada’s historical reputation as an agricultural powerhouse. Canada ranks ninth in the world for agri-food exports, with buyers in virtually every nation on Earth. Our public research institutions are recognized as global leaders in agrifood science. Our agtech ecosystem is inventing cutting-edge tools with enormous potential. And our producers are beacons of upholding high environmental and food quality standards.

But a converging set of global challenges are forcing all nations to reassess how they feed their citizens. It’s here that our nation — and Manitoba itself — have key insights and capacities to share with the rest of the world.

Amid a fragmenting geopolitical environment and sudden rupture in relations with our southern neighbour, the headlines these days declare Canada is a nation adrift. But that wasn’t the story told at Agriculture Enlightened this year. Rather, participants heard all about how Canada still has a vital role to play in making the world a safer, more prosperous and more sustainable place — and agriculture is at the heart of it.

Each year, World Cancer Day invites us to reflect not only on the progress we’ve made in cancer care, but on the people behind the statistics. This year’s theme — United by Unique — feels especially meaningful here in Manitoba.

In health care, population health helps us prevent and detect disease earlier, design screening programs, and identify inequities across communities by looking at data from thousands of people. That perspective is essential. Those insights matter because every prevention strategy, every screening result, and every outcome ultimately reaches a single person; cancer is lived one test, one diagnosis, and one decision at a time.

Even when two people are diagnosed with the same disease, their cancer journeys are rarely alike. The course of the illness, the physical effects of treatment, the emotional and spiritual toll, and the impact on family, friends, and caregivers all vary widely. Immediate communities, whether urban neighbourhoods, rural towns, or remote northern regions, shape experiences as well. And for many people, cancer continues to influence their lives long after treatment ends. Remission does not end the cancer experience. Each story remains unique, and each one matters.

That individuality is mirrored in Manitoba. We are a vast province with communities as distinct as the people who live in them. Our geography presents real challenges in ensuring that every cancer patient has access to the same high standard of care, regardless of where they live. We are a province of remarkable cultural diversity.