The chief promise of artificial intelligence is turbocharged productivity.

The trade-off? Epic disruption.

As AI outpaces regulation, many things will worsen before they improve. That includes malicious cyber threats.

Earlier this month, AI developer Anthropic decided against publicly releasing its latest tool, Mythos Preview. Despite not being trained for cybersecurity, the model’s superpowered coding skills have unearthed thousands of global internet vulnerabilities. It easily spotted flaws in all major operating systems and web browsers.

This week includes the National Day of Mourning, a day that is observed every year to remember and honour workers who have been injured, suffered illness or lost their lives due to workplace hazards.

It is a day to think of loved ones, friends and co-workers who we have lost and those who have had their lives permanently altered because of their jobs. It is also a day to recommit ourselves to continuing to make workplaces safer and free of hazards so that all workers come home safe and whole at the end of every shift and workday.

In Manitoba, our workers compensation system is built upon the foundational principle that when a worker is injured on the job, they are entitled to supports to help them recover from their injury, replace lost employment income and safely return to work.

The Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba was set up over a century ago at a time when work, and our understanding of the effects of work, were a lot different than they are today. Understandably, much of the laws and rules that the WCB is based upon were set up to help workers with physical workplace injuries, because for a long time that was our society’s common understanding of the types of injuries that people could suffer at work.

I was in attendance in the gallery of the Manitoba legislature on March 19 when Bill 232, The Autism Strategy Act, introduced by Liberal MLA Cindy Lamoureux, passed second reading and moved to the committee stage.

The following week, March 24, the provincial budget included an increase in funding to St.Amant of $5 million for a total of $30 million annually, to reduce wait-lists for autism assessments and case management services provided to children and youth with autism and their families throughout Manitoba.

While this is welcome news for some families who will benefit from this support, much more needs to be done to truly address the issues and barriers that people with autism, of all ages, and their families experience in their daily lives.

We know from research that the rate of autism is increasing in Manitoba. Deepa Singal published a research study in 2025 that cited the prevalence and incidence of autism in children and adults in Manitoba. It went from 0.79/1,000 in 2011 to 3.06/1,000 in 2022. This study only included diagnosed children and youth, therefore, we know it is an underestimate of the actual number of autistic Manitobans. Many go undiagnosed until adulthood, or are not diagnosed at all.

There is a lot to like in Budget 2026’s health-care chapter. Building and expanding emergency departments, investing in home care and increasing health workforce training positions are just a few examples. The Kinew government deserves credit for listening to the concerns of Manitobans and putting real money into a struggling health-care system.

But buried in the highlights are two lines worth examining: $223 million for more doctors and an additional $6.3 million to recruit more doctors to rural Manitoba.

There is no question, Manitoba needs more doctors. However, a question the budget doesn’t answer, and frankly, one nobody in the legislature seems to be asking is: why are we spending $229.3 million exclusively on physicians when that same investment could fund more than 1,700 physician assistants — and get patients seen faster, in more communities, starting now?

This is not a rhetorical question. The “math isn’t mathing.”

It is a matter of chronic surprise that politicians, otherwise well-trained in saying just the right thing for the audience they are addressing, forget that whatever they say can be heard everywhere. Right away. By anybody who cares to listen, including journalists always hungry for the next story.

So it is with Kenya’s President William Ruto, who was in Italy last week talking up his country’s virtues. One of his claims was that Kenyans speak “some of the best English in the world” — and then, noticing that the audience was dozing off and in need of a joke, he went on to say that Nigerian-accented English, by contrast, was incomprehensible.

He got such a big laugh (most of the audience were Kenyans living in Italy) that he kept going. “If you listen to a Nigerian speaking, you don’t know what they are saying — you need a translator.” Another big laugh — and then social media all over Africa lit up with protests.

How dare Ruto mock fellow Africans? Why should Africans be speaking a colonial language like English anyway? And who the hell did he think he was to judge the quality of Nigerian English? He was thoroughly spanked and sent to bed without supper by the media — but it does open some interesting questions.

Spring has sprung and young mens’ thoughts turn to … agriculture. Well, at least let’s hope that the young men and women who comprise the government of Manitoba brain trust are turning their thoughts in that direction.

Manitoba agriculture isn’t the economic powerhouse it once was, but in terms of traditional economic calculus it remains a significant contributor, accounting annually for more than $9 billion in exports. But the usual statistics don’t tell the full story.

Food is not quite like most other things we produce, many of which are non-essential or in time will be displaced by substitutes or changes in fashion. Food, and food security, like water, are essential for human life. In addition, as we shift alliances and seek to diversify our markets, food shops well.

Manitoba has the largest percentage of young farmers in Canada. Average farm size exceeds 1,000 acres, and although there are a number of viable smaller farms, large operations dominate the landscape. These are sophisticated, high tech operations. Witness the diversity of crops and the rapid adjustment to changing markets.

The Kinew government has embraced new technology as the basis for innovation and enhanced productivity in the economy, including the modernization of government operations. It established a new department for innovation and new technology, created a “blue-ribbon” advisory task force on the use of technology to support the economy, and launched public consultations on how AI systems could be used to promote the rights and opportunities of citizens.

This is part of the background to the Public Sector Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity Act (Bill 51) which is about to be sent to a committee of the legislature for detailed study. The bill represents a cautious first step to set some guardrails on the design, application and outcomes of AI in the public sector broadly defined.

Some brief, incomplete comments on AI and its potential impacts set the stage for the analysis of Bill 51.

AI is global in its reach, is evolving rapidly and is largely under the control of a small number of major technology companies. This means regulation of the private-sector use of AI must come mainly at the national level, with the provincial government potentially supplementing those rules.

There has certainly been a flurry of discussion regarding the province’s recent public funding announcement.

Consequent to the proposed budget, numerous school divisions have outlined prospective plans to raise property taxes to maintain existing infrastructure.

This is perhaps an opportunistic moment to critically reflect on the foundational importance of public education, and to advance a timely advocacy to not follow the trajectories of our Albertan and American neighbours.

I have written extensively on the cruciality of public education as a fundamental pillar of our social democracy. If we yearn for an egalitarian society whereby all children and youth — regardless of culture, gender, sexual orientation, ability and socioeconomic upbringing — are represented and have the capacity to pursue meaningful lives, we need adequately funded public educational systems that function premised upon the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Love it or hate it, April is National Poetry Month.

I’ve tried to love it, but it doesn’t always work out between us. More often than not I get a few pages into the new and selected poems of a well-known poet and I begin to wonder what I’ve gotten myself into. Maybe you’ve had a similar experience. Upon reaching the last line you scratch your head and ask yourself: “What the hell are they even talking about?” When this happens enough times, you may decide to throw in the proverbial towel.

This week Ada Limon, the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States, released her closing lecture in the form of a book, Against Breaking: On The Power of Poetry. This slender book is her attempt to make a case for poetry. I would like to join her in attempting to convince you of the power and importance of poetry.

Although you may have been confused and perplexed by a hundred poems before it, there is always that one precious string of words waiting for you. Yes, the odds are against you, but it is worth the struggle — through limerick, haiku, free verse and sonnet — to find that diamond in the rough that speaks to exactly what you’ve felt but could not find the words to describe. I don’t want to sugarcoat this; it will not be easy. But so often, the most rewarding things in life are also the most challenging.