Editorials – Winnipeg Free Press

Mike Deal / Free Press files
Independent MLA Mark Wasyliw

Government data shows extent of truancy issue

Editorial 4 minute read Yesterday at 2:00 AM CDT

You start to deal with a problem by admitting that you actually have one, not by burying it because you’re concerned about how it might look.

On Wednesday, independent MLA Mark Wasyliw tabled leaked information in the legislature about truancy in Manitoba schools. Included in the information was an internal briefing note, dated July 26, 2024, that contained a breakdown of “severe chronic absenteeism” across Manitoba’s 37 public school divisions in 2023-24.

Severe chronic absenteeism for an elementary student means missing 20 per cent of classes during a reporting period. For a high school student, that level is reached if they have 20 or more unexcused absences in a core course.

More than 15,000 students were chronically absent in the 2023-2024 school year, a staggering number. That’s eight per cent of K to 12 students across the board, though some districts were much higher: 60 per cent in the Frontier school division, and 20 per cent in Kelsey (The Pas), Turtle River (McCreary) and Mystery Lake (Thompson) schools.

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WPS Superintendent Brian Miln

Winnipeg Transit security project should continue

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Winnipeg Transit security project should continue

Editorial 4 minute read Saturday, Mar. 14, 2026

When it comes to Winnipeg Transit and the broader concerns about downtown safety, the past week saw some signs of progress — but there are many more signs that we have a long way to go.

On the positive side of the ledger, a 15-week pilot project involving more-intensive police presence and specially trained community safety officers on Winnipeg Transit buses was deemed to be a success. Winnipeg police reported that from September through to the end of December 2025, there was an 18 per cent drop in violent crime, a 15 per cent reduction in property crime on buses and bus shelters, and an overall drop of 15 per cent in criminal incidents over the same period in 2024.

The success involved a lot of hard work. Police logged 143 hours actually riding on buses, and another 101 hours doing foot patrols at bus stops and other transit hubs. An additional 36 hours were dedicated to marked cruiser patrols that focused on transit locations. This led to the arrest of 12 subjects and 98 fare-evasion enforcements.

WPS was quick to point out that as encouraging as these results are, it’s just a pilot project. “We’re not having a victory lap on this right now,” said WPS Supt. Brian Miln. “There’s still all kinds of work that needs to be done in this area.”

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Saturday, Mar. 14, 2026

Failing to understand cause and effect

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Failing to understand cause and effect

Editorial 4 minute read Friday, Mar. 13, 2026

Is it a lack of imagination, a lack of real planning, or is it simply I-know-best wilful blindness?

Or worse — does he not understand cause and effect at all?

U.S. President Donald Trump launched his second term with the claim that the United States would get rich by levying tariffs on virtually every nation in the world, and that those other nations would pay the tariffs. But that’s not how tariffs work: the fact is that the cost of tariffs would simply be added onto the prices that Americans pay for goods.

When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the tariffs, the American companies that actually paid the tariffs (and passed them on to their customers) sued to regain the close to US$200 billion in tariffs that had been collected. They will get their money back, plus interest.

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Friday, Mar. 13, 2026

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby
Prime Minister Mark Carney

Concrete actions to find new trading partners

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Concrete actions to find new trading partners

Editorial 4 minute read Thursday, Mar. 12, 2026

The most difficult trick in politics is navigating the dauntingly broad metaphorical gap between talking the talk and walking the walk.

For holders of public office, words are the stock in trade. Those campaigning for election delineate what’s wrong and promise to fix it; those in government make pronouncements and seek to defend their legislative decisions; and those in opposition offer criticism and try to convince the public they, if given the chance the next time ballots are cast, would do better.

The truly effective politician, however, takes things a step (or several) further by following all those words with actions that produce tangible results. A pretty good example of that can be found in Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent trip across Asia.

In January at the World Economic Forum, Carney turned heads and drew praise by delivering an address that cut to the very heart of the world’s current macropolitical predicament. Without specifically mentioning the U.S. president by name, Carney described how the turmoil caused by Donald Trump’s ill-considered trade hostilities and erratic decision-making have upset the rules-based order that used to govern international commerce.

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Thursday, Mar. 12, 2026

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS
Forensic accountant Victor Neufeld

Evidence of startling overbilling at police HQ inquiry

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Evidence of startling overbilling at police HQ inquiry

Editorial 4 minute read Wednesday, Mar. 11, 2026

It’s very much mid-stream at the inquiry into the construction of the Winnipeg Police Service headquarters. And because it’s mid-stream, there may be explanations down the road for some of the evidence being presented right now.

But with the city’s nearly complete inability to bring major projects in anywhere even close to their original budgets, it’s pretty clear that the city can’t handle cost control on those projects, perhaps in part because of a history of failing to closely vet the bills it pays.

Monday’s testimony by forensic accountant Victor Neufeld about the police headquarters work is more than unsettling.

Neufeld testified that his review shows that Caspian Projects, the company that was handling the construction of the Winnipeg Police Services headquarters, submitted invoices that included $45 million to $50 million in overcharges. Neufeld said the construction company made “multiple material financial misrepresentations.”

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Wednesday, Mar. 11, 2026

CP Photo/File
Canada needs a national electrical power grid.

A first, important step for a national grid

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A first, important step for a national grid

Editorial 4 minute read Tuesday, Mar. 10, 2026

There’s a long-standing complaint about the Canadian economy that we have been satisfied with being the hewers of wood and the haulers of water. In other words, that one of the major drivers of our economy has been to harvest raw materials and ship those materials to other countries for valued-added processing — products that we then often buy back, at higher prices.

The description actually comes from the Old Testament, but it was first used to describe the Canadian economy in 1930 by economist Harold Innis, who used the reference in his book The Fur Trade in Canada.

It’s not completely true now — Canada’s service industry is larger than its resource industry, but resources still play a large role, and every level of processing for resources that we can do in this country makes them more valuable to the overall economy.

Now stop for a minute and ask yourself what says haulers of water more than selling cheap electrical power to the United States to power that country’s industries and homes, and then buying finished products built by American industry.

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Tuesday, Mar. 10, 2026

President Donald Trump waves after arriving on Marine One on the South Lawn of White House, Sunday, March 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/JMark Schiefelbein)

Risk is business poison, and Trump is risky

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Risk is business poison, and Trump is risky

Editorial 4 minute read Monday, Mar. 9, 2026

With every passing day, it seems more and more like the president of the United States doesn’t understand the business costs of risk and instability.

And not only the U.S. is going to feel the results of that blind spot.

It’s true that people do make money in unstable times — especially, as seems to be happening in the United States, if you know about significant government changes in advance, and tailor your stock purchases and sell-offs accordingly.

Much money has been made by anonymous traders (you could legitimately suspect inside traders) who have magically decided to dump stocks just before U.S. President Donald Trump has made sweeping or unexpected tariff decisions, as it has been made on oil plays by speculators who seem to know when military actions are about to take place.

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Monday, Mar. 9, 2026

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The Canadian Press
Prime Minister Mark Carney

Carney’s position on Iran changes by the day

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Carney’s position on Iran changes by the day

Editorial 4 minute read Saturday, Mar. 7, 2026

Manitoba Tory MP and defence critic James Bezan was correct this week when he accused Prime Minister Mark Carney of being “all over the map” with our position on the U.S-Israel war in the Middle East.

In the House of Commons this week, Bezan lamented the fact that Canada had gone from supportive, to regretful and concerned, to weighing the possibility of actively supporting the attacks against Iran, all in the space of a few days. Bezan encouraged Carney to debate Canada’s role in this conflict in the House of Commons.

“It should be up to Parliament itself to say yea or nay on whether or not we’re ever going to be deploying our troops into a conflict,” Bezan told reporters on Thursday in Ottawa. “Let’s have the conversation where it should be, in public so there’s transparency, in the House of Commons.”

Bezan’s allegation is fair and accurate. Since the Americans and Israelis launched their furious attack on Iran on Feb. 28, it has been difficult to pin down Canada’s true position on U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Operation Epic Fury.”

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Saturday, Mar. 7, 2026

stephen macgillivray / THE CANADIAN PRESS files
Pete Hoekstra is U.S. ambassador to Canada.

When the diplomat isn’t diplomatic

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When the diplomat isn’t diplomatic

Editorial 4 minute read Friday, Mar. 6, 2026

Pete Hoekstra gets to call Lornado home just now.

Lornado is the official residence of the U.S. Ambassador to Canada, a 32-room limestone manor house in Ottawa’s Rockcliffe Park. Built on 10 acres of park-like grounds, Lornado was built by an Ottawa industrialist Warren Y. Soper, whose main claim to fame was as the co-founder of the first public transit system in Ottawa, the Ottawa Electric Railway.

Soper named the property after one of his favourite novels, Lorna Doone, and the U.S. government kept the name after it bought the property in 1935.

As the U.S. State Department says on a website describing the property, “If the walls and grounds of Lornado could talk they would provide a fascinating look back into Ottawa’s history, and testify to the long and strong ties that bind our two nations in friendship.”

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Friday, Mar. 6, 2026

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew

Talking the talk — now it’s time for the walk

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Talking the talk — now it’s time for the walk

Editorial 4 minute read Thursday, Mar. 5, 2026

“What’s going to be different?”

That key question was left hanging in the air after last week’s announcement of a new multi-agency task force to combat drug trafficking in this province.

The task force, as described by Justice Minister Matt Wiebe with support from senior officials in justice, law enforcement and border security, is far-reaching in its scope and ambitious in its intentions. It creates opportunities for pooling resources and sharing expertise in order to confront a crisis Wiebe admits “has strained our medical system and has created crime in our streets.”

But it’s not the first time a government has declared the situation critical and unveiled an aggressive effort to interrupt the flow of illicit drugs into our communities. And despite the best intentions of those behind such initiatives, little progress — if any — has been made.

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Thursday, Mar. 5, 2026

Ruth Bonneville/Winnipeg Free Press
Manitoba Finance Minister Adrien Sala

Striking the right budget balance

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Striking the right budget balance

Editorial 4 minute read Wednesday, Mar. 4, 2026

Manitobans understand that governing is about choices.

They also understand that some of the biggest choices a government makes are the hardest ones, especially when it comes to money.

The NDP government will table its 2026-27 budget March 24 amid real and pressing concerns about health care, affordability and public services stretched thin after years of strain.

Few would dispute that these areas need sustained investment. But just as undeniable is another reality: governments cannot spend without limit and hope the books will somehow balance themselves.

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Wednesday, Mar. 4, 2026

Mark Schiefelbein / The Associated Press
U. S. President Donald Trump

The sidelines: perhaps the safest place to be

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The sidelines: perhaps the safest place to be

Editorial 4 minute read Tuesday, Mar. 3, 2026

The military power of the United States — and of Israel — is brought to bear on Iran, and the Canadian response is well, muted. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Are we joining in the conflict? “We have not been party to the military build-up to this, or the military planning of this. So, it is not envisioned that we would be part of it moving forward,” Prime Minister Mark Carney told reporters.

That follows an equally muted joint statement from Carney and Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand on Saturday. It was, in terms of a dance review, a deliberately soft-shoe number: “Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security.”

There’s no doubt that Iran’s government has played an outsized role in everything from international terrorism to helping to support Russia in attacking Ukraine. There’s no doubt that the country’s repressive regime, a regime that stretches back 47 years now, has killed and tortured thousands of its own citizens.

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Tuesday, Mar. 3, 2026

Ruth Bonneville / Free Press
Winnipeg Coun. Evan Duncan

Writing bylaws requires more careful consideration

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Writing bylaws requires more careful consideration

Editorial 4 minute read Monday, Mar. 2, 2026

Winnipeg City Hall has seen few instances of poetic justice more profound than a recent decision by a city councillor to withdraw a proposed bylaw to ban “nuisance” protests after being overwhelmed by a citizen protest opposed to his plans.

It was not surprising that Coun. Evan Duncan’s proposal to ban certain kinds of protests in certain locations of the city failed, although it was difficult to say for sure that it was always doomed. In these fractious times, where elected officials are frequently confronted by “if-you’re-not-with-me-you’re-against-me” ultimatums, it was impossible to be sure city council would not have been possessed by the same poor judgment when asked to vote on the bylaw.

Thankfully, it never got that far.

After hundreds of citizens registered to speak to the proposal at council, and a peaceful protest in the city hall courtyard, Duncan withdrew the bylaw. The councillor for Charleswood-Tuxedo-Westwood claimed he was standing down the proposed bylaw because of widespread “misinformation” about what he was trying to accomplish.

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Monday, Mar. 2, 2026

MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS
Manitoba Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine (left) along with Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith, at the renewal of the province’s five-year poverty reduction strategy.

The number of impoverished children is growing

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

The number of impoverished children is growing

Editorial 4 minute read Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026

Canada is, unfortunately, beginning to look like the land of poor prospects for its children.

The country saw an increase in child poverty for the third straight year in 2023 — the most recent available public data — according to an annual child poverty report card recently released by Campaign 2000, a non-partisan coalition dedicated to ending child poverty in Canada.

It doesn’t matter which measuring stick you use: according to the official Market Basket Measure, child poverty has more than doubled since 2020, to 10.7 per cent — or 802,000 children. Meanwhile, the Census Family Low Income Measure, After Tax — which Campaign 2000 uses and claims is a better indicator — put the number at 18.3 per cent, or 1.4 million children.

According to 2023 data, Manitoba was the second-highest in child poverty rates based on the CFLIM-AT measure, at 26.9 per cent (Saskatchewan had the highest, at 27.1 per cent). Winnipeg was sixth-highest among large urban centres for the same year, at a rate of 22 per cent.

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Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026

JOHN WOODS / FREE PRESS
Jennilee Martineau, owner of Ex Inked Laser Tattoo Removal.

When the internet extortionist comes calling

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

When the internet extortionist comes calling

Editorial 4 minute read Friday, Feb. 27, 2026

Crowdsourcing is only as good as the crowd.

And it’s only as honest as the crowd as well.

Sadly, the problem is that the crowd may be neither.

Everyone has, no doubt, heard of the prevalence of internet scams — the police warn you about them, your bank warns you regularly, and the list goes on.

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Friday, Feb. 27, 2026

The Canadian Press files
Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre

Is it time for a look in the mirror?

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Is it time for a look in the mirror?

Editorial 4 minute read Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026

“It’s not you, it’s me.”

It’s the time-worn rationale offered up when a relationship dissolves and one partner seeks to blunt the pain of the breakup by assuming responsibility. It’s more strategic than sincere, however, with the real goal being to avoid having to engage in a lengthy conversation about who’s to blame for what.

Conservative Party of Canada Leader Pierre Poilievre has endured his share of messy breakups lately; in recent months, three MPs have decided the party’s values no longer align with their own, and the way to best serve their constituents is by crossing the floor and joining the ranks of the governing Liberal Party led by Prime Minister Mark Carney.

The most recent is Edmonton Riverbend MP Matt Jeneroux, who last November announced he intended to resign his parliamentary seat this spring. Having clearly had a change of heart, he announced on Feb. 18 he would instead join Carney’s Liberals, having been impressed by the PM’s much-lauded speech at the World Economic Forum and concerned by the growing wave of separatist sentiment in Alberta and Quebec.

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Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026

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