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The store next door

The basics are usually the same: a wall of chips and candy, milk, tins of coffee, bread, a newspaper stand, gum, some fresh fruit and vegetables, lottery, tobacco products and a roll top freezer full of treats to beat the heat on a sweltering summer day.

Corner stores and small grocers carry the necessities and the nice-to-haves. Most offer identical conveniences, but each one adds something different to the neighbourhood they inhabit.

Yet, time appears to be running out for local hubs of last-minute shopping.

A recent Free Press investigation highlighted a spate of local corner stores hitting the market within the last month. Most reside in Winnipeg’s central neighbourhoods, and most owners cite rising costs among their reasons for selling.

A celebration — but there’s still need for action

On June 28, 1968, The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar located in New York City’s Greenwich Village, was raided by police. When the cops became violent, the patrons — many of them drag queens and LGBTTQ+ people of colour — rose up and fought back.

What happened at Stonewall has been called a riot, an uprising and a rebellion. It was a transformational event for the gay liberation movement in the United States, and the commemorative marches that took place in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco the following year are considered the birth of what we now know as Pride.

June is now widely recognized as Pride month. It’s a celebration of LGBTTQ+ liberation, survival and expression, punctuated by festivities and parades wrapped in rainbows.

But amid rising violence, discrimination and hate against the LGBTTQ+ community — and, in particular, the trans community — and hard-won rights coming under siege in the United States, Pride’s roots of resistance and liberation must not be forgotten.

Religious class shouldn’t get blessing

For generations, citizens of democratic nations have negotiated a sometimes-fraught tension in the boundaries between the authority of the state, and that of religious leaders.

The separation of church and state is generally maintained. However, recent events in Winnipeg have brought to light the fact that in Manitoba, the boundary is surprisingly porous.

Silver Heights families have requested that the community’s public school make room for a program that would allow children to participate in Christian lessons during the day. The elementary-aged theology program would be opt-in, and would include Bible study and instruction on the history of holidays such as Christmas and Easter. The program itself would be administered by the Child Evangelism Fellowship, which operates in a number of Steinbach-area schools.

This effort is above board because, as it turns out, the existence of such programs in a Manitoba public school is made possible via obscure legislation which is still on the books after its implementation in the 19th century.

Time to tune out transphobic rhetoric

The trumpet of ignorance sounded clearly this month when the Brandon School Division gave a full hearing to a proposal to ban books.

Taking its place among several other similar calls in the past year, the hearing offered grandmother and former division trustee Lorraine Hackenschmidt ample time on the microphone to cite her “concern” for the content of several books relating to gender identity and sexual health issues.

The meeting follows a pattern among would-be book banners. Hackenschmidt starts out by admitting she is not a doctor or a psychologist, but insists she has done her “research” into the “LGBT ideology” — clearly poor research, if it failed to instruct her that one’s sexuality and gender identity are not matters of ideology. Among her motivations for her call to establish a committee — which would review and remove any “inappropriate” material — is to “protect our children from sexual grooming.”

Not only is that fear utterly baseless, it’s also a tell that Hackenschmidt, and others fighting this “battle” alongside her, are merely regurgitating learned talking points.

Want to bet on what happens?

So, here’s a safe bet: if you’re a hockey fan, your viewing of the Stanley Cup playoffs has been punctuated by advertisements for online sports gambling.

The odds are also pretty good at this early stage of the playoffs you’re already sick to death of the constant haranguing by current and former hockey stars and assorted other celebrities urging you to click your way to instant riches on the sites they’re being paid to endorse.

The promotional push for placing bets on sports-wagering platforms now operating in Canada is incessant — from commercial spots to rink-board advertising to discussions of parlay possibilities by in-studio panels whose job used to be presenting highlights and offering analysis.

Since last April, when single-event sports betting became legal in Canada, online gambling and the advertisement thereof have all but taken over the TV-sports airwaves. At times it feels very much as if the gaming has overtaken the game.

Danger shouldn’t be part of the job

On Easter Sunday, a Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service paramedic was hospitalized after an attack by a patient inside an ambulance.

The victim? A relatively newly hired paramedic.

“To somebody new to the WFPS, this is the type of thing that makes it tough to retain paramedics here — the constant violence and situations that paramedics find themselves in.” Ryan Woiden, president of Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union Local 911, told the Free Press. “I don’t think that there’s a paramedic who works for the WFPS today that hasn’t been assaulted, been nearly assaulted, verbally assaulted or knows somebody who’s been assaulted.”

A paramedic has to watch for a lot of things on the job: they have to monitor vital signs and treat injuries, administer drugs and set up IVs, establish the changing condition of their patients and try to determine the level of care and the speed of medical intervention their charges may need.

Highway repair will take long-term commitment

If Manitoba-born rocker Tom Cochrane is correct, and life is indeed a highway, then Highway 75 needs to be in an intensive-care unit.

Speed reduction first step toward safer streets

Winnipeg’s residential speed-reduction pilot program is crawling along and the early results appear to be getting the green light from community members.

Weston windfall sure to raise shoppers’ ire

For many years now, through television advertising, Canadians have come to know Galen Weston — scion of the family that owns Canada’s largest grocery store conglomerate — as a kindly, bespectacled friend, offering advice about what to serve guests during the holiday season and waxing poetic about family ideals.

We deserve to hear it from the horse’s mouth

Winnipeggers expect a degree of transparency regarding the services they pay for, and when something goes wrong, deserve informed answers. But the city’s increasing reliance on all-purpose spokespeople, rather than those directly involved or affected concerning municipal services, does little to provide the public with clear answers.

Swimming should be part of school curriculum

Swimming is often thought of as a leisure activity or a sport, evoking summer days at the beach or 6 a.m. laps at the pool. But knowing how to swim is an essential life skill — one that could save yours or someone else’s.

Trudeau puts rapporteur in no-win situation

Over his years leading the Liberal party and the government of Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has shown a remarkable capacity for making bad situations worse.

Free contraception should be province’s Plan A

In their March 7 budget, Manitoba’s Progressive Conservatives announced a meaningful change to health coverage that lives up to the party’s name: it’s both socially progressive and, in the long term, fiscally conservative.

No real strings attached to health-care deal

The only thing certain about the $6.7-billion agreement in principle Manitoba signed last week with Ottawa on health-care funding is that more federal dollars will flow to provincial coffers over the next 10 years.

‘Milgaard’s Law’ a step in the right direction

The federal government’s decision to create an independent commission to review wrongful convictions is a historic and long overdue innovation for the criminal justice system.

Netflix crackdown shows cracks in confidence

It may come as some surprise to Netflix customers that the industry leader in video streaming still mails out DVDs to some of its customers around the world.

CBC head’s response to criticism tone-deaf

Under normal circumstances, being president of a complex and occasionally controversial organization such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. requires an individual to have many talents. But none as important as the ability to read the room.

Locked doors don’t build community relationships

The Winnipeg Police Service’s motto, “Building Relationships,” is emblazoned on each of its cruiser cars.

City staffing crunch demands innovative solutions

For a long time, getting a job with the City of Winnipeg was a dream for many.

Adds photo

If a city councillor is relying on news articles to translate municipal reports, there’s a problem.

Situational silence not necessarily golden

There are many things silence, poetically, proverbially and metaphorically, is purported to be:

Domestic-violence brain injuries a ‘hidden epidemic’

Most of what we know about traumatic brain injuries comes from the experiences and injuries of male professional athletes.

A not-so-festive season for Canadian travellers

On Dec. 23, the federal government released a rather slick, cinematic video clearly intended as a mood-setter for the Christmas celebration that followed.