Editorials

Opinion

The Canadian Press files Shoppers have been caught up in ‘Buy Canadian’ fervour since U.S. President Donald Trump announced tariffs on Canadian goods in 2025. It has only increased in intensity.

The ‘Buy Canadian’ trade war challenge

Editorial 4 minute read Yesterday at 2:00 AM CDT

“Buy Canadian,” they tell us, as trade tensions escalate between Canada and the United States. “Elbows up,” the pithy slogan advises again and again, in response to the latest daily affront from increasingly unbalanced U.S. President Donald Trump.

And there’s no question Canadians from coast to coast to coast have bought into the patriotic mindset that politicians, from Prime Minister Mark Carney right on down to elected officials at the municipal level, have implored us to adopt.

“We were attacked,” is how Carney described the Aug. 21 unraveling of trade talks, after U.S. negotiators reportedly inserted last-minute demands the Canadian side viewed as both unreasonable and unacceptable. “You’re at war when you get attacked. We got attacked.”

The breakdown led to the immediate imposition by Trump of steep new tariffs on $29 billion worth of Canadian goods headed to south-of-the-border markets. A targeted, dollar-for-dollar Canadian tariff response will take effect after the Labour Day weekend. In the meantime, Canadians are more motivated than ever to stand firm against Trump’s tyrannical tactics.

Advertisement

Advertise With Us

Weather

Sep. 5, 6 AM: 16°c Cloudy Sep. 5, 12 PM: 25°c Cloudy with wind

Winnipeg MB

17°C, Clear

Full Forecast

Opinion

MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS FILES Winnipeg Police Service Chief Gene Bowers announced last week the WPS is ending special duty hours.

Ending special duty helps staff cruisers

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Ending special duty helps staff cruisers

Editorial 4 minute read Thursday, Sep. 3, 2026

If you’re not from Winnipeg, the first time you see it can be a little alarming.

You’ve come to the grocery store for a week’s groceries, gotten what you need, and made your way through the checkouts. And then, with your cart of bagged groceries out in front of you, you head to the door and meet a pair of fully-kitted-out police officers, standing and talking with their thumbs hooked into their vests.

Occasionally, they give you a once-over with that “are-you-going-to-make-trouble” stare that seems to be a particular talent of police officers. Often, they don’t look at you at all.

You look around. Has something happened?

Read
Thursday, Sep. 3, 2026

Opinion

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Michael Paille, executive director of the Sargent Business Community, patrols Sargent Avenue last month.

Social problems cannot be simply swept away

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Social problems cannot be simply swept away

Editorial 4 minute read Wednesday, Sep. 2, 2026

In the battle to alleviate homelessness, mental health issues and drug addiction, we just can’t seem to get the order of our response right.

The city dismantles homeless encampments before there are enough safe, permanent places for people to live.

The Winnipeg Police Service conducts an intensive sweep to combat open drug use on Main Street, without arranging support from social service agencies to help the people they are rousting.

Is it any surprise that the acute problems being experienced by residents, businesses and workers on Main Street are beginning to manifest in adjacent neighbourhoods? That’s what happens when you try to solve a problem by moving it, not addressing it head-on.

Read
Wednesday, Sep. 2, 2026

Opinion

ROBERT LEE / FREE PRESS FILES The number of people living in homeless encampments in the city has dropped over the past year.

At last, some good news on homelessness

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

At last, some good news on homelessness

Editorial 4 minute read Tuesday, Sep. 1, 2026

There is no shortage of reasons to be frustrated about homelessness in Winnipeg. But the latest numbers provide something that has been increasingly difficult to find — evidence that at least some things are getting better.

A city tally presented to councillors Friday shows 245 people were living in 72 encampments across Winnipeg in July. Last September, the city counted about 700 people living in 100 encampments.

That is a remarkable drop.

It does not mean Winnipeg has solved homelessness. It does not mean every person displaced from an encampment has found a home. And it certainly does not mean there is no longer a problem in the city’s streets and public spaces.

Read
Tuesday, Sep. 1, 2026

Opinion

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Manitoba Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara

Health care needs long-term planning

Editorial, Aug. 31 4 minute read Preview

Health care needs long-term planning

Editorial, Aug. 31 4 minute read Monday, Aug. 31, 2026

If there’s been a throughline in the past 30 years of Manitoba politics — apart from the fact the electorate has bounced between NDP and Progressive Conservative governments — it’s that the state of provincial health care is almost always in the headlines.

Remember the “hallway medicine” catchphrase used by Gary Doer’s New Democrats in the 1999 provincial election campaign? It’s not that far removed from the “ER bottlenecks” that Manitobans, especially Winnipeggers, must deal with today.

In a recent Free Press examination of emergency room medicine (Condition critical, Aug. 22), Dr. Alecs Chochinov, a former director of emergency medicine at St. Boniface Hospital, attributed the bottleneck problem to “access block,” meaning that more personal-care home beds and home-care services are needed to free up acute-care hospital beds and enable patients to move more quickly through emergency rooms.

So, how should access block be addressed and who should direct the implementation of long-term investment and solutions?

Read
Monday, Aug. 31, 2026

Opinion

The Associated Press U.S. President Donald Trump holds up an executive order renaming Lake Ontario as ‘Lake America.’

Of frogs, roses, kings and a Great Lake

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Of frogs, roses, kings and a Great Lake

Editorial 4 minute read Saturday, Aug. 29, 2026

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, as the saying goes. Basically, if you change something’s name, you don’t actually change the nature of the thing.

That being said, if even 15 years ago an American president had called an entire news conference to announce he was renaming one of the Great Lakes by writing on a map with a red pen and issuing an executive order purporting to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America,” all and sundry would question his mental health.

Maybe, after witnessing so much from Donald Trump, we’ve all just been hardened off and the foolish is now expected daily. Perhaps it’s the political equivalent of the fable of the boiling frog.

As the fable goes, drop a frog into a pot of boiling water and it will jump right out. But put the frog in room temperature water and bring the pot to a boil, the frog will stay until its death. (It’s unlikely the frog would actually wait.)

Read
Saturday, Aug. 29, 2026

Opinion

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES A person stands in front of a Meta sign outside of the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif.

Meta settlement should be first of many

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Meta settlement should be first of many

Editorial 4 minute read Friday, Aug. 28, 2026

Who knew? A massive company knew its products were harmful to children and teens, and not only kept its products on the market, but worked to make them more addictive, to build their own profits.

Welcome to social media, and a huge settlement in a case against online giant Meta.

First, the cash in the settlement: Meta will pay US$12.1 billion to settle suits by 47 U.S. states, who had argued Meta knowingly exploited teenage weaknesses. (A lot of money, until you consider that Meta’s revenues last year were US$200 billion.)

Meta is promising to limit teens’ access to social media platforms to two hours a day (unless parents allow more), block sites between midnight and 6 a.m., block notifications during school hours, and stop allowing image modifications for teens, among other things.

Read
Friday, Aug. 28, 2026

Opinion

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESs fileS Drivers deserve safety on Winnipeg Transit buses.

Fully protecting Transit drivers overdue

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Fully protecting Transit drivers overdue

Editorial 4 minute read Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026

Doesn’t it seem like “enough is enough” has been said more than enough times?

The union representing Winnipeg Transit drivers declared last week — again — that the service’s buses need to be outfitted with full safety shields, after yet another incident involving an assault on a partially protected transit operator.

The most recent altercation, which Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1505 president James Van Gerwen described as “almost like a hijacking situation,” occurred around 1 a.m. on Aug. 20 at the St. Vital terminal, when a passenger who had repeatedly told the operator to put the bus in motion subsequently produced a hatchet from a bag and threatened the driver from outside the partial Plexiglas protection current equipment affords.

Fortunately, the operator was able to flag down a nearby police vehicle before violence could ensue, but the driver, in her first year of service with Winnipeg Transit, is now on leave from her duties. According to the union, she joins more than 60 other drivers who are currently on stress leave owing to trauma and/or psychological injuries suffered on the job.

Read
Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026

Opinion

Brandon Sun FILES The emergency room entrance at the Brandon hospital

Emergency rooms and health-care bottlenecks

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Emergency rooms and health-care bottlenecks

Editorial 4 minute read Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2026

Manitoba’s emergency rooms are being crushed under the weight of a health-care problem that cannot be fixed inside emergency departments.

The latest picture from Winnipeg hospitals is grim. ER wait times hit an all-time high this year and there appears to be no relief in sight.

Despite a 2023 election pledge by the NDP to shorten wait times, they are getting longer and patient care is suffering. ER doctors and nurses interviewed recently by the Free Press said they have never seen the situation this bad.

The temptation for government is to look for quick fixes: add capacity to emergency departments, redirect patients to clinics or move hospital beds around the system.

Read
Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2026

Opinion

Manuel Balce Ceneta / The Associated Press U.S. President Donald Trump

A bad trade deal in virtually all ways

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

A bad trade deal in virtually all ways

Editorial 4 minute read Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026

You can’t fix stupid.

And you can’t sign a contract — or a trade deal — with a proven liar, cheat and blackmailer.

And sometimes, you end up having to fight.

Yes, we are referring to U.S. President Donald Trump, a politician who obviously confuses might with bright.

Read
Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026

Opinion

Ruth Bonneville/Winnipeg Free Press Winnipeg Coun. Russ Wyatt walks into city hall on Thursday, Aug. 13.

Making a clear code of conduct for Winnipeg councillors

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Making a clear code of conduct for Winnipeg councillors

Editorial 4 minute read Monday, Aug. 24, 2026

Most of us are familiar with ‘codes of conduct’.

Generally, they are sets of rules for how people are supposed to behave and act. As modern life becomes more and more complex, they have been increasingly applied in a variety of settings. Workplaces are most common, of course (usually at the behest of human resources directors), but codes of conduct also apply to the members of professional associations and volunteer organizations — from orthopedic surgeons and math teachers to youth hockey coaches and the board of directors of a local community centre.

Entire governance courses are taught on the subject, but the basic tenets of all codes of conduct are similar — people are expected to be respectful and honest in their interactions and choices, to act in good faith with the mission statements of their businesses or organizations, to respect organizational rules and to follow local laws and regulations. Most codes also prescribe processes to follow and actions to be taken if people violate the code or break the law.

It’s mostly straightforward, common-sense stuff. But, as Winnipeggers have recently been reminded in the case of Transcona city councillor Russ Wyatt, not all codes of conduct are created equal.

Read
Monday, Aug. 24, 2026

Opinion

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Shakir Rahim, director of the Criminal Justice program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association

Properly funding legal aid is key to fair trials

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Properly funding legal aid is key to fair trials

Editorial 4 minute read Saturday, Aug. 22, 2026

Politicians and the public are never short of demands to make the criminal justice system tougher on criminals.

At any given time, someone is clamouring for tougher bail conditions, harsher sentences and more restrictive conditions on parole.

However, in our rush to get harsher, longer and more restrictive when it comes to criminal justice, we forget that it has become financially impossible for the average Manitoban to contest criminal charges.

That is the heart of lawsuit brought by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association against Manitoba and the federal government. The CCLA is arguing that chronic underfunding of legal aid is violating the constitutional rights of accused Manitobans to a fair trial.

Read
Saturday, Aug. 22, 2026

Opinion

File Canada needs its own east-west electrical grid.

Time for a stronger all-Canadian grid

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Time for a stronger all-Canadian grid

Editorial 4 minute read Friday, Aug. 21, 2026

The kneebone is connected to … non-contiguously, pretty much every other bone in your body.

Unfortunately.

But more on that later.

The New York Times published a quite terrifying story on the U.S. electrical grid this week, one that points out that, with a few simple directed attacks on nine of 10 major U.S. substations, the entire U.S. power grid could be disabled.

Read
Friday, Aug. 21, 2026

Opinion

File Veterinary costs are rising.

Ramifications of the high cost of pet care

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Ramifications of the high cost of pet care

Editorial 4 minute read Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026

They are widely considered to be, as the timeless adage reminds, our best friends. In most cases and contexts, there’s almost nothing we wouldn’t do to ensure they’re safe, healthy and happy.

But caring for a pet has become decidedly more complicated and burdensome of late, owing in part to the rising cost of the veterinary care that is now an inevitable element of the pet-ownership experience.

Recent reporting shows a sharp increase in the number of pets being surrendered to animal shelters as a result of their owners’ inability to cover the costs of veterinary bills while dealing with the overall increase in the cost of living.

A spokesperson for the Winnipeg Humane Society said 150 animals were surrendered there in July alone, primarily because their owners could not afford vet care. The Winnipeg Pet Rescue Shelter reports at least 200 pets surrendered this year by owners who cited finances as the reason for their difficult decision.

Read
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026

Opinion

MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS Winnipeg Police Chief Gene Bowers

A better approach, but not yet enough

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

A better approach, but not yet enough

Editorial 4 minute read Monday, Aug. 17, 2026

In late June, when the Winnipeg Police Service launched a 10-day ‘crackdown’ on open drug use and illegal drug sales in areas in and around downtown, it did so without consulting or informing community outreach and social services agencies working in the targeted areas.

Inevitably, the WPS action drew criticism from several front-line agencies, which issued a collective statement just two days after the police operation began, pointing out that heavy-handed policing would drive vulnerable people away from the help they desperately need.

“Every day we work to build trust with people who have experienced trauma, discrimination, and barriers to care,” Kate Sjoberg, executive director of Resource Assistance for Youth, said at the time. “Actions that create fear around accessing services can undo months or years of relationship-building and place people at greater risk of preventable harm.”

At the time, WPS Chief Gene Bowers held up his hand and said, “That’s on me.”

Read
Monday, Aug. 17, 2026

Opinion

FILE/Christopher Katsar Luna/Bloomberg A worker removes bottles of American-made Jack Daniel’s whiskey from a liquor store in Toronto.

Fighting tariffs with the power of boycotts

Editorial 4 minute read Preview

Fighting tariffs with the power of boycotts

Editorial 4 minute read Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026

Speaking this week about an important deadline for a renewal of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement on trade, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew promised that Manitoba will continue to keep American booze off the shelves of government liquor stores if a fair deal cannot be reached.

“No CUSMA, no booze-ma,” Kinew said with poetic flair.

Manitoba is not alone in this threat.

Although he lacks Kinew’s poetry, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he was only willing to allow U.S. wine, beer and spirits back onto the shelves of government liquor stores if the U.S. scaled back the 50 per cent tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to impose on Aug. 19.

Read
Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026

LOAD MORE EDITORIALS ARTICLES