City hall can help jobless

While election cycles bring some community challenges to the spotlight, the work creating solutions to these complex challenges is ongoing. Winnipeg’s inner-city neighbourhoods have been quietly transforming — creating employment, reducing poverty, reversing neighbourhood decline and preventing crime. …

A vote for austerity is a vote for more suffering

Lorrie Steeve’s distasteful comments about Aboriginal panhandlers set off a series of responses that reflected badly on many Winnipeggers. The following week’s big story was the murder of Tina Fontaine and the suicide of Faron Hall. There followed …

18 Prominent Manitobans Fail the Canada Challenge

The ancestors of 18 prominent Manitobans would all be turned away if they applied today to immigrate to Canada.  That was the finding of the first Manitobans to take The Canada Challenge, a quiz that all Canadians were …

Province introduces online calculator for low-income renters

By Josh Brandon If you are a renter in Manitoba paying more than 25 percent of your income in rent, you may be eligible for a benefit of between $20 and $270 per month, thanks to recent changes …

Municipal Budgets: You Get What You Pay For

Winnipeg’s mayoral race is now officially underway. Any serious contenders are going to have to convince a very skeptical public that they can turn around what really has been a winter of discontent with City services. Unfortunately, problems …

Taking Back the City: The Winnipeg 2014 Alternative Municipal Budget

 By Lynne Fernandez, Errol Black Chair in Labour Issues  As Winnipeggers come out of an unusually punishing winter, the sun seems to be stimulating more than the usual spring activities. There is a feeling air that our city …

“Indians Wear Red” wins Manitoba Book Award!

“Indians Wear Red”: Colonialism, Resistance and Aboriginal Street Gangs won in the non-fiction category last night at the Manitoba Book Awards! Elizabeth Comack, Lawrence Deane, Larry Morrisette and Jim Silver wrote this book based on research done through the Manitoba …

Why We Still Fight

By Lynne Fernandez, Errol Black Chair in Labour Issues The Day of Mourning, more than any other day in the labour movement’s calendar, brings home why we must remain vigilant in the area of workers’ rights. As reported …

Grain shipping is for the bears: oil by rail to Churchill not worth the risk

By Eric Reder For visitors from around the world, the opportunity to see polar bears and beluga whales in the subarctic splendor of Churchill is a major attraction. This window to the tundra world is a source of …

Federal housing strategy key to improving child welfare

Before the findings of the Hughes commission report on the death of Phoenix Sinclair have been lost and forgotten and before the next child dies needlessly, we must all be reminded that there are more issues at play …