Opinion – Brandon Sun

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Why we shouldn’t ignore the warnings that could save us

By Brodie Ramin 6 minute read Preview

Why we shouldn’t ignore the warnings that could save us

By Brodie Ramin 6 minute read Yesterday at 10:19 PM CDT

You are driving fast, maybe too fast, on a highway at night. Maybe it’s snowing, or raining, or your eyes are glazing over as you feel the fatigue of a long day set in, or maybe your phone dings and you look down for an instant. Suddenly the car in from of you stops and you hit the brakes. You feel your tires skid and for a second, you are sure you have crashed.

But then: Nothing.

You stopped just in time. Heart pounding, you exhale. You are shaken but also impressed by your speedy reflexes. You think to yourself: No harm done.

But harm nearly done. And that’s the problem.

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Yesterday at 10:19 PM CDT

The majority of health-care workers fail to report near-misses due to fear of blame, lack of feedback or the false belief that no harm means no problem. (The Canadian Press files)

Time for a new funding formula

4 minute read Preview

Time for a new funding formula

4 minute read Yesterday at 10:16 PM CDT

The Mountain View and Beautiful Plains school divisions have approved their 2026-27 budgets, and each division’s budget includes a substantial hike in property taxes. The increase is 7.24 per cent for Mountain View, and a staggering 10.4 per cent for Beautiful Plains taxpayers to shoulder.

The situation playing in Mountain View and Beautiful Plains is similar to that which is unfolding in school divisions throughout the province. Park West School Division is proposing a 10.12 per cent increase in school taxes for the 2027 calendar year as part of its draft 2026-27 budget. Brandon School Division trustees recently approved a 7.25 per cent increase. The tax increases in some other divisions are even higher.

This news should not come as a surprise to those who have been following the school funding issue over the past several years. Last fall, we noted that the provincial government was in the process of implementing the province-wide harmonization of teachers’ salaries, and that school divisions — rural divisions in particular — would bear the brunt of that cost.

Many divisions have received some additional funding from the province to offset the added harmonization expense, but the extra funding has been inconsistently distributed among divisions and has failed to prevent large tax hikes from occurring. For example, Beautiful Plains received $200,000 from the province for harmonization costs, while Mountain View received nothing.

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Yesterday at 10:16 PM CDT

Manitoba Education and Early Childhood Learning Minister Tracy Schmidt said responsible use of AI was a “big theme” of Friday’s event. (Mikaela MacKenzie/Winnipeg Free Press files)

Promises, rhetoric won’t bring solutions

5 minute read Preview

Promises, rhetoric won’t bring solutions

5 minute read Updated: Yesterday at 11:04 AM CDT

Manitoba’s partisan politicking has become so mired in sophistry and empty promises, we have to wonder if voters really buy the rhetoric that our political leaders are peddling these days.

An email from the Progressive Conservative caucus earlier this week that criticized NDP Premier Wab Kinew for not doing enough to deal with rising food inflation is a great example of how party sniping has become little more than political background noise.

In December 2023 — only a few months after the NDP came back into power in this province — Kinew made a rather unwise promise to Manitobans as he stood in Brandon’s Keystone Centre.

“You’ve heard the big chains, the billionaires owning these big chains talk about ‘Oh, it’s transportation costs that are the reason why grocery prices are going up. Well, guess what? We’re calling their bluff,” Kinew said, with a dollop of class warfare chest thumping. “Transportation costs will be reduced for the big grocery chains starting on Jan. 1, and if they don’t pass the savings to you, then we will take further action to follow up with that.”

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Updated: Yesterday at 11:04 AM CDT

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew waits before the Speech from the Throne, at the Manitoba Legislative Building in Winnipeg, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/David Lipnowski

Body camera cost a key question

By Christopher J. Schneider 5 minute read Preview

Body camera cost a key question

By Christopher J. Schneider 5 minute read Wednesday, Mar. 11, 2026

Police body cameras are coming to Winnipeg following years of debate and after the announcement of their forthcoming arrival in Brandon. Nearly half a million dollars will be spent in Brandon to equip Brandon police officers with body cameras, which are expected to roll out in Brandon next month.

Winnipeg Police Service Chief Gene Bowers announced last week that the Winnipeg Police Service will trial the cameras in June. Forty front-line officers are expected to test the devices. Chief Bowers suggested that any potential costs to eventually implement a body camera program would be “dramatically” lower in 2026. But evidence suggests otherwise.

Brandonites ought to pay close attention to the Winnipeg trial, since the Brandon Police Service is using the same body camera vendor that will supply the Winnipeg police, American company Axon Enterprise.

One of the major reasons for the years-long delay in equipping police in Manitoba’s two largest cities with body-worn cameras (BWCs) was the matter of cost.

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Wednesday, Mar. 11, 2026

Winnipeg Police Service Chief Gene Bowers says that the force will have a trial run of body cameras in June, but Brandon University professor Christopher J. Schneider writes that “(e)quipping police with body cameras alone will not create more transparency or accountability,” and suggests the chief let Winnipeggers know how much the cameras will cost. (Mike Deal/Winnipeg Free Press)

National power grid would help make Canada stronger

4 minute read Preview

National power grid would help make Canada stronger

4 minute read Tuesday, Mar. 10, 2026

There’s a long-standing complaint about the Canadian economy — namely that we have been overly 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.

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Tuesday, Mar. 10, 2026

Manitoba Hydro power lines are photographed just outside Winnipeg, Monday, May 1, 2018. Manitoba residents could see their electricity rates rise by 3.5 per cent in each of the next three years if an application by Crown-owned Manitoba Hydro is approved. THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods

Banning AI not the answer

By Jonathan Allan 4 minute read Preview

Banning AI not the answer

By Jonathan Allan 4 minute read Tuesday, Mar. 10, 2026

Like many professors or teachers, I find myself confronting the role of artificial intelligence in the classroom. But I am not alone. Students are also concerned. They are worried about being accused of using artificial intelligence. Professors seem just as worried that the students are doing it.

All too often, it seems as if students are presumed guilty until proven innocent. Guilt assigned.

Right now, it seems as if professors are becoming prosecutors. Each investigation, which feels like an inquisition, unfolds rigidly because that is what policy dictates. The entire process takes place within the confines of the university. Students are, thus, rightly anxious and nervous about the accusations, about defending themselves against the lurking threat of being accused of using artificial intelligence.

Despite this, or perhaps because of it, I have tried to relieve some of these anxieties by being clear about the acceptable uses of AI and which AI detector is being used. My introductory course has students using Grammarly, which provides a report on the actual writing of the paper as well as built-in AI detection.

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Tuesday, Mar. 10, 2026

A screen displays guidelines for using artificial intelligence in Casey Cuny’s English class at a high school in Santa Clarita, Calif., in August 2025. Brandon University professor Jonathan Allan writes that when it comes to determining acceptable uses for AI, “a solution that outright bans the use of AI is naive at best, cruel at worst.” (The Associated Press files)

Privacy laws don’t protect us from facial recognition tech

By Neil McArthur 5 minute read Preview

Privacy laws don’t protect us from facial recognition tech

By Neil McArthur 5 minute read Tuesday, Mar. 10, 2026

Amid the recent, dizzying advances in generative AI, it’s been easy to miss the slow but steady progress in facial recognition over the last decade. In the past few months, it has broken containment.

In the United States, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has deployed a technology known as Mobile Fortify, which uses facial recognition on officers’ cellphones to “quickly verify subjects of interest during operations.”

In the United Kingdom, the Metropolitan Police scanned 4.2 million people’s faces during 2025 using live facial recognition cameras in public areas across London. And the British government recently promised to further “ramp up facial recognition and biometrics.”

Face scans may soon be everywhere and Canada’s patchwork of privacy rules is not ready to protect us. The most striking gaps concern personal and household surveillance.

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Tuesday, Mar. 10, 2026

Demonstrators against Amazon's facial recognition software hold images of Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos near their faces at Amazon headquarters. (The Associated Press files)

EU membership not Canada’s best option

4 minute read Preview

EU membership not Canada’s best option

4 minute read Tuesday, Mar. 10, 2026

Almost one-half of Canadians favour the idea of Canada joining the European Union, according to a poll of almost 2,000 Canadians conducted last month by Abacus Data. It is an idea worth considering, given the fraught nature of our current relationship with the United States, but not to the exclusion of other viable options.

Proponents of the EU idea argue that joining the other 27 EU member states would give Canada unfettered access to one of the world’s largest single markets. It would allow for the free movement of our goods, services, capital and people across the European continent without tariffs or other barriers. That, in turn would bolster economic growth, attract foreign investment and create jobs.

They also point out that the EU is the world’s largest trade alliance, which gives it immense leverage to negotiate better access to world markets, as well as lower prices and tariffs. Canada, they say, would benefit from that strength — something that is sorely missing in its trading relationship with the U.S.

There are those who argue, however, that there would be a serious downside to Canada joining the EU, including the loss of national sovereignty, loss of control over immigration, a range of economic restrictions, mandatory adoption of EU regulations and other policies that may be contrary to Canada’s specific interests.

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Tuesday, Mar. 10, 2026

Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks with reporters on the final day of a three country tour, in Tokyo, Japan, Saturday, March 7, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

NEELIN VIEWS: Digital rights are human rights

By Marie Lychuk 3 minute read Monday, Mar. 9, 2026

The internet was once a boundless space for free exchange, yet World Day Against Cyber Censorship reminds us how easily those freedoms can be restricted.

Thursday marks the 18th anniversary of World Day Against Cyber Censorship after it was created in 2008 by Reporters Without Borders (an international non-governmental organization that defends journalists and media assistants) to advocate for free, open, and accessible internet for everyone. The purpose of the day is to show that the internet is a free space, not a tool where everything is controlled.

On World Day Against Cyber Censorship, people advocate for a free and open internet by protesting online (using hashtags on social media, signing petitions, and using VPNs to bypass restrictions), supporting organizations like Reporters Without Borders, and celebrating their digital freedom. Every year on March 12, an award called the Netizen Prize (introduced in 2010 by Reporters Without Borders) is given out to journalists and bloggers that have made significant contributions to defending online free speech.

But if nothing is censored on the internet, what is stopping a child from seeing something that is inappropriate? A safety concern for youth is that they will see something that will have a lasting effect on them. Moderation is something that keeps the internet safe for kids to browse, and without it, children would be exposed to media that covers mature topics.

March 13, 2026

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