Columns – Brandon Sun

While the provincial government recently introduced Bill 13 — which it calls the “largest expansion to rent controls in decades” — Deveryn Ross contends that “(w)hat’s needed is an approach that ensures the ongoing availability of housing units that are needed in the province at rental rates Manitobans can afford, while still giving landlords a viable opportunity to earn a reasonable rate of return on their investment.” (The Canadian Press files)

Bill 13 could make life worse for both landlords, renters

Deveryn Ross 5 minute read Friday, Mar. 27, 2026

Four or five years ago, a friend of mine inherited a large amount of cash after the death of his parents. He decided to invest the money and thought a rental property — an older home with a few suites — could be a lucrative long-term investment for him and his family. That is, until he started doing the math.

He looked at a number of rental properties that were for sale in Brandon and realized the rents being paid by the tenants of those properties totalled, at best, 10 per cent of the asking prices of the various buildings. That potential “return on investment” figure didn’t include reductions for property taxes, mortgage payments, maintenance and repair costs, utility charges and several other likely expenses.

Based on those calculations, he concluded that he would be very lucky to net five per cent annually on his investment (before income taxes) — and that was without factoring in the hassle of managing the property, complying with regulatory requirements under the Residential Tenancies Act, collecting rents, repairing damage and dealing with eviction issues when they arise.

He was concerned he would be effectively buying a second job with no guarantee of actually earning any money from it, and a genuine possibility that he could actually lose money.

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Olympic transgender ban a legal, moral minefield

By Matt Nichol 5 minute read Preview

Olympic transgender ban a legal, moral minefield

By Matt Nichol 5 minute read Friday, Mar. 27, 2026

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has confirmed it is introducing a controversial new policy that will ban transgender athletes from competing in women’s events.

The IOC stated eligibility for women’s events will be determined by a “once-in-a-lifetime” sex test, which would prevent transgender women and those with differences in sexual development from competing.

It is an abrupt U-turn after the IOC previously left athletes’ eligibility up to their respective sports federations.

Reactions to the decision were unsurprisingly fierce.

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Friday, Mar. 27, 2026

The Olympic flag is pictured outside the entrance of the International Olympic Committee headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, in this 2020 photo. The IOC has announced it’s introducing a new policy that will ban transgender athletes from competing in women’s events. (The Associated Press files)

Child-care plan falls way short

By Tom Brodbeck 5 minute read Preview

Child-care plan falls way short

By Tom Brodbeck 5 minute read Friday, Mar. 27, 2026

The Manitoba government can point to a lot of ink spilled — and a lot of money committed — on child care over the past few years. Fees have come down to $10 a day. New spaces have been promised. Workforce strategies have been rolled out.

On paper, it all sounds like progress.

But a scathing new report from Manitoba’s auditor general makes one thing painfully clear: when it comes to actually delivering child-care spaces where and when families need them, the province has badly dropped the ball.

And both the former Progressive Conservative government and the current NDP one are equally to blame.

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Friday, Mar. 27, 2026

Under the 2021 Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care agreement, Manitoba committed to creating 23,000 new not-for-profit child-care spaces for kids under the age of seven by the end of this month — but as Tom Brodbeck notes, “the auditor general’s own forecasting suggests the province won’t hit the 23,000 mark until 2031.” (The Canadian Press files)

Some Canadians going into debt just to eat

By Sylvain Charlebois 5 minute read Preview

Some Canadians going into debt just to eat

By Sylvain Charlebois 5 minute read Thursday, Mar. 26, 2026

Surveys after surveys tell the same story: Canadians are struggling at the grocery store. And yet, despite the mounting evidence, the situation is not improving.

Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab has been tracking consumer sentiment on food affordability for years. The latest results, based on a national survey of more than 3,000 Canadians conducted earlier this month, in partnership with Caddle, confirm what many already feel at the checkout: the pressure is not easing.

Yes, food inflation eased slightly to 5.4 per cent in February. But for most households, that number is largely irrelevant. What matters is the total bill, and for many, it remains uncomfortably high.

In fact, 81 per cent of Canadians identified food as the expense that has increased the most over the past 12 months. Not housing. Not energy. Not transportation. Food. That alone should be a wake-up call.

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Thursday, Mar. 26, 2026

A customer shops for produce at a grocery store In Toronto on Friday, Feb. 2, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston

Finding the facts on budget 2026

5 minute read Preview

Finding the facts on budget 2026

5 minute read Thursday, Mar. 26, 2026

On Tuesday afternoon, Manitoba finance minister Adrien Sala delivered the province’s budget for the 2026-27 fiscal year. Much of the media commentary immediately following Sala’s budget speech has focused on a handful of items the government wants the media to talk about — for example, removing the PST on all food sold in grocery stores, free transit fare for children and teens, and increasing the Renters Affordability Tax Credit. That commentary has missed a number of key points that only become clear after carefully reading all of the budget documents.

On Tuesday night and yesterday afternoon, I reviewed all of those documents, including the 147-page budget. While doing so, I found a number of important items that were not mentioned by Sala in his budget speech. Here are some of them:

The size of the deficit – During my time working for the province, I wrote or edited five provincial budget speeches, along with the technical documents that accompanied those speeches. I know a few things about Manitoba budgets, so it was a surprise to see that nowhere in Sala’s speech did he disclose the size of the deficit for the current (2025-26) fiscal year, nor the projected deficit for the upcoming fiscal year.

That’s basic information that should always be in a budget speech. The budget document forecasts the deficit for the current fiscal year to be $1.666 billion — far more than the budgeted $794 million — while the projected deficit for 2026-27 is $498 million. That’s an expected $1.168 billion improvement in just one year. Whether it is achievable leads to the next non-discussed issue.

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Thursday, Mar. 26, 2026

Manitoba Finance Minister Adrien Sala delivers Budget 2026 at the legislature in Winnipeg on Tuesday. (The Canadian Press)

Is America the safe harbour?

Curtis Brown 6 minute read Preview

Is America the safe harbour?

Curtis Brown 6 minute read Tuesday, Mar. 24, 2026

During the past year, there have been oceans of ink and pixels spilled about how much, and how quickly, Canadians’ views of and relationship with the U.S. has changed. With Donald Trump’s 51st state talk, many Canadians are turning away from America as much as they can — not travelling there, not buying stuff they make, etc.

My team at Probe Research and I have been pulling hard at these threads for the past 12 months, trying to understand how these views are evolving and what it means politically, culturally and economically. We’ve been asking questions that I never imagined asking — like our latest, which finds that more than one in five Manitobans think there is at least some possibility of our southern neighbour invading our home and native land in the next two years.

This would have seemed far-fetched at one point — Bud Boomer and his beer-drinking, brawling buddies becoming the tip of a propaganda spear was the stuff of farce, seemingly far from reality.

But it’s not such a joke in 2026. Look at Denmark’s plans to repel a U.S. invasion of Greenland, and it’s not so hard to imagine what might unfold if planes, drones and even troops suddenly sweep in over the 49th parallel to make Canada American.

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Tuesday, Mar. 24, 2026

Iran war fallout has barely begun

By Kyle Volpi Hiebert 5 minute read Preview

Iran war fallout has barely begun

By Kyle Volpi Hiebert 5 minute read Monday, Mar. 23, 2026

Roughly a month into America’s latest war of choice and the consequences are already profound.

U.S. and Israeli airstrikes have destroyed 15,000 targets inside Iran. Supreme leader Ali Khamenei is dead, replaced by his even more extremist son.

Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz — a vital artery for global energy supplies and other commodities — is paralyzed.

And yet the full butterfly effect of the conflict is only starting to sink in.

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Monday, Mar. 23, 2026

A person points at a page on the Marine Traffic website that shows commercial boats traffic on the edge of the Strait of Hormuz near the Iranian coast on March 4. The impacts of the Iran war are only just starting to show themselves, writes Kyle Volpi Hiebert. (Tribune News Service)

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War, climate change impact humanity

By Zack Gross 5 minute read Preview

War, climate change impact humanity

By Zack Gross 5 minute read Monday, Mar. 23, 2026

I was struck by a news report recently about the health risks of the current war in the Middle East. Well, I guess, what would you expect?! After all, missiles and drones falling, blowing up buildings and vehicles, are surely going to cause death and terrible injury, and ultimately if soldiers get involved on the ground even more death, destruction to infrastructure and economies, and trauma for generations.

But the health impacts that the news report was focusing on were climate and environment-related. Oil depots being targeted and destroyed causes huge fires, black smoke and air filled with poisonous particles breathed in by human populations. What doesn’t kill people now will likely cause illness and death for adults and children in the coming months and years. In this case, war is changing an already damaged climate, making it much worse for health in that region, with the risk of it spreading further afield. Our current greenhouse gas emissions are having oily air added to the atmosphere.

The World Health Organization documents, monitors and tries to mitigate changes in our planet’s climate and reports that almost half the world’s population is vulnerable to emergencies such as heatwaves, wildfires, floods and tropical storms, which are increasing in frequency and intensity. Heat, for instance, is expected to cause a quarter million extra deaths from 2030 to 2050 by directly causing hunger, malaria, diarrhea and heat stress. Along with affecting lives directly, climate change is causing losses and costs of US$2 to 4 billion per year to health-care systems and economies.

Along with the 3.6 billion people affected by emergent climate situations, our global environment is also showing other signs of unsustainability. WHO data shows that 2 billion people lack safe drinking water and 600 million people suffer from food-borne illnesses. Climate change has affected crops, particularly in vulnerable poorer countries, with 770 million people currently facing hunger in Africa and Asia. This particularly affects children and seniors. Poverty and disease, along with war and climate, have also been behind massive migration in recent years.

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Monday, Mar. 23, 2026

Plumes of smoke rise from an oil facility in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates on March 14. The war in Iran has added to the challenges faced by humanity, Zack Gross writes. (The Associated Press files)

The evolution of human rights over 50 years

By Colin Shaw 4 minute read Preview

The evolution of human rights over 50 years

By Colin Shaw 4 minute read Monday, Mar. 23, 2026

Fifty years ago today, one of the most important treaties in the realm of international law came into effect.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is one of the three core documents that form the International Bill of Human Rights, alongside the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Notably, the ICCPR marks the first instance of a treaty where human rights are codified as law. The ICCPR is a milestone for the progress in multilateral co-operation and the promotion of human rights around the world.

The ICCPR was based off the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which established a collection of human rights that the UN Commission on Human Rights deemed essential but were not legally binding. The creation of these rights stemmed from a collective desire not to repeat the atrocities seen in the Second World War.

Eighteen years after the UDHR was adopted, the ICCPR was adopted by the UN, and 10 years after that, on March 23, 1976, the treaty became legally binding after it was ratified by 35 countries. Now, as of this writing, 175 countries have ratified the treaty. The lengthy time between the adoption of the treaty and its coming into effect can be attributed to ideological divisions between Eastern and Western blocs of power during this time. According to research from Stanford University, the West favoured the ICCPR, while the Eastern Bloc favoured the ICESCR, as it emphasized the right to work or education.

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Monday, Mar. 23, 2026

Members of the Security Council vote on a resolution at United Nations headquarters, Wednesday, March 11, 2026. It has been 50 years since the UN adopted the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. (The Associated Press files)

SpaceX satellites threaten to destroy the night sky

By Samantha Lawler, Aaron Boley and Hanno Rein 7 minute read Preview

SpaceX satellites threaten to destroy the night sky

By Samantha Lawler, Aaron Boley and Hanno Rein 7 minute read Monday, Mar. 23, 2026

More than 10,000 Starlink satellites currently orbit the Earth. We see them crawling across dark skies, no matter how remote our location, and streaking through images from research telescopes.

SpaceX recently announced that it wants to launch one million more of these satellites as orbital data centres for AI computing power.

A few years ago, we wrote a paper predicting what the night sky would look like with 65,000 satellites from four planned megaconstellations: SpaceX’s Starlink, Amazon’s Kuiper (now Leo), the U.K.’s OneWeb and China’s Guowang. We calibrated our models to observations of real Starlink satellites and came up with a startling prediction: One in 15 visible points in the night sky would be a satellite, not a star.

A million satellites would be so much worse.

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Monday, Mar. 23, 2026

Predictions for satellite brightness and positions comparing SpaceX’s proposed one-million-satellite AI data centres with a previously approved 42,000 satellite megaconstellation. (Lawler et al. 2022)

Don’t rush changes to city council

By Deveryn Ross 5 minute read Preview

Don’t rush changes to city council

By Deveryn Ross 5 minute read Friday, Mar. 20, 2026

Brandon city council is considering a complicated, controversial plan to dramatically increase the compensation levels for our mayor, deputy mayor and councillors. It’s a three-part, inter-connected scheme that rests primarily on the argument that they are vastly underpaid.

The plan seeks to solve that issue by reducing the number of councillors and using the savings (the money that would otherwise be paid for those two eliminated council positions) to offset a portion of the higher salaries.

Reducing the number of councillors would eliminate the city’s current ward system that elects representatives of ten distinct areas of the city, each with roughly equal populations. Instead of replacing those ten wards with eight wards with slightly higher populations, however, city administration is recommending the city-wide election of eight councillors, who would each be assigned nominal responsibility for one quadrant of the city — two councillors for each of the four “city districts.” The specific boundaries of those districts are not specified in the report.

A copy of the plan can be found on the city website (brandon.ca) by searching the phrase “council compensation review report” and clicking the link for the top search result. I suggest you read the document because it has huge implications for the quality of representation Brandonites would receive at the city council table for years into the future.

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Friday, Mar. 20, 2026

A view of the City of Brandon’s council chambers in January during budget deliberations at city hall. As part of a review of compensation for councillors, city administration has proposed significant changes to the way councillors represent residents — proposals that shouldn’t be pushed through without properly consulting citizens, Deveryn Ross writes.
(Matt Goerzen/The Brandon Sun files)

Overconfidence is how wars are lost

Monica Duffy Toft 8 minute read Preview

Overconfidence is how wars are lost

Monica Duffy Toft 8 minute read Friday, Mar. 20, 2026

Wars are rarely lost first on the battlefield. They are lost in leaders’ minds — when leaders misread what they and their adversaries can do, when their confidence substitutes for comprehension, and when the last war is mistaken for the next one.

The Trump administration’s miscalculation of Iran is not an anomaly. It is the latest entry in one of the oldest and most lethal traditions in international politics: the catastrophic gap between what leaders believe going in and what war actually delivers.

I’m a scholar of international security, civil wars and U.S. foreign policy, and author of the book “Dying by the Sword,” which examines why the United States repeatedly reaches for military solutions and why such interventions rarely produce durable peace. The deeper problem with the U.S. war in Iran, as I see it, was overconfidence bred by recent success.

Dismissed concerns

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Friday, Mar. 20, 2026

Indian vessel “Nanda Devi” carrying liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) arrives at Vadinar Port in the Jamnagar district of Gujarat state on Tuesday, after Iran allowed it to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Monica Duffy Toft writes that the hubris of U.S. leaership led it to miscalculate Iran’s response to being attacked. (Tribune News Service)

Consumption site research shows surprising result

By David McLaughlin 5 minute read Preview

Consumption site research shows surprising result

By David McLaughlin 5 minute read Friday, Mar. 20, 2026

Premier Wab Kinew’s government is having some difficulty opening their promised supervised consumption site. He can at least be reassured that there will be much less difficulty if it never goes ahead.

That’s not politics talking. Nor ideology. It’s science. And evidence.

It’s all contained in a just-published study in the medical journal Addiction for the Society for the Study of Addiction. The journal has been around since 1884, so it has some game on these matters. Pithily titled “Healthcare utilization and mortality after overdose prrevention site closure: A linked cohort analysis using segmented difference-in-differences time series,” it is a first of its kind study in Canada.

Ok, that’s not pithy. Admittedly, neither is much of the text, which is replete with medical and scientific jargon. It will not make a general public reading list.

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Friday, Mar. 20, 2026

The future supervised consumption site location at 366 Henry Ave. on Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. The long-promised facility has been delayed indefinitely, Premier Wab Kinew announced last week. (Mikaela MacKenzie/Winnipeg Free Press files)

Tough budget situation makes for difficult choices

By Jesse Hajer 5 minute read Preview

Tough budget situation makes for difficult choices

By Jesse Hajer 5 minute read Thursday, Mar. 19, 2026

As Manitoba approaches its 2026 budget, we need to recognize the profound political and economic changes that have occurred since the NDP were elected in 2023, primarily tied to the Trump administration in the U.S.

In this new environment, the NDP effectively cannot simultaneously meet key commitments to: rebuild public services, especially health care, after years of austerity; balance the budget in the first term; and, not increase taxes.

One of these three needs to give.

Premier Wab Kinew made these commitments based on a misleading, overly optimistic fiscal forecast released by the governing PCs in the lead-up to the 2023 election, but has yet to revisit the fiscally conservative promises despite significant fiscal pressures. The debt-to-GDP ratio is projected to reach 38.2 per cent, one of the higher ratios among provinces and the second highest in modern Manitoba history.

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Thursday, Mar. 19, 2026

Manitoba Finance Minister, Adrien Sala, talks to the media prior to tabling the 2025 Manitoba Budget last year. This year, the province faces especially tough choices due to world events, and something has got to give, writes Jesse Hajer. (Mike Deal/The Winnipeg Free Press files)

Manitoba can’t afford PC’s ideological tax cut

By Molly McCracken 5 minute read Preview

Manitoba can’t afford PC’s ideological tax cut

By Molly McCracken 5 minute read Thursday, Mar. 19, 2026

The Manitoba Conservatives’ proposal to nearly double the basic personal exemption on income tax to $30,000 from $15,780 shows they haven’t learned the lessons from their last time in government: radical tax cuts drive up deficits, weaken public services like health care, and mainly benefit those with higher incomes.

The basic personal amount is the amount of income a resident can earn before paying Manitoba provincial income tax. Because everyone claims it, increasing it gives tax cuts to the richest households too, meaning a lot of public money goes to people who don’t need it instead of being targeted to those who do.

Don’t believe the hype: this tax cut would not “trickle down” to everyone else. Much of the additional income would likely be saved in global investments or spent outside the province. By contrast, money spent through government programs has larger economic multipliers because it creates jobs needed to build infrastructure, supports health care and education, and is spent by local workers who spend their earnings in their communities. Public investment grows the economy from the bottom up.

Every dollar spent on a broad tax cut like this is a dollar not available to reduce poverty, expand licensed childcare, build social housing, or strengthen public education and health care.

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Thursday, Mar. 19, 2026

Manitoba Progressive Conservative finance critic Lauren Stone proposed nearly doubling the current basic personal income tax exemption to $30,000. (Mikaela MacKenzie/Winnipeg Free Press files)

Accountability must keep pace with digital immigration system

By Marika Jeziorek 5 minute read Preview

Accountability must keep pace with digital immigration system

By Marika Jeziorek 5 minute read Tuesday, Mar. 17, 2026

Canada’s immigration system has long played a central role in the country’s economic and social development. Immigration accounts for most of Canada’s population growth and helps address labour market shortages across sectors. Settlement services support newcomers as they build lives and communities across the country.

As the number of people seeking to visit and immigrate to Canada grows, the way applications are handled is becoming more digital. This shift is reshaping how applicants interact with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

Through its digital platform modernization initiative, the department has been rolling out new online client accounts, automated processing tools and digital visas as part of a broader multi-year transformation.

However, as processes become more automated, it can be harder to see how decisions are shaped or how to challenge them. The growing use of automated tools has long been linked to changes in accountability and institutional practice.

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Tuesday, Mar. 17, 2026

March 29, 2026

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