Editorials – Brandon Sun

The Brandon courthouse, as shown from Princess Avenue.(File)

Kinew, Khan and Balcaen remarks crossed the line

5 minute read Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025

The Brampton, Ont., trucker accused of causing a highway collision that killed Sara Unger, 35, and her eight-year-old daughter, Alexa, near Altona last November has been granted bail by the Manitoba provincial court, and that has angered both Premier Wab Kinew and members of the Progressive Conservative opposition.

Navjeet Singh, who had no previous criminal record in Manitoba, was released on a $7,500 surety bond signed by his cousin. He is under conditions that require him to remain at her home in Ontario, abide by a curfew and check in with RCMP in Morden weekly. He has also surrendered his driver’s licence and passport. His case is set to continue in a Morden courtroom in December.

In rendering his decision on Aug. 28, Judge Michael Clark said that “The accused is, at this point, presumed innocent and remains so until the matter is dealt with at trial … I do think the public would maintain confidence in the administration of justice if I were to release Mr. Singh on the appropriate conditions.”

It appears that the Crown has not appealed Clark’s order, and that Singh has complied with his bail conditions so far. Despite that apparent reality, Singh’s release was the subject of heated debate during question period in the Manitoba Legislative Assembly on Tuesday.

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Economy under Carney still a ‘work in progress’

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Economy under Carney still a ‘work in progress’

5 minute read Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025

Prime Minister Mark Carney began his term as Canada’s prime minister on March 14, 2025.

His swearing-in ceremony was a turn of fortune for the Liberal party that he now leads — after years of Justin Trudeau at the helm, and after feeding on a steady diet of political vitriol from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, Canadians were eyeing a change in government.

But Carney played the Captain Canada card, leaning into his reputation as a deft economist during his roles as the governor of the Bank of Canada and eventually the Bank of England. Sporting hockey metaphors of “elbows up,” he was given a mandate to energize this country’s sleepy economy, and — simultaneously — to cross swords with U.S. President Donald Trump on our behalf, even as we faced an economic and existential threat from our southern neighbours.

Seven months on, it’s worth taking stock of our situation now.

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Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025

Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks during an announcement regarding federal assistance at the Newdock Shipyard in St. John's on Sept. 8. (The Canadian Press files)

Rise in political violence threatens the rule of law

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Rise in political violence threatens the rule of law

4 minute read Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025

“We need as Canadians to open our eyes and recognize that political violence is not something that just occurs somewhere else, but that it is happening here in our own communities.”

— Former federal public safety minister Marco Mendicino

One of the dangers facing anyone who decides to stand for public office in today’s highly polarized political climate is that sooner or later someone will take exception to something they say or do, and decide to act out.

And depending on how controversial the actions or comments, or how ferocious the public sentiment against an individual may be, that action can manifest in varying degrees of violence.

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Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025

It seems clear that the targeting of Nahanni Fontaine’s office was an intimidation tactic against the families minister. (File)

Don’t expect provincial red ink to end soon

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Don’t expect provincial red ink to end soon

4 minute read Monday, Oct. 6, 2025

Manitobans concerned about their province’s fiscal health can be forgiven for feeling a bit overwhelmed over the past week. A fire hose of numbers, forecasts and commentary was unleashed on citizens, no doubt causing both concern and confusion.

Let’s start with Premier Wab Kinew and the fiscal metrics he faces as he hits the two-year anniversary of his government.

In a Sept. 26 Winnipeg Free Press interview, the premier acknowledged that Manitoba’s fiscal status was a “mixed bag.” Within days of that statement, that mixed bag began to reveal itself.

The release of the 2024-25 public accounts — the definitive and final accounting of government finances for the year ending March 31, 2025 — showed the province’s deficit was $1.1 billion, $353-million higher than forecast. This was surprising, because Manitoba received an unexpected $421-million windfall from a settlement with tobacco companies.

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Monday, Oct. 6, 2025

Premier Wab Kinew announces the release of Manitoba’s new economic development strategy in Winnipeg. Tom Brodbeck writes that Manitoba is becoming more reliant on funding from Ottawa, which makes Kinew’s recent rhetoric about becoming a “have” province “not just fanciful but completely detached from reality.” (Mike Deal/Winnipeg Free Press files)

NDP failing to fix health care

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NDP failing to fix health care

4 minute read Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025

The Brandon Regional Health Centre was scheduled to go without a surgeon between 8 a.m. Thursday to 8 a.m. yesterday. For an entire 24-hour period, the closest emergency department with a surgeon would be in Dauphin or Winnipeg.

The public only learned of the problem when the issue was raised during question period in the Manitoba Legislative Assembly on Thursday by both Brandon West MLA Wayne Balcaen and Progressive Conservative health critic Kathleen Cook.

“Patients who need surgery will either be forced to wait up to 24 hours, travel to Dauphin if Dauphin has capacity, or travel to Winnipeg,” Cook said. She asked “How could the minister have failed to see this coming, and how could they have failed to take action to prevent it?”

It was a valid question, but the response fell far short of acceptable. Instead of explaining why the staffing shortage occurred and assuring Manitobans that it would not happen again, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara attempted to blame the previous PC government for the problem.

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Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said the province’s messaging surrounding the measles outbreak has been adapted to meet people ‘where they’re at.’ (Winnipeg Free Press files)

Canada Post strike ignores hard reality

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Canada Post strike ignores hard reality

4 minute read Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025

This appears to be a classic case of failing to “read the room.”

In the ongoing dispute between Canada Post and its unionized employees, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers has adopted a position that seems either inexplicably unmindful or intentionally heedless of the current realities facing the Crown corporation.

In a decidedly grim announcement last week, Public Works and Procurement Minister Joël Lightbound directed Canada Post to adopt massive cost-cutting measures, including an end to door-to-door mail delivery and the closure of some rural post offices.

Note that this decision marks a return to the cost-cutting measures of the former Conservative federal government of a decade before, where the Harper government was moving ahead with ending door-to-door deliveries. As Liberal leader at the time, Justin Trudeau campaigned against the move to community mailboxes in 2015, and soon cancelled the plan once he became prime minister.

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Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025

Canada Post signage and parked vehicles are seen at a Canada Post mail sorting facility during nation-wide strike action in Ottawa, on Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. The U.S. Postal Service has suspended accepting mail headed to Canada due to the strike by Canada Post workers.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby

Premiers who play the Canadian card when it suits them

4 minute read Preview

Premiers who play the Canadian card when it suits them

4 minute read Yesterday at 9:47 PM CDT

It’s an odd world Alberta Premier Danielle Smith inhabits: one where her province keeps the benefits of its natural resources, while other provinces should simply surrender the bounty of nature that may have fallen by chance in their jurisdictions to Smith’s Alberta needs.

Smith has been arguing that it’s “unCanadian and unconstitutional” for British Columbia to rebuff plans for an Alberta-sponsored pipeline to go to the British Columbia coast.

(B.C. Premier David Eby has said giving the pipeline proposal a green light when it’s merely in the planning process would upset a fragile consensus for other projects that are much further along.)

In her battle to determine just what should happen in British Columbia, Smith has gotten some help from a resource-rich neighbour, Premier Scott Moe of Saskatchewan.

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Yesterday at 9:47 PM CDT

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announces proposed changes to several pieces of democratic process legislation in Edmonton on Tuesday, April 29, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson

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Brandon comes full circle on mental health support

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Brandon comes full circle on mental health support

6 minute read Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025

Thirty years ago, the goal of mental health reform in Brandon was apparently crystal clear.

The closure of the Brandon Mental Health Centre on the North Hill would remove a community stigma — an impediment to people who needed care.

Instead, patient care would be shifted out of the institution and into the community, where people could live their lives as normally and freely as possible, while being supported by a newly formed network of government supports.

And those supports would be there, with proper funding — we were told as much by the Progressive Conservative government that was responsible for implementing the recommendations of mental health professionals.

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Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025

The former Brandon Mental Health Centre was finally mothballed in the late 1990s, and in its stead several other organizations have been responsible for the mental health of Brandon and western Manitoba. (Submitted)

Medical complaints must be addressed

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Medical complaints must be addressed

4 minute read Sunday, Sep. 28, 2025

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba says patient safety is “top of mind.”

As the regulatory body whose role is (according to the CPSM’s own website), “to protect the public as consumers of medical care and promote the safe and ethical delivery of quality medical care by physicians in Manitoba,” one might fairly expect nothing less. Protecting and promoting patient safety is the organization’s sole reason for being.

The numbers, however, suggest something different. As has been reported this week, the college currently has more than 225 open investigations related to complaints from Manitobans regarding medical treatment they’ve received, and at present has just one investigator tasked with conducting those investigations.

The magnitude of the backlog became apparent after a Winnipeg man revealed to the Free Press that his complaint of “severe harm caused by medical neglect” has taken more than a year to move forward, and the college informed him his case is among more than 225 currently awaiting investigation.

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Sunday, Sep. 28, 2025

Dr. Guillaume Poliquin confirmed Wednesday the college has more than 225 open investigations and one investigator. A solution to this problem must be delivered quickly to prevent confidence in provincial health care from further eroding. (Ruth Bonneville/Winnipeg Free Press files)

Ambitious goals aren’t backed by performance

4 minute read Preview

Ambitious goals aren’t backed by performance

4 minute read Saturday, Sep. 27, 2025

“We’ve set an ambitious target — to make Manitoba a ‘have’ province by 2040.”

— Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, September 2025

Given yesterday’s fiscal update by the Manitoba government, it’s hard not to question the optimistic tone that Premier Wab Kinew offered just one day earlier when he pledged to make Manitoba more productive.

Not only did the province run a higher-than-expected deficit in the last fiscal year at $1.1 billion — $353 million more than it originally forecast — it’s also likely to miss this year’s target too, as it now forecasts a deficit of $890 million. That number balloons this year’s expected deficit $96 million past the government’s original forecast last spring.

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Saturday, Sep. 27, 2025

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew speaks at the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) Annual General Assembly in Winnipeg on Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods

Solutions need funding for future fire seasons

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Solutions need funding for future fire seasons

5 minute read Friday, Sep. 26, 2025

As the wildfire season begins to finally subside, and with Manitoba’s many fires now either deemed “under control” or being “monitored,” the province must begin the laborious job of readying a plan for the next one come spring.

That means considering what worked and what didn’t — with an eye toward improving the performance of those efforts. That work will be necessary, because Manitoba is experiencing more frequent and more deadly wildfires from year to year, and it’s necessary to assume that there will be more. And we will need to be ready.

This past summer marked the worst wildfire season in Manitoba in at least 30 years, with well over 1.55 million hectares having burned in the province as of early August — and the fires have continued to burn since then.

The Canadian Red Cross said Thursday that about 32,000 people were registered as evacuees at various times over the course of the summer, according to a report by The Canadian Press, with many of them flown out of remote communities and sent to large congregate shelters in Winnipeg or put up in hotel rooms in Brandon and other parts of the province.

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Friday, Sep. 26, 2025

A helicopter crew works on a wildfire in northern Manitoba during a helicopter tour in the surrounding area of Flin Flon, Man. on Thursday, June 12, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Mike Deal-Pool

Gun buyback comments an embarrassing mistake

4 minute read Preview

Gun buyback comments an embarrassing mistake

4 minute read Wednesday, Sep. 24, 2025

Cabinet unanimity is an interesting animal. Behind closed doors, cabinet ministers at the provincial and federal levels hash out the basic priorities and directions of government — sometimes, everyone at the table agrees. Often, it’s not unanimous.

But once cabinet members leave the cabinet room, everyone has to publicly support the decisions made at the table. They’re supposed to keep their doubts under wraps — in fact, they are required to keep all aspects of the cabinet discussions under wraps, as cabinet deliberations are meant to be kept confidential, so that no one can benefit, either politically or financially, from spilling the beans.

This week, a member of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s cabinet broke the rules of both cabinet unanimity and confidentiality — and in so doing, leaked messy details about the political machinations of Canadian gun regulation.

And the cabinet member was no less than Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree.

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Wednesday, Sep. 24, 2025

Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Gary Anandasangaree speaks during a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Tuesday, Feb 25, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

A common-sense bail reform plan

3 minute read Preview

A common-sense bail reform plan

3 minute read Tuesday, Sep. 23, 2025

When you want to solve a serious problem, those who have hands-on experience with the issue are often the ones with the insight to offer the best solution.

As a growing number of Canadians call for changes to what they regard as a revolving-door bail system that puts persons charged with criminal offences back on the street far too quickly and easily, Manitoba’s Crown attorneys have come forward with a common-sense plan that has the potential to tighten up the province’s bail system and make our communities safer.

They are recommending that the Manitoba Provincial Court — the court that typically handles bail applications in criminal cases — issue a new procedural directive that would require that prosecutors receive at least 24 hours’ notice before an in-custody person accused of a criminal offence is able to appear before a provincial court judge to apply for pre-trial release.

As part of their plan, the prosecutors are also asking that police officers be assigned to assist them in vetting proposal bail plans.

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Tuesday, Sep. 23, 2025

The front doors of the Brandon courthouse on 11th Street. (Matt Goerzen/The Brandon Sun)

NDP offloads blame for Centra rate hike

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NDP offloads blame for Centra rate hike

5 minute read Monday, Sep. 22, 2025

The Public Utilities Board approved three years of rate hikes for Centra Gas last week, and in doing so it laid bare a concerning problem regarding the Crown corporation that should have made more of a splash in the daily news cycle than it did.

As the PUB report noted in its executive summary, the board imposed a 4.5 per cent rate increase for Centra Gas Manitoba Inc. — a subsidiary of Manitoba Hydro — for Nov. 1, 2025 and a four per cent increase starting Nov. 1, 2026.

That follows an increase of 4.5 per cent Centra imposed on Nov. 1, 2024, which the board finalized as part of its Sept. 16 order.

Ironically, Centra’s original application only called for a single-year 4.5 per cent general revenue increase last year. However, the PUB, noting the fact that Centra Gas has been losing millions of dollars annually since the 2020-21 fiscal year, concluded that the viability of the Crown corporation was in jeopardy, and increased the rates by the amounts above “to protect the financial health of the utility.”

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Monday, Sep. 22, 2025

Premier Wab Kinew and Finance Minister Adrian Sala fist bump before walking in to speak to the media on budget day at the Manitoba Legislative Building in March. Sala — who is also the minister in charge of Manitoba Hydro — predictably blamed the previous Pallister and Stefanson governments last week for not making timely Centra Gas rate applications.(Mikaela MacKenzie/Winnipeg Free Press files)

‘Rules for thee, not for me’ in America

4 minute read Preview

‘Rules for thee, not for me’ in America

4 minute read Sunday, Sep. 21, 2025

First they came for the student activists, and then they came for the migrants, and now they come for the late-night TV talk hosts.

Who’s next?

Just a week after the brutal slaying of conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk sent the American right into a froth about left America’s supposed unwillingness to tolerate different viewpoints, the Trump administration is working hard to make sure no one says anything remotely critical about either Kirk or any of his other allies.

Jimmy Kimmel, host of Jimmy Kimmel Live! has been suspended indefinitely following some criticism from the host that the MAGA movement is trying to paint the suspect in Kirk’s shooting as coming from the left, and are “doing everything they can to score political points from (Kirk’s death).”

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Sunday, Sep. 21, 2025

A fractured relationship, a serious disconnect

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A fractured relationship, a serious disconnect

4 minute read Friday, Sep. 19, 2025

The United States’ ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra, says he is frustrated by the rhetoric he hears from Canadians regarding our nation’s relationship with the U.S.

The ambassador told a Halifax audience earlier this week that “You ran a campaign where it was anti-American. ‘Elbows up.’ … It was an anti-American campaign. That has continued. That’s disappointing.”

He then complained that too many Canadian politicians are characterizing the fractious Canada-U.S. trade relationship as a “trade war,” and warned the audience that “your cabinet describes this as a relationship that America has turned its back on, and that you are going to respond in a way that says we are at war with America. I think that’s a bad place to go.”

And he also lamented the fact that many provinces are still not selling American alcohol and that Canadian politicians have discouraged travel to the U.S., suggesting Canadians should accept what has happened and move on.

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Friday, Sep. 19, 2025

October 10, 2025

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