Columns – Brandon Sun

Nellie McClung in 1908 taken in Manitou to promote “Sowing Seeds in Danny,” which became a Canadian best seller. (Pembina Manitou Archive)

Nellie McClung: accomplishments and legacy

By Colin Shaw 6 minute read Monday, Oct. 20, 2025

Today marks the birthdate of one of the most important figures in Canadian women’s suffrage and activism: Nellie McClung.

She was born in Ontario on Oct. 20th, 1873, but moved to Manitoba at the age of seven. She had multiple jobs over her lifetime, including teaching, writing, and speaking, all of which facilitated her significant contributions to the literary world, to feminist thought and to activism overall. She also served as a member of the legislative assembly for five years.

However, she is most known for her role in the Famous Five, a group of five activists who worked to have women declared as ‘persons’ in law. However, her accomplishments do not come without controversy. The following passages will explore how McClung’s early life influenced her career, examine her accomplishments, and remark on the controversies that have emerged.

McClung grew up around the Souris River Valley in Manitoba. In 1890, she started teaching and moved to Manitou, Manitoba. In 1896, she married Wes McClung and lived in Manitou for the following 11 years. In 1897, McClung joined the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, whose primary goal was to fight alcohol abuse, as they thought it was a leading cause of the core problems women often faced.

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Resist the urge to doubt and criticize

5 minute read Preview

Resist the urge to doubt and criticize

5 minute read Friday, Oct. 17, 2025

Last month, I wrote a column in which I argued that the City of Brandon’s slogan should be changed to the Latin translation of “that will never work,” based on the “can’t do” mentality that seems to have taken root in the city over the past three decades.

At the end of that column, I said that it is time to choose our future. I asked “Are we willing to work together toward a better Brandon, or is this another one of those “quod numquam proderit” situations?”

Following the column’s publication, I heard from several readers who said they agreed with my assessment. I also read a number of media reports, however, that suggested that there is still reason for hope — that there are many among us who are working toward building a better Brandon.

For example, there was a report on Sept. 28 regarding TD Bank volunteers planting almost 300 trees at the City of Brandon’s Outdoor Field Sport Complex, as part of the bank’s Tree Days initiative. There was also the fact that seven Brandonites were willing to invest their time and energy to seek election to the Brandon School Division board of trustees in this week’s byelection.

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Friday, Oct. 17, 2025

Manitoba Business, Mining, Trade and Job Creation Minister Jamie Moses gestures with his hands as he speaks to a large business crowd during the Brandon Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Victoria Inn on Thursday. (Matt Goerzen/The Brandon Sun)

How alternative teaching models can foster inclusive classrooms

By Cornelia Schneider 6 minute read Preview

How alternative teaching models can foster inclusive classrooms

By Cornelia Schneider 6 minute read Monday, Oct. 20, 2025

The education of children with disabilities is a complex issue more than 30 years after “inclusive education” appeared for the first time in an important 1994 United Nations statement.

Children with disabilities too often face varied forms of exclusion with minimal interaction with their non-disabled peers — as well as disrupted or curtailed classroom time with their peers because of delayed hiring practices for support staff or urgently needed supports that never arrive.

Teachers often struggle to keep up with the challenges.

They learn during teacher education how to adapt learning content and outcomes to the diverse learners in their classrooms. But in practice, approaches such as Universal Design for Learning often do not radically change the reality for children with disabilities.

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Monday, Oct. 20, 2025

An empty classroom is pictured at Eric Hamber Secondary school in Vancouver, B.C. Monday, March 23, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

Is Canada doing enough to tackle political violence?

By Kevin Budning 5 minute read Preview

Is Canada doing enough to tackle political violence?

By Kevin Budning 5 minute read Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025

Wednesday marks the 11th anniversary of the Parliament Hill shooting, when an Islamist-inspired extremist, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, stormed Canada’s War Memorial and Parliament Hill, killing one soldier and injuring three other people.

The shooting — the worst attack on Parliament Hill since a failed bomb attempt in 1996 — sent shock waves throughout Canada and internationally. It not only exposed the glaring security vulnerabilities on Parliament Hill but also marked a new reality for Canadians: political violence, long considered a distant threat, had arrived at home.

Eleven years later, many of the lessons Canada should have learned have not yet been put into action. With a marked rise in political polarization and violent attacks, it’s past due for Canada to strengthen its efforts to protect elected officials.

EXTREMISM IN CANADA

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Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025

People leave flowers as sentries guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the National War Memorial in Ottawa in October 2014 after Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, 24, a reservist from Hamilton, Ont., was killed while guarding the tomb by a gunman, who then moved to nearby Parliament Hill, opening fire before he himself was shot dead. (The Canadian Press)

Marineland’s decline raises questions about zoo tourism

By Ann-Kathrin McLean, Carina Yao, Moira A. McDonald and Thomas Worry 5 minute read Preview

Marineland’s decline raises questions about zoo tourism

By Ann-Kathrin McLean, Carina Yao, Moira A. McDonald and Thomas Worry 5 minute read Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025

Thirty beluga whales are at risk of being euthanized at the now-shuttered Marineland zoo and amusement park in Niagara Falls. Marineland said in a letter to Canada’s Fisheries Minister Joanne Thompson it will have to euthanize the whales if it doesn’t receive the necessary financial support to relocate them.

The park has come under intense scrutiny recently due to the ongoing struggle to relocate its remaining whales amid financial struggles, a lack of resources and crumbling infrastructure.

Canada passed the Ending the Captivity of Whales and Dolphins Act in 2019 that prohibits whales, dolphins and porpoises from being taken into captivity. However, the law does not apply retroactively, meaning whales already held in facilities such as Marineland were allowed to remain there.

Marineland, which opened in 1961 in Canada, was once a massive tourism attraction that drew up to 1.2 million visitors annually to see its choreographed aquatic shows. But the park has been closed to the public since the end of summer 2024 after years of controversy and lawsuits.

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Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025

Beluga whales swim in a tank at Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ont., in June 2023. (The Canadian Press)

Canada still lacks universal paid sick leave

By Alyssa Grocutt, Julian Barling and Nick Turner 5 minute read Preview

Canada still lacks universal paid sick leave

By Alyssa Grocutt, Julian Barling and Nick Turner 5 minute read Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025

As Canadians head into another flu and COVID season, many workers still face an impossible choice if they fall ill: stay home and lose pay, or clock in sick and risk spreading illness. This is more than an individual dilemma; it’s a predictable public health failure — one the government already knows how to fix.

Paid sick leave is good for both health and business, reducing the spread of illness while supporting workforce productivity, promoting better health outcomes and increasing labour force participation.

So why don’t all workers in Canada have it?

A LESSON WE’VE FAILED TO LEARN

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Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025

During the COVID-19 pandemic, paid sick leave allowed workers to stay home, thereby reducing transmission of the virus. Universal sick leave would allow us to better manage seasonal illness and outbreaks. (The Canadian Press files)

Liberals’ bail reforms won’t mean much

By Tom Brodbeck 5 minute read Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025

When the federal Liberal government unveils its latest round of bail law changes next week, you can bet on two things.

First, the government will tout them as bold new measures to make communities safer. And second, before the ink is dry, there will be fresh outrage when another accused offender released on bail commits a violent crime. It’s pretty much a guarantee.

The outcry will come, as it always does, regardless of government’s tinkering around the edges.

Granted, the public is frustrated. But here’s the reality: these latest bail law reforms will do little, if anything, to reduce crime or prevent repeat offending.

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Why is Trump so opposed to advancing human rights?

By Peter McKenna 5 minute read Preview

Why is Trump so opposed to advancing human rights?

By Peter McKenna 5 minute read Friday, Oct. 17, 2025

With the National Guard deployed in certain U.S. cities, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on the prowl for potential deportees and a seemingly lengthy “enemies list,” U.S. President Donald Trump is clearly no champion of human rights.

How do we account for why Trump couldn’t care less about human rights considerations? Secondly, what does his blatant dismissal of human rights mean for the rest of the world?

When he has been asked about the thorny issue of human rights, Trump has responded in his typical way of viewing everything through a transactional lens. Advocacy for international human rights, Trump maintains, is often counterproductive and tends to be more harmful than beneficial to U.S. interests.

In addition, the U.S. president has been quick to call out hypocrisy and to criticize the holier-than-thou world leaders who wax eloquently about their embrace of a human rights agenda. He has a point. Just because someone talks a good game about human rights protections does not always translate into meaningful action on the human rights front.

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Friday, Oct. 17, 2025

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the White House earlier this week. (The Associated Press)

Losing winter on the Great Lakes

By Marguerite Xenopoulos and Michael R. Twiss 5 minute read Preview

Losing winter on the Great Lakes

By Marguerite Xenopoulos and Michael R. Twiss 5 minute read Friday, Oct. 17, 2025

Fifty years ago, winter didn’t just visit the Great Lakes — it took up residence. If you blinked too slowly, your eyelashes froze together. Standing on the ice at the edge of Lake Superior, just after an early January snowstorm, everything was white and still, except for the lake. The wind had swept across it revealing ice cracked along thunderous fractures.

Usually by Christmas, Lake Huron’s Saginaw Bay would be locked in — thick enough for trucks, ice shanties dotting the horizon like little wooden cities. People hauled augers and bait out before dawn, thermoses of black coffee steaming in the cold.

But in 2019-20, the ice never came.

The air, wet and grey, hovered above freezing. The ground was muddy. Kids tried sledding on dead grass. Businesses that rented shanties stayed shuttered and people wondered if this is how winters would be going forward.

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Friday, Oct. 17, 2025

A lone jogger runs in the snow near the Adler Planetarium and Monroe Harbor along Lake Michigan in Chicago in January 2016. (The Associated Press files)

How wildfires, other climate disasters strain health systems

By Bhavini Gohel 5 minute read Preview

How wildfires, other climate disasters strain health systems

By Bhavini Gohel 5 minute read Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025

Wildfires are no longer rare disasters in Canada. They are now an annual reality, and 2025 has already been one of the worst on record, with 3,582 fires burning 6.2 million hectares as of July 30 — quadruple the 10-year average.

At a time when hospitals are already strained by staff shortages, long wait times and rising costs, wildfires add yet another layer of pressure.

Rural communities are usually the hardest hit by wildfires. These communities rely on small health facilities with limited staff and equipment.

When fires cut off access or force evacuations, these facilities struggle to provide even basic care. As a front-line health-care worker and system leader, I have seen first-hand how every part of health system — from hospital operations to workforce readiness and community partnerships — is being tested. Leading resilience initiatives has shown me how urgently we need system-wide co-ordination and investment to protect patients when disasters strike.

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Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025

Smoke from the McDougall Creek wildfire fills the air and nearly blocks out the sun as people take in the view of Okanagan Lake from Tugboat Beach in Kelowna, B.C., in August. “Wildfires are now a predictable part of Canada’s climate reality. Yet health systems remain unprepared,” Bhavini Gohel writes. (The Canadian Press files)

Transparency only option for NDP on proposed detox centre

By Tom Brodbeck 5 minute read Preview

Transparency only option for NDP on proposed detox centre

By Tom Brodbeck 5 minute read Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025

If the Manitoba government wants to move ahead with its plan to open a 72-hour detox centre for highly intoxicated people, it owes the public — especially residents living near the proposed site — a lot more information than it has provided so far.

Premier Wab Kinew’s government quietly floated the idea of repurposing a site — located at 190 Disraeli Fwy. — that was originally considered for a supervised consumption facility into a so-called “stabilization centre,” where people under the influence of drugs or alcohol could be held for up to 72 hours.

The goal, according to the government, would be to provide a safe place for people to detox, get medical care and connect them with treatment and recovery supports.

It sounds like a compassionate, common-sense response to the visible addictions crisis gripping Winnipeg’s core. But there are a lot of unanswered questions — not just about how such a centre would operate and how the surrounding community would be protected, but also about the legal and scientific basis for holding people against their will for as long as three days.

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Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025

The building at 190 Disraeli Fwy. in Winnipeg is currently home to N’Dinawemak, an Indigenous-led homeless shelter. (Ruth Bonneville/Winnipeg Free Press files)

Clock is ticking on Poilievre to reevaluate his approach

By Dan Lett 5 minute read Preview

Clock is ticking on Poilievre to reevaluate his approach

By Dan Lett 5 minute read Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre faces a key leadership review from his party in three months time. Is it too early for him to start worrying?

To be honest, it’s quite unlikely Poilievre will lose a vote of party members at a national conference in January. Although it’s also noteworthy that the beleaguered Tory boss has refused to say whether he has identified a minimum level of support necessary to stay. So, who knows how that vote will turn out?

More importantly, when party members gather to contemplate Poilievre’s future, what will they be considering before casting a vote? First and foremost, they will likely want to know if he has changed.

The Poilievre who led the party to a crushingly disappointing second-place finish in April’s election showed that he had the wrong tone, message and strategy. Some supporters will say that it was simply bad timing. However, when U.S. President Donald Trump started musing about annexing Canada as the 51st state, voters here began to not only stand up for their own country, but to see the similarities between Trump and Poilievre.

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Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre talks to volunteers as he fills food baskets at Agape Table, a local non-profit food bank in Winnipeg, on Monday. Poilievre toured the facility, filled weekly food baskets and met with staff and volunteers. (John Woods/Winnipeg Free Press)

Poverty a global issue — and a local one, too

By Chidinma Emeka-Ogumka 3 minute read Preview

Poverty a global issue — and a local one, too

By Chidinma Emeka-Ogumka 3 minute read Monday, Oct. 13, 2025

International Day for the Eradication of Poverty focuses on recognizing poverty and finding ways to eliminate it.

Commemorated annually on Oct. 17, this day brings together global communities through events, summits and campaigns. This year’s theme is “ending social and institutional maltreatment by ensuring respect and effective support for families.” The United Nations says that the day focuses on ending social and institutional maltreatment by ensuring respect and effective support for families, with a clear goal — to “put the furthest behind first and build institutions that help families stay together, thrive and shape their own futures.”

However, global initiatives around poverty are centred on developed countries, a bias influenced by historical imbalances, economic power and control over resources. The media tends to prioritize politically relevant issues rather than the complexities of global poverty, often portraying it as a tragedy leading people to believe nothing can be done. While poverty may never truly be eliminated, its existence can be significantly reduced.

In developing nations, extreme poverty is prevalent, due to the large populations. Yet, the day holds relevance for developed nations for many reasons, where inequality and the wide gap between social classes continue to perpetuate hardships. The observance of this day not only focuses on poverty that relates to income but also health care, education, justice and political power. (Source: “The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty,” UFCW Canada, n.d.)

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Monday, Oct. 13, 2025

Heather Symbalisty checks the inventory on the milk cooler at Samaritan House Ministries in downtown Brandon. Poverty is not a distant issue — it exists in our own backyard. (File)

National pharmacare for contraception can’t wait

By Elizabeth Nethery, Amanda Black, Amanda K. Downey, Laura Schummers and Wendy V. Norman 6 minute read Preview

National pharmacare for contraception can’t wait

By Elizabeth Nethery, Amanda Black, Amanda K. Downey, Laura Schummers and Wendy V. Norman 6 minute read Monday, Oct. 13, 2025

Why should women in British Columbia, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island and the Yukon have access to free contraception while the rest of Canadians do not? Our new research, published in the British Medical Journal and JAMA Pediatrics, underscores the urgent need for universal prescription contraception coverage nationwide. Spoiler alert: cost matters.

When B.C. launched universal coverage for prescription contraception in April 2023, more people used contraceptives, and importantly, more chose the most effective methods. When Ontario introduced universal coverage for those younger than age 25 in January 2017, we found a similar jump in the most effective contraceptive methods.

In October 2024, the National Pharmacare Act received royal assent, establishing a framework for a national, universal, single-payer pharmacare program, beginning with free access to contraception and diabetes medications. Now, almost a year later, only four provinces and territories (B.C., Manitoba, P.E.I. and the Yukon) have bilateral agreements to implement this legislation on the ground.

On Sept. 10, Prime Minister Mark Carney said the federal government is “committed to signing pharmacare deals with all provinces and territories.” This is welcome news given previous statements in July by Health Minister Marjorie Michel indicating wavering commitment or that “all options are on the table” for implementing Bill C-64 nationally.

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Monday, Oct. 13, 2025

A one-month dosage of hormonal birth control pills is displayed in Sacramento, Calif. Friday, Aug. 26, 2016. B.C. advocates are celebrating news the province will become the first in Canada to make prescription contraception free to all residents as of April 1.THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Rich Pedroncelli

Removing Prince Andrew’s titles would be onerous task

By Justin Vovk 5 minute read Preview

Removing Prince Andrew’s titles would be onerous task

By Justin Vovk 5 minute read Yesterday at 10:24 PM CDT

Prince Andrew has announced he will “no longer use my title or the honours which have been conferred upon me.” Translation? Andrew is giving up his Duke of York title.

The decision comes as the Royal Family has faced calls to take action against Andrew over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the notorious convicted sex offender and pedophile who died in prison in 2019.

The late Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s victims, accused Andrew of sexually assaulting her on three occasions when she was 17, allegations he has repeatedly denied. In 2022, she settled a civil lawsuit against him in a Manhattan court for an undisclosed amount and a charitable donation.

PR disaster

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Yesterday at 10:24 PM CDT

FILE - Britain's Prince Andrew appears at the Royal Chapel at Windsor, following the death announcement of his father Prince Philip, April 11, 2021, in England. Prince Andrew has lost another ceremonial honor as groups throughout Britain cut ties to the royal disgraced by allegations of sexual misconduct. Councilors in the northern city of York on Wednesday night, April 27, 2022 voted unanimously to withdraw the prince’s status as a “freeman of the city.” The honor was awarded to Andrew in 1987 after Queen Elizabeth II made him the Duke of York. (Steve Parsons/Pool Photo via AP, File)

Kinew has lots of unfinished business

By Tom Brodbeck 5 minute read Preview

Kinew has lots of unfinished business

By Tom Brodbeck 5 minute read Friday, Oct. 10, 2025

Next Saturday marks the halfway point of Premier Wab Kinew’s first term in office. Two years in and the record is a mixed bag — part progress, part missed opportunity and plenty of unfinished business.

The New Democrats swept to power in 2023 with an ambitious agenda: fix health care, make life more affordable, end chronic homelessness and return the province’s books to balance by the end of their first term, among other things.

Lofty goals, all of them. And two years later, it’s clear how difficult governing can be once slogans meet reality.

On the most important file — health care — the results so far are disappointing. The Kinew government has made progress hiring more doctors, nurses and other front-line staff. The premier and Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara regularly tout the addition of more than 3,400 new health-care workers since taking office.

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Friday, Oct. 10, 2025

October 22, 2025

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