Editorials – Brandon Sun

Ditching doctor’s notes is overdue

4 minute read Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025

It is becoming increasingly clear that the battle to recruit physicians within Canada — and across North America — may come down to the quality of life a jurisdiction can offer, and not the size of the paycheque.

Case in point: in the recent throne speech delivered by Manitoba’s NDP government, there was a pledge to pass legislation banning employers from seeking sick notes for employee absences of one week or less. Although this may seem like small, bordering on insignificant, gesture, it is directly connected to a major campaign to streamline the practice of medicine by reducing the administrative burden faced by physicians.

Doctors Manitoba, the organization that represents physicians in contract talks with the province, has long argued that indiscriminate demands for sick notes was adding an unnecessary burden on physicians. Physicians claim that sick notes for employees who miss a week or less of work are a waste of time; one in three people seeking notes for short-term absences are actually symptom free by the time they get in to see a doctor. Requiring the notes seems more like a litmus test for trust in employees than it does an actual barometer of employee health.

Earlier this year, Doctors Manitoba estimated more than 36,000 hours of primary care time was consumed writing 600,000 sick notes at a cost of $8 million annually to the health-care system.

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Leaders must put stop to uncivil behaviour

6 minute read Friday, Nov. 28, 2025

Obby Khan (Leader of the Official Opposition): The Premier has the chance to stand up today and correct the record and admit that he is the first one in the history of this country to serve with a criminal record as a Premier.

Hon. Wab Kinew (Premier): You know, the worst part about how terrible the PC Leader is at question period is that when he gets a whupping in here, he’s got to go away for 24 hours and then come back the next day with the comeback. Bravo. Wow, great job reading that piece of paper. Absolute embarrassment.

Mr. Khan: Yes, the snivelling, arrogant Premier once again at his masterpiece right there. His facts of his criminal record have always been there. The Premier shows time and time again how petty, angry, juvenile, pathetic, callous, arrogant that he is.

Mr. Kinew: The member opposite is rolling around in the mud. And you know what a wise man once told me? Don’t get in a mud fight with a pig because the pig will love it.

Good intentions, but hazy implementation

4 minute read Preview

Good intentions, but hazy implementation

4 minute read Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025

There’s a difference, sometimes, between doing the right thing and ensuring the right thing is done.

By introducing changes to strengthen the laws governing the non-consensual distribution of intimate images, Manitoba’s provincial government is clearly doing the right thing. The ongoing evolution (some would argue devolution) of the internet and social media, and the rise of artificial intelligence, have turned the online realm into a figurative wild-west frontier, and the NDP government has recognized the potential trauma that can be created by individuals seeking to use the internet to inflict personal harm on others.

Last week, Justice Minister Matt Wiebe unveiled a series of proposed changes to the Non-Consensual Distribution of Intimate Images Act, including an expansion of the definition of intimate images to include “nearly nude,” a prohibition on taking or sharing nude or nearly nude images of a person “after their death,” and a provision making it illegal to threaten to distribute intimate images — a tactic that can be used as a form of blackmail.

The changes are the latest in an ongoing series of legislative adjustments; last June, the same law was renamed and expanded to include images created or altered using AI or other machine-learning software. That bill also allowed victims to sue those responsible for distributing such images without their consent.

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Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025

When U.S. diplomacy wears out its welcome

5 minute read Preview

When U.S. diplomacy wears out its welcome

5 minute read Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025

“We have reached a point where our relations must be based on something more solid than accommodation to (the) neurotic Canadian view of us and (the) world. We should be less the accoucheur of Canada’s illusions.”

— Walt Butterworth, U.S. ambassador to Canada, 1962-1968

It is a testament to the generally civil and co-operative nature of U.S.-Canada relations that our two nations have maintained an undefended border for more than a century.

Although Canada and the United States have had diplomats in each other’s territory since the 1920s, history records that the first person to hold the rank of U.S. Ambassador to Canada was Ray Atherton, whose title was elevated when the post was upgraded to embassy status in 1943.

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Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025

U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra speaks with business leaders in Fredericton, on Friday. Hoekstra and other Americans seem oblivious to the damage their country and president have done to the U.S.-Canada relationship. (The Canadian Press)

Grey-listing hospitals sends strong message

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Grey-listing hospitals sends strong message

5 minute read Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025

For the first time in the 45-year history of the Manitoba Nurses Union, two hospitals in this province have been grey-listed at the same time. That alone should stop Manitobans in their tracks.

Grey-listing is not a step nurses take lightly. It is a public signal to their colleagues that an employer is failing to maintain safe and professional working conditions — and a warning to think twice before accepting work there.

That Thompson General Hospital now joins Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre on that list should be seen for what it is: an alarm bell about deteriorating safety inside Manitoba’s largest hospital and one of its most remote hospitals.

Nurses at Thompson General voted 97 per cent in favour of grey-listing after years of escalating violence, including a stabbing in the emergency waiting room in September. The RCMP were called to the facility more than 550 times in 2024, according to the MNU.

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Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025

Manitoba Nurses Union members at Thompson General Hospital voted 97 per cent in favour of “grey-listing” their workplace Friday to discourage colleagues from taking work there until safety concerns are addressed. (Google Street View)

Alberta’s recall legislation comes back to haunt UCP

5 minute read Monday, Nov. 24, 2025

“At the end of the day, ordinary Alberta voters are the boss in our democracy and if they lose faith in their elected representatives, they can hold them to account in between elections.”

— Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney, when he announced the Recall Act in 2021.

When it comes to Alberta’s three-year-old recall legislation, and the decision by several Albertans to take them up on the offer this year, it might be difficult to put into the proper words exactly what the UCP government must be feeling right now.

Chagrin perhaps? Exasperation? Irritation?

AI no replacement for real learning

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AI no replacement for real learning

4 minute read Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025

Students in one Winnipeg school division will likely be pleased to hear they will be receiving less homework — though by the sound of things, they were not doing it anyway.

The Division scolaire franco-manitobaine shared new guidelines with teachers on Nov. 10 regarding obligatory after school assignments.

In short, the focus will be on promoting nightly reading routines rather than assigning homework, with students from Grade 7 to 12 only moderately receiving assignments.

The reason? Student usage of artificial intelligence to complete homework assignments has become so common it is not proving to be a productive use of anyone’s time.

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Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025

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A step forward, but many steps remain

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A step forward, but many steps remain

4 minute read Yesterday at 10:27 PM CST

The Manitoba government’s plan to add physicians to Health Links–Info Santé announced last week, is a sensible improvement to a long-standing service.

For years, Manitobans calling the nurse-managed phone line have often received the same unsatisfying advice: “Go to the ER.”

Bringing two doctors into the mix — now available 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. in a six-month pilot project — will undoubtedly give some callers more precise assessments and, in many cases, better access to primary care.

But the government’s accompanying claim that a few more virtual doctors will significantly reduce ER overcrowding is, at best, wishful thinking. At worst, it diverts attention from the real, entrenched causes of ER backlogs.

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Yesterday at 10:27 PM CST

The Emergency Room entrance to the Brandon Regional Health Centre. Manitoba hospitals routinely operate at or above capacity. When no inpatient beds are available, admitted patients are kept in the ER, sometimes for days. (The Brandon Sun files)

Carberry overpass the right decision

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Carberry overpass the right decision

5 minute read Friday, Nov. 21, 2025

“This means the world. We’re beyond happy. They listened, they heard us and they’re putting in the safest alternative.”

— Debra Steen, Carberry-area resident

“I firmly believe this overpass will save lives. This is bigtime for our community.”

— Carberry Mayor Ray Muirhead

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Friday, Nov. 21, 2025

Vehicles navigate the Trans-Canada Highway and Highway 5 intersection north of Carberry on Monday. The provincial government is expected to announce today that it will build an overpass at the intersection, the scene of the worst motor-vehicle collision in Manitoba history. (Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun)

Premier’s victory lap a little bit premature

5 minute read Preview

Premier’s victory lap a little bit premature

5 minute read Friday, Nov. 21, 2025

It takes a special kind of politician to claim victory before the war is over.

Take, for example, a particularly infamous speech by then-U.S. president George W. Bush on May 1, 2003. In his televised speech, which he delivered under a “Mission Accomplished” banner on an aircraft carrier parked just off the coast of California, Bush Jr. declared the end of “major combat operations in Iraq,” even as American soldiers continued to fight and die.

The military operation had only been launched six weeks earlier, and by the time of Bush’s pronouncement of the end of operations, more than 130 U.S. military personnel had died in Iraq. While it may have been the end of the initial invasion phase, the actual war continued for years, with the vast majority of U.S. casualties — upwards of 4,000 additional fatalities — taking place after that “Mission Accomplished” declaration.

It is for precisely this reason that such declarations by the political class are not only unwise, they can prove deadly when reality comes to bite you in the butt.

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Friday, Nov. 21, 2025

While Premier Wab Kinew (background) claims the province has

Federal budget is passed to prevent unwanted election

4 minute read Preview

Federal budget is passed to prevent unwanted election

4 minute read Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025

As confidence votes go, this one didn’t inspire a whole lot of confidence.

The manner in which Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first federal budget was passed in the House of Commons — by a razor-thin margin — could hardly be heralded as a political victory. At very best, it might be described as a defeat avoided.

Nevertheless, while nothing in politics is ever written in stone, passage of the budget was the likely outcome, given the fact that none of the major parties was in a position to fight yet another federal election this year — financially or otherwise.

The final tally of Monday’s vote was 170-168; passage of the budget was actually made possible by the fact four MPs — two Conservative and two NDP — did not vote. The strategy of the opposition parties was clear: they did not support the Liberal budget, but were unwilling to express their dissatisfaction in a way that would trigger a federal election scarcely six months after the last one.

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Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025

Prime Minister Mark Carney holds up a copy of the budget as he and Minister of Finance and National Revenue Francois-Philippe Champagne make their way to the House of Commons for the tabling of the federal budget on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Nov. 4. (The Canadian Press files)

Lone star tick carries a new health concern

4 minute read Preview

Lone star tick carries a new health concern

4 minute read Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025

Sometimes, big stories start small.

A man in New Jersey has died from complications from a tick bite. The culprit? A lone star tick, one that’s often recognized by a white star-shaped spot on its back.

But it’s a far more complicated story than just that.

And, by the way, it was only a matter of time.

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Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025

A female lone star tick, which — despite its Texas-sounding name — is found mainly in the U.S. Southeast. Researchers have found that the bloodsuckers carry a sugar which humans don’t have, and can make those bitten have an allergic reaction to red meat. (CDC)

School divisions bear fiscal burden of provincial policy

4 minute read Preview

School divisions bear fiscal burden of provincial policy

4 minute read Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025

“We’re looking at a pretty hefty tax increase unless we start cutting things. But there’s nothing left to cut … We have one of the highest mill rates in the province, and yet somehow we’re still short-changed by the province.”

— Brandon School Division board of trustees vice-chair Duncan Ross

“The cost to divisions in Winnipeg will be negligible, but for the rest of the province, it’s going to be a lot … What we’re trying to tell you is bad. It’s really bad.”

— Brandon School Division board of trustees chair Linda Ross

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Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025

The Brandon School Division is just one of the jurisdictions in the province holding school board byelections this fall. (Kyle Darbyson/The Brandon Sun files)

Can a political leader change his stripes?

4 minute read Monday, Nov. 17, 2025

It is fair to ask at this point what it will take for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to learn his lesson.

It has been a tough year for Poilievre.

First, he managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in a federal campaign which he had once been widely predicted to win. His party was ahead in the polls until U.S. President Donald Trump’s stateside antics left voters squeamish about the implications of a Conservative win here, and their mood changed wildly enough to turf Poilievre out of his own long-held Ottawa seat.

Doggedly clinging to party leadership, he inserted himself back into the ranks of sitting members by nabbing a safe Alberta seat from another MP, who stepped aside for his sake. Now back in Ottawa, he has watched his party’s ranks dwindle — first with MP Chris d’Entremont’s defection to the Liberals, and now with the resignation of Alberta MP Matt Jeneroux.

Devotion of volunteers can’t be praised enough

5 minute read Preview

Devotion of volunteers can’t be praised enough

5 minute read Friday, Nov. 14, 2025

The nights are growing longer, and the newfound chill in the air heralds the oncoming holiday season, which for my part always seems to arrive too soon.

I’m never ready for it. I always have a tendency to fly by the seat of my pants when it comes to Christmas and the New Year celebrations. Chances to make a little merry always seem to give way to the demands of the season — food and gifts to buy, wrapping, cookies to make, playing chauffeur for kids’ sports events, decorating, and of course the ongoing demands of running a modern daily newsroom.

In fact, the lead-up to Christmas is possibly my busiest time of the year. And if you’re anything like me, you may find you have little time for those intangible extras that help bring joy to these holidays. It’s for this reason I often stand in awe of those who manage to put aside their own needs and find the time to volunteer a few hours to some local cause or event.

From those who offer gift-wrapping services at the Shoppers Mall to raise money for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, and the men and women who deliver Christmas hampers for Brandon-Westman Christmas Cheer, to the dozens of men and women who make food, serve guests and make deliveries during the Westman and Area Traditional Christmas Dinner, it’s the devotion of the volunteers who make the season bright for so many people in our community. So it can be disheartening when the number of volunteers starts dropping off.

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Friday, Nov. 14, 2025

Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun
Greg Dinsdale volunteers with the Salvation Army Christmas Kettle Campaign at Walmart in Brandon. Dinsdale has volunteered with the Salvation Army for 50 years.

Deep Sky could use some lessons in communication

5 minute read Preview

Deep Sky could use some lessons in communication

5 minute read Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025

Representatives from Montreal-based carbon-capture startup Deep Sky had a perfectly good opportunity at a town hall meeting in Pipestone on Wednesday night to address the growing concerns that area residents voiced over the company’s planned project for the region.

But by saying next to nothing, they left more questions than answers in their wake.

Last month, Deep Sky announced plans to build a commercial carbon-removal facility in southwestern Manitoba. As we have reported, the Rural Municipality of Pipestone and the Municipality of Two Borders have been described by the company as “promising” locations for the 100-employee facility.

In the first phase of that project, which would represent a $200-million investment, Deep Sky claims it could remove 30,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide directly from the air per year. At full scale, the plan is for a facility with annual removal capacity of 500,000 tonnes of CO2.

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Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025

December 2, 2025

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