NDP’s bold campaign promise is one it alone cannot keep

The Manitoba NDP made an ambitious promise during the 2023 provincial election: end chronic homelessness within two terms of government. It was bold, compassionate and politically popular.

It is also proving to be far more difficult than advertised.

New figures released Monday by End Homelessness Winnipeg show 8,248 people were living without stable housing in March — up 104 from the previous month. More troubling still, 4,463 of those individuals are now considered chronically homeless, meaning they’ve spent at least six months of the past year without stable housing or have cycled in and out of homelessness for years.

Those are not just numbers. They represent a deepening humanitarian crisis in a city that is already stretched to the breaking point.

Governments change, priorities change… and genocide goes on

Years after Canada's prime minister recognized a genocide was occurring, very little has changed in response to the findings of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

Raise a glass for a good cause

The return of the (excellent) Beer is Art event at WAG-Qaumajuq on April 2 saw many of the province’s craft breweries pouring new and small-batch brews alongside core pours.

If you weren’t among the hundreds of craft beer lovers sipping their way through the galleries, fret not — there are plenty of beer-related events in the coming days that are sure to please your proverbial palates, many of which also happen to benefit good causes…

The annual Props N Hops event returns on Saturday, April 18, to the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada (2088 Wellington Ave.), featuring more than 20 Manitoba brewers pouring their wares among the planes and alongside finger food and live music. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the event runs from 7 to 10 p.m. Tickets are $70 plus fees and include a commemorative glass; they’re available at wfp.to/iaM. The event is in support of scholarship programs for Manitoba Air Cadets.

Barn Hammer Brewing Co. (595 Wall St.) has just released the Crocus Wild Ale, a beer made by women/non-binary folks at the West End brewery and brewed with lactobacillus plantarum and locally sourced herbs and blooms. It’s available at the brewery and most other places you can buy beer, with 25 cents going to the Rainbow Resource Centre.

Moon mission Earth photo could change your worldview

Having a photo of Earth — the whole Earth — taken by a human is an incredible thing, and now we have a new one. It’s a beautiful image. But it’s also a deeply moving one.

Lunar voyage coincides with heated anticipation of SpaceX going public

Space is arguably the final frontier of capitalism. While the recent NASA Artemis II mission captures our imagination, another event has stirred investors’ imaginations.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX), Tesla chief executive officer Elon Musk’s space company, reportedly filed initial paperwork this month for its initial public offering.

Likely the most anticipated and valuable privately held company to list on a stock exchange, SpaceX Technologies has targeted a market value as high as US$2 trillion, according to Bloomberg News.

Speculation aside, investors have reason to be enthusiastic, says Eva Ados, chief investment strategist at ERShares, an exchange-traded fund (ETF) provider. SpaceX “is very well-diversified: space, telecom, and AI (artificial intelligence).”

It’s green for go on spring-loaded imaginings

As winter fades, anticipating the simple joys of a day by the brook

Keeping reference checks in context

References are one of the most widely accepted steps in hiring — and yet most people involved in the process quietly question their value.

Employers ask for them. Candidates prepare them carefully. Managers conduct the calls. And almost everyone walks away with the same polite, predictable information.

It raises an uncomfortable question: if references rarely tell us anything new, what are employers actually looking for?

On paper, references are meant to validate a candidate’s past performance, behaviour and reliability. In practice, they have become something much more limited.

De Zerbi wrong fit for sliding Spurs

When Tottenham Hotspur visits Sunderland on Sunday (8:00 a.m., FuboTV), the North London outfit and Europa League holders will have gone 105 days without a win in the Premier League.

Count them back, and it takes you into last year. Thomas Frank was still in charge when, three days after Christmas, Archie Gray delivered a 1-0 triumph away to Crystal Palace. That was two managers and a lifetime ago. Back when there was hope, even if just a bit.

Oh, to be 11th again.

When the opening whistle blows at the Stadium of Light, Spurs will be in the relegation places — leapfrogged by West Ham, which beat dead-last Wolves on Friday.

Oblivious Conservatives fiddling while Poilievre burns

The warning signs for the federal Conservatives are no longer subtle — they’re sitting in plain view on the government benches. Another one of their own just got up and walked across the aisle.

Think tank report on federal government finances a warning Canadians ought not ignore

There’s a familiar and uncomfortable echo in a report released Wednesday by the Montreal Economic Institute – an independent public policy think tank – that analyzes federal government finances. It’s not alarmist and it’s not partisan. But it is a warning — one Canadians would be foolish to ignore.

Because we’ve been here before.

The report, authored by University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe and MEI policy analyst Gabriel Giguère, lays out in clear, unsparing terms the state of the federal government’s finances and what it will take to get them back under control.

The conclusion is straightforward: if Ottawa doesn’t start making serious adjustments to spending and taxation now, the country risks drifting back toward the kind of fiscal crisis that defined the mid-1990s.

Tough to make repairs when you don’t know what’s wrong, what parts are needed

It’s getting harder to pretend Manitoba’s health-care capacity crisis is some kind of mystery.

Nova Scotia cannabis conflict details relationship gone to pot

In the east of Canada there is one issue so explosive and divisive it seeks to undo nearly a century and a half of relationships between Indigenous communities and Canadians: Cannabis.