The teen victim, whose name is protected under a publication ban, was assaulted and stabbed to death while riding the bus home in April 2023.

The Province’s health-care system was a major proponent of the 2025 budget, committing to several projects including building a new ER at the Victoria Hospital and a separate one in Eriksdale, and a new healthcare centre in downtown Winnipeg.

The province also pledged $770 million in new funding to frontline healthcare staff, but while stakeholders are encouraged, they want more.

“In the budget the retention the recruitment, it was basically paying salaries. For contracts that have already been negotiated. There was nothing further on retaining or recruiting nurses into the system, and so my concern is that when we build new beds, we have to have staff to be able to staff those beds,” said Darlene Jackson, with the Manitoba Nurses Union.

“What I was hoping for is more done on the retention of nurses in the system, and recruitment.”

Dr. Nichelle Desilets, the president-elect for Doctors Manitoba adds, “We saw a lot of investments in infrastructure, services, facilities, but we know that a bed doesn’t care for a patient, a health care provider does so while we’re glad to see those investments we do need the healthcare providers and the recruitment of those healthcare providers to go along with it.”

Also announced was $40 million, which will go to frontline staff to take care of Manitoba seniors, including three new care homes in Transcona, Lac du Bonnet, and Arborg.

“I think it’s a start, if is the Stefanson funding money, we’ve been waiting a long time for that, the pc government did start that and it did not continue under the NDP government so hopefully, that’s what this means,” said Laurie Cerqueti, the CEO of Saul and Claribel Simkin Centre Personal Care Home.

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MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Two blocks from the Alabama Statehouse, a black wreath hung on the door of Adams Drugs — a symbol to draw attention the number of neighborhood pharmacies that have closed, or are in danger of closing, across the state.

Dozens of independent pharmacies have shuttered in Alabama over the last two years, according to the Alabama Independent Pharmacy Alliance. Pharmacists said that is, in part, because it can often cost more to dispense a drug than they are reimbursed by pharmacy benefit managers.

“We’re losing almost one drugstore per week going out of business because they are paid such a small amount of money from the PBM industry to fill prescriptions for their patients at their drugstore,” Sen. Billy Beasley, a Democratic senator and retired pharmacist, said.

Alabama is one of several states considering new regulations on pharmacy benefit managers, the middlemen between health insurance companies, drug companies and pharmacies. The Alabama Senate voted 32-0 Thursday to advance legislation to require minimum reimbursement rates to community pharmacists. The bill now moves to the Alabama House of Representatives.

Legislation seeking regulations on the benefit managers have also been proposed in Mississippi, Arkansas and other states.

Pharmacy benefit managers leverage purchasing power with drug companies with the goal of driving down drug costs for consumers. However, independent pharmacists say the business practices of benefit managers cause them to lose money on about 20% of prescriptions.

“The biggest issue is we’re not getting paid what it actually cost to fill a prescription, including labor,” Trent McLemore, a pharmacist with Star Discount Pharmacy.

The Alabama bill would require that PBMs reimburse community pharmacies at the Alabama Medicaid Agency reimbursement rate. It would also prohibit the practice of “spread pricing” where a benefits manager charges health plans more for drugs than they pay pharmacies.

Groups opposed to the bill have said it would effectively put a new $10.64 fee on prescriptions under the requirement to match state Medicaid rates, which include a $10.64 dispensing fee. That fee, they argued, will eventually get passed down to consumers and businesses.

Helena Duncan, president of the Business Council of Alabama, told a legislative committee on Wednesday that small businesses, which might already be struggling to provide insurance to their workers, will have to either absorb the increased cost or pass it along to employees through premium increases.

“Shifting the financial burdens from pharmacies to the Alabama employers is fundamentally unfair,” Duncan told a legislative committee on Wednesday.

Republican Sen. Andrew Jones, a cosponsor of the bill, said Thursday said other states have seen drug prices go down. Jones said it is important to protect neighborhood pharmacies because they play a vital role in communities.

“You are not going to get a big box store to open in the middle of the night to get you the medication you need,” Jones said.

Kim Chandler, The Associated Press

Suzy Pinnick knew something was wrong when she spotted her dog Zibby laying on the garage floor.

It’s something her faithful companion in isolation had never done before.

Zibby got sick months into lockdown, developing lesions that were initially deemed not overly serious. So moments of strange behaviour were not completely out of the ordinary.

Pinnick was making regular visits to the veterinarian – though she was never allowed inside the clinic due to COVID restrictions – to make sure her pet was getting the right care.

“Not being able to go in with her, even at the visits, was very difficult. Very difficult,” said Pinnick, who is a general physician.

On the morning Pinnick found Zibby on the garage floor, her dog was more energetic than her sickness previously allowed her to be. So Pinnick could not have known that hours later, she would be laying eyes on her dog for the very last time.

“She was so weak, she couldn’t get into the back seat,” Pinnick recounted. “And I knew in my heart, I said, ‘my dog is dying.’

“And so when we got to the emergency vet place, they came out and they took her. And, last look I got was her looking back at me.

“To lose her at that point in time as extremely difficult,” added Pinnick, who described the passage from diagnosis to death as extremely quick.

“They’re not just animals, they’re your companion.”

On March 20, 2020, Manitoba declared a state of emergency as COVID-19 swept across the globe. The world changed quickly, and people’s lives changed with it.

Exactly five years later, Manitobans are reflecting on those changes, and in some cases, the ongoing loss.

Clinical psychologist Dr. Jay Greenfeld says Pinnick’s case is one many people were faced with – of having to say goodbye without being able to say goodbye. He says for anyone who went through that, it’s now about finding a way to grieve the loss of not having that final interaction.

“If I couldn’t do that, what is another way that I can still grieve that loss – of that moment as well as that person or pet that was so close to us. Whether that’s through art or whether that’s through drawing or that’s through talking it over or whether that’s through writing out feelings and thoughts and the reflections of what that person meant.

“And more important, in the end, you still want to focus a big amount of time to, ‘what did I take from that relationship with that person?’ – again whether that’s person or pet. What did I take from that relationship, and how am I going to use those same attributes in life moving forward?’

“‘What are the things that they brought to my life that I want to make sure I remember, regardless of the moment that I may not have had access to.’”

Focusing on good memories is certainly something Pinnick is trying to do, even if the road has been long and hard.

“There are positive thoughts now that come when I think of her,” she said.

“Her attitude. Which was sometimes not good, but I loved it,” she added, laughing.

Loss of home disrupts stability

Winnipeg’s Katrina Greer is also grieving – the loss of stability, security and even a sense of purpose.

Greer, who previously worked for the Manitoba government under Brian Pallister, was laid off right before the pandemic hit.

Her plan to move to Costa Rica and teach online immediately fell through.

She couldn’t find work – that lasted for a couple of years – and was forced to sell her home. Eager to be a homeowner once again, Greer could not get a mortgage without a job. She bounced around Winnipeg from place to place.

The pandemic “wiped us out,” Greer told CityNews.

“It was very, very difficult. We are still climbing out of the hole.”

She says the loss of her home disrupted the stable identity she had built for herself and triggered mental-health issues linked with financial uncertainty.

“There’s been a lot of loss – financially, stability wise, feeling like we have a sense of purpose, that there’s something waiting for us at the end of the day, that it’s not just survival every single day,” said Greer, who was helped by her community and is now a mutual aid advocate.

And although Greer is celebrating moving into a new house – as a tenant, not buyer – her family is still grieving the loss of the life they had before.

“I still grieve, not just the physical home itself, not just the stability or the employment itself, but the stability of having that place. Having that job.”

She says the entire landscape of her world has changed, and she finds it hard to imagine every having that sense of stability again.

“I think people associate grief and loss with death and dying,” said Dr. Greenfeld. “And that’s a limited sort of scope. Because the reality is, any time there’s a significant change for a loss of, for example, a lifestyle or a life pattern or a trend, there’s grief with that, for sure. And you know, I think it’s important that people recognize that they might not climb out of whatever they think they need to climb out of and get back to the way it was for them.

“What’s important is to recognize that it’s going to look different, and it needs to look different, and our society looks different, and the way that we approach things is different. And so what we want to look at a little bit more is knowing what the circumstances are in our world. How can I adjust to that accordingly?”

‘Accept the sadness, accept the difference’

Greenfeld says in the example of losing a home, and having to rent a place instead of owning one, it’s all about changing mindsets.

“Maybe owning a home right now is just not what’s going to happen, because whether you’re paying X amount of dollars for mortgage or you’re paying X amount of dollars for rent, it’s all going to the same kind of living concept,” he explained. “You want to isolate that variable and recognize, ‘OK, that lifestyle was a loss, but I’m not going to hyper focus on certain aspects. If I have what I need, if I have a place to live, how I’m paying for that is less important, as opposed to not having a place.’

“But if I don’t have the lifestyle that I used to have, there is grief with that, and it is important to talk about that. It is important to let go of that world in order to embrace the current world.

“And that also means leading to the next phase of ‘OK, I probably need to set smaller, attainable goals, starting now, even if those goals are different from what I wanted them to be a number of years ago, I need to accept the sadness. I need to accept the difference. I need to then focus my energy and my effort on the things that are in front of me.’”

For artist Eric Rae, the COVID-19 pandemic was linked to an inability to get back into the artistic space doing what he loved.

Rae was away for two years doing a Master’s in theatre directing. When he came back to Winnipeg, he found the local theatre landscape had changed, and it was much harder to break into.

“It just shook everything up,” said Rae, who says he likes to engage with spaces and audience in his plays. “People I knew left the industry, and my contacts changed. I had been gone for two years and I wasn’t fresh in people’s minds.”

Fast forward a few years and Rae says he’s feeling “disillusioned with the theatre industry.”

Greenfeld says it’s too easy to hyper-focus on things out of our control.

“What we have control over here is recognizing that this is a phase of life, and we’re gonna have to find a different way to grieve that loss,” he said.

The clinical psychologist concluded with general advice for anyone still struggling in a post-pandemic world: connect with others.

“There is nothing better for you psychologically than to put yourself out there with other people, be engaging with other people, and even if it’s work related, there is a pattern, there is a theme, and there is a degree of excitement that comes from engaging with others when you’re around work-related tasks or just connecting with people,” he said.

“And if we continue that trend (towards isolation), we’re decreasing the value of what it can feel like to be in a community, either at work, community in your neighbourhood, or community within different cultures. And it is extremely valuable to be able to do that.”

The post Grieving loss of past lives, Manitobans reflect on 5 years since COVID-19 pandemic appeared first on CityNews Winnipeg.

A Calgary police officer on trial for sexual assault testified in his own defence Thursday, telling jurors that the complainant was “very passionate” during sex and that she expressed pleasure by rolling her eyes, grabbing the sheets and moaning. 

Health P.E.I. is posting 500 permanent full-time positions for current staff members, hoping to change existing part-time and casual workers into full-time employees. 

The City of Calgary has reached what could be its first protocol agreement with an Indigenous organization. The Blackfoot Confederacy made a request to the office of Mayor Jyoti Gondek in 2023, seeking a memorandum of understanding or protocol agreement.

The newly minted police chief in Winnipeg says that reconciliation is going to be an important part of his work with the force.

Gene Bowers said to start, he intends to create an “action circle” where Indigenous community members will be consulted on issues facing the community and on improving police training.

“So that would be an Indigenous action circle that would sit with the chief,” said Bowers while meeting with the media. “We would meet and discuss issues that they would like to see addressed. It would also help us with training. We do a lot of Indigenous training but you know we can always improve what we’re doing.

“The Indigenous community will have a voice in ‘well what does that training look like?’”

What Bowers refused to address in his meeting with the media was whether he supported the force’s decision not search a private landfill for the remains of two First Nations women.

Bowers was deputy chief at the time.

Winnipeg police told families that the remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran were in the Prairie Green landfill. Despite desperate pleas from the families, police said they wouldn’t search it over safety concerns and chances of being able to find them.

When reporters asked of his involvement in the decision, Bowers replied that he wants to talk to the affected families first “out of respect” before making a public comment . He added that he has spoken to one family so far and is scheduled to meet with others.

He said police continue to try to identify a woman the community calls Mashkode Bizhiki’ikwe – or Buffalo Woman – who was a victim of the same serial killer convicted in Harris and Myran’s murder.

“We’ve been working hard to identify Buffalo Woman,” he said. “We continue to try for everybody, and uh, we won’t stop until we identify her.”

Bowers said changes are coming in police responses to citizens in a mental health crisis – which at times have resulted in civilian deaths.

He also promised a “realignment” in the force to better tackle violent crime.

The post Winnipeg’s new police chief to create ‘Indigenous action circle’ to help with issues, training appeared first on APTN News.

The federal Liberals are announcing nearly $100-million in humanitarian relief and governance support for Palestinians, days before a widely expected election call.

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, who took on the file of international development last week, is announcing funding for major agencies working in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The announced funding includes $30-million for recovery and governance support in the West Bank, where there has been escalating violence between Israeli troops and local militants and what Ottawa calls “significant displacement.”

For Melanie Watson, films aren’t just entertainment. 

They’re a way to bring people together and build a sense of community.

“I love curating films, and I love looking at all sorts of different films and seeing what’s out there, what’s coming,” she said. “And I’m often influenced, of course, by what’s going on in the world right now.”

Her idea for a local film club formed when she lived on a catamaran on the Thames River in London, England and screened films for the community aboard her boat.

“I really enjoyed that, and the feeling of bringing people together,” the festival organizer told The Discourse in an interview. “It was something that I missed when I came here. And I thought, ‘Why don’t I do this here in a different way?’”

After moving back home to the Cowichan Valley, she found the perfect place to host the club — The HUB at Cowichan Station — complete with a screen and a retro popcorn machine.

“The Hub was so welcoming to me,” she said, “and supported me making something here.” 

Watson wanted to make the space feel welcoming to other movie buffs.

Community building is woven throughout Watson’s work with the Hub Film Club, which is volunteer-run and has all proceeds going back to The HUB at Cowichan Station. 

Fast forward to today, and the club is gearing up to host its second annual Cowichan Valley Documentary Film Festival.

Watson says this year’s slate of films is heavily influenced by the world’s current events, and brings together a variety of perspectives on society, art and the environment. 

For her, the “heavy hitter” in the roster is Sugarcane. The Oscar-nominated and multiple award-winning documentary investigates allegations of abuse and missing children from St. Joseph’s Mission in Williams Lake, B.C. — and the residential “school’s” impacts on the Williams Lake First Nation community. 

The film’s director, Julian Brave NoiseCat, made history as the first North American Indigenous person nominated for their directing work at the Academy Awards.

Read More: Heading to the Oscars, the resounding impact of ‘Sugarcane’ proves both validating and ‘long overdue’

Watson said Sugarcane is an amazing film — and an important one to watch — but warned that films like it on sensitive or traumatic subjects can be upsetting to watch.

“There’s obviously a lot of people locally who have experienced the impact of residential schools,” she said. “I don’t want to bring up any of that trauma.”

But she doesn’t want to shy away from such tough conversations, and hopes people will come to see the powerful film when it screens on March 29.

She said it’s important for audiences to “see people’s lives reflected in films,” especially ones that show experiences they may not realize were shared by others.

Bringing back a film festival to the valley

The Cowichan Documentary Film Festival began as a collaboration between Watson’s film club and the Cowichan Valley Film Society.

The society used to run the Traveling World Film Festival, but the event was cancelled due to COVID-19 and never returned to Cowichan.

Last year, Watson felt the Hub Film Club could fill the local gap. 

So, she approached the film society to talk about launching a new documentary festival.

She said the pandemic was “so painful” for local film-fest organizers. 

“They had all the films, everything was set to go,” Watson recalled. “And the day before they were gonna show, everything stopped.” 

The original World Community Film Festival is still held in Courtenay, but its associated Cowichan event — which ran for six years — never happened again.

In the years since the pandemic began, there’s been a swelling of support for the film club, Watson said.

It now has more members than ever before, and she said she’s encouraged to see so many people supporting a local volunteer-run organization fundraising for The HUB at Cowichan Station.

Community building through film

Another of the films at the festival is An Unfinished Journey, being screened on opening night, March 28.

The documentary chronicles the struggles of four Afghan women trying to bring attention to the plight of women living in their country after the Taliban’s 2021 takeover. 

Watson wanted the screening to include the actual voices of women from Afghanistan living in the Cowichan Valley, so she partnered with the Cowichan Intercultural Society to bring in two speakers to introduce the film and share their own stories.

Watson said pinning down an overarching theme for such a diverse event can be tough, but she curated films that show many different perspectives on society, past and present.

She said if someone sees all of this year’s films, they’re “going to have a much different perspective.”

Watson cast a wide net for films, but also wanted to include at least one film by a local filmmaker. 

Last year, she showed A Cedar Is Life, directed and written by Quw’utsun filmmaker Harold  Joe, which explores the cultural relationship between the cedar tree and West Coast First Nations.

This year, she’s screening Sea to Land by Michelle Tremblay. In it, the Victoria filmmaker documented Cowichan Bay fisherman Guy Johnston over a whole fishing season as he runs an initiative that balances fishing economics with sustainability, fair wages and community.

Watson said there’s no shortage of great filmmakers in the Cowichan Valley, and she is always excited to hear from local talent looking for a place to screen their work. 

Watson would like to partner for future events with the recently reopened Duncan Cinemas to expand the festival’s reach. 

As a movie lover, Watson hopes the festival will remind people that the Island’s film community is flourishing, with other local festivals held on Salt Spring Island, in Nanaimo and in Victoria.

“We’re actually super rich in film festivals here on the Island,” she said, “but I don’t think a lot of people know how lucky we are.” 

For a complete film festival schedule and to purchase tickets, visit the Hub Film Club’s Eventbrite web page.

The post Cowichan Valley film fest showcases renowned documentaries — local and global — to inform and inspire appeared first on The Discourse..

A First Nations professor at McGill University says people shouldn’t expect Indigenous issues to play a prominent role in the upcoming federal election.

“Right now, in an unprecedented political climate that it is in international relations and foreign affairs that dominate conversations in politics these days,” Veldon Coburn, a member of the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan and part of the Indigenous Relations Initiative at McGill told Nation to Nation. “All across Ottawa, it is the reorganization and realignment of trade alliances, shoring up our allies where we have good friends in the international community and our domestic affairs are focused on essentially buttressing the economy.”

Coburn said that, as was the case during the Liberal leadership race, U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to annex and impose tariffs on Canada will take up most of the campaign oxygen at the expense of other issues.

After being as much as 20 points or more behind the Conservatives for most of the past year, recent polls show the Liberals surging after the departure of former prime minister Justin Trudeau and under new leader Mark Carney.

Coburn said Indigenous voters who are used to being threatened by colonial powers, may see the Liberals as better able to defend their interests against the Trump administration as opposed to the Conservatives who have been more traditionally aligned with the Republicans.

Several media sources are reporting the election could be called as early as Sunday.

Oil and Gas pipelines

Another academic says renewed interest on building oil and gas pipelines in Canada could present new opportunities for Indigenous communities.

“That (pipelines) will not happen without Indigenous involvement,” Ken Coates, a professor at Yukon University who is the chair of the Bachelor of Arts in Indigenous Governance Program, said. “Quite frankly, it won’t happen without Indigenous ownership. Not necessarily 100 per cent ownership but a significant equity sort of position.”

With Trump continuing to talk about annexing Canada, there has been a number of discussions at both the federal and provincial levels of establishing the country as a sovereign energy leader.

This would mean more of a focus on building pipelines east and west allowing domestic oil and gas producers to access markets in Europe and Asia.

Much of current production flows south to the United States.

Coates said a Conservative government might be able to better capitalize on these opportunities rather than the Liberals who have shown over the last ten years that oil and gas production was not one of the government’s top priorities.

Nevertheless, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May says Indigenous people should be wary of the promises of economic benefits made if they let these pipelines run through their territories.

“The first thing to say to any order of government and sovereign nations in particular is, ‘Show us the business case,’” she said. “Do pipelines make any sense in this country and you can’t find one with both hands and a flashlight.”

May said this is because Canada does not refine much of its oil and ships it as crude oil to the United States. She said in order to ship to other foreign markets it would have refine a much greater share of the product which is a capacity the country currently does not have.”

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