Regina police arrested a 35-year-old man after a knife threat and kidnapping incident early Friday morning. 

Officers responded around 12:30 a.m. to a business on East Quance Street , where the suspect allegedly threatened people with a knife. He then held a woman at knifepoint , forced her into a cab, and fled. 

The woman later called for help, and police tracked the suspect to Toronto Street , where he was seen running with a firearm. 

After a short chase, officers arrested him without incident. The man faces multiple charges , including kidnapping and weapon possession.

He didn't mean to eat the whole thing, but it was worth it. On a quest to try Canadian brands, Andrian Makhnachov stumbled upon McCain's Deep'n Delicious Cakes. Now the TikToker, who moved to Canada from Ukraine in 2022, has gone viral for his ecstatic reactions.

The Power of Play was aimed at educating parents on why it's okay, and even important, to let their kids have their fair share of playtime.

Presented by Jacqueline Green, founder of Great Parenting Simplified, Power of Play was a presentation made at the Swift Current Early Years Family Resource Centre. Green provided insights into how play enables growth, gives kids a chance to process emotions, and is a part of the quintessential experience while growing up. 

"It went very well," said Green. "It was wonderful to help parents and see their interaction around it. Even the fact that it's okay for kids to have some risks."

Green made sure to highlight how getting hurt during play is also a part of the experience. The goal of play is to not have a planned outcome but to just experience an open-ended free time, according to Green. That aspect is important to protect and build into a schedule. 

"As parents, we need to find free time for ourselves and nurture our own playfulness," said Green.

Green relayed how parents expressed some relief at the fact it's okay to slow down. The desire to push children into the right activities is well intended, but she could see how the fact they could allow their kids to have free time also helps free the parents up from obligations and scheduling.

Great Parenting Simplified is a non-profit charity that Green opened as a resource for parents after her own experiences with parenting beginning in the year 2000. She provides access to early years professionals who are knowledgeable on what play is, and how both children and parents can get the most out of it. 

Her presentation at the Early Years Family Resource Centre had two sessions.l The first was at 10:30 a.m., while the second was at 6 p.m. Roughly 20 families attended each presentation, according to Green. 

The Saskatchewan government's newly released budget has increased its policing spending by several million dollars and includes a promise to add about 100 provincially-funded municipal police officers.

The City of Swift Current is bracing for a change in water levels on the Swift Current Creek. 

The chance of flooding has increased with the forecast moving into double-digit warmth over the coming weeks. What was a steady slow release of the snowpack is set to ramp up into a fast-moving melt. 

In response, the City of Swift Current has begun setting up barricades along the Swift Current Creek. They are also preparing for the fact that rising water levels will break the ice layer, allowing for the ice to flow down the stream. 

According to an official release from the City of Swift Current, the expectation for the immediate future is for water to begin pooling in low-lying areas adjacent to the Creek. 

To begin, barricades are being set up in the most vulnerable zones. Homeowners along the creek are being asked to please stay up-to-date and informed. Sandbags are available, free of charge, at 2074 South Service Road West. 

In the release, Swift Current Fire Department Fire Chief Ryan Hunter was quoted as follows. 

"We're taking preemptive steps to support our community. Homeowners can fill personal sandbags to safeguard their property, with sand and sandbags available at no cost as part of our community support efforts. Protecting your home from spring runoff is an essential step in minimizing potential disruptions for homeowners."

Hello, I'm Yzma! I'm a very sweet gal looking for the perfect lap to cuddle up on. I have been at the shelter for 125 days and no one can figure out why. I am so sweet and love to give hugs. I like to just walk around and explore but can be playful at times too. If I sound like the cat for you, please come by and meet me!

Saskatchewan RCMP are looking for ten individuals, all of which who have active warrants.

These ten are all listed as having lived in Saskatchewan most recently, according to the RCMP. 

They are John Alfonso Anasarias, Eldon James Cone, Izaiah Zachary Nippi, Jamie Daniel Jude Sheedy, Dallas Fulton, Seagun Laliberte, Dalyn Rae Janvier, William Albert Charles, Gerry Lloyd Roberts, and Darius Ryell NcNab.

RCMP are hoping that by reaching out to the public, they can get a fresh wave of information through tips and sightings. They ask they anyone who spots these people does not approach them. Call 310-RCMP, or 911 in an emergency. 

Anonymous information may be provided to CrimeStoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS.

The Sask. Party amended an NDP motion, confirming its stance that Canada would never be the 51st state, but removing Donald Trump's name.

As reports suggest Canada could be headed for a federal election call as soon as Sunday, yesterday's Swift Current Museum Lunch & Learn was an appropriate topic.

Teachers Chris Garner and Riley Sharp spoke about the state of Canada's parliamentary democracy.

"We both want people to just be informed on what this is," Garner said. "What we've been finding even in the media and the echo chamber of Swift Current where we live is people not understanding the Westminster system. We're not wanting you to all of a sudden be gung-ho patriotic loving the system, we just want you to be aware of it so that when you're engaging with materials, you're engaging with it accurately."

As we head into another election Garner noted one threat to our democracy is growing mistrust in government and the electoral process. 

"Even in Canada people do not trust our parliamentary process and our elections," Garner said. "Elections Canada does a wonderful job of informing people of how elections operate. It's a third-party institute that runs it. They go through everything to try and legitimize those elections. They even talk about foreign threats and interference and how they minimize that.

"I think in Canada we do have a strong handle on protecting the integrity of our elections. It's informing the electorate that they should have trust in that system."

He does see some threats to our democracy including trends among youth.

"The youth voter is becoming more and more aligned with autocratic leadership," Garner said. "That could have to do with instant gratification and instant decision-making. As we're seeing down south that kind of leadership can lead to a lot of chaotic changes very quickly. In our system, which is relatively stable, the consensus decision-making model is slow intentionally to try and avoid the chaotic responses we're seeing down south."

Garner feels in a time of growing misinformation and disinformation;

more education and continuing education are always valuable. 

Prairie Harm Reduction is closing until March 31 because its workers need a break amid the on-going surge in overdoses in Saskatoon.

The provincial budget, released Wednesday, is being criticized for what is included in terms of healthcare, with unions and the opposition NDP stating it doesn’t include enough for the retention of staff, and it is spending even less money in some areas than the last budget.  

Linda Renkas is the vice president of CUPE 5430. She said the numbers don’t track with what they were hearing before the budget was presented.  

“We didn’t see anything for retention of workers,” Renkas said in the rotunda of the Legislature Wednesday afternoon. “Our workers haven’t received a fair wage increase for too long. We’re without a collective agreement for two years already, and we’re in bargaining.  

Renkas noted the budget didn’t include anything for retention of the employees her union represents, while there was an increase in infrastructure, recruitment efforts for doctors, and more seats open at the University of Saskatchewan for aspiring doctors.

The situation in rural parts of the province, such as southeast Saskatchewan, was also of importance for Renkas.  

“The government needs to invest in recruiting people to that rural (area), and perhaps incentivizing workers to stay in rural (areas).” 

Vicky Mowat is the shadow minister of health for the NDP. She emphasized the importance of rural healthcare as well, stating they will be watching programs such as the expansion of the virtual physician program, which is used in four communities in the southeast. 

“If we can improve access to health care, that’s going to be a good thing, but iPads can’t replace the real thing,” Mowat said after the budget speech. “So, we want to make sure that we are also working to train, recruit, and retain doctors. Right now, we only retain about 38 per cent of our family doctors in family medicine and specialists that we train in this province. Thirty-eight per cent is not good enough. It’s not high enough. We need to be working on keeping those positions around, providing a good quality of life for those people so that they stick around, and are able to provide the services that Saskatchewan people need when and where they need it.” 

The budget estimates for the 2025-26 fiscal year have a $28 million decline, or 3.7 per cent, from the previous fiscal year. There are also declines in the allocations for Saskatchewan Health Authority targeted programs and services, and provincial targets programs and services. The overall budget for health, however, is up from $7.59 billion in 2024-25, to $8.07 billion in 2025-26.  

Great Plains College is navigating a new reality for international students after some recent Canadian rule changes. 

Some of these changes include reduced permanent resident targets, stricter temporary resident document cancellation rules, and changes to open work permit eligibility for family members of international students and foreign workers.

Vice President of Programs and Students at Great Plains College Kaleah Ostrander noted fewer international students could have an impact on local students and job markets. 

"Our goal remains to preserve domestic access to minimize the cost to the public purse and ensure the labour market is getting the labour that they need whether that source may be domestic or international," Ostrander said. "That's certainly been impaired by these changing policies."

Fewer pathways to work and become permanent residents in Canada will make the country and certainly the college's programs less attractive to international students. 

"That means there's less interest in Canada," Ostrander said. "In becoming not only a part of our training environment, but also our work environment."

She added Great Plains College had made sure to target their offerings to international students to areas where there are labour needs. 

"We've been very mindful to only place international students in programs where we felt there was a labour market need that wasn't being met domestically," Ostrander said. "As a result, we will certainly have impacts on our programs in terms of the volume of programming we are able to offer. We are trying to mitigate the impact overall in terms of staffing."

The college is doing what they can to assist current students who find themselves less certain about an available future in Canada and the southwest. 

"There's a level of nervousness," Ostrander said. "We do very much employ folks who try to understand these rules and get the best information we can in order to support those students. We have partners such as the Southwest Newcomer Welcome Centre that is a huge support. We try to give them the best information possible." 

The concerns Ostrander has doesn't mean she felt the immigration system needed to stay as it was.

"The system wasn't perfect," she said. "There are reasons for doing some level of policy change, but I think the blanketed approach and disproportionate effects on colleges and rural areas of the country are certainly where our concerns come from."

Saskatchewan Finance Minister Jim Reiter, right, speaks to members of the media, with deputy finance minister Max Hendricks, prior to the release Saskatchewan Provincial Budget in Regina on Wednesday, March 19, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Liam Richards

Saskatchewan’s government says it will ride a strong economy to a projected razor-thin surplus in this year’s budget.

But it says turbulent headwinds of tariffs could, in the worst-case scenario, blow a billion-dollar hole in the spending plan.

Finance Minister Jim Reiter tabled the 2025-26 budget.

It projects a $12-million surplus this fiscal year on spending of $21 billion, with even larger surpluses expected in the years to follow.

However, the budget doesn't set aside money to offset potential massive losses, as Canada fights an ongoing trade war with the United States and faces one with China starting this week.

Health and education spending will stay at current levels while the budget banks on benefiting from a rising population, growing oil and uranium revenues, and stabilized markets for potash.

More Coming.

The first Saskatchewan budget under Finance Minister Jim Reiter projects a $12.1-million surplus, but does not factor in tariffs.

REGINA – As concerns are being raised over the release of Jared Charles into the community, the Regina Police Service (RPS) held a media availability on Wednesday regarding the matter.

Charles, who was released on Tuesday, has a criminal history of violent sexual offences and kidnapping involving children.

According to RPS deputy chief Lorilee Davies, Charles will be living in the Heritage Community in a residence approved by the court.

Under conditions given by the court, Charles cannot contact or access certain areas with children under the age of 16.

However, Davies said, Charles has made it clear he’s unwilling to abide by the conditions, increasing the risk of re-offending.

“It’s unfortunately the system that we live in,” she said regarding sexual offenders being allowed back into the public despite admitting they won’t follow their conditions.

Reporters asked Davies how his conditions would be monitored.

“Several times a week, partners with probation and Regina Police Service will be checking in to ensure that things are on track,” she said.

Davies also mentioned the RPS patrol officers, who are aware of where Charles resides and will keep an eye out for him.

One difference Davies pointed out between Charles and other sex offenders being released is those people who are released early have more conditions imposed on them.

Since Charles served his full sentence, it limits those condition options.

Along with Charles, the RPS advised of another sex offender, Ted Mercredi in the community yesterday.

Mercredi has been advised to be “a high risk to re-offend sexually and/or violently.”

When asked what more the police can do to ensure the public’s safety, Davies said their hands are a bit tied in that matter.

Even with that, Davies emphasized, “our number one [role is] ensuring that the public is aware that they are residing in our community, so by sharing that [information and] providing those photographs, that is really the key information.”

This week, people have the chance to honour and thank social workers for all they do. 

Social Work Week honours the work being done to help students, families, seniors, groups and communities to enhance their wellbeing. The theme honouring that this year is 'social work is everywhere'.

A presentation was made at Monday's Swift Current city council meeting, where afterwards the city officially proclaimed March 16 to the 22 as Social Work Week. Kimberly Duguette, a student support team member with the Saskatchewan Distance Learning Centre, and Jennifer Stad, a social worker at The Meadows, spoke at that presentation. 

"The aim of social work is to help people or communities develop skills to overcome problems and struggles," said Duguette. "The duties of social work vary depending on your setting, so services can be provided in a team or a group setting, but also one-to-one. It could be public or private practice or communities."

Social workers can be found working in justice, disabilities, child protection, schools, hospitals, primary health clinics, long-term care, victim services, family support, counselling, and more. 

In Swift Current, social workers can be found in the Chinook School Division. The health authority also employs social workers at the Cypress Regional Hospital for mental health, acute care, palliative care, home care, and addictions social work. 

The EI Wood building has social workers. The Ministry of Social Services has social workers. Fresh Start, The Centre, the RCMP, child protective services, and even income assistance have social workers. 

"They're kind of everywhere," said Stad.

In total, there are currently 64 registered social workers operating in southwest Saskatchewan. Stad predicted that the number is probably a little higher in reality, as they don't need to be licensed bodies to practice social work. 

To honour Social Work Week, Métis elder Barb Parchman will meet with the Swift Current branch of the Saskatchewan Association of Social Workers to teach them about Métis traditions and finger weaving. 

A southwest resident was recently convicted and sentenced on several charges stemming from an armed break-and-enter after more than two years in and out of court.

Joseph Denis, from the Town of Kyle, was convicted on Wednesday, March 12 in the Court of King's Bench in Swift Current on one count of break-and-enter with a firearm, one count of intent to commit an indictable offence while masked, one count of theft while armed, and one count of possession of a loaded prohibited firearm.

The 52-year-old was credited with 450 days and will spend the next four years incarcerated, as of last Wednesday. 

A lifetime firearms prohibition was also imposed on Denis, along with an order to provide a DNA sample and a $400 surcharge that was paid on the day of the sentencing.

He was initially arrested on February 22, 2023, after Swift Current Rural RCMP received a report of a break-and-enter with weapons at a residence located on Standard Street in Pennant.

An Everbridge advisory was put out to notify the community while a combined team of law enforcement located and arrested Denis along with Kyle's Ashley Decoste, who was 37 years old at the time.

During the process, RCMP seized stolen property, a Mossberg Model 88 shotgun, a knife, and disguises that were used in the robbery.

Saskatchewan Highway Patrol, Conservation Officers, and the RCMP confiscated a haul of contraband near Swift Current on March 12. 

The three branches were working together on a check stop near Swift Current. After checking a semi-truck, one of 30 contacts made, they discovered 400 illicit cigarettes.

In all, six tickets were issued to the driver of the semi-truck. 

The officers also performed three patrols of southern reservoirs, checking in on late-season anglers. No results from these checks have been published. 

My inay taught me to clean from a young age: to dust, then wash, then dry. To reach every crevice from the ceiling to the floor. To distinguish the best textures of cloth for wood and for glass. 

But I was a child. So, some days, when I was off playing outside and she would come back home for a fleeting hour with some cash in her hands, and put on her floral scrubs for her next shift at the nursing home, she’d give a scornful look at me and the mess I left, and ask:

“Why is my house dirtier than the ones I clean?”

I could never answer. 

I’d just pick up the red bucket from the laundry room and start to mop. Like she would be, 20 minutes away in the better part of town. Like my dad would be, 10 minutes away at the car factory past the canal. For years, I wouldn’t tell my friends what my parents’ jobs were. I’d be vague. My mom the nurse. My dad the factory worker. I’d hide them, tuck them away where they couldn’t be seen. Like a dirty secret. Like trash.

***

The news reported that over 100 containers with two tonnes of garbage waste disguised as plastic recycling were shipped from Vancouver to Manila starting in 2013. 

I was 12. 

That same year, nearly 30,000 Filipinos became permanent residents in Canada, and I celebrated my confirmation at the local church. 

That same year, Super Typhoon Haiyan hit, and my mom and I would keep up with the news on the 24 Oras program on the GMA Network; watching Mike Enriquez narrate the trajectory of the almost 315 km/hour winds that would knock down whole barangays in the Eastern Visayas region in a language I couldn’t understand.

That same year, my future boyfriend in Samar would go four months without electricity. We would send remittances back home to our family members, along with over 2.3 million overseas Filipino workers who felt their motherland cry out. 

***

In Vancouver, the most home I have ever felt is after midnight at the University of British Columbia when all the students are gone. With the lights dimmed and the shroud of student life shredded, the custodial workers become fully visible. Their bodies take up the seats. Their language and their laughter and their chismis fill the silence and echo through the empty spaces they have long memorized. Most of the workers I see are Filipino. Most of them are ignored, overworked, and underappreciated.  

Who then, will clean up after the revolution?

They remind me of my parents. 

In my organizing with Sulong, a Filipino youth collective, we talk to these custodial workers for a campaign to restore their access to the on-campus food bank. In one of these conversations, we talk about the encampment outside the student centre. The barriers of flags, art, and miscellaneous items that in themselves contain the hopes of a better liberatory future, for an unoccupied Palestine. 

Though what I heard from one worker is far from that reality. 

She tells me that, as some students were protesting, shit was thrown onto floors and walls in a washroom that she had to clean up. I was livid. For her sake. For my parents’ sake. I imagined my mother having to scrub the stench off the tiles, to swallow her dignity and pride to keep the job, to support the family, to get food on the table. 

By rejecting the institution through waste, they failed to recognize the very ones who labour to clean it. The very ones who keep it running. 

Who then, will clean up after the revolution? 

Who then, will clean up the mess of the world after you’ve won?

***

“Sayang!” She yelled, “what a waste!” 

My inay took the green vegetables I threw into the compost bin when she wasn’t looking and with a large sigh, placed them back onto my plate to eat. I had gotten too excited for ice cream sandwiches.

I can still recall the taste of that broccoli with its hints of coffee grinds and onion on my tongue. I can still feel the shame. The crunch in my teeth. The earth reclaiming itself in my mouth. I swallowed it down, gagging. 

“Anak, be grateful for what you have.”

***

On the #10 bus, my boyfriend and I are debating about the differences between Toronto and Vancouver, and I say I like the grittiness of Ontario more. That Vancouver is too sanitized. That they concentrate their disposed into one area in the Downtown Eastside. He agrees. 

“But Vancouver reminds me of the Philippines because of the mountains,” he says, smiling.

And I, with embarrassment, remind him that Ontario is the only home I know. That I was born here. That I am not like him. 

He disagrees. “You’re as much of a Filipino as I am.”

Later that day, we make kaldereta with some other kasamas in their apartment. We thank the workers and the farmers whose hands and bodies harvested the vegetables on our plate. We thank the Earth herself.

I ask one of them, a civil engineer, about the waste systems in Vancouver. They say the sewage systems are not separate from rainwater which can cause overflow, a problem exacerbated by increasingly frequent downpours.  

I ask about the Philippines, and we talk about how vital protective infrastructure has been violently degraded through mining operations, logging, and increasing militarization. That the Sierra Madre, the vast mountain range in Luzon that protects urban dwellers and local Indigenous peoples from typhoons forming in the Pacific Ocean has considerably depleted. 

During the bus ride downtown, outside the window on Burrard Street, I see the office building for OceanaGold, a mining company that expropriates resources from the Philippines, and I wish for it to burn.

***

In 1988, then-president Corazon Aquino confidently stood before overseas Filipino workers in Hong Kong and called them the Bagong-Bayani, the “modern-day heroes” of the Philippines, saying that the sacrifices that they had made for their nation were worth it. 

My mom was a live-in caregiver at the time in Singapore, attending to the domestic duties of some wealthy family. The youngest of five, she abandoned her studies so she could send money back home by taking care of another’s child. 

Eight years after that, in 1996, my sister was born in St. Catharines, Ontario. 

A year before my sister took her first breath, in 1995, Flor Contemplacion, a live-in caregiver in Singapore was sentenced to death by the Singaporean Supreme Court for the alleged murder of another Filipina domestic worker and a child. An explosion of outrage would follow. Migrante International, a migrant rights organization for overseas Filipino workers, would be created in response. 

Sometimes I wonder if Flor thought herself a hero, then.

Right before they placed the noose around her neck.

***

During the U.S. occupation of the Philippines from the late 19th to the mid-20th century, it was the waste and sewage systems that were among the interventions meant to both uplift the Filipino people from their “savagery” and protect the American military forces from the Filipinos’ “predisposition” to disease. 

If I have learned anything from my graduate degree in public health, it is that health has always been a tool of control. Because if the Filipinos didn’t survive, if the waste and sewage systems were not reconstructed, then who else would clean your homes?

***

One of the earliest memories I have with my dad is at Port Dalhousie, watching him diligently polish boat after boat. I think maybe it reminded him of Cebu. The ocean. The bangka gliding through the clear waters into a limitless horizon.

After he lost his job, my mom would get a second one under the table as a cleaner. He doesn’t talk about it much, or of anything, really. That was the issue.  

“I hate him,” I’d whine.

Complaining in my mom’s bedroom became almost ritual. 

“He loves you,” she’d assure me, stroking my cheek. “He cares so much about you.”

“Then why can’t I feel it?”

I remember watching through the crack of the door as he gave his credit card information to a man on the phone who told him that our family won a cruise trip. I heard the excitement in his voice as he readily listed off the security code in broken English. He was going to do something good for us. 

It was a scam of course. 

My mom was furious. He had a habit of being taken advantage of. Of being too nice, too friendly to his white co-workers who would laugh behind his back. Too naive. 

Still, when we drive by the canal, I see his longing eyes watch the huge shipping boats with their loads of crates pass by. I know. His home is not here. 

He’d purse and point his lips.

“Look.”

***

In 2024, Migrante BC protested in front of the Promise Land Consultancy in Vancouver to call attention to the thousands of migrants scammed for upwards of $300,000 by fraudulent immigration consultant services. The agency would promise permanent residency, but upon their arrival to Canada, would leave racialized migrants stranded without status or work.

In 2000, a typhoon hit a large 22- to 45-metre-tall municipal garbage dump in Manila that housed around 3,000 impoverished Filipinos. The monsoon rains would cause a large avalanche of garbage that buried shanties and killed hundreds of people. Entire families lost underneath carpets of grime. 

The locals call their community Lupang Pangako: The Promised Land.

***

And if it’s true. 

If dirt really is “matter out of place” as Mary Douglas and environmental scholars say, then my mom and my dad, custodial workers, Filipino migrants, must be the dirt of the world.

If to be clean, is really to be pure, to wash oneself of sin, of muck, of dirt, then why is to clean, to be discarded, invisible, dirty? How is it that the people who clean are considered unclean? Why is the work of waste not the work of care? 

I wonder why our ancestors became humans when we could’ve become butterflies. Why people created borders when we could’ve been free. 

***

At a Palestine protest downtown, I walk up to the podium with conviction, sweat dripping down my back. I tell the crowd that the bombs that rain down in Gaza are the same ones that rain down on Lumad Indigenous school kids in the Philippines. That the Philippines is one of the most dangerous places to be an environmental activist and land defender. That the Philippine government denied their involvement in the kidnapping of environmental activists Jonila Castro and Jhed Tamano for simply opposing the land reclamation of Manila Bay, one of the last coastal frontiers protecting the city from the effects of increasingly dangerous tropical storms. (After going against the official government narrative,  they were accused of spreading fake news and being leftist organizers.) That Filipinos, regardless of their status as the “best caregivers,” are not cared for. That the flow of trash from Canada to the Philippines parallels the flow of migrant labour from the Philippines to Canada. That Palestine and the Philippines will never be free without environmental justice. 

I am screaming. I am angry. I am grieving. 

I almost pass out from the heat.

***

In a story my mom often tells me, she is doing the laundry in Singapore when a black butterfly lands nearby. That’s when she knew her mother died, her soul flew across the ocean to find her, to say her last goodbye. Her brother would call a month later telling her that their mother was gone, had died weeks earlier, but they didn’t want to worry or distract her. That there was no funeral to attend anymore. To work. To keep working.

I wonder why our ancestors became humans when we could’ve become butterflies. Why people created borders when we could’ve been free. 

Maybe mom was right. Maybe only in death do we return to nature. Maybe “out of sight, out of mind” is a lie we tell ourselves to not face the realities of our disposability. 

Maybe the truest form of care in this world is the care that goes unseen.

*This essay was the winner of the creative non-fiction category of our 14th annual Writing in the Margins contest, judged by Erica H. Isomura. We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Regina Public Interest Research Group (RPIRG) for this year’s contest.