Manitoba’s best young athletes, including nearly 100 from The Carillon’s coverage region, will be in Thompson next week for the Manitoba Winter Games.

Sports at the games include skiing, archery, badminton, curling, figure skating, futsal, gymnastics, hockey, ringette, speed skating and wrestling.

The province is divided into regions, with some area athletes suiting up for Team East and some for Team South. The games begin March 1, with athletes between 10 and 17 participating.

Hockey has the most athletes from Eastman set to play, with 24 total athletes set to make the trip up North.

I would like to take this opportunity to discuss some recent behaviour displayed by Premier Wab Kinew.

On Jan. 24, the MLA for Swan River, Rick Wowchuk, was supposed to speak at the grand opening event for the new cultural arts centre at Swan Valley Regional Secondary School. However, he was informed the night before the event that his invitation had been rescinded. This decision was made not by the Swan Valley School Division, who organized the event, but by the premier and his chief of staff, who dictated to the organizers who could and could not speak at the event. When Premier Wab Kinew was later asked about his government rescinding the invitation, he repeatedly brushed past the questions and made insulting statements about MLA Wowchuk, referring to him as “not a good guy,” “a backbench PC MLA,” and saying who cares about him and his feelings.

Not only are these actions and remarks incredibly immature and disrespectful, but they also display a complete abuse of power. The premier should not be dictating whether or not MLAs can speak at community-organized events in their own ridings. The fact that that is what he is choosing to focus his time and energy on signifies the start of what could be a very slippery slope into greater abuses of power. It also shows just how greatly disconnected the NDPs are from what is really important.

As MLA Wowchuk stated in the video of the speech he planned to deliver at the grand opening, we should be putting our political differences aside so that great things can happen for our communities. He mentioned how the former PC government was able to complete an 8,400 square foot trades building on the school’s grounds in 2018 that had been started by the previous NDP government, and now we see it again with the cultural arts centre that was started by the former PC government and has now been completed by the NDPs.

The Steinbach Arts Council invites you to our annual fundraising gala on Friday, May 1. Featuring gourmet local cuisine, fine wine, local entertainment, and a curated auction. Funds raised directly support subsidized programs, bursaries, free youth programming, and the growth of therapeutic arts initiatives in our region.

Thank you to our generous gala sponsors. A full list of sponsors is available on our event website.

To reserve your table, contact sydney@steinbacharts.ca or call 204-346-1077.

Southeast community comes together for the opening of Southeast Open Judged Art Exhibit

A southeastern Manitoba man was found guilty of groping and assaulting his girlfriend on Feb. 20.

Provincial court Judge Donald Slough read his decision in a Steinbach court room after a two-day trial concluded in December. The accused was found guilty to two counts of sexual assault and one count of assault.

The Carillon can’t release the names of the complainant or the accused due to a court-ordered publication ban.

The 20-year-old was called to the stand, dressed in a black suit and wearing sneakers, and listened to Slough’s verdict.

Seine River School Division has asked the province for portable classrooms for next school year after Manitoba’s decision to deny the division’s similar request last year.

Superintendent Colin Campbell told school board trustees Tuesday night the division has requested eight units for the 2026-2027 school year for schools in Ste Anne, La Broquerie, La Salle and St Adolphe.

“These are legitimate needs that we need, like today. It’s important that we are given a fair shot to receive these modular classrooms,” Campbell told The Carillon.

He pointed to the rapid enrollment growth across the division, adding up to roughly two schools’ worth of students, as the biggest need for the extra space. Seine River School Division reported its enrollment grew by over 800 students for all schools from 2020 to 2025, with last year seeing 140 new students joining the division as of November.

Children who experience or witness violence are often impacted in ways that are not always immediately visible. Trauma and prolonged stress in childhood can disrupt normal development and affect behaviour, physical and mental health, learning, and relationships. Understanding how trauma can show up—and how caregivers can respond—can play an important role in a child’s healing.

Signs a child may be struggling

According to children’s counsellor Samantha, children can react to trauma in many different ways. Some may show physical symptoms such as frequent stomach aches or headaches, trouble sleeping, or changes in bladder control like bedwetting. Others may struggle cognitively, including difficulty focusing, poor memory, or challenges at school.

Behavioural and emotional changes are also common. Caregivers may notice increased aggression or impulsivity, defiance, social withdrawal, emotional outbursts, anxiety, or low mood. For children who have experienced ongoing trauma, their nervous system may remain in a constant state of fight, flight, or freeze, which can make it difficult for them to trust others or feel safe in relationships.

If there’s one thing that the Olympic semi-finals showed, it’s that the NHL must immediately change their offsides review process.

Canada scored a memorable winner against Finland in the semi-finals, but Finland challenged for offside in desperation, for a zone entry nearly a minute before Nathan MacKinnon’s strike.

The offsides review process was put into place after a linesperson missed a call by three feet on a breakaway pass. It should not be used to challenge millimetre calls for goals that were scored minutes later.

This isn’t to call out Team Finland for challenging, under the rules it was 100 per cent the correct decision and gamble, even when they got a two minute bench minor for getting the challenge wrong, with 30 seconds to go, it was a better chance to reverse that call than score with 30 seconds.

After months of relentless opposition from pro-choice organizations, Quebec Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette reluctantly removed a reference to abortion rights from his government’s proposed Quebec constitution.

The clause in question said, “the state protects women’s freedom to have recourse to a voluntary termination of pregnancy.”

It might seem strange that pro-choice advocates would oppose a move to enshrine the right to an abortion. After all, the primary mission of these organizations is to promote abortion rights. But there’s a very clear reason for their opposition to this particular clause—and it had everything to do with being politically strategic.

The reason pro-choice organizations led the charge against a clause enshrining abortion rights was because they knew it would be vulnerable to a legal challenge. Pro-choice advocates prefer the status quo where there is a complete legal void on this issue. This way, they can continue promoting the narrative that abortion is simply healthcare and should be treated like any other medical procedure.

Heartbreak. Anguish. Grief. Despair. Disbelief. After 12 long years of eagerly waiting for best-on-best Olympic hockey, the hockey gods had it in for the clearly superior Canadian squad. Our arch rivals beat us in overtime, proving that sport, like life, isn’t always fair.

Team USA needed a miracle to win their last gold medal in 1980 and they needed another miracle to win Olympic gold in 2026.

Canada was clearly the better team. No rational hockey fan could look at that gold medal game and say the best team won.

If it was a best of seven series, Canada would win decisively. (Speaking of which, let’s have another Summit Series like we had in 1972, only this time it should be Canada versus the U.S. It would be epic.)