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Programs needed to teach young farmers

Toni De Guzman 2 minute read 8:22 AM CDT

Many Manitoba farmers are worried there are less young people replacing retiring farmers because of the lack of access to the career, programs, and rising costs.

“It’s such a huge thing we’re coming up against, and there’s no proper plan to deal with this huge transition that’s coming up,” said Katie McInnes, a first-generation farmer near Clearwater, Man.

Less than one in ten, 8.6 percent, farm operators were under 35 years, according to Statistics Canada. Three in five, 60.5 percent, farm operators are 55 or older in 2021.

McInnes, 39, and her husband grew up in Winnipeg, and she had no ties to farming, land, or anything agriculture related — until 2013 when they decided to move.

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Niverville partners with province on PR 311

Matthew Frank 3 minute read Preview

Niverville partners with province on PR 311

Matthew Frank 3 minute read Yesterday at 8:59 PM CDT

The province and Town of Niverville are partnering to fund road improvements on Provincial Road 311, which also functions as the town’s Main Street, in hopes of serving more businesses and residents.

The $17.7 million project, with $9.7 million coming from Manitoba, will include expanding the roadway to four lanes on the western half of the project, adding a new roundabout and turning lanes. That work will be done from Wallace Road to Arena Road.

The improvements, announced on April 17, will also include road resurfacing and drainage ending at 5th Avenue. Businesses along Main Street will contend with two years of detours when work begins.

The Niverville Olde Tyme Country Fair, an August festival that happens on Main Street, currently remains unaffected, said Mayor Myron Dyck, noting the town will alert contractors about the festival.

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Yesterday at 8:59 PM CDT

Capital campaign nears end, hospice planned

Greg Vandermeulen 3 minute read Preview

Capital campaign nears end, hospice planned

Greg Vandermeulen 3 minute read Yesterday at 5:04 PM CDT

A $22 million capital fundraising campaign is nearing its goal, strides are being made to connect Steinbach youth to health-care jobs and hospice planning is continuing for Bethesda Foundation.

Members of its board met with Steinbach city council at their strategic priorities committee meeting on April 14 to share what was a laundry list of positive news.

Board chair Chris Goertzen told council their capital campaign, dedicated to raising $22 million, has been a success.

“We have a lot of generous donors and we’re virtually complete,” he said, explaining they had only $400,000 left to raise.

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Yesterday at 5:04 PM CDT

COLUMN: Report from the Legislature – More concerns about Sio Silica

Bob Lagasse, MLA for Dawson Trail 2 minute read Yesterday at 2:44 PM CDT

While I have always taken my role as the elected official for Dawson Trail very seriously and have always prioritized serving constituents over party politics, becoming an Independent has only strengthened my ability to continue doing so. My core values have not changed, but by removing partisan politics, it has opened the floor for me to have meaningful conversations directly with the ministers, which greatly benefits the residents of Dawson Trail, as I am able to provide them with the transparency they deserve, as well as ensure that their voices are being heard and their concerns are being addressed.

One such example is the Sio Silica Sands project. The proposed mining of silica sands by Sio Silica has been raised numerous times over the last few years, but it has become increasingly concerning as of late. In a recent interview with the president of Sio Silica, Carla Devlin stated that there is a 15 billion-tonne supply of silica sands in Manitoba, and they intend to drill all of it. Drilling will begin as soon as they receive approval on an environmental license.

The mining company has proposed drilling mines in southeastern Manitoba, in the RM of Springfield, to extract silica sand. The extracted sand can be used to produce solar panels, batteries, microchips, semiconductors, and Devlin states, it can even be used to aid in national defense. While this all sounds very positive, the health and environmental risks associated with the silica sand mines far outweigh the pros. Silica sand mining destroys ecosystems, causes air pollution, and threatens groundwater supply through the risk of contamination and depletion of aquifers. These health and environmental concerns are exactly why the project proposal was rejected by the provincial government in 2024.

I have contacted the minister’s office regarding the Sio Silica Sands project and the inevitable health and environmental risks associated with it. We must do everything we can to protect our environment so that we can continue living long, healthy, and safe lives. Therefore, I will continue to speak out and have these important conversations to ensure that people’s concerns are being heard and that the health and safety of Manitobans is not being compromised.

Dauphin parting ways with MJHL head coach

Cassidy Dankochik 2 minute read Preview

Dauphin parting ways with MJHL head coach

Cassidy Dankochik 2 minute read Yesterday at 12:00 PM CDT

Doug Hedley will no longer lead the Dauphin Kings in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League.

The team announced April 15 Hedley and the organization, “have mutually agreed to part ways.”

Hedley joined Dauphin at the beginning of the 2018/2019 season for his latest stint for the Kings, moving from the Northern Manitoba Blizzard. Hedley, who is from Dauphin, has been the head coach for the Kings on three separate occasions across 15 total seasons.

“As the team looks to move in a different direction, the organization extends its sincere appreciation to Doug for his dedication and commitment to the program,” a Kings social medial post reads.

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Yesterday at 12:00 PM CDT

Regenerative farming: Overby shares his insight with neighbors to the north

Wes Keating 3 minute read Preview

Regenerative farming: Overby shares his insight with neighbors to the north

Wes Keating 3 minute read Yesterday at 11:12 AM CDT

A North Dakota grain producer has taken crop diversity to a whole new level with the addition of a wide variety of crops to a regular rotation, as he practises regenerative farming methods on his 1,800-acre farm, just south of the International Peace Gardens.

Paul Overby shared his insight with a large group of farmers at the fourth annual Regen Day hosted by the Seine Rat Roseau River Watershed District at Friedensfeld Community Centre in February.

Overby told farmers that regenerative farming practices were a way to enrich the soil and improve watersheds, while at the same time, increasing yields and resistance to climate instability.

Paul and his wife Diane operate a leading-edge regenerative agriculture farm, raising a diverse mix of canola, flax, field peas, hard red spring wheat, millet, oats, sunflowers, and soybeans.

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Yesterday at 11:12 AM CDT

Ritchot maintains mill rate, mayor said lowering rate “not a good thing”

Svjetlana Mlinarevic 6 minute read Preview

Ritchot maintains mill rate, mayor said lowering rate “not a good thing”

Svjetlana Mlinarevic 6 minute read Yesterday at 8:16 AM CDT

The RM of Ritchot approved its 2026 budget last Wednesday with the mill rate remaining steady for the ninth year in a row at 7.95 mills, despite property value reassessments by the province last year that saw some residents’ values increasing.

“I don’t think we should ever see a lowering of the mill rate. It’s never a good thing in anything,” said Mayor Chris Ewen. “You don’t see your groceries ever go down. They continue to stay up or they stay the same. I think the same should apply for mill rates.

“We continue to keep that line. And we just take advantage of the assessment value going up and how we can implement that for a positive outcome for the municipality and the residents that are participating.”

Ewen said as the municipality continues to grow with residential, industrial, and commercial properties moving in, increased taxes collected through the increased property values will fund projects that need to be done in the RM. He said by keeping the mill rate the same, residents shouldn’t see their taxes change “dramatically.”

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Yesterday at 8:16 AM CDT

PHOTO GALLERY: Metal wrestling madness in Mitchell

Matthew Frank 1 minute read Preview

PHOTO GALLERY: Metal wrestling madness in Mitchell

Matthew Frank 1 minute read Sunday, Apr. 26, 2026

Canadian Wrestling Elite’s “Rage in the Cage” fight night in Mitchell on April 18.

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Sunday, Apr. 26, 2026

SPORTS FLASHBACK 1991: Manaigre leads Manitoba to silver at ringette nationals

Wes Keating 3 minute read Preview

SPORTS FLASHBACK 1991: Manaigre leads Manitoba to silver at ringette nationals

Wes Keating 3 minute read Sunday, Apr. 26, 2026

Fifteen-year-old Gaetane Manaigre of Lorette was instrumental in helping the Manitoba Juniors win the silver medal at the Canadian Ringette Championships in Hull, Quebec.

It is the second silver medal Manaigre has won at the national championships in two years. As a 14-year-old at the nationals in Calgary last year, she won silver with the Eastman Flames Juniors. The Junior Division for girls, 15 and under.

Last week at Hull, Manaigre, who is a center, was the second leading scorer on the Manitoba team during the week, scoring six goals and setting up 10 others.

In the semi-finals, against Saskatchewan, Manaigre scored the tying goal, then the winner in overtime, as Manitoba won 7-6, to earn a berth in the gold medal game.

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Sunday, Apr. 26, 2026

COLUMN: Tales from the Gravel Ridge – An oven that functioned well

Maria Falk Lodge 4 minute read Preview

COLUMN: Tales from the Gravel Ridge – An oven that functioned well

Maria Falk Lodge 4 minute read Sunday, Apr. 26, 2026

Whether or not you need a well-functioning oven in your kitchen depends, to some degree, on the cooking and baking habits of those in your household, and more specifically, on the habits of the individual responsible for meal preparation. In our present context such responsibilities might vary from time to time and, of course, from one household to another. We have options today that weren’t always the case in the past.

In the community of my childhood, the responsibility for such an essential aspect of the needs and habits of a family fell to the mother of the home, or possibly the older daughters. During the first decade or so of my life, the community of Rosengard had no electricity. In large part, the cook-stove in our kitchen helped to heat our house. In addition to that important function, it was also vital for the preparation of all cooked and baked foods. The fact that our community did not have electricity until the late 1940s or early 1950s was not a problem for us. After all, we were not accustomed to having light and power provided to us. As long as we had a source of trees to harvest and a means of cutting them into suitable size pieces to stoke our stoves, we were set to go. Mr. D.D. Ginter was the man to go to for such services. He had a reliable wood-sawing business, and as far as I know, he was the only person in our neighbourhood who could provide that essential service.

All that to say, no matter how diverse your recipe library might be, nor to what degree your culinary skills have been developed, some source of heat is required to prepare most properly cooked meals. When you are accustomed to turning on a switch, and as a result your electric oven heats up, you are caught by surprise when no such magic happens. It’s quite intriguing how ingenious you can become if necessity asks it of you. Under such circumstances it becomes imperative that you make alternative arrangements, such as cooking a turkey on top of your electric stove. Of course that can happen only if the quandary you’re in doesn’t mean a loss of electric power altogether.

From my own experience, I can attest to the fact that my mother knew how to prepare delicious, nourishing meals. She did so day after day, and I have no doubt that the women of our neighbourhood in their own unique ways did as well. In the context of writing a paper some years ago, I interviewed members of my own family as well as others of the community regarding how their respective mothers, many decades earlier, had managed, within limited resources, to prepare satisfying meals. It was heart-warming how universally they responded somewhat along the line that, “She knew how to make it work”. Their replies and comments didn’t however come as a surprise to me. The families of our neighbourhood were not well off generally, and had managed to survive, and in their own way to thrive, during the worldwide Great Depression of the 1930s. They simply kept on doing what they had always done. After all, what were their options.

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Sunday, Apr. 26, 2026

DANKOCHIK’S DRAFTINGS: Summer sports season, here we come

Cassidy Dankochik 2 minute read Preview

DANKOCHIK’S DRAFTINGS: Summer sports season, here we come

Cassidy Dankochik 2 minute read Sunday, Apr. 26, 2026

There’s no week I look forward to more than when I can finally step out of the hockey rink and start taking in some outdoor sports, although it’s a terrible joke this year when we could be on pace to have the first high school baseball games of the season actually not be derailed by weather, I’ll be rushing off to Virden to try and catch the potentially decisive game four of the Manitoba Junior Hockey League finals.

There’s a little bit of a practical preference for the summer sports season. The sun is the best lighting for photos you could ever wish for so to have it beating down when you’re taking high frame rate photos is so much more fun than underneath arena lights that can be lacking.

There’s also a natural desire to be outdoors after a long season inside rinks, but I think why I look forward to getting outside so much goes beyond that.

There’s a smell, a feel even a taste to outdoor sports. Cut grass and chalk, the wind on your skin, even the classic handful of sunflower seeds at a ball game. Just looking at the sky and hoping a rain cloud will skew north or south and avoid the diamond has a bit of magic as well.

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Sunday, Apr. 26, 2026

COLUMN: Village News – We welcome spring

Robert Goertzen 4 minute read Preview

COLUMN: Village News – We welcome spring

Robert Goertzen 4 minute read Sunday, Apr. 26, 2026

Spring in Manitoba is a wonderful time of year. Daylight hours are getting longer. The temperature is edging towards above zero for nighttime and double digits for daytime. We hear a variety of songbirds from dawn until dusk. And we begin to see grass blades, flower shoots, and tree branches becoming green as they reach for sunlight and soak in the spring rains.

At Mennonite Heritage Village we are experiencing many of the same scenes as we look forward to the May 1 opening of our outdoor village. Our facilities maintenance team is cleaning up the grounds, picking up broken branches, identifying repairs that are needed to our heritage buildings, and tuning up the mowing equipment for another busy summer. The farmyard is about to get filled with the loaned or donated animals from local farmers who are eager to support the museum. The animals are a highlight for visitors of every age.

Our curators are lining up work crews to tackle the summer projects of repairing and replacing roofs and wallboards on the heritage buildings. They are identifying pieces of equipment for our mechanically inclined volunteers who want to get another antique car or tractor operational and running this summer. And they are refurnishing the heritage buildings with curtains, rugs and mattresses to create a realistic representation of ‘the way things were’.

Inside, our retail staff is stocking the stores with local wares, the latest novel or family history by a local author, and memorabilia for our visitors who will arrive from around the province and from around the world. And our program team is organizing the school trips expected in May and June, setting up training sessions to train new blacksmiths, printers, sawyers, schnetje bakers, and museum interpreters, and they are booking music entertainers for our festivals.

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Sunday, Apr. 26, 2026

AS I SEE IT COLUMN: Does Hellebuyck want out? If so, good riddance

James Loewen 4 minute read Preview

AS I SEE IT COLUMN: Does Hellebuyck want out? If so, good riddance

James Loewen 4 minute read Sunday, Apr. 26, 2026

If you saw Connor Hellebuyck’s interview last week, this much is clear: he is seriously questioning his future in Winnipeg and has doubts about the Jets ever winning the Stanley Cup, the only silverware he hasn’t yet won.

He talked about the “chaos” in front of him, complained about how many screens and tipped shots he had to deal with and questioned management’s roster decisions. Sadly but unsurprisingly, his disappointment about the season had to do with everyone except himself. Hellebuyck’s complete and utter lack of accountability, introspection and self-awareness is astonishing.

He made a comment that proved – yet again – that Hellebuyck at times can be completely unattached to reality. He had the audacity to say his game “wasn’t different before or after” the Olympics. Huh? He lost a bunch of games when he returned from Milan, when Jets fans hoped he might bring some Olympic magic to the Jets crease. Didn’t happen.

We’re not idiots Connor. You did not play as well after the Olympics as you did during. Not even close. Please don’t insult our intelligence.

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Sunday, Apr. 26, 2026

At Agape House, education is a key part of how we work to prevent domestic violence before it begins. While crisis support remains at the heart of our work, creating opportunities for learning and conversation in the community is an important step toward long-term change.

As the outreach coordinator, my role focuses on bringing this education directly into the community. This includes connecting with youth, professionals, and community groups across the Southeast to facilitate conversations around healthy relationships, boundaries, consent, and recognizing the signs of abuse.

A large part of this work takes place in schools, where I engage with youth in conversations about what healthy relationships look like. These discussions help build awareness early on, giving young people the tools and confidence to recognize red flags, set boundaries, and communicate in safe and respectful ways. This work also extends into summer programming, where I partner with local agencies to run groups for youth that incorporate crafts, activities, and interactive discussions. These spaces focus on building self-esteem, confidence, and positive relationship skills in a way that is engaging and accessible.

I also work with adult groups, service providers, and local organizations to provide workshops on gender-based violence and how to support those who may be experiencing abuse. Recently, there has been growing interest from workplaces and faith-based communities, including churches, who are wanting to better understand these issues and learn how to respond in a meaningful way.

COLUMN: The Carillon Flashback May 27, 1986 Reimer says education gave him a fuller life

Wes Keating 3 minute read Preview

COLUMN: The Carillon Flashback May 27, 1986 Reimer says education gave him a fuller life

Wes Keating 3 minute read Saturday, Apr. 25, 2026

Students today don’t appreciate the opportunity to go to school because they don’t have to make any sacrifices to get an education, according to P.J.B. Reimer of Rosenort.

Reimer, 83, who taught in the Hanover and Morris Macdonald School Divisions for 43 years, recalls how difficult it was for him to get an education and how it had been impossible for his grandfather to go to college.

Reimer was expected to follow the family tradition of farming, but his father asked the church bishop to give his youngest son permission to attend school past the age of 14. The Mennonite church the family belonged to frowned on higher education at that time, because they thought it was dangerous.

The bishop granted permission with the condition that Reimer would teach in Mennonite communities. Throughout his teaching career, Reimer adhered to that condition.

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Saturday, Apr. 25, 2026

Niverville increases taxes by 2.5 percent for 2026, but lowers mill rate

Svjetlana Mlinarevic 4 minute read Preview

Niverville increases taxes by 2.5 percent for 2026, but lowers mill rate

Svjetlana Mlinarevic 4 minute read Saturday, Apr. 25, 2026

The Town of Niverville approved its 2026 budget on Tuesday, which will see residents paying 2.5 percent more on their taxes than last year, but council has lowered the mill rate to 9.273 mills, compared to last year’s 11.659 mills.

“We passed a 2.5 percent tax rate increase for the community. It’s lower than inflation, and we’re able to keep it low thanks to growth,” said Mayor Myron Dyck.

“So, when your assessment moves, you can choose to either keep your mill rate the same, which means that essentially your tax rate’s going up by the same as your assessment percentage, or you can reduce the mill rate, which is what we did, to get it to 2.5 percent…And some communities are choosing to (increase the mill rate), but we chose not to,” he added when asked if council took into consideration the increase in property values as last year was a reassessment year for the province.

The increase will see residents paying $57.04 more on their property taxes if their home was valued at $399,800.

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Saturday, Apr. 25, 2026

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