E-edition front page
E-edition front page

Replica E-edition published weekly Log in to read your copy

Homepage

Bike jam after dark

Chris Gareau 1 minute read 2:17 PM CDT

The first Bike Jam of the year is nocturnal.

Normally on the third Sunday of the month, this one will be held Saturday, May 24 starting at 8:30 p.m. in E.A. Friesen Park.

The change in date means cyclists of all ages can continue with their long weekend plans. The nighttime ride is meant to avoid potential hot daytime temperatures and discover low-traffic routes with a group.

The After-Dark Bike Jam is for cyclists of all levels wishing to ride under stars and city lights. There is no admission.

Advertisement

Advertise With Us

Weather

May. 18, 6 PM: 12°c Partly cloudy with wind May. 19, 12 AM: 3°c Cloudy with wind

Steinbach MB

6°C, Cloudy with wind

Full Forecast

SPORTS FLASHBACK 2000: Steinbach racer is Manitoba’s best

Wes Keating 4 minute read Preview

SPORTS FLASHBACK 2000: Steinbach racer is Manitoba’s best

Wes Keating 4 minute read 1:49 PM CDT

With aircraft taxiing in the background, Manitoba’s top ranked mountain bike racer, Greg Penner of Steinbach, describes his passion for racing bicycles.

An interview with The Carillon was conducted at Harv’s Air Service, the family business where Penner works as a part-time dispatcher, when he isn’t training.

“My parents are my flexible employers,” chuckles the 22-year-old mountain bike expert.

Penner, who has set lofty goals for himself as an international competitor, has been working at his chosen sport, since he first caught the bug in 1993 as a Grade 10 student at the Steinbach Regional Secondary School. That was when he started riding recreationally in Sandilands Provincial Forest.

Read
1:49 PM CDT

Carillon Archives

Steinbach’s Greg Penner, who rides 400 to 600 kilometres a week during training, is the top ranked bike racer in Manitoba.

Carillon Archives 

Steinbach’s Greg Penner, who rides 400 to 600 kilometres a week during training, is the top ranked bike racer in Manitoba.

Additional enforcement cracks down on Main Street racing

Greg Vandermeulen 2 minute read 11:51 AM CDT

Steinbach council gave approval to a plan that would see the Ste Anne Police Department patrol Main Street as part of a crackdown on racing.

Ste Anne had already participated with Steinbach RCMP for traffic enforcement in the community.

However, the new plan, which has the consensus of council, will see them come out alone.

“They’re willing to do some additional enforcement that they would do more independently, and they would do it through funding provided by Manitoba Public Insurance,” Coun. Michael Zwaagstra said.

Father, daughter go to Netherlands for VE Day ceremonies

Svjetlana Mlinarevic 5 minute read Preview

Father, daughter go to Netherlands for VE Day ceremonies

Svjetlana Mlinarevic 5 minute read 8:33 AM CDT

Eighty years ago, about 175,000 Canadian soldiers fought to liberate the Netherlands from the boot of the Nazi regime. Since that time, the Dutch have been grateful sending Canada tulips every year. This month marks the 80th anniversary of the Second World War and the Dutch held ceremonies commemorating brave Canadian soldiers.

A Ste Anne father and daughter travelled to the Netherlands to honour what is known as VE (Victory in Europe) Day and pay tribute to these soldiers.

“This is 80 years and you hear about it, but it’s a different thing to go and experience what it’s like to witness how much appreciation, respect, and love they have for Canadians, but of course especially for their liberators and that’s how they’re referred to (us)…,” said Gilles Crevier.

“So, even though it’s been generations since this happened, whether they are in their 70s, 80s, 90s, (or) they are in elementary school – it doesn’t matter – every Dutch person in the Netherlands is absolutely grateful for what Canadians did during the war to liberate their country from Nazi occupation. They have never forgotten.”

Read
8:33 AM CDT

FACEBOOK GILLES CREVIER
Gilles and Sara Crevier perform during at the Groesbeek War Cemetery on VE Day in the Netherlands.

FACEBOOK GILLES CREVIER 
Gilles and Sara Crevier perform during at the Groesbeek War Cemetery on VE Day in the Netherlands.

Taché taxes up as community centre cost climbs to $30.2 million

Chris Gareau 5 minute read Preview

Taché taxes up as community centre cost climbs to $30.2 million

Chris Gareau 5 minute read Yesterday at 8:38 PM CDT

Taxes on average will go up seven to 8.6 percent in Tache’s $42.86-million budget, though residents will need to check to see what their property is now worth in this assessment year to see the actual effect on their bill.

The total expense number is mostly driven by the new Tache Community Centre that is expected to start major construction this week. The centre’s cost is now estimated at over $30.2 million, up from $29.5 million estimated last fall. When federal and provincial grants were announced in January 2023, the cost estimate was $11 million.

Tache council approved borrowing up to $6 million for the project to be built beside the current 61-year-old arena in Lorette, which will be torn down after the new facility is built.

The new community centre will combine an arena, library, activity centre with kitchen, and a second floor with program spaces, meeting rooms and administrative areas. The RM believes it will be completed by the end of 2026. The nearby spray pad will be closed during construction.

Read
Yesterday at 8:38 PM CDT

CHRIS GAREAU CARILLON ARCHIVES
The gold shovels of the sod turning ceremony held Oct. 29 for the new Taché Community Centre will soon be replaced by the shovels and heavy equipment building the new arena, library and senior centre in Lorette.

CHRIS GAREAU CARILLON ARCHIVES
The gold shovels of the sod turning ceremony held Oct. 29 for the new Taché Community Centre will soon be replaced by the shovels and heavy equipment building the new arena, library and senior centre in Lorette.

Piney will not raise mill rate for 2025

Svjetlana Mlinarevic 2 minute read Yesterday at 5:08 PM CDT

The RM of Piney will not see much of a change for taxes as it released its financial plan this week with the mill rate remaining the same at 12.09 mills.

“We try to keep our mill rate stable in this area and this budget reflects that and the budget is higher than last year due to increased assessment…pressures on inflation and increased costs we were able to keep the mill rate the same,” said Reeve Wayne Anderson.

This means that a home assessed at $300,000 can expect to pay $3,627 a year in property taxes at the current mill rate.

The operating budget for 2025 is $3.76 million with funds coming from tax revenue ($1.9 million) largely from property taxes and other revenue ($1.8 million).

COLUMN: View from the Legislature – Manitoba can play part in unity

Kelvin Goertzen, MLA for Steinbach 3 minute read Yesterday at 2:15 PM CDT

This past Monday was Manitoba Day. The celebration of our province’s 155th birthday may have gone by unnoticed by many but there was cake to be had to mark the occasion a couple days early at the Mennonite Heritage Village (MHV) Museum. The MHV has been marking Manitoba Day for many years with traditional cake and the raising of the Manitoba flag. It is also a special time for those gathered to share what makes Manitoba special to them.

The stories, whether from residents who have lived in our province their whole lives or just recently come to Manitoba, paint a vast picture of what makes our province special. Many have only ever lived in Manitoba while others came to the province to reunite with family or for employment opportunities. Each had something special to say about the province, from the friendly people to the natural beauty of the province’s lakes and forests.

One of the things that makes Manitoba unique is that it is, literally, right in the middle of Canada. While it went unnoticed for a long time, several years ago a giant sign was erected on the Trans-Canada Highway showing the geographical center of Canada. Since then, it is almost always being visited by travellers eager to take a picture in front of the “Center of Canada” sign. For Manitobans, this means that we have close connections to both the eastern part of Canada and the western part. Many Manitobans spend their summer weekends in Ontario near Kenora enjoying their lakes. While others might find themselves dipping into Saskatchewan along our western border.

While Canada has a long, and at times painful, history with Quebec separation desires, increasingly there is talk about separation by Alberta. While these still seem to represent a minority of voices, they do express the frustration that many have with the state of affairs in Canada today. National unity must always be the top priority of any federal government, and it should be expected that it will be for new Prime Minister Mark Carney as well.

AS I SEE IT COLUMN: This could be the best year in Canadian hockey history

James Loewen 4 minute read Preview

AS I SEE IT COLUMN: This could be the best year in Canadian hockey history

James Loewen 4 minute read Yesterday at 1:47 PM CDT

Remember the euphoria you felt when Connor McDavid scored the game winning goal in the 4 Nations tournament?

If certain things fall into place, that elation might just be the tip of the emotional iceberg for Canadians, for what could end up being - by orders of magnitude - the greatest year in Canadian hockey history.

Political tensions with our neighbours to the south hasn’t just suffused hockey games with meaning that goes well beyond sports, it’s also led to an enormous rise in patriotic pride in Canada. The combination of bruising tariffs costing jobs in Canada, insults to our Prime Minister and threats to make our beautiful, sovereign nation America’s 51st state, have crystalized a sense of collective Canadian pride this nation hasn’t felt since World War II.

The fans feel it and so do Canadian hockey players.

Read
Yesterday at 1:47 PM CDT

BROOK JONES/FREE PRESS
Winnipeg Jets fans cheer while holding a large Canadian flag during the singing of Canada's national anthem moments before the start of Game 5 of the National Hockey League Stanley Cup playoff between the hometown Winnipeg Jets and the visiting St. Louis Blues. The Whiteout street party took place on Donald Street in Winnipeg, Man., Wednesaday, April 30, 2025.

BROOK JONES/FREE PRESS
Winnipeg Jets fans cheer while holding a large Canadian flag during the singing of Canada's national anthem moments before the start of Game 5 of the National Hockey League Stanley Cup playoff between the hometown Winnipeg Jets and the visiting St. Louis Blues. The Whiteout street party took place on Donald Street in Winnipeg, Man., Wednesaday, April 30, 2025.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Focus on dangerous driving

Ben Wiebe, Grunthal, MB 3 minute read Yesterday at 11:49 AM CDT

The Steinbach city council is recruiting the Ste Anne police to help ticket drivers as part of an MPI initiative. Deputy Mayor Michael Zwaagstra dismissed detractors by saying “If you don’t like the fact you’re getting pulled over by a Ste. Anne officer while you’re racing down Main Street, I don’t care because you shouldn’t be racing down Main Street. So, if your car gets impounded, I don’t really care which officer it is that’s impounding your car. Tough luck.”

Zwaagstra oversimplifies the issue. Police enforcement of traffic laws is somewhat sporadic. This is because the Highway Traffic Act, like many laws, tends to be onerous and unjust (offenses listed go well beyond street racing), and strict enforcement causes needless problems for drivers. The problems get worse when Buford T. Justice invites his out-of-town cousins to pile on and prowl Steinbach. The solution here is simple. Firstly, Ste. Anne police belong in Ste. Anne, and the Steinbach RCMP should focus their purportedly limited resources on street racers instead of minor HTA violations.

The reality is that Steinbach city council is using street racing as a convenient excuse for mass ticketing, or revenue generation. Just ask Mayor Earl Funk. “This time [MPI says] anything that’s ticketable is fair game, and I like that.”

So, everything from street racing to utterly harmless behaviors like not wearing a seatbelt or motorcycle helmet, and “improperly transporting cannabis,” whatever that means, are under the microscope. Even if one doesn’t even break the law, police are allowed to pull over any driver at any time, ostensibly to check their licence and registration, which is essentially arbitrary. Furthermore, police can run even sober drivers through a breathalyzer test under threat of arrest. These two particular and unacceptable laws put all drivers in the crosshairs.

DANKOCHIK’S DRAFTINGS: Looking back on a busy hockey season

Cassidy Dankochik 2 minute read Preview

DANKOCHIK’S DRAFTINGS: Looking back on a busy hockey season

Cassidy Dankochik 2 minute read Yesterday at 10:00 AM CDT

The first thing I do when the Manitoba Junior Hockey League announces their schedule for the year is to combine the Niverville Nighthawks and Steinbach Pistons schedules into one combined calendar and print them out.

Those pages make up the print portion of my event tracker for the year, and let me tell you, it was a busy hockey season for me. I break down my year into two sections. Hockey season begins with the first Manitoba Junior Hockey League regular season game of the year and baseball season begins when I cover my first baseball game of the year.

I attended or watched 174 events this hockey season, the most in my three years working as The Carillon’s sports editor. A massive number which was a little overkill, especially as hockey playoffs ramped up in February/March this year. In those two months combined, I attended 65 different events, averaging more than one per day.

That 174 even understates the total games I attended, with Providence Pilots double-headers counted as a single event in my yearly tracker.

Read
Yesterday at 10:00 AM CDT

Cassidy Dankochik The Carillon

The Eastman Selects victory over the Winnipeg Avros in double-overtime to claim the U18 AAA Manitoba championship in a winner-takes-all game was a highlight of my hockey season, and it featured a striking photograph to cap off a memorable series.

Cassidy Dankochik The Carillon

The Eastman Selects victory over the Winnipeg Avros in double-overtime to claim the U18 AAA Manitoba championship in a winner-takes-all game was a highlight of my hockey season, and it featured a striking photograph to cap off a memorable series.

Steinbach to go it alone on sewage planning

Greg Vandermeulen 3 minute read Preview

Steinbach to go it alone on sewage planning

Greg Vandermeulen 3 minute read Yesterday at 8:30 AM CDT

A decision to address their own sewage woes rather than become partners in a regional wastewater cooperative will save Steinbach residents money and allow the city to retain their assets.

That was the message council delivered in April as they applied for 50 percent funding for the wastewater treatment facility upgrade.

The entire project will include several parts and is expected to reach $132.5 million.

Council approved a motion applying for $65.4 million from the Canada Housing Infrastructure Program.

Read
Yesterday at 8:30 AM CDT

GREG VANDERMEULEN THE CARILLON

Steinbach currently treats sewage with a system of lagoons but is considering a mechanical treatment system.

GREG VANDERMEULEN THE CARILLON 

Steinbach currently treats sewage with a system of lagoons but is considering a mechanical treatment system.

Province honours trades people from the Southeast

Svjetlana Mlinarevic 2 minute read Friday, May. 16, 2025

The province honoured 36 journeypersons from around the province recently, including seven from the Southeast.

During the 33rd annual Apprenticeship Highest Achievement Awards ceremony, Business, Mining, Trade and Job Creation Minister Jamie Moses said the dedication and excellence these journeypersons have demonstrated in their respective trades represents the best of Manitoba.

“We’re building our province and creating more good jobs and opportunities for Manitobans to pursue careers in the trades,” he noted.

The awards celebrated the highest achieving graduates in their respective trades and two awards were given for the highest score through the trades qualification stream. The event showcased the strength and overall success of the apprenticeship and certification system, noted the minister.

PHOTO GALLERY: Celebrating Manitoba Day in Steinbach

Svjetlana Mlinarevic 1 minute read Preview

PHOTO GALLERY: Celebrating Manitoba Day in Steinbach

Svjetlana Mlinarevic 1 minute read Friday, May. 16, 2025

Manitoba’s birthday was celebrated at the Mennonite Heritage Village in Steinbach with a day full of activities, history, and community fun. It featured a flag-raising ceremony, free birthday cake and activities from Eastman Immigrant Services.

The Manitoba Act of 1870 created the province, paving the way for new communities to form. Just a few years later, in 1873, the Privilgium was extended to Mennonites in Imperial Russia, inviting them to settle in Manitoba. By 1874, families arrived at the East Reserve, establishing what would become Steinbach.

Read
Friday, May. 16, 2025

SVJETLANA MLINAREVIC THE CARILLON
Newcomer Finnaly Olfert celebrates Manitoba Day at Mennonite Heritage Village celebrations on May 10, 2025. Admission was free for all and there was a lot of activities and birthday cake for people to enjoy.

SVJETLANA MLINAREVIC THE CARILLON
Newcomer Finnaly Olfert celebrates Manitoba Day at Mennonite Heritage Village celebrations on May 10, 2025. Admission was free for all and there was a lot of activities and birthday cake for people to enjoy.

Notre-Dame-de-Lorette seeks descendants of 19th century settlers

Chris Gareau 4 minute read Preview

Notre-Dame-de-Lorette seeks descendants of 19th century settlers

Chris Gareau 4 minute read Friday, May. 16, 2025

The early settlers who built the first church in Lorette were also building a community. Notre-Dame-de-Lorette is seeking the descendants of those early builders and parishioners to bridge the historical gap as it celebrates its story that stretches back to 1865.

Generations will gather in Lorette June 21-22 for the 125th year of the current building with the painted ceilings and murals that give it a Sistine Chapel of the Prairies look. The celebration will also acknowledge the first residential pastor Father Joseph Thomas Quévillon in 1877, the first to visit regularly to hold mass in 1873 Father David Fillion with help from Fathers Laurent LeFloch and Raymond Giroux, and the first missionaries arriving in 1865.

The committee putting together the June celebrations has already connected with families of early settlers and parishioners. They would like to connect with more, especially those whose lineage connects with Auguste Gauthier. He was the parishioner who was the architect and contractor who built the Notre-Dame-de-Lorette.

“We really want them involved, to honour their ancestors who gave so much for this church and this community,” said committee member Lucille Brunette.

Read
Friday, May. 16, 2025

CHRIS GAREAU THE CARILLON
Lucille Brunette and her sister Colette Rozière with some antique vestments in front of one of the relatively newer paintings in Notre-Dame-de-Lorette by parishioner Noel Gauthier from 1948 depicting a young Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

CHRIS GAREAU THE CARILLON
Lucille Brunette and her sister Colette Rozière with some antique vestments in front of one of the relatively newer paintings in Notre-Dame-de-Lorette by parishioner Noel Gauthier from 1948 depicting a young Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

Curling Grand Slam will be ‘Neil Armstrong moment’ for SEC

4 minute read Preview

Curling Grand Slam will be ‘Neil Armstrong moment’ for SEC

4 minute read Friday, May. 16, 2025

The countdown is officially on for Steinbach to host the Grand Slam of Curling’s Players’ Championship.

Organizers, politicians and curling stars were in attendance at the newly built Southeast Event Centre (SEC) in May 13 to promote and officially kick off the event, which will take place Jan. 6-11 in 2026.

Manitoba hasn’t hosted a Grand Slam since 2018.

The Centre’s general manager, Jeff Bannon, said the Players’ Championship will be the SEC’s chance to make a strong first impression on the national stage.

Read
Friday, May. 16, 2025

Jennifer Jones speaks with young curlers following a promotional event for the 2026 Players' Championship, which will be hosted in Steinbach. It's the first Grand Slam in Manitoba since 2018. Jones credited the Grand Slam for powering the growth of women's curling around the globe. (Cassidy Dankochik The Carillon)

Jennifer Jones speaks with young curlers following a promotional event for the 2026 Players' Championship, which will be hosted in Steinbach. It's the first Grand Slam in Manitoba since 2018. Jones credited the Grand Slam for powering the growth of women's curling around the globe. (Cassidy Dankochik The Carillon)

St Pierre gives library rebates and lowers taxes for higher value homes

Chris Gareau 3 minute read Friday, May. 16, 2025

Residents who already paid for their portion of the new library space in St Pierre are getting a refund.

It was also announced at the St-Pierre-Jolys financial plan hearing May 8 that those who were expecting to pay their library share over 10 years will instead be paying it over five years.

“Our project is complete so we know what our costs are; our costs are less,” explained CAO Tina Bubenzer during the hearing.

Those who prepaid $480 upfront will get about $219 back from the village.

LOAD MORE