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Westman contingent at Games

1 minute read 2:00 AM CDT

WOMEN’S

Rugby Sevens

Sarah-Jane Speers, Alexander

Paityn Bourgouin, Dauphin

Cancer survivor to attempt swim across Lake Winnipeg

By Matthew Frank 4 minute read Preview

Cancer survivor to attempt swim across Lake Winnipeg

By Matthew Frank 4 minute read Monday, Jul. 28, 2025

WINNIPEG — Jon Fenton remembers being at Victoria Beach as a child, thinking it would be impossible to swim from one side of Lake Winnipeg to the other.

Decades later, the 61-year-old will attempt to prove he was wrong by tackling the waves to raise money for medical research.

Fenton successfully battled cancer twice and now wants to use the 26-kilometre swim across the lake to give patients hope.

“If they see an old geezer getting into the water to attempt to cross a lake, maybe they’ll think, ‘If he can go through it twice, maybe I’ll be all right,’” he told the Free Press Thursday.

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Monday, Jul. 28, 2025

Jon Fenton, 61, hopes to raise $75,000 and donate $25,000 apiece to the CancerCare Manitoba Foundation, Health Sciences Centre Foundation and the Alberta Cancer Foundation, by swimming across Lake Winnipeg from Victoria Beach to Gimli in August. (Supplied)
Jon Fenton, 61, hopes to raise $75,000 and donate $25,000 apiece to the CancerCare Manitoba Foundation, Health Sciences Centre Foundation and the Alberta Cancer Foundation, by swimming across Lake Winnipeg from Victoria Beach to Gimli in August. (Supplied)

Royal Manitoba Winter Fair

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Jul. 30, 6 PM: 24°c Cloudy Jul. 31, 12 AM: 13°c Clear

Brandon MB

20°C, Sunny

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Manitoba has highest hepatitis C rate in nation

By Kevin Rollason 4 minute read Monday, Jul. 28, 2025

WINNIPEG — Manitoba has the highest rate of hepatitis C virus in the country and it’s why World Hepatitis Day is an important day for education, an infectious disease and liver expert says.

Dr. Kelly Kaita, who heads the viral hepatitis unit at the Health Sciences Centre, said the province’s hep C virus rate of 42.3 cases per 100,000 means 589 Manitobans are diagnosed with the disease every year.

But Kaita, who wants to use World Hepatitis Day, which is today, to help educate people on how to reduce the spread of the infection, said he thinks the numbers are even worse.

“I believe 589 in Manitoba would be low,” he said. “And with hepatitis C in 0.8 per cent of the population in Canada, that would be 8,000 Manitobans with the disease.”

Tamarack

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1 minute read Monday, Jul. 28, 2025

LUCKY NUMBERS

FRIDAY

LOTTO MAX: 9, 10, 22, 29, 35, 37, 46 BONUS: 38

WESTERN: 5, 6, 19, 26, 40, 41, 45 BONUS: 3

Carberry EDO leaves to helm Brandon non-profit

By Alex Lambert 4 minute read Preview

Carberry EDO leaves to helm Brandon non-profit

By Alex Lambert 4 minute read Saturday, Jul. 26, 2025

Carberry’s economic development officer has left her position with the town for a job in Brandon.

Starting Monday, Karra Burney will take the reins as executive director of the Brandon Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation.

Burney said she learned a lot during the more than two and a half years with Carberry.

“My time with the Town of Carberry was everything and more … that I could possibly have wanted in a position,” she said. “It gave me a chance to grow professionally and build those connections within not only my community, but also the province and beyond.”

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Saturday, Jul. 26, 2025

Karra Burney
Karra Burney

Winnipegger freed from B.C. mine relieved

By Chris Kitching 5 minute read Saturday, Jul. 26, 2025

WINNIPEG — A Winnipeg man who was trapped underground in a northern B.C. mine for more than 60 hours expressed relief and gratitude after his rescue late Thursday.

Jesse Chubaty’s relatives in Manitoba said they’re eager to reunite with him.

Chubaty and two co-workers were brought to the surface of a gold and copper mine near Iskut, B.C., about 1,600 kilometres north of Vancouver, Thursday night after becoming trapped Tuesday morning.

“Thank you everyone for reaching out. What a wild week this has been. Glad to be outta there!” Chubaty wrote in a Facebook post about nine hours after the rescue. “To all my mining brothers, stay safe down there and to everyone else as well!”

Province reaches settlement over woman’s death

By Brittany Hobson 3 minute read Preview

Province reaches settlement over woman’s death

By Brittany Hobson 3 minute read Saturday, Jul. 26, 2025

WINNIPEG — The Manitoba government says it has settled a lawsuit with the family of a woman who died during the COVID-19 pandemic while in the process of being transferred out of province due to a shortage of hospital beds.

Matt Wiebe, minister of justice and the province’s attorney general, confirmed a settlement was recently reached with the family of Krystal Mousseau more than two years after Mousseau’s mother first sued the provincial government and health agencies.

Elaine Mousseau alleged that cuts to health care and improper medical decisions contributed to her daughter’s death in May 2021.

Mousseau, a 31-year-old mother of two from Ebb and Flow First Nation, was in intensive care with severe COVID-19 pneumonia and died after being taken by ambulance to a waiting airplane that was to take her to Ottawa.

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Saturday, Jul. 26, 2025

An empty bed is seen at a hospital in a 2022 photo. (The Canadian Press files)
An empty bed is seen at a hospital in a 2022 photo. (The Canadian Press files)

4 minute read Saturday, Jul. 26, 2025

PRISON ESCAPEE CAPTURED

MONTREAL — A convicted murderer who escaped from a Quebec prison nearly three weeks earlier was recaptured early Friday in Montreal, Correctional Service Canada said.

They said Lory Bill Germa was apprehended by the Montreal police at around 7:45 a.m.

The 69-year-old escaped from the Archambault Institution north of Montreal on July 5.

Veteran bullfighter embraces new role as clown

By Connor McDowell Local Journalism Initiative 5 minute read Preview

Veteran bullfighter embraces new role as clown

By Connor McDowell Local Journalism Initiative 5 minute read Saturday, Jul. 26, 2025

AUSTIN — Scott Byrne slaps a barrel. He points inside, where cushions swell from every direction. The rodeo clown, who used to be a bullfighter, says it’s an escape mechanism.

Reading “wrangler” on the outside, the barrel exists to be smashed by raging bulls. When the animal bucks off a rider during a rodeo, it may turn around and run for a second shot. That’s where the barrel comes in and gives the riders an escape.

“They might run behind it,” Byrne told the Sun.

The only problem is that the bull shifts its attention to the barrel — and bullfighters are waiting inside, hoping the cushions work well enough.

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Saturday, Jul. 26, 2025

Rodeo protection athletes, also known as bullfighters, protect an injured Jaden Ozirney of Grenfell, Sask., from a bull after a hard fall during the bull-riding event at the opening of the Manitoba Threshermen’s Reunion and Stampede rodeo in Austin on Thursday evening. Ozirney was stepped on by the bull immediately after his fall and broke his arm. (Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun)
Rodeo protection athletes, also known as bullfighters, protect an injured Jaden Ozirney of Grenfell, Sask., from a bull after a hard fall during the bull-riding event at the opening of the Manitoba Threshermen’s Reunion and Stampede rodeo in Austin on Thursday evening. Ozirney was stepped on by the bull immediately after his fall and broke his arm. (Tim Smith/The Brandon Sun)

Kinew visits Hutterite colony as byelection looms

By Carol Sanders 5 minute read Preview

Kinew visits Hutterite colony as byelection looms

By Carol Sanders 5 minute read Thursday, Jul. 24, 2025

WINNIPEG — Premier Wab Kinew has been handing out a lot of green in hopes of turning a “yellow dog” Westman seat from Tory-blue to NDP-orange.

Under Manitoba law, a byelection must be held no later than 180 days after an MLA vacates a seat. Tory Grant Jackson resigned March 24 to run successfully for the federal Conservatives in April’s election, which means voters in Spruce Woods must head to the polls by mid-September.

Kinew was expected to be in Brandon today to help the NDP candidate kick off their campaign in the riding.

Spruce Woods is located in what Progressive Conservative supporters have long considered an area — most western and southern Manitoba rural ridings are included — where the party could run “a yellow dog” and win.

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Thursday, Jul. 24, 2025

Shown here is one of the photographs posted under Wab Kinew’s Instagram account on July 19: “Visited Green Acres Colony near Wawanesa — the first time a Premier’s visited their community.” (Instagram)
Shown here is one of the photographs posted under Wab Kinew’s Instagram account on July 19: “Visited Green Acres Colony near Wawanesa — the first time a Premier’s visited their community.” (Instagram)

Scolded MLA focused on ‘how to do better’

By Malak Abas 4 minute read Preview

Scolded MLA focused on ‘how to do better’

By Malak Abas 4 minute read Thursday, Jul. 24, 2025

WINNIPEG — Manitoba’s minister responsible for accessibility said Wednesday she’s focusing on improving accessibility standards after remarks she made about a sign-language interpreter sparked criticism last month.

Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine came under fire after her complaints about the placement of an American Sign Language interpreter at a graduation ceremony she was speaking at were caught on a “hot mic” by the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network June 26.

Fontaine has apologized multiple times and committed to staff training.

“When I have these missteps or these mistakes or these moments, I always try to find the teaching and the lessons in it, and then how to move forward in a better way — how to do better,” Fontaine told reporters at a news conference Wednesday morning, announcing the recipients of this year’s Manitoba Accessibility Fund.

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Thursday, Jul. 24, 2025

Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine announces the 2025-26 Manitoba Accessibility Fund recipients at Sport Manitoba Wednesday. (Mikaela MacKenzie/Winnipeg Free Press)
Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine announces the 2025-26 Manitoba Accessibility Fund recipients at Sport Manitoba Wednesday. (Mikaela MacKenzie/Winnipeg Free Press)

Optometrists in fee dispute with province

By Kevin Rollason 3 minute read Thursday, Jul. 24, 2025

WINNIPEG — Manitoba optometrists have been refusing to handle urgent cases out of frustration with the provincial government, which hasn’t signed a deal with them in years.

Since March, the optometrists have referred all non-routine eye care cases, as well as patients who had surgery within the past three weeks, to the Misericordia Eye Clinic.

They’ve been directed to do so by the Manitoba Association of Optometrists.

The result is that Manitobans are taking the brunt of the job action because the clinic has become jam-packed with patients, forcing the clinic to scramble and enlist the help of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority to find more staff.

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