Prairie Update – CP

Source: The Canadian Press – Broadcast wire
Oct 8, 2015

(Mba-Vehicle-Thefts)

Manitoba drivers seem to be making it easier for thieves to steal their vehicles.

Manitoba Public Insurance says of the 400 vehicles stolen this past spring, the keys had been left inside 75 per cent of them.

M-P-I says key-related thefts in this spring increased 11 per cent, compared to the spring of 2014.

C-A-A Manitoba says in the winter, most vehicles only need a couple of minutes to warm up so there’s no need to leave the keys in the ignition. (CTV Winnipeg)

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(Mba-Health-Strike)

A union representing four thousand health workers in Manitoba says it has a strike mandate.

The Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals has been without a contract since March 2014.

Union members work in more than 160 health fields including social workers, paramedics and respiratory therapists.

President Bob Moroz says 88 per cent of members who voted are in favour of a strike if a deal can’t be reached. Negotiations are set to resume on October 21st. (CJOB)

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(Sask-Wrongfully-Convicted)

A man who spent 23 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit says he is still troubled to see how the public reacts to news stories about crime.

David Milgaard says the first inclination of most people is to assume a person who has been accused of a crime is guilty.

He says the presumption of innocence that is supposed to be assured by the legal system “just completely disappears.”

David Milgaard was in Saskatoon yesterday to demand action on the way Canadian courts review convictions. The Association for the Wrongfully Convicted has been calling for an independent federal commission to review possible miscarriages of justice, which is a recommendation that has been made in five different provincial inquiries. (CKOM)

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(Sask-FedElxn-Harper)

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has suggested in Saskatoon that the Tories would consider banning the niqab for anyone working for or dealing with the federal government.

Harper lauded the Quebec Liberal government’s yet-to-be-debated Bill 64, which would require those who wear face coverings to remove them if they want to work in the public sector or do business with government officials.

A proposed ban on niqabs in the federal civil service would affect an infinitesimally small number of bureaucrats.

Statistics from 2011 show only 1.8 per cent of 257-thousand federal employees are Muslim women and only a small subset of them is likely to wear face coverings.

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(Alta-FedElxn-Mulcair)

Federal N-D-P Leader Tom Mulcair says if he’s elected, he will form a nation-to-nation relationship with aboriginal peoples.

Mulcair was in Enoch, Alberta, yesterday where he unveiled the indigenous plank of his platform.

In one of the centrepieces of the N-D-P’s plan, Mulcair committed to removing the two per cent cap on annual federal funding increases for reserve programs and services.

He also committed 4.8 billion dollars over eight years for aboriginal education _ the first 1.8 billion to flow over the next four years with the rest to follow in a second mandate. (The Canadian Press)

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(Alta-School-Delays)

Alberta’s education minister is firing back at the former Progressive Conservative government over criticism stemming from massive delays in school construction.

Progressive Conservative Leader Ric McIver says ambitious timelines to build or refurbish almost 200 schools were on track until the N-D-P took over this spring.

McIver says bureaucrats told him the projects could and would be done on time.

But Education Minister David Eggen says the fault lies with the P-Cs for making promises on school construction the bureaucrats had no hope of meeting. (The Canadian Press)

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(Prairie Update by The Canadian Press)

(The Canadian Press)