As winter begins giving way to spring, the focus of city officials turns to budgetting.

And, while the process began late last year with meetings to identify priorities and explore opportunities, now is the time to work on the finishing touches.

“We’ve got some direction for 2025 that we’re working on costing and looking at the logistics of how to make that work,” City manager Sharla Griffiths said.

Mayor David Bosiak added more information is needed before numbers can be finalized.

“We’re still waiting on a couple of responses from the other levels of government on some applications we’ve made, which will basically determine the scale and scope of some of the work that we want to do,” he said.

“We think we’re on target. We haven’t yet gotten into the nuts and bolts of final costing for of some of the things, because as projects are still developing you get estimated costs. Then when you go to tender then you get the actual cost. So we’re still fine-tuning a few of those things and I know senior managers are still working on a couple of the finer details.”

Three key priority projects have been identified by council for this year. 2025 will see continued development of the Craft District on Second Avenue Northwest, growing the development Reserve Fund created through a bylaw passed at council’s last regular meeting and expanding the active transportation network to tie in the west end of the city.

Read the full story in this week’s edition of the Dauphin Herald.

This year’s Northern Manitoba Trappers’ Festival (NMTF) Fur Queen pageant was another successful highlight, with eight contestants running. This year’s Fur Queen is Autumn Graff, with Krissy Kirkness as 1st Princess and Trinity Flett as 2nd Princess.
“It feels unbelievable to be the 2025 NMTF Fur Queen,” said Graff. “I never would have thought that I would be this year’s Fur Queen, which I’m so honoured and grateful for this title. I cannot wait for what the future holds for us girls together.
“I think the most exciting part was all of us girls coming together as a family. Seeing each other’s shells break open and bonding with each other was the most exciting part, especially the dance practices. It brought us all together

The Town of the Pas hosted a Special Service Levy Information Meeting on February 20 from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. to help inform the public of how special service levies work and why council is exploring this option. The meeting had approximately 65 people in attendance, but the streaming of the meeting online had 167 views.
Mayor Murphy addressed the meeting stating he did notice a lot of comments on social media and the speculation of a conspiracy theory, which validated the need to have a public meeting to explain special service levies and how it would work. He noted that he doesn’t respond to social media complaints because it can get out of hand. He welcomes people to contact the office and have a diplomatic conversation on the matter. Mayor Murphy also asked people to refrain from attacking staff on social media about matters that aren’t relevant to the issue of the meeting.

The Swan Valley Stampeders Junior A Hockey Club held a special fundraising evening for Amara’s Amigos on Feb. 14 during their home game against the visiting Niverville Nighthawks.
While the Stampeders didn’t come away with a win on the scoresheet that evening, the fundraiser was overall a success with local businesses and individuals showing their support for the Amara’s Amigos cause, which was started by Blaine and Lee-Anne Campbell in support of their teenage daughter Amara, who passed away from cancer in 2020. The Amara’s Amigos fundraiser also serves as a memorial for their teenage son Joel, who passed away from a snowmobile accident that same year.
The evening fundraising activities included a shootout auction, Amara’s Amigos merchandise sales, as well as raffles and cookie sales. Overall, the Swan Valley Stampeders and their Hockey Fights Cancer night was able to bring in $11,678.11 for Amara’s Amigos, which will be donated to CancerCare Manitoba, and more specifically to the PROFYLE program, or the PRecision Oncology For Young PeopLE, which Amara was a patient in while she was fighting her cancer.
“We appreciate the ongoing support from the Stampeders group and the community at large, as well as all the businesses and donations,” said Lee-Anne Campbell. “This is part of our mission to supporting other children and families who may have the same devastating diagnoses. We continue to pay it forward.
“It’s great to partner up with them to remember our children’s names,” said Blaine Campbell.
The special game-worn jerseys were also auctioned off, and that brought in an additional $6,400, which the Campbells decided to split evenly between the Amara’s Amigos and the Swan Valley Stampeders. Campbells also intend on putting up more money next year to purchase another set of jerseys and continue the partnership for a third year.

The break in the cold weather has been welcome for many, making things like a walk in Swan River Legion Park feel a bit more like a walk in the park. Pictured here, Bryce Atkinson takes his dog out for some noon hour exercise.

Members of Roblin’s 50 & Over Club gathered at the Drop-In Feb. 18 for the club’s annual general meeting.
There was a Moment of Silence to remember members who passed in 2024: Julius Zimmer, Muriel Dixon, Jodi Wizniak, Hazel McGinnis, Cassie Bailey, C.J. Beattie, and Eleanor Poyser.
Pick up a copy of this week’s Review for the rest of the story.

Funding for Manitoba schools will increase by $67 million for the 2025-26 school year.

Background information concerning the announcement, made last week by Manitoba’s new education minister Tracy Schmidt, shows increases will vary between one per cent and almost 10 per cent for individual divisions, with the inclusion of federal nutrition funding.

For Mountain View School Division (MVSD) that means a 6.5 per cent bump to $28.1 million in provincial operating support for the coming year.

MVSD secretary-treasurer Lori Slepicka said while the announcement did not include major changes to the way support is calculated, the division did receive a much needed increase in provincial funding.

“They did continue with some of their what they call one-time funding amounts,” Slepicka said.

“So probably our biggest increase within that area were under a line that they call wage and enrollment growth redistribution. We haven’t seen a huge amount of enrolment growth so that’s just kind of a catch line for all the school divisions. So it definitely helps with the salary increases, with the contractual obligations, for sure. We also got a small amount of an increase for the nutrition program funding.”

Slepicka added while this year’s announcement does not provide all of the predicability and stability school divisions have been asking for, there were some positive steps towards that goal.

“We’re on the formula guarantee now, as well, so what that means is that your formula support won’t decrease from the prior year,” Slepicka said.

“So we have that amount which when your enrollment fluctuates or decreases a little bit, unless it takes you out of that formula guarantee, it really doesn’t really affect your formula support.”

The province says “incremental” changes to the funding formula for school divisions are being made.

“This includes calculating funding based on the best of the last three years of enrollment,” Schmidt said.

“In addition, we will be reconstituting the stakeholder advisory committee on school funding to identify further opportunities to improve the way education is funded in our province going forward.”

A complete overhaul of the funding model was announced by the former Progressive Conservative government, but was not pursued by the current administration, at least when it comes to this year’s announcement.

Schmidt vowed, however, to continue dialogue with school divisions, staff, and families to “provide stable and predictable funding” for schools. The system as it exists, with a reliance on property taxes, can make it harder for divisions in poorer areas to raise adequate funding, she said.

Read the full story in this week’s edition of the Dauphin Herald.

The status quo was maintained this past weekend as both the Northern Manitoba Blizzard and Neepawa Titans split their weekend sets. That leaves the Blizzard two points up on the Titans with two games in hand in the battle for second place and home-ice advantage in the first round of the MJHL playoffs.
Blizzard Head Coach and General Manager says Eric Labrosse says while first place is still possible and within the realm of possibility (see this week’s MJHL column), playing Game One of their first-round playoff matchup at home remains the ultimate goal.
“We don’t want to lose any games, but the key part in all of this is to have home-ice advantage in the playoffs, whether it’s first or second,” he said. “It would be great to finish first, but my focus is to stay ahead of Neepawa.
“They’re two points behind us and though we still have two games in hand, they’re breathing down our backs – we can’t seem to pull away from them,” he added.

Recently the tri-community welcomed some international guests to experience all the charms of northern Manitoba and the true north way of life. Students from Margaret Barbour Collegiate Institute (MBCI) hosted some international students from France a couple of weeks ago. This was a wonderful opportunity for all the students involved for a variety of reasons.
“This is the third international exchange program we’ve run,” said MBCI French Immersion Instructor Chris Afatsawo. “The exchange is between MBCI and a sister school in Bordeaux Jean-d’Arc d’Ascension, France. The purpose of the exchange is both linguistic and cultural.

Every year provincial government dignitaries come in to take in the Northern Manitoba Trappers’ Festival (NMTF). This year, five provincial Ministers took in the event, including the Minister of Culture, Sport and Heritage, Nellie Kennedy.
“Since we arrived in The Pas it has been non-stop excitement and we’ve had a lot of fun,” said Minister Kennedy. “This is my first time attending the NMTF and it did not disappoint. Everything that other people had told me about the event was true, but it was so much more.
“I was here with my colleagues, Minister Bushie, Minister Marcelino, Minister Simard and Minister Wiebe and our local MLA Amanda Lathlin showed us around.”