Last week was one of mixed results for the Dauphin Kings.

Six different players had two points each in a 6-2 win over the Swan Valley Stampeders, Jan. 23, in Swan River, extending Dauphin’s winning streak to seven games.

The streak came to an end, Friday at Credit Union Place when the visiting Blizzard scored a 4-2 victory.

Dauphin rebounded with a solid effort in a 5-2 win over the league-leading Steinbach Pistons, Saturday in front of 1,943 fans on Ukrainian Night.

Kings head coach and general manager Doug Hedley said good teams find a way to rebound from tough losses and that is what the Kings did.

“Resilience is part of our covenant. We were fast tonight. We played fast tonight. We were relentless on pucks. We stopped on pucks. We won stick battles. Took hits to make plays. It’s just something we didn’t do enough of (Friday) night to start,” he said. “We weren’t on our toes. We weren’t using our speed. We weren’t playing fast. So we got what we deserved.”

Hedley felt the Kings played well in the third period, but failed to play for a full 60 minutes.

The Blizzard, to their credit, played a strong road game and were the better team for most of the night.

“They worked their butt off, just like they did last time, only we found a way to win. This time, I thought their goaltender was really solid. He made some big saves, because we had some pretty good looks there at the end, when it was 4-2 and we got some power plays and had some good looks and some chances and he made some good saves,” Hedley said.

The Kings power play was clicking, scoring three times against the Stampeders and twice against Steinbach.

With changes to the roster at the trade deadline, it meant changes to the power play, with new players stepping into the roles of players no longer with the team.

“When you have changes like that, you’ve got different guys on the power play, you’re trying to get some chemistry. I think we can still get a lot better, especially our top unit. We can get some speed going and we’ll find different ways,” Hedley said. “Steinbach is a good hockey team. They really put pressure on you on the PK and sometimes we didn’t get set up quick enough. But we’ll get better.”

After a tough December, goalie Cole Sheffield made some highlight reel saves against the Pistons and has been a big reason for the Kings success in the new year.

The win against the top team in the league gives a big confidence boost to the Kings. Hedley said Saturday’s game was the best the team has played on Ukrainian Night since his return to the team.

“It was one of our best efforts,” he said.

The league will take a break for the annual MJHL-SJHL Showcase, Jan. 30 and 31, before games resume on Friday.

The Kings will be in Winkler, Friday, to take on the Flyers, before heading to Winnipeg to face the Freeze, Saturday.

Kings court:

Saturday’s win evens Dauphin’s record on Ukrainian Nights at 4-4 and they have won the last three Ukrainian Nights in a row. . . The Kings remain in third place in the MGEU West Division, with a 24-12-1-0 record for 49 points. They sit three back of the Blizzard, with three games in hand.

Speaking at an event celebrating improvements being made to the Dauphin Regional Health Centre, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said it is time to start changing the culture of health care in Manitoba.

“We have to fix the culture on the front lines in our health care facilities right across Manitoba. We have to send that message that help is coming whether you’re a physician, whether you’re a nurse, whether you’re a health care professional, and that we’re serious about improving work life balance,” The premier said,

The local project, which involves development of a larger and more modern space to support cancer patients, construction of a stand alone endoscopy unit and the addition of nine new patient beds, will require as many as two dozen new health professionals to properly staff.

According to Prairie Mountain Health CEO Brian Schoonbaert, the plan is to utilize agency nurses to cover the positions, while a more permanent solution is developed.

“That’s something we have to do, not something we want to do. But we want to make sure that we’re offering the services that are needed and so we will continue to do that as long as we have to,” he said. “Definitely here in Dauphin we have issues with vacancies. However, I have to say that lately we’ve been seeing some improvements in our staffing.”

While leader of the opposition, Kinew was critical of the government when it came to the use of agency nurses across the province. And while his position has not changed, the problem can not be solved through a mandate, Kinew said, adding the number of nurses working on the frontlines in Manitoba will have to be built up gradually by focussing on retention.

Kinew said there are many reasons a nurse will go to work at an agency, such as more control over scheduling or more pay.

“They’re running away from the mistakes of the previous government mandated over time, disrespect from the employer. So these are things that we’re turning the page on. We’re serious about improving culture,” he said.

Citing the new Neepawa Training Centre and additional good work by Assiniboine Community College (ACC) in communities throughout the province to train health care professionals, Kinew said there is a comprehensive approach to training nurses under way. But simply training more nurses is not enough if you can not retain them in the public system.

“If we’re just adding those nurses to the same culture, they’re going to flee the bedside, too,” Kinew said. “So fixing the culture, retention in health care, has to be the first priority. And as we do that, as we strengthen the health human resource capacity, that’s where you’ll see agency nurse use go down. The best way for us to reduce the reliance on nursing agencies is not for us to mandate an end of agency nurse use, it’s for us to make working on the front lines and the public settings like this one so attractive that a nurse would rather choose to work here than for a nursing agency.”

In short, nursing, and other health professions need to be looked at as viable career paths and that can be achieved through partnerships with agencies such as ACC, who are already out in communities doing the heavy lifting.

“The message we want to send to young people across Manitoba is if you’re growing up in Grandview or Tootinaowaziibeeng or Dauphin or Duck Bay or Camperville, you can be a doctor, you can be a nurse, you can be an X-Ray tech, and the path is going to be very convenient and accessible for you to pursue that,” Kinew said. “So we do that, we bring everybody into the front lines, we work together on improving the culture and the working conditions. It’s not going to happen overnight, right, but if we remain committed to that path, I think that’s how we do it.”

The premier added the details of an online bridging program allowing Licensed Practical Nurses to become RNs in conjunction with ACC will be released soon.

“So that they can keep working in their existing settings,” Kinew said. “ACC, you know, they’re doing a ton of good work on this already. We’re going to collaborate with them, to support them and just make sure we can do more to bring people to the front lines.”

Premier Wab Kinew was in Dauphin last week to mark the opening of a new CancerCare Manitoba (CCMB) space at the Dauphin Regional Health Centre (DRHC), which is providing an improved experience for patients and staff alike.

“Today’s announcement is about supporting this regional hospital, the health hub for this part of the Parkland region. It’s about ensuring that there’s more beds for people to be seen, more endoscopy services more CancerCare services,” Kinew said to those gathered at the Community Health Building boardroom. “But when we reduce all that to the base level and we ask ourselves what is this all about, this is about having more people in rural Manitoba - here’s our hope at the end of the day is that more people in rural Manitoba will hear those four magic words ‘you are cancer free.’ We want more families to be able to hear those words, to be able to spend more time with your loved ones and to be able to have a stronger healing journey through our health care system.”

The relocation of the hospital’s chemotherapy unit to the main floor provided the opportunity to construct a unit with five treatment bays which offer more space and more privacy, said Dr. Sri Navaratnam, president and chief executive officer of CancerCare Manitoba. The new unit also improves functionality through better nurse sight lines and enhanced medication preparation area and has two larger exam spaces.

“CancerCare Manitoba is always committed to quality and equitable care to all Manitobans, regardless of where they live or who they are. That is our promise. That is our commitment,” Navaratnam said. “So thank you for your support in making it happen.”

The new unit is already paying dividends according to front line works

“We’ve moved into this space a few weeks ago. It’s only been a few weeks, but we’ve had a lot of positive feedback from patients already, which is very encouraging,” said local physician Dr. Jason Reed, adding the number of cancer referrals to the local hospital has increase by 36 per cent since 2022. “We’re looking to further create additional inpatient and out patient capacity that won’t only benefit Dauphin, but the Parkland region as a whole.”

Improvements such as those being made at the DRHC are important, Dauphin MLA and Minister of Agriculture Ron Kostyshyn said, not only for the personal well-being of those living outside of the province’s major urban centres, but as an indication that they are not being overlooked by their government.

“People here in Dauphin and rural Manitoba work hard and deserve good quality health care that they need. Manitoba understand this,” he said. “We know how important it is to have timely, local access to health care.”

Even more capacity is coming as part of phase 2 of the renovation, which will result in a new endoscopy suite, which includes one new procedure room and six new spaces for pre-procedure preparation and post-procedure recovery. Once fully operational, up to 300 more endoscopies will be able to be performed at the DRHC annually, while also freeing up space in the facility’s operating rooms, increase surgical capacity.

Finally, phase 2 will see the addition of seven new medicine beds and two new general surgery beds on the second and third floors of the hospital and relocation of physiotherapy services from the basement to the third floor space previously occupied by the chemotherapy unit.

“We continue to look for ways to improve health care access and capacity within Prairie Mountain Health,” said the region’s CEO Brian Schoonbaert. “You can see there’s a bit of a domino effect here and it’s all great and we expect that this second phase will be done probably at the end of summer.”

Originally announced in 2021, the project had an initial budget of $5 million. The costs have since risen to $7.8 million mostly due to inflation and “ a commitment to seeing through an important investment here in the Parkland region, in the city of Dauphin,” Kinew said, adding, “our government has taken time to get things right.”

“We’re signaling to the front lines we’ve got your back, we’re going to continue leaning into investments like this one,” Kinew said. “And we are going to ensure that a strong future for health care in Manitoba includes strong rural health care in every region of the province.”

There is a strong divide in the Valley when it comes to the topic of a shelter in the community. There are some who that feel having a shelter in Swan River will only increase crime and encourage more people who are experiencing homelessness to come to the community. There are others who feel that there is a definite need to provide shelter to people who don’t have anywhere to sleep when the temperatures drop down to -30C below or colder.
In the neighbouring community of The Pas, Oscar’s Place is an emergency shelter that has been operating for quite some time. It’s had its challenges over the years with having enough funding to keep the doors open, but it’s also provided a safe place for those in need to keep out of the cold.
Town of The Pas Mayor Andre Murphy feels that having a shelter in the community is the social and morally right thing to do, but also wants more services in the community to help with the other issues that have led people to be homeless in the first place.
“It’s important to recognize that there are a group of individuals in our communities who are having issues with housing needs,” said Town of The Pas Mayor Andre Murphy. “It’s good to have a shelter because we don’t want people to freeze to death, but it has to be accompanied by complete wrap-around services to help with issues of addictions and mental health. Oscar’s Place is designated as an emergency shelter and is only supposed to be used by a person for a few days. Without the services to help people address what had led to the issue of homelessness, there is a possibility of people then treating the shelter as a residence, which then takes away from it becoming an emergency shelter.
“There are just not enough addiction supports for people in our community and there is no quick access to mental health supports either. There’s a definite gap to deal with here. I’ve spoken to people in the community who use the shelter and they’ve shared with me that they are struggling with addictions and want to get help, but there is over a three-week waiting period for them to get into addiction treatment. I’ve also heard others tell me they went for addiction treatment and came back here, which is their home community, and went back into the exact same environment they were in before, with no transitional housing or support to maintain sobriety. There were no supports to access housing, employment and sober living. So how does a community expect to break the cycle of homelessness, if we don’t have all the supports in place?”
Murphy doesn’t agree with the mentality of kicking people out of The Pas who are homeless. Many of the people experiencing homelessness are originally from the area, and Murphy also believes that people have the right to come and stay in a community if they choose to.
“We need to take care of people who are struggling and don’t want to see anyone freezing to death,” said Murphy.
“As human beings, we should have a heart and compassion to make sure no one freezes to death. As for those who say the homeless need to go back to where they came from, well those people who are homeless in our community are citizens of The Pas. They may have come from somewhere else, but if they choose to come to our community and want to stay here, then that’s where they live.
“As the Town of The Pas, or Opaskwayak Cree Nation or the R.M. of Kelsey, we can’t take care of the homelessness situation on our own; we need more support.”
The Pas also runs a soup kitchen through The Pas Friendship Centre. The Pas Friendship Centre is very familiar with the homeless population in the community and believes that Oscar’s Place is a definite need in the area.
“Oscar’s Place saves lives, plain and simple,” said The Pas Friendship Centre Executive Director Doug Bartlett. “The weather in northern Manitoba, being what it is, takes a toll on the homeless population. Oscar’s Place provides up to 26 people, with a warm place to spend the night.
“That being said, I believe the shelter could be twice as big and there would not be enough room for all the homeless population. Another concern was that Oscar’s Place was not open during the day, however, this has been rectified. The homeless population can now attend the shelter from 3:30 p.m., and this will be until the cold snap has ended.”
Bartlett doesn’t believe a shelter is a drawing card for more homeless people to come to a community. There is a lack of affordable housing all across Manitoba, and it gets particularly worse, more north of the province.
“I do not believe having a shelter in our community is the reason so many people are coming to The Pas and find themselves homeless,” said Bartlett. “What has been a major factor in the homeless issue in our and every other community in the north, is the lack of housing. Many people that come to our community are here because there are 12 to 18 people living in the same house in their home community.
“They come to the larger community of The Pas and soon find themselves on the streets. Then the addictions take over. The longer they are on the streets, the harder it is to intervene and provide services. Many of the homeless population have been walking the streets here for many years, and this is their community too.”
The Pas Friendship Centre realized that if people don’t have a place to keep warm in the community, then they also do not have food to sustain them. Recently, The Pas Friendship Centre expanded its soup kitchen from its building into a separate one on LaRose Avenue.
“The soup kitchen provides the homeless population a warm meal once a day,” said Bartlett. “For many of them, this is the only meal they will have that day. While they are at the soup kitchen, there is an opportunity to provide them with information and services.
“These can range from assistance with health information to having clothing provided. We have both a Health Navigator and a Homeless Navigator on staff to assist them. As well, we also have a Homeless Mentor who works directly with the community homeless. One of the impacts on the community is there are fewer people roaming the streets when the soup kitchen is open. We do however have rules such as, if you are intoxicated in any way, you will not be allowed in.”
Bartlett shares many of the same views as Murphy when it comes to the need for wrap-around services in the community to help reduce homelessness, addictions, poverty and crime.
“The staff at The Pas Friendship Centre have a very trying job,” said Bartlett. “ We cannot let our personal biases dictate our actions in how we work with the community homeless people. The staff have developed relationships with our homeless clients on a basic level that understand that they are where they are and can move forward from there.
“To address the homelessness in northern communities, it comes down to providing housing and addiction treatment services that are based in the north. Sending people south for treatment and then returning them to the same situation they left will not bring the client to a place where they are able to stay clean and sober.
“Addiction to substances has been classified as a medical disease by Health Canada,” said Bartlett. “Too often communities choose to ignore this and blame the addict with the age-old adage that if they had a moral compass, they wouldn’t do drugs. It’s this type of nonsense that has been detrimental to addictions for years.
“Even when an addict has gotten treatment, there are so few rental spaces in this community that individuals end up on the streets and after a few weeks, they fall back to old patterns and ways of living. As a community, we need to come to the realization that housing is a major factor in homelessness.”

The HERO Club held an open house on Thursday afternoon (Jan. 25), inviting guests and potential members into their space to learn what they’re all about and what is available in the clubhouse. The HERO Club – which stands for Helping Everyone Reach Out – was established to provide a place where people who have lived with mental health issues could meet and socialize in a non-judgemental atmosphere of friendship and support...

There has been a growing number of producers in the area who have concerns about wildlife impacting their farming operations. One concern locals have is the number of elk in the area, which leads to the risk of TB and Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), and the impact on livestock and crops.

“There are some public health risks with TB and CWD for it spreads quickly in herd animals such as elk and cattle,” said Andy Addis, who has launched a petition calling on the government to do something about the number of elk in the area.

Read all about it in this week’s Review.

An inadequate workforce is a problem in most jurisdictions, including here in the Parkland, but a group of area municipalities have banded together to help address the problem in the area.

The Municipality of Roblin, Grandview Municipality, the Municipality of Gilbert Plains, Mossey River Municipality, the Municipality of Ste Rose and the City and the RM of Dauphin each provided $3,500 in seed money to run a one-year pilot project aimed at recruiting skilled workers and matching them directly with employment in the area.

Find out more in this week’s issue.

Police would like to remind people, to NOT leave your keys in your vehicles, do NOT leave them running with the keys in them. In the last two months, there have been several vehicles stolen from the Roblin area.
We need to do our part in keeping our vehicles safe, by not giving thieves the opportunity to steal them by leaving the keys in them.

Find out what’s been keeping police busy in this week’s RCMP report.

Municipalities all across Manitoba are looking for more cost-effective ways of doing things, while maintaining a certain standard level of service. Recycling costs have been a topic of discussion for all Manitoba municipalities... how to recoup the costs of operating recycling services in each community, which has been a growing challenge.

Mult-Material Stewardship Manitoba (MMSM) has a draft plan proposal to spearhead and manage recycling in the province and take it off municipalities’ plates.

Check out the rest of the story in this week’s Review.

On January 19, 2024, at approximately 3:50 pm, The Pas RCMP responded to a serious stabbing incident in the 300 block of Edwards Avenue. Two people were severely injured.
No further reports of violence have been received. However, one or more suspects remain at large. The RCMP is asking residents of The Pas and area to be vigilant and to report any suspicious activity.
The investigation is in its very early stages and police remain on scene at this time. People are asked to avoid the area if possible and motorists are asked to be aware of emergency personnel working on scene.
When this incident occurred, there were many people in the vicinity, and police would like to speak to anyone who was in the area at the time of the incident and saw something.