The Winnipeg Sun Goes Sun-Tribune on Sundays 2026

The Klein ownership of Winnipeg Sun begins its second year. Along with the Sun, the group took over Portage la Prairie and Kenora's papers as well. Postmedia was in the midst of a sell-off and without a sale, it was likely the papers would have been shut down. The paper have moved to it's own distinctive look so that it not confused with the rest of the Sun newspapers across Canada. A broadsheet format was used and a different logo and font was the standard. A tabloid section was still used for sports which meant for an odd fitting print paper. The website was redesigned and updated again with better firewalls. The Sun and National Post have remained a primary source for national news, sports and opinion. I have not seen a move to Canadian Press and it's ally Associated Press wire service being used.

The Sun has been stripped down as much as possible. There are few ads in the actual paper. They have added columnists on a column by column basis and lean heavily right wing. I believe they have one news writer and one sports writer now. Kevin Klein and his wife Heather contribute the bulk of the content. This is on par for what many newspapers are in Canada. They rely on fewer and fewer people, Even now, companies like Corus continue to lay off news staff. This week alone in Winnipeg give news staff left go. If print, TV and radio continue to let go staff, information is likely only going to come from individuals from foreign-owned social media.

Since the June 1 weekend or so, the Sunday Sun is calling itself the Winnipeg Sun-Tribune. It is only for that day of the week. The format is about a 25 page tabloid. Klein mentioned the Tribune name came from the tribunes of Rome and suggested powerful advocacy and speaker against the powerful. There is no mention of the Winnipeg Tribune which many of the original 1980 Sun writers and press people migrated from when it was closed that same year. The Free Press bought the Tribune name so not mentioning the Winnipeg Tribune might be a legal defense.

The grand old days of the Winnipeg Sun by the late 1980s and into 1990s was that the Sunday Sun could number 120 pages and had oodles of news, sports and entertainment. The days of a print catalogue that big might be over but a full digital world is being pushed back in meaningful ways. Bookstores and buying books are making a comeback. A book id still an easier format for many to read that yet another screen. Likewise, records are making a comeback. New and used record stores are all over Winnipeg and even at the beach. As people retire, they are chafing at the sound of digital and buying records again.

There is room for a Winnipeg Sun-Tribune in print and digital. Certainly the days of a 120 pages newspaper is over but digital is not interested in small business in the same way radio and newspapers can be. Not everything is best supplied by Amazon. It is not entirely clear that a newspaper of political columns will break through. A newspaper need sports, news and entertainment as well. However, I won't criticize the business plan if it is working.

Conservative media in Canada is in a tizzy though. They are feeding on one another far more than they feed on Liberals ad NDP. Even in Manitoba, the conservative media is not exactly banging the drum for the PCs. I will continue to consume the media all over Manitoba but performative opinion pieces are boring. And campaign speeches over and over from prospective candidates are not exactly earthshattering. It is still early days though.

Newspapers here are routinely datamined by artificial intelligence and not being paid for it. It hurts the Free Press. It hurts the Sun. Intellectual property has to be protected and we are not doing that. The Sun should stay original but if they want a target, go after the digital media that is beggaring them.

Television Miniseries Over the Years Part 1

Each decade has been marked by different strengths and weaknesses in content from the beginning of televisions' early beginnings till now. The Golden Age of Television began in 1947 for most Americans but it was very limited beyond the very biggest of cities there. In Canada, TV broadcasts began in 1952. Expansion of stations into Manitoba took till 1954 when CBC Winnipeg came on the air. It was no easy task to get signals out beyond the cities and reliable videotape didn't come along till 1957. This meant that almost everything was live or had been filmed earlier on actual cinema film. Nevertheless, the experience of radio played an important role in television development of movies and limited series.

 

From 1947 to 1957, anthologies were the nascent beginnings of the miniseries. That is to say, they were put together as content with a beginning, middle and end rather than serialized material. High culture was the focus and major sponsors came aboard so that shows like For Whom The Bell Tolls and Lincoln could be produced. Different casts, sets and the like would be put together for each production. It was expensive and technically difficult. However, it showed that there was interest by people in literary and biographical material in a limited series. It was also live material because video recorders were not in use till late 1950s.

The earliest material for TV originated in New York so there was very much a theatrical and literary bent to what was presented. Twelve Angry Men and Marty originated on TV before becoming Hollywood movies. Great writers from the literary and theatre world as well as directors came to TV for the new art form. It was a highly experimental time in the post war period that brought not just audio but video into the home of people around the world. 

Not surprisingly, the early development of TV attracted a fair amount of Canadians from theatre and later from the early development of TV in Canada. Actors like Lorne Greene and Christopher Plummer began the move from Stratford to the U.S. for Broadway and television and film. That migration to the States has been a decades long thing. Experience, training and opportunities come in Canada but the sheer volume of content created for the large population is a siren call. The fame, the money and all that goes with it helped create a whole new industry.

Television was an existential threat in Canada. Many Canadians bought TVs in the east and aimed the antennas south from 1947 on to receive signals. The government tasked CBC (already a national presence in national radio) to create both an English and French broadcaster so in 1952 they hired hundreds of technicians, directors and talent to learn the medium for a launch that year. One of those young directors was Norman Jewison who went on to become the Oscar winning filmmaker.

The private network cooperative CTV didn't even get started till 1960-61. All the heavy lifting in Canada was done by the CBC and the National Film Board. The squabbling network seemed to grudgingly create programming for Canada aside from news and live children's programming. Most of their content was U.S. produced. However, this allowed many Canadians to see mini-series from the U.S. when they were broadcast. By 1976, the CRTC began to assist broadcasters in getting monetary gains in exchange for Canadian content. It has resulted in regular serialized series but only lately in more limited series when paired with Bell Media properties like Crave.

As the CBC rolled out stations and programming across Canada, they tried anthology series of high art. Ballet, plays and the like were performed live. They were categorized as anthology series because they were between 30 and 90 minutes of individual productions with different casts and across different theme. So much of the CBC was investing in infrastructure, staffing and programming. The technology changes were coming fast too. Video recorders and colour TV being phased in the 1950s and 60s made keeping up a challenge. Budgets were always an issue.

Based on the year I was born, I don't recall much of anything miniseries-wise from 1965 to 1970. Our family didn't get cable until 1971. In fact, cable didn't arrive in the city until 1967. Some people had antennas to receive KCND in Pembina, North Dakota but most of the shows were syndicated from 1940s and the 1960s shows. It was only in the 1970s that I began to take note of material that would meet broadly the characterization of being a miniseries or limited series.

Some say a William Holden series shown over four nights called Blue Knight was the first miniseries in the U.S. on NBC. The four hour cop show in LA was from a Joseph Wambaugh book. Holden was a big film star so getting him for a TV was coup. The following year he'd be one the cast on Towering Inferno in theatres. Funnily enough, I didn't see Blue Knight but I did see how Towering Inferno. My dad took me to it while serving with Big Brothers. Even I was too young for the movie, he didn't want me to feel left out. My dad often let me stay up late on a Friday to watch some of the movies that played such as World War II movies. I had nightmares about the disaster movie for sure.

As a rule with standards and practices, more adult drama would be reserved for last hours of primetime. More family material would be in early hours so we'd see a lot of music and variety shows. And Disney of course would be the kick off every Sunday evening. I don't know when Blue Knight aired but likely over four nights at 9 PM Central time. East and West coasts it would have aired 10 PM. Often too late for kids under 10 who would be asleep by then. Central time prime time ended at 10 PM so it was much easier for many to watch drama and get to bed early enough.

While I don't remember Blue Knight, the miniseries of 1973, I do remember the Blue Knight TV series starring George Kennedy. Alas, I didn't catch the two season show. Given then time and a very active sports and after school activity as well getting to bed earlier, there was a number of shows I was aware of but couldn't or chose not to watch. In 1974 and 1975, Winnipeg saw the addition of PBS and CKND/Global to the dial so there was a flood of older movies and the introduction of limited series, mostly from the British. The miniseries of Forsyte from the UK kicked off what we could expect to see from across the pond. I can't say my tastes were as refined back then. The British started the Forsyte back in 1967 so had the jump on everyone. The British influence was enormous and many titles were copied.

Canada didn't have the population or budget that the British and Americans did. We did, however, create one of the most expensive docudramas filled at that point in the world called The National Dream based on the book by Pierre Burton. The 8 episodes miniseries was the highest watched drama at the time. Oddly, the CBC has never made this show available to video or streaming. Our family watched it and it added to the lore of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Canada was also doing influential work in teleplays. Not as long as miniseries but at half hour to two hours were entertaining. One such movie was Flight into Danger starring future Star Trek actor James Doohan and written by Arthur Hailey, both World War II vets. Doohan, born Canadian and Hailey naturalized Canadian. Hailey found success as an author, famously for Airport. The 1956 live production on CBC became the inspiration for drama and comedy in film and television for decades to come.

The National Dream Miniseries in Canada and QB VII in 1974 had huge influence in historical dramas based on historical events. With star writers like Pierre Burton, Timothy Findley, William Whitehead and Leon Uris, it kept to the tradition of using top notch literary writers for complicated shows. I did not see QB VII when it came out. It wasn't until about 1975 when the explosion of cable channels created the demand for pull out TV and a daily listings of what was on. In 1977, TV Guide created a Canadian version of U.S. TV guide. This became super important to planning your week and for networks to promote appointment TV.

In Winnipeg in the 1970s, the Winnipeg Free Press and the Winnipeg Tribune had pull out TV listings and reviewed TV shows. I delivered the Winnipeg Tribune and it was the plucky competitor to the Free Press. It used to be that you were a Trib subscriber or a Freep subscriber. There were no Sunday editions of either paper. The TV listings for the week came out Saturday. Because Sunday was a day when literally everything was closed, we got both papers on Saturday so that there would colour comics, TV listings and classified ads. There were no video recording machines so if you missed a show, you missed it. If there were 22 episodes of a season on average, they would likely repeat again in the summer and you could catch them then. But did it really matter if you missed one Starsky and Hutch? No. Because a year long storyline was not what they were about.

The miniseries, as mentioned, were different as they were special programming all at once over consecutive nights (or serialized over a short time) with a beginning, middle and end. They were long form storytelling. As listed above, Blue Knight starring film actor William Holden was aired in 1973 and earned Emmys for the acting. The story was largely filmed on location in Los Angeles following a beat cop. It holds up well today as a snapshot of the 1970s in LA. As opposed to Dragnet which relied on stock footage of LA and rarely referred to the personal lives on the officers. Just the facts.

The critical acclaim, ratings and overall publicity for networks in the 1970s was focused on big events that would draw sponsors and eyeballs. The dominance of CBS, NBC and ABC was growing in entertainment, sports and news. Cable was just beginning but for many years was just trying to bring network TV to areas that could not pick up signals from affiliates far away. Such was how things developed in much of Canada bringing U.S. signals into homes. Before 1967, it was near impossible to get reliable signals in Winnipeg even with giant broadcast towers in Fargo. Even after, as Videon cable customers will attest, it was possible to lose your cable signal with terrible weather as we have had in the last weeks. I remember losing the last few minutes of Where Eagles Dare fuzzing out in a storm when Richard Burton was going to reveal the traitor spilling to the Nazis. It would be a few years before I would see the movie again and learn the secret.

On network TV, they would show Hollywood movies such as James Bond movies from the 1960s in prime time. By the mid 1970s, stations such as CKND and PBS Grand Forks would show movies from the 1940s through the 1960s. Syndication meant series like Star Trek had new life. Everyone was making money. It was good for newspapers and magazines, good for studios creating movies, good for networks, cable operators and advertisers reaching new audiences. There were still missteps studios could make on budgets and film. There never seemed to be the end of someone who thought they could make a big budget blockbuster. A lot of times they were wrong. However, the libraries of many studios such as MGM proved to exactly what independent stations wanted for content and it came to fit with cable and the need for content.

There was still some regulation and corporate separation that kept TV, music and film in their own silos. Antitrust prevailed and broke up the studio system that tied up all aspects of distribution, exhibition and production. The studios had to compete and be more innovative. It took a Supreme Court ruling to get them to break up and ten years to do it. However, without it, it is unlikely we would have had the production companies in the 1960s and 1970s creating in the same way as the vertically integrated media was back then.

There were a number of reasons why TV networks started creating their own movies and miniseries. One main reason is that they didn't want to rely completely on the movie studios for content. Certainly, showing James Bond on ABC could draw ratings but it often took a while for a new Bond to come out. The networks needed material on a more regular basis. It is why in the 1950s and 1960s, it was not uncommon for series like Gunsmoke to have nearly double the episodes that were the standard in the 1970s and 1980s. The development of a season of episodes and repeats usually meant the network still had days to fill  up with programming.

The networks had to satisfy their advertising sponsors and their affiliates. Getting enough sponsors meant it paid for your content which kept affiliates from seeking other affiliation or filling their space with syndicated content. This was indeed a real issue as affiliates could change their affiliation. Even networks themselves might look to switch to a different local station if that station had been reception or local composition of news. Such is the case when NBC WDAY/WDAZ became the new ABC affiliate over ABC KTHI in Fargo in 1983.

To attract the people with the money and the means to broadcast it, the networks began to begin bring people to Hollywood to see what they would be showing to kick off their fall seasons. By the 1970s, this was an elaborate star-studded affair that was attended by media, advertisers and affiliates.  Aside from the regular programming of series, sports, variety shows and news, network exec wanted to buy literary material that was popular and turn it into movies and miniseries. This was a time of epic storytelling though.

Hollywood studios, as well as some overseas studios, often dramatized historical events and great works of literature. However, the maximum length many could stay in a theatre seemed to cap off at about 4 hours and only for the biggest blockbusters such Cleopatra on the Greatest Story Ever Told in the 1960s. TV broadcasts of those movies were broken up in two parts over consecutive nights to boffo ratings. This certainly clued in the networks that there was an appetite for movies over two or more nights.

The antitrust breakup created many production companies that TV and movie studios contracted with to create productions. It is of note that this is how Stephen Spielberg rose up. He directed a made for TV movie Duel from an original story in Playboy magazine in 1971. Dennis Weaver starred. At the time, he had become a star of his own TV limited series of McLeod. This was two different examples of what networks were doing to start the 1970s. Made for TV movies and a revolving wheel of mystery movies such as McLeod and Columbo.

This innovation and insatiable need for content led to miniseries. Trying to get Hollywood talent to sign up required a limited number of episodes and a hot script. It was this type of time, budget and script that drew Richard Holden and Lee Remick to Blue Knight in 1973. Four hours over for four nights of compelling TV that landed both actors awards. While there had been some miniseries before then, this triggered a flurry of activity from all three American networks and from other across the world to create miniseries.

I was just too young for some the earlier miniseries like Rich Man, Poor Man in 1976 and with it being 12 episodes long, I was likely missing a few of them because of sports since it aired in February of that year. I would have turned 11 in the middle of it. I did see it much later though. It would be 1977 before I'd be watching a miniseries from beginning to end and that was Roots. Although from an American experience, it was as much watched in Canada as the U.S. and contributed to discussion. Roots, unlike Rich Man which broadcast every Tuesday, broadcast each night for a week. The story of slavery over generation ran every night in January that year. It was the first time we'd see the introduction of LeVar Burton. He'd go onto long time success on Star Trek: Next Generation a decade later.

The same year of 1977 I would see The Godfather series composed of the two theatrical films and edited and arranged for network TV. There were quite a few miniseries back then that I watched. Some so long ago that the memory has faded. Between 1977 and 1979, there were so many. The minsieries sequel to Roots and Salem's Lot in 1979 left lasting memories. It was the first time we saw a miniseries of a Stephen King book. Salem's Lot was pretty scary for network TV!

The local pullout TV listings was how you planned the week. In the 1970s, there really wasn't the time wasting on scrolling through the phone or Internet since it didn't exist. No home computers and no video games either. Some TV shows like Stranger Things tend to mythologize those times as suburban Narnia. It wasn't but it certainly didn't have the type of varied distractions of today. Having being born in 1965, I can say the very limited TV of two channels before cable was not as compelling as going outside. I came to think of the TV as something you watched the U.S. space program on and this strange war being fought in a place called Vietnam. All of this on black and white TV.

Truly network TV had its greatest moments in the 1970 when there was literally no other competition in drama, comedy, variety, news and sports. It was only the 1980s that cable channels themselves began to compete. HBO was the movie channel most sought out when people just wanted movies. It used to be on the marquees outside hotels. HBO included.

Miniseries have always been great for historical events or sweeping literary stories. In the 1970s, Little Women was a miniseries, Harriet Taubman was miniseries and The Holocaust was a miniseries. Those type of series attracted top talent and many Canadians watched although some were more specific to the U.S. experience.

By the 1980s, it seemed the miniseries had tripled in numbers. Lonesome Dove, The Thornbirds, V, Amerika and the Winds of War were massive series that demanded attention. Big stars were cast and big stories were old from the best of the book world, historical events and speculative fiction. There were far too many to see, some might later turn up on cable or around 1982, many families starting getting VCRs. Ultimately, this helped people not miss episodes of something hugely long like Winds of War.

It should be mentioned that in the rise in tandem of networks and cable, newspapers began to struggle. In Winnipeg, the Winnipeg Tribune went under in 1980 along with the Montreal Star. The free classified ads and media ownership that preferred a monopoly. However, more ads were going to radio and TV. he Winnipeg Sun started shortly after and made sure that they competed on days the Free Press passed over such as Sundays. It was an indication of how market conditions were changing. USA Today began to publish in 1982 and their newstands looked like TV boxes and their format was to remind people of TV programming. No long form stories for them.

There was probably a 30 year period where the media of print, radio, movies and television all elevated themselves through cross promotion and ad revenue. Even the beginnings of the Internet helped promote other media for many year. It was only when giants such as social media began to hoover up other companies and ad money while manipulating things with algorithms that some of the pillars started to collapse. 

It was roughly halfway through 1990s that the Internet started to be used for newsgroups, mail lists and ways of engaging with fans. The Internet Movie Database and Wikipedia were ways for TV and film audiences to really engage. Had the Internet been more like that always, it might have been a less permissive thing now. 

From the 1980s to the 1990s saw cable start to take on more miniseries. Big name directors who were once attracted to networks looked to cable and premium cable to tell stories. The networks were still very powerful but HBO and USA Network started doing miniseries with big names and bigtime directors. It was still networks though that were able to really muster audience side and promotion. Stephen King had a number of network miniseries such as The Stand (ABC) in 1994, The Langoliers (ABC) in 1995 and The Tommyknockers (ABC) in 1993. 

By the 2000s, there was a shift to ever greater number of miniseries from cable networks. This was not a terrible problem because cable subscriptions had risen to levels not seen before. The problem was that the packages were rising every year. And still do now. To get the premium channels like HBO required a very high price. I will write more in the next part. However, miniseries became some of the highest rated shared programming we had as a culture. The fracture was to come and is still happening now.

Saturday Night Live - Winnipeg Fan 1975-2025

It was October 11, 1975 when Saturday Night premiered on NBC. The Saturday Night Live moniker would not be used till the following year. I was a ten year old kid at the time still getting used to cable. It only arrived at our house in 1971, the same year we got a colour TV. By 1974 CKND arrived and in 1975 Prairie Public TV was in place. For kids though, it was an avalanche of programming from CBS, NBC and ABC aimed at youth. Saturday morning cartoons was not something that was found on our CBC, CKY and CKND channels.

By 10 years old, most Saturdays were filled with sports but soccer and hockey were largely played outdoors. It still left young kids able to watch cartoons which started at 8 AM or earlier in the central time zones and ran to noon-ish. Most kids in sports were home early enough for dinner and Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday. 

In 1975, almost everything was closed on Sundays in Manitoba except church which generally had 11 am services. This meant that if kids were going to stay up later hours, it was going to be Friday and especially Saturday because of being able to sleep in a bit later than all the rest of the week. Entire families watched Hockey Night in Canada on Saturdays. Back then it was only one game on that night. And while Winnipeggers loved the WHA and the Winnipeg Jets from their start in 1972, they could love an NHL team as well because it was different league. In our house and many homes in Winnipeg, it was the Montreal Canadiens.

After a game, my parents were usually exhausted and whereas, week nights where they had lunches to make and kids to organize, no extra child care was needed when all that was happening was church the next morning. Stores were closed, workplaces closed. It was very sleepy most Sunday except for maybe some kids sports. 

So what did Gen X kids do on a Saturday? At 10 years old, as long as I wasn't outside, I was able to stay and watch TV in the living room as my parent's slept. My siblings sometimes stayed up but were often asleep as well by 10:30. Most networks would show movies before going off the air shortly after midnight. There were no 24 hour stations back then. But what could I watch?

I was a Winnipeg Tribune carrier which was delivered 6 days a week after school or afternoons Saturday. Both the Free Press and Tribune had TV guides in their Saturday papers and at 10, I had several part of the paper that I read first: comics, sports and TV guide. It was there and other places I noticed something on NBC called Saturday Night which was going to be on after the hockey game.

At the time, I didn't know the show format had been pitched to the CBC and rejected or that that executive producer was a Canadian named Lorne Michaels. I was too young to remember the Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour in 1970 that was on Saturdays at 9 PM on CBC. Lorne Michaels had been working on both sides of the border for comedy. There were so many variety/music shows in the 1970s. The TV guide just said there was a live comedy variety show on Saturday after the hockey game.

NBC already had a musical variety show called the Midnight Special. In central time zone it came on at midnight but in east and west zones it was at 1 AM.  It was the first time I got to see Wolfman Jack. The Royal Canadian Air Farce was a comedy sketch series in Canada that started on CBC Radio in 1973 so I was familiar with the format so a live TV comedy/music show sounded awesome.

In the end, when everyone else went to bed, I watched the very first episode of Saturday Night and was introduced to the characters  of John Belushi, Gilda Radner and Dan Ackroyd along with the rest of the cast. I was delighted by the sketches, the musical guests and the whole rebellious demeanor of the show. It felt very Canadian and of course, I didn't know that so many of the people involved were Canadian.

For young people who had few options for going out Saturday night or who were coming home from hockey, movies and the like, watching Saturday Night Live at 10:30 PM was a real treat. The show started a little rough but by the fourth episode or so started to take shape. I saw Weekend Update with Chevy Chase and it was a fascinating and funny look U.S. news. It would be Chase who would be the first big film star to emerge from the cast. But soon after Belushi and Ackroyd would go to take their SNL characters of the Blue Brothers to film.

The show has ebbed and flowed for the 50 years it has been on. Some amazing years and some awful ones. In some years I was busy and sometimes was doing things on a Saturday night but I have kept coming back in years when things are really top level. And nowadays, segments will appear on social media if I miss an episode.

I do still try to see the show on and off. Sometimes it will be a guest music act or a host that will bring me in. Sometimes it will be the outstanding performances. In 2025, I think they have an excellence in their cast that has really made for a new relevance. It is curious though if the medium of TV continues to be relevant long into the future.

Winnipeg Sun Switches to Broadsheet

This is going on third week or so of the Winnipeg Sun's switch from the tabloid format it has had since its 1980 beginning. The paper initially was only three days a week and began evening delivery about a month into publication. Initially, the paper was black and white but eventually started having colour in their Sun logo. The publication was owned and operated by Winnipeggers, many of whom were refugees from the shuttered and beloved Winnipeg Tribune.  After getting to a respectable 34,000 plus circulation, Quebecor bought the paper and folded it into their national national Sun chain.

The early Sun was a little more serious paper in that there was no Sun girl. Editorial policy was more local and more encompassing. The tabloid format was streamlined and within two years some editions had a whopping 120 pages. The new Sun managers had a way of doing things that was more pugnacious and heavily conservative. It should be no surprise now that with a former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister, the new Winnipeg Sun should continue to be very conservative. However, it has picked up on local which the former owners seemed to have cut considerably in recent years.

Kevin Klein contributes regular columns and there are several additions in terms of columnists and writers on the paper. The relationship with the former Sun ownership continues but the focus there is all too often on the federal government. It is likely why Klein has tried to beef up local coverage.

The broadsheet format change is more of a hybrid. The broadsheet has a tabloid sports section in it. That section more closely resembles what a Sunday Sun was like. Even the logo more or less is the same. However, the front section has a banner type font reading Winnipeg Sun with a that at first glance looks like the Free Press even though the lettering is completely different. A rising sun in the middle of the letters is the one splash of colour in the heading. The stories and columns are laid out around a main picture. 

Inside the broadsheet is a fair amount of news and editorial. This seems to be true of both the Saturday and Sunday printed papers. It would appear that the newspaper is a work in progress so I am treating it more like what those 1980s days were like when the paper kept adding colours, days printed, delivery and the like. Klein keeps adding content because it is the only way to grow subscriptions.

Print newspapers are now quite dead yet. Just like books were written off far too early, newspapers and magazines can survive but they can't exist on classified and commercial ads. The big 6 gatekeepers such as Google and Facebook are starting to run afoul of antitrust. The fact that they can have anti-competitive practices hurts news media is only one aspect of concern. Their systems are capable of taking down banks, airlines and government services. The Microsoft update shows how badly we can be hurt. It cost billions.

Government can't pay media but these large groups that use content paid for by groups such as the Free Press and the Sun need to be held to account. If a new Conservative government drops supports for TV/film and media, it is entirely possible we see large areas of industry, news and production cease. 

Winnipeg is lucky as it has two local owners for their major newspapers. Kevin Klein will have his work cut out for him re-building the Sun. It still heavily favours a lot of national Sun/Postmedia content. To appeal to women, they will need different content than they do now. The New York Times gets thousands of subscribers for their game section. Other newspapers get reader for their advice columns. It was the Winnipeg Sun that was original home of Miss Lonelyhearts. There are many things that a newspaper is on a daily basis. But a big part of it should be informative and entertaining. 

The Sun really needs to build their Winnipeg Jets and Moose coverage. It is possible some relationship with the various sports podcasts is appropriate. This could apply to radio stations as well. Hal Anderson has contributed to the Sun for years. However, the paper could benefit from more restaurant reviews. More entertainment reports on what is happening in the city.

I get that this will be a piece by piece building project. And it won't all be about print newspaper. But it can be about news and information. And it can be a heck of a lot better than TikTok or Facebook.

USA Today

The above is the cover of USA Today first publish on September 15, 1982. For those Winnipeggers looking to get a copy at the international newsstands, it wasn't easy. Even in the States it was limited to only a few metropolitan areas. However, the colour pages, graphics and weather map of the entire United States would go on to influence every other print paper including the Winnipeg Free Press. Derided by the big news groups at the time as being McPaper, it lost money until 1987.

It was in 1984 that USA Today's began to show up in Winnipeg. Unlike the U.S., it cost 50 cents. Canada got the U.S. version rather than the newly developed international version. Eventually USA Today boxes that looked different from any other news box arrived in the city. In various parts of the downtown and even in neighbourhoods like River Heights, the USA boxes shaped like TV stands appeared, usually by bus stops.

It would be wrong to call it the great era of newspapers in Winnipeg as each era has had great and sometimes terrible moments. The historical start of Winnipeg had many scrappy English and non-English newspapers covering the region and beyond. The 1970s had an epic battle between the The Winnipeg Free Press and the Winnipeg Tribune with many innovations for subscribers. Sadly, that ended when the Tribune closed in 1980.

Luckily, Winnipeg only went a number of months before a number of local business people and former writers of the Tribune got together to start the Winnipeg Sun. While tabloid in format, it was local and distinguishable from Sun counterparts for nearly 20 years. The sports department was excellent and the yellow news boxes were easily recognizable. From 1980 on there were often four or five news boxes on prominent corners. Local, national and international. And a good book store or new store might have copies of everything from New York Times to the Calgary Herald. It was a heyday for print media.

And why not? There was no Internet and print was the best way to report news and make money from advertising. Our family at one point sometimes had four newspapers in the house. With no Sunday shopping till the late 1980s, a weekend paper would stretch over two days. The Sun eventually added a Sunday paper and people took a section each to read whether it was local, sports, comics or opinion. 

USA Today had a Friday, Saturday and Sunday version that I'd pick up. The price of 50 cents a day was too rich for me but a weekend paper often had special sections. Their "Labor" weekend paper was usually something we picked up when down in Grand Forks, North Dakota. The early 1980s Columbia Mall had 71 stores along with Target, JCPenney and Dayton's. Prior to the 1978 opening of Columbia, our family had made a few trips to Fargo, North Dakota for the 1972 built West Acres Mall.  Often it was just a day trip from Grand Forks where we'd have our hotel. In Grand Forks, as young kids I remember shopping in downtown Grand Forks.

By 1984, we mostly stayed only in Grand Forks at the Westward Ho. And we always picked up a Grand Forks Herald and a USA Today. The Sunday Herald was thick with ads that we perused before shopping. The USA Today on Labor Day would feature the upcoming TV season. I had occasionally bought TV Guide's Fall Preview but found it less satisfactory than reading USA Today.  Our family was fairly well informed about what might be good in the coming season. A lot it was revealed in the TV listings of both Free Press and Sun. But USA Today compared and contrasted the offerings and got me excited about shows I might like.

USA Today also ran special sections for baseball and the NFL that were popular. I'd liked the graphics for the various shuttle missions. The most impressive thing that often attracted the eye was the full page weather map. I contend that more geography and sense of America came from looking at the 50 state weather map than what appeared in any national media or in education. It also listed much of the world fairly well.

I loved the USA Today logo. The new one since 2012 feels more washed out and even years later I'm still not used to it. Truth is, since the pandemic, I have only been to the States once since 2019 and that was this spring. One thing had changed and that is, it isn't easy to find print newspapers of any kind. Where they used to be at every gas station or news boxes outside restaurants, these things have gone missing. And hotels used to have newspapers at front desk for free or dropped by your room. I still see newspapers at some Winnipeg hotels but not once in 2023 south of the border.

Perhaps the assumption is that people will get all their information and news online. However, the roaming charges for Canadians makes use of a cellphone prohibitive except when using WIFI. The good news is that WIFI is far more available than it was prior to the pandemic. But I'll be honest. I don't like reading newspapers or magazines very much on a cellphone. As such, I sought out USA Today and found it hard to find a print copy. I had to do a search about retailers who sold it. Some grocers and gas stations. But far less than a few years ago. And far less copies!

Contrast that to Winnipeg where there are quite a few Saturday papers at most 7/11s and grocers. And a good supply any other time they print during the week. The digital wave is only a part of the assault on news. Polarization means that many people stick to their silos when it comes to news and media. USA Today has some editorial and opinion content that is ranked left of centre but there is enough to appeal to many with sports, weather and entertainment as well as news stories from across the United States.

I hope papers like USA Today survive in print. We have seen books and records make comebacks in part because people have preferred the format instead of a digital option. The newspaper once called McPaper has been far more resilient, colourful and national than than the regional fare that came before it but it wasn't really meant to replace your local paper. The national scope of the newspaper was what made it different and special. Here's to many more years of USA Today.

St. Paul's High School Expansion

The St. Paul's High School Athletics and Fieldhouse Building Expansion

St. Paul's High School has been a part of the city since 1926. The various teams playing out of this Jesuit school have been known as the Crusaders. Now one might assume that a Catholic school might have come up with that moniker themselves. However, you would be wrong thinking so. The teams for years had been known as Collegians, Paulinians and Paulines. This was wholly unsatisfactory for Winnipeg Tribune and later Free Press writer Vince Leah who called them Crusaders in 1935.

The teams has given so much spirit to the school and the city over the years that it is not surprising that school officials and fundraisers decided it should be a focal point of new development on the campus.

One of the cranes that dots the skyline of Winnipeg is now over St. Paul's High School building the 900 seat fieldhouse. Inside will be basketball and volleyball courts, athletic therapy centre and fitness training area that will also serve the football team. An alumni lounge, dressing rooms, independent washrooms for visitors, storage and offices will occupy the building with parking just off Holland Blvd (named after Father Holland).

The whole facility will be connected by tunnel to the main campus. The $7 million dollar complex will come with a $2 million bursary program. This should make the school an attractive draw for students and parents and very competitive with the 60 other Jesuit secondary schools across the country.

This is a great addition to the city and Charleswood and come on the heels of Shaftesbury School's recent classroom and library expansion and just prior to Canadian Mennonite University's new library and learning centre being built.

This neck of the woods on Grant Avenue has become a vital education power corner.

The Legacy of Bill Norrie

There is no doubt that Bill Norrie was well liked and generally regarded as a decent man. There is no doubt that he wanted to serve the people of his community.

As befitting of his service as second longest serving mayor for the city of Winnipeg from 1979 to 1992, there has been a rush of praise for the man. I have no problem with that. However, it is also the duty of the press to recall some of the darker moments of that tenure as well.

First elected to council in 1971 and endorsed by the Independent Citizens Election Committee, a right of center political party of Liberals and Conservatives founded in 1921, Norrie was present when the city amalgamated with the surrounding communities to form Unicity. The super council of 50 part time elected officials was carefully guided by the ICEC often in closed door meetings where policy was decided.

It was at this time that Norrie along with his like minded councillors began negotiating a deal for Trizec, a major property developer, to build a tower at Portage and Main. At the time, Norrie was elected councillor, he was present for expropriation of property at the southwest corner that climbed into the milliions by the time it was done.

The ICEC pushed through the Trizec development, the concourse and parkade in numerous closed door meetings and in 1979, shortly before Norrie became mayor, pedestrian traffic was banned from the street in a very long deal with the developers.

The Trizec Building stood thereafter as an example of how not to do things to this day. In the year that Norrie was sworn in, the development was largely unoccupied and had many darkened floors. It also had one of the sweetest city tax deals in the history of the city.

One year into mayor Bill Norrie's term, Winnipeg experienced the most crushing recession in its post war history. The Winnipeg Tribune, Swift's and Canada Packers all shuttered their doors in 1980. The citizens of Winnipeg watched cities like Calgary and Edmonton zip past us in population with Ottawa, Quebec City and Hamilton in quick succession after. Winnipeg experienced and exodus of population the likes of which we had never seen before.

In short, economic prospects were terrible, debt was increasing and borrowing was out of control. Suburban growth was funded with increases on property taxes based on a creaky assessment system. The city was sprawling like never before and the downtown was de-populating and was beginning to resemble a donut.

To top it off, the city was engaged in a language debate that started when a unilingual parking ticket of $5 was challenged by George Forest in 1975. Even a Supreme Court ruling in 1979 affirming language rights was not enough to spur the province and city to translate laws with any haste. For many years, some of the nastiest and vitriolic comments were at municipal and provincial levels and nothing was done. In 1980, another city traffic ticket was challenged and back to the Supreme Court it went.

While the French aspect of Winnipeg of the city was under great pressure from a hostile city response, the First Nations community was near ready to boil over. It is hard to fathom an examination of city politics and Bill Norrie without talking about the shooting of J.J. Harper in 1988.

The chief of police, Herb Stephen, cleared the officer almost immediately. This rather hasty move exposed the city to criticism of racism, police misconduct and cover-up. A raw wound of aboriginal relations was revealed for all to see.

Moreover, criminal police activity in 1981 with the arrests of officers Jerry Stolar and Barry Nielson for murder was still fresh in everyone's minds.

The lack of police reforms and how the chief was selected lay at the feet of Bill Norrie and the council.

The inquiry that followed revealed that the police association challenged the right of anyone to see police notebooks in regards to the shooting. The court disagreed and ordered verified copies be produced.

All through this sad state of affairs, true police reforms were sadly lacking and what should be remembered is that when Norrie left office in 1992, Winnipeg was without a full time police chief when Stephen stepped down in 1991. Outsider Dale Henry was named chief in 1992.

All in all...this period with Norrie as mayor was an extremely difficult time for the city.

There are plenty of kudos that should be listed along with Norrie's tenure as mayor. He did help bring the pandas to Winnipeg (all the while as the Winnipeg Zoo whithered from lack of other investment). He helped bring the Grey Cup game to the city.

And during his various terms, he was involved in tri-lateral work to restore downtown Winnipeg. The highs were The Forks, the lows Portage Place.


Bill Norrie was a genial and hard working councillor and mayor. When a person dies, there is generally a rush to focus on the positive things. However, when he left, the city was in debt, had declined in national standings in population, had no police chief and was in the middle of a biker war. The dissatisfaction with the ICEC and Liberal/Conservative coalition had bubbled over and Win into the 90s was well established and broke the back of one of the longest running civic parties in Canada. When Norrie stepped down in 1992, there was a movement afoot to challenge him at every turn.

It could very well be that if Norrie had wanted to, he could have been in office to his death. Few things can push a sitting mayor out of Winnipeg office. To that end, it is the province that is to blame for that. For some reason, the NDP government believes putting up an NDP affiliated mayor each election will change that.

It won't. What will break the logjam is to allow councillors to run for mayor without resigning their seat unless they win higher office. It is my opinion that if the law was challenged, it would not stand up to constitutional scrutiny.

There is little doubt that Bill Norrie wanted to serve his city and community. He certainly left some legacies to that end. For that, he should be thanked.

Portage Avenue Part 1

Picture taken by niceheart. Note: Holt Renfrew closed in 2007.

Portage Place was built in 1987 after a long debate as to how to best rehabilitate North Portage Avenue.

Lloyd Axworthy, the driving force behind the Core Area Initiative in 1981, was the minister charged with the federal response to Portage Avenue's decline. In 1980, Winnipeg was hit with a series of devastating economic hits. The Winnipeg Tribune had shut down as well as the Swift's and Canada Packers plants. It threw thousands out of work and that was just a few of the prominent businesses that closed during the recession at that time.

Axworthy spearheaded a tri-government agreement called the North Portage Development Corporation and although Axworthy advocated for an arena, the city rejected it in favour of an enclosed mall. A deal was signed but Axworthy was not there to follow it up. His government was ousted by Mulroney and while the Tories axed many of the Liberal projects in Winnipeg including the underpass at Waverley and the National Research Council lab on Ellice, they let the mall proceed.

It appears that the Portage Place land acquisition was too far along for Mulroney to cancel (although many thought the same thing about the NRC lab since the building was complete). Before Axworthy lost his job, he was able to get the funding and construction started on the Air Canada building at 355 Portage Avenue. It was completed in 1985, two years before Portage Place was constructed.

At the same time Portage Place was being constructed, Investors Group was looking to consolidate its people spread out over several offices in Winnipeg. For many years, they occupied elegant headquarters in a Broadway office tower built in 1962. Even now the building and design reminds one of the series Mad Men.

The new building, attached by skywalk to the mall, has peaked roof and a brick design. It was completed in the same year at Portage Place.

The concept behind the mall was to somehow bring retail success to the north side of Portage to mimic what was still happening on the south side. It was believed that connecting the north side by skywalks to The Bay and Eaton's would be key to that success.

(to be continued)



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