Despite the upcoming closure of the longtime hardware store, Pembina Co-op is still committed to its presence in Minto.
According to Minto Manager Terry Campbell, the co-op has been investigating the situation at the store located in the middle of the village for some time. The decision to close comes down to practicality.
“We have been looking at our hardware for the last several years,” Campbell explained. “The amount of business is not sustainable. To have one part of the operation that loses money for us in today’s business world does not work. Even members using the store would not appreciate operating a business that is not sustainable.”
The Souris Daycare has been facing significant challenges offering programming and care due to staffing shortages. Whether this is the result of COVID or not, Director Becca Brolund cannot say for certain. During lockdown the Souris-based daycare continued to pay staff wages in hopes of retaining their employees. Brolund speculates that some staff chose not to return due to concerns around health safety.
To operate a daycare at full capacity the requirements are 67% of the staff be trained as Early Childhood Educators (ECE). If this quota is not met, then the government can halt certain programming. Souris Daycare has had to close the nursery program and divert the ECE in order to address the staff shortage in the daycare. The half-day nursery program was available to children between the ages of three and five. Parents could enroll them for a few sessions per week or the whole week. Because of COVID they had planned to run four sessions this year when normally they would run six.
Reconciliation involves connection and a willingness to come together as friends and allies, explained a First Nations elder who visited Minto School on November 2.
Winston Wuttunee, with his wife Geri, spent the day with students and staff at the K-8 school. He is a well-regarded speaker and musician who has visited schools around the country to share Aboriginal songs and culture.
Wuttunee taught the students songs, talked a little about the many Native treaties as well as many different parts of their identity.
“I talked to them about what we are, how we think, how our education is,” Wuttunee explained. “How we treat our relatives, what is an elder, how the children went to school long ago and how that was so rough. They weren’t like they are today. The teachers now are wonderful, they work with the children, they are very, very kind. It is healthy. Long ago, it wasn’t like that. We talked a little bit about that, not too much, but it happened all over the world, and it happened here in a bad way.”
The scarlet flower that has been the most recognizable symbol of remembrance hit its 100th birthday in 2021.
The poppy pin has been stuck in lapels for a century, after being adopted on July 6, 1921. What began as a remembrance of the “war to end all wars” has become the sign of sacrifice for all of our veterans and will likely be for all time. Its beginning goes back farther than many realize, however.
It is hard to know for sure how far in history the poppy was connected to the battlefield. They have long been used as a symbol of sleep, peace and death, and in ancient times, were used as offerings to the dead. In ancient Greek myths, poppies flowered along the banks of the river Lethe that flowed to Hades, from which the dead must drink to forget their former existence.
