All the city council news that’s fit to print (or not): Social media v. mainstream media

There have always been Facebook groups in Thompson, at least since my arrival in 2007, with lots of members who complain, sometimes with good reason and sometimes with no reason, about the state of affairs in the City of Thompson, with city council, no matter who is on it at the time, being a favourite target, both as a corporate entity, as well as a bullseye painted on the mayor and individual councillors in office at the time.  These Facebook groups come and go over time. Administrators change or burnout, folks interests switch, whatever. Most of the groups are gossipy with their requisite share of trolls, neanderthals and other malcontents. But truth be told, the membership of most of these groups is made up largely of pretty ordinary concerned Thompsonites or former Thompsonites who truly care about their community. I know many of these people. Some are friends. They don’t (for the most part anyway) just sit in the dark in their basements posting Facebook rants at 3 a.m. They volunteer. They vote. They write letters to the editor. And, yes, sometimes they rant.

But what I am seeing recently for the first time is one of these Facebook groups performing an alternative watchdog role to the mainstream media when it comes to the goings-on at city council. The approach is still a bit scattershot, but they do know how to link to real municipal documents, including juicy correspondence at places like the City of Thompson’s website, All-Net, a Winnipeg municipal software company, which began in 1999 as NewWave Communications, as well as court documents found online at the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench court registry.

Christine Auger, a Thompson property owner and former owner of Speedpro Signs on Hayes Road, who now lives in my hometown of Oshawa, Ontario, started the closed Facebook group Thompson Taxpayers on April 8, 2016, and serves as its administrator. As of this writing, it has 309 members, not a large number even by various Thompson Facebook group comparisons, some of which have 10 or even more times members, but Thompson Taxpayers is starting to punch above its weight in numbers, to use an old boxing metaphor.

The Thompson Citizen, which I edited between 2007 and 2014, still does a pretty decent paper-of-record sort of coverage of actual city council meetings, as does Shaw Cable TV through its local community access channel in its TV coverage of same. But Thompson Taxpayers on Facebook is mining rich material – some of it surely news material – in city council correspondence.

Earlier this year, Coun. Duncan Wong, a first-term councillor best known as a local restaurateur who owns Wongs Asian Bistro, opined at a council meeting that “in Thompson we have a lot of snow usually and to buy a two-wheel drive especially, I’m going to do a comparison about the weight. The half-ton truck we’re talking about 5,000-plus pounds. The three-quarter ton truck we’re talking about 6,000-plus pounds, a thousand pounds more for people to get unstuck is pretty hard especially we do have a female employee working for the public works so they do drive the half-ton or three-quarter ton. Imagine if they got stuck it would cost so much time and effort to get it out.”

Whether some of us are becoming too oversensitive and easily hurt is a debate being thrashed out perhaps a bit too nastily by both sides for my own personal taste on Thompson Taxpayers right now, but what is not debatable is that Wong’s last two sentences touched off a firestorm with very real repercussions. Kate Whitton, president of the board of directors of YWCA Thompson, wrote to Mayor Dennis Fenske on May 25 – just two days before the annual YWCA Women of Distinction awards dinner – asking that Coun. Judy Kolada, scheduled to bring official greetings to the event on behalf of the City of Thompson, be replaced by another councillor who shared the YWCA gender equality values, both for allegedly associating herself with Wong’s “sexist” remarks, and making her own “sexist, discriminatory and inappropriate” at the May 8 council meeting. Heavy stuff, serious allegations. And with several added elements that Thompson Taxpayers have picked up on, unlike the mainstream media, including Kate Whitton being formerly known as Kate Fenske. On May 25, she was writing in her official capacity as president of the board of directors of YWCA Thompson to her father Dennis Fenske, in his official capacity as mayor of the City of Thompson, about Coun. Judy Kolada, who  – wait for it  –  happened to work on a three-year contract as the executive director for YWCA Thompson YWCA after she retired from working as a provincial civil servant in 2008.

A second letter was written May 30 by Emily Pruder, addressed to Mayor Fenske and councillors, requesting “a public apology at the next regular meeting of council from Councillor Wong for his comments. I would also like to request that Councillor Wong undertake sensitivity training specifically focused on sexism in the workplace. His comments were not merely a poor choice of words; they are reflective of his beliefs about the capabilities of women employed by the Public Works Department and working women in Thompson.”

Emily Pruder won the YWCA Chantelle Chornoby Memorial Award in 2016 for Young Woman of Distinction, an award given for “an exceptional young woman aged 30 or under who demonstrates leadership, maturity and compassion. Through her commitment to a cause or pursuit of a personal dream, this young woman has shown perseverance, innovation and a keen understanding of community issues.” Pruder, 22 at the time of her win, was described by Whitton at the time as “a community leader, a trailblazer for human rights, advocating for equality of marginalized groups and dedicated to the empowerment of young women and girls.”

Pruder began her volunteering with the R.D. Parker Collegiate Music Students Association, and helping to clean up a selected neighbourhood every spring. Pruder had also been both a leader and active recruiter for Thompson’s Girl Guides, tripling the program’s participation over the course of three years. She had also quickly stepped in to co-ordinate Thompson’s Community Christmas Dinner, and is a founding member of Thompson’s LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and queer) advocacy group, Pride 55, the first of its kind in the region.While I think Pruder’s May 30 letter, as a matter of public record, is absolutely newsworthy, I would not associate myself with some of the outraged and uncharitable posts about it in the Thompson Taxpayers Facebook group. Same for the Whitton letter, too. Why? While the comments are legally well within the libel definition of fair comment, every journalist knows you don’t publish something just because you can. There should always be other considerations to be weighed and balanced. This is something the mainstream media usually, though not always, still does better than social media.

This is a small community. Most of us after a time know each other, if not directly, indirectly. So I ask myself? How do I speak the truth yet not be unkind in my words? While I don’t know Emily Pruder much personally, I have always had great admiration for her stepping up to the plate to co-ordinate the Thompson Community Christmas Dinner at a time when no one else was volunteering. I know her mom and dad, especially her dad. I ran into Nelson just a couple of weeks ago for the first time in a long time at Wal-Mart near the sporting goods department and we chatted about snow clearing, grass cutting, fishing and archery (ask Nelson about the latter). Ironically, we also chatted a bit about the decline of civility in politics, and while we’re both a bit farther to the left ourselves, lamented the passing into history of the Progressive Conservative “Red Tories” we remembered from our youth.

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Debating nomenclature: Premier-designate or premier-elect – or neither? – Plus who’s who in Order of Precedence for Manitoba

On May 3, the Province of Manitoba will have its first change in political party in power as Her Majesty’s Government here since Oct. 5, 1999, when former NDP premier Gary Doer took office. So the arrival of premier-designate Brian Pallister, whose Progressive Conservatives won 40 of the 57 seats in the Manitoba Legislative Assembly in the April 19 provincial general election – tying a record for most seats set way back in 1915 when Premier Tobias Crawford Norris’ Liberals also won 40 seats in the Aug. 6 election in a legislature with 47 seats – is a pretty big deal as these things go.

Actually, for those wont to split hairs, Pallister is not really the premier-designate or premier-elect, some strict constitutional constructionists might argue. It’s just a convenient shorthand journalists in particular use to describe the leader-in-waiting-who-would-be premier (that’s my way-too-long-term). Philippe Lagassé, an associate professor of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa, and a fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, whose work focuses on defence policy and the Westminster system, notably on the relationship between Parliament and the Crown, explained it this way last May in the Montreal-based Institute for Research on Public Policy’s digital edition of the magazine Policy Options Politiques: “What should we call the leader of a party who we expect will be appointed premier or prime minister but who doesn’t hold the office yet? … Unfortunately, premier-elect doesn’t make sense, constitutionally speaking, because first ministers aren’t elected.

“Voters elect representatives who sit in legislatures, not first ministers or governments. Nor do legislatures elect first ministers. Premiers and prime ministers are appointed by the Crown. Of course, those appointments are made based on the first minister’s ability to hold the confidence of legislature, but it’s an appointed office nonetheless.

“Premier-elect inaccurately describes how the first minister will come into office.

“The next term that’s used is “premier-designate.” I’m not a fan of this title, since there’s no actual office of premier-designate and I think is needlessly confuses things. That said, the term has been used internally within Canadian executives for administrative purposes for nearly a century, and vice-regal secretariats across the country have decided that it should now be used publicly.

“However, premier-designate is meant to describe a particular circumstance. A party leader is premier-designate only after the Crown has invited them to form a government.

“It’s equally important to note that, after this invitation has been issued, the incumbent premier is still premier. The premier-designate is merely preparing to be appointed premier and to advise the Crown on who should be appointed to ministerial offices.

“The premier-designate only becomes premier after the incumbent premier resigns and the Crown formally appoints the premier-designate as the premier.”

Lagassé concludes, “Unfortunately, there’s no good short hand term that accurately reflects our constitutional realities. As boring as it is, it’s best to simply refer to them as the leader of party X who is expected to be appointed premier or prime minister.” Aside from how the matter of how we should refer to the leader-in-waiting-who-would-be premier, there is also the issue of who’s who in the Order of Precedence for Manitoba even after we begin calling him Premier Brian Pallister sometime on Tuesday. The Order of Precedence for Manitoba is determined by the Federal-Provincial Relations branch within the Manitoba Department of Finance.

A sequential hierarchy, the Order of Precedence for Manitoba is not necessarily an indication of functional importance, if that isn’t too indelicate a way of putting it, but rather an indication of ceremonial or historical relevance, with some overlap, as might be expected, between the functional and the historical and ceremonial. Premier Pallister will be number two on the list, preceded only by Lt.-Gov. Janice Filmon, the wife of Gary Filmon, the last Tory premier of Manitoba until the election of Pallister earlier this month.

Manitoba joined Confederation as the fifth province – appropriately enough smack in the middle of 10, time-wise, as well as geographically – on July 15, 1870. The Manitoba Act, which created the Province of Manitoba, was passed by the Parliament of Canada, and received royal assent on May 12, 1870. Manitoba’s official flag, the Red Ensign, bearing the provincial coat of arms, was given royal approval by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in October 1965, and officially dedicated and unfurled for the first time on May 12, 1966. In 1986, May 12 was designated as Manitoba Day.

Manitoba has been the home of some of the most important, often colourful and eclectic, and at times controversial who’s who of Canadian history. Almost any such list would include Métis leader Louis Riel, considered by many to be the “Founding Father” of Manitoba; Nellie McClung, the controversial feminist author, social activist and politician; writers Gabrielle Roy and Margaret Laurence; J.S. Woodsworth, Methodist minister, community activist and Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) politician; Los Angeles-born Stanley Knowles, United Church minister, social gospel movement activist, CCF politician and parliamentarian; Progressive Conservative premier and senator Duff Roblin; former governor general and NDP premier Ed Schreyer; Doer, also Canada’s former ambassador to the United States, as well as a former premier; newspaper editor John Wesley Dafoe; journalist E. Cora Hind; and Canwest’s Izzy Asper.

Add filmmaker Guy Maddin; spymaster Sir William Stephenson; cable TV pioneer and philanthropist Randall Moffat; and Olympic speed skater Cindy Klassen, to that list too.

In addition, to the important and famous, there are also the quirky and unique things that make Manitoba, well, Manitoba. Things like the nine “disorganized” municipalities of Armstrong; Birch River; Chatfield; Fisher Branch; Kreuzberg; Piney; Sprague; Stuartburn; and Woodlea, now absorbed into Rural Municipalities (RM’s). When the Depression arrived in the 1930s, municipalities were faced with a sudden drop in tax receipts and many were forced to accept administration from the provincial government. Nine municipalities, located in the Interlake and southeast corner, allowed their government to lapse completely and have never reappeared in their old form. Even rarer than “ghost towns,” these former municipalities are, in effect, “ghost” municipalities, notes the Manitoba Historical Society.

So what makes the Order of Precedence of Manitoba so important? Well, for one thing it, it is useful for determining where dignitaries are seated at formal official dinners hosted by the Keystone Province in the capital of Winnipeg – or by analogy up here in Thompson – figuring out which table should go first and whose at the front of the line at a St. Lawrence Parish Hall social, Kokanee, or rye and Coke, or both in hand, for a midnight lunch of kielbasa, rye bread, Old Dutch barbecue potato chips, dill pickles and cheese.

So yeah, kind of important.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, the Order Precedence of Manitoba, after Her Honour, and the premier, whose official title by the way is “president of the executive council of Manitoba,” better known as the premier and his cabinet:

• Chief Justice Richard J.F. Chartier of the Manitoba Court of Appeal;
• Former lieutenant-governors of Manitoba or surviving spouses in order of seniority in taking office;
• Former  presidents of the executive council of Manitoba in order of seniority in taking office;
• Members of the Privy Council of Canada resident in Manitoba by order of seniority of taking the oath of office;
• Members of the executive council of the Province of Manitoba in relative order of seniority of appointment;
• Chief Justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench Glenn Joyal;
• The Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba;
• The puisne judges of the Manitoba Court of Appeal and of the Court of Queen’s Bench in relative order of seniority of appointment;
• The Leader of the Official Opposition in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba;
• The Archbishop of St. Boniface, Albert LeGatt;
• The Bishop of Rupert’s Land; Donald Phillips;
• The Archbishop of Winnipeg, Richard Gagnon;
• The Metropolitan of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church;
• The Metropolitan of the Ukrainian Catholic Church:
• The President of the Manitoba Conference of the United Church of Canada;
• The chair of the Manitoba Conference of the Presbyterian Church in Canada;
• The Chair of other representatives persons of the following denominations as indicated below and whose person will be signified to the clerk of the executive council from time to time: Lutheran Church; Jewish Rabbi; The Mennonite Faith; The Baptist Church; The Salvation Army; The Pastors Evangelical Fellowship;
• Members of the House of Commons resident in Manitoba by order of seniority in taking office;
• Members of the legislative assembly of Manitoba in relative order of seniority in taking office;
• Provincial court judges in relative order of seniority of appointment;
• Magistrates in relative order of seniority of appointment;
• Members of the local consular corps in relative order of seniority of appointment;
• Mayors, reeves and elected local government administrators in relative order of date of taking office.

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Ry Moran, director of the new National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NRCTR), will be at UCN in Thompson March 11 for a ‘community engagement session’

Ry Moran, director of the new National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NRCTR), based at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, will be in Thompson March 11 for the launch of the centre’s community engagement sessions in Lecture Theatre Room 302A at the University College of the North’s new Thompson campus at 55 UCN Dr., adjacent to the Thompson Regional Community Centre (TRCC).

More community engagement sessions are scheduled for The Pas on March 12; Iqaluit on March 19; Vancouver on March 25; Prince George. B.C. on March 26; Montreal on March 31; Saskatoon on April 16; Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia on April 21; Edmonton on May 5 and Toronto on May 15.

Moran will meet with survivors of Indian residential schools here in Thompson Wednesday between 5 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. and inter-generational survivors between 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.  Health supports will be available on site and refreshments and a light supper will be provided.

Moran wants to learn what Northern Manitoba survivors’ “hopes and dreams” are for the National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.

Establishing a national research centre and archive to forever preserve the truths of Canada’s Indian Residential Schools was one of the most important responsibilities given to the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission. As part of its legal mandate, the responsibility is spelled out in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, signed in 2007 by representatives of survivors, aboriginal groups, including the Assembly of First Nations (AFM) and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), the federal government and the churches.

In order to carry out the national research centre and archive part of its mandate, the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission convened an international gathering of experts on aboriginal community control, and on national and international principles, protocols and best practices for indigenous and human rights archiving.

The National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation has a 10-person staff and is located in Chancellor’s Hall at 177 Dysart Rd. on the University of Manitoba’s Winnipeg campus. It will work in co-operation with a wide network of partners across Canada and is set to officially open this summer. Current partner organizations include the University College of the North; University of British Columbia; Lakehead University;University of Winnipeg; Red River College; Université de Saint-Boniface; St John College; St Paul’s College;Legacy of Hope Foundation; National Association of Friendship Centre’s; Canadian Museum for Human Rights; Archives Manitoba; Manitoba Museum; Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources and the Sandy-Saulteaux Spiritual Centre.

The National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation will operate within the academic and administrative structure of the University of Manitoba with Moran reporting administratively to the office of vice-president (research and international), as he manages the day-to-day operations of the centre.

The centre was established in a June 21, 2013 National Aboriginal Day agreement between the university and the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which will wind up its six-year mandate in June. The centre’s archives will hold millions of documents collected by the commission including nearly 7,000 video-and audio-recorded statements from survivors, inter-generational survivors, and others affected by the schools and their legacy; millions of archival documents and photographs from more than 20 departments of the Government of Canada and nearly 100 Canadian church entities archives; works of art, artifacts and other expressions of reconciliation presented at Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission events; and research collected and prepared by the commission. Justice Murray Sinclair, who chairs the three-member commission, has said the research centre is an important part of the commission’s legacy.

The National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation is guided by a seven-member governing circle, who have two-year terms. The current members are Eugene Arcand; Andrew Carrier; Catherine Cook; Grand Chief Edward John; Gregory Juliano; Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux; and Jennifer Watkins.

The governing circle ensures Indigenous control over the materials held by the National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. It provides guidance on the centre’s policies, priorities, and activities, on ceremonies and protocols, on methods and sources to expanding the center’s holdings and resources and on prospective partners.

Three members of the governing circle represent survivors, their families or ancestors (one First Nation, one Inuit and one Métis), two represent the University of Manitoba, and two represent the National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation partner organizations. At all times, at least four members of the governing circle must identify as aboriginal.

Moran was appointed director of the National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation on Feb. 3, 2014, coming directly from the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where had served as director of statement gathering since January 2010.

Before joining the commission, Moran, who is Métis, was the founder and president of YellowTilt Productions, delivering services in a variety of areas including aboriginal language presentation and oral history. He had hosted internationally broadcast television programs, produced national cultural events, and written and produced original music for children’s television. Moran’s awards including a National Aboriginal Role Model Award, and a Canadian Aboriginal Music Award. Moran is a Masters of Business Administration candidate, and holds a Bachelor of Arts undergraduate degree from the University of Victoria.

The first Indian residential schools opened in the 1880s in western Canada and eventually, they operated in every province and territory except Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Newfoundland. The system was at its height in the 1920s with compulsory attendance under the Indian Act and over 80 schools in operation. Most Indian residential schools were run by entities of the Roman Catholic church, with others run by the Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist and later the United churches.

Here in Northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Keewatin-Le Pas was involved in four residential schools at Beauval, Sturgeon Landing, Guy Hill and Cross Lake. Through the Corporation of Catholic Entities Party to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement (CCEPIRSS), created in 2006 to oversee the undertakings of the group of 54 Catholic dioceses and religious congregations under the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement (IRSSA), the Archdiocese of Keewatin-Le Pas was obliged to provide $1 million in cash over five years, $1.6 million of in-kind services and community work over 10 years, as well as support the fundraising Canada Wide Campaign (CWC).

The archdiocese met that obligation by paying out $200,000 a year, beginning in 2007 until the $1 million was paid. The Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement ended litigation facing the federal government and the four churches that ran the schools, where rampant abuse occurred, for more than a century, and which former Archbishop Sylvain Lavoie, who resigned for health reasons July 16, 2012, called, “a system that is now acknowledged as a flawed policy of colonization and assimilation.”

In a Dec. 17, 2009 pastoral letter, Lavoie wrote: ” We would encourage those from our archdiocese who attended the schools, or had family members and relatives who attended, to contribute to the [Truth and Reconciliation Commission] process, so that the historical record can be accurate. Whereas over the past few years many held back from sharing positive experiences out of fear of being politically incorrect, now is the time to speak your truth so that it is heard and recorded.”

The Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in its current incarnation, was appointed by the federal Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper through orders-in-council on June 9, 2009.

The Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission was originally established on June 1, 2008. Ontario Court of Appeal Justice Harry LaForme, a member of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation in Southern Ontario, was appointed by the Harper government as the first commission chair, but resigned in October 2008. Claudette Dumont-Smith, of Gatineau, Que., a native health expert, and Jane Brewin Morley, of Victoria, a lawyer and public policy adviser, were also appointed originally as commissioners, but announced in January 2009 that they would resign, too, effective June 1, 2009, leading to the entire three-person commission to be replaced by the current commissioners.

The chair, Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Murray Sinclair, from near Selkirk, was Manitoba’s first aboriginal judge. Sinclair was appointed associate chief judge of the provincial court of Manitoba in March 1988 and elevated to the Court of Queen’s Bench in January 2001.

Commissioner Wilton Littlechild is a member of the Ermineskin Tribe Cree community, near Hobbema in central Alberta. He was the first Treaty First Nation person to acquire his law degree from the University of Alberta in 1976. His law firm is located on the Ermineskin reserve. He also served as a Progressive Conservative MP for the Alberta riding of Wetaskiwin from 1988 to 1993.

Commissioner Marie Wilson grew up in Sarnia in Southern Ontario. Wilson, who lives in Yellowknife, is a well-known former CBC broadcast journalist and manager, who spent most of her career in the North, and is a member of the United Church. She served as CBC’s senior manager for northern Quebec and the three northern territories of Nunavut, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon.

A component of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, the commission is an independent body that oversees a process to provide former students and anyone who has been affected by the residential schools legacy, with an opportunity to share their individual experiences in a safe and culturally appropriate manner.

The Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission is unique from other commissions around the world in that its scope is primarily focused on the experiences of children. Its focus of research spans more than 150 years, one of the longest durations ever examined.

It is also the first court-ordered truth commission to be established in Canada. As such, the court plays an ongoing role in the implementation and supervision of the commission.

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Alain Huberdeau, senior partner with Law North LLP in Thompson, appointed a provincial court judge

Alain Huberdeau, left, senior partner with Law North LLP in Thompson, has been appointed pursuant to an order-in-council as a provincial court judge for Thompson by Manitoba NDP Attorney General Andrew Swan.

At right is Mario LeClerc, grand knight of Knights of Columbus Thompson Council #5961, presenting Huberdeau with a plaque last Dec. 7 from local Knights at the council’s annual awards banquet at St. Lawrence Parish Hall, honoring him, and his wife, Andree Catellier, with the 2013 “Family of the Year Award” for having “served as an inspiration to our parish, community and council by supporting and strengthening Christian family life.”

As well, last Jan. 24, the Manitoba Bar Association (MBA), gave Huberdeau its annual Community Involvement Award at its MBA Recognition Awards luncheon in Winnipeg.

Huberdeau, the second provincial court judicial appointment for Thompson in 2½ months, replaces Judge Murray Thompson, who has relocated to Winnipeg. Thompson, appointed a judge of the provincial court on March 26, 2003, served as associate chief judge of the provincial court for seven years, from Aug. 2, 2006 until Aug. 1, 2013.

On July 16, Swan appointed Catherine Louise Hembroff, who had served as supervising senior Crown attorney in The Pas, to the provincial court bench here to replace Judge Brian Colli, who retired at the end of May to relocate to  Cape Forchu, Nova Scotia, near Yarmouth. Colli graduated from Dalhousie University law school in Halifax and was admitted to the bar in 1979 and came to Thompson as a Crown attorney himself that same year. He was appointed a judge of the provincial court by order-in-council on Sept. 21, 1994.

Huberdeau and Hembroff are tentatively set to be officially sworn-in here Oct. 31. They join Judge Doreen Redhead, who also sits on the provincial court judge bench in Thompson. She was appointed to the provincial court on April 4, 2007. Redhead, from Fox Lake Cree Nation, was born in Churchill and is the first aboriginal woman appointed to the provincial court bench in Manitoba. She graduated from the University of Manitoba law school in 1996.

Huberdeau, who was called to the Manitoba bar in 1997, received his law degree from the French language Université de Moncton Faculty of Law,  one of only two law schools in Canada offering a common law legal education taught entirely in French, with the other law school being the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law. Huberdeau grew up in St. Lazare is in western Manitoba, close to the Saskatchewan provincial boundary, at the forks of the Assiniboine River and Qu’Appelle River.

Law North LLP, and its predecessor law firms here named after various partners here over the last 50 years since its establishment in 1964, has a distinguished history in having seven of its lawyers go onto serve on the bench as judges, including just in recent years, Colli, Thompson, and Malcolm McDonald, senior partner in the law firm, then known as McDonald Huberdeau, who was appointed as provincial court judge for The Pas by Swan on Feb. 3, 2010.

Manitoba Court of Appeal Justice Holly Beard, also a former city councillor, however, was appointed to the bench from the law firm then known as  Bancroft, Whidden, Mayer and Buzza, known now as Mayer, Dearman and Pellizzaro.   Beard initially received a federal order-in-council appointment as justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench for Manitoba on Nov. 27, 1992, and was elevated to the Manitoba Court of  Appeal on Sept. 9, 2009.  A 1970 graduate of R.D. Parker Collegiate, Beard graduated from law school at the University of Manitoba in 1977 and was called to the bar in 1978.

Her father, Gordon Beard, whom the arena is named after here, was elected as Progressive Conservative  MLA for the constituency of Churchill, which then included Thompson, in 1963. He was re-elected in 1966 but resigned from the Progressive Conservative Party and stepped down as an MLA in 1968, complaining that the government was neglecting Northern affairs. He ran as an independent in the 1969 provincial election, defeating three other candidates, to regain the Churchill seat in the legislature. Gordon Beard suffered a heart attack and died in office at the age of 51 on Nov. 12, 1972.

More recently as well,  Judge Ken Champagne, who became chief judge of the provincial court on July 9, 2009, and was appointed to the provincial bench in 2005, began his legal career by articling in the Crown attorney’s office here in 1993. For many years he worked in Thompson, and was for a time supervising senior Crown attorney.

Huberdeau has been active in the community, including through his work with Our Foundation Thompson, formerly known as the Thompson Community Foundation, which was formed in 1995. With the establishment of the Moffat Family Fund in Winnipeg in December 2001 and the decision the following year to make its grant money more widely available elsewhere in Manitoba, Our Foundation Thompson benefited from that and its resources have grown substantially since then. The Moffat family made their fortune in the cable television business. The foundation describes itself as a “savings account” created by gifts from current and former citizens, businesses and community organizations. The money in the foundation’s endowment is never spent, but managed to produce an annual return that can be invested in local projects and organizations.

Our Foundation Thompson will be holding its annual fall gala Sept. 27  – tomorrow night  – at St. Joseph’s Ukrainian Catholic Hall on Juniper Drive.

Huberdeau has also been an active member of Knights of Columbus Thompson Council #5961, chartered with 59 members on May 6, 1967.  The Knights of Columbus is a Catholic fraternal benefit organization headquartered in New Haven, Connecticut. Its origins date back to an Oct. 2, 1881 meeting organized by Father Michael J. McGivney, the assistant pastor at St. Mary’s Church in New Haven. The Knights of Columbus, made up of Father McGivney, Matthew C. O’Connor, Cornelius T. Driscoll, James T. Mullen, John T. Kerrigan, Daniel Colwell and William M. Geary, were officially chartered by the general assembly of the State of Connecticut on March 29, 1882, as a fraternal benefit society.

Huberdeau, a long-time member of the Knights of Columbus,  who was the incumbent  financial secretary for the local council, which largely serves the two parishes of St. Lawrence Roman Catholic Church on Cree Road and St. Joseph’s Ukrainian Catholic Church on Juniper Drive, is  tendering his resignation from that post because of his judicial appointment. He has also served previously as grand knight for Knights of Columbus Thompson Council #5961 and district deputy for District 5,  made up of councils in The Pas, Flin Flon and Thompson.

Manitoba provincial court judges earn an annual base salary of $230,155.

Huberdeau was selected from a list of candidates recommended by an independent judicial nominating committee, chaired by Champagne. The committee also included three community representatives, representatives of the Law Society of Manitoba, the Manitoba branch of the Canadian Bar Association and a provincial court judge in addition to Champagne.

Unlike superior court justices, such as Beard, judges from the Manitoba Court of Appeal and Court of Queen’s Bench, who are federally appointed, provincial court judges are provincially appointed by Swan upon the recommendation of the judicial nominating committee.

It was the responsibility of the judicial nominating committee to recommend to Swan a list of not fewer than three and not more than six names of individuals for the position to fill the vacancy created by Thompson’s departure.

Applicants must have practiced for not less than five years as a barrister and solicitor in Manitoba, be a member in good standing of The Law Society of Manitoba, and be entitled to practice as a barrister and solicitor in this province, or have other equivalent experience.

They hold office “during good behaviour” and must reside in the province.

Applicants must be willing to reside in Thompson, and be capable of and willing to travel by automobile and small aircraft to circuit courts throughout the province.

Judicial responsibilities include a caseload of criminal cases and child protection matters.

The Provincial Court Act establishes the provincial court of Manitoba. It is a court of record and has primarily a criminal jurisdiction, as well as limited concurrent jurisdiction with the Court of Queen’s Bench in family law matters that originate outside of Winnipeg. More than 95 per cent of all criminal cases in Manitoba commence in the provincial court.

After an individual is charged, the provincial court hears applications for judicial interim release, more commonly known as bail hearings, presides over first appearances for the accused, and holds preliminary hearings to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to order an accused to stand trial. The provincial court also hears all youth court cases in Manitoba.

In addition to cases under the Criminal Code and the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the provincial court hears cases under a variety of other federal statutes, such as: the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, and hears all provincial statute cases, such as those under The Highway Traffic Act and The Liquor Control Act. The court also presides over inquests under The Fatality Inquiries Act, and reviews alleged police misconduct under The Law Enforcement Review Act.

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