Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - March 14, 2022, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A2 VOL 151 NO 122 Winnipeg Free Press est 1872 / Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 2021 Winnipeg Free Press, a division of FP Canadian Newspapers Limited Partnership. Published seven days a week at 1355 Mountain Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba R2X 3B6, PH: 204-697-7000 Publisher / BOB COX Editor / PAUL SAMYN Associate Editor Enterprise / SCOTT GIBBONS Associate Editor News / STACEY THIDRICKSON Associate Editor Digital News / WENDY SAWATZKY Director Photo and Multimedia / MIKE APORIUS NEWSMEDIA COUNCIL The Winnipeg Free Press is a member of the National Newsmedia Council, which is an independent organization established to determine acceptable journalistic practices and ethical behaviour. If you have concerns about editorial content, please send them to: editorialconcerns@freepress.mb.ca. 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INSIDE Arts and Life D1 Business B4 Classifieds B6 Comics D4 Diversions D5-6 Horoscope D5 Jumble D5 Miss Lonelyhearts D5 Obituaries B5 Opinion A6-7 Sports C1 Television D2 Weather C8 COLUMNISTS: Niigaan Sinclair A4 Shelley Cook B1 Aaron Epp B2 MONDAY, MARCH 14, 2022 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COMA2 READER SERVICE ● GENERAL INQUIRIES 204-697-7000 CIRCULATION INQUIRIES MISSING OR INCOMPLETE PAPER? Call or email before 10 a.m. weekdays or 11 a.m. Saturday City: 204-697-7001 Outside Winnipeg: 1-800-542-8900 press 1 6:30 a.m. - 4 p.m. Monday-Friday.; 7 a.m. - noon Saturday; Closed Sunday TO SUBSCRIBE: 204-697-7001 Out of Winnipeg: 1-800-542-8900 The Free Press receives support from the Local Journalism Initiative funded by the Government of Canada With the book sales limited by the situation in Ukraine, Boge’s friend Sasha Romanch, who runs a charity serving children and youth, decided to hand out dozens of copies to families at the Kryvyi Rih train station on March 8, said Willard. “I know the reason they want- ed to give (away) books was be- cause the kids were scared,” said the publisher, who has offices in Burlington, Ont., and Florida. “We just thought it was nice that one of our books was going to comfort kids leaving their homes.” For Boge, the unknown fate of the little girl clutching his book in a sea of adults keeps tugging at his heart. A civil engineer by day, Boge hopes the book’s mes- sage helps her and other children leaving Ukraine navigate the uncertainty ahead of them. “Just because you’re in war now, and you’re probably going to be a refugee, it’s not hope- less,” said Boge, chair of Mully Children’s Family Canada, which raises funds to support the Ken- yan organization. Subtitled The Charles Mul- li Miracle, the 32-page book was previously translated into Mandarin, German and Russian, with all versions featuring the original artwork by Hall, said Willard. “It’s a compelling story of someone who says I don’t need any more houses or money, I’m just going to help kids,” he said of book’s message. Boge has written three other books about Mulli, as well as a biography of the late Winnipeg minister and housing activist Harry Lehotsky. The reach of the book to war- torn Ukraine amazes Hall, who has donated all her royalties to Mully Children’s Family, the charitable organization founded by Charles Mulli. “As an artist you don’t think of fame or the effect of your work across the world,” says Hall, who also illustrated the Seven Whole Days, written by English poet and Anglican priest Malcolm Guite. “This one project seems to make all my painting worth- while.” Coincidentally, the little girl in a pink parka mirrors Hall’s cover painting featuring a young Kenyan girl wearing a sweater in the same bright pink. brenda@suderman.com “Staff feel more comfortable,” he said. “There’s also a perception that by staff wearing masks it will make customers feel more comfortable.” Remillard said many businesses are also highly recommending customers continue to wear masks. Some will maintain the mandate but don’t plan to aggressively enforce it, he said, out of fear of being subjected to combat- ive behaviour from those who oppose pandemic measures. “We have heard horror stories, speaking with some of our members, of staff going home crying, staff shaken, emotionally, from these encounters, so we implore all Manitobans, please just be respectful,” he said. “You’re entitled to your opinion, you’re entitled to how you feel, but make a choice by walking away or walking in.” Still, there’s a degree of optimism among business owners who’ve been trapped by COVID-19 for two years. “People are pleased to be able to be talking about a time when COVID isn’t the sole point of conversation — where we move to an era where we’re talking about customer service and dealing with some of the issues associated with COVID such as supply chain disrup- tions, inflation, dealing with those hard, fast business issues,” Remillard said. Chuck Davidson, president and CEO of the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce, said businesses across the province are taking cautious steps forward. A survey of Manitoba businesses showed about a third would continue to require masks in some form, adding he expects businesses to adapt as the pub- lic becomes more comfortable living with COVID-19. “For the past two years, businesses have been under restrictions of some sort, whether it’s capacity restrictions or vaccine mandates or mask restric- tions — that’s something they’ve been dealing with, so it’s not as simple as here’s an arbitrary date when every- thing stops that everyone’s comfortable enough to go down that path,” he said. Manitoba Federation of Labour president Kevin Rebeck said employers have a responsibility to keep workers safe. “We encourage employers to work with unions and workplace health and safety committees to ensure appropri- ate measures are in place to protect workers,” he said in a statement. While some are positive about the removal of the mandates, others who are vulnerable to COVID-19 are wary. Lindsay Wright, a 40-year-old mother with rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune disorders, said she’s “frustrated and disappointed” by the province’s move — one she thinks is political. “Even as someone who’s higher risk, I understand that it’s time to loosen some of the restrictions, but it feels like we’re throwing away everything we learned,” said the Winnipegger. Masks should remain, she said. “… It’s an easy thing for most people to do,” she said. “I hear so much that I should wear a mask if I’m scared — I wish to God that’s how science worked and I didn’t need to care but masks work better when everybody wears them.” Wright’s 13-year-old daughter is not yet eligible for a booster shot of the COVID-19 vaccine, something she wishes the province would allow: “I can’t believe we wouldn’t open up boosters to teenagers before we took away masks in school.” “Learning to live with COVID doesn’t mean pretending it doesn’t ex- ist, learning to live with COVID means using what we’ve learned,” Wright said. erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @erik_pindera Russian fighters also fired at the airport in the western city of Iva- no-Frankivsk, which is less than 150 kilometres north of Romania and 250 kilometres from Hungary, two other NATO allies. NATO said Sunday that it current- ly does not have any personnel in Ukraine, though the United States has increased the number of American troops deployed to Poland. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the West would respond if Russia’s strikes travel outside Ukraine and hit any NATO members, even accidentally. Biden “has been clear, repeatedly, that the United States will work with our allies to defend every inch of NATO territory and that means every inch,” Sullivan said on CBS News’ Face the Nation. NATO has said it will not send troops into Ukraine, but Sullivan said the U.S. and its allies have gotten “substantial amounts of military assistance, weap- ons and supplies to the front” — and that despite Russian threats of attack, they believed they would be able to continue to do so. The city of Lviv, in western Ukraine itself, so far has been spared the scale of destruction happening to its east and south. Its population of 721,000 has swelled during the war with residents escaping bombarded population cen- ters and as a waystation for the nearly 2.6 million people who have fled the country. Ukrainian and European leaders have pushed with limited success for Russia to grant safe passage to civilians trapped by fighting, though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelen- skyy said authorities have managed to evacuate nearly 125,000 people from combat zones. Ukrainian authorities said more than 10 humanitarian corridors would open Sunday, with agreement from Russia, including from the besieged port city of Mariupol, where the city council said 2,187 people have been killed. But such promises have repeatedly crumbled, and there was no word late Sunday on whether people were able to use the evacuation routes. Officials did say that a convoy carrying 100 tons of aid was expected to arrive in Mariupol today. The suffering in the port city is “simply immense,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said Sun- day, noting that hundreds of thousands of its residents are “facing extreme or total shortages of basic necessities like food, water and medicine.” “Dead bodies, of civilians and combatants, remain trapped under the rubble or lying in the open where they fell,” the Geneva-based organization said in a statement. “Life-changing injuries and chronic, debilitating condi- tions cannot be treated.” The fight for Mariupol is crucial since its capture could help Russia establish a land corridor to Crimea, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014. Meanwhile, continued fighting on multiple fronts caused more misery in Ukraine on Sunday and provoked renewed international outrage. In the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, near the Black Sea, author- ities reported nine people killed in bombings. They said Russian airstrikes on a monastery and a children’s resort in the eastern Donetsk region hit spots where monks and others were shelter- ing, wounding 32 people. Around the capital, Kyiv, a major political and strategic target for the invasion, fighting also intensified, with overnight shelling in the northwestern suburbs and a missile strike Sunday that destroyed a warehouse to the east. Kyiv Region police said on its official website that Russian troops opened fire on a car carrying two American journalists. The U.S. State Department said Brent Renaud died. Juan Arredon- do was wounded. In the Kyiv suburb of Irpin, Ukrainian soldier Alexei Lipirdi, 46, said that the Russians “want to intim- idate us so that we will not be calm,” but he and his unit remain defiant. As he spoke, smoke billowed from distant buildings and cars stood damaged or abandoned. The city’s mayor said only about 10,000 of its 60,000 residents remain. Many who stayed behind are the old or sick and those who are caring for them. At a suburban hospital, doctors said 80 per cent of their patients are civilians wounded by shelling. Patient Volodymr Adamkovych, his abdomen bandaged, said he was wounded when his home was hit. He spent the night in his basement before he could reach doctors. President Zelenskyy also alleged that Russians were using blackmail and bribery in an attempt to force local of- ficials in the southern Kherson region to form a “pseudo-republic” like those in the two eastern regions where Rus- sian-backed separatists began fighting Ukrainian forces in 2014. Zelenskyy reported Saturday that 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers had died in the war. The Russians said days ago that several hundred of their forces have died but have not given a recent updated count. The war has repeatedly raised the spectre of nuclear accidents as fighting occurred around nuclear power plants. On Sunday, Ukraine said it restored a broken power line to the decommis- sioned Chernobyl plant, scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986. The plant was knocked off the grid last week and relying on generators. That raised worries about its ability to keep spent fuel cool, though the Interna- tional Atomic Energy Agency said the plant would be reconnected to the power grid today. — The Associated Press BOOK ● FROM A1 COVID ● FROM A1 RUSSIA ● FROM A1 Public, workers and industry split on mask choice Health-care worker Cindy Mills has no plans to put her mask away. “If we’re in any kind of retail scenario, I plan to wear a mask,” she said, as she emerged from a Canadian Tire at Kenaston and McGillivray boulevards recently. “I think there’s an awful lot of COVID out there.” Shoppers who spoke to the Free Press at the Real Canadian Superstore at Kenaston and Grant Avenue said mask wearing has become a habit. “I didn’t want to wear it in the beginning, but (now) it makes me feel safe,” said Penny Single. “I think at least for a good month (I’ll still wear one), and then we’ll see if the infections go up.” Karen Guevarra said she won’t feel uncomfort- able around people who choose not to wear a mask in public indoor places. “I’ll be relieved if I forget one halfway through the parking lot. I won’t have to go and get one,” she said. Guevarra and another customer, Tom- maso Panizza, believe a lot of Manitobans will shed their masks. “I think it will be a good 50-50 split of people wearing and people not wearing,” said Panizza. He would consider not wearing a mask in certain situations, but feels “conflicted” and wants to be mindful of others. A Superstore employee said he usually sees about 10 maskless customers per shift. Some claim to have a medical exemption, he said. The employee and a female co-worker said they will continue to wear a mask at work when the mandate ends. “It’s better to be safe,” the woman said. An employee at the Walmart Supercentre at Kenaston and McGillivray Boulevard plans to do the same. Wearing a mask makes her feel safer. “It’s my personal choice,” she said. The Retail Council of Canada, which represents more than 45,000 businesses, is welcoming the end of restrictions. “Retailers are all about offering the best cus- tomer experience and so we look forward to a time when all COVID requirements are removed and customers and staff can interact as they did previously,” said spokeswoman Michelle Wasylyshen. Some stores have decided to keep masks as a safety protocol, she said. ”Each store is different and may have quite specific client needs or proximity of customers and associates. Think, for example, of the case of a pharmacy counter, where vulnerable popula- tions and close interactions are the norm,” said Wasylyshen. At The Forks Sunday, the reaction to the mandate’s removal was mixed. Colin Reimer, 38, was about to go for a skate on the Red River when he said he’s worried the health system will be overwhelmed. “I think it’s going to be a month before it comes back,” Reimer said. Thai Pham, 35, was out for a stroll with the family. He said he’s planning to keep donning a mask. “It’s about time — people can choose to wear it or not,” he said. Kelsey Dingwall, a 35-year-old married mother of two, said she’s slightly apprehensive. She’ll still wear her mask when working at the library, but her five-year-old daughter won’t wear one to kindergarten, considering how ineffective it seemed. “Try to be kind,” she told her daughter of the choice to don or doff the face covering. — Chris Kitching and Erik Pindera JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Kelsey Dingwall, 35, says she’s apprehensive about the relaxation of COVID-19 restrictions and plans to continue wearing a mask at work. Thai Pham plans to continue wearing a mask, but says ‘it’s about time’ for people to have the freedom to choose. A_02_Mar-14-22_FP_01.indd 2 2022-03-13 10:28 PM ;