Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - March 14, 2022, Winnipeg, Manitoba ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COMA4 C M Y K PAGE A4 MONDAY, MARCH 14, 2022NEWS I TOP NEWS W. TAYLOR BLVD WILKES AV E ASSINIBOINE FOREST STERLING LYON PKWY SH AF TE SB UR Y BL VD M CC RE AR Y RD GRANT AVE Where Caring is Our Number One Concern™ PROUDLY CANADIAN www.allseniorscare.com We Are Here For YouEnjoy a Worry-Free Living Ask about our Life is Good! Move-In Special Call Brandi 204.202.1863 The ONLY Secure Retirement Residence in Winnipeg We are your choice for Age-In-Place Living Offering Independent Living, Assisted Living & Memory Care Living 905 Shaftesbury Boulevard Winnipeg, MB Introducing BLOSSOM LIVING The Blossom program was the needed transition for my father leaving the hospital. The daily activities have helped improve his strength and quality of life. – Cathy I’ll be wearing mask after rules change Safety and life more important than convenience O N Tuesday, the provincial government will remove public-health orders mandating masks in indoor public places and elimin- ate isolation requirements for individuals testing positive for COVID-19. Saskatchewan, the first Canadian province to remove restrictions, did so February 28. Our western neighbour is two weeks deep into its great re-opening. It’s hard to see any success yet as the situa- tion is still critical. Hospitals remain thirty to forty per cent over capacity, leading provincial medicine head Dr. Haissam Haddad to state this week that the situation is “without precedent” and “unsustainable.” Like Manitoba, Saskatchewan has long given up trying to track COVID-19 new cases so it’s anyone’s guess where the province is at. There is some good news. According to pro- vincial data, death rates in Saskatchewan due to COVID-19 infections are down a third, hospital- izations appear to be plateauing and ICU rates have dropped. If the argument that COVID-19 infections don’t see their greatest impact for two weeks still holds, this upcoming week will be the true test of what happens when a province removes public-health restrictions and leaves citizens to protect themselves. It’s a time when governments have chosen individualism over collective responsibility, with privilege and entitlement being the true winners. We already seen glimpses of this, such as when Alberta Premier Jason Kenney chose business over health last summer and gleefully announced his province was “open for business” — before getting slapped back into COVID-19 reality. The rising support for the People’s Party of Canada and their anti-mask and anti-vaccine platform was another move in this direction. The real turning point, though, was the so- called “freedom convoy,” led by a loud minority of mostly right-wing white men who colonized Canadian downtowns, border crossings and pub- lic infrastructure. Though every Canadian court, government, and the vast majority of Canadians disagreed with it, the “freedom convoy” basically got ev- erything it wanted. Well, besides dumping of the Canadian consti- tution, overturning democracy, and installing of their leadership as dictators, but I digress. In virtually every province where a large amount of Freedom Convoyers exist, premiers are removing health restrictions and people will now be able to go to restaurants, hockey games, and malls with no masks and will not have to prove vaccination. Privilege and entitlement have been the win- ners of the COVID-19 pandemic. The rest of us, however, now face an uncertain reality. In case anyone hasn’t noticed, COVID-19 isn’t over. Not by a long shot. No one knows the current case counts in Manitoba, but this week CBC cited research that “somewhere between 51-82 per cent of Manito- bans have contracted the Omicron variant since Dec. 1.” That makes COVID-19 more widespread in this province than anywhere else. Though provincial data suggests hospitaliza- tions are down 2.9 percent, (currently 417 Man- itobans are hospitalized), this small decrease is negated by the fact ICU cases in Manitoba doubled last week (to 21) and another 18 people died. Of the dead, 13 were over the age of 60. For the entirety of the pandemic, Manitoba has been the site of the second-highest COVID-19 death rate in Canada, with 123 deaths for every 100,000 people (1,710 total). Health experts attribute this to conditions in senior facilities, immigrant communities, and First Nations. It’s clearly not going to be safe to be a member of any of those groups after Tuesday. You don’t have to be a researcher to know this. Why are politicians and health-care leaders choosing the privileged over the vulnerable? Over the next few weeks, as the data rolls in showing the effect of removing health restric- tions, I hope Manitobans consider who is bearing the brunt of the decision to let people win their argument to not wear masks and go to restau- rants. On the road to the end of this pandemic — if this is what we are seeing — Manitoba is choos- ing some people’s privileges and entitlements over their neighbours’ lives. By the way: Manitoba also leads most provinc- es in the unvaccinated, who also die dispropor- tionately due to COVID-19. Since last fall, a third of Manitoba’s deaths due to the disease were in the Southern Health region, which includes areas where the vaccination rate is less than 30 per cent. I’m not sure it will be safe to be a “freedom convoyer” after Tuesday either, but apparently what’s about to happen is what they wanted and received. I’ll be wearing a mask after Tuesday. In what’s become a battle between safety and inconvenience, I choose safety. And life. niigaan.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca NIIGAAN SINCLAIR OPINION Hundreds gather at legislature for Ukraine Federal government urged to provide more weapons H UNDREDS gathered outside of the Mani-toba Legislative Building Sunday to rally support for Ukraine for the third week in a row, flags of blue and yellow hoisted along with protest placards. Russia launched a full-scale invasion of the neighbouring nation nearly three weeks ago, leading to scores of causalities, including Ukrainian civilians. While many Ukrainians have stayed to defend their nation, millions have also fled as refugees, as the west supports the country with military and humanitarian aid. The Sunday rally, organized by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress’s Manitoba chapter, again called for the federal government to provide Ukraine with more weapons, economic and hu- manitarian aid; for NATO to implement a no-fly zone over Ukrainian airspace; more economic sanctions against Russian oligarchs and busi- nesses; and further support for refugees fleeing the now war-torn nation. The rally also honoured Taras Shevchenko, a poet who called for Ukraine’s independence in his works and is considered a national hero. A wreath of blue and yellow flowers and wheat was laid in front of a monument to the 19th century activist on the west grounds of the Manitoba Legislative Building — he died March 10, 1861. Iryna Konstantiuk, an University of Manito- ba senior instructor of Ukrainian and Russian languages and Ukrainian culture, took to the podium to discuss Shevchenko’s 19th century poetry and the war now raging. “This week Ukrainians all over the world honour Taras Shevchenko, the Ukrainian great poet, writer, artist, public and political figure, as well as folklorist and ethnographer,” she told the crowd. “Over the centuries of Ukraine’s struggle for independence, Taras Shevchenko became a sym- bol of national pride, resistance and patriotism.” Images of Shevchenko were prominent during the 2013-2014 Ukrainian revolution, which ousted a Russia-friendly president and precipitated the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian war in 2014. “Today the attention of the whole world is on Ukraine. Russia is committing genocide and war crimes — shelling, bombing and carrying out rocket strikes against civilians and Ukrainian cities,” she said. Rally volunteer Mariana Sklepowich, a 38-year-old Ukrainian-Canadian who emigrated in 1993, said Shevchenko’s work is a point of national pride. “(The rally was about) how his words resonate so much today, in addition to all the calls to ac- tion our community have been putting forward, it’s really poignant how 200 years later, the same sort of messages, the same words ring so true to us as a community, as a nation,” she said. “Constantly fighting for their freedom, their rights and liberties… ‘Keep fighting, you will prevail,’” she said, quoting the poet. Sklepowich said the weekend rallies have been a chance to grieve communally, as the war threatens her loved ones in the western city of Lviv near the border with Poland. “It’s been very hard to focus on anything other than (the war),” she said. erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @erik_pindera ERIK PINDERA Actor nominated three times for Oscar, winning once Emerged as a mainstay of the 1980s NEW YORK — William Hurt, whose laconic char- isma and self-assured subtlety as an actor made him one of the 1980s foremost leading men in movies such as Broadcast News, Body Heat and The Big Chill, has died. He was 71. Hurt’s son, Will, said in a statement that Hurt died Sunday of natural causes. He said Hurt died peacefully, among family. Deadline first reported Hurt’s death. In a long-running career, Hurt was three times nominated for an Academy Award, winning for 1985’s Kiss of the Spider Woman. After his screen debut in 1980’s Paddy Chayefsky-scripted Altered States as a psychopathologist studying schizo- phrenia and experimenting with sensory depriva- tion, Hurt quickly emerged as a mainstay of the ’80s. In Lawrence Kasdan’s 1981 steamy neo noir Body Heat, Hurt starred alongside Kathleen Turner as a lawyer coaxed into murder. In 1983’s The Big Chill, again with Kasdan, Hurt played the Vietnam War veteran Nick Carlton, one of a group of college pals who gather for their friend’s funeral. Having started in New York theatre, Hurt then returned to the stage to star on Broadway in David Rabe’s Hurlyburly, for which he was nominated for a Tony. Shortly after came Kiss of the Spider Woman, which won Hurt the best actor Oscar for his performance as a gay prisoner in a repressive South American dictatorship. In 1986’s Children of a Lesser God, it was his co-star, Marlee Matlin, who took the Oscar for her performance as a deaf custodian at a school for the deaf. Hurt played a speech teacher. For Hurt and Matlin, their romance was off-screen, as well — but it wasn’t Hurt’s first experience with his private life finding notoriety. Hurt was first married to Mary Beth Hurt from 1971 to 1982. While he was married, he began a relationship with Sandra Jennings, whose preg- nancy with their son precipitated Hurt’s divorce from Mary Beth Hurt. A high-profile court case ensued six years later in which Jennings claimed she had been Hurt’s common-law wife under South Carolina law and thus entitled to a share of his earnings. A New York court ruled in Hurt’s favour, but the actor continued to have a strained relationship with fame. “Acting is a very intimate and private thing,” Hurt told The New York Times in 1983. “The art of acting requires as much solitude as the art of writing. Yeah, you bump up against other people, but you have to learn a craft, technique. It’s work. There’s this odd thing that my acting is assumed to be this clamour for attention to my person, as if I needed so much love or so much attention that I would give up my right to be a private person.” In her 2009 memoir, Matlin detailed physical abuse and drug abuse during their relationship. Hurt at the time issued an apology saying: “My own recollection is that we both apologized and both did a great deal to heal our lives.” Albert Brooks, his Broadcast News co-star, was among those responding to Hurt’s passing. “So sad to hear this news,” wrote Brooks. “Working with him on Broadcast News was amazing. He will be greatly missed.” — The Associated Press JAKE COYLE RICH FURY / INVISION FILES William Hurt: died Sunday of natural causes WILLIAM HURT OBITUARY JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Taras Shevchenko memorial. Images of Shevchenko were prominent during the Ukrainian revolution. A_04_Mar-14-22_FP_01.indd 4 2022-03-13 8:41 PM ;