Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 20, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba KILDONAN PARK GOLF COURSE R E D R I V E R C H I E F P E G U I S T R A I L M A I N S T P E R I M E T E R H W Y R I D G E C R E S T A V E S C O T I A S T H E N D E R S O N H W Y KILDONAN PARK River Ridge I 204.202.1793 WORRY FREE LIVING! Get Ready For on the Historic Red River Age-In-Place Living 50 Ridgecrest Avenue, Winnipeg, MB • Weekly Dance Parties • Transportation for Scheduled Outings and Medical Appointments • 24/7 Care & Support All the Independence with a little Extra Care & Support At Your Service: • Weekly Light Housekeeping • Staff 24/7 • Pet Friendly • Wellness Checks • Home-Cooked meals in our Full Service Dining Room • Month to Month Leases Gracious Retirement Living Assisted Living Join Our Waitlist Today! Call Lori at PROUDLY CANADIAN www.allseniorscare.com Where Caring is Our Number One Concern™ A4 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM NEWS MONDAY, JANUARY 20, 2025 “She got me right in the heart. Everyone has a voice and their voices deserve to be heard. We can learn so much from listening to the un- der-heard voices in our communities. We all had a front row seat to watch Olivia’s dream come true. What an inspiration she is to all of us.” Although Olivia may not have been able to see the nearly 14,000 people in attendance at Canada Life Centre, she heard and felt their presence. ”I was excited and happy,” she told the Free Press. “There were tears of happiness.” Olivia was hardly alone in that de- partment, with near-universal praise for what was clearly a special moment that her village of supporters believes can be a movement. “It’s been a long journey for her to reach what was she able to do there,” said Dick. “She went from literally having to be supported to stand to what you saw Thursday where she’s got the physical stamina to do it, she has the emotional and social regulation to manage it. It just gives her so much confidence. She just loves it. It makes her feel so good, and she senses how good it makes other people feel.” Her introduction to music came during to childhood, at a time when there was still grave concern about whether Olivia would ever be able to even walk or talk. “Things were very unclear around what her prognosis would be. And so we saw that as a way to stimulate brain development and her language,” said Dick. It worked, with slow but steady progression that eventually had Olivia — who would often wake up singing — being invited to get the morning started at school. “She would sing the anthem over the PA system,” said Dick. With ongoing therapy and respite work — the Movement Centre of Manitoba has played a major role in that since she was five — Olivia and her circle began to think big. During a planning meeting in 2016, the subject of a performance at Jets game was first raised. “Wouldn’t that be an amazing ac- complishment for her?” read a written report, which her family still has. The process really gained momentum last year thanks to one of those “Winnipeg is just a big small town” stories. Tim Steadman and Jets co-owner and chairman Mark Chipman have known each other for many years, even playing beer league hockey together. Tim also grew up with Doug Ploen, the son of Blue Bombers legend Ken Ploen who passed away last February at the age of 88. Olivia had previously sung in front of the Ploen family — they loved hearing her do the U.S. anthem to pay homage to their roots — and she was invited to perform at his celebration of life. Chipman was among the 400 people in attendance that day and was wowed by what he heard. When the family later mentioned Olivia’s anthem dream, Chipman was fully on board and joked that “I know a guy” to make it a reality. Was she nervous when the day final- ly arrived? “She knows she can sing,” said her father. “And when she sings, people cheer and she gets a big smile on her face. It’s as simple as that. “I’ve never seen her in a singing setting being nervous. The only time she shows nerves is when we have medical appointments. She would have sensed it was a bigger audience, but it wouldn’t have affected her at all.” Hundreds of family members and friends and people who are part of her circle came out in support. “Olivia may have captivated the hearts of Manitobans on Thursday night, but she’s been captivating our hearts at the Movement Centre for 17 years,” said executive director Jennifer Wojcik, who described her as a shining light who always makes life better for those around her. “Thursday night was about giving people with disabilities an opportu- nity to live to their fullest potential, allowing them to fulfil their dreams and share their gifts with the world. It was about ensuring individuals living with disabilities have the same oppor- tunities as everyone else, are equally valued and fully integrated into the community.” Chipman noted to the family how Jets captain Adam Lowry was beam- ing on the bench the whole time and it turns out he has a connection as well. Lowry and his girlfriend are friends with Olivia’s cousin and attended her wedding, where Olivia also sung. “(Chipman) told me after, ‘Steady, I want her back next year and I want to put it on a Saturday night game so it’s a national audience,” said Steadman. The family, along with all of those involved in Olivia’s life, repeatedly praised Chipman and True North for providing this opportunity and sending a powerful message. “I think the Jets have gone above and beyond other NHL teams and I hope there is a message for those other teams. Winnipeg is an amazing city and we are seeing an increased effort into ensuring the inclusion of every- one,” said Janet Forbes, the executive director of Inclusion Winnipeg which has also worked closely with Olivia and her family. “This shows that everyone has different gifts and talents and all they need is the support of the people in their immediate circle as well as the community members in general.” Olivia isn’t done dreaming big. She’d love to one day perform with the Ten- ors, having met them in 2021 when she got a backstage VIP pass. For now, she’ll keep practising with some of her favourites, which include various Christmas carols like Silent Night, Frank Sinatra’s classics My Way and New York, New York, Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Josh Groban’s Believe and Somewhere Over The Rainbow. You can follow along on her Instagram account (@olivas_voice). “She has been a bit of a beacon for this whole value of inclusion and that everybody deserves to feel like they belong and play a purposeful role in community,” said her mother. “The Jets are playing a role in helping us get that idea out there. A lot of work has gone into Olivia becoming the person she is. It’s not an easy road, but I’m hoping that for those that ar- en’t heard or aren’t seen, this will help the broader community.” mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca X and Bluesky: @mikemcintyrewpg HOPE ● FROM A1 JOHN WOODS / FREE PRESS Barbro Dick and Tim Steadman with their adult children Olivia and John at their home. JONATHAN KOZUB / WINNIPEG JETS Olivia Steadman, with her father Tim Steadman standing behind her, belted out the Canadian and American national anthems last week at Canada Life Centre prior to the game between the Winnipeg Jets and Seattle Kraken. Freeland, Gould pledge carbon-pricing changes O TTAWA — Two recent cabinet ministers officially launched their campaigns for Liberal party leadership Sunday, with each pledging a rethink of the federal carbon levy and a tough stance against U.S. president-elect Don- ald Trump. At her launch event in Burlington, Ont., Karina Gould announced she would be stepping down as Government House leader to focus on the race and pledged to better reflect young Canadians. Just two Liberal MPs were present. Moments later, former finance minister Chrys- tia Freeland vowed to use her experience to unify the country against Trump’s tariffs at a Toronto rally attended by at least 10 MPs — and inter- rupted several times by pro-Palestinian protest- ers. Between the two campaign launches, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly announced she is backing former central banker Mark Carney for Liberal leader, in the race’s first major endorse- ment from a Quebec minister. Gould and Freeland both pledged to change federal carbon pricing — a constant target of attacks from the Conservative party — in their speeches. Gould pledged to freeze the carbon price, but not to abolish it. “We need to immediately cancel the increase to the price on pollution ahead of April 1,” she said, adding that the Liberal party needs to make electric vehicles and efficient home heating more affordable. Freeland said she would revisit carbon pricing because Canadians “don’t like” the consumer levy, which makes some fuels more expensive but returns revenue to individuals and green retro- fits. “Democracy means when people tell you some- thing, you have to listen. And I will say our party hasn’t been good enough at that,” she said. A campaign spokeswoman later clarified that Freeland’s pledge is to “replace the consumer carbon price with a system that will work within our federation and will be developed collabora- tively with provinces and territories.” Freeland also provided more details about the disagreements with Prime Minister Justin Tru- deau before she quit cabinet on Dec. 16. “The difference didn’t start then. For some time, I had been in disagreement with the prime minister, specifically over spending. Those dis- agreements got worse after president Trump threatened to impose 25 per cent tariffs on our country,” she said. Gould also called for “a serious review of the capital-gains tax increase,” a policy the Liber- als proposed that has faced pushback from the Conservatives, wealthy Canadians and business owners. She said the policy should not threaten tech in- novators and promised “more to say on that in the coming days.” Gould also claimed that the Liberals’ back- tracking on electoral reform — which she over- saw as minister of democratic institutions in 2017 — was due to the first Trump administration’s tariffs distracting from other matters. “If we were going to do something as big as bring(ing) forward electoral reform, we needed to have the energy of the country behind us,” she said. Gould suggested the country can’t have an- other electoral-reform debate during the tariff threat, but could reopen the issue later. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s office noted on Sunday that both Freeland and Gould voted for the carbon levy dozens of times and re- peatedly spoke in favour of the policy. The leader’s office dubbed Freeland a “devoted disciple of the carbon tax” and quoted Trudeau’s Jan. 6 resignation speech, in which the prime minister called Freeland “an incredible political partner through just about everything we have done as a government and as a party over the past decade.” In a news release, the Conservatives also noted that Gould was in charge during a high-profile mishap. “As minister of social development, she was responsible for the brutal delays Canadians were forced to endure when they applied for a pass- port,” it reads, referring to a massive post-pan- demic backlog in processing passports while Gould was minister of families, children and so- cial development. Both Gould and Freeland argued the Conserva- tives would capitulate to U.S. demands in a tariff war. Freeland accused Poilievre of being “weak” in addition to being “mean” and said he would “sell us out” to Trump. “He’s afraid to fight back against people he ad- mires,” she said. Freeland’s campaign rally in Toronto was in- terrupted several times by protesters who shout- ed and banged on a side door. “Protest doesn’t mean drowning out other people’s voices; that is entirely unacceptable,” she said. In a written statement, protest organizers said they targeted Freeland’s campaign because they are critical of the Canadian government’s ap- proach to the war in the Gaza Strip. Freeland said she will seek re-election as a Lib- eral MP regardless of whether she wins party leadership, adding that all other contenders should make the same pledge. She pitched herself as a steady hand to unify Canadians, citing her roles during the first Trump administration and the COVID-19 pan- demic. Gould said she has credibility as someone with deep roots in the party and can mobilize youth to advance affordability, safe communities, func- tional health care and environmental protection. “Canadians have lost trust in our party,” said Gould, who at 37 is the youngest candidate in the race so far. “It is time for a new generation of leadership … who’s not going to stand behind a podium and read a speech that was prepared by somebody else — no. Someone who speaks from the heart.” Joly’s endorsement of Carney comes in a race where none of the three most prominent candi- dates are Quebecers nor speak French as their first language. Former Quebec backbencher Frank Baylis is also running for leader. Last week, some francophone pundits deemed Carney’s ability to read the French portions of his campaign launch speech and answer ques- tions as insufficient for a debate between leader- ship candidates. Candidates have until Jan. 23 to declare they are running and begin a series of entry fee pay- ments to the Liberal party to join the race. — The Canadian Press DYLAN ROBERTSON When your need is hope Amazing things are possible when you support St. Boniface Hospital Foundation. 204-237-2067 bealifeline.ca GIVE TODAY ;