The big news out of Manitoba was mostly political in 2021.
Manitoba’s Progressive Conservative premier, Brian Pallister, left his post under a cloud well before his term was up.
Pallister made national headlines after criticizing the people who pulled down two statues of Queen Victoria on the Legislative grounds.
“The people who came here to this country before it was a country and since, didn’t come to destroy anything,” he said. “They came here to build.”
The then-premier’s comments were seen as racist and colonial, prompting the resignation of his Indigenous Affairs Minister Eileen Clarke.
Her replacement, Alan Lagimodiere, then made a poor first impression by claiming the Christian founders of the country’s notorious residential schools meant well.
NDP Leader Wab Kinew, from Onigaming First Nation in Northwestern Ontario, interrupted Lagimodiere’s speech to correct the record.
“I cannot stand by and watch you say what you just said. It was the expressed intent of the schools to take the Indian out of the child,” he said while wagging his finger.
Manitobans said good-bye to Pallister a month later.
