Canadians mark 80th anniversary of end to WWII in Ottawa
This year marks the 80th anniversary of Japan's surrender and the end of a global conflict that claimed the lives of more than 45,000 Canadian soldiers.
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CTV News
6 hours ago
- CTV News
HPCDSB looking for host families for international students
The Huron-Perth Catholic District School Board (HPCDSB) is continuing their International Student Program, and are looking for host families for the for the 2025-2026 school year. According to HPCDSB, this initiative provides students from around the world with an 'enriching Canadian educational experience.' International students will attend either St. Anne's Catholic Secondary School in Clinton or St. Michael Catholic Secondary School in Stratford. For September 2025, students from Brazil, Spain, and Japan have already been accepted. HPCDSB is still receiving new applications from students in these same countries as well as other areas. As a result, they are seeking additional families in Huron and Perth Counties willing to welcome international students into their homes for either one semester or the full school year. The Board is working in partnership with a home-stay provider: MLI Homestay. Host families are compensated and will be able to provide: Three nutritious meals per day and snacks A private room with a door, a window, a bed and a desk A shared bathroom Supervised internet access If you would like to host an international student, please visit
Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Young handler hoping for national title at dog trials
Irish setters, Labrador retrievers and pointing griffons — they'll each have their day this weekend at the Manitoba Canine Association's annual shows and trials. But on Saturday at noon, one local human holding the leash will have a chance at national glory at the East St. Paul Recreation Complex. In her final year of eligibility in the age bracket, Winnipeg 18-year-old Lilly Raposo will vie for the Junior National Handling title in front of a hometown audience. Competing against a field of zone-winning handlers from across Canada, the champ of Saturday's competition will represent the country at the world juniors next March at the Crufts dog show in Birmingham, U.K. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Eighteen-year-old Lilly Raposo shows Hugo, an English toy spaniel. Raposo will be representing Manitoba at Saturday's Junior Handler Nationals. A two-time competitor at the nationals — once in Camrose, Alta., at 12 and most recently last summer in Summerland, B.C. — Raposo will be Manitoba's zone representative at this Saturday's competition, which marks the first time since Raposo was four years old that the province is hosting the world-junior feeder event. 'I think I'll have a big cheering section,' says Raposo, who will handle Denali, a three-year-old standard poodle with both Canadian and American grand champion pedigree. 'I've been involved in this for so long, so people have seen me grow into the handler I've become. It's also really nerve-wracking.' A nursing student at the University of Manitoba who works at the Roblin groomer Classy Clips, Raposo has an impressive pet industry pedigree of her own, and in a sense, owes her existence to a high-maintenance West Highland terrier with a weekly salon regimen. Her mother, Barb, started working at Classy in 2001, with her training shift coming the day before her 19th birthday, looking for a job while on the waitlist for Red River's veterinary technologist course. She loved it, stuck around, and her future husband became a persistent client. 'He brought his dog every week to the grooming salon and finally had the courage to ask my mom out for a coffee date. She made him buy a ton of stuff, too. And now I'm here,' laughs Raposo, whose brother was also a handler until growing out of the pursuit at 13. Raposo was introduced to handling by her aunt Beth Chopey, who was the province's top junior handler in 2006. Around age seven, Raposo collected her first competition points by winning second place at her first dog show, leading a Canadian champion shih tzu named Rachel around the course at the Assiniboine Kennel Club in St. Norbert. 'I had no idea what to do, to be honest,' recalls Raposo. 'I knew I had to take the dog in a circle.' But as a quickly obsessed Raposo soon found out, handling is an all-out study in balance, preparedness, interspecies communication and calm. Competitors learn the ins and outs of breed standards and the ideal frequency for grooming and coat conditioning, along with how to navigate patterns — a triangle, a reverse triangle, the go-around, the basic down and back — cleanly with their furred colleagues as distractions abound. 'With junior handling, the attention is fully on you and how you and your dog work together, how you talk with the dog, how you make sure they're engaged and not bored,' says Raposo, who, like all winning handlers, follows the competition's business casual dress code. 'Judges are constantly watching, checking if you're looking at them, seeing how you make the hand-switches. You have to know where the judge is at all times.' MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Lilly Raposo is showing standard poodle Denali at Saturday's Junior Handler Nationals, hoping to represent Canada at next year's world championship. Raposo is also trusted by several clients to lead their dogs through competitions, giving her an added side hustle throughout the canine association's weekend. This year, she's handling a border collie, an Australian shepherd, a Chinese crested, and a Keeshound. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. As she ages out of junior competition, Raposo says she will likely continue to add clients to her handling roster. The junior handling competition begins Saturday at noon, while other shows for the day include competitions for Chinese cresteds, the Red River terriers, the River City Labrador enthusiasts specialty shows, and the Manitoba Hound Club. Full event details are available at says canine association secretary Corinne Walker. 'BYO lawn chair,' she suggests. Ben WaldmanReporter Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University's (now Toronto Metropolitan University's) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben. Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Mother's wartime secrets come to light in new memoir
Sometimes families live on a precipice surrounded by dark and terrible secrets. The Uzarowski family was just such a family. The Golden Daughter is the intimate and powerful memoir of a daughter and her mother, the latter taken by the Nazis from her Ukrainian homeland in February 1943 and forced to work as a slave in Germany during the Second World War. The author of this emotional story is Nova Scotia-based Halina St. James, who was a journalist for the CBC and CTV covering revolutions, wars and other international assignments. She also worked as a communications performance coach and professional speaker. Neil Everton photo Halina St. James In the introduction, St. James tells us that '(m)ore than 5.7 million people were put to work as slaves in Germany by the Nazis… They were treated as subhuman, and many were worked to death.' She also relates that just like many who did not talk about their war experiences, her mother rarely mentioned hers — or the complicated relationships she had been caught up in. St. James reconstructs her late mother Maria's life like pieces of a puzzle, from mother's secret letters, other documents and archives as well as stories from other survivors and relatives. Her research is thorough. She travels to Europe and traces her mother's movements there, also travelling to different parts of Canada, uncovering the secrets that had impacted and so influenced her own life. She consults with historians, guides and translators along the way. Written in an easy, conversational manner, The Golden Daughter is hard to put down. Although the content is difficult, the simplicity of the language makes the story easily accessible. Most of the memoir is written in story form, with Maria as the main character. St. James added to the story those things she discovered from her research. The latter portion of the memoir is written in the author's voice, where she shares the discoveries found both during her travels and in her mother's letters. 'I was stunned,' St. James writes. 'The letters told of a time when the world went mad, and how a pampered child learned to survive in the face of cruelty, hardship and terror.' The title refers to St. James's mother, who had been absolutely adored by both of her loving Ukrainian parents in her hometown of Vinnytsia. St. James says Maria 'was their miracle child, born when Aniela and Sergei (Brik) were middle-aged and had lost all hope of having a child.' And so she became their 'golden daughter.' The Golden Daughter After her abduction at age 17, Maria courageously survived the war, married, gave birth to Halina and then became involved in two fraught relationships during which her husband, Frank Uzarowski, was betrayed. All of this was kept secret from Halina. According to St. James's website, in 2012 the writer suffered a stroke, robbing her of speech, and had to re-learn the alphabet in order to communicate, making the telling of her story even that much more remarkable. She was in her seventies, in 2022, when she went searching in earnest for her father, who disappeared when she was four. The Golden Daughter is a story of war, of mankind's cruelty, betrayal, deception and abandonment. But in the end it is also a heartfelt story of forgiveness, love and new beginnings. Cheryl Girard is an Interlake-based writer.
