Conrad Sweatman

Tofu-eaters, bigots, drunks, Pinocchios, latte-sippers — insults hurled across the aisle in recent sessions of the Manitoba legislature have turned personal, sometimes absurd. It’s easy, perhaps, for politicians to forget their manners when voters are looking to them to solve a more legitimate crisis. Everyday costs — gas, rent, mortgage payments, groceries — are squeezing households, while significant public debt constrains the government’s flexibility for affordability measures.

Artists and arts administrators weren’t the only ones who filled the RBC Convention Centre Tuesday for the Mayor’s Luncheon for the Arts, hosted by the Winnipeg Arts Council. Among the sea of beaded necklaces, horn-rimmed glasses and other artsy attire were crisp suits worn by Winnipeg’s leading business and political figures, including Mayor Scott Gillingham himself.

Usually, Winnipeg snowbirds are known for going no further south than Florida. But one migratory bird, the lesser yellowlegs, can go all the way to the southern tip of South America from Alaska and back, with midway stops in the prairies. Most yellowlegs, like “Cholao 2,” don’t go quite that far. That’s the name given to a specimen tracked as travelling from Cali, Colombia, to near North Battleford, Sask., and which will likely summer in the subarctic or Arctic.