Local News
CJOB sports guy Cameron Poitras living the dream
By MYRON LOVE Ten years ago or so, Cameron Poitras was at loose ends. He had just dropped out of university and, as with many young people entering their 20s, wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.
“I had heard some radio ads for the Academy of Broadcasting” (which used to be located in the vicinity of Polo Park), he recalls. “I had always been an avid radio listener. I thought a radio career might be something I would enjoy.”
So he enrolled in the program in 2010 – and has never looked back.
Poitras’ road to CJOB however was somewhat long and winding. His practicum and first on-air posting was at CKDM in Dauphin, where he read the news and covered local sports news. After just seven months in Dauphin, he headed west to Alberta to a community called Drayton Valley and a station which goes by the name of “Big West Country”.
“There were three of us on staff,” he recounts. “I had my own show and did the play by play for the local hockey team.”
After nine months in Drayton, it was on to Merritt, B.C. (one of the communities which have recently suffered catastrophic flooding).
“It was in Merritt where I really learned the radio business,” he says. “I was putting in 75-80 hours a week. I learned how to dig up stories and also how to recognize when people are trying to scam you. The work was demanding but I loved it.”
The next rung on the ladder to success came from radio station CHQR in Calgary – CJOB’s sister station. “I had been in Merritt for just over a year when CHQR called and offered me a position as evening news anchor,” he recalls. “That was my big break.”
Four years ago, he decided to move back to Winnipeg. “I was feeling homesick,” he explains.
After leaving Calgary, he notes, he took some time off to spend a month travelling around Europe. “I thought that I would come back home, work for a while and resume travelling,” he says.
But that was not to be.
Shortly after being hired to produce and read the evening news at CJOB, he met Skye Kneller. “Skye had also just started at CJOB as a producer,” he recounts. “And she was a graduate of Herzing Academy which had absorbed the Academy of Broadcasting. We had had some of the same teachers.
“We hit it off right away.”
Cameron and Skye married last summer, about a year after he completed his conversion to Judaism. The couple both are on the board of the Chevra Mishnayes Synagogue, to which the Kneller Family has strong and deeply-rooted ties. (Skye’s father, Marshall, served as president of the congregation for many years before his untimely passing early last year.)
Meanwhile, back at CJOB, among Poitras’ responsibilities have been producing content at the station for Geoff Currier and Hal Anderson, news broadcasts and Bomber games. Last year, the station also acquired the rights to Jets broadcasts.
(Skye, he notes, is the producer for Richard Cloutier’s Afternoon program as well as the Jets and Bombers games.
“The station decided to launch a daily, one hour Jets report at noon,” says Poitras – and the diehard sports fan was delighted to be tapped to host the show, also to read the sports news at 25 past the hour.
Poitras channels the late, great sportscaster Howard Cosell (who famously always promised to “tell it like it is”) in promising to provide honest reporting and in-depth analysis. The emphasis, though, he adds, is to provide entertainment and have some fun. I want to make this the kind of show that I would want to listen to.”
He further reports that sports radio veteran Jim Toth has recently been added to the broadcast. With his 25 years in the business, Jim has been a great addition to the broadcast,” Poitras comments. “He makes our show so much better. We have formed a good partnership. It feels right.”
Poitras speaks of the importance of listener involvement with the program. “Almost everybody has a smart phone which makes it easy to interact with us on air and be heard,” he observes. “I believe that radio will always have a place but we have to continually adapt to the times.”
And Cameron Poitras is exactly where he wants to be – as an integral part of one of our city’s dominant radio stations and in the thick of the sports world.
He and Skye would still like to travel – including visiting Israel some time – but for the young couple, for the immediate future, their career focus is paramount.
Local News
Nakba exhibit at human rights museum set to open despite mounting criticism
By NOAH STRAUSS (posted June 25) The Canadian Museum for Human Rights’ Nakba exhibit is scheduled to open this Saturday, June 27, despite growing criticism and calls for it to be delayed or revised. The exhibit has sparked public debate in Winnipeg and beyond regarding how it presents the history surrounding the creation of the State of Israel.
Earlier this week, Mark Berlin resigned from the museum’s board. In his resignation letter, he expressed concern that the exhibit presents a one-sided narrative and does not adequately address the experiences of Jewish communities affected by the events surrounding Israel’s independence.
The Nakba, an Arabic word meaning “catastrophe,” refers to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the 1947–1949 conflict that followed the creation of the State of Israel. Critics of the exhibit argue that it focuses primarily on Palestinian displacement without sufficiently acknowledging the broader regional consequences of the period.
Some Jewish advocacy groups also point to the experiences of Jews who left or were expelled from several Arab and Muslim-majority countries in the decades surrounding Israel’s creation. Estimates suggest that between 850,000 and 950,000 Jews left or were displaced from countries including Iraq, Egypt, and Yemen, under a range of circumstances including persecution, expulsion, and confiscation of property.
In his resignation letter, Berlin, a faculty member at McGill University specializing in human rights law, wrote, “Telling the story with a one-sided perspective chosen by the museum serves to deepen division and contributes to further hostility toward Jews in Canada.”
Following his resignation, CIJA President Noah Shack released a statement saying, “The resignation of the museum’s only Jewish board member is a clear indictment of the museum’s handling of the controversial ‘Nakba’ exhibit.”
The exhibit’s VIP opening is expected to include invitations to representatives from all three levels of government. Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham had initially been invited but later declined following discussions with representatives from the Jewish community, including CIJA Manitoba Vice President Gustavo Zentner and Jeff Lieberman, President and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg.
Members of Winnipeg’s Jewish community are also planning a peaceful rally outside the museum on Friday at 5 p.m., according to organizers.
The Canadian Museum for Human Rights is expected to release a formal statement ahead of the exhibit’s opening.
Local News
Jewish Child and Family Service helped over 1800 families in 2025
By BERNIE BELLAN Jewish Child and Family Service will be entering the 75th year of its existence in 2027.
With a budget over $4,300,000, JCFS is also the largest beneficiary of funding from the Jewish Federation of the 12 Winnipeg Jewish community agencies that are beneficiaries of the Federation. (To see a list of the 12 agencies go to Funding for Beneficiary Agencies.)
Its impact has grown over the years as JCFS has expanded its horizon, continually adding to the many services it provides. During the JCFS’s Annual General Meeting, held in the Seniors’ Lounge of the Asper Campus on Tuesday evening, June 23, the important role that JCFS plays in the lives of so many members of the Jewish community – also a significant number of non-Jews as well, various speakers cited the many ways in which JCFS has continued to have such a huge impact.
With total revenues of $4,325,160 in fiscal year 2025 (which ended March 31, 2026), but slightly fewer expenses, JCFS not only delivered a wide gamut of services, it managed to deliver those services without incurring a deficit in 2025, despite some significant financial challenges.
As outgoing Board Chair Elana Grinshteyn observed, JCFS had to navigate some major reductions in funding, including a cut in funding from the federal government to the tune of $100,000, plus the loss of funding from the Claims Conference, which had provided support for Holocaust survivors.
Yet, despite those setbacks in funding, Grinshtein reported, “Together, we insured that services remained intact.
“We increased access to interest free loans,” she noted, “doubling” the amount that had been allocated in 2024.
And, amidst the ever-increasing demand for services, “JCFS has continued to navigate space limitations,” Grinshteyn noted. (I should note that as far back as 2019 I reported in an interview I had conducted with JCFS CEO Al Benarroch about the JCFS’s dire need for more space. Here is an excerpt from what Benarroch had to say about the JCFS’s need for more room back in 2019: “…we’ve been looking for roughly 3,000 more square feet of space. We have a footprint right now of roughly 5,000 square feet for over 40 staff. We’ve given up a board room here. It’s been taken over by older adult service staff. We have a conference room which is adjacent to the board room; we’ve moved two staff in there.
“Yesterday I gave up my office for the entire morning so that staff could interview clients.
“We need to relieve the pressure we’re facing right now – yet alone plan for expanding and growing.
“Whatever space we’d be looking at would be temporary. It’s now 22 years that we’ve been in this facility. The campus has taken over squash courts, it’s taken over a museum – internally, to accommodate the growth in services. Maybe it’s time now to look at growing outside this building…”
As the saying goes: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” (That’s me, trying to impress.)
While I tried to take notes during Al Benarroch’s CEO report, I realized following his remarks that there was so much important information conveyed, also a slew of statistics, that it might be more helpful to reprint a good portion of what he said verbatim, so I asked Al to send me a copy of his remarks. (That’s one of the nice things about writing on a website. There’s an infinite amount of room to print the kind of stuff that nerds like me pretend to read.)
During his CEO’s report, Benarroch enumerated the many challenges JCFS encountered in 2025.
Among those challenges, Benarroch noted, were:
• The rising and high cost of living
• Food insecurity
• Housing issues
• Our aging population demographics
• The complex needs of our newcomer families
• The increasingly complex needs in mental health & youth mental health
Yet, despite all those challenges, Benarroch said, “As always… we rose to meet those head on, and with the support of our community.”
In particular, Benarroch cited the support of the Jewish Federation, which contributed $948,800 to JCFS in 2025. (The largest portion of JCFS funding, by the way came from the Province: over $1,100,000.)
Fundraising also played a significant role in contributing to JCFS revenues, with almost $700,000 raised through that route, including direct donations of over $320,000 and bequests over $40,000.
As Benarroch noted, “Every year, we look forward with hope that it will be a quiet year.
“Well, if that’s the case, we are in the wrong business.
“We happen to be in the reflect, respond and pivot business.
“This is the nature of the human existence.”
Benarroch went on to add some more statistics about how JCFS played such a pivotal role in the lives of so many people. In 2025 JCFS:
• Served 1,800 client households – impacting almost 5,000 people.
• Assisted 15 foster children.
• Served 70 families in Child Welfare….
“But what is even more important is that we assisted 90 children that remained at home with their families,” Benarroch said.
The year 2025 also saw the inauguration of what is known as the “Asper Empowerment Program”, through which:
• 311 clients were assisted (including Passover Assistance)
• $80,000 was disbursed in financial assistance
• Over $20,000 was given out in interest-free loans.
• 6,500 kg of food were disbursed
In the area of mental health and counselling services, Benarroch noted that JCFS:
• Supported over 50 adults with mental health challenges
• Our Friday Mental Health Wellness Group participants took part in 22 group activities or outings
• We support some 20 individuals and families impacted by addictions through individual and group services.
• We delivered almost 1,100 counselling sessions, over half of which were subsidized on our sliding scale.
• We continued to support individuals, families, and partner Jewish organizations with the ongoing emotional impacts of the war in Israel and high levels of global antisemitism.
In the area of support for older adults, JCFS served over 250 seniors including:
• 70 newcomer seniors
• 50 seniors living with mental health differences
• 65 Holocaust Survivors (including celebrating “25 years of our Holocaust Survivor Drop-in Group, a partnership with the Gwen Secter Creative Living Centre.”)
In the area of settlement services, JCFS:
• Welcomed almost 80 new families
• Almost 50 families from Israel, seeking reprieve from the ongoing stresses and pressures of the war.
Benarroch noted that “These families are dealing with the deep trauma of displacement, having lived under constant stress, fear and the ensuing post-traumatic impact, family and parenting challenges as a result, emotional exhaustion, financial strain, and more.
“Thanks to the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba, we hired a trained specialized support worker, with a background in therapy, to help these families cope, adjust, and receive much needed emotional supports.”
Benarroch went on to describe many more initiatives in which JCFS was engaged in 2025, but I want to return to the retirement of Elena Grinshteyn from the Board of JCFS after nine years serving on the Board, including the last two as Chair. Grinshteyn will be succeed by Bradley Abells, who has been on the Board since 2021. In his remarks, Abells noted that he is an actuary at Canada Life and that he first joined the Board when his particular expertise as an actuary proved extremely helpful in helping to solve a problem that had arisen, and he found the experience so rewarding he decided to remain on the Board ever since .
Also on the Board is Michael Schacter, who is returning as Treasurer and who looks the way you’d expect a finance guy to look.
Local News
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