Local News
Thoughts on Sid Green
By GRANT MITCHELL (Grant Mitchell is a well-known lawyer in Winnipeg whose father, Leon Mitchell, was Sid Green’s law partner for many years.
Following are remarks Grant delivered at the meal of remembrance which was held following Sid Green’s funeral on June 9:
Sid was a Gold medallist in law in the class of 1955.
He knew that my Dad, Leon Mitchell, was in sole practice in the Confederation Building. Leon was 13 years older than Sid but graduated just the year before. Leon had been the business agent for the Civic Employees Union of the City of Winnipeg before and during law school, and his union connections gave him a client base to start a practice.
After obtaining his call to the Bar, Sid attended Leon’s office and informed him, “You need me.”
Leon was taken aback. He was physically disabled from a major bout of Guillen-Barre syndrome, but felt fully capable of practising solo. He told Sid he didn’t need anyone.
Sid told Leon, “You don’t understand. I don’t mean you need me to advise clients, I mean I can do the physical side for you, attending court and hearings and other functions that require mobility.”
With that understanding, they became Mitchell & Green, and later Mitchell, Green and Minuk when Sam Minuk joined the firm. They were the only labour firm in Winnipeg at that time that acted exclusively on the Union side.
In around 1960, a Mitchell & Green client did not have the money to pay for his legal fees and offered the partially constructed cottage he was building at Big Whiteshell Lake to the firm as payment, with the excess to be refunded to the client. Sid and Leon became co-owners of that cottage. For years it had no plumbing and an incomplete ceiling. When Leon died in 1987, Sid got the cottage.
When Sid went into politics, Leon supported the move, and in fact delivered the nomination speech for Sid to be leader of the NDP when he ran against Russ Paulley and then Ed Schreyer.
When Sid was made a Cabinet Minister in the Schreyer government in 1969, Leon also left practice to go into public service, as Chair of the Municipal Board, Chair of the Mental Review Board and Commissioner in the Churchill Forest Industries inquiry. Sam Minuk became a Provincial Judge. It was the end of Mitchell Green and Minuk. That practice was the foundation of what has become the Myers firm.
Sid and Leon’s paths would cross again when Leon was mediator of the Northern Flood Agreement and Sid was the Minister responsible for Manitoba Hydro.
They had been professional partners with profound mutual respect, but they were also personal friends and remained so for the rest of Leon’s life.
Leon had a huge admiration for people he thought were unusually intelligent. Sid was at or near the top of that list.
At the funeral, I spoke of Sid’s relationship with my father, Leon Mitchell.
I will just add that during their years at the Confederation Building and then in the Crown Trust Building, they hired an articling student named Bill Rachman, who made Sid and Leon nervous about everything he did. When the articling period ended, Sid told Leon that notwithstanding their reservations about Bill’s ethics and practicing skills, Bill would be far more financially successful than either Sid or Leon. Leon agreed. They were correct.
When Sid returned to private practice after his time in government, the unions and he had a falling out and he found himself acting against unions rather than on their behalf
Sid’s philosophy on unions was that protective labour laws produced weak unions, who would not represent their members’ interests effectively. He felt that Wagner Act type labour legislation, now universal in North America, was a tragic compromise by unions. He believed that the recognition strike and the wildcat strike were fundamental weapons for successful trade unions, and that certification of unions, the duty to bargain in good faith and mandatory grievance arbitration were the poor cousins of the recognition and wildcat strikes. This was opposite to the position of the union movement at that time, which lobbied strenuously for union-friendly legislation in the form of greater and greater regulation of the union employer relationship.
In fact, Sid said that the only labour laws that unions should need were to protect the right to picket, and to take away a court’s power to order a person to work. These 2 provisions are found in sections 56 and 57 of the King’s Bench Act to this day, more than 50 years later, and still known to people of my generation as the “Sid Green amendments”. No injunction to enforce a personal services contract. No injunction to restrict assembly on a public thoroughfare to communicate accurate information, that is, a picket sign.
Sid supplemented professors at the law school, Robson Hall, by delivering several lectures in each term about the fundamentals of labour law. I taught that course for 22 years and I had Sid come for a guest lecture, as he had done in the labour law class when I was a student.
He had a powerful and persuasive way of making his points. For example, he felt that a legislated duty to bargain in good faith was a mistake – let the parties fight it out, and let the stronger survive. If employers don’t bargain genuinely, the response is to hold a strike, not run to the labour board.
“If I offer $1, $2, $3, $5, $10 then I’m bargaining in good faith. If I offer $10, $10, $10, $10, then I’m bargaining in bad faith. But it’s still $10!”
He didn’t like certification and preferred the recognition strike. Settle disputes through battle, not argument. Conflict rather than compromise. He particularly objected to certifying unions by card count as opposed to secret ballot vote. A card signer had no meaningful way of revoking their support for the union if they changed their mind after the union applied for certification.
Sid said, “If I buy a vacuum cleaner from a door to door salesman, under the CPA I have a month to change my mind and get my money back. But if I sign a union card, the next day may be too late to change my mind. Which is more important, having a union take over my bargaining rights, or buying a vacuum cleaner?”
Apart from representing employees against unions, Sid also built a practice of representing lawyers who faced disciplinary action from the Law Society. When he ran to be a bencher, he received more votes than any other candidate, even though he was not affiliated with any of the larger law firms. As a bencher, he would send out a “Report from a Bencher” after each Bencher meeting, giving his analysis on the decisions the Society was making, often critical of the majority.
In so many ways, he believed in a “survival of the fittest” approach to human differences. He did not care for protectionist legislation like Human Rights laws. He particularly objected to affirmative action or any other form of “reverse discrimination”.
In one case I had with him, he was acting for Nabila Malik, an economist in the Cabinet secretariat who had been laid off. I was acting for the employer. He called me to tell me that he wished to amend his statement of claim. “I want to add a paragraph to the claim to say that in letting my client go, the government violated its own affirmative action policy because the policy said that there should be more women in senior civil service positions and yet my client, a woman, was let go when many men in senior civil service positions had remained employed.
“Do you object to my amendment?” “No.”
“You don’t think I believe in that affirmative action bullshit do you?” “I don’t know.”
“I DON’T!” But I say, ‘If you are going to preach bullshit, you have to practice bullshit.’”
Sid took up hockey when he was 50. As a young man, he had been a good athlete, quarterbacking the law school football team. It was a late stage of life to learn to skate and join a new sport but Sid approached it with the same gusto he applied to everything else. When he awoke after cardiac surgery a few years later, his first question was, “Will I still be able to play hockey?” You don’t have to be great at something to love it, as I well know. And Sid loved to play hockey, indoors or out.
An employer client of mine had one of its managers vilified in the union newsletter – the “Golden Turkey Award”. My client said, “We want a lawyer for the manager, and we want that lawyer be one with the kind of reputation that when the other side sees who is threatening to sue them, they will involuntarily cringe uncontrollably.” I gave them 2 names, with Sid’s being the second one. “Sid Green, that name sounds familiar. Who is he?” “Oh, he was once the Minister of Labour in the NDP government, but after he left politics, the unions treated him as a pariah, and now he fights them regularly.” “That’s the guy we want.” Sid took the case. He got a settlement offer so generous that the manager desperately wanted to accept it: full page retraction, apology, substantial payment. He may have been a turkey, but he was not foolish. Sid said it was not enough. He got more, before yielding to the client’s wish to settle. And oh, yeah, there were no more golden turkeys awarded.
Sid loved to litigate. He would rather fight than settle. His adversaries knew that, and as a result, he achieved great settlements. Sid’s rejection of an offer was never a bluff.
He had a fundamental belief in democracy, that the rules should be made by people who were elected, not appointed. If he had the choice, he would prefer to be a law maker rather than a lawyer or judge. He also felt that if a matter was worth taking on, it was worth taking all the way. I doubt that any private lawyer has been involved in more appeals.
Others know more about Sid’s career as a politician than I do. He did love to tell one story about his time in government. In 1975, Bob “Junior” Wilson had just been elected in a Wolseley by-election, narrowly defeating Sid’s friend, D’Arcy McCaffrey. In his first appearance in the Legislative Assembly, Wilson stood up to make his maiden speech. The protocol had long been that when a member speaks for the first time, they give a benign speech about how honoured they are to serve their constituents and how they look forward to working with everyone in the house. Instead, Wilson launched into an attack on the governing Schreyer government, accusing them of every misdeed known to politics, and demanding that they immediately resign and call a general election. It fell to Sid to respond on behalf of the NDP majority.
“The Honourable Member has ignored the usual protocol for new members. I don’t mind that. I have no particular affinity for protocols. I think members should say what they genuinely feel. So I commend the Member for being so frank. I have some difficulty with his message, however. He says that we should resign and cease to govern. But that would be undemocratic. A majority of Manitobans have elected us to run the Province. That is our duty. He may not like it, but the fact is that we are his government. But if he feels badly about that, he should imagine how I feel. He is my member!!”
I’ll close by saying that in Sid’s pre-politics practising days, there were many colourful lawyers that made being a lawyer a fascinating profession. By the time he returned to practice, there were only a few of the wild ones left. The profession needed a gadfly like Sid to make practice fun. The reason he got so many votes from the profession is that Manitoba lawyers recognized that in Sid there was a fearlessness mixed with skill, humour, joy and a profound understanding of the policy reasoning behind the letter of the law. There was no one like him, and I doubt that there will be one. I will miss him.
Local News
Nakba exhbit at CMHR – you can see it right here and make your own assessment
By BERNIE BELLAN (Posted June 26, updated July 19) The Nakba exhibit at the Canadian Exhibit for Human Rights opened to the public June 27. The morning before the exhibit was set to open to the public, (it had a private opening for invited guests the evening of June 26) we received a press release from the CMHR. That press release gave a very detailed description of what was in the exhibit, along with photos (supplied by Annie Kierans of the CMHR).
There is also a link right at the beginning of the press release that will allow you to watch the same videos that anyone attending the exhibit can watch. We reprinted what was sent to us without making one edit. We leave it to you to form your own opinion as to whether the exhibit is fair in its presentation, and whether it is lacking “context” – which is an accusation that has been levelled at the exhibit’s organizers by some representatives of Jewish organizations.
We have received many emails in reaction to the exhibit. If you have an opinion and would like to see it published on this website, you can send it to jewishp@mymts.net, but please indicate whether you would be willing to have it published on this website.
Here is what we received the morning of June 26:
Winnipeg, MB — June 26, 2026 — The Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) will open a new exhibit tomorrow that explores human rights violations related to the ongoing forced displacement of Palestinian Canadians.
Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present will be on display in the Rights Today gallery on Level 5 until 2028. Featuring personal stories told through artifacts and video testimonies, the exhibit presents Palestinian Canadians reflecting on their ongoing struggle for human rights. The small exhibit reveals enduring patterns of loss and resilience, helping visitors understand more about this contemporary human rights story.
Palestinian Canadian stories are now included alongside many other stories of forced displacement and human rights violations featured in the Museum’s galleries. Each of these stories contribute to our visitors understanding of human rights and help the Museum fulfill its mandate to foster reflection and dialogue.
Exhibition highlights
Personal stories and artifacts: Experience firsthand accounts from Palestinian Canadians sharing their journeys of displacement and memory through a series of five artifacts. Cases display artifacts like property deeds, house keys, and a traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, accompanied by short videos that deepen understanding of the impacts of displacement.
Powerful artworks: In her painting Bound Together in Gaza, Malak Mattar, a Gazan artist, captures the struggles and resilience of her generation shaped by conflict. Her work pays homage to Guernica, Picasso’s powerful masterpiece depicting civilian suffering during war.
Curfews and Closures, by Rajie Cook, bears witness to life under military occupation during the 2000–2005 Palestinian uprising, when curfews and closures were expanded and further limited basic rights and freedoms.
Cultural heritage: Discover traditional Palestinian embroidery called tatreez. Tatreez motifs and colours are tied to place, family history and regional identity. Patterns are associated with particular towns, villages or areas of Palestine. In this way, tatreez is a form of storytelling: a way of preserving memory, sustaining identity and expressing resilience across displacement and exile.
Poetry and reflection: Engage with Mahmoud Darwish’s evocative verses, inspiring personal reflection on exile, voice, and responsibility. Visitors can take a card containing Darwish’s poem and add a personal note, fostering ongoing dialogue beyond the exhibit.
Contemporary context: Witness striking images of current events in Gaza and the West Bank, connecting past displacement to ongoing struggles.
Quotes:
“No force can silence the truth we carry. Growing up in Canada, my children lived the Nakba through our stories. And now we watch it happen again, live, on our phones. When I see the images coming out of Gaza, I am not watching the news. I am watching my history repeat itself.” -Fouad Sahyoun, a Palestinian Canadian featured in the exhibit
“We developed this exhibit with a clear awareness that Palestinian Canadian voices have too often been marginalized, silenced or spoken over — and that anti-Palestinian racism affects whose stories are heard and whose suffering is recognized. That is why we intentionally centred Palestinian Canadian voices throughout the exhibit.” -Isabelle Masson, Curator of Palestine Uprooted
“Human rights matter precisely when they are inconvenient, when the question of who deserves the dignity of having their rights recognized is genuinely contested. These are the moments where having a national museum for human rights is most important.
There are people who believe this exhibit should not exist in its current form. There are people who believe it should have existed sooner. There are people who will visit this exhibit and feel that it does not say enough, and others who will feel it says too much.
We have listened to every one of these voices. We have reflected. And we have renewed our resolve to continue the difficult, sometimes contested, and often controversial work of building understanding about human rights. We are a museum grounded in Canada’s human rights framework, whose mandate requires us to bear witness to the full complexity of the human story. We are proud to open this exhibit because the story it tells will help achieve that mandate, and because this story belongs in the collective memory of Canadians.”
- – Isha Khan, CEO
Local News
New GrowWinnipeg “Grow Together” highlights diverse origins of our growing Jewish community
By MYRON LOVE On Monday, June 11, about 120 younger Jewish Winnipeggers from diverse backgrounds came together at the Asper Campus for an evening of food and music, games and prizes and, most important, the opportunity to socialize with their peers from a growing community that reflects the long term success of our community’s 26-year-old GrowWinnipeg initiative.
“We are gathered here to celebrate your and your parents’ decisions to come to Winnipeg, build families and raise families here,” noted Dalia Szpiro, GrowWinnipeg’s director, in addressing the young adults in attendance.
To summarize, the GrowWinnipeg Initiative arose when our past community’s leadership recognized that our Jewish population was an aging and shrinking community with aging infrastructure.
The first stage was the planning and construction of the Asper Campus, which brought our major institutions and organizations under one roof in an attractive new building.
The next challenge was to attract more people to our community. GrowWinnipeg was created to take on the challenge. The initiative, which was officially launched in 2000, is unique in its efforts to reach out to young Jewish families throughout the Western world.
The first outreach efforts were directed at Argentina’s sizeable Jewish community at a time when the South American country’s economy was going through a very difficult period. Several of our community leaders visited the Jewish community in Buenos Aires and a website was established. Arrangements were made for local families to host Jewish Argentinians here on exploratory visits and the community helped the prospective immigrants navigate the then new Provincial Nominee Program, find jobs and establish themselves here.
Since then, many young families – from Argentina, as well as a great number of other countries – have chosen to make Winnipeg their new home. The young people at the recent GrowWinnipeg evening were reflective of the diversity of our growing community. During the course of the evening, I had the opportunity to speak with not only Israeli-born participants, also young people from Russia and Ukraine, Turkey and Uruguay – and a young lady who grew up in Ottawa.
Naomi Kirshenblatt Palansky originally came here from Ottawa to go to university. She met and married local entrepreneur Noah Palansky in 2023. (We wrote about Noah in the December 19, 2025 issue). That same year, the former competitive swimmer who competed in the Maccabiah Games in 2009 and 2013 served as manager of the Canadian Junior swimming team participating in the games. She is currently the director of operations and strategy for a company called CoinFlip.
Although born in Montevideo, Uruguay, Yael Borovich grew up in Winnipeg. She is the daughter of Dalia Szpiro and Eduardo Borovich (and younger sister of Vanessa) all of whom moved here in 2002. She is a graduate of the Asper School of Business and works as a senior client relationship manager for Scotia Bank’s commercial branch.
Siblings Igal and Edem Avimelek arrived here from Turkey six years ago with their parents, Etel and Moris. Edem is in her second year at the University of Manitoba while Igal is studying engineering at UBC.
They report that their father, Moris, has established the Upperwear Textile Agency – marketing textile products online – while their mother Etel, is senior IT Director, software development and data analytics and enterprise architecture at Standard Aero.
“Our parents were looking to move to a new country and came across the GrowWinnipeg webpage,” Edem says. “GrowWinnipeg has been really supportive of us in helping us move here and become established.”
More recent arrivals Alex Tsmokaliuk and Jane Hin are from Ukraine and Russia respectively and have been together since 2022. “We were looking for a peaceful place to start a family,”: Alex says. “We heard about GrowWinnpeg and here we are.”
Alex is a fitness trainer while Jane is working for WRE Development as a property manager.
Dora Bronstein, who is originally from Beersheva, is also a recent arrival to our community. “I came to Winnipeg because I wanted to get away from war – and I heard about GrowWinnipeg,” she says.
She is currently working for L.C. Taylor Licensed Insolvency Trustee as an estate manager.
Erele Tzidon and Daniel Mejnov
Last October, GrowWinnipeg introduced its new Youth Ambassadors program.
“Since October, we have been working to create an organized system and opportunities to help young newcomers find their people within our community,” wrote Youth Ambassador Erele Tzidon on Facebook.
“Our mission is to help young immigrants find a sense of home in Winnipeg and support a smooth and welcoming transition.
We are excited to help bring our young Jewish community together.
As reported in the Jewish Post about 18 months ago, Tzidon is originally from Moshav Ginaton in central Israel. She came to Winnipeg in 2018 with her parents Ofer – formerly regional manager for a car rental agency in Israel and now an RBC branch manager – and Sharon – an emotional therapist in Israel who is currently working as an educational assistant at Gray Academy – and three younger brothers.
The 20-year Gray Academy graduate has recently completed her third year in Science at the University of Manitoba. For the past three years, she has also been a member of Dr. Inna Rabinovich-Nikitin’s research team at the Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences (ICS), researching the link between pregnancy complications and the risk for heart disease.
In November, 2024, Tzidon was presented with the Dr. James S. McGoey Student Award – based on the quality of her cardiovascular research at the ICS, which operates out of the St. Boniface Hospital campus’s Albrechchtsen Research Centre.
Tzidon’s fellow Youth Ambassador is Daniel Mejnov. He was born in Beersheva but moved to Winnipeg with his parents, Dennis and Victoria (and younger brother Alon) 14 years ago. He is currently enrolled in an IT program at the University of Winnipeg.
Mejnov welcomed all those in attendance at the celebration and thanked the volunteers who helped him and Tzidon organize the event.
“It has been great being able to bring so many people together,” he said. “This is a good way to unite our community.
Two other individuals of particular note that I spoke with at the event were Orit Agabayev and Alina Plis, partners in three year old A and O Event Décor, who provided the balloon arches and walls, table settings and centre pieces for the evening.
Agabayev is originally from Netanya and Plis is from Yeruham (in southern Israel). The latter has been here for 18 years and operates a daycare. The former came 16 years. Her principal career is working in the field of animal nutrition.
In an Instagram PosI from four years ago, Plis noted that “I have always been passionate about planning parties and events. I started out with planning big surprise birthday parties for my kids. Eventually I began planning and decorating events for family and friends. Now I am taking the next step with my friend, Orit, who shares the same level enthusiasm as me. What drives me to go above and beyond is simply the excitement my creations bring to those who see my work.
On Facebook, Agabayev added that “Alina and I are so excited to start A&O event decor. We both love decorating and planning different events. We hope that you can put your trust in us to create or decorate an event for you. We do Birthday parties, anniversaries, bachelor/bachelorette parties, proposals, weddings and more..
“Message us with your ideas to get a free quote and you’re one step closer to having an unforgettable event.”
Local News
Hungarian Holocaust survivor focus of new documentary co-produced by Winnipeggers Liam Karp and Jamie Michaels
By MYRON LOVE “I Draw Things the Best I Can,” a new documentary co-produced by Winnipegger Liam Karp and former Winnipegger Jamie Michaels premiered June 8 at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival.
The 40-minute film focuses on the life of Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor Adam Policzer from his childhood hiding with neighbours in Miskolc in 1944, his postwar immigration to Chile to reunite with his father (who came to Chile just before the war but was unable to bring his family out), his imprisonment in Chile for over a year under the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinoche following the coup in 1972, his subsequent immigration with his wife and family to Vancouver, and his successful career as an architect.
Earlier this year, Policzer unveiled a new side of himself. He wrote and drew all the illustrations for “The House Across the Street,” the story of his struggle for survival – a memorial he had published in the form of a graphic novel. The book was published by Jamie Michaels’ “Dirty Water Comics” in June.
According to its webpage, Dirty Water Comics is “a boutique publishing house that specializes in literary comics that showcase a unique voice and a talent for storytelling. We publish a selective catalogue, create immersive readings, and pride ourselves on championing the work we curate”.
Michaels co-founded the company in 2016 in order to publish his own first graphic comic –an account of his ambitious journey some years before – along with a couple of high school friends – to travel by canoe down the Red and Mississippi Rivers to the Gulf of Mexico. The launch of that graphic novel was reported in a story that previously appeared in The Jewish Post & News.
The son of John Michaels and Karen Stern then published a second graphic novel recounting the 1933 Christie Pitts riot, which pitted younger members of Toronto’s Jewish community and their supporters against Nazi-inspired thugs.
“The House across the Street” is Dirty Water Comics’ fourth publication. (“The Harrowing Tales of La Coriveau” – the third publication – “is a graphic novel retelling the legend and history of Marie-Josephte Corriveau, a Quebecois woman whom the English executed in 1763 for the murder of her second husband. Following her death, Corriveau was hanged from a tree outside of Quebec City in an iron cage. In the centuries that followed, her story was transformed. She became a caged witch who haunted lone travellers, a reviled murderess, and a victim of circumstance”.)
“I first met Adam Policzer a couple of years ago when he approached me about his book,” recalls Michaels, who recently earned his Ph.D from the University of Calgary, where he currently teaches. (His dissertation was on the evolution of Jewish and Arab nationalism during World War I.) “I reached out to Liam and he and I both thought it was a beautiful story and thAt we should make a documentary about Adam.”
Karp and Michaels have been friends since high school (Grant Park). Over the past ten years, the son of Marcia and Morris Karp has built a successful career as the go-to guy for visual effects for movies and television series being shot in and around Winnipeg. He is currently providing his expertise for the remake of the popualtr TV series “Little House on the Prairie,” which is being shot in and around Winnipeg.
In filming the documentary, Karp and Michaels spent time with Policzer and his family in Vancouver. They also filmed on location in Budapest and visited Miskolc to interview members of the family that hid him during the Holocaust.
Karp and Michaels express their appreciation to the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba and Manitoba Film and Music, which provided funding for the project.
Michaels reports that the partners have secured several screenings of the documentary throughout North America. “We hope to show Adam’s story at the Winnipeg Jewish Film Festival next year,” he says.
While Karp and Michaels don’t currently have any plans to collaborate again as yet, they both say that they would like to work together again.
