Wab Kinew: Manitoba's first First Nations premier

In early October, Manitoba chose Wab Kinew. The leader of the NDP and the son of an Anishinaabe chief, Kinew became the first First Nations premier in the province’s history—breaking a chain of conservative counterparts that, hours before, had stretched from Alberta to P.E.I. On the campaign trail, Kinew made the usual big-tent promises (balancing the budget and slashing the health-care queue), but many Manitobans also saw him as the rare politician who’d deliver.

Before he was premier, an NDP MLA and a CBC broadcaster (his real claim to fame), Kinew spent years mired in addiction, a dark period that included an impaired-driving charge and an assault conviction, detailed in his 2015 memoir, The Reason You Walk. Kinew has since gotten clean, raised three sons and set up shop in the Manitoba legislature. In his wide-ranging interview with Maclean’s Katie Underwood, Kinew plumbs his past and looks ahead to what comes next. “I was given a second chance in life,” Kinew said during his victory speech. “I’d like to think I’ve made good on that opportunity.”

—Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief

In our special issue about the Age of AI, University of Calgary professor Jim Parker reflects on how artificial intelligence will soon lead to property battles between studios and artists. AI won’t present real competition for the Rolling Stones or Beyoncé, he says, but it will still likely create complications. “Imagine this: a studio wants to cast Sean Penn in a movie, but he doesn’t want to do it. So, instead, the studio makes a 3D version of Penn using images that already exist online, trains an AI on his voice, then hires a body double and maps Penn’s face on it,” Parker writes.

The Montreal-based architect Maxime Frappier grew up on a 5,000-tree apple orchard near Franklin, Quebec, where he played with his siblings in apple crates. Even at a young age, he loved the neat rows of trees in the orchard and how they blossomed with flowers in the spring. Decades later, these memories came back to him when he set out to build a weekend home for his family just outside Montreal—designed around a single apple tree.

FROM THE DECEMBER ISSUE

John de Ruiter, a charismatic pastor who spent decades leading a religious community in Edmonton, had a special kind of emotional power over his followers. He claimed to be Christ reincarnated, and his disciples believed him. But this year, eight women reported to the Edmonton police that he was a psychological manipulator and a serial predator. They said he used his position of clerical power to make them believe that having sex with him was an avenue to enlightenment.

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