The year 2025 may not feel like a gripping page-turner for most people living in Ritchot and Niverville. Unlike 2024, there were no Hollywood movie studio announcements or RCMP manhunts. Civil outcry over the controversial Plan20-50 had all but gone silent by the time the calendar turned one year ago.

For 20 years, commuters along Highway 59 have been waiting on the province to pick up where they left off and twin this major transportation corridor south of Île-des-Chênes.

This Christmas break, while many teenagers are gaming or sleeping late, one collection of Niverville youth will be undertaking a deep dive into provincial politics.

Niverville’s council had a number of topics to deliberate at their December 16 public meeting. One of these was a request by the owners of Urban Flavours to allow their exterior signage to include references to the cannabis and vape products they sell.

On December 16, Niverville’s council voted unanimously in favour of approving an application by Len Peters, of Sunset Estates, to begin the development process of Highlands West.

If all goes as planned for one corporate tech collaborative, Île-des-Chênes (IDC) will soon be home to Manitoba’s first major AI data centre. Jet.AI, a Nevada-based provider of GPU (graphics processing unit) infrastructure and AI cloud services, made their formal public announcement on December 4.