2020, meet the Uniter 30

Every year around this time, The Uniter releases the results of our annual readers’ poll, the Uniter 30. Every year, we ask our readers to vote for their favourite people, places and things of that year.

But, this year, I had some worries. 2020 has not been like other years.

Some voters echoed my concerns. Under categories like “Favourite local performance,” more than one person wrote in, “There weren’t any!”

But while tabulating the results, I was pleased to learn how wrong I was. It’s a testament to Winnipeg’s vibrancy that, even during a year defined by lockdowns, quarantines and sheltering in place, this city’s artists, businesses and activists stepped up to the plate. People have been finding ways to do incredible work and achieve great things while remaining socially distant.

Winners in multiple categories created livestreamed art and performances. Others have created new businesses or adapted existing ones to make sure Winnipeggers can experience their food or other creations safely from home.

And, while it may feel like we’ve all been stuck in our homes forever, I don’t need to remind you that, in 2020, things happened! Boy oh boy, did things ever happen. Our provincial government managed to keep a pandemic under control for months, then let it spiral out of control for the sake of the economy. 

US president Donald Trump was impeached! And then the complicit Republican-controlled senate immediately acquitted him! Remember that? Doesn’t that feel like it happened years ago? That was in February!

It has been an exhausting, hellish year in many ways. But, pandemics be damned, Winnipeggers get stuff done

Published in Volume 75, Number 12 of The Uniter (December 3, 2020)

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