Making water safety a priority

The headlines persist.

Every summer, across Canada, people learn of drownings and deaths that could have been prevented if the people involved had taken water-safety precautions — learning to swim, supervising children, observing boating safety rules, wearing personal flotation devices (PFDs) or being cautious in and around fast-moving waters.

Also every summer, the Royal Lifesaving Society of Canada — which runs the Swim for Life program of swimming lessons across the country — designates the third week of July as National Drowning Prevention Week, as July is when Canadian water-incident rates peak.

The aim of Drowning Prevention Week is to promote water safety of all kinds — and the need is real. According to the Lifesaving Society, over 450 Canadians die annually in preventable water-related incidents. In Manitoba, there are 22 fatal drownings, on average, every year.

Letters, Aug. 1

It’s at the same time so exciting to see (the supervised consumption site) get off the ground and so frustrating to see the province backing off time and time again.

Giant Tiger decision creates giant void for desperate population

A lot of Winnipeggers may shrug, but the end of Giant Tiger’s downtown store is a giant problem for many of the people living in the centre of the city.

It would have been difficult for anyone going into or passing by the Canadian discount chain’s Donald Street and Ellice Avenue location Thursday to miss the red notices posted on the store’s windows advising it will close on Nov. 7.

According to a 2024 Downtown Winnipeg BIZ report, about 18,000 people live in Winnipeg’s downtown.

More than 60,000 people work there, and some days — when there’s a big concert or the Jets play at Canada Life Centre, for example — the number of people spending time in the area increases significantly.

Finding flaws in mayor’s proposed fourth crisis response service

The best thing one can say about Mayor Scott Gillingham’s proposal for a fourth crisis response service — to deal with citizens suffering from mental health and addictions problems — is that there is still time to make it the response service the city actually needs.

As it stands, the proposal, which is largely shaped by a consultant’s report, is incomplete and steers well clear of the most critical issues faced by the city when it comes to finding the best and safest system to help people in the throes of a crisis.

To be fair, the mayor did not present this plan as a completed idea. We should also acknowledge that Gillingham is advancing a very important and much-needed idea.

However, the report treats the problem of mental health and addictions as largely a human resource challenge: how can we find trained civilians to assume responsibility for “wellness calls” to free police and the fire and paramedic services to do other, more appropriate work?

Measure twice… and try not to hurt yourself

Changing speeds. It’s a hard thing to do.

A hard thing, because it’s also an admission that the speed you once had just isn’t really there anymore.

A couple of weeks ago, I began to think about a concept I’m currently calling “old-man carpentry.” It’s like any other kind of carpentry, really, just slower and more deliberate. It’s also about self-preservation.

At the moment, it’s only a handful of adages, the first and foremost being, “If something falls, don’t try to catch it.” The idea sounds simple enough, but it takes real effort and deliberate restraint — you have to get in the way of your own instinctive reactions to reach out and catch something.

Climate change threatens events we wait for all year

This week, owing to extreme heat and a wild storm with tree-snapping winds, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet had to cancel its full run of Ballet in the Park, a much-loved annual tradition at which people from all over Manitoba can enjoy world-class art in the verdant Assiniboine Park.

Two weeks prior, Rainbow Stage, another jewel of a Winnipeg summer, had to cancel the closing matinee of Jesus Christ Superstar owing to heat and humidity.

And at the beginning of July, Winnipeg Folk Festival attendees baked under scorching temperatures — 47 C with the humidex — to enjoy not just the discovery of music, but the community that has formed in Birds Hill Park on the second weekend of July for over 50 years.

This doesn’t feel great. I do not begrudge cancellations — they are absolutely the correct call for the health and safety of performers and patrons — but I can’t be the only one feeling some existential dread about our summers, and the things that make them special, in the face of a changing climate.

Insurance inevitably

Floods, hail and wildfires are increasingly common features of North American summers.

Adding to collective dismay, these natural disasters are the common denominator behind sticker price shock for homeowners seeing insurance premiums jump higher annually.

“Home insurance has steadily been rising since 2019,” says Matt Hands, vice-president of insurance at Ratehub.ca.

A recent report from Statistics Canada shows home and mortgage insurance premiums have risen 45 per cent on average over the last six years. That is more than double overall inflation over that span.