Seal River adventure a sizzling read

Bell under fire after 911 outage

Bell Canada — Manitoba’s 911 service provider — is facing questions about reliability and redundancy measures after an hours-long outage outside Winnipeg, caused by a severed fibre optic cable, prevented dozens of calls from getting through Wednesday.

Bell spokeswoman Elise von Scheel said backup systems that reroute 911 calls when an outage occurs due to equipment damage also experienced “issues” after a third party cut the cable during construction “near Winnipeg.”

“Manitoba’s 911 system relies on legacy architecture that does not support the failsafes that newer systems have, which is why Bell is in the process of upgrading the ecosystem to next generation 911,” von Scheel wrote in an email.

“All Manitoba public safety answering points are planned to be migrated to the new system by the end of 2026. Migration to NG911 is the fastest and most effective remediation to prevent instances like this in the future.”

Decrease in crime an inconvenient truth for Poilievre

Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives have apparently decided that facts are an obstacle to their crime narrative.

Fringe foot traffic gives Exchange shops boost

This year’s edition of the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival has brought a rise in customer numbers, businesses in the Exchange District say, noting more events like it would also improve the area’s safety.

The increased foot traffic that accompanies the annual downtown event has Más Coffee Co. logging roughly 50 extra customers per day — “a huge increase,” said coffee shop employee Jay Koensgen.

“We’ll have our regulars come in, of course, but since then, Fringe has definitely boosted it.”

Koensgen said he thinks it would make a huge difference for businesses in the area if events like Fringe happened more often. “It’s just good for like economical stuff, environment, community bringing everyone together for a common cause would be really good.”

Mountain View teacher stripped of licence over explicit messages

A Roblin teacher has been stripped of his professional licence after an undercover police investigation found he sent explicit messages to a social media user he believed to be a 15-year-old girl.

Manitoba cancelled Josh Braaksma’s credentials — listed in the province’s online registry under his full name, Joshua William Braaksma — on July 6. His certificate was suspended on an interim basis in the fall.

The misconduct case involving Braaksma, who has taught and coached in the Mountain View School Division over the last decade, is the first to be resolved via a “written hearing.”

“Having regard to the nature, content and context of (his) communications, the panel finds that the teacher’s conduct renders him unsuitable to be a teacher,” the disciplinary decision states.

Cab companies hailed for improved Indigenous relations

Three taxi drivers have been fired and others suspended without pay since a zero-tolerance policy for mistreatment of Indigenous passengers was implemented by Winnipeg’s two largest cab companies.

Unicity Taxi and Duffy’s Taxi began working with the guidance of an Indigenous-led safety committee to improve driver-passenger interactions in 2022, including the filming of a series of training videos and building in-depth policies in response to passengers’ complaints.

At a Thursday event to recognize the action group, leaders from both companies said there’s been a sharp decline in the number of complaints.

Unicity Taxi manager Abhishek Tara said three of their drivers have been fired since they adopted the zero-tolerance policy, which commits to investigating complaints of harassment, violence, abusive language and racism against passengers. Each vehicle is equipped with video and audio surveillance that’s accessible only to police and the city’s vehicles for hire department.