McLean eager to join team at Theatre Projects

Home residents turn to agency after operator lays off 70 staff who unionized

Residents of a Winnipeg retirement home have taken matters into their own hands after the majority of the facility’s home-care aides were laid off following their unionization.

A committee of residents have banded together to work with a private agency to staff Shaftesbury Park Retirement Residence after many of its existing aides complete their final shift on Monday.

“It is heartbreaking because there are a lot of vulnerable people here who are not capable of advocating for themselves,” said Joelle Robinson, who has lived at the home since 2023 after she suffered a brain aneurysm. “We’re trying very hard to make it so that our residents aren’t completely up the creek.”

Robinson, a retired lawyer, joined Terry Hopkinson and several other residents of the South Tuxedo home to create a committee and send out a request for proposal to eight companies that specialized in seniors care.

Hydro’s planned outages turn out the lights for thousands across province

Business owners in the East Beaches area of Lake Winnipeg hauled out generators Wednesday after a planned Manitoba Hydro outage left thousands of residents and cottagers without power.

Lise Bourassa, who runs several stores in Grand Beach, had to rent generators to accommodate the eight-hour blackout, which affected the area from Beaconia to Victoria Beach as well as Sagkeeng First Nation, while Hydro crews fixed a pole that was damaged by fire in May .

Despite the spare power source, she was only able to open one of her stores during the outage and said it came at a bad time.

“I understand the importance of what Manitoba Hydro is doing, the problem all the businesses in this area are having is that our season is very short and to be shut down for a full day has a fairly big impact, plus they added cost of getting generators,” she wrote in a message to the Free Press. “We also had less than one week to make arrangements, find electricians and generators to be able to keep all the food safe.”

Report calls for schools to add more ‘sensory rooms’

Manitoba schools are being urged to set up more “sensory rooms” and use the spaces — which can feature mood lighting, flexible seating and fidget toys — to address growing concerns about student outbursts and related injuries.

A new report from the Manitoba Federation of Labour is renewing calls to better protect educational assistants, teachers and other public-sector employees.

One of its 10 recommendations, published on Monday, focuses on tackling overcrowding in community facilities and establishing “safe spaces in schools to respond to violence.”

“It’s become the norm: kids having meltdowns that require you have to evacuate the classroom,” said Jane Allison, an educational assistant in Winnipeg.

Carney trumps Trump with Gordie Howe bridge deal

This is the reality of dispute resolution with the Trump administration: getting what we want but doing it in a way that gives the wacky, volatile and irrational president some sort of moral victory to parade on social media.

Mayor proposes city take on more debt to save tree budget

Mayor Scott Gillingham is proposing the city take on more debt to avoid trimming its tree-planting budget.

In a motion at Thursday’s city council meeting, the mayor notes a boost in water and sewer revenues, reported earlier this year, helped the city cover a greater portion of major sewage upgrades without debt. That change added $48 million to the city’s debt capacity.

Gillingham is now calling for the city to use some of that debt room to avoid the cut, which aimed to fill an unexpected budget gap.

The Manitoba government recently directed the city to spend an additional $1.236 million of its provincial “strategic infrastructure basket” funding on the Assiniboine Park Conservancy Journey to Churchill exhibit. City finance officials recommended transferring some tree funding to fill that gap, and council’s executive policy committee voted in favour of the plan on July 7.