Provencher Park eyed for new aquatic centre

Provencher Park may be the next site for a new aquatic centre.

City staff originally pitched six potential sites for a St. Boniface outdoor aquatic park in 2024, including Provencher Park, at 271 rue de la Cathedrale, which has Provencher Pool, a free outdoor facility.

It would close to make way for the aquatic centre if the plan is approved, says a report set to be presented to the city’s community services committee next week.

“Building the new pool at Provencher Park would support equitable access in an area with higher poverty,” says the report, which will be discussed by council members Sept. 8. “It would replace the existing pool, which is near the end of its useful life.”

Provencher Park is the most feasible site on which to build and is expected to have the lowest cost of development, the report said.

The closure of the Provencher Pool to make way for a new facility could ensure the surrounding community has a place to swim for “generations,” area councillor Matt Allard said.

“My hope is to avoid what happened with Happyland and to instead have a new facility,” Allard (St. Boniface) said Tuesday.

In 2023, Happyland Pool closed despite the community raising $70,000-plus to keep it open. While the Windsor Park pool, also in St. Boniface, had been slated to close last summer, the city has since budgeted for the pool to remain open next summer.

“My hope is to avoid what happened with Happyland and to instead have a new facility.”

Early estimates for the cost of an aquatic facility at Provencher Park range from $18 million to $21 million. Capital funding for the development of a new outdoor pool in St. Boniface was approved in the 2025 and 2026 budgets.

So far, about $2.5 million has been approved for the facility, and an additional $2.2 million is forecast between 2027-31.

Even if the community services committee votes in support of the report, it will require full council approval to move forward.

“I think it is good news for St. Boniface, and I hope this report keeps moving through the system,” Allard said.

Some members of the community, still hurt by the closure of Happyland, don’t want another free outdoor pool to close.

“They should not close the pool until they have another pool available,” said Teresa Cwik, the president of the Old St. Boniface Residents Association.

“The people in our area are not really for the big aquatic centres because the kids and the families can’t really afford to go to them. Everyone liked having the smaller pools because it serviced about 98 per cent of the people in the area.”

“They should not close the pool until they have another pool available.”

Allard has said the Transcona Aquatic Park, which opened in 2017, is an example of what could be built in St. Boniface.

The Transcona pool charges $8.55 for an adult ticket, $3.81 for children over two, and $16.81 for group tickets.

Allard pointed to the city’s recreation fee assistance program, which offers unlimited admission to city rec centres to applicants based on their income, as a way the city could accommodate low-income families who used the Provencher pool.

Cwik, who advocated to keep Happyland Pool open and was part of fundraising efforts, said she’s not convinced a new facility in Provencher Park will be an easy sell.

“If you close the pool and this aquatic centre doesn’t get built for 10 years, then you’ve just closed another pool,” she said.

The Provencher Pool, along with the Windsor Park Pool, will close for the season Friday.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

Malak Abas
Reporter

Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.

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