Online romance scam could have hurt more

Winnipeg, the capital of ‘Friendly Manitoba’, is becoming far less friendly to anyone who is struggling to survive. The city is also less and less supportive of the not-for-profit sector which struggles to support those struggling to survive.

Municipal politicians have long insisted that social services are provincial responsibilities. However, the city charter makes it clear that mayor and council are “to promote and maintain the health, safety and welfare of the inhabitants.”

Mayor and council are empowered to decide how they do that. Every four years, we citizens get to vote on what we think and feel about those decisions. That’s our democracy, weighted against the disenfranchised though it is.

In 2022, only 37.17 per cent of eligible voters, the lowest percentage since 1989, voted. Recent Probe Research data demonstrates that only one-third of Winnipeggers believe the next mayor and council will make even a minor difference in addressing Winnipeg’s challenges, and another third believe they will make no difference at all.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I met this guy from Switzerland online and we fell in love before we met. I sent him money for a ticket to come visit and was so excited for his arrival. I went to the airport, and he never arrived. I guess he just used that money back home, wherever that really is, and never bought a ticket to come here. He never answered any of my communications after he stood me up, except for one that said, “Sorry.”

I got used for the ticket money and it was a lot! Now I wonder how many others he also had on the romance string, making money from them at the same time. — Scammed and Still Hurting, Winnipeg

Dear Scammed: It may help to picture him working with a group out of an sweatshop-type of online cafe in his country, often on the west coast of Africa, with a boss patrolling the aisles. He takes the workers’ money then sends the guy home to his wife and kids with a pittance for the family. The pictures you got were fake. Some innocent guy on Facebook from Switzerland doesn’t know his photo is being used repeatedly to ensnare people like you.

A rural Manitoba physician is warning that Ste. Rose du Lac could face significant emergency department closures after its doctors were stretched thin helping absorb the fallout from the flooding and prolonged shutdown of Dauphin Regional Health Centre.