Fringe latest festival forced to exit stage left

Councillors propose tighter controls on owners of vacant buildings

City council could consider new measures to crack down on the owners of vacant and derelict buildings that have triggered frequent complaints.

Couns. Cindy Gilroy (Daniel McIntyre) and Sherri Rollins (Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry) want city staff to study ramping up enforcement in such cases.

Their motion calls for city staff to study a mandatory “property maintenance licence” for those problem properties, with an annual fee, regular inspections and requirement that owners provide “proof of ongoing maintenance.”

The program could also impose escalating fines for repeat bylaw offences within a set time period, as well as compliance agreements with timelines and increased monitoring.

The next Duff’s Ditch must be medical

A runaway rail trolley hurtles towards five people tied to the tracks. You stand at the switch lever. If you pull the lever, the trolley veers onto a sidetrack, where one person is tied down. Do nothing and five die. Pull the lever and one dies by your hand.

A health minister needs no introduction to the weight of that choice. Every budget season, governments confront this dilemma with one cruel modification — the lever switches between today and tomorrow. Down the near track sits this year’s emergency, a crowded emergency department, a surgical backlog, a crisis demanding a decision by Friday. Down the far track, in the distance, over the horizon, waits a geriatric demographic that has not arrived yet. Each year’s budget cannot simultaneously rescue both.

Philosophers treat the trolley scenario as a thought experiment. A health minister calls it Tuesday.

The actual choice is crueller, because both tracks hold real people. The stroke patient in today’s hallway deserves rescue, as do the patients down the line. Two scholars, Guido Calabresi and Philip Bobbitt, analyzed such allocations as tragic choices — scarcity forces a society to preserve one value by sacrificing another. Their darker observation concerned method. Societies rarely make these choices in the open. The lever keeps directing traffic away from the immediate noise, toward the far track.

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.”

Winnipegger honoured to wear Maple Leaf in Saturday rugby clash

Kyle Steeves is living a dream that he never imagined.

It wasn’t long ago that the 26-year-old pondered what career he would choose to pursue. Professional rugby never entered his consciousness.

As a wide-eyed teen on St. Paul’s High School’s rugby team, Steeves didn’t think much further than which team he would line up against that week.

He enjoyed the physical nature of the sport, but in his eyes, it was never more than an excuse to lay a big hit.

Inquest judge recommends Winnipeg police improve training, dog handling, policies

A Manitoba inquest judge has made 14 recommendations stemming from the fatal shooting by police of a 22-year-old man in the Maples six years ago.

Provincial court Judge Anne Krahn concluded the officer was justified when he fired at Winnipeg resident Stewart Andrews, a member of God’s Lake First Nation, on April 18, 2020.

The Winnipeg Police Service constable shot Andrews as he swung a metal bar at the officer’s head. The constable, his partner and a police dog were trying to detain Andrews in the lane behind Pipeline Road, after an armed robbery.

The 14 recommendations largely focus on improving Winnipeg police training, policies and education, and making the inquest process easier for the families of those whose deaths are under review.

Fringe reviews #2: No cheat codes required

Dangerous Curves, Elon Muskrat, Evolution of a Broken Heart, Fool's Gambit, Hair Brained, Happy Valley, Lies of a Promiscuous Woman, Mr. Loopy Pants, Pete Seeger Tribute, Tymisha Harris