‘All good things must come to an end’: The Who announce North America farewell tour dates

The powers that be in Winnipeg have pushed for cheap property taxes for decades. As a result, the city doesn’t have enough money to balance the books, let alone maintain infrastructure, deliver services and respond to challenges like homelessness and the toxic drug crisis.

Winnipeg’s fiscal problem stems from decades of keeping property-tax increases below inflation and relying on inadequate revenues to fund a growing city. The result? Today, Winnipeg spends less money per person on city services than it did in 2001.

A look at the books at city hall is stark. Winnipeg has run a deficit almost every year since the COVID-19 pandemic because of climate-change-driven heavy ice and snowstorms, higher fuel costs and increased policing overtime. During this time, city council tried to cut and freeze public service spending where it could; as a result, community services have been cut to the bone.

Departments responsible for what makes a city a good place to live have been squeezed. Since 1999, community services — responsible for libraries, recreation, swimming lessons and aspects of Winnipeg’s poverty-reduction work — has 149 fewer staff positions, an 18 per cent reduction, even as the city’s population has grown 35 per cent, or by 220,000 people.

The province is investigating after a worker died on the job after falling off a roof last month.

The worker, who was employed by Winnipeg-based Pristine Roofing & Siding, was critically injured on Sept. 22 after falling from a roof during a residential re-roofing project in the Rural Municipality of St. Andrews, a provincial spokesperson said in an email.

The man later died.

The investigation is ongoing, and no other information will be provided, the spokesperson said Thursday.

Manitoba Hydro at it again

As a former resident of Windsor Park, I often ride my bicycle through the neighbourhood or walk the shaded pathway from Elizabeth Road to Cottonwood Drive. It’s a favourite walkway for residents with dogs as well. While passing the pathway at Elizabeth Road the other day I was dismayed to see crews clear-cutting the mature trees between the pathway and the CPKC tracks that stretch the length of Archibald Street.

At first I thought that the crews were clearing out the dense bushes and trees at the start of the pathway. I made a note to return to see if that was all that was going to be done. (When) I drove by the trees had been clear-cut to the end of the first street and access point to it, much to my dismay and horror. I parked my car and went to speak with a worker doing the tree removal.

I was informed that it was a Hydro corridor and that the work would clear-cut every tree between Elizabeth Road and Cottonwood Road. Perhaps the plan is to continue on through Southdale and Island Lakes. At a time of diminishing tree canopies around Winnipeg and the drive to plant a million trees, this decision is outrageous and lacks respect for our current climate situation and neighbourhood esthetics.