Boots on the ground

Reading the city in its buildings

Cities reveal what they value. Their buildings are the evidence.

Long after today’s debates have ended, buildings remain. They record what a community believed was worth building, what it considered beautiful, what it chose to preserve — and, perhaps most revealingly, what it allowed to disappear. Architecture is history written in brick, stone, concrete, glass, steel and wood.

Architecture is not only about the past. It is also about the future. Every building we preserve, every building we construct and every building we demolish says something about who we are — and what kind of city we hope to become. Our built environment forms part of our collective cultural memory. It tells the story of where we have been while shaping where we are going.

A city is a manuscript that every generation revises. Our responsibility is to leave the next chapter better than the one we inherited.

Winnipeg Fringe Festival: 2026 show reviews

Not sure what to see at this year's Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival? All of the Free Press’s reviews will be published here.  Find a show and click to read its review.

Small business group says immigration cut makes it tough to hire workers

Canada’s immigration clampdown has put employers in remote and rural places in a bind and put fear into employees from abroad who want to stay.

Yi (Rick) Zheng and his family from China, who’ve been working in Thompson for two years and hope to gain permanent residency, said they fear their work permits will expire and they’ll have to leave the country.

Zheng, 41, says he works as a restaurant cook and his wife works at a hotel in the northern city, where their two children, ages 10 and 12, are thriving in school.

“I work very hard every day. Our kitchen doesn’t have enough staff.”

Today’s horoscope

MOON ALERT: Caution. Avoid shopping (except food and gas) or making important decisions all day until 8:30 p.m. After that, the moon moves from Scorpio into Sagittarius.

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

Mercury stops being retrograde, which will help you get more organized at home. Nevertheless, opportunities for vacations, sporting events and fun socializing with others continue to come your way. At work, co-workers are supportive. It’s all good.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

Mountain View teacher stripped of licence over explicit messages

A Roblin teacher has been stripped of his professional licence after an undercover police investigation found he sent explicit messages to a social media user he believed to be a 15-year-old girl.

Manitoba cancelled Josh Braaksma’s credentials — listed in the province’s online registry under his full name, Joshua William Braaksma — on July 6. His certificate was suspended on an interim basis in the fall.

The misconduct case involving Braaksma, who has taught and coached in the Mountain View School Division over the last decade, is the first to be resolved via a “written hearing.”

“Having regard to the nature, content and context of (his) communications, the panel finds that the teacher’s conduct renders him unsuitable to be a teacher,” the disciplinary decision states.

Landlord miffed after city orders cleanup of riverside homeless camp

A West Broadway landlord is angry the City of Winnipeg has ordered him to clear away a homeless encampment from his riverfront property or have the cleanup cost added to his property tax bill.

Marvin Sharp, CEO of Astroid Management Ltd., which manages the Pen-Eve Apartments at 35 Balmoral St., said the city is forcing private property owners to deal with a problem they didn’t create.

“This is kind of like the neighbours throwing their garbage over the fence, every single day, and the city’s saying, ‘You have to go clean this up, but we’re not going to go tell the neighbour to stop doing that,’” Sharp said. “What do you want me to do here? You’ve got a serious problem here. We’re not talking about someone throwing garbage on the ground. We’re talking about encampments.”

Sharp said he received a city compliance order dated July 10, which was viewed by the Free Press. It says a bylaw officer observed “an accumulation of garbage” on the property, including abandoned goods of manufacture, tents and unattended shopping carts.