Physical music sales top downloads, but streaming is king

Tenants slam Alta.-based landlord, protest rent increases

Charlie Medd wasn’t ready for another adventure last October, when she moved out of the Wolseley Avenue apartment she had called home for 15 years.

Medd said life at Lincoln Apartments began to change after Wingspan Properties, an Alberta-based landlord, bought the building, made minor cosmetic changes and increased rent. She felt the changes were intended to push renters — many of them on fixed incomes — out the door.

“At some point, I got scared. I’d been there 15 years,” Medd said about the threat of rent increases. “I’d just painted my whole apartment. But when I heard that there’s going to be that many people homeless, I thought, ‘I’m too old for another adventure.’

“It felt like you were getting a nudge out the door. Like, ‘Yeah, we’re going to be doing this, and your rent is going to go up every year.’”

Is a better Winnipeg on the horizon?

Four Free Press columnists weigh in on the challenges ahead and how the city can become better.

Positive anticipation is growing about major housing developments underway in Winnipeg’s downtown

If traffic is light and the wind is down, Somia Sadiq is able to hear the roar of Winnipeg Jets fans twice: first through her window, then on TV.

From her apartment view high above downtown, she can look out at Graham Avenue’s painted pedestrian landscape, see construction cranes and hear the heavy equipment at work as massive housing projects take shape at The Forks, at what used to be Portage Place shopping centre and at the former Hudson’s Bay building.

Sadiq has lived at 300 Main for 2 1/2 years, a few steps from the city’s famous, windy and reopened-to-pedestrians Portage Avenue intersection. At 42 storeys, it’s the tallest building in Winnipeg.

She is among 18,000 downtown residents who will soon be joined by thousands of others attracted to the city’s core by the new wave of major construction projects.

‘In Normandy, we remember’

Travelling nearly 7,000 km from his home in France to Winnipeg gave Gabriel Zaranski a new perspective on warfare.

“It’s very different to speak about war in school (than) to speak with real people who (have fought) in a war,” he said. “We can feel the emotion when they speak … The testimony has more impact when it’s real soldiers.”

Zaranski is one of 14 Grade 12 students from Bayeux, a town in France’s Normandy region, in Winnipeg this week for a learning tour.

The students, who attend Lycée Arcisse de Caumont high school, met on Saturday with veterans from the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada, a local military regiment, to discuss their studies and the regiment’s role in the Second World War.

Nuit Blanche ready to wow in city’s core

For one night each September, downtown Winnipeg becomes an art gallery — an amusement park, even.

During Nuit Blanche, which takes place tonight, 3D projections spill across the Exchange District, The Forks and St. Boniface, and thousands flood the city core to take in live music, DJs and installations.

“There really isn’t anything like it. I know every promoter probably tells you that, but we are the only event that works at this scale in the fall,” says Nuit Blanche general manager Kurt Tittlemier.

“Culture Days Manitoba is run with the mission statement to make free, accessible artistic programming to all,” he adds, referring to the multi-week national festival, “and Nuit Blanche is our flagship event.”