Video: Taste-testing banana meatloaf Posted: 1:20 PM CST Friday, Feb. 11, 2022

Demolition ordered after fire in vacant city home

A Winnipeg firefighter was assessed by paramedics and an emergency demolition was ordered after a vacant house caught fire Thursday morning for the second time in less than three months.

The two-storey home, at Argyle Street and Disraeli Freeway, in South Point Douglas, was boarded up following a blaze that occurred June 1.

Firefighters returned to the house after flames were reported shortly after 6 a.m. Thursday. The house was engulfed when crews arrived.

“Due to heavy fire conditions, crews were unable to enter the structure,” a Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service spokesperson wrote in an email to the Free Press.

Chronic blame game festers

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara doesn’t mince words when describing how bad things are in the province’s emergency departments and urgent-care centres.

“The wait times that we are seeing in Manitoba are unacceptable,” said Asagwara in an interview with the Free Press. “I hear from families, I hear from providers, I hear from Manitobans who are concerned about the wait times that they’re seeing, that they’re experiencing, and those concerns are valid — I share those concerns.”

So what is the NDP, who promised voters nearly three years ago it had the answers to bring down wait times, doing about it?

A lot, according to Asagwara, who has been the province’s health minister since the NDP was sworn into office in October 2023.

Low-income residents of 114-year-old downtown block staggered by proposed rent hikes

Marcel Blanchette’s life has not travelled down a smooth road.

In 2014, he was violently assaulted in his home, an unprovoked attack that left him with severe injuries, including permanent brain damage. He underwent months of hospitalization and rehabilitation. During that time, he learned his possessions had been sold off when the Office of The Public Guardian and Trustee took over his affairs.

Twelve years later, he finds himself in another fight. This time, it comes in the form of a proposal from the new owners of the Conway Court apartment block that would nearly double his monthly rent. While he’s been able to live in the Kennedy Street unit with the support of disability income assistance for nearly five years, the sudden spike, he said, could leave him homeless.

“To go through that, and now I’m going through this, it’s another obstacle,” Blanchette told the Free Press. “I fought the Public Guardian and Trustee, and I’ll fight this too, with whatever I have.”

Manitoba premier open to lifting U.S. booze ban but hopes Canadians won’t buy it

WINNIPEG - Manitoba's premier says he is reluctantly open to returning U.S. booze to provincial shelves as part of a trade deal, but hopes Canadians won't buy it.

Wab Kinew said Thursday he's still waiting for key details, including what the final tariff rates will be, before making any commitments. 

He said Prime Minister Mark Carney has all but begged the provinces to agree to allow U.S. alcohol sales, as Canada and the United States work to finalize a new trade deal to ward off further punishing tariffs on Canadian goods.

While he hasn't agreed to it yet, Kinew said if the province does agree, he hopes Canadians still buy locally.

Man pleads guilty to shotgun slaying

A Winnipeg drug dealer has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in a March 2025 killing that saw the body of a 30-year-old man dumped in a garbage bin and dragged to a West End alleyway.

Frederick Francis Mathias Baker, who was 28 upon his arrest early last year, shot Bronson Emery Dale Kequahtooway once in the thigh with a sawed-off shotgun and left him with a fatal wound, Crown prosecutor Matt Armstrong told Court of King’s Bench Justice Brian Bowman on Wednesday.

A split second after Baker shot Kequahtooway in the thigh, the victim was shot in the head with a sawed-off .22 rifle. The man accused of being armed with the rifle, Eric Matthew Morrissette, remains before the court on a second-degree murder charge.

“Either wound would have been fatal on its own,” said Armstrong.

Rural residents ‘outraged’ property owner charged after shots fired during confrontation with alleged thieves: MLA

A rural Manitoba MLA says he has heard from constituents who are “shocked and outraged” that a 66-year-old man is facing charges after he fired shots at a group of people accused of stealing from his property.