Endangered North Atlantic right whale spotted entangled in Gulf of St. Lawrence

Law will curb e-scooter enthusiasts

For people concerned about safety on Manitoba’s sidewalks and roadways, the province’s announcement that new rules will be introduced next year regarding the use of e-scooters and other personal electric vehicles (PEVs) was no doubt met with an enthusiastic “It’s about time.”

As their popularity and their presence among pedestrians on sidewalks and/or motor vehicles on the road has increased steadily, so have reports of close calls or, even worse, collisions involving e-scooters or other PEVs — including electric skateboards, hoverboards and unicycles — being operated imprudently and at unsafe speeds.

Traffic laws urgently need to be updated to govern the use of these conveyances, which up until now have remained in a regulatory grey area that has allowed PEVs to operate largely without guidelines and outside conventional avenues of traffic-safety enforcement. Accordingly, updates regarding PEV use will be included in the Highway Traffic Act in 2027.

The new legislation will govern such areas as mandatory helmet use, age restrictions, where PEVs can lawfully operate and the maximum speed at which they can travel (25 km/h). The aim of the new law, according to the province’s website, is “to help keep Manitobans safe when sharing roads, paths, and other public spaces.”

Chief says minister offered money to remove highway checkstop

The chief of the Bloodvein River First Nation says a Manitoba cabinet minister offered up to $250,000 for economic development as he was trying to persuade her to remove a highway checkstop that has outraged hunters.

Chief Lisa Young said Ian Bushie, the minister of Indigenous futures, raised the money in a private conversation in September, also telling her the First Nation would receive a letter directing it to move the checkstop because it’s on a provincial highway.

Young said Bushie described the money as support for economic development in the community.

“I really felt like I was being pushed into a corner. I also felt that I was being bribed,” Young said in an interview. “It may not have come off that way. But he even further said, ‘And I’m not bribing you.’ So, I really didn’t know what to say.”

Storm costs not factored in to MPI request for 2.38% rate increase

Manitoba Public Insurance told the Public Utilities Board Tuesday it didn’t factor in reinsurance costs related to devastating summer storms in its application for an increase to vehicle insurance rates.

Cara Low, the Crown corporation’s chief actuary, told the board that given MPI anticipates an increase to reinsurance premiums, the 2.38 per cent increase listed in its application won’t be adequate to cover its costs.

“There’s going to be a significant increase. We still have to decide how much we want to retain, what we want the coverage to look like, and what the upper end needs to be,” she said on the opening day of a three-week hearing.

Nearly 41,000 claims have been submitted in relation to summer storms that swept across southern Manitoba from June to August. Floods, tornadoes and hail pummelled several communities and forced MPI to open satellite claims centres to deal with the record number of calls.

White-supremacist highway sign casts pall on Steinbach city council campaign

The RCMP is investigating a white-nationalist sign near Steinbach with racist messaging and alleged links to a known Canadian far-right group.