‘We’ll get there’

For now, the patch of land just east of the Victoria Hospital doesn’t look like much: just a field of rocks, mounded dirt, and concrete piles driven into the earth. Yet when Scott Oake looks over the site, he can already imagine how it will look in just over a year’s time, when the new Anne Oake Family Recovery Centre is expected to open.

It’s easier to picture this time around. In 2020, when the recently-retired CBC sportscaster and his late wife, Anne, were building their first labour of intermingled grief and love, the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre for men, it was hard for him to wrap his mind around how a raw construction site could transform into a welcoming addictions treatment facility.

When that centre opened in 2021, Oake found it looked “almost identical” to the architect’s renderings. So it’s easy to hope the Anne Oake Centre will be the same. It will be the first facility of its kind, its founders believe, not only in Canada but in North America: a place where 50 to 70 women can pursue sobriety while staying with their children.

“At Bruce Oake there’s a culture of love, and most of all a culture of hope,” Oake said, speaking at the site Thursday after a media conference to announce the final push of the centre’s fundraising campaign. “I can feel it every time I walk into that building. And I know it will be the same here.”

Unfortunately, love alone doesn’t buy steel. When the Anne Oake Centre was announced just two years ago, its fundraising goal was set at $25 million. That has now risen to $35 million, in part because construction costs have “skyrocketed,” Oake said, in part due to the U.S. trade war on Canada.

That new price tag for the Anne Oake Family Recovery Centre is more than double what the men’s facility cost, but not only due to escalating costs. For one thing, it will be bigger, at 75,000 square feet, compared to the Bruce Oake Centre’s 43,000. It will also have on-site child care for women in the program.

“It will be worth every penny,” Oake said. “We’ll get there with the support of the community, and we’ll get there because we have to.”

The attendees at Thursday’s news conference gave a glimpse of how broad that cross-community support runs.

Iconic CBC sportscaster Ron McLean flew in from Toronto to emcee the event, which was held in advance of a fundraising evening gala with guest speaker Wayne Gretzky. Premier Wab Kinew was there, along with Addictions Minister Bernadette Smith and Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine; the province previously contributed $1.5 million to the centre.

Mayor Scott Gillingham attended, as did Winnipeg Jets assistant GM Craig Heisinger, Winnipeg South MP Terry Duguid, and two of the capital campaign’s co-chairs, former premier Gary Doer and philanthrophist Bonnie Buhler. (The third co-chair, Winnipeg Jets defenceman Josh Morrissey, was busy skating.)

The show of solidarity from all three levels of local government stands in stark contrast to the fight the Oake family faced over eight years ago, when they were first working to get the Bruce Oake Centre approved and built in a tranquil corner of Crestview. Then, they faced sometimes heated resistance from some local politicians and residents.

But five years into operations at the Bruce Oake facility, opponents’ fears never materialized. The facility’s integration into the community has been easy; in fact, some of those who initially opposed its construction in their neighbourhood are now volunteers at the centre.

In a speech Thursday, Duguid, whose Winnipeg South riding includes the Anne Oake Centre, reflected on that shift.

“When people see what recovery actually looks like, and they meet the people whose lives are being transformed, fear can turn into understanding, and understanding can turn into support,” he said. “I can tell you that this project has been embraced by the community here. People understand why it is needed, and what it will mean.”

Though he gave no specifics, Duguid also stated he is “very confident, very optimistic” about a “significant” contribution from the federal government to help with the final $12 million fundraising stretch.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca