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Railway’s future: A fire on a Hudson Bay Railway locomotive in The Pas has reignited concerns that rail service to Churchill may be eliminated entirely. Omnitrax, which owns the railway and the Port of Churchill, has temporarily closed the port because of the fire, which RCMP say is suspicious. Although there are no grain shipments from the port this year it had been operating with a skeleton staff to handle resupply shipments to and from Nunavut communities. READ MORE
Your forecast: The nice weather continues. Today, it will be mainly sunny, with fog patches dissipating early this morning. Expect a high of 24 C. On Thursday, there will be a mix of sun and cloud with a high of 27. For Friday, expect sunny skies and a high of 29.
In case you missed it
JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILESA tentative deal was reached between Canada Post and postal workers Tuesday evening, taking the possibility of a strike off the table.
Tentative deal: Canada Post and its largest union have reached a tentative settlement, averting the prospect of job action this week. Local members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers expressed relief Tuesday, but they’re eager to see the contents of the deal. Local workers had little involvement in the negotiations, said Glen Bennett, president of the Winnipeg branch of CUPW. READ MORE
Road repairs: Will there be money left in the city budget for additional road repairs, as Winnipeggers were led to believe? We won’t know for a while. A city official told the Free Press late Tuesday his staff are still reviewing contracts from this year’s road program. READ MORE
Infant remains: The six infants whose remains were found in Andrea Giesbrecht’s storage unit were developed to full term — all between 34 to 40 weeks — and could have been born alive, but the bodies were too decomposed to determine the causes of death. Those was the findings revealed in provincial court Tuesday by Dr. Michael Pollanen, a forensic pathologist who is the chief resident pathologist in Ontario. READ MORE
Up next
PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILESNew fees recommended in a consultant’s report to the city would have a dramatic impact on development. The preliminary data showed a potential fee of over $30,000 for a new residential lot.
Growth fee briefing: Councillors will get a closed-door briefing Thursday morning on the controversial Hemson report — the commissioned independent study that’s expected to propose hefty new fees for residential and non-residential development. While Hemson Consulting has released its preliminary findings, the final report is due at city hall today and copies will be presented to councillors at the meeting. Mayor Brian Bowman, who supports the imposition of new fees on development, told reporters Tuesday he hasn’t seen the final report nor has he been briefed on it. He repeated his position that the fees are necessary. READ MORE
Around the water cooler
BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS filesKelvin Goertzen is reducing the size of regional health authority boards.
WRHA eyes Churchill: Plans for a Winnipeg Regional Health Authority board meeting in Churchill in September have been derailed. Minutes from a June 28 WRHA board meeting state the plan was for directors to hold their September board meeting in Churchill. It would have been the first time the meeting would have been held in the northern community. The WRHA amalgamated with the Churchill Regional Health Authority in 2012, when the number of regional health authorities in the province was scaled down to five from 11 — a move that was expected to save the province around $10 million in administrative costs. READ MORE
Lawyer fired: A Winnipeg man accused of sending letter bombs in the mail, including one that cost a lawyer her hand, has fired his lawyer. Guido Amsel, who faces five counts of attempted murder, told court he has lost trust in well-known local attorney Martin Glazer and hopes to have new counsel by the weekend. Glazer had represented Amsel since shortly after his arrest last year and guided him through a failed bail hearing and appeal that Amsel eventually lost. READ MORE
Pay Willy: Drew Willy is set to make big money not to play. If the Bombers don’t do something with their second-string quarterback by the end of this week, they are locked into paying him the balance of his rich deal for the rest of the season — some $200,000 more. As Paul Wiecek writes, though, the Bombers’ best decision will be to keep paying the dough. READ MORE
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#HowToAttractAttention: Not sure all these are worthy, but they may be effective: “Bat signal, duh”; “More cowbell”; or “TYPE ALL YOUR TWEETS LIKE THIS.”
On this date
On Aug. 31, 1983: The Winnipeg Free Press reported that Canada Post’s chronic problems with late delivery had now been dealt with, according to the crown corporation, despite what skeptical Winnipeggers might think. Canada Post said it had achieved a 98 per cent success rate for on-time delivery of local, first-class mail in the city for May and June. In West Beirut, 10,000 Lebanese soldiers launched a three-pronged attack on rebellious Druize and Shia Muslim militiamen. In Nova Scotia, federal Progressive Conservative leader Brian Mulroney said he expected to face Prime Minister Trudeau in the next election. READ MORE
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