Une technologie de pointe au Manitoba

À Saint-Eustache, la compagnie Tritec Concrete se lance dans la commercialisation d’une technologie d’élimination des déchets organiques aux nombreux avantages.

Sur le terrain de la compagnie Tritec Concrete, aux abords de Saint-Eustache à l’ouest de Winnipeg, une machine d’une dizaine de mètres de haut se dresse à l’extérieur, derrière les hangars.

Il s’agit d’un prototype de Rapid Organic Converter (ROC). Celui-ci fonctionne en continu depuis 2016 et a vu le jour sous l’impulsion de Jamie Dufresne, propriétaire de Tritec Concrete, qui a travaillé pendant une bonne partie de sa carrière dans la recherche et le développement.

“Je cherchais un moyen de récupérer les déchets agricoles, que nous brûlions à l’époque, et de trouver un moyen de le granuler ou l’ensacher. Le système actuel consomme tout ce qui est organique.”

Infill housing is not the enemy of nature

What do infill housing, rain gardens, backyard cottages, and the urban forest have in common?

Serving — and feeding — the community

A group of young Muslim men walked up and down Main Street Saturday morning offering sandwiches, loaves of bread and cans of pop to Winnipeg’s homeless population in the spirit of holiday giving.

“This is what I was taught from a very young age, to volunteer for a good cause and to give back,” said Faraad Tahir, who has been a part of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association since he was a boy.

Tahir and others from the 50-person group spent the morning making more than 100 sandwiches before loading up their vehicles and heading downtown. The group handed out the food and drinks to people outside of Main Street Project and Siloam Mission before they planned to give out the remainder — if there was any — at Portage Place.

Tahir, 22, came to Winnipeg from Pakistan as a child and immediately felt the group’s community support.

Canada reports fastest population growth in history in third quarter of 2023

OTTAWA - Canada's pace of population growth continues to set records as the country brings in a historic number of temporary residents, largely through international student and temporary foreign worker programs.

The country'spopulation grew by more than 430,000 during the third quarter, marking the fastest pace of population growth in any quarter since 1957.

Statistics Canada released its Oct. 1 population estimates on Tuesday, putting the number at more than 40.5 million.

The agency says the population growth over the first nine months of 2023 has already surpassed the total growth in any other full year, including the record set in 2022.

Leaving auto repair life in the rear-view

For decades, Cadillacs, Mustangs and Audis have overnighted in the Exchange District for repairs and transformations.

Now, a Winnipeg mechanic envisions a new use for his shop — one that sees it filled with milk and produce instead of wrenches and tires.

“There’s no groceries down here,” said Andy Baranowski, owner of J.W. McDonald Auto Service. “Where are you going to get your milk?”

The 189 Bannatyne Ave. building has been an auto repair garage for almost a century — since 1923, according to the Manitoba Historical Society.

Raber Gloves’ Garbage Mitts the must-have Winnipeg winter accessory

‘I am the wrong person to complain to about the weather,” Howard Raber says jubilantly midway through a Winnipeg January, wearing a golf shirt as he opens the door to his family’s factory on McDermot Avenue.

Raber does not mind the cold. It’s the reason he is in business.

Had his grandparents immigrated in 1925 to a warmer place, their grandson’s opinion on the windchill might differ. But the ancestors chose Winnipeg — not such a bad place to be in the business of making gloves.

When it’s freezing outside, which in the wintertime is often, if not always, Howard Raber considers himself especially lucky. “When it’s cold out, we are everybody’s best friend.”

Greenhouse sprouts in inner-city neighbourhood

AN inner-city greenhouse will soon burst with plants and people, and tackle food insecurity and unemployment.

The Spence Neighbourhood Association unveiled its community greenhouse at 689 Maryland St. Wednesday.

“In our neighbourhood, food access is a big issue,” said Mandalyn Unger, a co-ordinator with the non-profit.

The group regularlys accepts input from locals about their vision for the neighbourhood.

Short-term housing, on-site counselling seek to address veteran homelessness

A property in Transcona is being eyed to create a village of tiny homes for unsheltered veterans.

The Homes for Heroes Foundation wants to buy two acres of city land just north of Transcona Boulevard and west of the Transcona Library, where it hopes to build 20 tiny homes and a resource centre. That site would offer short-term housing and on-site counselling, with the ultimate goal of helping its residents secure stable jobs and permanent homes.

“We actually have the ability to end the issue of veteran homelessness in the City of Winnipeg,” said David Howard, the foundation’s chief executive officer.

Howard said such villages are either under construction, or have already proven successful, in many other Canadian cities.

For a quarter-century, McNally Robinson's Grant Park location has tapped into local book lover's desires

Twenty-five years ago this week, the staff of McNally Robinson were frantically preparing, bounding about their Grant Park store, a 20,000-square-foot behemoth that had yet to welcome its first customer.

The grand opening was near, and so was Margaret Atwood.

Atwood, if not the country’s most famous author then at least its second or third, was in Winnipeg to promote her latest book, Alias Grace, and to lend her authoritative support to what was to become the country’s largest independent bookstore, with a reading and book signing. A large crowd was anticipated.

There was a wild push to get ready for Oct. 15: staff were shifted from the company’s smaller locations, shipments were arriving in rapid succession. Shelves still had to be set up when Atwood arrived a few hours early to discuss the details of her reading, where she would be joined by a local literary icon, Carol Shields.

City’s oldest halal shop a community cornerstone

To step into Manitoba’s longest-running halal store is to feel all your senses go off at once.

Colourful spices lining the shelves, hookahs of every size and variety, signage above each aisle in English and Arabic, the smell of warm samosas. On a small television a video of Muslim worshippers in Mecca with prayers overlaid plays, above one of the store’s tightly-packed lanes.

At the heart of it all, 70-year-old owner Yusuf Abdulrehman is somehow the most vibrant aspect of the store.

Seemingly unable to stop moving, he paces through the aisles of the Halal Meat Centre, located at 206 Maryland St., fixing products just so, talking to suppliers on speaker phone, but always stopping to greet customers, many he knows by name. It’s no wonder that many in Winnipeg’s Muslim community fondly refer to the store as simply “Yusuf’s.”

Toy industry grapples with supply chain issues ahead of busy holiday shopping season

Ahead of the release of the Paw Patrol movie this summer, Toys “R” Us Canada and toy maker Spin Master Corp. did something rarely seen before in the toy industry.

They air freighted Liberty toys — the latest member of the animated search and rescue team — from China to Canada to get the new pup on store shelves in time for the film’s premiere.

“We really wanted to have Liberty available for our customers when the movie came out,” said Katrina Fyfle, Toys “R” Us Canada brand manager. "She was one that we put on an airplane in partnership with the vendor.”

The unusual step underscores the enduring difficulty of operating amid a pandemic and its related labour shortages, escalating material prices, rising shipping costs and lengthy delays.

Lake Winnipeg loaded with hidden treasures

“Let’s walk to a Lake Winnipeg island!” I exclaimed to Margie. “Forget about Mont-Saint-Michel over in France!”

Folks usually boat or wade the kilometer to Manitoba’s Elk Island but, with low water, I heard you can walk on a mostly dry sandbar.

Elk Island is a nine square-kilometer provincial park west of broad Traverse Bay and north of Sandy Bay, least known of Lake Winnipeg’s east-side beach communities. The Cree name is Misse Ministik, meaning big island. The park is designated for natural wilderness with no development, amenities or, apparently, elk.

We first found Sandy Bay last year, surprisingly discovering two red tractors with trailers - sitting in the lake. Are farmers prepping for the next flood? Growing watermelons?

WAG's angular architecture combines form, function in a building both timeless and of its time

Asked to talk about the Winnipeg Art Gallery building, Stephen Borys pauses for a moment.

“If I had to describe it in one word, it would be ‘timeless,’” says Borys, current director and CEO of the WAG.

Over the course of the Qaumajuq project, Borys found himself looking at photographs of the original WAG structure, designed by Hong Kong-born Canadian architect Gustavo da Roza, from its 1971 opening right up to the present.

“It’s one of Canada’s significant late modernist buildings,” Borys states. “But you look at these photos, and other than the make of cars and the way people dress, it’s hard to put a date on. And that is something that speaks not just of great architecture. It has a resonance beyond a style or a period.”

Roads quieted by COVID fill with birdsong: study

The Conservative party has locked its MPs and candidates out of its central voter database in a move that critics say is an attempt by Erin O’Toole to protect his leadership.

Shoal Lake 40 toasts clean water

SHOAL LAKE 40 FIRST NATION – As he raised his glass, Chief Vernon Redsky looked at the water and a memory came rushing back. It reminded him of when he was a kid, he said, and the water in Shoal Lake was crystal-clear like that, back when he and his friends would splash along the shore, drinking from the lake when they got thirsty.

So he thought about that as he clinked his glass against two others, and took a sip. A toast, to the first officially safe tap drinking water in Shoal Lake 40: on Wednesday, after 24 years, the Treaty Three First Nation’s boil water advisory officially ended.

“It’s surreal to be at this moment,” Redsky said at a ceremony to celebrate the achievement, as well as the opening of the community’s new school.

One day earlier, a government official in Kenora, Ont., had officially approved the latest test results from Shoal Lake 40’s new water treatment plant, which started pumping this summer. That night, Redsky couldn’t sleep; he called a former chief to talk about the long road they had travelled to get to this point.

Flags of Treaty One, the Dakota and Métis fly at city hall

Drumbeats reverberated as four Indigenous leaders rode horseback past the brick-walled restaurants on King Street: it was the beginning of a ceremony to recognize the place of Indigenous people in Winnipeg.

On Wednesday morning, the flags of Treaty One First Nations, the Dakota and the Métis were hoisted at city hall. They'll be there permanently, alongside the flags of Canada, Manitoba and Winnipeg.

"It'll make our people proud that their flag will be flying at city hall," said Sagkeeng First Nation Chief Derrick Henderson. "That is so significant."

Chiefs, representatives of various Indigenous groups and Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman spoke at the flag-raising event. Ribbon skirts, headdresses and face masks were abundant among the crowd.

Group engages community on renaming Wolseley neighbourhood

In 1870, Col. Garnet Wolseley led a military expedition into Manitoba to violently overthrow Louis Riel’s provisional government at the Red River Colony. On Sunday afternoon, a group gathered at Vimy Ridge Park to discuss how to push for the renaming of the neighbourhood that bears his name.

Red River Echoes, a Métis collective that first came together with the purpose of “bringing an alternative voice to what Métis people think in Manitoba” after Manitoba Metis Federation president David Chartrand put out an ad with the Winnipeg Free Press in March in support of the Winnipeg Police Service, put together the rendezvous to take questions and comments community members might have around the growing conversation to rename Wolseley.

"With a lot of names being changed right now, we thought it was a good opportunity,” Red River Echoes member Claire Johnston said. “And Wolseley in particular has a really violent and negative association for Métis people, and also all other people of colour in who live in Winnipeg.”

In the months since the remains of 215 children were found in unmarked graves near a residential school in Kamloops, B.C., calls have been sparked across the country to rename landmarks named after people who had a hand in the colonization of Canada. In Winnipeg, Wolseley isn’t the first instance — calls to rename Bishop Grandin Boulevard due to its namesake’s hand in the residential school system have resulted in consultations and a possible recommendation for its renaming coming to city council this fall.

Craig Block link to city’s Black history

Above a fruit seller in a small brick building on Main Street, a group of Black railway porters made history.

The Order of Sleeping Car Porters, formed in Winnipeg in 1917, was North America’s first Black labour union. Five years later, they established offices and a meeting hall on the second storey of the building, the Craig Block, at 795 Main St.

Now, the building has hit the market, without any historical status protections or a bronze plaque to commemorate its history.

History writer Christian Cassidy said he’s seen the building, which recently housed retail store Ma’s Fishing, go up for sale once or twice in the past. Each time, he worries someone will buy it and knock it down. It’s one of last buildings that links Winnipeg to the history of its Black communities.

The show must go on as Selkirk buys theatre

Many in Selkirk thought the credits had rolled for the Garry Theatre, but it appears there’s a sequel.

Landmark Cinemas decided to close it in May and on Wednesday, the City of Selkirk announced it had purchased the theatre for $350,000, plus closing costs.

“What we’ve heard so far is people are very excited and very happy that the city has been able to secure the property,” said Selkirk CAO Duane Nicol.

Nicol said the city will reach out to the community to determine how best to use the building. The city hopes it will become a centre for arts and culture, he said.

Ferret shelter fears city’s proposed pet limit

An animal shelter fears its network of foster homes could be at risk, should a proposed change to Winnipeg’s responsible pet ownership bylaw be approved.

Deb Kelley, a shelter co-ordinator with the Manitoba Ferret Association No Kill Shelter, said a newly proposed limit that each Winnipeg household be allowed a maximum of five ferrets would not support the shelter’s model of care. The shelter relies on multiple foster homes, ensuring all of them already own ferrets and are qualified to properly care for them.

As a result, many of those homes already contain up to six ferrets, before they take others in temporarily, she said.

“We’re here for every ferret in need, whether it’s old, young, sick, healthy. If the bylaw goes through where each household can have only five ferrets, that would devastate our foster home space,” said Kelley.

Iconic Churchill Tundra Buggy goes electric

The Churchill travel company, Frontiers North Adventure, has been operating its fleet of iconic Tundra Buggies for decades but for various reasons John Gunter, CEO of the company, knew the fleet needed to be upgraded.

A chance encounter between Gunter and Red River College’s former head of research and partnerships three years ago put Gunter on the path towards electrifying the Tundra Buggies.

On Tuesday, the fruits of that labour were revealed at Red River College’s Vehicle Technology and Energy Centre (VTEC) — the first EV (electric vehicle) Tundra Buggy.

It was a collaborative effort between Frontiers North, RRC’s VTEC, New Flyer and the non-profit Vehicle Technology Centre that pooled a growing expertise in heavy vehicle electrification that has been developing over the past decade in Winnipeg.