‘Quite a journey’: dozens move into transitional housing downtown

Dozens of residents have moved into transitional housing units in a former university building in downtown Winnipeg.

Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith said 42 residents have moved into suites on the third and fourth floors of a seven-storey building previously owned by Providence University College and Theological Seminary. There will be space for as many as 118 people who were in encampments or otherwise homeless.

The remaining units under renovation are expected to be ready and occupied in the coming weeks, Smith said.

“This has been two years in the making,” the minister said at a media event with residents, staff, neighbours and supporters. The building cost the province $24.4 million to purchase and renovate.

Councillors want city to revamp homeless camp approach

Three Winnipeg councillors say the city uses lack of housing as an excuse to drop the ball on managing public spaces affected by the homeless crisis.

Sherri Rollins, Cindy Gilroy and John Orlikow want bureaucrats to develop a co-ordinated, proportionate and measured approach to maintaining safe, accessible and usable public spaces.

On Friday, they put forward a motion at the final city centre committee meeting before the Oct. 28 election. Gilroy is the only one seeking re-election, in the Daniel McIntyre ward.

“Right now, we have de facto designated encampments. We have increasing social disorder that much of the sector is pointing toward our own policy and blaming it for causing the disruption to the whole entirety of the city and spreading the problem,” said Rollins (Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry).

Mayoral candidate Gillingham vows building boom; Vogiatzakis, Woodstock promise improved safety

Scott Gillingham promised several new steps to help get more homes and businesses built in Winnipeg Friday, if re-elected as mayor, amid other pledges from his competition.

No more playing around, make 30 km/h school zones permanent

Winnipeg has already decided that 30 kilometres per hour is the right speed around schools.

It’s time to stop pretending that decision should expire every summer.

The city’s reduced school-zone speed limits returned Tuesday, a full week before the 2026-27 school year begins. They apply on weekdays from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., from Sept. 1 until July 1.

Then, for two months, they disappear.

‘Part of the neighbourhood’s history’: Minto staple B.C. Grocery shutters

Gary Achtemichuk stopped at his favourite Winnipeg corner store for relish.

Unlike similar trips over the last four decades, he left with a surprise: B.C. Grocery, a Minto neighbourhood staple, was closing its doors.

Owner Lechman Parboji officially shuttered the shop Monday after 42 years at its helm. On Wednesday, movers hauled equipment out, making room for a new three-bedroom apartment suite — one the Parboji family intends to use, at least initially.

“The whole neighbourhood is going to miss him,” Achtemichuk said. “He was the friendliest gentleman you’d ever want to talk to.”

Ramping up home construction goal of city proposal

City council will consider an annual program that would review, approve and catalogue homebuilding plans to speed up new construction.

The program would apply to house and detached garage plans that are reviewed for building code compliance by city staff. After the plans are approved, the same set of plans could be used on multiple sites around the city, and multiple permits could be issued.

Builders would be given permits within five working days of a successful application, as opposed to the 10 working days mandated by the province.

Council’s property and development committee will discuss a report on the program next week. It proposes an initial fee for the city to review the plans, a reduced annual fee to renew the plans, and a 25 per cent discount on permit fees for builders who use plans from the program.

Renewed spirit and life: Indigenous treatment centre expands with $21-M revamp

Don Robinson knows first-hand that many people don’t get sober by themselves.

In late June 1984, Robinson downed his last drink. His recovery began at Pritchard House in Winnipeg’s North End, a 22-bed treatment facility run by the Native Addictions Council of Manitoba.

“I didn’t get sober by myself,” said Robinson, a member of Bunibonibee Cree Nation who now works in grief and trauma counselling and traditional knowledge as an elder at Ka Ni Kanichihk Inc.

More than four decades later, Robinson was back at the council on Monday, crowded into a room at its newly renovated treatment centre at 160 Salter St. — a place he once turned to for help and where he helps others now.

A closer look at five standout Canadian titles headed to TIFF 2026

TORONTO - When writer-director David Bezmozgis set out to adapt his 2014 novel "The Betrayers" for the big screen, he wasn't just changing its format. He also had to adjust to a new geopolitical landscape.

The film, which is set in Ukraine and Israel, is one of 61 Canadian features and shorts programmed at this year's edition of the Toronto International Film Festival.

The Canadian Press spoke to Bezmozgis and four other homegrown directors about their films.

THE BETRAYERSBezmozgis's second novel was an unmitigated hit when it was published. It made numerous best-of-the-year lists — from the Wall Street Journal to the New Yorker — and was shortlisted for the Giller Prize.

Security company rolling out Indigenous ambassador program

A Winnipeg security firm has put an Indigenous community ambassador in a downtown Dollarama store, as companies and advocates seek new ways to build bridges and prevent trouble.

Impact Security owner Ron D’Errico said he is planning to expand the new program to additional retailers and communities, and hire up to 20 more ambassadors to work alongside his company’s security guards.

“Security companies need to be better. That’s just the nature of this industry,” he said. “We’re far gone from the days where we hire a guy to sit in a store or watch an empty building. We’re at an age now where people need to understand cultural sensitivity, roots of the problems, layers of why crimes happen and how to deal with challenges such as confrontation.”

D’Errico said the program is the first of its kind in Manitoba. It stems from a Feb. 28 incident where an Impact Security guard allegedly used brass knuckles while assaulting an Indigenous man at the Dollarama at 295 Portage Ave.

City advised 275 people in 72 camps as of July

A tally by the City of Winnipeg shows the number of people in encampments has fallen by a few hundred since last September.

A Friday presentation to city council members shows 245 people lived in 72 encampments across the city in July, compared with about 100 encampments with 700 people in September 2025.

“There’s some good progress that’s being made … The number of people in encampments is less than half of what it was last year,” said Mayor Scott Gillingham.

The city did not provide numbers for July 2025. It has previously noted the number of encampments tends to increase in warmer months, which has happened each month since February 2026.

NDP trying to solve health-care problems from every angle — except the one likely to have the biggest impact

Winnipeg’s emergency-room wait times hit a record high in July, according to the latest data released Thursday by the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.

The 90th-percentile wait for all emergency rooms and urgent-care sites hit a staggering 13.02 hours last month, the longest wait ever recorded since the WRHA began publishing monthly data.

Thirteen hours is not a wait, it’s an endurance test. And it’s getting worse.

The 90th percentile is the point at which nine out of 10 patients experienced a shorter wait and one in 10 waited even longer.

At the city’s busiest fire and paramedic hall, first responders face a relentless workload

As a soft rain begins to fall between the concrete walls of “Hope Alley,” little feels further away than the place’s namesake.

Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service crews have been called to the narrow downtown passage, named by Al Wiebe, a formerly homeless man turned advocate. People regularly pass through here, moving between the shelters, drop-ins and resource centres clustered around Main Street between Logan and Higgins avenues.

Against a wall, as the sky switches into night mode, a man sits bleeding from his nose, seemingly unaware of how he ended up with blood running down his T-shirt.

His situation has already set Winnipeg’s emergency response network in motion.

Premier, mayor voice support for decision to end police officers’ OT retail-security shifts

Premier Wab Kinew and Mayor Scott Gillingham are backing the police chief’s decision to end the option for officers to work overtime shifts providing security at retail stores.

Owners, agents reviewing bids to purchase Fort Garry Hotel

Downtown Winnipeg’s Fort Garry Hotel is a step closer to a potential sale.

Police chief pulls plug on security shifts at supermarkets, stores

The Winnipeg Police Service is ending its years-long practice of allowing officers to pick up overtime shifts to provide additional security in supermarkets and other stores at retailers’ expense.

Winnipeg police body cams to feature AI translator

The Winnipeg Police Service will begin testing an artificial intelligence translation tool on Thursday, adding the feature to its body-worn camera pilot project.

The translation tool works with more than 50 languages and will initially be used by the 40 front-line officers who began testing the cameras in June.

When a button is pressed, the device will recognize the language being spoken and translate it into English. The officer can respond in English or French and have the device translate their words into the language spoken by the other person.

“What it effectively does is allow that immediate transfer of communication to occur, without having to find a translator,” said George Labossière, WPS deputy chief of operations.

Waverley West council candidates say city services haven’t kept up with fastest-growing ward

A new city councillor will be elected this fall to lead Winnipeg’s fastest-growing ward that remains short on city services despite it being the most populated.

Residents fear mailbox crime sprees

Some North End residents are concerned new community mailboxes will become a target for vandalism and crime after the base of one was recently lit ablaze — before it was even installed.

The community mailboxes started to show up on Andrews Street within the last two weeks. Some have been installed, while at other locations, only the concrete foundation is in place.

“They just dumped them on the boulevard,” said Stephen Giesbrecht, who lives beside one of the boxes in the St. John’s neighbourhood. “They dumped them on the corner and then they were gone.”

One of the concrete slabs has already played host to a fire and some of the hardware needed to install the mailbox melted.

Rail-traffic alert beacons, signs will give drivers chance to change routes, save time

A new rail-crossing alert system will help Winnipeg drivers avoid train delays.

Roadside TRAINFO beacons and digital message boards will now flash at locations prior to select rail crossings. They will alert drivers to approaching trains, with adequate time to let them choose an alternate route and avoid the wait.

The flashing beacons are now located at the following high train-traffic spots:

Pandora Avenue at Day Street, Redonda Street and Ravenhurst Street, to note trains at the Ravenhurst rail crossing north of Dugald Road.East and west of the multiple rail crossings on Marion Avenue between Archibald Street and Lagimodiere Boulevard, to note trains along the corridor.At the intersection of McGillivray Boulevard and Waverley Street, to note trains crossing McGillivray at Pembina Highway.Digital message sign boards will also be placed on Sterling Lyon Boulevard and Kenaston Boulevard to note when trains are present at the McGillivray/Pembina crossing.

Winnipeg’s postwar architecture well-documented by online archive

We live in a city rich with Chicago School high rises, mid-century modernism and much more. And, for the past three decades, Paul Clerkin has amassed arguably the most comprehensive archive of this architecture.

Wolseley residents put down roots to save elms

A neighbourhood group that raised thousands of dollars to inoculate publicly owned trees against Dutch elm disease hopes others will follow their lead.

New Edmonton velodrome puts Olympic cycling champion Kelsey Mitchell back on track

EDMONTON - A new velodrome in her backyard drew Olympic track cycling champion Kelsey Mitchell back to the sport.

After competing for Canada in bobsled in February's Milan Cortina Games, the 32-year-old from Sherwood Park, Alta., is back on two wheels at the new Alberta Velodrome in Edmonton.

The cycling track in the new $153-million Coronation Park Sports and Recreation Centre opened in January.

It's one of three 250-metre indoor UCI-sanctioned tracks in Canada.

Planned Elmwood Hub project combines 115 mixed-income housing units, social supports, programs

A long-awaited project will aim to add 115 new homes in Elmwood, with on-site social programs to support some of its more vulnerable residents.