Giant Tiger decision creates giant void for desperate population

A lot of Winnipeggers may shrug, but the end of Giant Tiger’s downtown store is a giant problem for many of the people living in the centre of the city.

It would have been difficult for anyone going into or passing by the Canadian discount chain’s Donald Street and Ellice Avenue location Thursday to miss the red notices posted on the store’s windows advising it will close on Nov. 7.

According to a 2024 Downtown Winnipeg BIZ report, about 18,000 people live in Winnipeg’s downtown.

More than 60,000 people work there, and some days — when there’s a big concert or the Jets play at Canada Life Centre, for example — the number of people spending time in the area increases significantly.

Giant Tiger to close downtown, area residents bemoan dwindling grocery options

One of the only remaining grocery-store options for people living downtown and in the Exchange District is closing its doors.

City’s crisis-response proposal makes too much sense for province to ignore

For years, Winnipeg has asked police officers to do a job they were never trained to do.

Somewhere along the way, police became the city’s default response to virtually every crisis, not just those involving crime. Mental-health emergencies, addiction episodes, wellness checks and people in emotional distress increasingly landed on the desks of police dispatchers because there simply wasn’t another option available around the clock.

That has placed an enormous burden on police resources while often failing to provide vulnerable people with the help they actually need.

The city’s proposal to create a “fourth crisis response pathway” is a long-overdue recognition that public safety doesn’t always require a badge and a gun. Sometimes it requires a social worker, a mental-health professional or someone with specialized crisis-intervention training.

Ceremony heralds growth of active transportation network in city’s north

North Winnipeg’s active transportation network is set to grow, with construction planned for a nearly two-kilometre extension of the Northwest Hydro Corridor Multi-Use Path later this summer.

A few community members, Mayor Scott Gillingham and other representatives from the city and province and Trails Manitoba gathered Tuesday at Daylan Marshall Gate Park for a groundbreaking ceremony marking the start of Phase 2 of the project, which will extend the existing multi-use pathway north and south.

The original Northwest Hydro Corridor opened in 2023 and runs nearly three kilometres along the hydro right-of-way from Leila Avenue to Church Avenue, just west of McPhillips Street.

Phase 2 will extend the corridor north from Leila Avenue to the greenspace behind Daylan Marshall Gate and south from Church Avenue to Selkirk Avenue. Once completed, the pathway will stretch approximately 4.2 kilometres in length.

An eroding Winnipeg neighbourhood looks to new foundations

The lot Jesse Bettcher lives on in Winnipeg's North End used to be a pile of burnt rubble. Same with the one next door. And the one across the street. But he's now the proud owner of a two-storey house with blue-grey siding and white trim.

While Osborne Village hub has transitioned from church to community space, entrenched issues persist

On Wednesday afternoon, when the sun shone its hottest, the shaded lawn in front of the Augustine Centre was empty, save for a shopping cart abandoned beside the church’s old stone entry steps. A security guard milled about the sidewalk on the west side of the building, though in that moment, he didn’t have much to do.

Nearby a man was lying, not on church property, but on a grassy bit of boulevard wedged between the sidewalk and Pulford Street. He lay on his back with his sneakered feet akimbo, gazing up at the leaves. Beside him was a shopping cart piled with blankets, a bag of clothes and other sundry belongings.

A few minutes later, someone emerged from the Oak Table drop-in centre in the church basement, strolled up to the prone man and spoke to him briefly. The man sat up, repacked his cart and pushed it across River Avenue. He collected a second cart he’d stashed there, and rattled away down the back lane behind the Gas Station Theatre.

After that, for a while, the only people around the building were the security guard and a few small groups of friends and relatives emerging from the Oak Table drop-in, chatting in friendly conversation as they made their way down the street.

Vacant Bay store on road to redevelopment, St. Vital Centre owner says

Entertainment attractions are coming to fill the former Hudson’s Bay space in St. Vital Centre.

Montreal-based real estate firm Leyad, the south Winnipeg mall’s owner, says it is finalizing an agreement for the vacant property. Further details should appear in the next couple months, said president Henry Zavriyev.

“We’re looking at what other types of experiences we can bring to the mall that aren’t just typical retail,” he said during a visit to Winnipeg this week.

“We want to create an experience where you can just come to the mall, hang out here for hours, no matter if you’re a kid, an adult, a retiree.”

Cleanup squad makes positive waves across city

The period after the snow melts isn’t when Winnipeg is at its most attractive.

As months of hidden trash and accumulated waste emerge, streets and sidewalks across the city quickly become covered in litter.

But Take Pride Winnipeg’s latest litter index has found the city looks cleaner than it did earlier this spring. Every area of Winnipeg showed improvement.

The organization’s overall litter index score dropped from 5.92 after the snow melted to 3.47 in its latest assessment. The index measures litter levels on a scale of one to 10, with one representing a perfectly clean area and 10 representing the worst levels of litter.

Inner City Youth Alive changes lives, one program at a time, in city's North End

Inner City Youth Alive has worked in Winnipeg's North End neighbourhood, running programs including a drop‑in centre, summer camps, school support and a wilderness program, for 40 years. The Free Press spent a day following the organization’s work.

Human toll of drug crisis hurts everyday citizens, too: biz leader

The Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce has given a thumbs-up to the recent 10-day police crackdown on open drug use and trafficking downtown, and says governments should follow up the effort with a public safety strategy.

The chamber released a statement Friday that says the enforcement initiative, which began June 24, was required owing to the city’s growing safety concerns.

“Businesses, employees are scared to come to work. Businesses are talking to me about closing their doors,” said president and CEO Loren Remillard in an interview. “There’s a human toll being exacted through this crisis, and it’s not just on the homeless community.”

Remillard said the news release was issued weeks after the crackdown to allow for the dust to settle.

First Nation evacuees fleeing wildfire face safety risks in Toronto, leaders say

TORONTO - In a Toronto hotel off Highway 401, a bag check station screening for alcohol greets people in the lobby.

Cat Lake First Nation operations manager Derek Spence said it’s to limit drinking among residents who evacuated from the community north of Sioux Lookout, Ont., last week as wildfires closed in and downed power lines. Alcohol and drugs are much easier to come by in Toronto than the remote fly-in community residents call home, Spence explained.

Substance use and fears of suspicious people hanging around the hotel where Cat Lake residents are sheltering have been fuelling some residents’ desire to return home as soon as possible, even as nearly 180 wildfires continue to burn in Ontario’s north.

“It is a scary city for some people, and there (were) people hanging around here trying to abduct some of the ladies,” Spence said. “Someone's gonna get lost, someone's going to get hurt, someone's going to get killed.”

Cab companies hailed for improved Indigenous relations

Three taxi drivers have been fired and others suspended without pay since a zero-tolerance policy for mistreatment of Indigenous passengers was implemented by Winnipeg’s two largest cab companies.

Landlord miffed after city orders cleanup of riverside homeless camp

A West Broadway landlord is angry the City of Winnipeg has ordered him to clear away a homeless encampment from his riverfront property or have the cleanup cost added to his property tax bill.

Marvin Sharp, CEO of Astroid Management Ltd., which manages the Pen-Eve Apartments at 35 Balmoral St., said the city is forcing private property owners to deal with a problem they didn’t create.

“This is kind of like the neighbours throwing their garbage over the fence, every single day, and the city’s saying, ‘You have to go clean this up, but we’re not going to go tell the neighbour to stop doing that,’” Sharp said. “What do you want me to do here? You’ve got a serious problem here. We’re not talking about someone throwing garbage on the ground. We’re talking about encampments.”

Sharp said he received a city compliance order dated July 10, which was viewed by the Free Press. It says a bylaw officer observed “an accumulation of garbage” on the property, including abandoned goods of manufacture, tents and unattended shopping carts.

Restorative justice program helps newcomers find their way

The Masjid Bilal is a chunky grey building just off Logan Avenue surrounded by warehouses and railyards. It looks more like a bunker than a mosque.

But on a summer Friday afternoon, its green-and-white carpeted interior is humming with activity. Two men in white robes and flat woolen caps are seated on the carpet poring over a copy of the Qur’an. A few young boys dodge through hallways, poking curious noses into open doors. At the back, next to a table piled with prayer mats, two girls in hijabs share schoolyard gossip. In the kitchen, women are cooking up pots of rice and chicken for people who will soon arrive for Friday prayers.

The Masjid Bilal is a community hub for members of Winnipeg’s African diaspora as well as Muslims from many other countries.

It’s also home to the Bilal Community and Family Centre, an innovative, community-centred nonprofit that is meeting vital needs for newcomers in this city.

A whack-a-mole approach to a complex problem

The Winnipeg Police Service has produced a report that details the results of a recent 10-day crackdown on open drug use and trafficking. Unfortunately, and to the detriment of both the community and police service, they just won’t show it to anyone.

This week, a WPS spokeswoman confirmed no decision has been made “regarding reporting, future activities or the release of results” from the drug sweep. As the operation was ongoing, WPS did say that it “interacted” with more than 100 people and arrested 25, with most of those related to warrants and breaches of court orders, not open drug use or trafficking.

These very preliminary results prompted criticism that the WPS had failed to adequately collaborate with social service agencies that help the homeless and those suffering from addictions and mental health.

A detailed report on the results of the sweep, along with commentary from the police about lessons learned, is essential if police are to engage in this kind of initiative again. In fact, it would be hard to see how police could ever unleash a similar operation without some sort of accounting of the impacts — both good and bad — of the first effort.

City tries to find the right balance in regulating personal e-vehicles

Patty Wiens was already a cycling enthusiast when she got an electric bicycle in early 2023, but she didn’t realize how much it would transform the way she got around Winnipeg.

She started riding throughout winter and stopped relying on her vehicle. Eventually, she sold her car.

“It’s not a replacement for a bike,” she said. “It’s a replacement for a car.”

Wiens, who has been dubbed the “Bike Mayor of Winnipeg” by a global cycling advocacy organization, said her e-bike is a cheaper and more environmentally friendly way to get around the city, especially as the cost of living mounts.

What happened to public service?

What I’m referring to when I talk about public service is that rare and courageous individual who enters public life to do good.

New Folklorama mural rises in Winnipeg’s West End

A Métis sash, Chinese dragon, Japanese lanterns, Scottish bagpipes and an Italian Vespa scooter are just a few of the cultural symbols taking shape on a new Folklorama mural in Winnipeg’s West End, celebrating the annual festival and the communities that have helped define it.

Mayor’s flip-flop a welcome effect of campaign

Trees may not have a vote, but they are poised to become among the biggest winners from this fall’s municipal elections in Winnipeg.

At the start of the week, things didn’t look good for Winnipeg’s tree population. City staff issued a report recommending city council reduce the 2026 urban forest renewal program and divert the money to improvements to the Assiniboine Park Conservancy’s Journey to Churchill exhibition.

The recommendation was triggered by a directive from the provincial government to take the same sum of money out of a strategic infrastructure fund it provides to the city to support the conservancy exhibit. This left the city with a $1.2-million hole in its infrastructure program. Staff felt the money could come from the tree-planting budget.

Mayor Scott Gillingham — who is running for re-election this fall — initially endorsed the recommendation when it was put before the executive policy committee (which he chairs) earlier this week. Seventy-two hours later, however, Gillingham was having second thoughts.

Homeless face even more peril in high heat after drug use crackdown, advocates say

Advocates say the recent police crackdown on open drug use on Winnipeg streets has driven members of the homeless community into the shadows and will put them at risk during the heatwave this week.

“That was a really ugly week and a half in the city’s history. The results have been devastating,” said Kate Sjoberg, executive director of Resource Assistance for Youth, who has been highly critical of the 10-day drug sweep in which more than 100 people were detained for drug use or trafficking.

She said the crackdown has made it harder for some homeless people to receive help because they’ve moved to less visible areas to avoid police.

Environment Canada issued a special weather statement for southern Manitoba that warns of intense heat that will last into next week. It’s expected to reach up to 45 degrees Celsius on Sunday, when the humidity is factored in.

When it comes to our city’s tree canopy, Winnipeggers stand tall

For over 50 years, we’ve watched trees slowly vanish from the core neighbourhoods of the city. There’s no way to put a price tag on that loss, in either beauty or environmental value. But the trees of Winnipeg have many allies.

Fort Garry Hotel on Métis federation’s radar

One of Winnipeg’s most iconic buildings, the Fort Garry Hotel on Broadway, is next on the Manitoba Métis Federation’s list of acquisitions.

“We are not done with our commitment to investing in Winnipeg’s downtown,” president David Chartrand said Friday, the same day the federation announced it has purchased the former National Research Council property on Ellice Avenue downtown.

“One potential new acquisition we’re considering, if the price is right and the partnership is positive, is the Fort Garry Hotel. It is an iconic part of Winnipeg’s history and its future, just like the Red River Métis,” Chartrand said.

The 113-year-old hotel was co-listed for sale in May by real estate brokerage firms Avison Young and Cushman & Wakefield Winnipeg, but doesn’t have a list price.