Running down Terry Fox’s dream Posted: 7:19 PM CDT Friday, Sep. 12, 2025

Stony drug-detection cuts threaten safety

It seems penny-wise and pound-foolish to impose austerity measures on efforts to stop the flow of illicit drugs at a time when those efforts are becoming more aggressive, ambitious and profitable than ever.

Convicted arsonist accused in Walmart blaze, caused $10M in damage

A convicted arsonist on probation is accused of setting a blaze inside the Walmart at St. Vital Centre on Monday that’s believed to have caused more than $10 million in damage.

“A fire was set in the middle of a busy place,” said Winnipeg Police Service spokesman Const. Claude Chancy.

“It’s a pretty rare incident. We don’t know what the motives were for the suspect committing this act, but (it’s) very lucky that no one was injured or hurt.”

Ronald Marmito Amigo, 47, was arrested by police bail compliance officers on the 300 block of Furby Street on Thursday. He had a small amount of methamphetamine and a lighter on him, police said.

Steinbach to be Jersey Mike’s local launch pad

Steinbach will be the ‘roll model’ for future local expansion when U.S. submarine sandwich chain Jersey Mike’s opens its first Manitoba location next week.

The grand opening for the restaurant at 17 Market Blvd. is July 15. Redberry Restaurants, the Mississauga, Ont.-based franchisee firm that’s brought the chain to Canada, plans to open “a couple” Jersey Mike’s shops in Winnipeg next year, a company executive said.

“As we hire more people — more managers, more staff members — Steinbach will become our centre for training and helping us grow in the province of Manitoba,” said Paul Pascal, vice-president of Jersey Mike’s Canada.

Founded in 1956 in the New Jersey borough of Point Pleasant under the name Mike’s Giant Submarine Shop, Jersey Mike’s now counts more than 3,200 restaurants around the world.

Westman residents fear power project’s wind turbines will sully their idyllic landscape

POLONIA — Leonard Kaspick can list just about every household in the valley.

“There’s someone living right across the northeast, someone living behind here, about a quarter mile there’s a house there, then a half mile there’s another house there, I’m here, and then on top of the hill there’s someone else there,” he says, standing in the heart of the hamlet — a community hall just off the main drag.

Besides the hall and the smattering of homes, there’s a historic (though out-of-commission) church next door and a single general store further down the road.

“There’s less people here now than there was in 1885,” Kaspick, 83, jokes as he wraps up a condensed history of the western-Manitoba community.

Frustration, not fear, as Exchange swells after drug crackdown

Natassia Brazeau says she doesn’t feel unsafe living and working in Winnipeg’s Exchange District — instead, she feels heartbreak.

She said that feeling intensified last week during the Winnipeg Police Service’s controversial 10-day crackdown on open drug use and drug trafficking which pushed people away from the Main Street strip.

Brazeau, who owns a business in the area, said she has never seen so many people head to the Exchange District at once.

“I’m absolutely enraged at the police response last week,” Brazeau said. “Not only was that incredibly short-sighted and doesn’t do anything, it doesn’t assist anyone that are already in incredibly vulnerable situations.”

MMF buys long-vacant federal lab

The Manitoba Métis Federation has taken another major step in its effort to help revitalize downtown Winnipeg by acquiring the former National Research Council property on Ellice Avenue.

The federation has scheduled a news conference today to announce it has purchased the office tower, laboratory and parking lot at 435-445 Ellice Ave. The acquisition expands its downtown footprint to more than one million square feet of owned property and will eventually house about 70 per cent of its 1,300 employees.

The sale ends a years-long legal dispute between the federation and the research council. The federation had sued the federal agency after an earlier agreement to purchase the property collapsed in 2020.

“Everybody’s happy, they’re happy, we’re happy. And now we just got to start the transition of our plan,” federation president David Chartrand told the Free Press Thursday.