In Brief

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This article was published 14/03/2014 (4585 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

City Lucerne plant closing

An estimated 50 employees at Winnipeg’s Lucerne plant, which makes cheese and ice cream, are losing their jobs when the plant shuts down this summer.

Sobeys announced the plant will close Aug. 29 when the grocery giant consolidates operations with an existing plant in Edmonton.

The closure is among several across the country that are planned as Sobeys cuts costs and jobs after last fall’s Canada Safeway acquisition.

The spokesman for the union that represents Canada Safeway workers verified the closure Thursday, but said it does not include a separate milk-production operation at the same location.

The plant is located at 1000 King Edward St., along Route 90.

“The milk side of the plant is modern… it’s staying. They’re closing the cheese operation and the one for ice cream,” said Blake Crothers, spokesman for UFCW local 832.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union represents workers at Sobeys and Safeway. It’s currently at the bargaining table for its Manitoba workers at both stores.

Union workers at the cheese and ice-cream plant are represented by Unifor, Local 468. A spokesman could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Judge inquiry may resume

A long-delayed inquiry into a Manitoba judge whose nude photos ended up on the Internet may soon restart.

The Canadian Judicial Council has appointed a new committee to oversee the inquiry into Lori Douglas.

The new appointees include Francois Rolland, chief justice of the Superior Court of Quebec, and replace members who resigned en masse after Douglas’s lawyer complained they had shown bias.

Douglas, a justice with the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench, faces a complaint that in 2010 she sexually harassed Alex Chapman. Chapman alleged Douglas’s husband had shown him sexually explicit photos of the judge and asked him to have sex with her.

Douglas has denied the allegation — she and her husband have said he acted alone, without her knowledge, and was suffering from depression at the time.

The inquiry held hearings in 2012 but was put on hold after Douglas’s lawyer, Sheila Block, filed an application for a judicial review.

Block said aggressive questioning by a lawyer representing the five-member inquiry committee suggested the committee was biased.

The new committee will have just three members.

There is no word on when the hearings might resume.

 

Funds for roads, bridges

The province is putting $76 million over five years on the table for rural municipalities to upgrade roads and bridges.

Municipal Government Minister Stan Struthers said Thursday the money is part of the government’s five-year, $5.5-billion infrastructure spending plan announced last week. It will add a total of $36 million in new funding to existing road-improvement programs across the province. Manitoba communities identify roads and bridges requiring replacement or repairs and apply for provincial funding.

“We will be thinking very economically and strategically about this,” Struthers said. ” We don’t want to be standing on the top of Baldy Mountain throwing out dollars into the wind and finding we’re just fixing a few jobs here and there.”

Struthers said work on some projects, still to be identified by municipal leaders, will begin this spring.

Man faces murder charge

An assault suspect faces a second-degree murder charge in connection with the slaying of a man whose family and friends say died trying to protect others.

Dillin Bird, 19, was rearrested by police while in custody this week and charged in connection with the death of Michael Flett on June 29, 2013, court records show.

He was previously suspected of using a weapon to assault Flett on that day, but police didn’t publicly announce his arrest.

Bird has been behind bars without bail since his arrest a few days after Flett, 30, was attacked outside a Manitoba Avenue home.

He becomes the second accused in the case. Michael Roulette, also 19, is charged with second-degree murder.

Bird and Roulette face have not been proven and the men are presumed innocent.