Local

Premier grilled about 10 per cent PST claim

Carol Sanders 4 minute read Yesterday at 6:12 PM CDT

Premier Heather Stefanson had some explaining to do over her repeated claim the NDP, if elected in the fall, would raise the provincial sales tax to 10 per cent.

“I’m not making anything up,” the Progressive Conservative leader said as she answered reporters’ questions Friday after speaking at the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce economic summit.

“How are they planning to pay for all their increases in social services, in health care and all their increases in expenditure?” she said when asked about the source of her claim that an NDP government would hike the PST by three percentage points.

“In the past, what they’ve done is they’ve used the PST to do that.”

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Living the life of an artist to the fullest

Janine LeGal 5 minute read Preview

Living the life of an artist to the fullest

Janine LeGal 5 minute read 3:00 AM CDT

We’re not always aware of the brilliance in our midst, perhaps especially when it comes to the artistic sort. We would do well to pay attention to how artists enhance our well-being, sense of wonder, and to how their effects are invaluable and far-reaching.

Helen Granger Young left an immense aesthetic impact in private collections around the world — and in the homes and the public spaces of Winnipeg.

A contributor to the local, national and international art communities for more than 70 years, Granger Young died April 7, at 100.

The artist of international acclaim lived much of her life as a Winnipegger. She was a prolific creator and a trail blazer in the art world.

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3:00 AM CDT

We’re not always aware of the brilliance in our midst, perhaps especially when it comes to the artistic sort. We would do well to pay attention to how artists enhance our well-being, sense of wonder, and to how their effects are invaluable and far-reaching.

Helen Granger Young left an immense aesthetic impact in private collections around the world — and in the homes and the public spaces of Winnipeg.

A contributor to the local, national and international art communities for more than 70 years, Granger Young died April 7, at 100.

The artist of international acclaim lived much of her life as a Winnipegger. She was a prolific creator and a trail blazer in the art world.

Century-old funeral home won’t do business in core-area ’war zone,’ owner tells councillors

Joyanne Pursaga 4 minute read Preview

Century-old funeral home won’t do business in core-area ’war zone,’ owner tells councillors

Joyanne Pursaga 4 minute read Yesterday at 6:25 PM CDT

The head of a company that has called the area around Health Sciences Centre home for more than 100 years says the emergence of massive piles of rubble in the surrounding neighbourhood is forcing the business to reluctantly consider moving elsewhere.

“The roads and sidewalks are falling apart, garbage is strewn all over the area and graffiti is a blight on many of the buildings. But, recently, we have a new problem, burned-out hulks (of buildings) and piles of rubble that make it look like you’re entering a war zone in order to get to my business,” Kevin Sweryd, president of Bardal Funeral Home, told council’s community services committee on Friday.

“The condition of that neighbourhood… makes it very difficult.”

Sweryd said the business is committed to revitalizing the area and he picks up garbage and needles and promptly removes any graffiti on or near the building at 843 Sherbrook St.

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Yesterday at 6:25 PM CDT

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

Bardal funeral director Adam Sweryd stands next to a rubble pile on William at Furby, near the funeral home.

Widening roadway, adding active transportation part of $550-million Route 90 upgrade

Joyanne Pursaga 5 minute read Preview

Widening roadway, adding active transportation part of $550-million Route 90 upgrade

Joyanne Pursaga 5 minute read Yesterday at 7:00 PM CDT

A long-awaited proposal to improve a notorious Route 90 bottleneck would widen the street to offer three traffic lanes in each direction, install active transportation pathways on both sides and update aging infrastructure.

The overhaul of the busy route, between Taylor and Ness avenues, was identified as a strategic infrastructure priority for council in 2011, partly because there are few other alternative routes nearby.

On each weekday, more than 40,000 vehicles pass through this section of Route 90, with travel times ranging from about seven to eight minutes during peak periods in both directions. If nothing changes along the route, travel time is expected to grow to nearly 14 minutes (morning rush) and 10.7 minutes (afternoon rush) for northbound traffic by 2041, while reaching 8.5 minutes (morning) and 10.8 minutes (afternoon) for vehicles heading southbound the same year, public consultation documents state.

With the improvements, city staff predicts travel times would range from roughly seven to nine minutes, preventing delays from roughly doubling in some cases as the population grows.

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Yesterday at 7:00 PM CDT

JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES
A long-awaited proposal to improve a notorious Route 90 bottleneck would widen the street to offer three traffic lanes in each direction, install active transportation pathways on both sides and update aging infrastructure.

Teen stabbed over cigarette, dad says

Erik Pindera 3 minute read Preview

Teen stabbed over cigarette, dad says

Erik Pindera 3 minute read Updated: Yesterday at 5:38 PM CDT

A 15-year-old boy was stabbed after he asked a group of youngsters hanging around in a schoolyard for a cigarette, his father says.

“He was going for a walk through the park there, and he asked somebody for a cigarette… He talked to them for a couple seconds, then boom, he got stabbed,” the dad said.

Police were sent to the incident at Isaac Brock School at 1265 Barratt Ave. just after 11 p.m. Thursday after the boy ran to a nearby home following the confrontation with the four teens.

The resident called 911 and the suspects fled, police said.

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Updated: Yesterday at 5:38 PM CDT

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

A 15-year-old boy was stabbed after he asked a group of youngsters hanging around Isaac Brock School for a cigarette.

Other Canadian cities more successful at reducing bike theft

Matthew Frank 8 minute read Preview

Other Canadian cities more successful at reducing bike theft

Matthew Frank 8 minute read Yesterday at 7:00 PM CDT

Jen Sjodin never expected to be sending her 13-year-old son pedalling down a criminal path.

But the Winnipeg mom was out of luck when it came to retrieving his $400 bike with the help of city police, so she and her husband took matters into their own hands, and their son Dawson’s legs.

He’d saved for months to buy the grey and neon-green Giant Talon last fall. Not long after getting his new wheels, he rode to the Walmart on Taylor Avenue and locked his bike to the rack near the front doors. He was in and out of the store in about 15 minutes, and found his cable lock cut. The bike was gone.

Sjodin filed a police report with the Winnipeg Police Service, posted a notice on Facebook and scoured online classified ads in hopes of finding the bike. Six days later, Dawson spotted it on Kijiji.

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Yesterday at 7:00 PM CDT

JESSICA LEE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

Jen Sjodin and son Dawson.

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Sex abuse charges date to 1990s: WPS

Chris Kitching 3 minute read Preview

Sex abuse charges date to 1990s: WPS

Chris Kitching 3 minute read Updated: Yesterday at 4:26 PM CDT

Winnipeg police have charged a 58-year-old man who allegedly sexually assaulted children while babysitting and continued to abuse them as they became young adults.

Police spokeswoman Const. Dani McKinnon said the abuse and exploitation happened over two decades, starting in the late 1990s, and was reported to investigators last year.

“It’s an extremely brave decision to make,” she said of the seven females who came forward and provided details of alleged incidents.

The victims were between four and 20 years old when they went to the suspect’s Winnipeg home both for child-minding as kids, and as visitors when they were older, according to police.

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Updated: Yesterday at 4:26 PM CDT

(John Woods / The Canadian Press files)

Man charged with murder in burning-body slaying accused in recent stabbings

Erik Pindera 4 minute read Preview

Man charged with murder in burning-body slaying accused in recent stabbings

Erik Pindera 4 minute read Updated: Yesterday at 4:38 PM CDT

A man who was charged with second-degree murder Wednesday after a burning body was found in a Point Douglas warehouse parking lot last week is also suspected in two separate stabbings.

Emergency crews were sent to the gravel parking lot near MacDonald Avenue and Gomez Street at about 1 a.m. on April 27, where they found the victim’s body on fire.

The lot is connected to a Gomez Street warehouse that backs onto the bank of the Red River. Police initially classified the death as suspicious, but homicide detectives were handling the case.

Police announced Friday morning that the death was a homicide and that the victim was a man.

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Updated: Yesterday at 4:38 PM CDT

A man who was charged with second-degree murder Wednesday after a burning body was found in a Point Douglas warehouse parking lot last week is also suspected in two separate stabbings.

HSC nurses fear for their own safety at hospital parkades

Tyler Searle 5 minute read Preview

HSC nurses fear for their own safety at hospital parkades

Tyler Searle 5 minute read Updated: Yesterday at 8:30 AM CDT

The lack of security within Health Sciences Centre’s parkades and surface parking lots has reached untenable levels, with rampant theft leading to fear and low morale, HSC nurses say.

The Free Press spoke to several nurses under condition of anonymity, and all shared similar stories and concerns.

“I feel unsafe all the time.” said one nurse, who has been working at the Winnipeg hospital for 22 years. “This has been the worst year I have ever experienced at Health Sciences Centre.”

Last week, she was called in to assist with a medical emergency and parked in the Tecumseh Street parkade. She arrived around 1:20 a.m., and returned at 2:45 a.m. to find her SUV’s window broken and the vehicle rummaged through.

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Updated: Yesterday at 8:30 AM CDT

Tyler Searle / Winnipeg Free Press files

The Tecumseh parkade at 35 Tecumseh Street on the Health Sciences Centre campus.

French immersion entry rules eased

Maggie Macintosh 4 minute read Preview

French immersion entry rules eased

Maggie Macintosh 4 minute read Yesterday at 6:00 AM CDT

Manitoba is loosening rules around when students can enter French immersion and increasing the minimum number of credits required to graduate with a bilingual diploma.

This week, the education department unveiled the contents of its new immersion policy — a 50-page document that outlines best practices and expectations for schools that offer bilingual programming to learners whose first language is not French.

“When you go inside a French immersion school, you (shouldn’t) have to second-guess yourself. You have to know it’s a French immersion school because posters, everything around (is in the language),” said Kassy Assié, executive director of the Bureau de l’éducation française under Manitoba Education.

While Assié indicated the program can be implemented effectively in both single- and dual-track schools, the province’s updated policy recommends the former, in which all pupils are studying immersion, be introduced across kindergarten to Grade 12 “where viable.”

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Yesterday at 6:00 AM CDT

Education Minister Wayne Ewasko said enrolment in the special stream has grown by about 10,000 students across Manitoba since the government released its last immersion policy in 2008. (Tyler Searle / Winnipeg Free Press)

News briefs for Friday, May 5, 2023

4 minute read Preview

News briefs for Friday, May 5, 2023

4 minute read Yesterday at 12:00 AM CDT

A collection of breaking news briefs filed on Friday, May 5, 2023

Boy, 15, stabbed in schoolyard11:10 AM

Winnipeg police are searching for suspects after a 15-year-old boy was stabbed by a group of youths in a schoolyard Thursday night.

Police dispatched to the reported stabbing in the West End just after 11 p.m., after the boy made his way down the block from Isaac Brock School on Clifton Street and a resident called for emergency responders.

Read
Yesterday at 12:00 AM CDT

A collection of breaking news briefs filed on Friday, May 5, 2023

Boy, 15, stabbed in schoolyard11:10 AM

Winnipeg police are searching for suspects after a 15-year-old boy was stabbed by a group of youths in a schoolyard Thursday night.

Police dispatched to the reported stabbing in the West End just after 11 p.m., after the boy made his way down the block from Isaac Brock School on Clifton Street and a resident called for emergency responders.

Slow going for high-speed internet drags North down

Carol Sanders 5 minute read Preview

Slow going for high-speed internet drags North down

Carol Sanders 5 minute read Updated: Yesterday at 8:19 AM CDT

Manitoba ranks second-last in Canada in the number of households with high-speed internet access, despite the advantage of a publicly owned fibre optic backbone running the length of the province.

Cities and less-remote areas are well-connected but rural broadband expansion ground to a halt in 2020, when Manitoba Hydro Telecom ordered a stop to contracts connecting communities to its dark fibre network while issuing a request for proposal for a major contractor to step in and manage it.

Ever since, it’s been slow going for “last-mile” links to places that limp along with low-speed internet service.

In December 2021, Chemawawin Cree Nation Chief Clarence Easter attended a Manitoba government news conference where Xplornet Communications (now Xplore Inc.) announced plans to spend $200 million connecting remote and northern communities to high-speed internet.

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Updated: Yesterday at 8:19 AM CDT

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES

Chemawawin Cree Nation chief Clarence Easter speaks at a Xplornet communications Inc. announcement in Grande Pointe on Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021. For Martin Cash story. Winnipeg Free Press 2021.

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