Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 6, 2021, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE B2 B 2 WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2021 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COMNEWS MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS MORE FUN THAN A BARREL OF MONKEYS Dedrik Kematch, 7, walks through the See Hear Speak art installation by Paul Robles in the Old Market Square in Winnipeg’s Exchange District, early last week. Robles’ piece, conceived during the pandemic, presents playful shapes layered with monkeys cavorting as a group. MOUNTIES SEEK CLUES IN HOMICIDE RCMP are searching the rural area where a 51-year-old Portage la Prairie taxi driver was found dead in May 2019. On Tuesday, Portage la Prairie RCMP and major crimes investigators began combing for evidence in the homicide of Jeff Peters. RCMP are searching around Road 55 West near MacGregor and Highway 1 west of Austin. RCMP SEEK ASSAULT SUSPECT RCMP in Moose Lake have one man in custody and are searching for a second suspect after two people were assaulted and their house was set on fire early Friday. Police are asking for the public’s help to find 26-year-old Patrick Bal- lantyne. One man has been charged with assaulting a man and woman at a home on the reserve southeast of The Pas. RCMP say two men, who were known to the victims, had broken in and assaulted them. They escaped after the house was set on fire. Leroy Jensen, 21, faces multiple charges. NO ARREST IN NORTH END SHOOTING A man is in stable condition after being shot in the North End on Monday. Winnipeg police said on Tuesday officers went to the area around Selkirk Avenue and Parr Street where they found an injured man and gave emergency first aid at about 8 a.m. The man was rushed to hospital in critical condition but was later upgraded. If anyone has any information on the shoot- ing they are asked to call the major crimes unit at 204-986-6219 or Crime Stoppers at 204-786-TIPS (8477). MAN CARJACKED, ASSAULTED A man was assaulted and carjacked in Garden Hill First Nation early Saturday. RCMP say the victim, 37, was driving when a group of six adults, five men and one women, stopped him. Police allege the group dragged him from his vehicle and assaulted him, before driving off in his vehicle. The suspects returned a short time later and continued to assault the man, RCMP say. A 37-year-old man who lived nearby tried to help the victim, but he was assaulted too. The suspects have been identified, RCMP say, but not found. IN BRIEF W INNIPEGGERS are buying low-income bus passes at a fraction of the rate the city expected. Just 1,017 people applied for the monthly Winnipeg Transit pass during the first year after it was launched on May 1, 2020, about 15 per cent of the predicted demand. Amid pandemic warnings to use the bus for “essential purposes only” and health restrictions that sometimes left few possible destinations to travel to, all Transit ridership plummeted. However, one potential rider said she delayed her own low-income bus pass purchase primarily over its price, something the city also identified as a barrier. “It’s not cheap enough. It’s not target- ing... people in poverty. Even at 50 per cent (of the normal price), people still are not going to be able to afford it,” said Debby Sillito, who lives with a dis- ability and relies on income assistance. The city’s low-income bus pass was introduced last year at a price of $71.45 per month, which fell to $62.40 in 2021 and is expected to drop to $53 in 2022. A full-fare monthly bus pass costs $104. Sillito said it can be challenging for many people to save up the monthly fee, since those who rely on income assist- ance have food budgets limited to just a few dollars a day. She said the price was the key reason she didn’t apply for a pass last year, a process she’s now started as the discount deepens. “There’s many, many single people and single people on disability, that are not going to be able to afford to get it... They’re asking people to choose be- tween eating and taking the bus,” said Sillito. She’s urging the city to add dis- counted single fares (instead of just monthly ones) and an income-based sliding scale price system for monthly passes, to make the rides more afford- able. During its first year, the city ap- proved 832 of the 1,017 applications for the low-income bus pass program, also known as WINNpass, and sold 2,599 monthly passes. Some who qualified did not purchase a single pass, while others didn’t do so every month. Kate Kehler, executive director of the Social Planning Council of Winni- peg, echoed the call for the city to offer steeper, income-based discounts. “They need to take a deeper look at (the program) and find out if it’s ac- tually adequate enough to really entice people (onto) the bus,” said Kehler, who noted a Calgary program sells monthly bus passes for as little as $5.45. Coun. Matt Allard, council’s public works chairman, said he’s concerned COVID reduced the affordability of the pass, as low-income Winnipeggers likely suffered most from job losses and pay cuts. “Even though it’s a significant reduc- tion in the fare, it’s still a barrier for people that are low income to purchase a bus pass,” said Allard. The councillor said he hopes to en- sure that Transit can add on discounts for single rides, which he thinks would bring the city closer to income-based rates. “Ideally, that would be a policy goal to strive for, and I think we’re going in that direction,” said Allard. A city report notes Transit already plans to study whether it’s feasible to discount other bus fares, such as sin- gle ride prices, with a report expected around May 2022. joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca Bus rates still too costly: advocate JOYANNE PURSAGA TEMPORARILY cutting power to some rural Manitoba residents was a bear necessity after a small cub climbed a hydro pole in Petersfield Tuesday. Around 10 a.m., a Manitoba Hydro employee got a call about a bear climbing a pole. Seeing the bear at the top of the pole near a power line, the worker rushed to the nearby Hydro station and suspended power to the area, affecting about 230 customers for roughly an hour, until the bear slid down on its own and ran into the woods. The scene was captured on video and shared by Manitoba Hydro on Twitter, garnering thou- sands of views. A Manitoba Hydro spokesman said staff noti- fied Manitoba Conservation and the RCMP about the animal. “The employee himself went to the site and advised people to stay in their vehicles so the bear would be more comfortable coming down. It was rumoured the mother bear was nearby in the woods, so keeping a safe distance was the best thing to do,” Riley McDonald said. “Our crews, especially in the north, do have quite a few encounters with wildlife. Wherever possible we will de-energize lines to ensure the wildlife, our staff, and our customers are safe.” Cub forces power cut GAS prices in Winnipeg are near the record high and could stay that way for the foreseeable future. Across Canada, gas prices are on the rise and pandemic-related changes in global oil demand are to blame, says one analyst. On Tuesday, the average price per litre was $1.34, but many stations in the city had raised the price to $1.429, said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at Gas Buddy. That’s near the record high reached in 2008, when the average price of gas in Winnipeg was $1.43 per litre. The price per barrel was US$148. Motorists are paying more for gas than they have in more than a decade. “It does seem like the high prices are likely to be here for quite some time and a lot of it has to do with imbalances as a result of COVID-19,” De Haan said. “Early on in the pandemic, demand for crude oil fell precipitously for several weeks to the point that oil producers cut back production because of the massive decline in the price of oil back in 2020.” The demand for oil rebounded earlier this year, after vaccines became avail- able and lockdowns eased, but global crude oil production hasn’t been able to ramp up fast enough. “That has forced up the price of oil and, unfortunately, that’s why we are where we are today,” De Haan said. It’s not clear how long prices will re- main this high, De Haan said. “You’d need to have a crystal ball to be able to know when the high prices are going to end and what the picture looks like, simply because until we get back to some sense of normalcy — if we ever get back to some level of normalcy, the situation may change,” and produ- cers may increase production. “We don’t really know. It looks like, for now, we may be stuck with higher prices for at least the next couple of months.” katie.may@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @thatkatiemay Gas prices spike in city KATIE MAY City urged to offer steeper discounts TWITTER Workers rushed to cut power after the cub was spotted. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Take-up for the monthly Winnipeg Transit Pass during its first year was only about 15 per cent of predicted demand. JERUSALEM — Israeli archaeologists have found a rare ancient toilet in Jerusalem dating back more than 2,700 years, when private bathrooms were a luxury in the holy city, authorities said Tuesday. The Israeli Antiqui- ties Authority said the smooth, carved lime- stone toilet was found in a rectangular cabin that was part of a sprawl- ing mansion overlooking what is now the Old City. It was designed for com- fortable sitting, with a deep septic tank dug underneath. “A private toilet cu- bicle was very rare in antiquity, and only a few were found to date,” said Yaakov Billig, the direc- tor of the excavation. “Only the rich could afford toilets,” he said, adding that a famed rabbi once suggested that to be wealthy is “to have a toilet next to his table.” Animal bones and pot- tery found in the septic tank could shed light on the lifestyle and diet of people living at that time, as well as ancient dis- eases, the antiquities au- thority said. The archaeologists found stone capitals and columns from the era, and said there was evi- dence of a nearby garden with orchards and aquatic plants — more evidence that those living there were quite wealthy. — The Associated Press 2,700-year-old toilet found in Jerusalem rare luxury Patrick Ballantyne B_02_Oct-06-21_FP_01.indd B2 2021-10-05 10:58 PM ;