Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - March 26, 2024, Winnipeg, Manitoba PRODUCED BY WINNIPEGHOMEANDGARDENSHOW.COM 2-FOR-1 *On Regular Adul t Admiss ion Only SCAN QR CODE & BUY TICKETS ONLINE Promo Code: FREEPRESS Courtesy of: APRIL 4 - 7 RBC Convention Centre SERVING MANITOBA SINCE 1872. FOREVER WITH YOUR SUPPORT. TUESDAY, MARCH 26, 2024 TODAY’S WEATHER FLURRIES. HIGH -7 — LOW -11 ARTS INDIGENOUS SINGER-SONGWRITER SHINES / C1 Province agrees to $530-M settlement in CFS suits M ANITOBA has agreed to a landmark $530-million settle- ment to repay children in care after 14 years of clawing back federal payments that were supposed to go to them. “It’s a great day,” said Trudy Laval- lee, the litigation guardian and plain- tiff for non-Indigenous children in care who didn’t get their children’s special allowance funding from 2005 to 2019. “I’m very happy for the kids,” said Lavallee, executive director of Animikii Ozoson Child and Family Ser- vices, at a news conference Monday. The amount involves $335 million that was clawed back, plus interest and damages for discrimination. The aggregate settlement, which covers three certified class-action lawsuits, is expected to receive court approval this week. It includes Indige- nous, First Nations, Métis and non-In- digenous children who were wards of the province during that time. “It feels pretty good,” said Lee Mal- colm-Baptiste, 24, who plans to put his settlement money towards a down pay- ment on a house for his young family, including children ages six and five. The Ebb and Flow First Nation member couldn’t say how much he will receive. He was apprehended in Win- nipeg in 2007, when he was eight years old, and “bounced around” to 10 or so foster homes and placements. When he and two younger siblings were taken into care, he said he felt he’d been “banished” from his family — “that I’d done something wrong,” he said from his home in Cutler, Ont. He was aware of CFS wards “being looked at differently” and wearing Walmart shoes when other kids wore Nikes, Malcolm-Baptiste said. He didn’t think about money, though, and had no idea that federal funding was supposed to be spent on him, he said. The monthly special allowance was supposed to be used exclusively for the care, maintenance, education, training, or advancement of the child in care, federal law states. In 2005, the then-NDP government had child welfare agencies remit the federal benefit to the province, saying it was in compliance with the law because it was providing services to children in care, recalled Elsie Flette, the lead plaintiff for Indigenous chil- dren in care. Flette, the former CEO of the South- ern Authority, sparked the process of recovering that money for kids in care in 2011, when she asked if they were being discriminated against by having their federal benefits clawed back. “When the province took the money, we had group of children who had no access to money for things that reg- ular maintenance would not pay — if they wanted to take powwow lessons or were particularly good at hockey, those kinds of expenses,” Flette said. “For the province to assume, with no agreement and no authority and no provision in place that they could somehow take this money from the kids, in our opinion, was theft,” said Flette Monday’s news conference. CAROL SANDERS Declare state of emergency in Manitoba: advocate Drug deaths reach record high in 2023 THE number of annual drug deaths in Manitoba climbed to a record high in 2023, prompting sorrow and more calls for action from advocates. There were 445 drug-related deaths last year, up slightly from 418 in 2022 and 432 in 2021, based on initial data from the province’s chief medical examiner, which was released Monday. The year-end total was calculat- ed with the release of preliminary monthly statistics for December, when 54 drug-related overdose deaths were counted. Of those, 41 involved at least one opioid, including fentanyl. “To me, this would be a good time to declare a state of emergency and say, ‘We need to do something about this,’” said Arlene Last-Kolb, the Manitoba regional director of Moms Stop the Harm, a group of parents who’ve lost children to drug poisonings. “Fif- ty-four people. We have to remember that that’s somebody’s daughter or son, somebody’s father or mother. “I don’t know how much evidence we need to say we have to do more.” The second-highest monthly total of drug-related deaths in 2023 was 44 in May. “I feel deeply saddened every time we see these reports from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner,” said Marion Willis, executive director of St. Boniface Street Links. She has called for more co-ordina- tion between provincial and municipal government departments, emergency services and outreach organizations to help tackle Winnipeg’s drug crisis and related issues, such as chronic home- lessness, mental health and crime. A member of the St. Boniface Street Links team died last weekend after overdosing on fentanyl, said Willis. “The ripples from this are huge,” she said. Last-Kolb’s 24-year-old son, Jessie, died from a fentanyl overdose in 2014. She and fellow members of Moms Stop the Harm advocate for more harm-re- duction and treatment services. CHRIS KITCHING RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS LEAF-ING THROUGH SPRING BREAK Roman Kolegaer, 5, and his brother Michael Kolegaer, 10, check off items they found in a scavenger hunt while visiting the Leaf at Assiniboine Park with their mom and grandmother Monday. The Leaf is hosting activities for kids throughout the week. Judge fines woman $5K for handing out pot candy on Halloween A Tuxedo woman told a Manitoba judge she “inadvertently” dished out cannabis-laced candies to trick-or- treaters on Halloween because she wasn’t wearing her glasses. “I don’t want or expect forgiveness and I’m not going to make excuses for what happened,” a sobbing Tammy Sigurdur told provincial court Judge Ray Wyant Monday. “I should have been more careful, I should have worn my glasses, I shouldn’t have been rushing around trying to find more candy.” Sigurdur, 54, had pleaded guilty to one charge each of supplying cannabis to a young person and possessing can- nabis that is not packed, labelled and stamped, offences under the Liquor, Gaming and Cannabis Control Act. Sigurdur and her husband, Sheldon Chochinov, 64, were arrested Nov. 1, 2022, one day after police received complaints from several parents who said that among the items their children returned home with on Halloween night were bags of Nerds Rope candies that had 600 milligrams of THC — or tetrahydrocannabinol — the main psychoactive ingredient in cannabis. Police recovered 12 packages of the THC-laden candy. No child was injured or believed to have ingested any of the candy. Charges against Chochinov were stayed last November. On Monday, lawyers for the Crown and defence jointly recommended Sig- urdur be fined $5,000. Wyant accepted the recommended sentence and called it “fit and appropriate” in the circum- stances. “I appreciate the fact this was inad- vertent. I have no reason to doubt that whatsoever,” Wyant told Sigurdur. “If anything good comes of this hearing, maybe people listening to the story will say: ‘I need to take more care, because I am responsible for what I do in my home… and what I hand out at Halloween,’” he said. An agreed statement of facts read out in court says Sigurdur was in pos- session of both genuine Nerds candies and several packages of a THC-laden knockoff, but failed to keep them in a separate and secure location. The knockoff candies are not legally available in Canada as they contain THC amounts in excess of what is allowed for edible cannabis products and because their packaging mimics that of children’s candy products, Crown attorney Terry McComb told court. On Halloween night 2022, Sigur- dur “ran out of candy… and in a rush grabbed gum and other candies from a room in their house that contained the candies,” McComb said, reading from the agreed statement of facts. “In doing so, she grabbed the bag that contained the THC-laden fake Nerds. The accused was not wearing her glasses at the time. She packaged up these items into Ziploc bags and gave them to her husband, who unwit- tingly handed them out at the door to trick-or treaters.” DEAN PRITCHARD ● CANDY, CONTINUED ON A3 ● DEATHS, CONTINUED ON A2 ● CFS, CONTINUED ON A2 ;