Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - August 2, 2024, Winnipeg, Manitoba A2 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM NEWS FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 2024 VOL 153 NO 222 Winnipeg Free Press est 1872 / Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 2023 Winnipeg Free Press, a division of FP Canadian Newspapers Limited Partnership. Published six days a week in print and always online at 1355 Mountain Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba R2X 3B6, PH: 204-697-7000 CEO / MIKE POWER Editor / PAUL SAMYN Associate Editor Enterprise / SCOTT GIBBONS Associate Editor News / STACEY THIDRICKSON Associate Editor Digital News / WENDY SAWATZKY Director Photo and Multimedia / MIKE APORIUS NEWSMEDIA COUNCIL The Winnipeg Free Press is a member of the National Newsmedia Council, which is an independent organization established to determine acceptable journalistic practices and ethical behaviour. If you have concerns about editorial content, please send them to: editorialconcerns@freepress.mb.ca. 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INSIDE Arts and Life C1 Classifieds D8 Comics C5 Diversions C6,7 Horoscope C6 Jumble C6 Miss Lonelyhearts C6 Opinion A6,7 Sports D1 Television C4 Weather C8 COLUMNISTS: Tom Brodbeck B1 READER SERVICE ● GENERAL INQUIRIES 204-697-7000 CIRCULATION INQUIRIES MISSING OR INCOMPLETE PAPER? Call or email before 10 a.m. weekdays or 11 a.m. Saturday City: 204-697-7001 Outside Winnipeg: 1-800-542-8900 press 1 6:30 a.m. - 4 p.m. Monday-Friday.; 7 a.m. - noon Saturday; Closed Sunday TO SUBSCRIBE: 204-697-7001 Out of Winnipeg: 1-800-542-8900 The Free Press receives support from the Local Journalism Initiative funded by the Government of Canada Meanwhile, residents of a neighbour- ing four-suite building have been un- able to return to their homes since July 5, when city bylaw officers ordered them to evacuate. “I’ve had to come to the realization that I’m going to have to find another place to live,” said one man who has been staying in hotel rooms. “It’s a long-running, not funny joke.” The man, who did not want to be identified, said his landlord is subsi- dizing his lodgings at $40 per day, but he is left to pay the remaining expense out of pocket. He has been unable to return to his home to retrieve his belongings, and is suffering with significant mental anguish as a result of being displaced, he said. “It feels like I am super isolated for reasons that are not my fault,” he said. “There needs to be some clarity, some long-term vision about what (evacuees) are supposed to do.” Gillingham said long-term aid for displaced residents falls under the purview of the province, pointing to the Residential Tenancies Branch as a possible avenue for support. Sheldon Blank, the owner of Winni- peg’s former Vulcan Iron Works site in Point Douglas, said he spent thousands of dollars fighting to demolish the property after it burned in several fires over the last year. The city ordered him to complete an emergency demolition, but work was halted for several months after the province identified asbestos. “The city said do it, the province said don’t. That’s the quandary I was in,” he said. “I was subject to fines, I was subject to ridicule and everything under the sun….What (the govern- ments) did was inappropriate. There should be a proper, reasonable policy to deal with it.” Blank suggested the province ex- plore the possibility of tax incentives, grants or support programs for prop- erty owners to assist in the removal of asbestos-containing materials. Inspectors should also consider the amount of asbestos that is present in a building before it halts demolition ef- forts, he said, describing the approach as heavy-handed. “There’s a thing called reasonable- ness and if that was applied, none of these sites would be a problem.” Many building materials used prior to 1990 contain asbestos, including pipe wrap, insulation, tiles, drywall compound, ceiling tiles and window sealant. The microscopic fibres in asbestos, if inhaled, can remain embedded in lungs for years. Over time, inflamma- tion and scarring can lead to cancer. “As such, Manitoba laws assume sus- pect materials as containing asbestos unless proven otherwise and imple- ments measures to prevent exposures,” the spokesperson said. “Enforcement officers consider the date of construction and any subse- quent renovations when determining whether there are suspect materials in a structure, an approach consistent with other Canadian jurisdictions.” The spokesperson noted that identi- fying asbestos becomes increasingly difficult post-demolition because it is difficult to test and isolate contaminat- ed materials. City communications officer Kalen Qually said municipal staff will contin- ue to work with the contractor at the McDermot site and with the province to resolve the stop-work order. “We do expect there will be schedule delays as a result, but the city intends to continue with demolition and clean- up of the site as soon as possible,” he said, adding evacuated residents will be permitted to return to their homes as soon as possible. tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca “But (church officials) moved him to Regina and he remains there, as far as I know.” The Free Press was unable to reach Turcoane, who operated Father’s Fur- niture store in Regina. The arrest came after two years of searching for possible witnesses, tak- ing multiple statements and obtaining a search warrant to access historic church records stored in Toronto. RCMP also issued a media release in Saskatchewan hoping for leads. Many of the people who would be of interest in the case have either left the prov- ince or are deceased, Church said. “Today’s the first step,” he said. “We have tried to reach out to, and have reached out to, people disclosed by the survivor, who has told us names. We’ve reached out to those, some we’ve had difficulty finding.” Church has kept in regular contact with the woman, who he said was “very emotional” that her story was being told. “She’s happy we’re doing this at this time,” he said. “She wants this fellow to face the court system and pay for what happened and she wants some of the people she went to church with to come forward and get involved.” The incident has rocked the small community, which Church described as being “in the middle of nowhere.” There are fewer than 1,500 people living in the RM of Riding Mountain West. “It shocked the community… people most likely have forgotten all of this. And it’s all coming back to everybody now… we’ve had phone calls here and people are upset,” he said. “A lot of memories are coming back to them and maybe ones they’ve for- gotten, so it’s difficult.” Anyone with information is asked to call Russell RCMP at 204-773-2675. Coral Kendal, executive director of the Survivor’s Hope Crisis Centre, which operates in the Interlake-East- ern region, said it can be more difficult for victims to report a sexual assault in a rural community. “…What it might mean to actually go through the steps of making the report and attending a trial and the stigma that is more prevalent in a small town, because everybody knows everybody and is in everybody’s business,” she said. “That figurehead or a person of power is known by the entire commu- nity, and so there’s a lot more weight to coming out against that person, and it can actually ostracize the survivor.” It is never too late to come forward about sexual violence, Kendal said. “Folks who are hearing this story now and it’s bringing up feelings for them about their own experiences, it’s never too late to talk about that and to be supported it in that,” she said. Last March, retired Catholic priest Arthur Massé was acquitted of inde- cent assault on an Indigenous girl at Fort Alexander Residential School in Manitoba more than 50 years ago. Victoria McIntosh had alleged she was assaulted by Massé in a bathroom at the former Sagkeeng First Nation school sometime between 1968 and 1970, when she was around the age of 10. Manitoba Court of King’s Bench Justice Candace Grammond told court at the time said she believed the woman had been assaulted but wasn’t convinced, based on McIntosh’s testi- mony, that Massé was the person who assaulted her. malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca In an email, Jackson told the Free Press it’s regrettable that it took an arbitration award to prompt the pilot program. An arbitrator ruled in April that HSC staff face an “unacceptable level of risk” in exterior areas of the hospital campus and gave the facility 30 days to create a safety plan. A separate arbitration panel was to address interior safety concerns. “This has been a longstanding and significant safety and risk situation,” Jackson said. “We are continuing to monitor to ensure that the needed steps are introduced on a permanent basis, as well as (that) the promised expansion of (institu- tional safety officers) and security needed at every entrance, in every facility, is in fact delivered upon.” A spokesman for physician advo- cacy organization Doctors Manito- ba said security is a major concern at the facility. “Any proven steps that create a safer space for physicians, staff and the public are welcomed,” spokes- man Keir Johnson said, adding he hadn’t received any feedback on the technology pilot yet. “Physicians at HSC report an average of two to three physical safety incidents and six to seven psychological safety incidents per year.” Short-term trials to assess weap- on-detection systems are useful, but are not a permanent remedy, Jackson said. “There remains a great deal more work to be done to ensure the workplace addresses safety hazards in health-care facilities,” she said. carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca DEMOLITION ● FROM A1 PRIEST ● FROM A1 SCANNERS ● FROM A1 TYLER SEARLE / FREE PRESS Demolition at 579 McDermot Ave. has ground to a halt after city inspectors identified the possible presence of asbestos. ROMANIAN ORTHODOX EPISCOPATE OF AMERICA Constantin Turcoane Lennard is a small community near the Saskatchewan border north of Russell. Appeals court upholds Donald Trump’s hush money gag order N EW YORK — Two months after his felony conviction, Donald Trump still isn’t allowed to say everything he wants about his historic hush money criminal case. After a New York appeals court upheld his gag order Thursday, he won’t be for a while. The state’s mid-level appellate court denied the Republican former presi- dent and current nominee’s latest bid to lift the restrictions, swatting away a last-minute argument that he’s unfairly muzzled while Vice President Kamala Harris, his likely Democratic opponent, pits herself as an ex-prosecutor taking on a “convicted felon.” At the same time, Trump’s lawyers are again asking trial Judge Juan M. Merchan to exit the case, saying his daughter’s work for Harris’ 2020 presi- dential campaign underscores ques- tions about his ability to be impartial. Merchan rejected two prior recusal requests, last year and at the start of the trial in April, saying the defense’s concerns were “hypothetical” and based on “innuendos” and “unsupport- ed speculation.” In a letter to Merchan made public Thursday, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche said Harris’ entry into the presidential race makes those issues “even more concrete” and said the judge hasn’t addressed them “at a level of detail sufficient to repair the lack of public confidence in the integrity of these pro- ceedings.” Separately, House Judiciary Commit- tee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, sent a letter to Loren Merchan demand- ing she turn over any documents per- taining to Harris’ campaign, President Joe Biden’s abandoned reelection cam- paign and any discussions she or her firm may have had about Trump’s hush money prosecution. Jordan’s request in- cludes any conversations she may have had with her father about the case. In its gag order ruling Thursday, a five-judge panel found that Judge Mer- chan was correct in keeping some re- strictions in place until Trump is sen- tenced because the case is still pending and his conviction doesn’t constitute a change in circumstances that warrants lifting it: “The fair administration of justice necessarily includes senten- cing,” they wrote. The gag order bars Trump from speaking out about the prosecution team, court staffers or their fam- ilies, including Merchan’s daughter, a Democratic political consultant. In June, Merchan lifted a ban on Trump commenting about witnesses and jurors and he has always been free to speak about the judge and Manhat- tan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, an elected Democrat whose office pros- ecuted the case. Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 18, but the case and gag order could end before that if Merchan grants a defense request to throw out his con- viction in light of the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling. Merchan said he plans to rule on Sept. 6. Trump, who has denied any wrong- doing, was originally scheduled to be sentenced July 11. Merchan postponed it until September while he consid- ers the impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling, which gave broad protections to presidents and insulated them from prosecution for official acts. Trump has pledged to appeal his conviction, but he can’t until he is sen- tenced. — The Associated Press MICHAEL R. SISAK ;