Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 15, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2025 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM He said there will be no going “tent to tent” to “cherry pick” people who would be the easiest to successfully house. Rather, encampments will be moved only after housing is secured for every person living there. The sites will then be cleared by cleanup teams and monitored by foot patrols so they are not repopulated. The solution to homelessness is housing units, Blaikie Whitecloud said. “Right now, every month, there’s an average of 100 units available at a deeply affordable rate and there are roughly 3,500 people competing for those units in our city,” she said, adding more housing is needed if those living in encampments are to be offered an alternative. The strategy also includes “flex funding” to help people whose only barrier to housing may be a plane or bus ticket home, Kinew said. Blaikie Whitecloud said the “per- son-centred” flex funding could be used to solve homelessness before it starts, citing examples from Siloam Mission in which someone’s car insur- ance was paid so they didn’t lose their job or they received help if they were behind on rent. Gillingham praised the plan, calling Tuesday a “very great day.” “First, it takes a systematic but compassionate approach to help people who are right now homeless, moving them out of encampments into safe housing with the support that they need,” the mayor said. “And, second, it aims to restore public spaces as safe, clean, welcoming areas for everyone to use and to enjoy.” The city — from the fire and para- medic service to bylaw enforcement, administration and public works — is fully committed to supporting the plan, he said. “We are all in,” he said. “Collabora- tion is key and it’s critical that every- one’s working towards the same goal.” City funding for mobile outreach units will move to an RFP model that ensures future funding is aligned with the plan, he said. Last summer, outreach workers with Main Street Project and St. Boniface Street Links clashed over how to help people living in a park in Southwood. Both non-profit organizations ap- plauded the strategy Tuesday, but are waiting to see how it’s rolled out. “We are looking forward to learning more about the plan and its implemen- tation and how the Truth and Recon- ciliation Commission of Canada’s 94 Calls to Action, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indig- enous People and the Federal Hous- ing Advocate’s review of homeless encampments guides this important work in housing people in a good way,” Main Street Project said in a news release. St. Boniface Street Links execu- tive director Marion Willis said “the devil is in the details,” but added the province had pulled together a new approach to ending homelessness with a plan similar to the operations of her organization, which has housed approximately 1,500 people over the past four years. “I’m confident that in the weeks and the months ahead, Winnipeggers will start to see meaningful change on our streets, in our parks, on the river- banks and in other public spaces,” Gillingham said. “Most importantly, those who are unhoused across our city right now will begin to move into housing with the supports they need to provide health and stability to their lives.” Progressive Conservative housing, addictions and homelessness critic Carrie Hiebert asked how the prov- ince is going to find the required sup- port workers amid a current shortage and how they’ll be able to convince people in encampments to leave if they don’t want to move. carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca A2 NEWS VOL 154 NO 55 Winnipeg Free Press est 1872 / Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 2025 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. If you are not satisfied with the response and wish to file a formal complaint, visit the website at www.mediacouncil.ca and fill out the form or call toll-free 1-844-877-1163 for additional information. 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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 The 27-year-old said the hiatus, which was announced to players during a morning team meeting on Tuesday, came as a shock. Captain Sydney Arnold echoed that sentiment, saying she and her peers were “blindsided,” especially given the team hosted a recruitment camp just before Christmas. “We were progressing. Our team was getting better, even though the results didn’t (necessarily) show it,” the defender said, adding the women secured one win and a tie in the fall, during what the 21-year-old had be- lieved to be her penultimate season. The only varsity sports programs that remain intact at U of W are bas- ketball and volleyball. “Cancellations reverberate across our campus community. Morale, I think it’s fair to say, is already low giv- en the previous cuts and the ongoing freeze in hiring,” faculty association president Peter Miller said. Miller said the latest cuts call into question the Manitoba government’s funding model and raise concerns about provincial support not keeping pace with inflation. Earlier in the school year, senior administration issued a directive to halt hiring and reduce all departments’ non-salary account lines by seven per cent for the remainder of the fiscal year ending March 31. Fall meeting minutes show the university was projecting $4 million to $5 million in tuition losses for 2024-25 linked to the federal government’s cap on international student enrolment. Hector Vergara, executive director of the Manitoba Soccer Association, called the announcement “disappoint- ing” for players — some of whom might have enrolled or transferred elsewhere if they had known the Wesmen’s fall soccer season would be cancelled — and the sport community at large. High-level competitions keep stu- dents active and help train referees, Vergara said. He noted the roster of active post-secondary school teams has shrunk in recent years while overall participation in soccer is growing in Manitoba. “In some areas, we have more play- ers playing the game now, especially at the younger ages, and it’s just a matter of keeping these players,” he said, adding numbers have rebounded since a 2020 drop in registrations because of the COVID-19 pandemic. U of W spokeswoman Cheryl Pari- sien said no one was available for an interview. “UWinnipeg is prioritizing using its limited financial resources to support the core academic and research func- tions of the university,” Parisien said in an email. The university did not provide an updated deficit projection. Advanced Education Minister Renée Cable urged the university to reconsid- er its decision to cut such an important sports program. “Our government continues to work with post-secondary institutions to ensure they are supported, which includes a 20 per cent funding increase to U of W just last year,” Cable said in a statement. The minister noted she’s asked her department to follow up with the post-secondary institute. maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca HOUSING ● FROM A1 CUTS ● FROM A1 SHOPLIFTER ● FROM A1 MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES Winnipeg Wesmen team captain Sydney Arnold (centre) says she and her peers were ‘blindsid- ed’ by the University of Winnipeg’s decision to suspend the women’s soccer program in 2025. JOHN WOODS / FREE PRESS A homeless encampment on the north bank of the Assiniboine River in Winnipeg on Tuesday. The premier said encampments will be moved only after housing is secured for every person living there. In a rare move, Bayly twice denied joint recommendations from Audy’s defence counsel Aaron Bed- dome and Crown attorney Janice Barclay. The pair initially suggested Audy should serve four months for the robbery and later returned with a nine-month sentencing proposal after Bayly disagreed. In Canada, it is uncommon for a judge to rule against joint rec- ommendations in criminal cases, unless the sentence is considered unreasonable, contrary to public interest or damaging to the justice system. “(The recommended sentence) is so low that members of the Swan River community would feel aban- doned if I were to impose it,” Bayly said at the time. “It would bring the administration of justice into disre- pute in the eyes of any reasonably informed person.” Bayly said anything less than a three-year sentence would not be enough to deter Audy from reof- fending and would send the wrong message to a community that has been “absolutely rocked by the epi- demic of drugs.” Beddome moved to withdraw Audy’s guilty plea after the judge outlined the sentence, but Bayly denied that request. The Court of Appeal found that, while Bayly did not err in his assessment of public interest, the robbery sentence was unfit because no weapon was used, the victim suf- fered only minor injuries and Audy pleaded guilty. “In our view, while denunciation and deterrence are the primary sentencing objectives in the cir- cumstances, the three-year robbery sentence was disproportionate,” the Court of Appeal said. The court noted Audy has signif- icant Gladue factors, which were also outlined in a pre-sentencing report. Court heard Audy has two children and a Grade 10 education. She doesn’t know her father and was exposed to violence, drugs and alcohol at a young age through her mother. She was raised mostly by her grandmother as a result. Audy said she gets an adrenaline rush from shoplifting and described stealing from stores as “her job” to “help other people” and to support her addictions, the appeal decision said. The pre-sentencing report assessed Audy as a high risk to reof- fend and found “she is not person- ally invested in her rehabilitation,” Bayly said. At the time of the 2023 robbery, she was under a probation order pro- hibiting her from entering the store and had been involved in at least four other thefts in over a month, court heard. Data from Statistics Canada show Swan River’s crime severity index (which measures changes in the level of severity of crime from year to year) has spiked since 2018. In 2023, the index was rated at 556 — more than three times higher than Manitoba overall at 145. “We were happy to see that the judge took it seriously for once,” Gade said of Bayly’s original sen- tence. “I think that it was a complete waste of time and resources to have the appeal. We should have put that time and resources into fixing her drug problem.” Gade, who owns multiple busi- nesses in Swan River and is president of the local Chamber of Commerce, said property crime, theft and addictions are killing the community. He has repeatedly appealed to justice officials and the provincial government for support, he said. “To think of recommending a sen- tence that doesn’t even see as much incarceration as (a victim) takes to recover from an incident, that would trouble anybody,” Gade said. “We have struggled at length with Crown attorneys who don’t take the problem seriously here. … At the very least, we can’t just say, ‘Well, you’re high on drugs, so it’s OK to attack someone in a retail store.’ We have to have punishments for that.” tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS Tessa Blaikie Whitecloud (from left), MLA David Pankratz (Waverley), Premier Wab Kinew, Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith and Mayor Scott Gillingham announced a new strategy to tackle chronic homelessness during a news conference Tuesday. ;