Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 22, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba A MAN who’s led major construction and infrastructure projects in cit- ies across Canada has been recom- mended by a city council committee to become Winnipeg’s first chief con- struction officer. Tom Sparrow, who has more than 35 years of experience in the public and private sectors, has been selected to provide expert guidance on infra- structure and construction policy. The move seeks to fulfil a campaign pledge by Mayor Scott Gillingham. “We want to take a look of the City of Winnipeg contracts, for example, making sure that they are the best in class,” he told reporters Tues- day. “I want us to get to a place where, when the city is purchasing servi- ces, that we don’t just have one bid on items, we want competitive bids, and we want to make sure that the city is setting itself up so that we are getting good value for money.” Sparrow has led major construction projects on hospitals, schools and air- ports in B.C. and Yukon. He worked as the director of Public Works and Gov- ernment Services Canada and advised the federal auditor general on infra- structure issues from 2015 to 2018. The Winnipeg Construction Associ- ation applauded the appointment. “Hiring a chief construction officer will help make sure the projects our members build will get done on time and on budget — which is something both contractors and the City of Win- nipeg want to achieve,” said president Ron Hambley. “It should help the in- dustry be more efficient.” Gillingham said Sparrow’s first item of business will be to review the audit of the north end sewage treat- ment plant mega-project. Gillingham said there were 44 appli- cants for the position. “It’s a unique opportunity at a time when all cities are facing similar chal- lenges, where the costs of our project continue to rise related to construc- tion, inflation, material costs, labour costs,” he said. “Tackling and managing big, com- prehensive, complex infrastructure projects is really important work.” The search committee’s recommen- dation will be voted on by city coun- cil on Jan. 30. If approved, Sparrow would begin around April 1. malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca WEDNESDAY JANUARY 22, 2025 ● ASSOCIATE EDITOR, NEWS: STACEY THIDRICKSON 204-697-7292 ● CITY.DESK@FREEPRESS.MB.CA ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM SECTION B CONNECT WITH WINNIPEG’S NO. 1 NEWS SOURCE ▼ CITY ● BUSINESS City’s 311 service to roll out AI chatbot in spring pilot program WINNIPEG’S 311 service will intro- duce a chatbot powered by artificial in- telligence to answer resident concerns as part of a pilot project this spring. The city’s innovation and technology department is in the “early stages” of an AI chatbot that will be available on the City of Winnipeg website and will be able to direct visitors to information and answer questions. A late spring rollout is expected, but the department will have to con- firm the service works smoothly first, customer services and communica- tions director Felicia Wiltshire told the city’s executive policy committee Tuesday. “I want to make sure that whatever product we’re releasing in terms of a chat is well-functioning,” she said. “I think we’ve done a lot of good work to try to improve the reputation of 311, and I don’t want to risk launching a chat system that doesn’t maybe quite work effectively and drives people back to the phones anyway.” Average wait times for calls to 311 have dropped in the past year — from more than 11 minutes in 2022, to five minutes in 2023, to one minute and 43 seconds in 2024. An additional $1.25 million in funding to 311 was includ- ed in the 2024 budget to address wait times. The city is planning to phase out its 311 email service, but there isn’t a tar- get date set as a high number of email requests are still coming in, Wiltshire said. Mayor Scott Gillingham said any use of AI being presented to Winnipeggers would only come after ensuring the product could be used safely and while protecting people’s personal informa- tion. “(We) want to use the tools, the new technology, in a good way where it can enhance the delivery of city services, but we have to be aware of and mitigate against any risks they present,” he said. There are 98 full-time employees in 311’s contact centre. There were 578,273 requests to 311 in 2022, 797,605 in 2023, and 863,584 in 2024. The city’s 2025 budget allotted $6.8 million to the service. Winnipeggers can contact 311 by phone, email, on the city’s website or on social media. malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca MALAK ABAS Tom Sparrow MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS Blizzard-like conditions pick up early in the afternoon Tuesday as a pedestrian crosses Portage Avenue at Sherbrook Street. Those conditions were a contributing factor in Friday’s mayhem. Hundreds of vehicle claims after snowstorm: MPI A BLIZZARD that swept through southern Manitoba has led to hundreds of claims, with more expected. As of Monday, Manitoba Public In- surance had received 511 collision claims from last Friday. “We cannot attribute all collisions on Jan. 17 to the winter driving condi- tions, as we have not analyzed all the data to see the cause of these colli- sions,” an MPI spokesperson said in an email Tuesday. “However, we can say that blizzard-like conditions in many areas of the province was a contribut- ing factor to a number of the collisions reported to MPI.” The spokesperson did not believe this was a record number of claims for a single day, but the full scope of the damage won’t be known for some time. “Collision claims for this date and this weather incident will continue to come in over the next weeks and months, so this number is accurate as of (Monday), but we do expect this number to increase,” the spokesperson said. Winnipeg led the way with 268 claims, as dozens of accidents were re- ported in the city and the surrounding area. Several multi-vehicle pileups were reported to police, including a massive wreck near Fermor Avenue and Sym- ington Road at about 9:45 a.m. That crash claimed the life of a 30-year-old woman, believed to have been hit by another vehicle after exit- ing hers. RCMP and Winnipeg Police Service officers, along with fire and rescue crews from Winnipeg and the RM of Springfield, were sent to the scene. RCMP said no other serious injuries were reported in the multi-vehicle col- lision, which happened about two hours before the province issued an emer- gency alert Friday warning motorists to stay off all highways in southern Manitoba — the first of its kind in the province for a weather-related inci- dent. RCMP estimated at least 50 crashes took place, while the WPS said dozens of vehicles were involved in collisions on the south Perimeter Highway. Health Sciences Centre alerted staff members a possible “code orange” could be issued, which would mean a sudden influx of patients would be in- coming. An actual “code orange” was issued by Ste. Anne Hospital and the Bethesda Regional Health Centre after a multi- vehicle collision occurred near Ste. Anne. MPI said Tuesday another 31 claims came from Steinbach, which reported- ly had around 100 cars off of the road after videos emerged of vehicles near Highway 12. scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca SCOTT BILLECK City committee announces pick for chief construction officer MALAK ABAS O NE year after AI-generated nudes of underage students from Winni- peg sparked a Canada-wide con- versation about sexual violence in the age of artificial intelligence, the school division at the centre of the scandal has come up with a new protocol. The Louis Riel School Division re- leased guidelines for teachers and other staff members working in class- rooms in St. Boniface, St. Vital and surrounding communities last week. “Regrettably, as technology has evolved in recent years, staff have been placed in situations where they have come into possession of an elec- tronic copy of an intimate image, with- out soliciting it,” chief superintendent Christian Michalik wrote in the Jan. 15 memo. In working with the Winnipeg Police Service, the school division leaders have learned about the importance of having a formal process in place to ad- dress future incidents, Michalik said. WPS began investigating reports of deep fakes — realistic images and recordings generated using AI tools — involving teenage suspects and vic- tims from Collège Béliveau, a Grade 7-12 school in Windsor Park, in De- cember 2023. The pornographic content was cre- ated using social media posts that were screenshotted to produce sexual- ly explicit photos of their peers. At the time, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection’s information technology director categorized the doctored images in question as “child sexual abuse material.” “In a lot of cases, I don’t think (perpetrators) understand the gravity of what they’re doing,” Lloyd Rich- ardson told the Free Press as a police probe got underway. The altered images were uploaded to Cybertip’s Project Arachnid, an online tool run by Winnipeg-based Canadian Centre for Child Protection to detect child sex abuse material and send re- moval notices internationally. No criminal charges were laid against the teenage boys accused of creating and sharing the falsified photos. Following the incident, Manitoba’s NDP government passed legislation to expand the definition of intimate im- ages to include those altered by elec- tronic means. The Non-Consensual Distribution of Intimate Images Act now provides a pathway for victims of both fake and real revenge porn to seek damages. The federal Liberals announced last month they were splitting an on- line harms bill in two to speed up the passage of new measures to protect children online and crack down on deepfakes and internet pornography in general. Michalik briefed the Louis Riel div- ision workforce on current laws re- lated to intimate images and spelled out related expectations in his mass email. He asked staff members to write down when, from whom and by what means they receive any inappropriate images or videos. Recipients should then describe the content and report it to their supervisor or principal. “Never forward the image,” he wrote in bolded font, “as doing so would be in violation of section 162.1(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada.” Employees who are subjected to troubling material can seek support via their employee and family assist- ance program, Michalik added. “It’s interesting to see the position that they’ve taken on never forward- ing the image, even in the situation of reporting. I don’t think that it’s right or wrong. It’s a particularly hard line that they’ve taken,” said Katie Szi- lagyi, an assistant professor who stud- ies AI, privacy and the law at the Uni- versity of Manitoba. Szilagyi noted no one can be con- victed of a crime related to forward- ing an intimate image if they do so to “serve the public good,” the Criminal Code notes. She applauded the school division for introducing a relatively uncom- mon protocol, given early case law continues to develop. It’s a “good idea” to have a standard- ized approach to responding to these issues, she said. She added she is supportive of a growing shift to describe incidents as examples of “the non-consensual dis- tribution of intimate images” rather than “revenge porn” — a loaded term. The local teachers’ union was not in- volved in drafting the protocol, but its president welcomed the new directive reminding members not to mistakenly expand the digital footprint of an in- timate image. President Jay McGurran said the local chapter of the Manitoba Teach- ers’ Society is appreciative that the employer is being “proactive and re- sponsive” to protect its approximately 2,000 employees. maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca AI-generated nudes prompt new protocol School division spells out how to deal with ‘non-consensual distribution of intimate images’ MAGGIE MACINTOSH LOCAL JOURNALISM INITIATIVE REPORTER ;