Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - February 7, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba Limited-time GIC specials 28-MONTH | 54-MONTH 4.00% *Rate subject to change. Conditions apply. At this rate, you’ll get there. 0 SCU Q SCU.MB.CA/GICS J EXPLORE THE POSSIBILITIES'” Free Press SERVING MANITOBA SINCE 1872. FOREVER WITH YOUR SUPPORT. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2025 $72-M long-term care expansion set Construction to nearly double the number of beds at Transcona's Park Manor Care Home planned for this year CHRIS KITCHING AND ERIK PINDERA rip HE NDP government has promI ised to spend $72 million to near-JL ly double the number of beds at Transcona’s only personal care home by 2028 in an effort to alleviate some of the pressure on the beleaguered long-term care system. Health, Seniors and Long-Term Care Minister Uzoma Asagwara announced plans Thursday for a 90-bed expansion at the Park Manor Care Home. Construction is scheduled to begin this year and be completed by spring 2028, Asagwara told reporters, and will come with new hires once operations begin. The care home, at Redonda Street and Kildare Avenue East, is owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The facility currently has 44 private rooms, 20 semi-private rooms and four four-bed rooms, its website states. Asagwara said the 90 new beds will be private. The chief executive of the Manitoba Association of Residential and Community Care Homes, which represents 23 non-profit care homes in the province, including Park Manor, said the beds will help lessen the strain on the system’s long wait times and bed shortages, and allow more aging Transcona residents to live in their community. “Who wouldn’t want new beds?” said CEO Gladys Hrabi. While she applauded the announcement, she said it should come as part of a wider strategy to address systemic issues in long-term care in Manitoba. “When you have new beds, that’s good, but we are still trying to advocate about staff shortages, advocate for funding adjustments that could address rising operational costs, and there’s also the funding we want to modernize aging infrastructure,” Hrabi said. “It will alleviate the pressures, but_ what we hope to see from this, is the government look at this with innovation in mind, that there’s an opportunity here to move away from institutionalized living.” Hrabi said the personal care system should move toward a more home-like environment. • CARE HOME, CONTINUED ON A2 MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS CELEBRATING, AND MAKING, BLACK HISTORY The Golden Heritage Performance Group dances in a crowded rotunda at the Manitoba Legislative Building for an event marking Black History Month as well as the first exhibition of art by Black artists since the building opened in 1920. See stories on pages B1 and C1. HIGH INTEREST SAVINGS ACCOUNT STARTING AT 2.15% (^SCU.MB.CA/YOURSAVINGS ^ *Rate subject to change, tiered pricing available. Conditions may apply. 8 SCU EK homeowner gets 'threatening'order to install railing on stairs^ or else City takes things one step at a time — after 30 years KEVIN ROLLASON THREE decades after an East Kildonan homeowner replaced four concrete steps outside his front door, the city discovered he didn’t have a railing. “It was threatening,” said the 79-year-old man, who didn’t want to be identified, referring to the registered letter the city sent about three weeks ago. “They said if I didn’t put a railing in they would have to write it up and we would have to vacate the home until the city installed it and (the cost) would all be put on our property taxes. They said they had the complaint in June but were now giving us two weeks to get it done. “I told them it is cold outside and I would rather have got the notice in summer.” The homeowner, who spent 50 years in the construction industry, said he was able to get a railing and other metalwork, borrow a tool from a former employee and install what was needed in the last few days. “I don’t know why we received this notice now,” he said. “The stairs have been there for 30 years and we only get the notice now.” He noted that there are many other homes across the city that do not have railings installed on the front steps. The railing requirements are listed in the city’s Liveability Bylaw which has been in effect since 2008. In section 38 (3), detailing guards and handrails required, it says “a handrail must be installed^ on exterior steps having more than three risers.” • HOMEOWNER, CONTINUED ON A2 Tariff tiff spurs Ottawa to eye west-to-east oil pipeline MAURA FORREST MONTREAL — Federal Energy Minister Jonathan Wilkinson says Ottawa and the provinces should discuss the possibility of an oil pipeline to Eastern Canada to improve energy security and diversify trade. Wilkinson said Thursday that United States President Donald Trump’s tariff threats have exposed “vulnerabilities” in the Canadian economy, including in the energy sector. “The world has changed quite a bit in the aftermath of what we have seen from what has been our friend, the United States,” he told reporters in Montreal. “I think it does call for us to reflect on whether there are some conversations that we need to have in this country.” Trump’s threats of imposing 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian goods — and 10 per cent tariffs on energy resources — have renewed interest from Canadian leaders in energy projects that would lessen the country’s reliance on the U.S. as a trading partner. Even in Quebec, which has long opposed a new 011 pipeline, the government cracked open the door this week to the possibility of fossil fuel exports travelling through the province. Critics, however, say the era of oil pipeline development in Canada is likely over, and that it would take much more than political rhetoric to revive it. Earlier in the day, Wilkinson told reporters on a call from Washington, D.C., that it’s a risk for Canada to be “so dependent on the United States for the export of oil.” Nearly all of Canada’s crude oil exports — about four million barrels a day — go to the United States. The Trans Mountain pipeline, which was bought by the federal government in 2018 and runs from Alberta to Burnaby, B.C., is the only oil pipeline that can serve other markets. “The Trans Mountain pipeline was not without controversy, but I think in the current context, it is hard to argue that that was not an important investment for this country to make,” he said. Wilkinson also spoke about domestic energy security, pointing out that Ontario and Quebec are supplied by the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline, which transports western Canadian crude oil through the Great Lakes states and into Canada. “We hope that that will continue going forward, but I think we are all aware now that perhaps there are some vulnerabilities that we did not actually believe existed,” he said. ”And I would expect that the prime minister and the premiers of the provinces and territories will be reflecting on all of this.” Wilkinson didn’t specifically mention Energy East, the proposed oil pipeline from Alberta to New Brunswick that was cancelled in 2017. But other leaders have, including Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston, who last month called on the federal government to “immediately approve” the project. Even Quebec Premier Frangois Legault has suggested Trump’s tariff threats could weaken Quebecers’ staunch opposition to a pipeline he has previously said would carry “dirty energy” through the province. “There’s no social acceptability for this kind of project right now in Quebec,” he told reporters Monday. “But of course _ what Mr. Trump is doing may change the situation in the future. So if there’s social acceptability, we will be open to these kinds of projects.” On Thursday, he said if a pipeline were proposed, his government would consider it. • PIPELINE, CONTINUED ON A2 WEATHER SUNNY. HIGH -14 — LOW -25 O ARTS & & & TRAVOLTA, PATINKIN TO FILM JFK STORY HERE / Cl ;