Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - February 7, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba A2 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM NEWS FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2025 READER SERVICE ● GENERAL INQUIRIES 204-697-7000 NOTICE TO ALL MONTHLY AUTO-PAY SUBSCRIBERS: Effective March 1, 2025, all subscribers currently registered on our monthly automatic debit/credit payment method, will have their accounts converted to 4-week billing. Although your current billing rates will not change, there will now be 13 annual payments instead of 12. This is the equivalent of an 8.3% annual price increase. NOTICE TO ALL 3-MONTH, 6-MONTH AND 12-MONTH TERM PAYMENT SUBSCRIBERS: Effective March 1, 2025, your rates will increase by 8.3%. VOL 154 NO 75 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 organiz- ation 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 There are 9,597 beds across 124 licensed personal care homes in Man- itoba, with sometimes lengthy wait times. As of 2019, the provincial govern- ment stopped publishing median wait times for care home admissions. Shared Health officials recently told the Free Press the median wait time for residents 75 and older is 6.6 weeks. But those waits vary by regional health authority, the Free Press recent- ly found. As of late November, the supplied figures for wait times were an average of 167.5 days (roughly 24 weeks) for the Northern Health Region, an average of 86 days (roughly 12 weeks) for acute and transitional care for Inter- lake-Eastern, and a median of 83 days (roughly 12 weeks) for Prairie Moun- tain Health. Southern Health and the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority would not provide average or median wait times. Asagwara said the addition of 90 beds at Park Manor would help chip away at shortages across the province. “You’re adding capacity,” said the minister. “We’re also adding beds throughout the system.” Park Manor’s operator advocated for expansion, alongside families and Transcona residents, for years to help meet some of the demand for spaces in the east Winnipeg neighbourhood. The health minister took a swipe at former Progressive Conservative pre- mier Brian Pallister for a 2016 election promise to build a new care home at Park Manor. In 2016, Pallister stood outside Park Manor and pledged to add 1,200 new personal care home beds over eight years, but construction never began and there was a net loss of care home beds while the PCs were in govern- ment. In the 2019 election campaign, now-Premier Wab Kinew and Nello Altomare, the Transcona MLA who died last month, visited Park Manor to pledge an 80-bed expansion with $21 million in funding. The Pallister-led Tories won that election. Asagwara said the government was glad to deliver the NDP’s prior prom- ise, albeit delayed. Park Manor CEO Abednigo Manda- lupa said care home officials are glad the provincial government is “finally” coming to the table to see the project through. Wally Skomoroh, a lifelong Transco- nian whose mother lives at Park Man- or, described the expansion as a “long time coming.” “People from Transcona — if you’re from Transcona, you know this … you don’t like to leave Transcona. So, when you get older and you need a personal care home, there’s only one choice, and that’s Park Manor,” Skomoroh said. “This will allow people in the com- munity to be able to stay in their senior years in the community. This will also probably have less roommate arrange- ments, as well. It’s important you have your own space because that gives you your own dignity and comfort level.” Asagwara said the NDP have com- mitted to building a new personal care home every year. Construction began on a 95-bed care home in Lac du Bonnet in December. It is expected to open in 2027. Plans for the facility were announced by a for- mer NDP government in 2012 and then cancelled by the Pallister government in 2017. Then-Tory premier Heather Ste- fanson proposed the project before the 2023 election that was won by the NDP, which announced last year it was moving ahead with the $66-million project about 100 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg. chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca Still, some experts are viewing the new interest in pipelines with skepti- cism. “The signals from major pipeline companies suggest that there’s not an appetite for another new oil pipeline,” said Amy Janzwood, assistant pro- fessor of political science at McGill University, who specializes in pipeline politics. TC Energy, the former proponent of Energy East, spun off its crude oil pipelines business in 2023 to Cal- gary-based South Bow Corp. In a brief statement, a South Bow spokesperson said only that Energy East “was termi- nated by TC Energy in 2017.” Janzwood said it’s quite possible there will be no more major oil pipe- lines built in Canada. “There’s a lot of risk and uncertainty around the future of the oilsands,” she said. “Proposing a massive new oil pipeline that would be dramatically expanding oil production doesn’t make economic sense given the current context.” In a statement, Melissa Lantsman, federal Conservative deputy leader, accused the Liberal government of killing Energy East. She said a Con- servative government would repeal Bill C-69, which overhauled Canada’s environmental assessment process, “to get projects approved so we can get our resources to market and bring home powerful paycheques.” A new poll from the Angus Reid Institute this week found that four out of five Canadians, including 74 per cent of respondents in Quebec, believe Canada “needs to ensure it has oil and gas pipelines running from sea to sea across the country.” Carol Montreuil, a vice-president with the Canadian Fuels Association, said people would “probably have a different opinion today” on projects like Energy East. “I think the merit, unfortunately, of the situation we’re going through now with the U.S. is again to bring to the forefront the issue of security of supply,” he said. “And this has not been discussed enough when some of these projects were cancelled.” But Charles-Édouard Têtu, climate and energy policy analyst with Quebec environmental group Équiterre, said he doesn’t think the current enthusi- asm for pipelines will last. “They’re banking on a temporary political or economic crisis. Then to answer it, they’re proposing projects that would have permanent consequences,” he said. “When faced with a crisis, they try to rely on opportunism. And it would be Quebecers who pay in the end.” — The Canadian Press The bylaw section goes on to say the handrails and guards have to be “75 cm in height above a line drawn through the outside edges of the stair nosings and 90 cm in height above landings.” The compliance order sent to the East Kildonan man said if railings were not installed on either side of the steps, the city could “take actions or measures… including ordering the premises vacated, and add the costs to the property taxes.” But while the order mentions the possibility of being vacated, city spokesman Kalen Qually said that happens only when inspectors find an “illegal basement occupancy where there are egress issues.” Qually said when bylaw enforcement officers receive a complaint through 311, they don’t just investigate that problem. “If they observe neighbouring properties with similar maintenance and safety issues, they will determine if they need to notify these property owners,” he said. The homeowner’s area councillor, Coun. Jeff Browaty, said the railing complaint was an unusual one, but he doesn’t believe it was generated by a city inspector. “It would be complaint based; is there somebody who doesn’t get along with him?” Browaty said. “That’s how most of these complaints come in. “But if there are too many steps, a rail becomes required. I have two steps, and I don’t need a rail. But if you have four steps you need one.” Browaty said some bylaw complaints are submitted by strangers. “There appears to be a resident in North Kildonan who looks for bylaw in - fractions, including out-of-season RVs parked or other things,” he said. “He makes it his mission to report.” As for the homeowner, he still hasn’t seen any signs yet that the city has sent an inspector to approve the new railing. “I’m ready now,” he said. “If they had just said you need to put a railing on there, fine, but don’t tell me they’ll evict me and then put it all on my taxes. That’s crazy.” kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca CARE HOME ● FROM A1 HOMEOWNER ● FROM A1 PIPELINE ● FROM A1 MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Volunteer Cheryl Ulicki (left) and resident Lena Vanderhooft embrace after the announcement that Park Manor Care Home will be expanding. Porn, assault charges for Brandon daycare operator BRANDON — A 37-year-old foster parent of six children who operated a daycare out of his residence faces child pornography and sexual assault char- ges, Brandon police announced Thurs- day. Brandon Police Service major crime officers began investigating Monday after they were notified by the National Child Exploitation Centre an individual was “possibly” creating child sexual abuse material of children in his care, a news release stated. Police learned the accused and his common-law partner operated the day- care and were foster parents. The ages of the six children were not specified by police. Officers — including Internet Child Exploitation investigators and child abuse investigators — and members of Manitoba Child and Family Services went to the residence and arrested the man. His common-law partner and six children were also in the building. Police seized computers at the site and “safeguarded” the children, al- though it wasn’t specified what that meant. The accused appeared in court Tues- day charged with making child pornog- raphy, possession of child pornography, accessing child pornography, distrib- uting child pornography and sexual assault. He was remanded into custody. Police believe the man distributed the pornographic material “at an inter- national level.” No further details were provided. Upon further examination of the evi- dence, the accused was also charged with several additional offences, in- cluding sexual assault and sexual inter- ference. Brandon police also charged the man in an incident from June 9, 2024 in which images of child pornography were uploaded, stored and distribut- ed. He was arrested Wednesday at the Brandon Correctional Centre, where he is in custody, and charged with sexual assault, sexual interference and as- sault. He was slated to appear in court Thursday. Police did not release the man’s name in order to protect the identities of the victim and their families. Brandon Police Service said it is working with CFS and the Toba Centre for Children & Youth to provide support to the victims and their families. Police will hold a news conference at Brandon City Hall today to address the ongoing investigation. — Brandon Sun MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS ‘The stairs have been there for 30 years and we only get the notice now,’ the resident said. ;