Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - February 19, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 19, 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 A DRIVER who crashed a car after flee- ing from police developed hypothermia while emergency crews worked to re- move him from the mangled wreck. A car sped past a Winnipeg Police Service cruiser that was in a Hender- son Highway parking lot near the inter- section of Johnson Avenue Monday at 11:28 p.m., the WPS told the Independ- ent Investigation Unit of Manitoba. Officers activated the marked cruis- er’s emergency lights and siren and tried to stop the car, but it continued speeding away, police said in a news re- lease Tuesday. “Officers followed from a distance but soon lost sight of the vehicle,” po- lice said. The WPS helicopter spotted the car after it rear-ended another vehicle and hit a light standard at the northwest corner of Chief Peguis Trail and Hen- derson. A passenger in the car fled on foot but was apprehended after a brief pursuit, police said. The driver was trapped in the damaged car and had to be removed by the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Ser- vice. Both people were taken to hospital. “The driver of the vehicle had a broken leg and suffered hypothermia due to the time (needed) to extract him from the vehicle,” the IIU said in a news release. The police watchdog is investigat- ing because of the broken leg. The IIU asked witnesses or anyone with video that might help investigators to call 1-844-667-6060. The intersection did not fully reopen to traffic until late Tuesday morning. Buses were rerouted during the clos- ure. fpcity@freepress.mb.ca MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS Traffic was suspended until late Tuesday morning while Winnipeg Police documented evidence at the scene of a car crash at Chief Peguis Trail and Henderson Highway. Driver suffers hypothermia inside crashed car All-weather safety classes for newcomers NEW ice and water-safety lessons are teaching refugee and immigrant stu- dents how to navigate all seasons on the Canadian Prairies in response to a handful of accidental drownings in Winnipeg and nearby waterways in recent years. The St. James-Assiniboia School Division has begun piloting “winter 101” classes for newcomer students and offering free swimming lessons to entire families of foreigners who are making a home in Manitoba. Public schools have a responsibility to expose their students to commun- ity pools and ensure they have a basic understanding of both the fun and dangers involved, said Gail Hender- son Brown, swim program co-ordin- ator for SJASD. Henderson Brown noted many new- comer parents do not know about pub- lic pools. For those who do, access has become increasingly challenging as the city has reduced facilities’ hours due to budgeting challenges. “Financial-wise, a lot of parents, if they have to choose between paying a bill and signing up for swimming les- sons, it’s going to be paying the bill,” she said. The division has long run a univer- sal Grade 3 swim program with cur- riculum from the Lifesaving Society, as well as individualized lessons for youth with disabilities who are regis- tered in grades 3 to 12. Roughly 100 to 150 newcomer stu- dents dip their toes in St. James Cen- tennial Pool every year through the universal Grade 3 initiative. Some children born outside Canada who are unfamiliar with local water sites can have fears about dangerous animals lurking underneath the sur- face and have misconceptions about buoyancy because the sites are differ- ent from the oceans or other bodies of water they grew up near, Henderson Brown said. Regardless of their prior experien- ces, the veteran swim instructor said her goal is to make students more aware of their surroundings when they are near water, seek out life jack- ets and recognize basic beach signage. There have been at least eight fatal drownings involving newcomers to Manitoba over the last decade. MAGGIE MACINTOSH JOHN WOODS / FREE PRESS Lena Spragu (left) instructs a group of new immigrant students on winter safety at St. James Collegiate in the St. James-Assiniboia School Division last week. ● LESSONS, CONTINUED ON B2 Curling club, city at opposite ends of the ice A CONTROVERSIAL plan to build affordable housing next to the Granite Curling Club is moving forward, with a compromise that aims to ensure the club can access enough parking to carry on. On Tuesday, city council’s executive policy committee voted unanimously to approve a plan that would see a 111-unit residential building constructed on a parking lot at 22 Granite Way, with 51 per cent of the suites to have affordable rent for 99 years. “I believe we can come up with a solu- tion. There will be curling at the Gran- ite Curling Club for years to come. I’m confident of that and so this is a good motion … where we can have curling co-existing with housing that’s afford- able,” said Mayor Scott Gillingham. EPC approved the project’s subdiv- ision and rezoning application after adding in a new requirement that city officials work out a parking plan with the club that can sustain its operations before issuing a development permit. That deal would need to satisfy dir- ectors of the city’s public works and planning, property and development departments, if it’s approved in a final council vote. “This is a situation where there can be wins all around and we can find solu- tions that work for everybody. I’m very confident of that,” said Gillingham. The plan has faced a mixed public re- sponse so far. Several executive members of the curling club oppose the project, pre- dicting it would cost the long-standing club more than half its parking stalls and render it no longer viable. The Granite building was constructed in 1912, while the club itself formed in 1880, according to a city heritage re- port. Meanwhile, others have stressed that there’s an urgent need to build the pro- posed affordable homes. Earlier this month, council’s prop- erty and development committee cast a 2-2 vote on the proposal, which saw it move forward without a recommen- dation. The same parking compromise was considered but councillors on that committee couldn’t agree on key de- tails, with some stressing the curling club itself should have more power to determine the parking agreement. Mayor sees housing compromise a winner, Granite says parking concerns remain JOYANNE PURSAGA SUPPLIED The proposed Granite Riverside Commons, a 111-unit mixed-income building. ● GRANITE, CONTINUED ON B2 ‘We can have a success story by the end of this month’ Relief close in homeless crisis, vows strategy boss CAROL SANDERS JUST two weeks into her new job over- seeing Manitoba’s ambitious new strat- egy to address Winnipeg’s homeless crisis, Tessa Blaikie Whitecloud be- lieves things are on track to begin clear- ing encampments and move people into housing. Blaikie Whitecloud said Tuesday she’s hopeful “we can have a success story by the end of this month, and certainly we’ll have several of them (by) early March.” Premier Wab Kinew an- nounced the plan in January to clear encampments in the city one at a time and move their residents into secure, safer housing be- ginning this month. Blaikie Whitecloud, the former head of Siloam Mission who began working for the province Feb. 3, wouldn’t iden- tify the program’s first encampment selected by outreach workers or say which non-profit organizations have units lined up for them. “Today, we’re working just with what’s already in the sector,” she said. “So it’s only a handful, but we’ll have a dozen or so new units coming online on a monthly basis moving forward,” she told the Free Press. Service providers have been invited to lunch and a presentation from Blai- kie Whitecloud, Housing, Addictions and Homelessness Minister Bernadette Smith and Mayor Scott Gillingham Monday at Thunderbird House. Blaikie Whitecloud said it will be an opportunity to connect with sector leaders. Her role as the province’s senior ad- viser on homelessness was announced Jan. 14 when Kinew released his gov- ernment’s plan to end chronic home- lessness by 2031. “Working with the City of Winnipeg on a 30-day timeline beginning in Feb- ruary, the new strategy will see the government move one encampment at a time into housing, including 300 new social units that have been purchased and will be supported by non-profit or- ganizations,” the premier said, unveil- ing Your Way Home: Manitoba’s Plan to End Chronic Homelessness. That’s still the idea, said Blaikie Whitecloud, brought in to help imple- ment the strategy “There is going to be a desire to work with a whole encampment as we try to end that element of chronic homeless- ness. However, there may be moments where somebody needs a different type of housing than their counterparts in an encampment,” she said. ● STRATEGY, CONTINUED ON B2 Tessa Blaikie Whitecloud LOCAL JOURNALISM INITIATIVE REPORTER ;