Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - September 29, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba I SOMETIMES stand on the third floor of the former Portage la Prairie Residential School, where hundreds of children stood before me, and look out over the grounds and the lake beyond. Fifty years ago this year, the Portage la Prairie Residential School closed. But the building still stands, holding the history of all the children forced to attend. Today, it is home to the National Indigenous Residential School Museum of Cana- da, where I serve as executive director and share my own personal experiences as a residential school survivor. I didn’t go to school in this building, but both of my parents did. I went to residential schools in Brandon, Sandy Bay, and Birtle. Each of those schools changed me, taking from me my lan- guage, my culture, my loved ones, and my youth. But the school in Birtle took something deeper, and left something emptier. When I think of that school, I feel a emptiness. It was cold at the Birtle Residential School, not just in temperature, but in spirit. No love. No comfort. Just fear and rigid, harsh rules. I re- member being sick, really sick. Sweating, weak, running to the bathroom constantly. I was begging for them to call a doctor and they didn’t. I don’t know what it was — a flu, maybe appendicitis — but I do know they didn’t care enough to find out. It was just neglect, which was normal there. There was one moment of peace I still remem- ber while at the Birtle Residential School: a little stream outside. We’d take our shoes off, play in the creek. For a few minutes, we could just be kids. Free. That little bit of nature was the only place I felt like myself. Because at Birtle, I wasn’t Lorraine or the nick- name my family gave me, Onzaamidoon, which my aunties called me because I talked too much. I wasn’t a granddaughter who learned medicines from her grandmother or picked berries. I was just another number. That’s what residential schools did. They stripped away names, languages, family, and caring. And replaced it with silence. Now, 50 years after the closure of the Portage school, I help run a place that does the opposite. I’m so encouraged to hear about new funding to help the National Centre for Truth and Reconcili- ation find its permanent home. Every investment in truth and reconciliation lifts us all. This is also a moment to recognize spaces like the National Indigenous Residential School Muse- um, where a small, dedicated team is preserving history in the very building where it happened. This museum provides a unique experience for every visitor. You stand in the same dormitories as the chil- dren did. You climb the same stairs. You look out the same windows. You feel the weight of what happened here. And people do feel it. Survivors. Families. Vis- itors from across Canada and around the world. Some cry before the tour even begins. Because the truth lives in these walls. And yet this place isn’t just about sorrow. It’s about turning a place of hurt into a place of healing, and sharing the strength it takes to carry memory forward. Not just for ourselves, but for the generations to come. We are still here. The building is still here. And the stories are still here. So this is what I want you to know, 50 years on: We are still here, doing the hard work of recon- ciliation. While much work remains to build the National Indigenous Residential School Museum of Canada into the essential institution for Canada that it de- serves to be, by working every day to transform this former residential school into a museum, we know we can further the work of reconciliation in Canada in a uniquely powerful way. So come and visit us on the Keeshkeemaquah lands of Long Plain First Nation, near the city of Portage la Prairie. See what happened. Come feel what still lingers and witness the truth, not on a screen but in the very place where it happened. On Tuesday, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, we will welcome Phyllis Webstad (who started Orange Shirt Day) to the museum to share her story, as well as the stories of many survivors. Everyone is welcome. For those that can’t travel, there are many great events happen- ing all around Manitoba and I encourage you to find one close to you and participate. Because reconciliation cannot exist without truth, and truth begins with the stories of survi- vors and lives on in the walls of this museum. Lorraine Daniels is executive director of the National Indigenous Residential School Museum of Canada. THINK TANK COMMENT EDITOR: RUSSELL WANGERSKY 204-697-7269 ● RUSSELL.WANGERSKY@WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM A7 MONDAY SEPTEMBER 29, 2025 Ideas, Issues, Insights This is what I want you to know 2025: a summer of interesting urban changes THE summer of 2025 was quietly a pretty good season for urbanism in Winnipeg. Over the last few months, the city has been busy implementing several new progressive city-building initiatives to enhance livability in our communities. A few of these programs made headlines, and others flew under the radar. Some had immediate impact, some set building blocks for future impacts, and others remain a work in progress. If you’ve been walking downtown recently, you might have noticed that the timing of traffic signals has been changed to become what is known as leading pedestrian interval lights. The signals now let pedestrians leave several seconds early, giving them a head start and allowing them to establish a presence in the intersection before drivers start moving. This simple change increas- es the likelihood that turning drivers will yield to pedestrians and allows slower-moving people an increased margin of safety. When this idea was implemented in New York City, it reduced fatal pedestrian collisions by 65 per cent. Those who have been walking downtown might have also noticed that they can now cross the street at the city’s famous Portage and Main intersection. The day the barricades came down, it immediately became just a normal place. The backs of buildings became the fronts, and people started coming back to a place they hadn’t been in decades. Standing there today, it’s difficult to even remember what the barricades looked like. In time, the improved connectivity will hopefully leverage new development happening at the corner and become a catalyst to improve a struggling Portage Avenue. None of the hyperbo- le and doomsday scenarios that paralyzed us for 50 years have come to fruition. That’s a lesson we might learn for future public decision-making. A block away from the newly opened inter- section is Graham Avenue, a street that had its role as a bus corridor removed with a citywide transit route overhaul. Instead of simply giving the street back to cars, as would likely have happened in the past, the city made the bold and forward-thinking move of claiming it for public space. Saving it from cars, however, is only a first step, and we must work together as a community over the next several years to ensure it becomes a successful public place. As an active spine across downtown, it could create a renewed sense of place in the city centre and be a significant development catalyst in the future. Changes also happened outside of downtown this summer. The most high-profile being that transit route overhaul, a move that has faced well-documented challenges. It would have been easy to simply continue doing what we have always done, but it takes courage to boldly try something new in an effort to improve. The logic behind the changes has found success in other cities, but problems have unquestionably been exposed. Hopefully with greater investment and considered response to rider experience and feedback, solutions can be found that will allow the new system to meet the promise of its design. To make our neighbourhood streets safer, the city has begun implementing an innovative sys- tem of traffic calming installations at 16 locations across the city. Temporary curbs are being used to quickly and inexpensively alter street layouts and configurations to slow traffic. These yellow, concrete curbs work by narrowing parts of the road to encourage lower driving speeds, tighten corners to slow turns, and reduce crossing dis- tances for pedestrians and cyclists. The tempo- rary installations are allowing designers to study how the changes work before more expensive permanent road configurations are implemented. You might have seen little trees popping up along streets in your neighbourhood and in parks across the city all summer long. In its never-end- ing battle against the invasive beetles decimating our urban forest, the city traditionally plants between 1,200 and 2,000 replacement trees per year. Thanks to funding from the federal govern- ment’s 2 Billion Trees program and the adoption of the city’s Urban Forest Strategy, almost 7,000 new trees were planted in 2025. These increased tree planting numbers have made a noticeable impact on our streets and in our neighbourhoods and in time will help restore Winnipeg’s iconic tree canopy that has seen increasing losses over the last several years. Physical changes to our city over the summer were augmented by a controversial change to planning policy that will promote a gradual but impactful evolution of our neighbourhoods. The changes effectively eliminate single-family zon- ing, allowing at least a duplex, and in many cases a three or fourplex, to be built on almost any res- idential lot in the city. This will promote higher densities to capitalize on existing infrastructure and services, while supporting local shops and amenities like libraries, parks, community cen- tres, and public transit. Greater housing diversity will provide access to good neighbourhoods for a broader range of people who can’t afford or might not want a single-family house, whether it’s a rental apartment for a young person, a downsiz- ing option for a senior aging in their community, or a new family home in a townhouse. The summer of 2025 put in place several urbanist building blocks that will work together to create a more livable city in the future. We are of course far from finished. Issues to be worked on include better connected cycling networks in the city’s mature neighbourhoods, rapid transit investment, possibly including light rail, and much more aggressive action by all levels of government to find solutions to homelessness, and public safety. If we keep making positive steps forward, however, we can build the prosperous and progressive city that we all want for our children and grandchildren. Brent Bellamy is creative director at Number Ten Architectural Group. BRENT BELLAMY The city is trying new temporary traffic-calming barricades. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Washrooms in the basement of Portage residential school in Portage la Prairie LORRAINE DANIELS BRENT BELLAMY ;