Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - October 30, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba OTTAWA — No Canadians have been reported dead as a result of Hurricane Mel- issa making landfall in the Carib- bean, the MP overseeing Canada’s foreign aid said Wednesday. Randeep Sarai, secretary of state for international develop- ment, said Canada is “very close- ly” monitoring the situation and is ready to help with any local re- quests for logistics or humanitar- ian assistance. “It’s a huge disaster. It’s a class 5, it is the largest that Jamaica has ever seen in recorded history,” Sarai said on Parliament Hill. “There is nothing that can with- stand that pressure.” Sarai noted that Cuba and Ja- maica have both tapped US$4 mil- lion from a United Nations emer- gency fund to which Canada has contributed more than $29 million this year. There have been similar dis- bursements from Canadian-sup- ported funds run by the Red Cross and World Food Programme, and Canadian projects supporting hur- ricane resilience, his office said. “We’re working with both gov- ernments to see whatever else we can do to help (and) any humani- tarian relief we can do,” Sarai said. “If any request is made, I think Canada would look at it pretty fa- vourably, but we’ll make that as- sessment once those requests are made.” Global Affairs Canada sent its rapid deployment team to the region to provide emergency re- sponse and consular assistance to Canadian citizens. The department said consular officials stand “ready to provide assistance to Canadians as need- ed.” It said that since October 23, Global Affairs Canada has re- ceived 138 requests for informa- tion from Canadians in the region. “To date, we are not aware of any Canadian citizens who have been injured or killed as a result of this hurricane,” reads an email from the department. The email said there are 2,113 Canadians registered in Jamaica, 1,806 in Cuba, 4,134 in the Domin- ican Republic, 3,230 in Haiti, 1,506 in the Cayman Islands, 548 in the Bahamas and 235 in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Global Affairs Canada said the High Commission of Canada to Jamaica has temporarily reduced non-consular operations and the building will remain inaccessible until further notice. It said the high commission remains oper- ational remotely and consular calls are being handled in Ottawa. The Embassy of Canada to Cuba remains operational with reduced staff, it said, adding that all staff at Canadian missions in the region are “safe and accounted for.” Before the hurricane made landfall Tuesday in Jamaica, Global Affairs Canada had been warning Canadians in the region to register with the department, follow local shelter and evacuation orders and avoid misinformation online. Global Affairs Canada said the situation with Hurricane Melissa is “evolving quickly” and that Canadians in the region should avoid all travel to Jamaica, Haiti and to Granma, Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo, Holguin and Las Tunas in Cuba. It also said Canadians should avoid non-essential travel to the southeastern and central Baha- mas, the Turks and Caicos Islands and Bermuda. The hurricane has caused wide- spread power outages and dozens of deaths. “Global Affairs Canada is close- ly monitoring the situation in the region, and we are in contact with humanitarian organizations on the ground to better understand the needs of those affected,” the department said. — The Canadian Press Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service and Winnipeg Police Service would continue to separately respond to life safety and criminal matters at home- less camps. The co-ordination table will include members from WFPS, public works, planning, property and development, WPS and Winnipeg Transit, at times with help from staff in other city departments, and report to the city’s chief administrative officer. The group will prioritize encamp- ment responses, based on three categories: ● Level 1: Urgent co-ordinated responses to encampments that are deemed to pose an immediate risk to public safety, are located on or adjacent to sensitive public property (the prohibited locations) or obstruct essential services. ● Level 2: Co-ordinated response to moderate risk or large encampments on non-sensitive properties with signif- icant debris and other concerns, such as permanent unpermitted structures, illegal dumping, fuel spills, fire risk and other hazards. ● Level 3: Monitored response to low risk and/or small encampments with minimal health, safety or nuisance concerns located on non-sensitive public property. Each level of encampment would receive a different type of response. After encampments are identified through 311 reports, an inspection or are spotted by city staff, the co-ordi- nation table would assess the risk and prioritize the site. Level 1 sites would receive an in- spection with enforcement staff, WFPS and mobile outreach support workers. Outreach workers would offer supports and relocation options, while emergen- cy services would respond if there is imminent danger. The co-ordination table would then set “an appropriate notice period” pri- or to enforcing the rules and clearing the encampment. A similar process would occur at Level 2 sites, while the response to Level 3 would largely involve outreach, instead of encampment removal. Visits and risk assessments at those sites could happen on a weekly or biweekly basis. In an interview, MacPherson said the work will be done within existing city budgets and staff. “In some instances, if it’s listed as a Level 3, our resources are finite, so we’ll probably put our resources to higher priority sites,” he said. The city will reallocate two bylaw enforcement officers and one senior coordinator to handle the work. MacPherson said there are no set timelines for how much notice encamp- ment residents will be given before the city shuts down a site. “(We’ll) work in collaboration with our outreach partners to make sure that our approach is as reasonable to compassionate as possible… We’re going to try to get people to do this, to comply as quickly as we can,” he said. The protocol is expected to take ef- fect Nov. 17, unless city council directs otherwise. Critics of the decision to ban en- campments in many public spaces fear the policy will repeatedly displace vulnerable people. Mayor Scott Gillingham stressed the city is still committed to securing affordable housing for people in need, but must also set limits on temporary shelters in public spaces. “We need to find people housing with the wraparound supports… In the in- tervening time, we can no longer allow encampments to set up just anywhere,” said Gillingham. Officials at Main Street Project, the city’s mobile homeless outreach pro- vider, were not available Wednesday. A request to speak with Tessa Blaik- ie Whitecloud, the province’s senior adviser on ending homelessness, was not granted Wednesday, with questions redirected to Housing Minister Berna- dette Smith. When asked if the city’s ban clashes with provincial efforts to reduce home- lessness, Smith said the province and city are collaborating on their work. “We’ve been working with the city. We want to keep public spaces public,” she said. — with files from Carol Sanders joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca X: @joyanne_pursaga TOP NEWS A3 THURSDAY OCTOBER 30, 2025 ● ASSOCIATE EDITOR, NEWS: STACEY THIDRICKSON 204-697-7292 ● CITY.DESK@FREEPRESS.MB.CA ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM CAMPS ● FROM A1 New to Winnipeg, longtime homeless man calls for tent city JONAH says he would have gladly pitched his tent in a designated home- less camp after arriving in Winnipeg about a week ago. But there is no such site in the city, so the 49-year-old, who arrived by bus from Toronto, set up his tent behind the south side of the outdoor rink at the Broadway Community Centre on Young Street. “Then it rained for two days straight,” he said as he pulled his damp blanket out of his tent, which he had moved to higher ground, on the south side of the nearby community gardens. On Wednesday, Jonah learned the City of Winnipeg doesn’t want him camping near a playground. Tents will be banned in such places once new rules take effect next month. “(Winnipeg) should take a page from Vancouver or Halifax,” says Jonah, ref- erencing cities that have allowed desig- nated encampment spaces. Vancouver’s only sanctioned site, however, closed late last year. “If they made a place, and they had an ambulance parked there, attendants, security, on site monitoring who comes in and out and with supports — per- imetered — it would be safe. But they don’t do that here… There could be a place where there are supports right in the camp, that runs 24 hours a day.” Jonah chose the West Broadway lo- cation because it’s central. Having been in Winnipeg in the past, he knows where to go for a warm meal. “I have a loop I do each day,” he said, pointing to Agape Table on Furby Street, where he gets breakfast each morning, a nearby college where he can charge his electronics and watch a bit of YouTube before lunch at Oak Table in Osborne Village. “Thank goodness for places like that.” He says he got his tent from some- one at a church further down Osborne Street, where he was fed and given a few dollars on his first night in Winnipeg. “Every day is about survival,” he said. “How do you get ahead? How do I?” Jonah says he spent nine and a half years living on the streets of Toronto, but came west because it became too unsafe. “I don’t think I ever did anything wrong,” he says, reflecting on how he ended up on the street nearly a decade ago. “I went to school, I didn’t commit crimes, I don’t do drugs. I’m not addict- ed to anything. I smoke a little weed… I paint houses.” Jonah believes society has abandoned its most marginalized citizens and says the rise of artificial intelligence is erod- ing the middle class, the group he feels still cares about the homeless. He avoids shelters, which he says are often overrun with drug use and people suffering trauma. “It’s hard to watch ambulances com- ing by every five minutes,” he said. “It’s hard seeing people you used to know, who were once doing well in life, ending up like that.” “I have feelings. And that hurts me.” Jonah hopes to find a job in Winnipeg. If not, he says, he’ll try Edmonton next. In the meantime, if he’s forced to move again, he plans to find a spot down by the river. “Tomorrow’s problem,” he said. On Wednesday afternoon, with the sun finally breaking through, Jonah took the chance to spread his damp blanket across an overturned hockey net. Once that was done, he made his way to a nearby dumpster to search for his next meal. scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca SCOTT BILLECK RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS Jonah set up a tent next to a community garden and ice rink at the Broadway Community Centre. Tents will soon be banned near playgrounds. In Jamaica, more than 25,000 people were packed into shelters Wednesday af- ter the storm ripped roofs off their homes and left them temporarily homeless. Dixon said 77 per cent of the island was without power. The outages complicated assessing the damage because of “a total communica- tion blackout” in areas, Richard Thomp- son, acting director general of Jamaica’s Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management, told the Nation- wide News Network radio station. “Recovery will take time, but the government is fully mobilized,” Prime Minister Andrew Holness said in a state- ment. “Relief supplies are being prepared, and we are doing everything possible to restore normalcy quickly.” Officials in Black River, Jamaica, a southwestern coastal town of approxi- mately 5,000 people, pleaded for aid at a news conference Wednesday. “Catastrophic is a mild term based on what we are observing,” Mayor Richard Solomon said. He said the local rescue infrastructure had been demolished by the storm. The hospital, police units and emergency ser- vices were inundated by floods and unable to conduct emergency operations. Jamaican Transportation Minister Dar- yl Vaz said two of the island’s airports will reopen Wednesday to relief flights only, with UN agencies and dozens of non-prof- its on standby to distribute basic goods. “The devastation is enormous,” he said. “We need all hands on deck to recover stronger and to help those in need at this time.” The United States is sending rescue and response teams to assist in recovery ef- forts in the Caribbean, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on X. St. Elizabeth Police Superintendent Coleridge Minto told Nationwide News Network on Wednesday that authorities have found at least four bodies in south- west Jamaica. One death was reported in the west when a tree fell on a baby, state minister Abka Fitz-Henley told Nation- wide News Network. Before landfall, Melissa had been blamed for three deaths in Jamaica, three in Haiti and one in the Dominican Republic. Hurricane Melissa damaged more than 160 homes and destroyed 80 others in the town of Petit-Goâve, where 10 of the 20 people killed there were children, Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency said Wednesday. Lawyer Charly Saint-Vil, 30, said he saw bodies lying among debris after the storm as he walked the streets of the small coastal town where he grew up. People screamed as they searched for their miss- ing children, he said. “People have lost everything,” Saint-Vil said. Although the immediate threat of the storm has passed, Saint-Vil said Pe- tit-Goâve’s residents were living in fear about access to medicine, water and food in the coming days given the political instability in Haiti. People in the eastern Cuban province of Santiago de Cuba began clearing debris around the collapsed walls of their homes Wednesday after Melissa made landfall in the region hours earlier. “Life is what matters,” Alexis Ramos, a 54-year-old fisherman, said as he sur- veyed his destroyed home and shielded himself from the intermittent rain with a yellow raincoat. “Repairing this costs money, a lot of money.” Local media showed images of the Juan Bruno Zayas Clinical Hospital with severe damage: glass scattered across the floor, waiting rooms in ruins and masonry walls crumpled on the ground. “As soon as conditions allow, we will be- gin the recovery. We are ready,” President Miguel Díaz-Canel wrote on X. The hurricane could worsen Cuba’s severe economic crisis, which already has led to prolonged power blackouts along with fuel and food shortages. Melissa’s centre is forecast to move through southeastern Bahamas later Wednesday, generating up to seven feet of storm surge in the area. By late Thursday, Melissa is expected to pass just west of Bermuda. — The Associated Press HURRICANE ● FROM A1 No Canadians reported dead from hurricane; Ottawa offers to help region DYLAN ROBERTSON MATIAS DELACROIX / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Residents walk through Santa Cruz, Jamaica, Wednesday, after hurricane Melissa passed. ;