Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - November 18, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba ADVANCING HEALTHCARE Turn Waiting into Healing Double Your Impact thanks to: Donate today at: TheVicFoundation.ca/Healing SCAN TO DONATE for 4 months 4.60 % * LIMITED-TIME OFFER when you open a Promotional Daily Growth Savings Account. * Conditions apply. SCU.MB.CA/DAILYSAVINGS SERVING MANITOBA SINCE 1872 PROUDLY CANADIAN TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2025 WEATHER PARTLY SUNNY. HIGH 4 — LOW 0 SPORTS SAMBERG QUICKLY BACK UP TO SPEED / D1 Supervised drug consumption site to open in January M ANITOBA’S NDP government will open the third session of the 43rd legislature today with a pledge to have a supervised drug consumption facility up and running in January, the Free Press has learned. The speech from the throne will, for the first time in the province’s history, be presented in English, French and Anishinaabemowin, the Manitoba dialect of the Ojibwa or Anishinaabe peoples. And, after relying on an American company to sell provincial park passes and hunting and fishing licences for the past five years, Winnipeg-based Online Business Systems has been con- tracted to take over starting in 2026. The new deal is expected to create about 40 local jobs, a source said. “Our supervised consumption site will start operations in Winnipeg this January to bolster our expert-led response and connect people with the health care they need,” says the leg- islative blueprint, which will be read by Lt.-Gov. Anita Neville beginning at about 1:30 p.m. The speech is not expected to identify the location of the facility, but sources have told the Free Press that the NDP has been looking to the eastern edges of Point Douglas, well away from any schools or daycares, but still accessible to people suffering from substance addictions. A previous proposal for Point Doug- las — which was abandoned in Septem- ber shortly after Labour Day — would have seen a supervised consumption facility located at 200 Disraeli Fwy., a building that has been used for a variety of social services, including as an emergency shelter during the worst years of the pandemic. Local opposition to the site centred on concerns it was located too close to schools and child-care facilities. Despite evidence from other com- munities that supervised consumption sites make neighbourhoods safer, the government ultimately decided to stand down. However, Premier Wab Kinew prom- ised his government still supported supervised consumption, and the prov- ince continued to work to find another location that would ease community concerns but still provide a site for us- ers and drug testing in the downtown where drug use and homelessness is chronic. Kinew promised that when his government was ready to unveil a new proposal, it will include a mini- mum 250-metre buffer zone from any schools or daycares. DAN LETT, TOM BRODBECK AND JULIA-SIMONE RUTGERS Carney Liberals narrowly survive confidence vote on budget OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government narrowly sur- vived a crucial budget vote Monday evening, one that could have sent Canadians to the polls this winter but instead propped up the minority Liber- al government. Members of Parliament ended weeks of drama and speculation about the Carney government’s fate by voting 170 to 168 on a confidence motion that expressed support for the fall federal budget. Carney was elected in the spring on a campaign to end U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff war, but only se- cured a minority government mandate — leaving the Liberals scrambling to secure support for Carney’s signature budget for weeks. Two opposition MPs each from the Conservatives and the New Democrats did not cast votes in the House of Com- mons, which was key to preventing the government from falling. Those were NDP MPs Lori Idlout and Gord Johns, and Conservative MPs Shannon Stubbs and Matt Jeneroux. Both parties otherwise voted en masse against the budget, as did the Bloc Québécois. While interim NDP leader Don Davies railed against the budget as bad policy, he at the same time said there is “strong consensus in this country that Canadians do not want an election basi- cally six months after the last one.” “We have serious economic issues. Mr. Trump is changing his mind every day and it’s not the right time for our country to plunge into an election,” Davies told reporters shortly after the vote. KYLE DUGGAN AND DAVID BAXTER DEAN PRITCHARD A WINNIPEG man accused of beating Kyriakos Vogiatzakis to death outside his Westwood-area restaurant nearly two years ago is expected to argue he was acting in self-defence, a court heard Monday. Curtis Dalebozik, 40, pleaded not guilty to one count each of manslaugh- ter and uttering threats in connection to the fatal Jan. 24, 2024, confrontation outside the Cork & Flame restaurant on Portage Avenue. The beating was captured on restau- rant security video that was played for court. While Vogiatzakis may have initi- ated the physical assault, Dalebozik overpowered him and used force far in excess of what would be necessary to defend himself, Crown attorney Krista Berkis told King’s Bench Justice Sadie Bond. “Surveillance video capturing the entire incident will assist the court in assessing the nature and extent of the force used by the accused once the immediate threat had ended,” Berkis said. “The Crown will submit that once the accused gained the upper hand, he continued to use force that was unreasonable, and no longer defensive in nature.” A forensic pathologist concluded Vo- giatzakis died as the result of multiple blunt force trauma, asphyxia and the “physiological stress of the alterca- tion,” Berkis said. “The Crown anticipates that the accused may claim self-defence and challenge the cause of death, howev- er we submit that the evidence will show that neither claim is supported,” Berkis said. “Once the deceased was no longer a threat, the accused continued to use force that was unlawful and unrea- sonable and directly resulted in Mr. Vogiatzakis’s death.” MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS SNACK PACKS Grade 5 students Jordan Musseau, Elisha Tardeen and Charles Malonzo (from left) pack kits Monday at the kickoff of Harvest Manitoba’s ex- panded Meals2Go program, which will now serve several communities during the weekend. See story on A4 Today’s historic trilingual throne speech also includes repatriation of online provincial park passes ● TRIAL, CONTINUED ON A3 ● BUDGET, CONTINUED ON A3 ● THRONE, CONTINUED ON A2 Man accused in fatal beating went beyond self-defence, Crown tells court ;