Gillingham outlines big plan for Seine River in a second-term as mayor

Scott Gillingham promises to turn the Seine River into a permanent recreation and nature attraction, if re-elected as mayor.

At a riverside campaign announcement Friday, Gillingham said a long-term plan would be to create Rivière-Seine Historic Municipal Riverway encompassing the entire Winnipeg section of the Seine, building on past volunteer efforts to clean up the river and make it a paddle-friendly attraction.

The Seine, which winds through St. Boniface and St. Vital, originates in the Sandilands Provincial Forest, passes through southeastern Manitoba, crosses the Red River Floodway and joins the Red River in St. Boniface just north of The Forks.

“What we want to do, really, is to establish the permanence of this river and allow its beauty and the opportunity to enjoy it, to be something that we don’t just leave to volunteers alone, but come together and focus on establishing it as, really, a place that gets focused attention and investment,” said Gillingham.

Restaurants ‘under pressure’

Happy hour outings are on Jackie Piggott’s calendar — but even those are fewer.

She and her husband might visit a restaurant once a month. It’s a change over the past year: earlier, they may go twice, thrice or weekly.

“It’s something that we’ve talked about, my husband and myself, just because the pricing is so expensive,” Piggott said, stopping during a grocery run in St. Vital. “It’s also better for our health.”

She’s in the majority: a new Restaurants Canada report found 80 per cent of Canadians are eating out less frequently because of higher living costs, up from 75 per cent in 2025.

Tenants slam Alta.-based landlord, protest rent increases

Charlie Medd wasn’t ready for another adventure last October, when she moved out of the Wolseley Avenue apartment she had called home for 15 years.

Medd said life at Lincoln Apartments began to change after Wingspan Properties, an Alberta-based landlord, bought the building, made minor cosmetic changes and increased rent. She felt the changes were intended to push renters — many of them on fixed incomes — out the door.

“At some point, I got scared. I’d been there 15 years,” Medd said about the threat of rent increases. “I’d just painted my whole apartment. But when I heard that there’s going to be that many people homeless, I thought, ‘I’m too old for another adventure.’

“It felt like you were getting a nudge out the door. Like, ‘Yeah, we’re going to be doing this, and your rent is going to go up every year.’”

Flammable gas culprit of 2024 Transcona home explosion: police

Flammable gas is believed to be the cause of a 2024 house explosion in Transcona that damaged neighbouring homes and displaced residents.

“As a result of the investigation and upon Crown review, the explosion is believed to be an isolated incident,” Winnipeg Police Service Const. Dani McKinnon said in an email Friday afternoon.

“There are no public safety concerns connected to this incident, and no criminal charges have been laid.”

The sudden blast happened in a bungalow on Camrose Bay on June 26, 2024. It levelled the home and caused significant damage to 22 other houses. At the time, it was described as “catastrophic” by the fire chief at the scene.

Couple’s jaundiced start, 70-year bond with Victoria Hospital behind $536K memorial donation

When a young engineering student named Will Tishinski was admitted to Victoria Hospital in February 1956 with jaundice, he thought it was the darkest moment of his life.

His final exams were weeks away, he was about to graduate and had a job lined up, but now those prospects were threatened as he was to be laid up in hospital for at least three weeks.

But what he could not have imagined was that, while there, he would meet the woman who would define the next 70 years of his life.

“There was this incredibly pretty student nurse,” he said of his future wife, Mavis Tishinski. “She was just a wonderful person in her heart, so much compassion.”

Province hires 17 psychiatrists to work in Winnipeg, Selkirk

SELKIRK — The province has hired 17 psychiatrists this year in an attempt to alleviate pressure on hospital emergency rooms.

Premier Wab Kinew said Friday people suffering mental-health crises are ending up in emergency rooms all too often because they have nowhere else to turn.

“Whatever mental health care looks like for you and your family, you’re journey is going to be supported by these 17 net new psychiatrists,” Kinew said at a news conference outside Selkirk Mental Health Centre.

Of the 17 psychiatrists, 14 will work primarily in Winnipeg and three at the Selkirk facility.

Portage Avenue stabbing victim staggered into nearby store for help

A 46-year-old man stabbed on Portage Avenue Wednesday afternoon is in hospital after staggering, bloodied, into a nearby dollar store.

Police said the man was confronted by several people on the 300 block of Portage shortly before 6 p.m. and was stabbed with an unknown weapon. He was helped by people inside the store until police and paramedics arrived.

The man was rushed to hospital in unstable condition but was later upgraded to stable, the Winnipeg Police Service said.

WPS Const. Claude Chancy said Friday that police were still attempting to speak with the victim, and it was not yet clear if the attack was random. No arrests have been made.

U of W marks 10 years of Indigenous education requirement

The University of Winnipeg is collecting course outlines, historic concerns about systemic racism on campus and related records to mark the 10-year anniversary of mandating Indigenous studies.

The unveiling of a new archive drew nearly 200 people to Centennial Hall on Thursday afternoon to reflect on how the Indigenous course requirement, also known as “the ICR,” came to be.

University archivist Brett Lougheed told the crowd its inception is “an amazing story” of student activism that, until now, wasn’t accurately reflected in U of W records.

“What little material we had told the story of administration’s role in developing the ICR as though it was the ultimate driver… and not a student-led response to racism,” Lougheed said.

Global prediction markets, local presence

Winnipeg’s mayoral race has reached a new platform: illegal online betting.

Incumbent Scott Gillingham took the lead on U.S.-based Polymarket on Thursday afternoon. Some $15,335 had been invested in his win (from 54 per cent of bettors).

Gillingham also led on Kalshi, another U.S. prediction market. Half of bettors were banking on his victory (a ‘yes’ share was 60 cents at the time).

Kevin Klein trailed in second place in both Polymarket and Kalshi contracts; Mazher Alam had garnered $2,256 and third place on Polymarket; Don Woodstock claimed third place on Kalshi by 4:30 p.m. Thursday.

Word test

TESTING

Premier Wab Kinew is an imported Manitoban, born in Kenora and raised on Onigaming First Nation in Treaty Three (in northwestern Ontario) before his family moved to Winnipeg. He’s the son of well-known Anishinaabe leader and traditional knowledge keeper Tobasonakwut Kinew and Kathi Kinew.

These are the words we provided feedback on: Boniface, Cockburn, Dauphin, Dene, Hellebuyck, Iafallo, Íslendingadagurinn, Kinew, Kildonan, Malak Abas, Métis, Newfoundland, Orlikow, Pembina, Portage la Prairie, Premier, Regina, St. Vital, Samyn, Schiefele, vínarterta, Wiebe, Generation Z.

More than 60,000 Manitobans rely on food bank each month, Harvest Manitoba report says

Linda Smith first turned to Harvest Manitoba in the early 1990s when her husband became permanently disabled. Now, on a fixed income, she continues to access the food bank to make ends meet.

Smith is one of more than 60,000 Manitobans now relying on food banks each month as demand continues to grow, a new report by Harvest Manitoba reveals.

The organization said in its 2025-26 impact report, released Thursday, that 61,188 people accessed a food bank in the province in March. Nearly half of them were children. The number of people accessing food banks in the province since 2020 has ballooned by more than 150 per cent, including more seniors, like Smith, than ever before.

Smith, a mother of five now in her 70s, first went to Harvest Manitoba in 1991 when he husband was disabled, and then again in the mid 2000s following a major car accident that led to a brain stem injury that forced her out of the workforce.