City plans renos, repairs on underused, money-losing office tower next to police HQ

The city is preparing to repair two floors of the mostly vacant office tower linked to the Winnipeg Police Service headquarters that has cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars more each year than it earns.

The plan is to renovate the second and third floors of the 11-storey former Canada Post tower at 266 Graham Ave, including some repairs needed to meet current building codes, notes a tendering document seeking a contractor to do the work.

In 2009, the city spent $29 million to buy the Canada Post warehouse and the tower, as part of the scandal-plagued police HQ project. Police now work out of the former warehouse and utilize some space in the tower.

The repair work will include interior demolition, asbestos abatement, several fire safety and smoke detection upgrades and some replacement of partitions, doors, hardware and ceilings. The winning bidder will also complete electrical, mechanical and lighting upgrades.

Province tabs $5M for potash mine growth

Manitoba’s only potash mine aims to more than double production after netting a $5 million loan from the province.

“When we have money, we drill more wells,” said Daymon Guillas, president of the Potash and Agri Development Corporation of Manitoba.

Last winter marked PADCOM’s first commercial production cycle. Workers at the Harrowby site, near Russell, mined roughly 10,000 tons of potash, a fertilizer component.

Government funding announced Monday will allow PADCOM to mine at least 22,000 tons this winter, Guillas said.

International doctors in MB face ongoing harassment, discrimination: report

Discrimination and harassment are a serious concern for international doctors in Manitoba, a new report by the College of Physicians and Surgeons says.

The report titled “Strengthening Integration into Practice,” shows 64 per cent of international doctors reported some form of discrimination or harassment in the workplace, both from patients and their families, and from other physicians.

In response to feedback from international doctors and surveys, the College formed a working group to look into the issue further and develop policies and training to guide new and practicing physicians.

The College conducted a survey on the issue last fall. Most of the respondents who reported discrimination or harassment cited those attitudes were based on race, ethnicity, place or origin and religion.

West End food pantry gives needy ‘little extra help’

Every day or two, a bookshelf along St. Matthews Avenue is restocked with food and toiletries. By the next day, much is gone.

The small food pantry, which Erin Leslie set up in September, was inspired by another one two kilometres away — a set of shelves beneath a community notice board in Denson/Riddle Park, installed over the summer by the South Valour Residents Association.

That pantry didn’t last. It was shut down after someone smeared dog feces on it in August, following weeks of backlash by some neighbours who feared it would encourage people from nearby encampments to stay.

Leslie said she didn’t know the South Valour pantry was vandalized when she started hers, which by contrast, has received a positive reception.

MLA walks back ‘let them steal’ comments

A Manitoba MLA has apologized for “confusion” caused by comments she made suggesting retail workers are told to let thieves steal, after those comments went viral on social media.

While debating Bill 210, which would amend the laws that determine civil claims for damages made by anyone 12 or older who trespasses for the purpose of committing a crime, Seine River MLA Billie Cross said the amendments introduced by the Opposition could “give people carte blanche to make justice decisions in a split second when they’re in fear.”

“I don’t think anyone’s property is more valuable than a human life. That’s why we have insurance, that’s why we buy insurance for our property, that’s why it’s so important that we not put ourselves in the line of fire when something’s being stolen,” she said Oct. 29 in the Manitoba Legislature.

“You know, we tell people who work in retail, ‘someone comes in, they want to steal, let them steal.’ It’s not worth your life, we’ve seen what happens when people don’t do that.”

Another embarrassing loss: Arniel

RALEIGH — No sticks were smashed. No walls punched. And nary a naughty word was uttered.

Instead, the Winnipeg Jets filed off the ice here at Lenovo Center on Sunday afternoon much like they’d just played the preceding game against the Carolina Hurricanes — with no emotion, no passion, no urgency.

You’d have thought yet another loss, this one in truly humiliating fashion and a ninth consecutive overall, might have triggered something.

Anything.

Third fire hits troubled Manitoba Housing apartment block

Residents of a North End Manitoba Housing apartment block with a long history of trouble say they’re shaken after the building was hit with its third fire in eight months Friday night.

An apartment complex at 145 Powers St. was evacuated by firefighters after a fire broke out at around 7:45 p.m.

When longtime resident Sharon Markwell heard the fire alarm go off, she chalked it up to a false alarm — kids will get into the building and pull the fire alarm around once or twice a month, she said — until smoke began billowing into the hallway of her fifth-floor apartment.

“Once I realized that I could smell smoke very, very strongly, and the smoke was seeping into my room, into my apartment, I said to myself, ‘This is no false alarm. This is the real thing,’” Markwell, 64, told the Free Press Sunday.

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.

Walkout creates chaos at St. James Smitty’s

Gordon Sharpe wanted to eat a meal at the St. James Smitty’s Wednesday, but he got a helping of bad news instead.

He saw several workers walk out of the restaurant, at 1017 St. James St.

“(The waiter) came back about 10 minutes later and stood over the table, looking a little distraught and said, ‘I’m quitting right now and so is everybody else,’” Sharpe said. “He said, ‘This is my last time serving you,’ and he was quite choked up.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said, adding that the managers scrambled to serve patrons.