Mayor honours pair who rescued little girl, father from Red River in August

A “proud and thankful” Mayor Scott Gillingham honoured two Winnipeggers Friday who rescued a young girl who fell into the Red River last month.

Gillingham said he was humbled to meet Jayclyn Morrissette and Brady Saunders before he presented them with the Mayor’s Award of Valour for saving the child and her father, who jumped into the water in an attempt to help his daughter and nearly drowned.

“These are the kind of people who we have in our city,” he said. “When someone is in need, they’ll step up, risk their own lives, to help someone they’ve never met in their life.”

Morrissette and Saunders were at St. John’s Park in the evening on Aug. 24, when they saw the man and child in the river.

Northern First Nation calls for voluntary ban of moose hunting as numbers dwindle

A northern Manitoba First Nation is calling for a voluntary closure of moose hunting in its traditional territory to protect the declining population and respond to what it sees is a lack of provincial intervention.

On Friday, Misipawistik Cree Nation issued a plea urging hunters to abstain from harvesting moose in provincial Game Hunting Area 10 — a 10,000-square-kilometre region of boreal forest north of Grand Rapids. The request applies to this year’s moose-hunting seasons, which open Monday.

According to the province’s 2025 aerial big-game survey, an estimated 281 moose reside in the area, roughly 60 of which are bull moose. That’s down from an estimated 346 moose in 2013, which the survey describes as a “relatively stable population” over the past decade.

This year, 124 licences and 62 bull moose tags were made available in the region during Manitoba’s annual hunting draw.

Klein launches mayoral campaign with pledge to make Winnipeg safest city in Canada

Mayoral candidate Kevin Klein says he would make Winnipeg the safest city in Canada by the end of his four-year term, if elected.

“Crime is happening all over the city and we have to take steps to address it,” Klein said at his first campaign announcement Friday morning.

The candidate said crime is “getting out of control,” noting his grandchild’s car seat was recently stolen from a vehicle parked in a typically quiet neighbourhood.

He promised to hire 100 to 110 more police officers, which he believes would cost between $9 million and $11 million.

Safety review calls for improved security at Siloam Mission

A safety review of Winnipeg’s largest homeless shelter is recommending improvements to security for staff, volunteers and community members after what its leadership acknowledged has been a challenging year.

The Siloam Mission report, which has not been made public, was discussed during a town hall Thursday night at the Millennium Centre on Main Street, where shelter leaders laid out what they described as a road forward for the organization.

Interim CEO Lisa Cefali, who was brought in at the end of May following the departure of Sonia Prevost-Derbecker after three tumultuous months in the job, said she could see the toll turmoil had taken when she arrived.

Employees alleged Prevost-Derbecker made derogatory remarks about Indigenous people, people struggling with substance use and the downtown neighbourhood surrounding the mission’s Princess Street headquarters.

Fiddling and a jig mark ceremony to rename Wolseley-area school

Beckoned by a fiddle, students broke out into a jig behind Little Bluestem School on Thursday evening to mark the end of a multi-year renaming process.

“I couldn’t help myself. I just had to dance,” eight-year-old Stevie Morrison said at a ribbon-cutting event to celebrate the new signage at 511 Clifton St., formerly known as Wolseley School.

Stevie and Fallon Lovelace Sharkey, 7, were out of breath after bouncing up and down to the beat, attempting to execute the Red River Métis dance moves they were taught at school.

There were cheers and tears as adults watched jigging on school grounds once named after a man who did not believe in Métis peoples’ right to self-determination.

Siloam Mission, WFPS discussing on-site paramedic to reduce staggering number of emergency calls

Winnipeg’s fire-paramedic service and its largest homeless-serving organization are discussing what it would look like to station at least one paramedic at Siloam Mission, as emergency calls to the downtown facility surge.

The ongoing discussions come as Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service crews were dispatched 1,771 times during the first eight months of the year to the two adjacent Siloam properties at 303 Stanley St. and 300 Princess St.

WFPS said most of the calls were related to overdoses or other consequences of substance use, with the total nearly double the 854 calls recorded over the same period last year. By comparison, there were 831 calls during the same span in 2024, and 591 in 2023.

“The number of emergency calls isn’t sustainable for us as a service, but it’s certainly not sustainable for them as an agency trying to provide services,” WFPS chief Ryan Sneath told the Free Press. “And they recognize that they’re impacting emergency services, not them specifically, but the site in a significant way.”

Gerdau recycling workers on strike

Workers behind recycling operations for Selkirk’s steel mill walked off the job last week, calling for higher wages.

Unionized members voted to strike July 23, with a 92 per cent mandate. Months of bargaining hasn’t produced a new deal, said United Steelworkers Local 8740. The union represents 78 members striking at Gerdau AmeriSteel Manitoba Metals recycling plant.

“We’re not being recognized for the amount of work we’ve been doing,” Andrew Sealey, acting president of the local, said Thursday. “The mill is a sensational beast … We’ve got to feed her all the time, and she’s always hungry.”

The scrap metal inspected and unloaded at the recycling facility is used in steel mill operations.

Jets vets weigh in on franchise goalie Hellebuyck not reporting to training camp

Hockey is the ultimate team sport, where it’s supposed to be about the crest on your chest rather than the name on your back.

So how is Connor Hellebuyck’s trade request and subsequent training camp strike playing out inside the Winnipeg Jets locker room — particularly among other core players he’s gone to battle with over the years?

“Obviously the news is heartbreaking,” Jets forward Kyle Connor said Thursday.

“It feels like we had such a special group here and for whatever reason — I can’t speak to the reason until we hear from the man, I’m not going to speculate on what it is but I know that a lot of guys in that room that are heartbroken.”

EPC votes to award $115-M sewage plant upgrade development contract to Canadian arm of U.S.-based company

The Canadian branch of a U.S. company is one vote away from winning a $115-million North End sewage treatment plant upgrade contract Winnipeg’s mayor expects will produce many local jobs.

Council’s executive policy committee voted to award the development phase agreement for the third and final portion of the $3.1-billion upgrade project to Kiewit Construction Services, pending final city council approval.

The company is a branch of Kiewit Canada Group, whose parent company is located in Omaha, Neb., according to its website.

While there has been a renewed push for governments to buy local in and beyond Winnipeg, Mayor Scott Gillingham said this contract should prove very beneficial to the city’s economy.

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.

Police officer faces charges of domestic assault

A Winnipeg police officer has been charged after police said he broke into a woman’s home and attacked her.

Police were sent to a home on Wednesday shortly before 10:20 p.m., the Winnipeg Police Service said in a Thursday news release. When officers arrived, they found the man, 20-year member in his 40s, inside a home assaulting the woman, the release said.

The man was taken into custody and the woman was given medical aid.

She told officers the man broke into the home, threatened to kill her and then attacked her.