Americans in Manitoba geared up for midterm results

Manitobans who voted in America’s midterm elections gathered to watch the outcome of the vote that is a referendum on the Trump administration.

Polls across the United States closed Tuesday night to determine which party will lead in Congress and Senate.

At the Boston Pizza on Taylor Avenue, more than 2,500 kilometres from Washington, D.C., a small group of people, some dual-citizens who cast their ballot in the race, watched — and sometimes applauded — as results rolled in over pizza and drinks.

“It’s been an anxious sort of day,” said Barb Coombs, organizer of the American-Canadian Expats in Manitoba.“It’s exciting. It’s always exciting whenever people exercise their Democratic right to vote.”

City blames massive sewage dump into Red River on equipment malfunction at North End plant

The federal and provincial government are investigating after two malfunctioning bypass gates at the updated North End sewage treatment plant released nearly 10 million litres of partially treated sewage into the Red River early Monday.

The gates, which are not fully operational and supposed to be opened manually during ongoing testing, opened automatically overnight, spilling 9.8 million litres, said Tim Shanks, the city’s director of water and waste.

“It’s a very complicated process, but unfortunately, there has been an issue here, and we’re working to investigate why it happened and prevent it from ever happening again,” he told reporters Tuesday afternoon.

The spill occurred from about 1:10 a.m. to 3:47 a.m. Shanks said the partially treated sewage posed no immediate risk to the public.

Accused drug dealer planned to build campsite, launder money there, lawsuit claims

As an alleged drug dealer drove an undercover Mountie to a plot of land in Tolstoi, he revealed that he planned to use it to further his criminal enterprise.

“While en route to the vacant lot, the defendant (Kelvin) Loewen told the undercover officer that he had six acres of property that he wanted to turn into a campsite with a pool and that he wanted a ‘good way to launder money,’” says a lawsuit filed by the province’s director of civil forfeiture that reveals details of the 19-month investigation into a drug ring in southern Manitoba.

RCMP and Winkler police said in August that officers had charged more than a dozen people in relation to the drug-and-gun trafficking network. The joint investigation began in December 2024, when officers from the Winkler Police Service asked the Mounties for help after they had learned kilograms of cocaine were being imported to a local truck repair business.

Police expanded the probe, dubbed Project Dolor, as investigators learned other types of illicit substances and firearms were being trafficked by the network in a number of communities.

Child care gap: 77K spaces needed to reach national benchmark

The province needs at least 77,000 more child care spaces to meet the national access benchmark — and a plan for getting there, the Child Care Coalition of Manitoba said Tuesday.

Licensed spaces currently serve only about 22 per cent of Manitoba’s estimated 207,336 children aged 12 and younger, the coalition said in a news release.

For Manitoba to reach the national benchmark of licensed spaces for 59 per cent of children, it needs 23,000 additional infant and preschool spaces and 54,000 school-age spaces, the release said.

There has been significant progress in recent years with the introduction of $10-a-day child care, thousands of new spaces created, higher wages for staff and increased operating funds for child care centres, the coalition noted. Still, families face long waits and limited options, particularly for parents working evenings, weekends, and rotating shifts, it said.

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.

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.

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.