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.

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.

Second plant-based protein plant planned in Manitoba to meet vegan meat demand

Manitoba is about to become a key production centre for plant-based protein with a second pea-protein production plant about to break ground.

Merit Functional Foods Corporation is building a $65-million, 65,000-square-foot facility that will produce both pea and canola protein.

The French company, Roquette, is building a $400-million pea protein plant in Portage la Prairie.

Merit is a 60-40 partnership between an investor group made up of Shaun Crew, Barry Tomiski and Ryan Bracken -- all veteran senior management and founders of Hemp Oil Canada Inc./Manitoba Harvest -- and Burcon NutraScience Corp., a publicly traded Vancouver company with strong links to Winnipeg where it has had a research lab for 20 years.

The Leaf at Assiniboine Park welcomes first visitors

The parking lot was full and Winnipeggers came out in droves Saturday morning for the public opening of The Leaf, the new indoor horticultural attraction at Assiniboine Park.

Cottage communities constrained by COVID

TORONTO - A springtime trickle of Manitobans entering Ontario to visit their lakeside cottages alarmed Kenora Mayor Daniel Reynard a month ago.

Now that Manitoba is poised to restart some non-essential services Monday, Reynard fears an even bigger influx — this time sun-seekers expecting amenities that are simply unavailable.

The message in Ontario is still one of restraint: Avoid non-essential travel, and do not visit your cottage. Provincial travel is not prohibited, but vacationers and day-trippers will find little to do.

Restaurants are closed, as are all beaches, golf courses, parks, trails and marinas.