Letters, Aug. 5

An opportunity for corporate good

Re: Giant Tiger to close downtown store (July 31); Giant Tiger decision creates giant void for desperate population downtown (Aug. 1)

The recently announced November closing of the Giant Tiger store at Donald Street and Ellice Avenue is cause for some alarm. As a self-described community-focused, family discount store, the grocery and clothing chain has become an important part of Winnipeg’s downtown fabric, catering to, in Niigaan Sinclair’s words, “… people living less-privileged lives: people working low-paying jobs; those with no fixed address and the homeless population…”

Other existing downtown shopping options have anecdotally been described as too expensive and unaffordable.

On the horizon, the Free Press reports that “Red River Co-op announced plans to build a 22,500-sq. ft. store and pharmacy inside True North’s redevelopment of Portage Place mall, but that store isn’t expected to open until 2029.”

Red River Co-op stores are similar to the Sobeys/Safeway model in format and pricing, and most are suburban-located, catering to a middle-class clientele.

Perhaps in all of this there’s an opportunity? One hesitates to suggest alternative paths forward that aren’t tethered to possibility and practicality, but what if the corporate management of Red River Co-op could be persuaded to take over the 345 Donald St. location on an interim basis (say three years?) and the North West Company (the Giant Tiger owner), could be persuaded to remain past the Christmas season for an interim basis (six months?) to facilitate a transition to Red River Co-op?

Both of these corporate entities tout their community orientation and over many years have benefited from the loyalty of their Winnipeg customers. In accounting terms, I imagine the “goodwill” accrued by North West and Red River would be considerable. For Red River Co-op there would also be the opportunity to learn about downtown demographics, which are unlikely to change significantly by the time of their 2029 Portage Place opening. The ability to fine-tune their downtown business model and store layout, to onboard and train appropriate staff, and the opportunity to win the loyalty of downtown clientele should not be underestimated.

There may be other options; perhaps a Mamdani/Avi Lewis style public grocery option?

The urgency of avoiding a downtown food desert and another vacant building demands bringing together the private and public players in this looming tragedy now. And perhaps the mayoralty candidates in the October municipal election might like to weigh in.

Sig Laser

Winnipeg

Time for a public grocery store?

Re: Giant Tiger decision creates giant void for desperate population downtown (Aug. 1)

It seems like this situation is an opportunity for the CentreVenture Development Corporation (an arms-length agency of the City of Winnipeg, with the province sometimes providing project-based funding) to step up and do something important for downtown Winnipeg and which is really needed by many of the people who live there.

Note that CentreVenture’s website states that it “expedites development in Winnipeg’s downtown by supporting private-public co-operation and innovative partnerships.” And, furthermore, “encourages new retail, entertainment, housing and commercial ventures, along with public sector investment in public spaces, amenities and services.”

What I have in mind is for CentreVenture — with the support of the city and the province — to buy or lease the Giant Tiger building and operate it as a publicly run grocery store. Its mission would be to make healthy food available in a safe and secure retail space at the lowest possible price.

Both the city and the province have talked a lot about making the downtown more livable. This is their chance to do something really meaningful and practical.

Gerald Farthing

Winnipeg

Change the reality of recovery

Winnipeggers are watching a public health emergency unfold in real time, but our provincial health-care system continues to mistake a holding pattern for a solution.

When the Downtown BIZ reports its street teams collecting 1.7 million litres of garbage in 2025, and the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service responds to 2,193 opioid calls in just five months — surpassing alcohol calls for the first time in municipal history — it is clear that deploying watch ambassadors and expanding street cleaning is simply managing the fallout of a fatal systemic failure.

Having worked for over two decades at the intersection of front-line harm reduction — developing four editions of Harsh Reality, a resource for street-involved youth about STI/HIV prevention, gangs, mental health, drug information, legal information, art and stories and summaries of local research under the visionary leadership of the late Margaret Ormond — and population-level data analysis with the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy, I can confidently say our current framework is broken.

We are running an expensive and lethal revolving door. Manitoba relies heavily on an obsolete 28-day residential treatment model that yields success rates as low as 17 per cent for high-acuity methamphetamine users. Medical stabilization is useless if a person is discharged a month later directly back into the same high-risk spatial environment, without a vocational pipeline or a real reason to get out of bed in the morning.

If we look to successful international frameworks such as Portugal’s system, the core philosophy is that social reintegration is a non-negotiable clinical mandate. They recognize that recovery requires helping individuals discover what they are naturally good at, followed by a seamless transition into subsidized employment and supported housing. Here in Manitoba, local long-term programs that provide one to two years of supportive living boast success rates upwards of 83 per cent. Yet our province maintains a stagnant capacity of just 127 long-term recovery beds for an estimated high-acuity population of up to 9,000 individuals.

We do not need to rely solely on new public tax dollars to build this infrastructure.

With municipal policing already consuming roughly a third of our city’s operating budget — an immense allocation that risks yielding diminishing returns when deployed to manage symptoms of poverty and addiction — we must recognize that pouring more resources into enforcement alone does more harm than good in addressing a public health crisis.

Instead, by amending the Criminal Property Forfeiture Act, the province could legally mandate that the $2 million to $3 million seized annually from the illicit drug trade be redirected to sustainably finance the expansion of long-term treatment beds as well as purpose-driven transitional housing.

A thriving city cannot be achieved while treating the downtown core as a mobile waiting room for a health-care system with its doors locked. It is time we demand the province fund actual exits, not just 28-day pauses.

Shayne Sebastian Métraux

Winnipeg